Little Britches

Summary

Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers is Ralph Moody's memoir of the four years, 1906 to 1910, that his family spent on a Colorado ranch, told from the point of view of the boy he was, eight years old when the story begins. His father, Charles, has a persistent cough from his work in a New Hampshire mill, and when a cousin, Phil, who sells gold stock in Denver, promises better prospects, the family leaves East Rochester for a run-down rented ranch near Fort Logan, southwest of Denver. Father, Mother, Ralph, his older sister Grace and the younger children set about digging a well, building a privy and a barn, and buying horses, and they weather a windstorm that strips the place. At school Ralph is bullied by Freddie Sprague and has to fight. Neighbors shape his boyhood: Fred Aultland, a young rancher who lends water and teaches him to ride, and Hiram (Hi) Beckman, a cowboy who gives him the nickname Little Britches and becomes his mentor in horsemanship. Ralph earns his first wages herding cows for the overbearing Mrs. Corcoran, hays with his father for Fred, and, when the horse Bill falls sick, secretly takes him to Two Dog, a Native American friend living in the mountains with the hunter Mr. Thompson, who cures him. Because the Moodys' land lies at the end of the irrigation ditch, upstream ranchers take the water in dry weather, and Father negotiates a settlement. Ralph is punished for trapping a pheasant out of season and lying about it, and for stealing chocolate; after a spanking his father offers to make him his partner, and Ralph promises never to lie again. Other episodes include threshing beans, nine broken toes when Ralph loses control of the team, a tornado that misses the house, and the drowning of the mare Fanny when a bridge gives way in a cloudburst. Hired at twenty dollars a month by the rancher Mr. Cooper, Ralph trains a blue roan colt, Sky High, and with Hi wins trick-riding contests at the Fourth of July and the Labor Day roundup. When Father takes the upstream ranchers to court over the water, shots are fired at the family, and money troubles force a move into Littleton, where Father builds houses and at last tells Ralph he will treat him as a man. Thrown from the mare Babe near Fort Logan, Father catches pneumonia and dies. In the last scene Mother signals Ralph to say grace at supper, and he takes his place as the man of the family. W. W. Norton published the book in August 1950 with illustrations by Edward Shenton.

Top Lessons

• A man's word

  Father punishes Ralph's lies not chiefly for the act but for what lying does to a person's character, and he answers Ralph's repentance by making him a partner. The book shows honesty as the foundation of trust between father and son and of a good name among neighbors.

• Work that makes a man

  Ralph wants above all to be accepted in a man's world, and he earns it by herding, haying, threshing and training horses. Moody shows a boy taking real responsibility early and being honored for it, culminating in Father's words in Littleton and Mother's signal at the supper table.

• Neighbors and fairness

  The Moodys depend on neighbors such as Fred Aultland and Hi Beckman, and they also suffer from neighbors who take the water. Father first negotiates and later goes to court. The book shows how scarce water tested justice among western ranchers.

• Grief and responsibility

  Father's death comes suddenly after a fall and pneumonia, when Ralph is eleven. The book ends not with despair but with Ralph taking up the duties his father has prepared him for.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The family's move west is driven by Father's chronic cough, which the book attributes to work in a New Hampshire mill; a Littleton local-history biography says the move was made for his tuberculosis in hope of relief in Colorado's dry climate, a common reason for migration to Colorado in that period. Any identification of his illness should be treated as uncertain from the memoir alone. In the final chapters a fall from a horse is followed by the return of the cough and a diagnosis of pneumonia, and Father keeps working against the doctor's orders before he dies, at a time before antibiotics. The book also records frontier injuries such as Ralph's nine broken toes and a near drowning, and a sick horse treated by Two Dog.

• Opening chapters

  Father's persistent mill cough and the family's hope that ranch life in Colorado will restore his health.

• Middle chapters

  Ralph breaks nine toes when he loses control of the horses Bill and Nig.

• Final chapter

  Father is thrown from Babe, his cough returns, a doctor diagnoses pneumonia and orders bed rest, and he dies; the family mourns.