Little Britches

Author: Ralph Moody
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803281783
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Book Description
Ralph Moody was eight years old in 1906 when his family moved from New Hampshire to a Colorado ranch. Through his eyes we experience the pleasures and perils of ranching there early in the twentieth century. Auctions and roundups, family picnics, irrigation wars, tornadoes and wind storms give authentic color to Little Britches. So do adventures, wonderfully told, that equip Ralph to take his father's place when it becomes necessary. Little Britches was the literary debut of Ralph Moody, who wrote about the adventures of his family in eight glorious books, all available as Bison Books.

Shaking the Nickel Bush

Author: Ralph Moody
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803282186
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
Begun in Little Britches and Man of the Family, this is the continuing saga of Ralph Moody. In 1918, young Moody and his buddy Lonnie travel through the Southwest in an old Ford named Shiftless, camp in an Arizona canyon and "shake the nickel bush" by sculpting busts of lawyers and bankers.

The Dry Divide

Author: Ralph Moody
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803282162
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
Ralph Moody, just turned twenty, had only a dime in his pocket when he was put off a freight in western Nebraska. It was the Fourth of July in 1919. Three months later he owned eight teams of horses and rigs to go with them. Everyone who worked with him shared in the prosperity?the widow whose wheat crop was saved and the group of misfits who formed a first-rate harvesting crew. But sometimes fickle Mother Nature and frail human nature made sure that nothing was easy. The tension between opposing forces never lets up in this book. Without preaching, The Dry Divide warmly illustrates the old-time virtues of hard work ingenuity, and respect for others. The Ralph Moody who was a youngster in Little Britches and who grew up without a father and with early responsibilities in Man of the Family, The Fields of Home, The Home Ranch, Mary Emma & Company, and Shaking the Nickel Bush (all Bison Books) has become a man to reckon with in The Dry Divide.

Mary Emma & Company

Author: Ralph Moody
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803282117
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
The protagonist, Mary Emma Moody, widowed mother of six, has taken her family east in 1912 to begin a new life. Her son, Ralph, then thirteen, recalls how the Moodys survive that first bleak winter in a Massachusetts town. Money and prospects are lacking, but not so faith and resourcefulness. "Mother" in Little Britches and Man of the Family, Mary Emma emerges fully as a character in this book, and Ralph, no longer called "Little Britches," comes into his own. The family?s run-ins with authority and with broken furnaces in winter are evocative of a full and warm family life. Mary Emma & Company continues the Moody saga that started in Colorado with Little Britches and runs through Man of the Family and The Home Ranch. All these titles have been reprinted as Bison Books, as has The Fields of Home, in which Ralph leaves the Massachusetts town for his grandfather's farm in Maine.

Riders of the Pony Express

Author: Ralph Moody
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803235984
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
Chronicles the eighteen-month operation of the Pony Express, explaining why and how it was created, describing the challenges faced by riders, and discussing.

American Horses

Author: Ralph Moody
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803232488
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
Discusses the origins and history of various horse breeds in America, including the Morgan, Tennessee Walking Horse, and American Saddle Horse.

Stagecoach West

Author: Ralph Moody
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803282452
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
Stagecoach West is a comprehensive history of stagecoaching west of the Missouri. Starting with the evolution of overland passenger transportation, Moody moves on to paint a lively and informative picture of western stagecoaching, from its early short runs through its rise with the gold rush, its zenith of 1858–68, and beyond. Its story is one of grand rivalries, political chicanery, and gaudy publicity stunts, traders, fortune hunters, outlaws, courageous drivers, and indefatigable detectives. We meet colorful characters such as Charlie Parkhurst, a stagecoach driver who took an amazing secret to his death: “he” was actually a woman. Using contemporary accounts, illustrations, maps, and photographs to flesh out his narrative, Moody creates one of the most important accounts of transportation history to date.

Kit Carson and the Wild Frontier

Author: Ralph Moody
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496208242
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 155

Book Description
In 1826 an undersized sixteen-year-old apprentice ran away from a saddle maker in Franklin, Missouri, to join one of the first wagon trains crossing the prairie on the Santa Fe Trail. Kit Carson (1809-68) wanted to be a mountain man, and he spent his next sixteen years learning the paths of the West, the ways of its Native inhabitants, and the habits of the beaver, becoming the most successful and respected fur trapper of his time. From 1842 to 1848 he guided John C. Frémont's mapping expeditions through the Rockies and was instrumental in the U.S. military conquest of California during the Mexican War. In 1853 he was appointed Indian agent at Taos, and later he helped negotiate treaties with the Apaches, Kiowas, Comanches, Arapahos, Cheyennes, and Utes that finally brought peace to the southwestern frontier. Ralph Moody's biography of Kit Carson, appropriate for readers young and old, is a testament to the judgment and loyalty of the man who had perhaps more influence than any other on the history and development of the American West.

The Home Ranch

Author: Ralph Moody
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803282100
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
Little Britches becomes the "man" in his family after his father's early death, taking on the concomitant responsibilities as well as opportunities. During the summer of his twelfth year he works on a cattle ranch in the shadow of Pike's Peak, earning a dollar a day. Little Britches is tested against seasoned cowboys on the range and in the corral. He drives cattle through a dust storm, eats his weight in flapjacks, and falls in love with a blue outlaw horse. Following Little Britches and developing an episode noted near the end of Man of the Family, The Home Ranch continues the adventures of young Ralph Moody. Soon after returning from the ranch, he and his mother and siblings will go east for a new start, described in Mary Emma & Company and The Fields of Home. All these titles have been reprinted as Bison Books.

Man of the Family

Author: Ralph Moody
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803281950
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
Fortified with Yankee ingenuity and western can-do energy, the Moody family, transplanted from New England, builds a new life on a Colorado ranch early in the twentieth century. Father has died and Little Britches shoulders the responsibilities of a man at age eleven. Man of the Family continues true pioneering adventures as unforgettable as those in Little Britches and The Fields of Home, also available as Bison Books.