Bronto

By Hetty Burlingame Beatty

“Bronto wasn’t much of a horse. At least that’s what everybody thought till Bill came. He was small and brown and not much to look at…. He just wasn’t any use, and Bronto knew this and was unhappy…. Then Bill came. He didn’t look like much either. Just thin and pale and sandy-haired….”

And feeling lonely and lost on his arrival at the ranch on the great Dobie flats—his new home.

So it was only natural that Bill and Bronto should become friends. It didn’t happen all of a sudden, but Bill was persistent and, must to the surprise of the cow hands on the ranch, he won Bronto’s heart completely. After he learned to ride Bronto, Bill began to dream dreams of Bronto and himself becoming famous as the finest cowpunching team in the country.

But that couldn’t happen all of a sudden either, it seemed. There was much to learn, and it didn’t help any that the cowboys refused to take either Bill or Bronto seriously, but Bill and Bronto remedied that. Every boy and girl who ever dreamed of having his own horse or of becoming a cowboy will be intrigued with their adventures.

This is a horse story beginning readers can read themselves, it is simply and amusingly told and illustrated throughout with the author’s own black-and-white drawings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Muriwai Books
• Release date: Dec 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789125894

Hetty Burlingame Beatty

Hetty Burlingame Beatty (1907-1971) was an award-winning American sculptor, children’s author and illustrator. Born on October 8, 1907 in New Canaan, Connecticut, she attended the Boston Museum School from 1924-1929, where she trained as a sculptor. Her works were exhibited nationally and won a number of awards. A one-woman show of her sculpture and drawings was held at the Worcester Art Museum in 1941. She also had shows at the Art Institute of Chicago, Knoedler Gallery in New York City, MacBeth Gallery in New York, Pennsylvania Academy, and the Society of Independent Artists. She was the recipient of the Mrs. David Hunt Scholarship in Sculpture and the second prize at the International Exhibition of Horses in Sculpture in New York. In addition to being a sculptor, Beatty also took up writing and illustrating many children’s books, including Topsy (1947), Little Wild Horse (1949), Little Owl Indian (1951), Bronto (1952), Saint Francis and the Wolf (1953), Droopy (1954), Thumps (1955), Bucking Horse (1957), Voyage of the Sea Wind (1959), Moorland Pony (1961), Trumper (1963), Bryn (1965) and Rebel, the Reluctant Racehorse (1968). She was married to fellow artist Lewis F. Whitney. Hetty Burlingame Beatty died on August 20, 1971, aged 63.

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Text originally published in 1952 under the same title.

© Papamoa Press 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

BRONTO

WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED

BY

HETTY BURLINGAME BEATTY

Bronto

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 5

DEDICATION 6

One 7

Two 10

Three 16

Four 19

Five 24

Six 29

Seven 35

Eight 41

Nine 46

Ten 50

Eleven 57

Twelve 64

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 69

DEDICATION

To MARGARET

and ARO NELSON

and to

INGA CARLSON

who named

Bronto

One

Bronto wasn’t much of a horse. At least that’s what everybody thought till Bill came. He was small and brown and not much to look at. Nobody had ever bothered to break him, so he just hung around the corral or wandered about the ranch, eating grass. The other horses agreed he wasn’t much and ignored him. Nobody rode him. He just wasn’t any use, and Bronto knew this and was unhappy.

He watched the other horses saddled and saw them set off for the hills for the cattle roundups. Sometimes he tried to follow, but Lem and Chuck only chased him back. So he just stood and watched them ride away, the sun shining on his dusty back and the flies buzzing lazily around his ears. It was no kind of a life at all, and Bronto was sad.

Then Bill came. He didn’t look like much either. Just thin and pale and sandy-haired. Joe Dudd, the hired man, was there to meet him when he climbed down off the train at the little cow town thirty miles from the ranch, and they set off in the Chewy. Joe Dudd kept up a steady drawl, pointing out and explaining all the special things to see along the way. But Bill was too overcome by this sudden expanse of country to speak. After the small, neat yards of an eastern town, it was like going into a new world that seemed hardly possible.

The great Dobi flats rose suddenly into weird hills and cliffs that were often shaped like giant men and animals slumbering in the vast expanse. Above stretched the biggest sky that Bill had ever seen, with white clouds casting their moving shadows on the ground below. Then the road began to climb, up and up into the foothills of the Mesa. Here the valleys were filled with rich, wild hay and the hills covered with scrub oak and aspen trees. Beyond them rose the mesa, its top covered with giant spruce, and sometimes they caught glimpses of the snow-covered peaks of the Rockies, standing like bared teeth against the horizon.

At last the Chewy turned in through a tall wooden gate and there was the ranch. Its barns and corrals were spread along the side of the creek, and beyond them stood the ranch house, long and low and homelike, with gay flowers blooming around the doorstep.

So this was to be Bill’s new home. Ever since his aunt Jane had suggested his going to live on her cousin Matilda’s ranch, Bill’s heart had been torn between happy, excited dreams of life on a ranch and dread of leaving his familiar, though not very happy, home with his aunt. Now here he was at last, and it was both wonderful and frightening in its vast newness.

Matilda was on the doorstep to meet them, and she greeted Bill with a warm hug.

Welcome, Bill, she said simply. Come right in and make yourself at home.

She took him first to the bunkroom and helped him unpack his small belongings and stow them in the big drawer under his bunk. Then she gave him an old shirt and pair of dungarees that her son, Chuck, had long