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The Home Ranch
Man of the Family
Father and I Were Ranchers
Audiobook series8 titles

Little Britches Series

Written by Ralph Moody

Narrated by Cameron Beierle

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

()

About this series

In the early 1920’s cowboy and dry-range farmer, Ralph Moody, found himself with mountainous debts through the collapse of the livestock market, and the dealings of a crooked partner. He faces the choice of declaring bankruptcy before he turns twenty, or working off the intimidating balance against him. His fortunes seem to be turning when a flash flood takes all he owns, and he is forced to auction off his farm and animals. Ralph never surrenders, but finds a way to turn tragedy into opportunity. Overhearing a conversation on a railroad supply contract, he decides to place a bid. Winning the contract and digging himself out of debt, he also saves a Kansas town from total bankruptcy....
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 15, 2001
The Home Ranch
Man of the Family
Father and I Were Ranchers

Titles in the series (8)

  • Father and I Were Ranchers

    1

    Father and I Were Ranchers
    Father and I Were Ranchers

    In 1906 eight year-old Ralph Moody moves with his family from New Hampshire to a Colorado ranch for his father’s health. Ralph’s family experiences the pleasures and perils of ranching; attending auctions and roundups, battling with neighbors over water rights, fighting tornados, and scratching a living from the wild prairie sod. Ralph meets Hi Beckman, the best ranch foreman and cowboy in all Colorado. Hi teaches Ralph all the tricks of the trade making “Little Britches” into a first-rate cowhand and rodeo rider. Ralph’s friends, Hi, Two Dog and the blue-roan cowhorse Sky High, give Little Britches all the learning and excitement a boy can dream of. He’ll need it as the adventures Ralph faces will have to equip him to take his ailing father’s place when the time comes....

  • The Home Ranch

    3

    The Home Ranch
    The Home Ranch

    Ralph “Little Britches” Moody must take on responsibilities as the man of the family after his father’s death. During the summer of his twelfth year he works on a cattle ranch in the shadow of Pike’s Peak, earning “man’s wages” of a dollar a day. It’s a summer packed with enough action to fill most adult lives, let alone that of a young boy. Little Britches is tested against seasoned cowboys on the range and in the corral. He drives cattle through a raging dust storm, eats his weight in flapjacks, and falls in love with a blue outlaw horse...

  • Man of the Family

    2

    Man of the Family
    Man of the Family

    Young “Little Britches” life is radically changed when his ailing father dies. Then his mother reveals a terrible secret and the family is forced to flee their Colorado ranch to an uncertain future. Fortified with the Yankee ingenuity his father taught him, at age eleven Ralph takes on his new role as Man of the Family. His mother deplores her inability to give her children everything materially, and instead gives them much to build their lives and character upon. Together Ralph and his mother face true unforgettable pioneering adventures in Littleton, Colorado. Young Ralph becomes a Cattle Drover foreman, and helps start a new family business. Then the adventures really begin....

  • The Fields of Home

    5

    The Fields of Home
    The Fields of Home

    The fatherless Moody family moves from Colorado to Medford, Massachusetts in 1912 as Ralph enters his teen years. He tries as hard as he can to be a “City boy,” but without much luck. Little things that would have been just fine in Colorado are always getting him into trouble, so he is sent to his eccentric Grandfather Thomas’ farm in Maine. With his Grandfather’s cantankerous ways, an “onery yella colt’s stubbornness,” Uncle Levi’s wise gentleness and the pretty girl next door’s kindness, young Ralph manages to find a whole new set of adventures....

  • Mary Emma and Company

    4

    Mary Emma and Company
    Mary Emma and Company

    Ralph “Little Britches” Moody at age thirteen moves with his mother, Mary Emma, and five siblings “back East” to begin a new life. They survive their first bleak winter in Massachusetts through the help of close relatives and caring friends. Money and prospects are few, but not faith and resourcefulness. Despite their efforts they face run-ins with local authorities, hardships including broken furnaces and plumbing, and difficulty keeping a small family business alive so they can have food to eat. Triumphing over the challenges the Moody home is filled with a warm family life.

  • Shaking the Nickel Bush

    6

    Shaking the Nickel Bush
    Shaking the Nickel Bush

    Now 19-years old, skinny, and suffering from diabetes, Ralph Moody is ordered by his Boston doctor to seek a more healthful climate out West. Remembering his childhood ranching adventures, Ralph is delighted to strike out for new territory and prospects. Hustling jobs, and trying to find the means to follow the doctors orders, he becomes a Hollywood stunt rider. With Lonnie, a rascal and friend, he camps out in the Arizona desert and “shakes the nickel bush” as a cowboy artist-sculptor. Lawyers and bankers are eager to buy his work as the two move from town to town in an old Ford aptly named “Shiftless.” But will Ralph ever reach Littleton in time for the 4th of July roundup?....

  • The Dry Divide

    7

    The Dry Divide
    The Dry Divide

    Ralph Moody had just turned twenty, with only one dime in his pocket, when he was put off a freight train in Western Nebraska on the Fourth of July, 1919. Three months later Ralph would own eight teams of horses and the rigs to go with them. Everyone he worked with shared in the prosperity--the widow whose crop he saved, and the group of misfits who form a first-rate harvesting crew. The crew included a Mexican teenager unable to speak a word of English, a snake oil pitcher known as “Doc,” two silent giant Swedes, the easy going Irishman Jaikus, and ornery Old Bill. As Ralph leads his ragtag crew, fickle Mother Nature and frail human character make sure the going is anything but easy. The tension in these opposing forces never lets up as Ralph faces some of his greatest challenges high up on the Dry Divide...

  • Horse of a Different Color

    8

    Horse of a Different Color
    Horse of a Different Color

    In the early 1920’s cowboy and dry-range farmer, Ralph Moody, found himself with mountainous debts through the collapse of the livestock market, and the dealings of a crooked partner. He faces the choice of declaring bankruptcy before he turns twenty, or working off the intimidating balance against him. His fortunes seem to be turning when a flash flood takes all he owns, and he is forced to auction off his farm and animals. Ralph never surrenders, but finds a way to turn tragedy into opportunity. Overhearing a conversation on a railroad supply contract, he decides to place a bid. Winning the contract and digging himself out of debt, he also saves a Kansas town from total bankruptcy....

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