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Chapter 16
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Little Britches, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fathers, Sons, and Growing Up
Honesty and Pride
Work and Society
Community, Resources, and Conflict
Home and the American West
Summary
Analysis
While Grace and Ralph do schoolwork in the evening, their father also works, making plans for something on wrapping paper. After they finish the corral, Ralph and his father go to a blacksmith shop and hardwood store in Englewood. Ralph’s father lets him pick out something to buy for himself, and Ralph chooses a steel trap. Then Ralph’s father explains the supplies are for a winnower (a threshing device) to help them thresh their peas and beans. When they return home, Ralph’s father begins working on the winnower, and Ralph goes to set his steel trip by a prairie dog village.
As winter deepens, Ralph and his family spend more time inside, engaged in schoolwork and the task of threshing beans and peas. Ralph’s father, recognizing his financial contributions to the family’s income, also purchases Ralph his choice of gift from the local hardwood store—a steel trap. This gift highlights the Moody family’s newfound sense of economic prosperity, as well as recognizes Ralph’s increasingly essential role as an income-earner for the family.
Themes
At sunset, Ralph checks his steel trap and finds a pheasant. Remembering what Fred Aultland said about spending your life in prison if you kill a pheasant, Ralph gets scared and tries to dispose of the pheasant, but he can’t figure out how. With his coat bloody from carrying it and the sky getting dark, Ralph decides to get help from his father. After dinner, Ralph tells his father about the pheasant. Ralph’s father tells him to report it to the sheriff the next day, claiming that prisons are full of people whose “first real crime was running away.”
After learning of Ralph’s attempt to conceal his accidental killing of the pheasant, Ralph’s father reproaches him for attempting to evade responsibility, instilling in him the importance of honesty. This is a common theme across all of Ralph’s father’s moral teachings, though here he notably supports his argument with a practical note, pointing out that many men in jail got there merely because they tried to evade taking responsibility for their crimes.
Themes
The next morning, Ralph asks his father to accompany him to see the sheriff. Ralph’s father refuses, saying that if he hasn’t learned to ask for advice before getting into trouble, he does not deserve to get help getting out of it. Ralph rides Fanny into Fort Logan and asks after the sheriff. He discovers the sheriff is not in his office, but a local saloon. Ralph almost turns back, telling himself his mother would not want him visiting a saloon, but when he thinks of his father’s reaction, he changes his mind.
Learning of the sheriff’s station in the local saloon, Ralph finds himself at a personal moral crossroads. While he knows his mother would disapprove of him entering a saloon, he also knows his father would consider turning back to be a further evasion of his responsibility. Though his mother’s imaginary stance aligns more closely with his own personal inclination, Ralph ultimately decides to enter the saloon, illustrating his father’s profound moral influence, and the significance Ralph places on his father’s approval.
Themes
Ralph finds the sheriff at the saloon and explains why he is there. The sheriff checks the pheasant’s wounds to confirm the story, joking that Ralph’s father shot it himself and sent Ralph to take the blame. Ralph yells that his father would do no such thing, and the men in the bar all laugh. Ralph tells them what his father said about prisons, and everyone goes quiet. The sheriff gives Ralph back his pheasant, saying it’s illegal to shoot one, but not to trap them, and to give it to his mother to cook. Once home, Ralph’s father tells him he should remember that day, because it showed that a man is better off facing his troubles than running from them.
Ralph defends his father him against the sheriff’s humorous suggestion that his father sent him to take credit for his own crime. The joke clearly goes over Ralph’s head, but his emotional response is telling, illustrating his deep devotion to his father. And by repeating his father’s lesson in the saloon, Ralph is perhaps extending his father’s sphere of influence—now, everyone who heard Ralph understands how moral and upright Ralph’s father is.
Themes
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The next morning, Fred Aultland and Ralph’s father go on a mysterious trip. Ralph and the other children spend the day at the Aldivotes’ ranch, where they play in the barn, riding the donkey and jumping into hay piles. Ralph’s father and Fred return home after the children do, leading a beautiful bay horse. The excited children spook him, however, and he begins bucking and kicking. Ralph’s mother is concerned by his behavior and asks why Ralph’s father did not buy a gentle horse. Ralph’s father explains that the horse was the best for the price, and that it’s just untrained. Ralph’s mother is reassured, and Ralph reflects how convincing his father can be.
Ralph’s father’s purchase of a new horse the day after Ralph’s run-in with the sheriff hardly seems coincidental. While he would never explicitly reward Ralph for his decision to visit the sheriff, the timing is suspect, conveniently serving as positive reinforcement for Ralph’s behavior. As the story progresses, this tactic becomes increasingly common, with Ralph’s father often pairing punishment with reward.
Themes
