Little Britches Quotes

I never really knew Father very well till we moved to the ranch on Fort Logan-Morrison road, not far from Denver.

And there wasn’t a sound, except that dry little cough that father had then. When Mother lifted her head, her lips were pressed tightly together, and her voice wasn’t trembly any more. “The Bible says, ‘Trust in the lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.’ The hand of God has led us here; we have set our shoulders to the wheel, and we will not turn back.”

I looked back at our ranch as Cousin Phil drove us in to Denver, and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything else on earth.

While I was busy, he went over and talked to the man who had been leading the horses out to the ring. They were looking at the cows when I got back, and I saw Fred slip a silver dollar into the man’s hand when he turned away from the corral.

Before we left home, Mother had taken us into the front room and said, “I am not going to have you children grow up to be rowdies and ruffians just because we live on a farm. Ralph, if you get into a fight in this new school, I shall give you a hard thrashing when you get home. The Bible says that if your enemy smites you on one cheek, you are to turn the other.”

“Did you lick him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” That was all. He never mentioned it again.

“I might give you a hard thrashing; if I did, you would possibly remember the thrashing longer than you would remember the injury you have done yourself. I am not going to do it. There were eighteen crossties in the gulch yesterday, and the section foreman told me they were going to replace twenty more. Until you have dragged every one of those ties home, you will wear your Buster Brown suit to school, and I will not take you anywhere with me.”

“Charlie,” she said—it was only more than a whisper—“we came here to save your life. Are you going to throw it away over so little? We need you, oh, we need you, Charlie.” From where we were standing, I saw her eyes fill up with tears, but none spilled over.

“Why man, you couldn’t run ten inches of water to this garden from where the ditch comes onto your place; the ground would drink it all up on the way. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ve got two hundred inches with my place. I’ll use all the water that comes as far as me for twenty days, then give you the whole head for one. That’ll let you give about twenty acres a good soaking often enough to make a crop the first year. After that you might handle as much as twenty-five.”

Then he said to me, “Didn’t have no trouble with him, did ya, Little Britches?”

We walked along a little way, then he rumpled my hair again and said, “Your father was proud of you son.” It was the first time he ever told me that, and I got a lump in my throat.

Grandfather used to be deaf, and, before he died, he and I used to play sign language. I thought maybe I could talk to Two Dog in sign language, so I raised my eyebrows, put both palms together and laid my face down against them; then I looked far off along the mountains. Two Dog knew I was asking him where he slept—where his home was—just as well as Grandfather would have known.

I didn’t want to be carried that night. It just didn’t seem right to be carried home when we were taking the check that I had helped earn. Father understood how I felt, and he walked slow enough that I didn’t have to trot anymore, and let me carry the check home to mother in my overall pocket.

I don’t remember Father ever kissing me any other time, but after he put me back in bed he leaned over and kissed me right on the forehead.

“Those fellows up there are holding the trump cards, and they know it. I’m not too sure I wouldn’t take pretty near my full measure of water if I were in their places and saw my crops drying up. I don’t think they want a court fight, or a fist fight, or a gun fight any more than we do, but I don’t think they’re going to give up the hand without winning the odd trick. I wouldn’t do it, and I don’t think any of you fellows would. I’m inclined to think we’d be better off to have the assurance of a reasonable part of our share in dry time, than to take the chance of not getting any and losing all our late crops.”

There weren’t any more fights over water that year, and when Willie Aldivote came up to the pasture to visit me a few days later, he seemed to think Father was quite a hero. I was proud because he said Father could fight like hell for a sick man, and that everybody thought he did a smart job getting the men up the ditch to agree about the water.

While we were building it I got thinking how lonesome our little house had looked to me, sitting out there on the prairie, when I had first seen it from the hill by Fort Logan. When the last nail was driven and the hasp was put on the gate, I got Father to let me put Nig and the new colt and our two cows in the corral. Then he let me take Fanny and ride up to that hill again, so I could look at our place and see how much it looked like a real ranch now.

I knew Mother would say I had done just the right thing, but I tried not even to think about what Father might say. I couldn’t help it though. And I wasn’t a bit sure he wouldn’t say it was running away from the law and tearing boards off my character house. We had just turned into the Morrison wagon road when I got a big lump in my throat. Then I pulled Fanny around and galloped her back to the hitching rail in front of the Last Chance Saloon.

I couldn’t help crying some more when he told me that; not because my bottom was still burning, but just because I loved him. I told him I’d never be sneaky again, and I’d always ask him before I did things. We walked to the house together. At the bunkhouse door he shook hands with me, and said: “Good night, partner.”

“You know, a man’s life is a lot like a boat. If he keeps his sail set right it doesn’t make too much difference which way the wind blows or which way the current flows. If he knows where he wants to go and keeps his sail trimmed carefully he’ll come into the right port. But if he forgets to watch his sail till the current catches him broadside he’s pretty apt to smash up on the rocks.” After a little while he said, “I have an idea you’ll find the current’s a bit strong up at the mountain ranch.”

“Yep, they’re easier ways, and it would be easier for him to forget. The lessons you remember longest are the ones that hurt you the most when you learn ‘em. Do you follow what I’m tryin’ to tell you?”

I couldn’t help thinking about what Father had said—that night out on the chopping block—and I said, “I guess I know what you mean.”

“Damn bull-headed Yankee,” he was saying, “God and everybody knows we’d never got a dime for our crops if he hadn’t rigged that water gauge at the ditch head. And there he stands with a hundred and twenty dollars in his hand for a year’s work and too damned proud to take a bale of hay from a neighbor. What the hell are you goin’ to do with a man like that?”

“You’re getting to be quite a man now, Son. You’re well past eleven years old, and you can do quite a few things better than a good many men. I’m going to treat you like a man from now on. I’m never going to spank you again, or scold you for little things, and some day it’s going to be ‘Moody and Sons, Building Contractors.’”

It was too big for me to take all at once like that. I didn’t feel like crying—I didn’t feel like anything. My brain just stopped working for a minute or two. When it started up again it was going round and round like a stuck gramophone cylinder, and was saying over and over, “So long, partner; so long, partner; so long, partner.”

Father had always said grace before meals; always the same twenty-five words, and the ritual was always the same. Mother would look around the table to see that everything was in readiness; then she would nod to Father. That night she nodded to me and I became a man.