Half Broke Horses

In this chapter, we learn that the narrator’s name is Lily Casey. At the beginning of the chapter, the Casey family moves from Salt Lick to the family ranch that her father cleverly renames KC Ranch - displaying his quirky love of phonetic spelling. The ranch is in the lush, green Hondo Valley near the Capitan Mountains. After they move, Lily’s father continues to try his hand at money-making schemes like writing books about phonetic spelling and Billy the Kid.

As the chapter continues, Lily talks about her school. Her parents send her to a Catholic school in Santa Fe. The title of the chapter refers to a staircase in the school that seemed to be miraculously constructed. Even though her father has concerns about Lily being at school, she ends up enjoying her time there and she succeeds beyond anyone’s expectations. She finds school to be easy, especially compared to her home life. She says, “Since there were no barn chores, life at the academy felt like one long vacation.”

During her time at school, the Mother Superior called Lily into her office for a meeting. Mother Albertina spoke to Lily about becoming a teacher, because of her academic ability and her ability to help others. Lily considered it for a while, but the next time she was called into Mother Albertina’s office it was to find out that her father could no longer afford her tuition, which forced her to return home before she could finish her education.

Once Lily returns home, she quickly learns that her father has spent her tuition money on four Great Danes that he wanted to breed as another money-making scheme. She also notices signs that the farm was falling into disrepair. To help cover expenses, her father gives some space on the farm to a poor tenant farmer named Zachary Clemens. Later in the chapter, Dorothy, Zachary’s daughter, discovers that the four Great Danes have been shot by a neighboring farmer. In response, Lily’s father sues the neighbor. Lily acts as her father’s lawyer and they win the case; the neighbor has to provide compensation for the dogs in the form of livestock. The neighbor gives the Caseys a collection of worthless horses. Despite the fact that the horses appear worthless, Lily finds a mare that she claims as her own. She names the horse Patches and breaks her in herself.

After breaking the mare, Lily rides the horse into town where she finds a letter from Mother Albertina informing her that there is a teacher shortage due to the war and that Lily should take a test to become a teacher. Lily passes the test and is immediately hired by a school in Arizona. The chapter ends with Lily packing up a few belongs so she can ride Patches 500 miles to the school in Red Lake, Arizona. She is 15 years old. 

Traveling through New Mexico to Arizona, Lily meets a Navajo woman named Priscilla. They traveled together for a day and plan to rest for the night, until Priscilla begins looking through Lily’s things for something to steal. Lily leaves Priscilla and, ten days later, arrives in the town of Flagstaff where she enjoyed a hot bath and a night in a hotel. The next morning she sets out for her destination, Red Lake, which was another two days ride away.

Red Lake is 30 miles south of the Grand Canyon and Lily begins her teaching career in a one-room school house in this small community. She is employed to teach there until the regular teachers return from fighting in World War I. After a few months in Red Lake, the regular teacher returns, so Lily rides Patches to another small town, then another and another as all the teachers gradually return to their homes. When the war is over, the school superintendent relieves her of her duties as a teacher and she rides home to KC Ranch. On her ride home, Lily has a life-changing experience when an airplane flies over her head; it is the first airplane she has ever seen.

Upon her return home, Lily notices that things were not quite the same; the ranch seemed small to her now. Her brother had married Dorothy and her sister, Helen, had grown up and was talking about moving to Los Angeles to be in the movies. After talking to her father about cars and airplanes, Lily realizes that resistance to change was proof that she needed to move on, so, a month later, she leaves for Chicago.

When Lily arrives in Chicago, she finds a Catholic boarding house and she begins looking for jobs. All she is qualified to do is to work as a maid in the homes of wealthy families. During her early days in Chicago, she becomes friends with her roommate, Minnie. They enjoy all the city has to offer until Minnie is killed at work, when her hair gets caught in a piece of machinery. After the sudden death of her best friend, Lily cuts her own hair and, soon after, meets Ted, whom she eventually marries. Ted works out-of-town, so Lily is alone most of the time. One afternoon, she is hit by a car while carrying groceries home. The driver of the car takes her to the hospital and suggests that she call her husband. When Lily makes the call, she finds out that Ted is not out of town working, but is actually married to another woman. After leaving the hospital, Lily decides to confront Ted at his home. After confirming that he was married to another woman, Lily has the marriage annulled. Ted tries to apologize, but Lily replies by saying, “The fact is, you don’t love me, and you haven’t destroyed me. You don’t have what it takes to do that.” Once the marriage is over and Lily stops beating herself up for being so gullible, she realizes she is 27 years old and needs to do something with her life. She applies to the teacher’s college in Flagstaff and works to save some money. She is accepted to the school and she leaves Chicago behind her forever.