The Gypsy Bridle - on a Colorado ranch with Lenora Mattingly Weber

Title: The Gypsy Bridle
Author: Lenora Mattingly Weber
Illustrator: Kurt Wiese
Publication: Little, Brown, and Company, hardcover, 1930
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction

Description: Set around the turn of the 20th century, this is a family story of Mary Kettering and the Hash Knife ranch in Colorado by the author of the popular Beany Malone books.  It begins on her 16th birthday and in true Weber tradition there are so many crises that Mary barely gets a calm moment.  Her mother died long ago and Mary and her 14-year-old brother Emerson were brought up by their father, Paw Kettering, and the cowboys on the ranch.   Paw is suffering from snow blindness from caring for his newly purchased Hampshire sheep after a late winter blizzard.  When the doctors insist he go to the hospital or risk losing his vision, Mary is in charge.  She’d like to take advantage of the $10 her Aunt Amelia sends for new clothes and trip east to meet relatives but instead gives it to her father for medicine for his precious sheep and poison for the neighbors’ gopher problem.