Half Broke Horses

Lily Casey Smith is a sassy, straight-talking heroine for whom saving lives, taming wild horses and beating ranch hands at poker are all in a day's work. Born in 1901, in a dirt house in the rolling gritty grassland of Texas, at age six she is helping her father break horses. At fifteen she leaves home to teach in a town five hundred miles away, riding there on her pony, all alone. Her pearl handled six-shooter by her side, her father's advice rings in her ears: "Keep your head up, your nose clean and your powder dry, and if you have to shoot, shoot straight." Lily handles everything that life throws at her - flash floods and tornadoes, the Great Depression, a swindling husband and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy - with immense courage and determination and a wide, wide smile.