Book Review: Shaking the Nickel Bush

The next in his series of autobiographical books, Shaking The Nickel Bush begins at a sprint as Ralph learns he has diabetes and needs to go west for his health. Having always been able to find a job, he assumes he can go back to his first love: cattle ranching. But jobs are as scarce in Arizona as hen's teeth and he soon finds himself all but broke.


Never one to stay "down and out," his resourcefulness once again cames to the rescue when he learned about a way to earn a lot of money fast: taking falls from horses for movies about cowboys and Indians. It was unbelievably dangerous, but the pay reflected the risk. Most of the riders didn't last more than a day. Ralph had lots of experience with trick riding and his ability to analyze a problem, take it apart into small enough pieces to find a solution, and then put all those pieces back together into a workable plan allowed him to earn a large amount of money in just a few days. $450 was huge pay for the time right after WWI. Even Ralph couldn't last long because of the beating his body had taken. So he collected his pay and left the movie business.


Assigned to a rigid diet and weighing only around 100 pounds, he was walking a tightrope trying to find the food he could eat and stretch his money as far as it could possibly go. He took up with a fellow out-of-work-cowboy who acted throughout the book more like a little kid most of the time than an adult, but he was company for Ralph. Still trying to find a job working cattle, Ralph paid for "outfits" for both of them because no rancher would be likely to hire hands that didn't have saddles and such. 


It wasn't long before they had tried all the area ranches, with no luck. They were given advice to head out away from the cities and try to find ranches that were more remote, thinking they might be more in need of help. To assist in their job hunt, they bought an old beat up car and fixed it up. Sort of. 


But no matter where they looked, there were no ranching jobs to be had.


Ralph, a man of many talents, stumbled onto another vocation: sculpting. Having lived with an artist friend while he worked at a munitions factory back East, he learned how to sculpt in his free time and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Sitting by their campfire one night trying to come up with another way to find a job, he made a little horse out of clay. 


It proved to be a turning point for Ralph. Being naturally entrepreneurial, he decided to try his luck sculpting busts of prominent men in small communities. It worked. The bankers in many little towns throughout Arizona, New Mexico and part of Texas paid $25 to have Ralph make a plaster bust of them to hang in their banks.  



All those months, he had been telling his mother in his letters that he had a job working for a big cattle rancher who had them traveling all over the country. He was afraid if he told her the truth about being unable to find work, she would worry herself silly. And she certainly wouldn't accept the money he sent to the family each month. Once he started lying to her, he felt he had to keep it up. (Never a good plan to lie to one's MOTHER!!)


As the money rolled in, Ralph began to dream big. He devised a plan to start his own small cattle operation. Carefully saving as much as he could, he never told his buddy Lonnie how much he actually made for each of the sculptures because Lonnie spent money hand over fist. 


As the Fourth of July drew nearer and nearer, Ralph planned his exit strategy from the business of being a Cowboy Artist of the Southwest. He was heading home to Littleton, Colorado for the Round Up and festivities he had enjoyed so much when his family lived there. He knew that all his old friends would help him find a job or get started with his own place. 


Ralph kept trying to help Lonnie understand the value of saving money and planning ahead, but all Lonnie ever thought about was having fun with their car. That, and girls. 


When they finally reached Kansas City, it was time for the partnership to end. Ralph had encouraged Lonnie to head back to his family in Wyoming and start his own future as an adult. Lonnie didn't want to hear it and, being afraid Ralph would make him sell the car and buy a train ticket, Lonnie left in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, he grabbed Ralph's pair of Levi's out of the dark hotel closet instead of his own. The same pair of jeans that Ralph had used to keep all his money in, rolled up in the cuffs so it was completely undetectable. $700 in $50's! 


Ralph only had a couple of dollars left and he still had to pay the hotel bill! Thinking Lonnie was probably still in town somewhere, he commenced to search. Everywhere. No luck. He finally heard from someone who had seen Lonnie that he was heading home to Wyoming. Ralph ended up having to pawn his "outfit" to pay the hotel bill, and "hop a train" heading toward Denver. He knew Lonnie would never have stolen from him and so the book ended with Ralph heading toward Colorado aboard a mail train, believing that the money would be found in the jean cuffs and returned to him. Eventually. 


Moody's ingenuity and resourcefulness alone are reasons to read Shaking the Nickel Bush. The kids loved it and wanted me to start the next book in the series the very minute I said, "The End."


This is #32 in the 52 Books in 52 Week Challenge.  Chippin' away at it! :)

Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks