Half Broke Horses

“...when you were in the middle of something, it was awful hard to figure out what part of it was God’s will and what wasn’t.”

Throughout her childhood, Lily’s mother talks about how everything was God’s will whether it was a bad thing, like the flood that destroyed their dugout home, or a good thing, like finding the wood that they used to build a wooden house . Lily says this because it is difficult to tell what is happening while it happens. It is easier to look back and analyze what was happening. Once again she calls her mother’s faith into question and differentiates herself from her mother.

“God deals us all different hands. How we play 'em is up to us.”

This is Lily’s father’s response when she asks him about God’s will. As a child, Lily’s father was struck in the head by a horse. The accident affected his speech and his physical abilities, but he did not let the challenges bring him down. Lily learns from her father’s successes and failures and she learns to play any hand that she is dealt. 

“In this world, it's not enough to have a fine education. You need a piece of paper to prove you got it.” 

Lily learns to read, write and think from her father, but he wants her to go to school to earn a diploma. Even though her education was non-traditional, she did realize that it was important to earn a degree and to be educated. 

“I never knew a girl to have such gumption.”

Lily’s mother realizes that Lily was not lady-like. She makes this comment while she is thinking about whether or not Lily will ever get married. Lily is full of gumption, which is resourcefulness and spirit. Ironically, Lily’s mother, who recognizes this trait in her daughter, has no gumption at all. 

“The most important thing in life is learning how to fall.”

Lily’s father gives her this advice as she learns to break horses. Her first fall ended with a broken arm, but after that she learned to fall softly so she never broke anything again. Lily learned to recover from all of her falls, both literally and figuratively.

“Hope for the best and plan for the worst.”

Lily’s father shares this advice after her first fall, when she breaks her arm. Like the advice about falling, Lily used this advice throughout her life. She learns to fall and to land softly. She learns to prepare for tough condition and she tries to prepare her daughter for life this way, too. 

“Time to move on.”

These are the last four words in the first chapter. Lily thinks them when the family can no longer make it work on the Salt Lick in Texas. They recognize that it is time to move on and find greener pastures back at the KC Ranch in New Mexico. Like the other lessons of her childhood, this one also continues to be useful in her adult life. Even though obstacles get in her way, Lily recognizes when it is time to move on. This is different to giving up; moving on means taking on a new challenge rather than giving up on an old on. 

“Teaching is a calling too. And I've always thought that teachers in their way are holy - angels leading their flocks out of the darkness.” 

This is said by Mother Albertina when she is talking to Lily about her options as a woman. Lily found her true calling in being a teacher as she brought life to one-room school houses all over the state of Arizona. In this way, she is again compared to an angel; much like her father suggested when she saved her siblings from the flood.

“When God closes a window, he opens a door. But it’s up to you to find it.”

This quote represents one of the major themes of the story and was said by Mother Albertina when Lily had to leave school because her father could no longer afford her tuition. Despite many windows closing on her, Lily was always able to find the open door of a new opportunity. 

“Dad, I got to strike out on my own sometime. Like you're always saying, I've got to find my Purpose.”

After returning home from school, Lily felt like she was no longer needed on the ranch. She needed to take a test to be a teacher and she was ready to give it a try. Her father recognized that she might not be in his life much longer, but Lily had the gumption as a 15-year-old to try something new. She was ready to be independent and she knew it. 

“She'll be back,” Dad said. “She'll miss ranch life. She's got horse blood in her veins.”

Lily’s dad said this after she passed the teaching exam and was ready to ride Patches all the way to Arizona. He knew his daughter well. She did return to ranch life. Metaphorically, she did have “horse blood in her veins”, as she often needed the wide open spaces to run free. 

“Yes,” the mother said, “but the maggots are full of meat.”

Early in her teaching career, Lily visits the homes of the children in her class. Many of them live in poverty. One of the mothers is preparing meat and Lily comments that there are maggots in it. This quote is how the mother responds. This moment allows Lily to see that life is all about perspective and making do with what you have. While some people might see maggots as harmful, others see them as nutritious food. 

“Nothing. But I don't like the way you look at me. You don't seem to know your place. A maid should keep her head down.”

When in Chicago, Lily works as a maid. She is fired from her first job because she could not keep her head down. In her next job, Lily does this, but she knows it is not in her nature to keep her head down. This quote shows that Lily is able to adjust to any circumstance, but still be true to herself. When she leaves work, she attends school and enjoys life with her friends. 

“You have a mighty high opinion of yourself, I told him. The fact is, you don't love me, and you haven't destroyed me. You don't have what it takes to do that”

Lily says this to her first husband, Ted, after she learns that he has another wife. He says that he has destroyed her and she quickly retorts. At this moment, it is difficult not to want to cheer for Lily and her unbreakable spirit. She never lets anyone destroy her, not a man, a boss, or even Mother Nature. 

“I became known as Lily Casey, the mustang-breaking, poker-playing, horse-race-winning schoolmarm of Coconino County, and it wasn't half bad to be in a place where no one had a problem with a woman having a moniker like that.” 

After leaving Chicago and returning to Arizona to teach, Lily becomes a character in her new home. She defied the traditional image of the schoolmarm and the people of Red Lake appreciated her for who she was. 

It [the sun] didn't really care how I felt, it was going to rise and set regardless of whether I noticed it, and if I was going to enjoy it, that was up to me.”

After Helen’s suicide, Lily is distraught and depressed. She was not only sad that her sister had died, but that Helen’s unborn child had died, too. Eventually, Lily realized that she was not living life to the fullest. She realized that life would go on and that she needed to become a part of it. She could not just let life happen to her; she needed to take control of it herself. 

"Lily Casey, from what I know of you, you're just about as much woman as any man can handle."

Jim Smith says this when Lily proposes to him. Since he was raised in a Mormon home, she requests that he not take any more wives. He says what the reader recognizes about Lily, that she is enough woman for one man. It is a good thing for her that he understands this and appreciates it. 

“Granny Combs chewed her tobacco and studied the cards, 'I see a wanderer.' 

After Rosemary was born, the midwife, Granny Combs, reads cards to make a prediction about the baby. The cards proved to be right as Rosemary needed wide open spaces so her free spirit could run wild. 

I stood there watching them with Rosemary. “I feel bad for the horses,” she said. “They just want to be free.”

Rosemary says this when she is watching cowboys trying to break some horses. She never wanted to see animals trapped and caged. While she literally meant what she said, this quote also expressed her own desire to be free. Rosemary was even more of a free spirit than her mother. 

“Do the best you can,” I said. “That’s all anyone can do.”

During a horrible storm, Lily and Jim needed to take care of the dam so that it would not overflow. They enlisted Rosemary’s help, who was only a young girl. Rosemary was unsure of whether or not she was actually helping, even though she was doing her best. Lily gave her daughter this advice, which encompassed all that Lily and Jim ever did. 

“Are you kidding?” I said. “That’s art.”

On the way home from burying Lily’s father, Lily and Rosemary stop at the Madonna of the Trail. This 20-foot tall statue was a pioneer woman who was carrying a gun and a baby. Rosemary comments that the statue is “kind of ugly” and that the “woman’s a little scary.” Ironically, the statue could be of Lily who makes the exclamation about the statue being “art.” 

“The road was called Agnes Weeps, after the town's first schoolteacher, who had burst into tears when she saw how plunging and twisting the road was and realized how remote the town must be. But from the first moment I laid eyes on it, I loved that road. I thought of it as a winding staircase taking me out of the traffic jams, news bulletins, bureaucrats, air-raid sirens and locked doors of city life. Jim said we should rename the road Lily Sings.”

The road to Horse Mesa was frighteningly difficult to maneuver. This road was like Lily’s life, full of twists and turns, but eventually leading home. Instead of crying about her challenging journey - like Agnes did - Jim recognizes that Lily has embraced the challenges she faced. He suggests changing the name of the road to “Lily Sings” because of the joy with which she took on the winding road that is life. 

“I always liked to think I’d never met a kid I couldn’t teach,” I said. “Turns out I was wrong. That kid is you.”

Lily says this to Rosemary as she is planning to get married to Rex. Lily takes pride in her ability to teach children, but she feels like she has failed with her own daughter. In reality, despite some of her mistakes, Lily raised a lovely young woman who knew who she was and wanted to enjoy life. Just as Lily recognized in her own childhood that “when you were in the middle of something, it was awful hard to figure out what part of it was God’s will and what wasn’t” (Chapter 1, p. 28), she was unable to recognize that she did well with her daughter. If she could have only stepped back from her concerns to recognize what she did teach her daughter, she would be more appreciative of her ability and what Rosemary had become.