SHAKING THE NICKEL BUSH; Illustrated by Tran Mawicke

New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1962. Stated First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good / Good Plus. Tran Mawicke. Octavo, 8.5 in. x 5.75 in., pp. 234, [2]. Illustrated with ink drawings. Light olive boards with dark green and orange panels and black title to spine. Very light shelfwear to edges. Front bottom corner just nudged. Unnmarked interior. Light rubbing to dustjacket edges with small chips to top/bottom of dustjacket spine. Sunning to dustjacket spine. Protected in mylar. Ralph Owen Moody (1898 - 1982) was an American writer who wrote 17 novels and autobiographies largely about the American West, though a few are set in New England. He was born in East Rochester, New Hampshire and moved to Littleton, Colorado in 1906 with his family when he was eight in the hopes that a dry climate would improve his father Charles's tuberculosis. Moody detailed his experiences in Colorado in the first book of the Little Britches series. (from Wikipedia)

From the publisher: Skinny and suffering from diabetes, Ralph Moody (in Shaking the Nickel Bush) is ordered by a Boston doctor to seek a more healthful climate. Going west again is a delightful prospect. His childhood adventures on a Colorado ranch were described in Little Britches and Man of the Family, also Bison Books. Now nineteen years old, he strikes out into new territory hustling odd jobs, facing the problem of getting fresh milk and leafy green vegetables. He scrapes around to survive, risking his neck as a stunt rider for a movie company. With an improvident buddy named Lonnie, he camps out in an Arizona canyon and "shakes the nickel bush" by sculpting plaster of paris busts of lawyers and bankers. This is 1918, and the young men travel through the Southwest not on horses but in a Ford aptly named Shiftless. New readers and old will enjoy this entry in the continuing saga of Ralph Moody.