Raquel of the ranch country

"Raquel of the ranch country" by Alida Malkus is a novel written in the early 20th century. It follows Raquel Daniels, a capable Texas ranch girl sent to a fashionable Hudson River boarding school, where she collides with class snobbery yet finds a true friend in Anne Marvin. As the Great War intrudes, Raquel is called home to manage the Lazy L ranch, shifting from social unease to frontier responsibility. The tale promises an East–West contrast and a coming-of-age story about grit, loyalty, and leadership. The opening of the novel finds Raquel arriving at The Towers, where she is coolly rebuffed by the glamorous Lois Wainwright but rescued by the independent Anne, who becomes her roommate and ally. Raquel struggles with manners and cliques, is slighted over a Red Cross fair, yet shows her poise and skill on horseback and enjoys a transformative Thanksgiving with Anne’s family. A telegram ends her school stay: her father enlists in wartime animal transport and summons her to run the ranch, while Lois leaves to accompany her ill father west. Home again, Raquel is warmly welcomed and hears her father’s sober briefing—ship a thousand head, meet pressing bank notes, avoid dubious commission men, and beware rival cattleman A. B. Meyers. After he departs, she starts taking charge, correcting a reckless hand, finding supplies run down, and facing early signs of missing calves that may mean rustling. The section closes with her bracing for these first tests to keep the Lazy L solvent through a hard season.

Raquel of the ranch country, by Alida Malkus. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #76708.