Letters of a Woman Homesteader

Part 1

Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Jeannie Howse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

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LETTERS OF A WOMAN HOMESTEADER

Elinore Pruitt Stewart

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge

1913 AND 1914, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY CO.

1914, BY ELINORE PRUITT STEWART

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published May 1914

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

The writer of the following letters is a young woman who lost her husband in a railroad accident and went to Denver to seek support for herself and her two-year-old daughter, Jerrine. Turning her hand to the nearest work, she went out by the day as house-cleaner and laundress. Later, seeking to better herself, she accepted employment as a housekeeper for a well-to-do Scotch cattle-man, Mr. Stewart, who had taken up a quarter-section in Wyoming. The letters, written through several years to a former employer in Denver, tell the story of her new life in the new country. They are genuine letters, and are printed as written, except for occasional omissions and the alteration of some of the names.

4 PARK ST.

CONTENTS

I. THE ARRIVAL AT BURNT FORK 3

II. FILING A CLAIM 7

III. A BUSY, HAPPY SUMMER 15

IV. A CHARMING ADVENTURE AND ZEBULON PIKE 23

V. SEDALIA AND REGALIA 45

VI. A THANKSGIVING-DAY WEDDING 54

VII. ZEBULON PIKE VISITS HIS OLD HOME 60

VIII. A HAPPY CHRISTMAS 64

IX. A CONFESSION 77

X. THE STORY OF CORA BELLE 81

XI. ZEBBIE'S STORY 100

XII. A CONTENTED COUPLE 117

XIII. PROVING UP 133

XIV. THE NEW HOUSE 137

XV. THE "STOCKING-LEG" DINNER 143

Part 2

XVI. THE HORSE-THIEVES 157

XVII. AT GAVOTTE'S CAMP 180

XVIII. THE HOMESTEADER'S MARRIAGE AND A LITTLE FUNERAL 184

XIX. THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE 193

XX. THE JOYS OF HOMESTEADING 213

XXI. A LETTER OF JERRINE'S 218

XXII. THE EFFICIENT MRS. O'SHAUGHNESSY 220

XXIII. HOW IT HAPPENED 225

XXIV. A LITTLE ROMANCE 230

XXV. AMONG THE MORMONS 256

XXVI. SUCCESS 279

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LETTERS OF A WOMAN HOMESTEADER

THE ARRIVAL AT BURNT FORK

BURNT FORK, WYOMING, April 18, 1909.

DEAR MRS. CONEY,--

Are you thinking I am lost, like the Babes in the Wood? Well, I am not and I'm sure the robins would have the time of their lives getting leaves to cover me out here. I am 'way up close to the Forest Reserve of Utah, within half a mile of the line, sixty miles from the railroad. I was twenty-four hours on the train and two days on the stage, and oh, those two days! The snow was just beginning to melt and the mud was about the worst I ever heard of.

The first stage we tackled was just about as rickety as it could very well be and I had to sit with the driver, who was a Mormon and so handsome that I was not a bit offended when he insisted on making love all the way, especially after he told me that he was a widower Mormon. But, of course, as I had no chaperone I looked very fierce (not that that was very difficult with the wind and mud as allies) and told him my actual opinion of Mormons in general and particular.

Meantime my new employer, Mr. Stewart, sat upon a stack of baggage and was dreadfully concerned about something he calls his "Tookie," but I am unable to tell you what that is. The road, being so muddy, was full of ruts and the stage acted as if it had the hiccoughs and made us all talk as though we were affected in the same way. Once Mr. Stewart asked me if I did not think it a "gey duir trip." I told him he could call it gay if he wanted to, but it didn't seem very hilarious to me. Every time the stage struck a rock or a rut Mr. Stewart would "hoot," until I began to wish we would come to a hollow tree or a hole in the ground so he could go in with the rest of the owls.

At last we "arriv," and everything is just lovely for me. I have a very, very comfortable situation and Mr. Stewart is absolutely no trouble, for as soon as he has his meals he retires to his room and plays on his bagpipe, only he calls it his "bugpeep." It is "The Campbells are Coming," without variations, at intervals all day long and from seven till eleven at night. Sometimes I wish they would make haste and get here.

There is a saddle horse especially for me and a little shotgun with which I am to kill sage chickens. We are between two trout streams, so you can think of me as being happy when the snow is through melting and the water gets clear. We have the finest flock of Plymouth Rocks and get so many nice eggs. It sure seems fine to have all the cream I want after my town experiences. Jerrine is making good use of all the good things we are having. She rides the pony to water every day.

I have not filed on my land yet because the snow is fifteen feet deep on it, and I think I would rather see what I am getting, so will wait until summer. They have just three seasons here, winter and July and August. We are to plant our garden the last of May. When it is so I can get around I will see about land and find out all I can and tell you.

I think this letter is about to reach thirty-secondly, so I will send you my sincerest love and quit tiring you. Please write me when you have time.

Sincerely yours, ELINORE RUPERT.

FILING A CLAIM

May 24, 1909.

DEAR, DEAR MRS. CONEY,--

Well, I have filed on my land and am now a bloated landowner. I waited a long time to even see land in the reserve, and the snow is yet too deep, so I thought that as they have but three months of summer and spring together and as I wanted the land for a ranch anyway, perhaps I had better stay in the valley. So I have filed adjoining Mr. Stewart and I am well pleased. I have a grove of twelve swamp pines on my place, and I am going to build my house there. I thought it would be very romantic to live on the peaks amid the whispering pines, but I reckon it would be powerfully uncomfortable also, and I guess my twelve can whisper enough for me; and a dandy thing is, I have all the nice snow-water I want; a small stream runs right through the center of my land and I am quite near wood.

Part 3

A neighbor and his daughter were going to Green River, the county-seat, and said I might go along, so I did, as I could file there as well as at the land office; and oh, that trip! I had more fun to the square inch than Mark Twain or Samantha Allen ever provoked. It took us a whole week to go and come. We camped out, of course, for in the whole sixty miles there was but one house, and going in that direction there is not a tree to be seen, nothing but sage, sand, and sheep. About noon the first day out we came near a sheep-wagon, and stalking along ahead of us was a lanky fellow, a herder, going home for dinner. Suddenly it seemed to me I should starve if I had to wait until we got where we had planned to stop for dinner, so I called out to the man, "Little Bo-Peep, have you anything to eat? If you have, we'd like to find it." And he answered, "As soon as I am able it shall be on the table, if you'll but trouble to get behind it." Shades of Shakespeare! Songs of David, the Shepherd Poet! What do you think of us? Well, we got behind it, and a more delicious "it" I never tasted. Such coffee! And out of such a pot! I promised Bo-Peep that I would send him a crook with pink ribbons on it, but I suspect he thinks I am a crook without the ribbons.

The sagebrush is so short in some places that it is not large enough to make a fire, so we had to drive until quite late before we camped that night. After driving all day over what seemed a level desert of sand, we came about sundown to a beautiful canon, down which we had to drive for a couple of miles before we could cross. In the canon the shadows had already fallen, but when we looked up we could see the last shafts of sunlight on the tops of the great bare buttes. Suddenly a great wolf started from somewhere and galloped along the edge of the canon, outlined black and clear by the setting sun. His curiosity overcame him at last, so he sat down and waited to see what manner of beast we were. I reckon he was disappointed for he howled most dismally. I thought of Jack London's "The Wolf."

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