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