Project Gutenberg's Letters of a Woman Homesteader, by Elinore Pruitt Stewart

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Title: Letters of a Woman Homesteader

Author: Elinore Pruitt Stewart

Release Date: August 30, 2005 [EBook #16623]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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LETTERS
OF A WOMAN
HOMESTEADER

BY

_Elinore Pruitt Stewart_

[Illustration]

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