The prairie wife

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prairie Wife, by Arthur Stringer This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Prairie Wife Author: Arthur Stringer Illustrator: H T Dunn Release Date: July 19, 2006 [EBook #18875] Language: English *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRAIRIE WIFE *** Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net The Prairie Wife I stooped over the trap-door and lifted it up "Get down there quick!" — Page 109, The Prairie Wife THE PRAIRIE WIFE By ARTHUR STRINGER With Frontispiece in Color by H T DUNN A L BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS – – NEW YORK PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE BOBBS, MERRILL COMPANY COPYRIGHT 1915 THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT 1915 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY TO VAN WHO KNOWS AND LOVES THE WEST AS WE LOVE HIM! Contents Thursday the Nineteenth Saturday the Twenty-first Monday the Twenty-third Wednesday the Twenty-fifth Thursday the Twenty-sixth Saturday the Twenty-eighth Wednesday the First Thursday the Second Friday the Third Saturday the Fourth Monday the Sixth Wednesday the Eighth Saturday the Tenth Sunday the Eleventh Monday the Twelfth Sunday the Eighteenth Monday the Nineteenth Tuesday the Twentieth Thursday the Twenty-second Saturday the Twenty-fourth Tuesday the Twenty-seventh Thursday the Twenty-ninth Friday the Fifth Sunday the Seventh Tuesday the Ninth Saturday the Twenty-first Sunday the Twenty-ninth Monday the Seventh Friday the Eleventh Sunday the Thirteenth 16 33 41 48 57 61 64 67 68 73 80 88 91 93 101 103 105 115 119 128 133 136 137 138 142 150 152 153 155 Wednesday the Sixteenth Sunday the Twentieth Sunday the Twenty-seventh Wednesday the Thirtieth Thursday the Thirty-first Sunday the Third Thursday the Seventh Saturday the Ninth Monday the Eleventh Tuesday the Nineteenth Sunday the Thirty-first Tuesday the Ninth Wednesday the Seventeenth Thursday the Twenty-fifth Tuesday the Second Thursday the Fourth Wednesday the Seventeenth Saturday the Twenty-seventh Tuesday the Sixth Monday the Twelfth Tuesday the Twentieth Monday the Twenty-sixth Wednesday the Twenty-eighth Monday the Second Thursday the Fifth Tuesday the Tenth Monday the Sixteenth Tuesday the Twenty-fourth Friday the Third Thursday the Ninth Wednesday the Fifteenth Friday the Seventeenth Saturday the Nineteenth 156 157 158 159 160 167 171 172 175 182 186 188 189 190 191 193 194 195 198 199 202 205 207 209 210 214 217 220 222 224 228 230 231 Friday the Twenty-eighth Saturday the Twenty-ninth Sunday the Thirtieth Tuesday the First Monday the Seventh Sunday the Thirteenth Monday the Twenty-eighth Saturday the Second Wednesday the Sixth Tuesday the Twelfth Thursday the Fourteenth Wednesday the Fifth Sunday the Ninth Monday the Tenth Tuesday the Eleventh Wednesday the Thirteenth Thursday the Fourteenth Friday the Fifteenth Saturday the Sixteenth Monday the Seventeenth Wednesday the Nineteenth Friday the Twenty-first Monday the Twelfth Wednesday the Fourteenth Thursday the Fifteenth Friday the Sixteenth Sunday the Eighteenth Sunday the Twenty-fifth Tuesday the Twenty-seventh Wednesday the Twenty-eighth Friday the Thirtieth Sunday the First 233 234 236 237 243 247 249 251 252 254 255 256 260 262 264 265 267 269 272 275 276 277 290 292 295 298 307 308 309 310 313 314 THE PRAIRIE WIFE Thursday the Nineteenth Splash! That's me, Matilda Anne! That's me falling plump into the pool of matrimony before I've had time to fall in love! And oh, Matilda Anne, Matilda Anne, I've got to talk to you! You may be six thousand miles away, but still you've got to be my safety-valve I'd blow up and explode if I didn't express myself to some one For it's so lonesome out here I could go and commune with the gophers This isn't a twenty-part letter, my dear, and it isn't a diary It's the coral ring I'm cutting my teeth of desolation on For, every so long, I've simply got to sit down and talk to some one, or I'd go mad, clean, stark, staring mad, and bite the tops off the sweet-grass! It may even happen this will never be sent to you But I like to think of you reading it, some day, page by page, when I'm fat and forty, or, what's more likely, when Duncan has me chained to a corral-post or finally shut up in a padded cell For you were the one who was closest to me in the old days, Matilda Anne, and when I was in trouble you were always the staff on which I leaned, the calm-eyed Tillie-on-the-spot who never seemed to fail me! And I think you will understand But there's so much to talk about I scarcely know where to begin The funny part of it all is, I've gone and married the Other Man And you won't understand that a bit, unless I start at the beginning But when I look back, there doesn't seem to be any beginning, for it's only in books that things really begin and end in a single lifetime Howsomever, as Chinkie used to say, when I left you and Scheming Jack in that funny little stone house of yours in Corfu, and got to Palermo, I found Lady Agatha and Chinkie there at the Hotel des Palmes and the yacht being coaled from a tramp steamer's bunkers in the harbor So I went on with them to Monte Carlo We had a terrible trip all the way up to the Riviera, and I was terribly seasick, and those lady novelists who love to get their heroines off on a private yacht never dream that in anything but duckpond weather the ordinary yacht at sea is about the meanest habitation between Heaven and earth But it was at Monte Carlo I got the cable from Uncle Carlton telling me the Chilean revolution had wiped out our nitrate mine concessions and that your poor Tabby's last little nest-egg had been smashed In other words, I woke up and