A Daughter of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland
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Transcriber's Note
This book in this edition won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Literature in the "Biography or Autobiography" category. As such, every attempt has been made to reproduce it exactly as it was printed and as it won the award. In particular, inconsistent hyphenation of compound words is pervasive in this text and has been retained. Unconventional punctuation--for example using a comma to splice two sentences--has also been retained exactly as printed.
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A DAUGHTER OF THE MIDDLE BORDER
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By HAMLIN GARLAND
A SON OF THE MIDDLE BORDER A DAUGHTER OF THE MIDDLE BORDER ULYSSES S. GRANT, HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER
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[Illustration: Isabel McClintock Garland, A Daughter of the Middle Border.]
[Illustration: Zulime Taft: "The New Daughter."]
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A DAUGHTER OF THE MIDDLE BORDER
BY HAMLIN GARLAND Member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1921
All rights reserved
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Copyright, 1921, By HAMLIN GARLAND.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1921.
Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company New York, U. S. A.
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To my wife Zulime Taft, who for more than twenty years has shared my toil and borne with my shortcomings, I dedicate this story of a household on the vanishing Middle Border, with an ever-deepening sense of her fortitude and serenity.
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Acknowledgments are made to Florence Huber Schott, Edward Foley and Arthur Dudley for the use of the photographs which illustrate this volume.
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FOREWORD
I
_To My New Readers_
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: A Daughter of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland
- 2: To join in the purchase of a family homestead
- 3: Did your mother get her new daughter
- 4: Who regarded me as a wonderful giant
- 5: That night as my daughters dressed up as princesses
- 6: Young Lorado Taft interested me
- 7: Taft was especially witty in his sly
- 8: And I wore it with a frock coat
- 9: Another Hoosier of the same lean type was his illustrator
- 10: In Atlanta I met Joel Chandler Harris
- 11: The shrill ki ki ki of the golden wing woodpeckers
- 12: I'll be glad to get back to Dakota where people are alive
- 13: I am hoeing in my sun lit garden
- 14: Recounted the fierce toil of the Iowa harvest fields
- 15: It was at his table that I met Professor Fernow
- 16: She intends to remain abroad for two years
- 17: Kimball was Herbert's classmate
- 18: It was a new thesis so far as Western girls were concerned
- 19: And this criticism saddened and depressed me
- 20: Bound for the Snake Dance at Walpi
- 21: That emotion which gave me inspiration
- 22: It lent itself to epic treatment
- 23: But added I must sell my Dakota land first
- 24: And calling upon the Agent in his office
- 25: Where we took the earliest possible train for Custer City
- 26: For here the last battles of the Cheyennes had taken place
- 27: Major Stouch had told me of this boy
- 28: Outfitting at Jocko we rode across the divide to the St
- 29: The Yukon is four thousand miles long
- 30: The word Klondike blazed out on banners
- 31: This trip completed my conversion
- 32: His direct antithesis was Edward Eggleston
- 33: He was greatly interested in my proposed trip into the Yukon
- 34: Most people think of Longstreet as a dead man
- 35: I don't like to have you go exploring
- 36: Grizzled mountaineer was Burt Babcock
- 37: Mounted on my stately gray Ladrone
- 38: Our plan had been to pack through to Teslin Lake
- 39: A month later I returned to Wrangell
- 40: The hardships of my exploration were forgotten
- 41: As I mounted Ladrone and rode him down the lane
- 42: You'll find Miss Zulime Taft there
- 43: Almost unrestrained admiration of Zulime Taft
- 44: And now with a burden of Klondike material to be disposed of
- 45: Zangwill on the contrary overflowed with humor
- 46: Charles Dudley Warner presided
- 47: Furthermore I am no longer young and just now with Barrie
- 48: A dignified and logical garment
- 49: As usual I referred the problem to Howells
- 50: As I stood on the forward deck
- 51: Shaw goes everywhere in tweeds
- 52: Zangwill with a mischievous grin on his face
- 53: Accepted it as something appropriate to her son
- 54: She laughed in response to my jesting
- 55: Personally I like Her Mountain Lover
- 56: With a connecting bathroom was imperative
- 57: Squire Heckman was good enough to meet me at the train
- 58: Illustration Miss Zulime Taft
- 59: Lady Heckman possessed a piano
- 60: The Stewardess knew this and revelled in his wit
- 61: The record of a walk in the woods with Zulime
- 62: As mother and I were sitting together
- 63: She even joked with me about Zuleema
- 64: Her reply to all this was not entirely disheartening
- 65: So closely knit to her joyous companions in the city
- 66: Hoping that Zulime would be there to welcome me
- 67: But Zulime has met all storms with a brave sweetness
- 68: Zulime was living with her sister
- 69: But as the real objective of my journey was Ganado
- 70: Waved Hubbell a joyous farewell
- 71: I had never seen a Navajo dance
- 72: Laden with Navajo silver bracelets
- 73: I'll show you the splendors of Ouray and the Uncompagre
- 74: His biologists were of the time of Darwin
- 75: But Zulime was his favorite child
- 76: And had ridden twelve or fifteen miles
- 77: More considerate than the Ehrichs
- 78: Filling the amphitheater till all its walls were hid
- 79: It seemed delightfully safe to Zulime
- 80: I wrested Zulime from her friends
- 81: But with Zulime sitting beside her
- 82: Apple sauce made me groan but Zulime smiled
- 83: But with heroic resolution Zulime dressed
- 84: With the candor of a life long friendship
- 85: This growing reliance upon Zulime made me uneasy
- 86: An Individual model the saleslady called it
- 87: Protested Zulime in high agitation
- 88: And with such people Zulime was entirely at ease
- 89: Although she greatly admired Norris
- 90: But Zulime decided to go back to Chicago
- 91: Or sew or knit down here just as well as up there
- 92: But the respect in which he was now held as householder
- 93: No sooner was spring really at hand than Zulime and I
- 94: I received a letter from Major Stouch
- 95: In white topped prairie schooners
- 96: Fort Reno a cluster of frame barracks
- 97: In all my tales of the Cheyennes
- 98: The nude red man was a hackneyed subject
- 99: To any change which Zulime proposed
- 100: And to Zulime she was like a character in a novel
- 101: Ten minutes later he was joking with Zulime
- 102: Dry prairie which lay between Bismark and Fort Yates
- 103: Primeau was a very intelligent man and a good talker
- 104: Pursued by Mell on a swift pony
- 105: Again the cow went to earth and Zulime
- 106: Slohan was a redoubtable warrior
- 107: Spoke a curt word to Primeau and went on with his story
- 108: We took the stage back to Bismark
- 109: And Zulime caught two enormous pike
- 110: You can rest there in comfort all through the parade
- 111: No flare of brave bugles could lighten or conceal
- 112: You are almost as much a part of Wisconsin as I am
- 113: We went through Chicago almost without stopping
- 114: Zulime and I returned to our apartment in happiest humor
- 115: That she was also longing for Zulime I knew
- 116: But what Thanksgiving could there be for him or for me
- 117: Back to the Homestead we drove back to an empty shell
- 118: You need not remain here any longer
- 119: But Zulime insisted upon his retaining our housekeeper
- 120: And Zulime arranged a definite program of entertainment
- 121: Her love of the Homestead delighted me
- 122: Our good friend Louis Ehrich again met us
- 123: Zulime greatly interested the Palmer girls
- 124: Ehrich to breakfast with me here
- 125: It is suited to elderly old parties like Ehrich and myself
- 126: After riding through Slumgullion Gulch back to Wagon Wheel
- 127: With the promise of my cash for his share of the Homestead
- 128: Grinnell and other of my trailer friends
- 129: Bacheller at Sound Beach and Seton at Coscob
- 130: It certainly did Zulime no harm
- 131: To Frank Norris and Stewart White
- 132: Roosevelt and many of the best known figures in American art
- 133: I drew from Seger night by night
- 134: Where Zulime and I had agreed to spend the summer
- 135: With William McClintock with my father
- 136: I found him standing in the pasture
- 137: The Union Miner and the Operator or Capitalist
- 138: Wray was especially valuable to me
- 139: Zulime was ecstatically rearranging furniture
- 140: Theoretically I belonged to Wisconsin
- 141: My predicament highly amused Zulime
- 142: Fortunately Clara had a good reputation with her mother
- 143: He understood why I could not live in West Salem
- 144: Boston would have disturbed and bewildered him
- 145: Don Carlos Taft was a singular and powerful figure
- 146: Dreaming his days away on some abstruse ethical problem
- 147: He liked our trees and lawn and barn
- 148: Dozing at ease beneath the maple trees
- 149: And so across to Mitchell County
- 150: I shall never ride this lane again
- 151: This old neighbor went to the train with us
- 152: Here was the flawless poetry of recreation
- 153: For the inescapable sufferings of maternity
- 154: Was one of her most admired lullabys
- 155: In this unassuming fashion we fed the Hernes
- 156: Gilder with comic intonation said
- 157: And Bacheller was full of tunes from his North Country
- 158: And as Zulime needed the outing we joined the party
- 159: Nevertheless wise in fireplaces
- 160: Zulime was disheartened by all this
- 161: Zulime took one end of the thick
- 162: Striking a match I handed it to Zulime
- 163: Lottridge told of the family hob and crane
- 164: That buoyant world of the reaper and the binder
- 165: Now a wife and daughter awaited me
- 166: To her corn husker daddy of course
- 167: With Zulime playing the tunes for us
- 168: The circus was my daughter's royal tournament
- 169: Will the Queen ever come to Chicago again
- 170: If you do that again Papa will go away to New York
- 171: And took pride in the fact that her grand sire was a soldier
- 172: Back into the endless shadow and silence of the grave
- 173: I set to work on plans for housing the club
- 174: One of the owners of the Stockyards
- 175: Fuller not only knew the ins and outs of my houses
- 176: She permitted these incessant telephone interruptions
- 177: We always knew when these disorders had set in
- 178: Leaving Zulime and the nurse to follow next morning
- 179: One which Mary Isabel had composed
- 180: And the hillsides were abloom with luscious shining berries
- 181: From dark cabinets in murky seance chambers
- 182: To the writing of Cavanagh I came
- 183: He was the exact opposite of my Cavanagh
- 184: George Dudley and I lighted our fire and broiled our steak
- 185: Was characteristically American
- 186: In winter he cooked for a nearby lumber camp
- 187: Christmas came this year with special significance
- 188: And I said to Zulime There isn't much more to do to it
- 189: Were just leaving by the east door and Zulime was upstairs
- 190: I could hear them crying frantically for papa
- 191: You'll have to entirely rebuild
- 192: From one charred frame the face of Frank Norris
- 193: My poem is composed of wood and steel
- 194: While Zulime looked keenly and smilingly around
- 195: No formal Thanksgiving was spoken
- 196: Don't take Zulime and the children so far away
- 197: It is a long way out to Chicago
- 198: President of the Art Institute
- 199: I planned to invade Manhattan once again
- 200: But it is not fiction and nothing serializes but fiction
- 201: Preparing it for serial publication
- 202: He was nearing his eighty fourth birthday
- 203: And the weeds are getting the start of me
- 204: I had counted on seeing Zulime and the children next week
- 205: The lonely pine by the river's bank
- 206: I replied pointing out Cloud Peak
- 207: He spent long hours with me or with Zulime
- 208: Hardly more impressive than the one at Neshonoc
- 209: Your father is lying out on the floor of the barn
- 210: Farther from his native valley
- 211: I entrust the future literary history of Neshonoc
- 212: And yet I am certain that their Neshonoc