Virginia of Elk Creek Valley

by Mary Ellen Chase

Jean MacDonald placed a firm, brown hand on Vivian’s shoulder as they all went in together to prepare dinner, and Vivian felt comradeship and understanding in that friendly hand. Perhaps, some day, she said to herself, she would be brave also; even before she went East, she might become a more worthy Vigilante. At all events she would begin once more. Perhaps, after all, she concluded, as she ran to the creek-refrigerator after the butter and cream—perhaps after all, life was just a series of beginnings—again—each one a wee bit farther on!

Dinner was the jolliest meal imaginable. They ate and laughed—laughed and ate. Everything was delicious—the trout caught in the creek and fried to 62 a rich brown, the baked potatoes, the fresh biscuits, the lettuce and radishes from the garden, and the custard pudding. Jean MacDonald with all her other accomplishments was a famous cook. That was self-evident.

After dinner they went out upon the porch, gazed across the mesa bluer than ever in the afternoon haze, and talked. Jean longed to know about school, and they told her of St. Helen’s, of Miss King, and Miss Wallace, of the dear funny Blackmores, and of poor tactless Miss Green. Tears ran down Jean’s face as Virginia told of Katrina Van Rensaelar and the deluge she never received, and of how Priscilla had given the German measles to the boys at the Gordon School.

Then Mary begged to know something about homesteading, and Jean told of how she had come to Wyoming. Her far-off neighbors in the other corner of the mesa had been friends in Montana, she said, and it was they who had encouraged her to come and take up an opposite claim. She explained how the land would become her own after she had lived upon it seven months each year for 63 three years; how each year she must plow and fence so many acres; and how at the end of that time she could sell the land at a good price, or else stay and improve it further.

“And which will you do?” asked the interested Mary while the others listened. “Will you stay or go away after it is yours?”

She would go away for a while, she told them, and rent her land. Her neighbors yonder would be glad to hire it. She was going to college. Her eyes glowed with enthusiasm as she dreamed her dream for them. Since her graduation from High School she had taught in country schools until she had saved money enough to pay for her improvements on the homestead. Everything was paid for—the cabin (she had made most of the furniture herself), the fencing, the plowing, her stock—everything; and there was money enough left for fall planting, a new barn, and some sheep, and the autumn expenses. In December, perhaps, she would leave and earn some more money until it was time to come back again. Then in another August she would have a crop from her winter wheat, and 64 another in September from the spring planting. She could hardly wait for the time to come when she should really have money from a crop of her own raising.

After the three years were over, and the land was hers, if she could afford it, she was going to college. If she did not have the money then, why she would work until she did. She would study agriculture at college, learn the best methods of improving the land, and then come back to carry them out. She would build a new house in place of the cabin, buy some more land, and make her ranch one of the best in all Wyoming!

The Vigilantes were in a new world as they listened—a world where the only capital necessary was ambition, enthusiasm, vigor! Something told them that this homesteading girl was richer in many things than they themselves; that the treasures of hard work were quite as precious as those of wealth; and that Jean MacDonald was finding for herself through her own untiring labor the things most worth-while.

They were silent an hour later as they left their 65 new friend on the edge of the mesa, and rode down the hills toward Elk Creek Valley.

“I think it’s been about the happiest day I’ve ever had in my life,” she told them, as she shook hands all around and said good-by. “I’ve loads of things to think about and laugh about—until you come again. Give Siwash a looser rein, Vivian. He won’t stumble. Good-by!”