Land Of The Burnt Thigh: A Lively Story of Women Homesteaders On The South Dakota Frontier

VIII

VIII EASY AS FALLING OFF A LOG " J\NY old cayuse can enter a race," Bronco Benny re- .n.marked one day. "It's coming in under the wire that counts." Ida Mary and I had saddled ourselves with a newspaper, a post office, a grocery store, an Indian trading post, and all the heavy labor of hauling, delivery of mail and odd jobs that were entailed. We were appalled to realize the weight of the responsibility we had assumed, with every job making steady, daily demands on us, with the Ammons finances to be juggled and stretched to cover constant demands on them. And there was no turning back. The Lucky Numbers were all settled on their claims. Already trails were broken to the print shop from every 110 EASY AS FALLING OFF A LOG 111 direction. There was no time to plan, no time in which to wonder how one was to get things done. The important thing was to keep doing them. On the whole Strip there was not a vacant quarter-section. Already a long beaten trail led past the print-shop door north and south from Pierre to Presho; another crossed the reservation east and west from McClure to the Indian tepees and the rangeland beyond. Paths led in from all parts of the Strip like spokes, with Ammons the hub around which the wheel of the reservation's activities revolved. From every section of the settlement the people gravitated to my claim; they came with their needs, with their plans, with their questions. In the first days we heard their needs rather than filled them, and the store and print shop became a place for the exchange of ideas and news, so that I was able to distinguish before long between the needs of the individual and those which were common to all, to clarify in my own mind the problems that beset the settlers as a whole, and to learn how some among them solved these problems. Subscriptions for The Wand came in from the outside world, from people who had friends homesteading on the Brule, and from people interested in the growth of the W est. We had almost a thousand subscriptions at a dollar a year, and the money went into a team, equipment, and operation expenses. Ma Wagor helped in the store-she liked the "confusement," she said. She loved having people around her, and her curiosity about them all was insatiable. Ida or I generally made the mail trip. The heavy labor we hired done when we could, but 122 LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH many times we hitched the team to the big lumber wagon and drove to Presho to bring out our own load of goods, including barrels of coal-oil and gasoline for automobiles, for there were quite a few cars on the reservation. Automobiles , in fact, were the only modern convenience in the lives of these modern pioneers who stepped from the running board straight back into the conditions of coveredwagon days. The needs of the people were tremendous and insistent. And the needs of the people had to find expression in some way if they were to be met. The print shop was ready, The Wand was ready, I was ready-the only hitch was that I couldn't operate the new press we had bought, because we couldn't put it together. Ida Mary and I labored futilely with bolts and screws and other iron parts for two days. I had sat down in the doorway to rest, exhausted by my tussle with the machinery, when I saw a man corning from the Indian settlement. He appeared against the horizon as if he had ridden out of the ether, riding slowly, straight as an Indian, but as he came closer I saw he was a white man. At the door he dismounted, threw the reins on the ground, and walked past me into the store, lifting his slouch hat as he entered. A man rather short of stature, sturdy, with a wide-set jaw and flat features that would have been homely had they not been so strong. He looked with surprise through the open door of the print shop with its stalled machinery. "What's the trouble?" he asked. I explained my predicament. "I can't put the thing to- EASY AS FALLING OFF A LOG 123 gether and I...