The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-09-13
ARIZONA POET.
Sharlot Hall Has Won Fame
With Her Pen.
Her Verses Strong Pictures Of
Western Life.
SHE is A JAYHAWKER.
Was Born on Prosser Greek
Near Lincoln.
Besides Being a Writer Is .
Practical Woman.

Sbarlot M. Hall, 1.-THE Poet of the
Desert" the young woman whose west
ern poems have attracted such general
attention OF late is a Kansas girl.
though her home has been for IDany
years In Arizona.
She was born on Prosser creek near
Lincoln, Kansas. her people being the
first settlers on that stream which was
into a pioneer home. an outpost and
stopping place for travellers pushing
still farther west. Her earliest memory
is of guns and soldiers. guns on walls
and floor till the house looked like an
arsenal, soldiers lost and half-frozen In
a Kansas blizzard struggling in to claim
the hospitality of the log cabin and the
long dug OUT
There were Indian lodge poles still
standing in the little groves along the
tsream and the gray old Goals under
which she played were stripped of their
bark as high as a man could reach
mute witness of a snowbound Indian
camp and starving ponies. Under these
trees still stands the big white house of
sawed limestone built by her father.
and once al least a fort of refuge when
rumors of an Indian outbreak sen. the
scattered settlers flying for safety.
When the girl was nine her family re-
moved with teams in the Ole frontier
way to Barber county and after three
years there struck out again overland
in search of newer cattle range be-
yonG the Rocky Mountains.
They left their ranch near Medicine
Lodge in November and the 12-year-old
girl kept the saddle for three months.
driving a band of loose horses after the
wagon. Over the summit of the Rock
les they ploughed their way on Christ
mas day; breaking through safely while
other parties were snowbound or strick-
en- with smallpox then raging along the
whole route. Down through the forests
of the western slope, deep in snow, till
in February they reached Prescott, Ari-
IONA, and soon after took up cattle
ranch near that place.
Since that time. what with dairying.
ranching, mining. and fruit growing,
the years have been busy ones; Miss
Hall is more of a woman of affairs than
of literature; she Writes only in the odds
and ends of tire that come to woman
on & ranch which is still part of the
frontier She is distinctly a home wo-
man with a knowledge of household lore
vastly greater than of poetry and in
fer note books recipes for toothsome
dishes jostle the plot of story and the
outline of new poems.
She has always been, as she says, too
busy for clubs or fads of any Sort but
never too busy to keep in touch with
the broadest thought of the day In
her world doing has been first and
dreaming secondary, as may be gath
cred from Ter work, which is nowhere
vague or shadowy, or given to the pessi-
sex. That big. strong, rough outdoor
world in which she has lived life of
harder work and greater responsibility
than comes to most, demands strength
of it's children and gives strength in
turn. She is in way primitive wo-
man, whose work must be measureS by
mountains rather than city streets. Her
| field is the Erfr1s sun-.,qrched deserts