The San Francisco call., 1906-11-11

- HOSE readers who love the open
spaces Of the earth. the sea and
the prairies, and stories about
the simple. fearless men and
women who live there-empire building
pioneers-will find in Eleanor Gates
Pillow Woman" an ideal book. It seems
10 nl ones lungs with the keen, pure
air Of the Dakota plains.
Tie plot is as simple and direct as
the speech Of the people who make it.
A story of the plains with a compli-
Gated plot would be absurd. for the
characters of the people and their
modes OF thought and expression-and
action-are startlingly direct and quick.
The book possesses TO an unusual de-
gree that heaven-born thing called at
mosphere.@ which is the breath Of life
10 story or 2 picture, and II moves
with an exciting rush of incident that
holds the readers interest to the end.
Dallas, THE PIow Woman is, OF
course the chief character Of the story.
Evan Lancaster. the crippled father of
Dallas and her sister Marylyn. is poor
stick Marylyu is the ingenue. pretty,
intensely feminine and helpless, but
lovable, Lounsbury. who keeps store
in Bismarck. the nearest town across
the plains, is the ideal type Of the men
who won the West. Matthews. the bad
man." is not the dark, pale, silent, iron
uorved gambler that we are used TO,
bat blonde and full Of blood. a gambler
who would rather take an insult with
e smile and then shoot his enemy in
The back. He tried 10 Jump" the claim
that the Lancasters had toiled so hard
10 keep 10 do il when only Dallas and
her sister were al home and unprotect-
ed Then there are Squaw Charley. the
pariah Indian, and Fraser, who marries
Narylyn In the last chapter, and David
Bond. the white-haired evangelist In
the background is the fort. with its
troops. and the ever-lurking Indians.
She was born at Shakopee. Mimi,
which is a little town near St. Paul.
Her fathers ambition had been to be a
painter and he was just on the point of
starting abroad TO study when his
father met with an injury which in
Valided him and overturned all the
sons plans. and the latter went to work
TO earn his living as an interior deco
rator. This was back in the early COS.
The Gates family moved TO Minnesota
in 1864 Miss Gates eldest brother was
three years old when the terrible In
dian massacre Of 1866 occurred. The
Gates family lived in continual danger
Tor about three years. They titled the
soil at intervals, when the Indians were
not too troublesome. and fed to the
nearest fort when their war parties
came too near
In the early seventies. when the In
dian troubles were over, apparently
finding Minnesota too quiet, they
moved to what is now South Dakota,
between the Vermilion and the Jim
River, where they lived for nearly a
score Of years. There was practically
no one there in those days. The near
-
~ miles away These neighborS had
q sod house and piano. while the Gates
family had a wooden house, but no such
luxury. They had books IN plenty,
however, and it was thus that Miss
Eleanor uncOnsciously laid the foun-
dation Of her future success in htera-
ture. BY the time she was eight years
old she had read everything that she
could find, and she found a good deal
In those days part OF the livestock
on this great Dakota farm where the
Gates family lived was a large herd
of very troublesome pigs. Miss
Eleanor's task was TO mount her pony
at dawn-the light comes early on
those great plains-at o'clock in the
sumner time-and to watch those pigs
all day long. Her pony. like all West
ern horses, was well trained, so she
would take a book with her and let
the pony do the guarding and guiding
Of the herd He would trot around it,
scare back the wanderers and strag-
glers and keep all I'm order, generally.
while the girl on his back would let
the reins hang over the pommel of the
saddle and lose herself in the far-off
scenes Of a Tale of Two Cities" or Of
Vanity Fair"
In those days she had a corner in the
barn that she called her library" 1t
contained perhaps half a dozen books.