LETTERS OF A 
 DAKOTA D1VOR 
 
BERKELEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
Letters of 
 A Dakota Divorcee 
 
 By Jane Burr 
 
 BOSTON 
 THE ROXBURGH PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 INCORPORATED 
 
COPYRIGHTED 1909 
 
 BY THE ROXBURGH PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED TO 
 My Sioux FALLS FRIENDS. 
 
LOAN STACK 
 
AUTHOR S NOTE. 
 
 This little volume will soon assume the pro 
 portions of an invaluable reference book as 
 the Divorcee is gradually becoming extinct 
 in South Dakota. 
 
 Species may thrive in a given latitude and 
 longitude for ages. Suddenly the atmos 
 pheric, climatic, or diatetic conditions be 
 come so altered as to preclude the further 
 development of the species yes even the fur 
 ther survival of the animal. The result may 
 be either of two alternatives: 
 
 1st. The animal finding the habitat no 
 longer conducive to its well being may 
 migrate singly or in bunches to another en 
 vironment. In this case scientists have noted 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 that the animal undergoes a considerable 
 morphological and physiological change. 
 
 2nd. In an environment unfavorable to its 
 existence an animal may become extinct. 
 
 In the case of the South Dakota Divorcee 
 the former alternative would seem to be the 
 course followed, for up to date the animal has 
 shown itself to be quite too resourceful to 
 lapse into that most archaic condition ex- 
 tinctness. 
 
 Time was when it roamed the prairies and 
 hills of the State in vast herds, but owing to 
 the removal of the protective underbrush in 
 the form of the Referendum (which decrees 
 that one year is necessary for its complete de 
 velopment), it has gone in great droves to 
 Nevada and Oklahoma, which promise to 
 be a more suitable environment for it. 
 
 There are a few rare species left, but they 
 6 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 are disconsolate and hang- jawed and by no 
 means representative of the species. In 
 former years the Divorcee reached maturity 
 in three short months, and was so tame that it 
 built its lair near the city limits and some 
 even ventured quite into the hearts of the vil 
 lages and attempted to live there. But these 
 were half tamed individuals and by no means 
 indicative of the genus as a whole. Then 
 peculiar to relate, the environmental influ 
 ences caused them to grow less rapidly and 
 six whole months passed before a single 
 specimen could call itself full fledged. The 
 other Dakota animals sported around with 
 the Divorcee and received it a bras ouverts, 
 but the latter developed a slight degage 
 mannerism and the other beasts grew alarmed 
 and crawled within their dens. 
 
 Now they have almost died out entirely as 
 
 7 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 the atmosphere grew not only unfriendly, but 
 owing to the sudden cool change their devel 
 opment was intensely slow. The animal 
 originally migrated from New York and thus 
 anything slow would naturally unnerve its 
 intuitively high strung temperament. 
 
 And if in some future sociological period 
 of the earth s history some antiquarian of the 
 post-aviatorian age, prying into the modus 
 muendi of the men of pre-air-shippian times 
 can learn "a thing or two" about that delicate 
 gazelle-like mammal so as to show his con 
 temporaries how "fierce" living was before 
 the age of trial marriages and legitimate af 
 finities, the dessicated author will rattle what 
 is left of her teeth in a contended mummified 
 smile. 
 
Duckie Lorna: 
 
 Sip a mint julip slowly, gently, through a 
 long dry straw, then before it dies in you, 
 read my P. O. mark Sioux Falls, South 
 Dakota, Yes, I ve bolted ! 
 
 Don t dare to tell anyone where I am for if 
 my husband should find out, he might make 
 me go where I could get a divorce more 
 quickly You know I m here for his health. 
 I would splash round in orange blossoms, and 
 this is the result. 
 
 My boarding house is a love, furnished 
 with prizes got with soap " Buy ten bars 
 of our Fluffy Ruffles soap, and we will mail 
 you, prepaid, one of our large size solid ma 
 hogany library tables." 
 
 Would you believe dear, that these Sioux 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 Fallians have already complained because I 
 bathe my dear, shaggy Othello in the bath 
 tub. And there isn t a human being here 
 with a pedigree as long as his. 
 
 If you hear any talk about my being seen 
 in a Staten Island beer garden with Bern 
 Cameron, don t believe one word of it we 
 didn t go in at all, the place was too smelly. 
 And that fib about his giving me a diamond 
 ring, deny it please, as I have never shown 
 it to a soul So you can see how people manu 
 facture gossip. 
 
 I walk to the Penitentiary for recreation, as 
 I may have to visit there some day and I never 
 like to be surprised at anything. It isn t re 
 fined. 
 
 My Attorney is thoroughly picturesque. 
 He wears a coat in his office that his wife 
 must have made. His collar came from 
 10 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 Noah s grab bag, and, if you remember, 
 there was no washing machine on the ark. 
 A heavy gold chain meanders down his 
 shirt front to protect his watch from im 
 probable theft. On Sunday he passes 
 the contribution box and is considered 
 a philanthropic pest. I asked how 
 much the fee would be and he said, "One 
 hundred if you furnish witnesses, two hun 
 dred if we do." You can hire a man for five 
 dollars out here to swear that he killed you. 
 
 When my attorney talks, he sits on his 
 haunches, showing his teeth that would do 
 credit to a shark, and fancies he s smiling 
 when he permits his cracked purple lips to 
 slide back. I wouldn t trust my case to him, 
 only he could not lose if he tried. 
 
 Every time I look at him I wonder if there 
 could be a face behind that nose and those 
 11 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 whiskers, which give his head the appearance 
 of a fern dish. He wears an old silk hat whose 
 nap is attacked with a skin disease. They say 
 he belongs to one of the first families of this 
 town first on the way coming up from the 
 station I suppose. He was married years ago, 
 but isn t working at it now. I am so unstrung 
 after our seances that I feel like crawling 
 right out under a bush and eating sage. If I 
 weren t afraid of him I d raise my umbrella 
 while he talks his conversation is so 
 showery. In my ingrown heart I hate him 
 so there is no danger for me, tho I ve heard 
 that he s a perfect fusser with the women. 
 
 I telephoned the livery stable yesterday and 
 asked if any of the hearse horses were idle, as 
 I d like to take a ride. The fellow said he d 
 send me a winner, so I togged up in my 
 bloomers, boots and spurs and stood on the 
 12 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 veranda waiting. A young boy galloped up 
 with something dragging behind him. I said : 
 "Do you call that insect a horse?" he an 
 swered ; "No, but it used to be, m am." The 
 poor creature was all bones and only waiting 
 for a nudge to push him into the grave. I 
 mounted the broncho, which kept "bronk- 
 ing," but after an encouraging tclk-tclk, I 
 made a detour of the block, then sent the nag 
 to the stable. 
 
 There were two children and a dog 
 drowned here yesterday it almost makes one 
 afraid to go near the tub. 
 
 The man who sits on my right at the table, 
 says he s here for nervousness. First time I 
 ever heard a divorce called that, but anyway 
 we all know that he gets out of jail on 
 December, and I will be glad, for the way he 
 plays the anvil chorus with his soup makes me 
 13 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 get out of my skin backwards. Hope some 
 day that the Devil will play dominoes with his 
 bones. 
 
 The lady on the other end, chews with her 
 lips and of course I m always excited for fear 
 her dinner will fall overboard. The way she 
 juggles food would get her a job in the vaude 
 ville game any day. She sits up as tho she d 
 been impaled, and the shaft broken off in her 
 body. 
 
 Long ago a being, desirous of unhitch- 
 ment could come here, rent a room, hang her 
 pajamas in the closet and fade away back to 
 Broadway, but times are changed, and you 
 must serve six months or the Judge s wife 
 will not let you have a divorce. The Judge s 
 house is next to mine and the way I look de 
 mure when I pass, is a heathenism hypocrisy. 
 But he is under petticoat tyranny and I dread 
 
 ruffling the petticoat. 
 
 14 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 Formerly the law was three months, but the 
 Cataract Hotel had the Legislature change it 
 as they could not make enough money. 
 
 We had chicken last night and asparagus 
 tips did you ever notice what a lot of skin a 
 boarding house chicken has? And the tips 
 just missed by one, being tip. The meals 
 are an unsatisfactory substitute for something 
 to eat, and I find myself filling up on bread to 
 keep my stomach and backbone apart. 
 
 I am up against old timers that are always 
 to be met at boarding houses the dear old 
 soldier and the lady "too heavy for light 
 amusements, and not old enough to sit in the 
 corner and knit," as George Ade puts it. She 
 is simply ubiquitous; she is everywhere; she 
 does not gossip! Oh no! Still she wonders 
 if they really are married, you know, and if 
 that strange man is her brother or not? Oh 
 
 IS 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 you know the whole tribe! Dear old para 
 sites on the body politic! I have also had 
 sudden paralysis of the jaw from looking into 
 a country mirror and was not again con 
 vinced, until consulting my own hand glass 
 during the night that one of my eyes had not 
 slipped down below my nose. I can get along 
 very well if my hair is not parted at all, but 
 I insist upon my features remaining in the 
 same locations. 
 
 I am copying down some of the stories that 
 I hear as they are well worth it, and may come 
 in handy some day. I have the advantage of 
 coming upon them suddenly for the first time, 
 with an absolute unbiased mind, which like 
 the Bellman s chart in "The Hunting of the 
 Snark" is "a perfect and absolute blank." 
 
 I know I shall go mad before the six 
 months are up, for after ten days, I am down- 
 
 16 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 down deep in a bog of melancholy, and so 
 bored that I feel like the president of the gim 
 let club. 
 
 My stomach like nature abhors a vacuum, 
 so me to the strangled eggs and baked spuds 
 which are our unfailing morning diet. 
 
 In the name of Charity, send me messages 
 from the world I love. 
 
 Devotedly, 
 
 MARIANNE. 
 
Dearest Lorna: 
 
 There s an old maid here (Heaven knows 
 she s out of place) who wears her hair in one 
 of those "tied for life knots," and she comes 
 tip-toeing to my room each night to ask me 
 if I think she ll ever get a man. Because I ve 
 had one, and am making something that re 
 sembles a trousseau, she thinks that I have a 
 recipe for cornering the male market. Her 
 dental arch is like the porte-cochere of the 
 new Belmont Hotel, and last night a pre 
 cocious four-year-old said, "Miss Mandy, why 
 don t you tuck your teeth in?" Miss Mandy 
 would if she could but she can t. She is the 
 sort who would stop her own funeral to sew 
 up a hole in her shroud. 
 
 The moonlight nights here are a perfect 
 
 18 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 irritation, and I really think this moon isn t 
 half as calloused to demonstration as our dear 
 old New York moon. There are so few men 
 here that the female congregation is getting 
 terribly out of practice. 
 
 I have found out lately that our attorneys 
 out here rob us of everything and politely al 
 low us to keep the balance. 
 
 My abode of virtue is rilled with furniture 
 from the vintage of the early forties and I sit 
 in it alone and am so pathetically good, that I 
 am begining to suspect myself. 
 
 You know I was born when I was very 
 young and have been desperately tidy about 
 my morals ever since, but for fear of stumb 
 ling just because I m so bored I have en 
 trenched myself behind a maddening routine 
 Six months here ought to put ballast into the 
 brain of the silliest. 
 
 19 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 I think that marriage has become a social 
 atrophy, and I never want to be guilty of ir 
 revocably skewering two hearts together. 
 
 I fear myself only when I m bored. Eve 
 never would have flirted with the snake if 
 Adam hadn t got on her nerves. I always 
 could resist everything but temptation. 
 
 Bern once told me that every married man 
 ought to be made to run after his wife. And 
 I told him he d be out of breath most of the 
 time if he tied up with me. 
 
 I went to church Sunday and the funny 
 man at the head of the table said he was going 
 round to view the ruins in the afternoon. 
 Father Time, who sits opposite me and mows 
 down the food said, "Every stylish woman I 
 see, I know she s getting a divorce and I can t 
 understand it, as most of them are good look- 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 ing." I answered "You didn t see the other 
 half." 
 
 I am not going to correspond with Bern as 
 our mail might be intercepted. For although 
 I m passing through the mournful ceremony 
 of losing my husband in South Dakota, I 
 don t want to gather too much dust on my 
 skirts on the way to the funeral. We send 
 each other registered letters every day but 
 that s different nobody could possibly get 
 those. 
 
 There is a woman here who does a queer, 
 pretty sort of embroidery. And she said this 
 morning with unquenchable urbanity, "I will 
 learn you how to do shadow work." Now 
 Bern and I have been busy on all sorts of 
 shadow work for the past four years in New 
 York, but this is a different pattern. Sioux 
 Falls is plethoric of widows and when one 
 21 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 is freed, the other convicts writhe under the 
 burden of their stripes. Dearie, won t you 
 drop in and try to quiet my dressmaker? She 
 is beginning to show evidences of dissatis 
 faction inscrutable sign-manual of finances 
 at low tide. I m not rich but I m sweet and 
 clean did I hear two dollars and a dish of 
 cherries ? 
 
 I have bought a calendar with the dates on 
 a block of pages one page for each day, just 
 for the joy of tearing them off with a vim 
 every twenty-four hours. Sometimes I allow 
 two days to pass, then I do a war dance like 
 a Sioux, wild at the opportunity of pulling off 
 a couple at a time. 
 
 There is a N. Y. Central time table on my 
 desk and I am eternally looking up train con 
 nections until I feel like a bureau of informa 
 tion. I have enough money to get back on, 
 
 22 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 tucked away in my stocking. And if I have 
 to take in washing I won t touch it. Funds 
 are getting very low so I ve started writing 
 short stories again but "like" usual, publishers 
 don t seem to recognize a genius and my P. O. 
 box is always filled with long yellow come 
 backs slip enclosed "Sorry we find your valu 
 able Mss. unavailable for our publication, 
 etc." However, nothing beats trying but fail 
 ure. And although everything on this mud 
 ball looks inky, and I am once more Past 
 Grand Master of Hoodoo Philosophy, I shall 
 grit my teeth and push ahead as I have done 
 a thousand times before. My debts are grow 
 ing like a snow ball and although I am not 
 entirely broke, I am so badly bent that it 
 ceases to be funny. There isn t a blooded 
 dog here except the ones we Easterners 
 bring. The Sioux Falls dogs are like the 
 23 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 people you can t tell exactly what breed 
 they are, but as a few of the N. Y. lawyers 
 and doctors and a few of the N. Y. dogs have 
 remained here, we hope for a better blending 
 in the next litter. 
 
 There is an Englishman here who calls him 
 self "Chappie" but "Baw Jove" he never saw 
 the other side of the Atlantic if I am any 
 judge. But you can hand these people any 
 sort of pill and they ll swallow it without 
 making a face. We have no indigestible 
 pleasures here, but the food. I am suffering 
 from gastric nostalgia. I was so hungry 
 for something sharp and sour last night that 
 I bought a bottle of horse-radish and ate it 
 in cold blood. Today my digestive apparatus 
 is slumped and I feel like the ragged edge 
 of a misspent career. 
 
 Every night the man in the next room, 
 24 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 treats himself to a skin full and comes home 
 so pleasantly lit up that he has to be put to 
 bed. Last night he must have drunk like the 
 sands of the desert, for he was a bit more 
 tipsy than ever and flung apologies and 
 hiccoughs over my transom. 
 
 I look back upon my old life as an impres 
 sion received in the dawn, and already it 
 seems but a level highroad on a gray day. 
 Marriage laws were made by old maids 
 any ona can see that. And they have decreed 
 that conjugal love, apart from passion, is ele 
 vating and a woman in yielding herself may 
 evict the sanctum of love if the man may 
 legally call her his own. It s all wrong dear 
 woman has been sacrificed to the family. And 
 what a degrading imitation of Nature to pro 
 pagate the species. How glorious never again 
 to be shod in the slippers of matrimony I 
 
 25 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 seem to demand the advantages of marriage 
 with none of the drawbacks. 
 
 To return to things less serious, Othello 
 hates something about my new combination 
 lingerie and barks like fury when I put it on 
 maybe it is the blue ribbon I ll try a dash of 
 lavender tomorrow. 
 
 You will agree that my geistes ab vesend 
 has reached an alarming degree when I tell 
 you that this A. M. after my tub, I liberally 
 dashed tooth powder all over my body instead 
 of talcum. 
 
 My affection is all for you for the oppo 
 site sex it seems to have grown as cold as 
 a raked-out oven. 
 
 Goodnight, 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 26 
 
September 21. 
 
 Most Precious Lorna: 
 
 I am excited excited from the bottom lift 
 on my French heels to the top hair on my 
 golden puffs. 
 
 Now who would have thought that the 
 "Fate Sisters" would discover me way out 
 here and sit on the corner of Minnesota and 
 I2th spinning their breakable yarn. 
 
 Well well yesterday the one with the 
 weary look and the crooked nose, got a knot 
 in her twine and this is how it happened. 
 I was crossing this Minnie-something street, 
 when a shrill siren and the cannonade of a 
 powerful exhaust warned me to stay my toot 
 sies. I wasn t looking for a big white aseptic 
 machine out here or any other kind, so the 
 
 21 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 blooming thing crashed into us and rather 
 than have Bunky hurt, I ran the risk (not 
 quite, but nearly) of losing my life, but not 
 until I had assured myself that the man at 
 the wheel was exotic to this soil. 
 
 Zip-bang-gasoline-smoke! and I was fished 
 out, laid tenderly on the back seat and rushed 
 to a druggery. I allowed the dramatic spirits 
 of pneumonia to be forced down my throat 
 by his manicured hands and somehow I could 
 n t find the courage to take my head away 
 from his shoulder it was such a comfy, tail 
 ored Fifth Avenue shoulder. You know my 
 reputation 30 years in a circus and never 
 lost a spangle. 
 
 What is it that the Christian Scientists have 
 on their souvenir spoons: "There is no life 
 in matter?" well old girl I can sign a testi 
 monial to the opposite. Poor little Bunky 
 28 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 added one more knot to his tail during the 
 mix-up, but as every knot is worth twenty- 
 four dollars on a French bull pup s tail, I 
 don t mind this acquisition. 
 
 I was asked the other day if Bunk was a 
 Pomeranian and I said, "No, a French bull 
 pup." The woman answered, "That s the 
 same thing, isn t it?" 
 
 Finally with a little home-made sob I opened 
 my eyes and asked the same question that 
 Eve put to Adam the morning after God had 
 presented him with that poisonous bon-bon. 
 "Where am I?" and it s none of your in 
 quisitive business what he answered. The 
 white auto will call tonight to see of I m still 
 living and meantime I have ordered fifty 
 yards of white dabby stuff from "Fantles" to 
 keep busy on. No not a trousseau I shall 
 never never marry again I m too full of 
 
 experience. 
 
 29 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 I told the white auto that I had been 
 hemmed in so long that I did not know how 
 to act in decent society any more and he said 
 he s the best hem-ripper that ever lived, so I 
 think I ll take a chance. Isn t there a great 
 difference in men, dear? But, in husbands 
 they vary only in the color of their hair. 
 
 I m so glad motors stand without hitching. 
 Now you ll say "Can t you leave men alone 
 for six months?" Sometimes my conscience 
 does get feverish and bothers me, but it s so 
 seldom that I am grateful for the change as it 
 acts as a stimulation to my gray matter 
 whatever that is. 
 
 My honest intentions were to leave off my 
 puffs and artificials while here, just to give 
 Nature a chance, but now that I have been 
 run over by an auto I consider the plan inad 
 visable. 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 There are dandy golf links here but they 
 don t allow "Divorsays" on the ground. The 
 Sioux Falls women, (cats for short) had it 
 stopped three years ago, because they were 
 all neglected when any number of my tribe 
 appeared. 
 
 Not a soul knows what I m here for. One 
 must never tell. That s the first divorce col 
 ony by-law. I have become a perfect diplo 
 mat and know how to keep still in three 
 languages. I just casually told my troubles 
 to the boarding house keeper and her daugh 
 ters, but they don t count, as they are such 
 dears, and it won t go any further. 
 
 As long as I live, my attorney says, I must 
 sign in hotel registers from Sioux Falls If 
 I do the clerks will stoop to pick cockle burrs 
 and tumble weeds off my skirts and help me 
 to loosen my Indian wampum whatever that 
 is. 
 
 31 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 Father Time, whom I mentioned in my 
 last and who possesses as much energy for 
 getting divorces (this being his third time on 
 earth) as Roosevelt exhibits in the Baby mar 
 ket, has taken to peddling "The Ladies Home 
 Journal," and the "Saturday Evening Post/ 
 and if you only knew how cunning he looks 
 with his abbreviated coat and short,quick, lit 
 tle steps, you would give a dollar for a picture 
 of him to paste in your book of curiosities of 
 the world. 
 
 Court was in session last week and all sorts 
 of real Indians paraded the streets. They 
 weren t like our dear old Irish Indians on 
 Manhattan Island, who perambulate inside 
 little houses placarded with one night corn 
 cures; these were the real article and their 
 wives walked behind, just like New York 
 wives, carrying an orphan asylum on their 
 
 32 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 backs and provisions for the week on their 
 hips. 
 
 Poor down trodden creatures. I feel like 
 organizing a class to show them how to mar- 
 celle their mops and "straight front" their 
 stomachs. A tommyhawk for me and no mop 
 to marcelle if I try to revolutionize Indian- 
 dom. 
 
 Last night at a wonderful performance of 
 Fiske in "Rosmerholm," the house was packed 
 with Indians and in the ghostly part where 
 everybody throws himself into the mill-stream, 
 Squaw Sloppy-Closey and Chief Many-Licey 
 opened soda pop and passed it to each other 
 for a drink out of the same bottle. Poor 
 Fiske was horrified and threatened to stop 
 the performance if the soda pop artillery 
 didn t cease its bombarding. 
 
 The wind tears around the corner of my 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 room on the bias and the cats keep up a Thom 
 as Concert beneath my windows all night long. 
 No wonder I have nightmares. Last night 
 I dreamed that I was a saint with an apple 
 pie for a halo this boarding house pie habit 
 will eventually tell on the strongest nerves. 
 
 Last night I cut my leg on a barbed wire 
 no dear I wasn t hurdling the fence the wire 
 was on the side walk, where everything ex 
 cept the kitchen stove usually lies. I hope 
 I won t have lockjaw it s harder on a wo 
 man than it is on a man anytime. I was just 
 thinking how clever it would be, if a man 
 who had a chattering wife, would keep a 
 bunch of rusty pins on hand. 
 
 I sat down to the piano this morning and 
 ran through that pyrotechnical Solfigetto by 
 the other Bach, and Father Time, who sat en 
 chanted, said, "You and the piano has met 
 
 34 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 before." It s a shame to cheat the aged. 
 
 Thank heaven that the sunshine is free and 
 that the florist s window is gratis to look at, 
 otherwise on my slender means I should have 
 to take advantage of the bankrupt law. 
 
 My old friend Insomnia again stands in 
 cessantly at the foot of my bed and bids me 
 corner the sunrise market. A heavy heart is 
 mine tonight and though I try to fancy beau 
 tiful pictures in the crystal ball of the future, 
 I grow sick with anticipation as the visions 
 fall away before they are half formed, leaving 
 me melancholy and wondering if there is an 
 angel somewhere who collects the sighs of 
 such ever-repressed feeling. 
 
 Goodnight, 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 35 
 
October 5. 
 Lorna Dear: 
 
 Well, Lorna, you and I were "all day suck 
 ers" to believe that Mrs. Phyllis Lathrop was 
 touring California; I bumped plump into her 
 yesterday in front of the poor-house. No, 
 dear, I did not go there to stay, merely to 
 visit. Phyllis is nice in her red-headed way 
 and looked very fresh and sweet with the 
 lower part of her face lost in a tulle abyss. 
 She lives just a whisper away from me so 
 strange I haven t seen her before. She s trot 
 ting around with a Sioux Falls fellow who 
 looks like a Dutch luncheon favor. Every 
 time he lifts his hat I look for bon-bons to 
 drop out. Says she must be loving someone 
 all the time, even if she is considered in the 
 
 36 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 light of an accommodation train. She s the 
 unfinished sort of a woman who carries her 
 beauty around in little tubes and seems so used 
 to audiences that I always feel that she must 
 have sung between the acts. 
 
 Town Topics said something about "The 
 soft breezes of California restoring the bloom 
 to Phyllis cheeks" to think that T. Ts got 
 fogged in the matter is consoling to such les 
 ser lights as you and I. You can take it 
 from me, "the soft breezes of California" are 
 blowing into her room in a nearby Sioux Falls 
 boarding house, but instead of being laden 
 with the scent of flowers they are redolent of 
 hash from the cookery. I ll take off my hat 
 to her. She was a slick duck. Of course she 
 denied nothing to me her time is up soon; 
 then she will lay her history before the Judge, 
 who is always busy picking hairs from his 
 
 37 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 coat and doing other things of vital import 
 while you pour out your heart s woes. 
 
 The fellow whose motor sent me to the 
 brink of the Styx, is now preparing me by 
 night light to take the 33d degree of happiness. 
 You have heard of him I know, Carlton Som- 
 erville, the Wall Street broker. I forget what 
 it was his wife did that got on his nerves, 
 but anyway he too is hibernating in Sioux 
 Falls clay. We have gotten "First-namey" 
 and have frankly decided that in order to 
 keep our cleverness from dying of inanition, 
 we will practice on each other. 
 
 How could you, my dearest friend, accuse 
 me of being forgetful of Bern? He wouldn t 
 appreciate me at all if I forgot how. And 
 really six months of non-practice would be 
 ruination. 
 
 Carlton has fallen in love over his depth 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 with that beefy Mrs. Claymore and takes me 
 motoring to pour his love (of her) into my 
 aural labyrinths. I don t object to playing 
 second fiddle, but when it comes to holding 
 the triangle for the drummer, I pass blind. 
 Never mind, while he isn t watching some 
 day he ll get stung, for I m really fond of 
 him. You say that you are so much stronger 
 willed than I am did you ever look at your 
 self in the mirror? Carlton has eyes that I 
 adore they are the deeply sad sort that would 
 make one think that love had passed that way. 
 If it really hasn t, he might as well begin to 
 put up the grand stand and have the tickets 
 printed. My dear, I d never marry another 
 man with a memory most inconvenient asset 
 that a husband can possess. 
 
 "Chappie," the Englishman, has started a 
 society paper sort of six months gestation of 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 Town Topics, so Carlton and I are batting 
 around after midnight, so "we won t become 
 saw." There are all sorts of ways to make a 
 bee buzz. Do keep Bern from wearing red 
 ties while I m gone and give him a shove 
 along the straight and narrow, once and so 
 often. 
 
 After a month and a half of drinking Sioux 
 Falls water, I would bring a higher price as a 
 lime kiln than I would in the woman market. 
 One s pelt gets wind tanned and such a thing 
 as a daintily flushed face is as unlooked for 
 out here as consideration from the natives. 
 
 My head ached so yesterday that I called 
 on a doctor, Visit including all medicine, one 
 dollar." Isn t it "patetic?" He raved about 
 the climate and said he brought his wife here 
 with T. B., and she improved so much. Nat 
 urally I asked, "How is she now?" He said, 
 40 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 "O, she s dead." Don t blame him for raving 
 about the climate, do you? 
 
 My dear it is worth a trip out here to see 
 a whist party "let out." No, not "bridge," 
 they haven t heard of it yet just plain whist; 
 but as I was saying, to see one turn out with 
 its white alpaca skirt and blue satin ribbon 
 belt. I ve paid two dollars at Hammerstein s 
 to see things not half so funny. O, for a sip 
 of Fleischman s coffee there are grounds for 
 divorce in every cup out here. The butter we 
 eat, walks in from the country alone, and at 
 every meal we get smashed potatoes piled as 
 high as the snow on the Alps. I can t look a 
 potato in the eye any more. 
 
 There is a couple here on business from 
 Michigan, a Mr. and Mrs. Jones, odd name 
 that. Isn t it sad that they are so happily 
 married, they might both be getting divorces, 
 
 41 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 but as it is they are simply wasting a year out 
 here for nothing. I passed the Judge on the 
 street this morning and I was so nervous that 
 I walked bow-legged. But thanks to skirts 
 et cetera-et cetera. 
 
 I have sampled all the churches and have 
 finally landed at the Christian Science house 
 of worship, as I would rather any day hear 
 a pianola grind out its papier mache music 
 than listen to a poor performer. 
 
 If I had Carnegie s millions, I d go 
 straight to Chicago, buy a big, fat, thick, 
 be*ef steak, step into the middle of it and 
 eat my way out. I m hungry, hungry. I 
 worry down the "dope" that they deal out in 
 the dining room, then go back to my sanc 
 tum and finish on limey water and crack- 
 nells you know what they are, a powdery 
 sort of counterfeit cake that chokes you to 
 
 42 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 death if you happen to breathe while you re 
 chewing it. 
 
 Last night while trying to cut some 
 stringy roast beef and still retain my dig 
 nity, the man with the red tie said: "Put 
 your other foot on it." I m afraid if I don t 
 eat potatoes again, my stomach will shrivel 
 so that I will never be able to sit through a 
 course dinner when I get back. Potatoes 
 distend it all right I feel like I have swal 
 lowed one wing of Fleischman s yeast fac 
 tory whenever I eat them. You have to 
 come down on the meat with such force to 
 make any impression on it, that more gets 
 pushed up between your teeth than goes 
 down your alimentary canal; then you spend 
 the balance of the night squandering Japan 
 ese dental floss. I unconciously finish my 
 prayers with "Lord preserve us from the 
 
 43 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 holy trinity of roast beef, roast mutton and 
 roast pork." 
 
 You can recognise one of the clan in a 
 moment by what is known as the "Divor- 
 say jaw." No feek and weeble expression 
 on our faces but "Do or die" is the look we 
 have in our optics. 
 
 Every time I go to church I vow I ll never 
 go again. The organ is asthmatic and the 
 wheezing gets on my gray matter. 
 
 The Judge has begun to wear a fur coat 
 Dakota cow fur, I think, and he looks for 
 all the world like a turkey gobbler in distress. 
 
 I sleep on what they call here a "sanitary 
 couch." Can t fathom the mystery of the 
 name, for mine is so chucked with dust that 
 I dream I m in a sand storm crossing the 
 Sahara, and when I awaken my sympathies 
 are keen with the camel. 
 
 44 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 There s a new boarder here whose face 
 looks like a chapel and every time she opens 
 her mouth you re afraid it s going to be the 
 Lord s Prayer. She wears a wide ruching 
 which makes her look excited; distributes 
 tracts, and can t see a joke. She says she s 
 Miss and leaves envelopes around with 
 "Mrs." written on them in red ink modest 
 writing fluid I ve always considered it. 
 
 Will you buy me some new puffs? Mine 
 are all ratty and I feel bare-footed without 
 them. Enclosed is a clipping from my hair. 
 Read it carefully. False hair is no crime 
 as long as it matches like that German 
 song that says "Kissing is no sin with a 
 pretty woman." 
 
 Have you caught "Three Weeks" yet? 
 I had a violent attack a few days ago. 
 Cured it with a small dose of Christian 
 
 45 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 Science before meals and some of Bunyan s 
 Pilgrim s Progress, which I shook well 
 after using. 
 
 You can imagine what disastrous effect 
 Eleanor Glynn s book had on the "Divorce 
 Colony." We all bunched together and 
 said "What s the use," and if it hadn t been 
 for the old man who eats his soup out loud, 
 we would have bolted in a mass to suggest 
 "Free Love" to our respective "Fiascos" 
 Dakota s past tense for "Fiance." 
 
 I long so to flash my calciums on a Fifth 
 Ave. stroller that I d flirt with God if I 
 met him. 
 
 I close dear with a sigh over my chin, 
 which is getting triple (an invention of the 
 devil). 
 
 Auf wiedersehen, 
 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 46 
 
* October 25. 
 My Dear: 
 
 I ve changed lodgings and before I took 
 the new chambers, I inquired of the land 
 lady if there was any electricity in the 
 house and she answered "Yes," so today I 
 asked here where it was, and she pointed to 
 the telephone. O, me ! O, my ! this life is 
 wearing me to a fraz ! 
 
 Last week the autumn leaves fell and in 
 order to show Mrs. Judge how simple and 
 near to nature I live, I raked their lawn, 
 and ours, clean, and stood long after dark 
 making huge bonfires on a line with the 
 sidewalk. But lo! the fleas that were of the 
 earth became the fleas of me and I have oc 
 cupied most of my time since scratching. 
 47 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 But anything to pass the hours away. 
 
 Our hedges are cut for the last time this 
 fall, and look as though they are fresh from 
 the barber. Isn t that phrase "for the last 
 time" the most desolate utterance that a 
 human voice can make? It goes thunder 
 ing down the aisles of time only to be lost 
 in the arcana of treacherous memory. To 
 dream for the last time to love for the last 
 time bitter contemplation funereal intro 
 spection. 
 
 I am suffering from acute nostalgia by 
 this time you are standing in the gun-room 
 at Keith Lodge, drinking your first. I can 
 hear Duncan ask: "Scotch or Irish," and 
 see you tip it off with Blake and the rest. 
 No bridge for you tonight early to bed and 
 tomorrow morning you ll all start out in 
 your natty knickers and short kilts to mur- 
 
 48 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 der things that will fall in bloody feathery 
 heaps at your feet. Native woodcock, jack 
 snipe, black mallard, grouse, etc., the rest 
 less eager setters doing their own retriev 
 ing; the soft dank ground daintily over 
 spread with the frond of marvelous fern like 
 my window pane this morning with its deli 
 cate tracery in frost; the tall-stemmed 
 alders echoing your shots to skyward ; the big 
 dense timber with its springy ground all 
 saturated with the fragrance of the mount 
 ing sea: I seem like something dead whis 
 pering to you from the tomb. Nothing lasts 
 longer than twenty-four hours in New York 
 not even a memory, so no one misses me. 
 It s another of God s jollies and I know 
 I m ungrateful dear, for you are thinking 
 of me I know, with my dear old "Sport" 
 ready to point for you tomorrow, just to 
 
 49 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 receive your pats of recognition and thanks. 
 My feelings are worn into meaningless 
 smoothness like the head on an old coin, 
 and because I have added my quota of ab 
 surdity to the morning papers I am no 
 longer interesting. But, pshaw! one can t 
 buy cocaine for a nickel, and as I could live 
 extravagantly on the interest of my debts, 
 I haven t more than five cents to invest. 
 
 Don t mind this slump in grit it will 
 return to par and slang tomorrow. Keep a 
 record of all you do to send to me, and 
 above all win the cup. With whom are 
 you shooting? 
 
 I will now stuff the cracks of my door 
 with medicated cotton, open the portholes 
 and smoke my cigarette alone Lord pre 
 serve me, if anybody knew ! See if you can t 
 get the Humane Society to form a branch 
 
 50 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 out here to feed and water the widows. 
 
 I have just returned from a little walk 
 with Carlton I suppose my eyes prattled, 
 for he smiled at me through his wrinkles 
 and was rather more thoughtful of my com 
 forts than usual. His Insouciance is charm 
 ing and always turns the tide of my melan 
 choly. He is the only man who ever ven 
 tured to stand on my tack and take me 
 broadsides. We have framed up a little 
 Bacchic plot to be enacted on our way back 
 from the Post where I shall soon meander 
 to mail this on the late Rock Island. 
 
 I am certainly in love, because I know the 
 symptoms, but I can t tell with whom, 
 some temperature, high pulse and strange 
 flutterings but who is the victim? Bern 
 or Howard in New York or Carlton here? 
 The thought of all of them stirs me, so how 
 
 51 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 am I to know which is in the lead? Hope 
 the period of incubation will soon be over 
 and the blooming thing assert itself. I have 
 often been vaccinated and the thing always 
 takes, but still I am not immune and never 
 will be until I am six feet under, even if I 
 live to be an hundred years old! Did you 
 catch the an? But it s disgusting not to 
 know whether it is the measles or some 
 thing worse, however I am taking all pre 
 cautions and awaiting developments. 
 
 I often wonder what I ll do with my de 
 cree when I get it I can t wear it on 
 my finger, and it certainly isn t the thing 
 for gold leaf and a shadow box Oh! I 
 shan t waste time placing it; perhaps Carl- 
 ton will find a pigeon-hole for it somewhere. 
 
 I haven t written to Bern in days, but I 
 don t care; I never considered a banker as 
 
 52 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 one of the human race, anyway. Poor 
 Bern; he s thrown out like a bill in Parlia 
 ment! Beaten by a blackball called Carl- 
 ton I d hate to see him now. Roland the 
 Furious is charming in a poem, but in a 
 drawing room, prosaic and expensive. 
 
 Carlton and I went to church Sunday 
 and were refused communion the dear 
 good Bishop has but one eye, so he sees 
 things half way. I said: "If this is God s 
 table, I want communion, if it s the Episco 
 pal, I don t." In his sermon he called divor 
 cees "social lepers, social filthiness," and 
 said: "After the new law goes into effect, 
 we ll have no more dumping here." He s 
 an old pop-gun that shoots spit-balls, so 
 the wounds he makes are not fatal. Carl- 
 ton refuses to go to church here or any 
 where else again, and will once more trudge 
 
 53 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 along his Sunday field of Bacchus cultivated 
 by Venus. 
 
 By the way, after June 1st, all divorcees 
 will be required to stay one year, then they 
 won t come at all. Oklahoma had a hunch 
 and changed her law back to three months. 
 Now the colony will transplant itself, then 
 watch the death agony of Sioux Falls. She s 
 foolish foolish ! The Easterners have made 
 this burg what it is. Take away our influ 
 ence and she ll sink into nothingness again. 
 Some of us are bad, but all of us are not; 
 however, the Sioux Falls gossips make no 
 distinction. They lift their $2.98 skirts 
 when they pass us, for fear of inoculation 
 by the bacillus divorce. I often wonder if 
 they realize that the prejudice is returned 
 with compound interest. 
 
 When any new gossip is born, they fly 
 
 54 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 around the streets like the beads of a rosary 
 when the string is snapped. Perhaps you 
 haven t noticed how serious this letter is. 
 I m frowning as I write a habit most bad 
 on the eyebrows surest of signs that I am 
 sinking again into the quagmire of love. 
 
 I have felt my pulse so often and know all 
 the symptoms which I more than enjoy 
 scrutinizing not even the finest emotion 
 escapes me. I believe that I play the game 
 well for I am still unjaded, which is unusual 
 with so much over-feeding. 
 
 Is your new fur coat unborn lamb, or did 
 it happen? Speaking of possessions my 
 appendix still gives me ample proof of its 
 constancy. The blue devils are chasing me 
 today and I am wearing the expression that 
 sits on the lips of every portrait in every 
 exhibition. I smile to keep from crying, 
 
 55 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 because if I cry I m lost! 
 
 As I am of the experienced elite of soci 
 ety that sups, I must bid you adieu I 
 promise more jocosity in my next. 
 
 Affy, 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 56 
 
December i. 
 
 Since writing you I have heard the turkey 
 gobbler say his last prayer and have had a 
 coming out party for "Penny," short for 
 appendix. The receiving party was com 
 prised of two eminent surgeons, two trained 
 nurses, who served adhesive plaster and in 
 struments, and an "etherist" who poured. 
 Costumes were uniformly white with great 
 profusion of gauze trimmings, with which 
 I also eventually became somewhat deco 
 rated. One of the internes wasn t half bad, 
 so I kept the nurse busy combing my 
 adopted hair and pinning it on becomingly. 
 It is a much quicker and easier process to 
 have your appendix cut out than your hus 
 band. 
 
 57 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 I was away four weeks and am now back 
 in Sioux and well taken care of by my land 
 lady, whose hair and face disagree as to age. 
 My walls are hung with ten-cent store art, 
 and if I were not awfully strong-minded I 
 could not overcome the effect. 
 
 The white auto called last night, and as 
 my head rested on his shoulder our conver 
 sation was the rambling sort that may be 
 ticketed "all rights reserved," , so I won t 
 repeat it as the postmaster-general would 
 refuse me stamps in the future if I sent it 
 through the mail. In Chicago they d take 
 out my phone if I squeaked it over the 
 wires. Carlton is deeply interested in some 
 mines out here spinach mines I think. I 
 made up my mind to something last night 
 I am determined to get him away from that 
 carrotty giraffe whom he used to believe he 
 
 58 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 loved. If in my convalescent state I am 
 unable to arouse his sympathy, I ll relapse 
 into white muslin emotions and thereby 
 gain my end. I am made from dust and the 
 slightest rustle from the right man s coat 
 can blow me whithersoever it willeth. You 
 know I am a spoiled child who has had 
 everything it wanted, so bon-bons no longer 
 excite me. Carlton is so thin that you can 
 see daylight through his lattice work, and 
 cold as paving stone in winter. He s a real 
 "millionery." but his cash is 40 degrees be 
 low, so I am determined to warm up his 
 eagles and teach them to fly. I am going 
 to touch that cash box under his left breast 
 and show him that the devil has a sister. 
 The man wants bleeding he has too many 
 bank notes in his veins. He seems to be 
 toppling so I might as well register him in 
 
 59 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 my "Book of Mistakes." 
 
 Do you know that I still keep a record of 
 these undying passions of mine with a pic 
 ture of each culprit attached, and Carlton 
 is 999. I thought, when I was sixteen, I 
 would record the one divine fire that was 
 like to consume me, and now I have eigh 
 teen volumes of this io5-degrees-in-the- 
 shade literature, all bound alike in a perfect 
 edition de luxe. I d rather regret what I 
 have done than what I have not done. You 
 dear old ostrich, I can hear you sigh over 
 me, but don t you waste your gasoline. You, 
 too, should have callouses on your emotions 
 by this time. 
 
 Bunky and Othello have both decided to 
 bark at my chemiselets and skirtlets in one, 
 maybe they think they are too flossy to 
 be concealed. I agree there. 
 
 60 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 Phyllis Lathop s lawyer, Mr. Maryan Soe 
 Early, got her decree for her last week and 
 she flew back on the 3.30 train to Manhat 
 tan and Gordon Booth. Of course everyone 
 knows that he is booked. 
 
 Her plea was extreme cruelty; said her 
 husband struck her. The dear old judge 
 asked her to explain in detail some of the 
 circumstances of her husband s brutality. 
 She said: "While crossing Lake Michigan 
 there was a terrible storm on, and as my 
 husband was descending from the upper 
 berth, the boat lurched and he struck me 
 with his elbow." Phyllis said the judge 
 smiled very broadly and gave her her decree 
 on "Extreme Nerve," instead of "Extreme 
 Cruelty." 
 
 She writes that she and Gordon are hav 
 ing such times together batting around 
 
 61 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 their old stamping ground, Bronx Park 
 
 strange how hard it is to overcome habits. 
 They slink off to the New York woman s 
 trysting place when there is no longer any 
 reason for secrecy. One bitter cold day 
 last winter Bern and I met Phyllis and Gor 
 don in the very spot that we always fre 
 quented, and poor individuals were stamp 
 ing their feet to keep them from freezing. 
 The monkey house was full of people and 
 they dared not remain there any longer. 
 We all smiled as much as to say: "You 
 don t tell, and I certainly won t." Not a 
 word ever came out, so the treaty was well 
 kept. Bern and I were more or less engaged 
 at the time. 
 
 We laughed over it when she was out 
 here, and I asked her why she never re 
 peated it, as she never keeps anything to 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 her gossipy self. She answered: "If I had 
 said that I had seen you there, I would have 
 had to explain my own presence in the park, 
 and I never incriminate myself." She says 
 that "there are two new kinds of monkeys 
 out there and one looks like Elbert Hub- 
 bard sits all day surrounded by his hair." 
 She s running a bar in connection with 
 her tea table now, which is equivalent to 
 putting salt on the tail of the social male 
 bird. She can hardly believe that she s free, 
 and says that it will take some time for her 
 to realize "that there aint no beast." Isn t 
 it strange that the most fascinating lover in 
 the world can turn into the veriest beast 
 within six months after he has hit you on 
 the head and dragged you senseless into his 
 Fifth Avenue home? Of course you re 
 senseless or you would not have tied up. 
 
 63 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 Phyllis says that she has gotten out of 
 the habit of decent food, that every time she 
 really dines, she gets strange pains in her 
 underneath. I wish I could fly back home, 
 but I must grit my teeth and get rid of my 
 beast too. I wonder which breed I ll try 
 next time. Boston Bull, I suppose, I think 
 that s where Carlton was first kenneled. 
 
 I have a large stove in my sitting-room 
 and keep it going myself. Othello looks as 
 though he d laugh himself to death every 
 time I put coal on darn his pelt! He s 
 crazy over Sioux Falls possibly because 
 there are seven dogs to the city block. He 
 goes away on bridal tours every few days 
 and then I have to get out a search warrant. 
 I could live quite decently if I did not have 
 to invest in so many rewards for him. 
 
 It is so terribly cold here that my very 
 
 64 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 thoughts are frozen and my hot-water bag 
 does nightly service. The thing sprung 
 a leak last week and I took it to a garage to 
 ask if they would mend it, and the fellow 
 answered : "Certainly, madam, we have 
 quite a trade in hot-water bottles and "na 
 ture s rivals." I have also found out that the 
 only place to buy burnt wood is at Mr. Tre- 
 paning s the undertaker and embalmer. 
 
 All the stiff and crackling branches of the 
 trees are weighted down with a three-inch 
 ruching of snow. It is all silently fascinat 
 ing, especially so because since starting this 
 letter two short raps at my window an 
 nounce Carlton who comes each night to 
 accompany me to the late post after the 
 landlady is snoozing. His arms are around 
 me as I scrawl, and the thousand tiny little 
 thrills that answer so eagerly to his near- 
 
 65 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 ness ,assure me that it is not deplorable to 
 be thirty-nine. 
 
 Good night, 
 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 66 
 
December 20. 
 
 So near Xmas, dear, yet none of the Yule- 
 tide joys float out to this frozen wilderness. 
 Snow, snow everywhere. The tall alders, 
 whose vivid coloring so inspired me when 
 I arrived, are now black and gaunt, and the 
 pitiless desert wind comes tearing and 
 howling from the north to bend and crack 
 their stiffened joints. I often wonder am 
 I any more the arbiter of my fate than these 
 lifeless snow-draped spectres around me. 
 
 Carlton left the hotel almost a week ago 
 and took the room next to mine. We are 
 hopelessly in love with each other, and he 
 wonders how he ever could have thought of 
 accepting happiness from Mrs. Claymore, 
 accompanied by so many freckles and a half 
 million dollars. 
 
 67 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 As for Bern, dear, he will survive. I am 
 much older than he is, so that some day he 
 would be forty with all his emotions and I 
 would be fifty with the rheumatism it 
 would never do. Henceforth I shall be 
 prodigal of negatives, except where Carlton 
 is concerned. 
 
 We have attained the intimacy which 
 thinks aloud, and instead of hating Sioux 
 Falls and longing for my sentence to ex 
 pire, I am beginning to worship every inch 
 of the ground, and only pray that such an 
 exile should last forever. 
 
 None of the fulminating fires that I have 
 heretofore known are mine only calm and 
 peace and the joys born of a perfect under 
 standing. We have not let the moment slip 
 when souls meet in comprehension. I al 
 most decided not to confide all this to you, 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 but it slipped off my pen and I m not sorry, 
 for no woman living was ever before blessed 
 with a friend like you. You and I have vis 
 ited the lowest Dantesque circles of despair 
 together, and no confidence between us 
 could amount to an indiscretion. 
 
 Our landlady thinks that we are merely 
 speaking acquaintances, and it is best, as 
 this new-found sympathy must not be dis 
 tilled by Sioux Falls scandal-mongers, 
 though I should like to shout it from the 
 house tops through a megaphone, I am so 
 happy and proud of it. 
 
 So you shot with Aldrich and he tried to 
 get you to buy "Steel Preferred." I am 
 glad you did not invest and sorry you did 
 not win the cup. I shall never again shoot 
 for pleasure. I am ashamed of my trophies. 
 Perhaps love has made me mushy but I 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 don t regret it as hate made me flinty. 
 Have you noticed how our bonds have 
 slumped the whole thing was a Golden 
 Fleece. Commercialism bores me to extinc 
 tion. I suppose the world began with trade, 
 since Adam sold Paradise for a pippin. 
 
 Are you still of the opinion that trades 
 people should be branded on the forehead 
 down to the third generation? you dear 
 snobbish treasure. 
 
 Henceforth I shall only deal in senti 
 mental tramways and have shares in the 
 moral funds maybe not moral according to 
 the threadbare ideal of the genus homo sap 
 iens. 
 
 Surprising that a girl as young as Alice 
 Noah no relation to the fellow who built 
 the ark should just take out legal separa 
 tion papers in New York. How can the 
 
 70 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 modus vivendi suit her better than divorce? 
 Perhaps she wants to cinch her alimony un 
 til she finds another affinity. Then Alice 
 for Dakota. It is foolish to cut your finan 
 cial string when you might just as well 
 dangle, especially until you find something 
 worth dropping for. 
 
 Dear, will you please send me a reel of 
 Sirdars? I can t smoke anything else 
 and no one sells them out here. Our land 
 lady has one eye that looks up the chimney 
 and another that goes cellar wards and 
 Carlton says that she always regards him 
 obliquely never mind, she is is a good stu 
 pid soul and I can forgive a landlady any 
 thing but perspicacity. I don t see how our 
 intimacy has escaped her, to me it looks 
 like the first foreign sticker on an American 
 five dollar dress suit case. 
 
 71 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 Why do you write such short letters? Is 
 it because you have but a limited number 
 of ideas and must dispense them carefully? 
 
 What did Philip Leighton die of? His 
 wife, I suppose. They never had anything 
 in common but the kiddies. That means 
 no more hunts at Blackburn Heath unless 
 someone careless like Philip absorbs the 
 estate. Mrs. Philip was a Pennsylvania 
 girl. N est ce pas? That accounts for her 
 effulgent spontaneity. Isn t it a shame for 
 me to wax bombastic over a girl who, if she 
 were just a little brighter, might be called 
 half witted. She s the girl with the massive 
 mother, who suffers from dislocated adjec 
 tives. They say when she was married her 
 prayer book was missing, so she carried a 
 cake of ivory soap instead The mother was 
 divorced and could have had alimony if she 
 
 72 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 had wanted it, but she had better sense than 
 to want it. She has venomous optics the 
 fellows used to say they flew when she flashed 
 her calciums; ugly as the seven deadly sins 
 and so mannish that I was always afraid her 
 trousers would show beneath her petticoats. 
 The giddy old cat! If she had been hanging 
 since her sixtieth birthday, she would cer 
 tainly be breathless now. 
 
 All day, dear, I go about my duties with 
 a most ladylike absence of passion, but 
 when night comes I cross the sandy waste 
 of the past and stretch out my hands to fon 
 dle the idea of perfect companionship. Our 
 thoughts seem to be a reverberation of the 
 same thunderous roll, and while they are 
 not identical, they are of the same breadth 
 and elevation. The conditions of propin 
 quity are responsible ; and as love did not 
 
 73 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 come to me, I had to do as Mahomet did 
 with the mountain. 
 
 When he goes from me, Joy vanishes, but 
 leaves a bright track of light behind, which 
 bursts upon me through the clouds of cigar 
 ette smoke that he has left. 
 
 Each day I awaken more warmed and 
 thrilled, like the sun which finds the moun 
 tain tops that he touched with his departing 
 rays still warm when he sends his shaft of 
 light in the morn. 
 
 No maelstrom of distrust do we feel, only 
 a mighty, overpowering passion that no un 
 dress of intimacy can ever destroy. 
 
 Good-night, friend of my babyhood, my 
 girlhood, my womanhood. My greetings 
 
 for your birthday. 
 
 Airy, 
 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 74 
 
February 10. 
 
 Don t be cross with me, dear, I am in no 
 danger. Your repeated letters came I read 
 them, then straightway forgot that they 
 should be answered. It is no evidence of a 
 lessening of my love for you, but because 
 life has become so mysteriously perfect for 
 me that I dream away my hours. 
 
 One night, seemingly a million years ago r 
 but really only within the present week, I 
 felt cold as I stood by my stove and plaited 
 my hair I have nice hair, Lorna, haven t 
 I? But I didn t seem to notice it. I was 
 in my nightie and I shivered. My white 
 chiffon bedspread with the pink roses 
 strewn over it was near, so I drew it close 
 about me and felt that I had protected my 
 self from the chill. It wasn t an external 
 
 75 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 chill that made me quake, but something 
 old and deep-rooted and lonely that came 
 from the depths of the soul in me and 
 begged and pleaded for recognition. 
 
 The big stove with its dozens of mica 
 eyes threw out comforting little rays of 
 coziness, but the real me still shivered. I 
 walked to the window and opened it. 
 Strange, disquieting, but gracious thoughts 
 that I had lost somewhere in the twilight of 
 the night before, came riding back to me on 
 a snow flurry it was so still that I feared 
 to breathe, lest I disturb the solitude the 
 sky wasn t heavy and gray, but clear and 
 blue and seemed like a soft silken canopy 
 that the gaunt maples upheld to protect me 
 and my love, and the virgin snow that fell 
 on my outstretched arms in soft little ros 
 ettes that disappeared as our loves some- 
 
 76 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 times do when they have but let us feel the 
 deliciousness of their possession. 
 
 The heavy old door between my room 
 and his creaked with rustiness and age, as 
 for the first time in years it turned upon its 
 hinges. Carlton had watched for my last 
 good-night signal and grew alarmed at its 
 absence and my quietude. 
 
 I wonder why I didn t feel embarassed 
 all I know is that after he discovered a com 
 fortable angle in my Morris, I crawled into 
 his arms and lay there quietly without a 
 word until dawn the next morning. Our 
 sleep was rhythmic, just like our love. 
 What a strange beautiful night we passed 
 and how difficult it would be to make the 
 world believe! 
 
 Awakening, I felt something cold around 
 my neck, and there, dear girl, he had fas- 
 
 77 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 tened pearls while I slept in his arms. I 
 cannot even imagine their value, as I know 
 nothing of jewels but how to accept and 
 wear them. 
 
 Such a gift is wonderful at any time, but 
 how much more subtly charming to have it 
 fastened on you as you lay, comfy and sub 
 conscious in his strong and doubtless aching 
 arms. Such peace, peace, dear, would have 
 benumbed Napoleon; but I need few other 
 interests my universe begins at his head 
 and ends at his feet. 
 
 This is the purest jag of joy that I have 
 ever been on in my life, and I wonder that 
 one small blonde woman is able to allow 
 herself so much spark and not have her en 
 gines explode. 
 
 I always fancied that I should die if such 
 an ideal existence even attempted to show 
 
 78 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 its face to me; and instead, I take my soup 
 before it s cold, put my shoes on my feet, 
 my hat on my head, retire and arise at the 
 usual hours. 
 
 He embroiders his talk with bungalows, 
 steam yachts and motor cars for the future, 
 while I fear to buy a pair of boots before a 
 consultation with my trousers pocket. I 
 find myself imprisoned in a banker s port 
 folio, floundering in statements covered 
 with red ink. He doesn t dream that such 
 is the case, or all his funds would be at my 
 disposal. Somehow, if I had my decree, I 
 should tell him ; but while I am still some 
 one s else wife I cannot take his money it 
 would soil my emotions. 
 
 Yesterday, while opening a crate for me, 
 he cut his finger very badly, and as I bound 
 it up he said, "Forgive me," and concealing 
 
 79 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 his hurt, he sought pardon for the pain he 
 had caused me. 
 
 His feelings are intuitively charming, and 
 though he hasn t a university education, he 
 has a universal one, which counts for far 
 more in this world where a stab is given in 
 return for a pin prick. 
 
 Good-night, precious girl-woman, whose 
 friendship has never failed me, whose love 
 has been the most uplifting emotion that I 
 have ever known. 
 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 80 
 
March 3. 
 Lorna Mine: 
 
 My six months were up on March first, 
 but as the judge hates undue haste about 
 serving papers, I waited one whole hour be 
 fore I shot mine off to New York. I am no 
 longer doing time, but am a full-fledged 
 citizen of South Dakota. Isn t it nice that 
 my case won t have a jury it always gets 
 hung and it sounds unpleasant even if it 
 really isn t. 
 
 Oh ! these dazzlingly cool, fresh, spring 
 days. If there is anything more beautiful 
 in the West than their gaudy Indian sum 
 mer, it is the half scared spring. The wind 
 is a bit blustery and pretentious, but other 
 wise Nature seems doubtful as to whether 
 she will paint her landscape or not. Each 
 
 81 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 night a grand sunset crowns the close of a 
 cloudless day. 
 
 Weeks ago Carlton s decree was granted 
 him, but he stays to hold me in his arms 
 while I wait for mine. You ask if we are 
 engaged? Yes awfully engaged all the 
 time. 
 
 I have never before been able to under 
 stand why people put such vast sums in 
 churches. Now I know. It isn t on account 
 of the worship, nor of the interior, but for 
 the steps. When you take into considera 
 tion what assistance they have rendered 
 lovers, it only seems just that they should 
 be taxed. We worship at Christian Science 
 Church, because it s darker, every night ex 
 cept Wednesday; but they have some sort 
 of a shin-dig then, so we switch to the Epis 
 copal and take communion with each other. 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 Nice clean, comfy, red granite steps that 
 so many pious, divorce-hating feet have 
 passed over. My sympathies go out to all 
 women, even if they are fallen and so did 
 Christ s; but the good Sioux Fallians are 
 above it. They pull all the hay to their side 
 of the manger and forget that we, having 
 never used such food, don t miss it now. It 
 is a pity that we can t infuse more of the 
 "God-honor-and-the-ladies" spirit into this 
 depth of silliness out here. 
 
 The West is so big and glorious and free, 
 it seems strange that the corn crop should 
 be so superior to the people. I suppose it is 
 because each perfect stalk of corn turns its 
 face to God and Heaven, and the people are 
 so busy gossiping they haven t the time to 
 worship. When we pass them on the street 
 we feel like saying : "Our reputations are in 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 your hands. In God s name be merciful!" 
 
 I am keeping house now in my room 
 light housekeeping, you know. It s posi 
 tively airy sometimes. My landlady bless 
 her ignorant soul ! allows my little ice-box 
 to remain in her butler s pantry, which I 
 have christened "cockroach alley." They 
 the cockroaches are so large and educated 
 that I have named them, and each one 
 comes when it s called and feeds from the 
 hand. 
 
 She wears the most artistic skirts al 
 ways ball-room back and ballet front. Her 
 grandchild was sitting on the floor yester 
 day, reading the Bible, when suddenly she 
 looked up and said: "Grandma, there s a 
 grammatical error in this Bible," and my 
 landlady said: "Well, kill it, child, kill it!" 
 She spends whole hours each day talking to 
 
 84 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 her birds, which, she claims, save the ex 
 pense of a piano. I told the grandchild to 
 go out into the sunshine this morning and it 
 would do her cold good. She said, very 
 saucily: "I won t go into the sunshine, my 
 grandma told me to go into the air." My 
 grandma didn t tell me to go there, Lorna, 
 but someone must have ordered it, for in the 
 "air" I am, and so high that I no longer feel 
 the earth beneath my feet. 
 
 Thank you so much for Mr. Fitch s .article. 
 So you think that Sioux Falls is like 
 his description of it. He came in one night 
 and left the next morning, then wrote an ar 
 ticle which is a gross exaggeration in every 
 particular. In the first place there was 
 never but one French maid here and she 
 was Irish. It is true that some scandalous 
 people come here, but there are also scan- 
 
 85 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 dalous residents; however, there are many 
 more divorcees, quiet, charming and un 
 seen, who do not fret away their six months, 
 but spend them profitably, writing, sewing, 
 taking care of their beloved children, et 
 cetera. 
 
 The very idea of mentioning anything as 
 incongruous as Sioux Falls and luxury in 
 the same breath it s a slam on luxury! Big 
 and luxurious hotels Mr. Fitch ought to 
 be mobbed. Wonder if he got a whiff of the 
 lobby of the only thing that can be called 
 an hotel here, or if he had a cold during his 
 prolonged stay of twelve hours, nine of 
 which he slept through. At the hotel yes 
 terday I mentioned to the elevator boy that 
 many children were stopping there. He an 
 swered: "Yes, there is more children than 
 there is guests." 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 That grill room that he speaks of is a dim 
 memory ; I think it lasted two months ; and 
 as it depended on divorce custom entirely, 
 and as the main part of the colony sups in 
 its own home, the thing fell through. And 
 the theatres, dear, we have had two good 
 shows since I came, otherwise "ten, twenty 
 and thirty." 
 
 The women and preachers may be against 
 the quick lunch method of divorce, but you 
 can gamble on it that the business men 
 heartily approve; and these same women 
 and preachers will find their larders and 
 contribution boxes but scantily filled if the 
 odorous money of the dissolute "Divorsay" is 
 barred. 
 
 I am all excited over the article as there 
 is neither truth nor ruth in it, and Carlton 
 is intensely amused, so I suppose I will not 
 87 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 try to fight the battles of the colony so long 
 as I am lazy and comfortable in the arms of 
 my love. 
 
 Had a long letter from Gretchen yester 
 day in which she says she enjoyed her 
 bridal tour thoroughly, particularly at the 
 Falls I wrote back and asked: Which? 
 Niagara or Sioux?" 
 
 Good-night, dearest, I close my eyes and 
 sleep in a moment, as there are no longer 
 any thorns to stuff my pillow. 
 
 MARIANNE. 
 
May 2nd. 
 Lorna Dear: 
 
 It wasn t a bit hard to live through. The 
 papers all came back by return mail, and all 
 day Sunday I was in my attorney s office 
 practising. It wasn t any more difficult 
 than a Sunday-school lesson, and Monday 
 morning at eight o clock I was waiting at 
 Liberty Hall for the hoped-for arrival of 
 "The Greatest Common Divisor." At last 
 he came, but with a sour expression, and 
 not knowing what trouble he might have 
 had before he left home, I tried to be pa 
 tient. 
 
 We were ushered through the big court 
 room into the judge s sanctum asked how 
 long I d been here, and so forth and so fifth 
 then the comical question: "Do you ex- 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 pect to make Sioux Falls your home?" and 
 the threadbare reply: "I have made no 
 plans for the future," when all the time I 
 had my I. C. tickets for the 3.30 train in my 
 pocket. Do you know that was the first 
 time I ever really perjured myself like a 
 lady before, and somehow I wished aw 
 fully that I had let Carlton hold the tickets 
 until after the trial. I couldn t even get my 
 kerchief out of my pocketbook for fear the 
 blooming time tables and tickets would 
 show. Oh! the judge was terribly sac 
 charine after he warmed up, and I adore 
 him. Wish I had to get another divorce 
 tomorrow he s just like a dear old Univer 
 sal Dad, and everyone loves him. 
 
 Well! dear, just to think of it. I ve lost 
 my hobbies ! Isn t it great, and yet isn t it 
 really sad ! It means a failure in the great- 
 
 90 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 est undertaking of a woman s life, and it 
 also means that I issue forth branded. I 
 refuse to hold post mortems and am prac 
 tising loss of memory. Now for the possi 
 bilities of the future. Possibility is the big 
 gest word in the dictionary. Isn t it 
 strange that a woman may live apart from 
 her husband and do atrocious things, with 
 out wearing the tell-tale letter on her 
 bosom, yet let a virtuous woman take the 
 step for freedom, and, alas! she carries the 
 scar as long as she breathes. But its worth 
 it, dear. I have thought it all over and I 
 repeat it a thousand times, its worth 
 it. "I have written it upon the doorposts of 
 my house and upon my gates, and I wear it 
 as frontlets between mine eyes" it s worth 
 it! 
 
 I have worn crepe for my departed vir- 
 
 91 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 tues for six years, but I throw it aside now 
 and feel a new being whose glad unrestraint 
 may carry her farther than she intended, 
 just as prudery often lends a woman greater 
 cruelty than she feels. 
 
 How clever of Don Willard to buy in 
 Northern Pacific during the slump. He 
 gets on with his sense of smell he s a 
 jackal who scents a carcass and gets there 
 in time for a good bone. 
 
 While unpacking my trunk today I came 
 across my wedding veil and it was all gray 
 and dingy like the end of my honeymoon. 
 How many sweet and tremulous illusions 
 I folded into it on that first night and how 
 soon afterwards did three-fourths of the 
 wlorld look like ashes to me. Dreams are 
 harder to give up than realities, because 
 they come back and gibe us even after they 
 
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Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 are dead and buried, while tangible realities 
 stay fairly well hidden when We screw 
 down the lid. I suppose you think that I 
 talk like Old Man Solomon, but you know 
 that the only serious thoughts I have are 
 mushrooms of one minute s gestation. 
 
 My landlady does her own washing, so 
 I asked her if she would do mine for ample 
 pay. She suffers so from modesty that she 
 was hardly able to answer me, but finally 
 said: "I would be willing to, but my hus 
 band don t improve on it." Poor creature, 
 she has lived here all her days and is still 
 unable to direct me to a single place her 
 bump of location is surely a dent. 
 
 Mrs. Judge knows the name of each mem 
 ber of the colony ; when they came and how 
 often they have gone away, and the Lord 
 help you if your residence isn t right! 
 
 93 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 That s the one thing that the Judge is 
 squeamish about, and as Mrs. Judge keeps 
 tab for him, there is no use trying to fudge. 
 If you don t come up before the Judge in 
 six months and one week, she inquires of 
 your landlady the reason for your delay. 
 And of course the landlady knows the rea 
 son, even if you don t yourself. Every 
 Monday afternoon Mrs. Judge drives by the 
 I. C. station at exactly 3.25 to see which one 
 of the widows, whose case was tried that 
 morning, is leaving the same day. Of course 
 they all leave unless they are prostrated 
 with excitement. We always pack all bag 
 gage on Saturday, the dress-suit cases on 
 Sunday, and engage the drayman on the 
 way down to the trial Monday morning. 
 There has never been any hitch in the ar 
 rangements, so I suppose they will remain 
 
 94 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 the same until the end of time. 
 
 You don t know what a comfort my phon 
 ograph has been to me I would never at 
 tempt another divorce without one. The 
 long, lonely evenings the endless days, 
 when time never moves off the spot, my 
 dogs and I have sat on the floor fascinated 
 with the greatest music in the world. I 
 like my machine because it may be de 
 pended upon, never is nervous, and always 
 willing to perform. Talent is so spasmodic 
 and dependent upon moods, while the litttle 
 hard rubber discs tirelessly and graciously 
 amuse you. 
 
 You say that you will write more anon. I 
 have looked in Webster and the Brittanica, 
 as I was a bit anxious to find out just what 
 length of time anon signifies, but I have 
 been unsuccessful. In other words, if after 
 
 95 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 breakfast someone said to me, "You shall 
 have more food anon," I should probably 
 starve to death if I sat down and waited for 
 it. Now don t be mean to me because I am 
 in love and have neglected you. I send you 
 thousands of messages and ask you thou 
 sands of questions each day, and simply be 
 cause I don t waste time and paper in set 
 ting them down is no sign that you aren t 
 constantly in my thoughts. Love knows 
 no distance, and I go to you every evening 
 for a good-night kiss just as I close my eyes 
 to sleep, and always do I feel that you know 
 it. There is no barrier of antagonism 
 around you so my spirit enters where you 
 are whenever it so desires. 
 
 You are melancholy again how can you 
 live in stays set with nails and maintain the 
 grace of a dancer? It must be because of 
 
 96 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 your child. I could not do it, I m sure 
 not even for my child if I had one. You 
 are wiser than most of us fools who have 
 choked our lives in the mud of New York. 
 To men, dear, you are a cold Alp. Snow 
 bound and near to heaven, impenetrable and 
 frowning with flanks of granite, and yet 
 beneficent. How do you accomplish it 
 when your heart is wrung from year s end 
 to year s end? 
 
 It must be Machiavellian foresight, pre 
 cious foresight that you alone, out of the 
 whole set, possess. The world never -for 
 gives a failure and never forgives you for 
 telling it the truth, and my standard is 
 truth, as near as possible, and yours is sac 
 rifice complete. Which is right? We shall 
 go on begging the question until the end 
 of time. In human transactions the law of 
 
 97 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 optics seems to be reversed we always 
 see indistinctly the things that are nearest 
 to us. You have never judged, so judge me 
 not. 
 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 98 
 
The Black Hills, 
 
 September 20. 
 Dearest Lorna: 
 
 A thousand years ago or maybe it 
 wasn t so long, I can t clearly remember 
 things any more, time isn t of any conse 
 quence, but it was the day I received my 
 decree, and I returned my railroad tickets 
 to the I. C. office Carlton and I packed up 
 some rugs, pillows and luncheon, and 
 floated down the river to breathe confi 
 dences. Far away on the horizon was a 
 misty hedge of cypress trees darkly traced 
 on a canvas of lavenders and blues, over 
 hung by extravagant yards of cloudy chif 
 fon. Nearby the tall alders were all bent 
 to the southward, from the bitter winds, 
 and looked like huge giants on the march 
 
 99 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 with heavy burdens on their shoulders. 
 They swayed at times and seemed likely to 
 fall with their loads. On and on we floated, 
 and on and on they marched. 
 
 The country was as tremulous as a bride, 
 and to us nothing seemed impossible. In 
 such magic moments when enjoyment sheds 
 its reflection on the future the soul fore 
 sees nothing but happiness. 
 
 Toward sunset we moored our boat to a 
 tree in a little backwater where the current 
 was barely felt and mutely watched the 
 changes in the great turquoise satin tent 
 above us that seemed held aloft by the hills 
 to shelter the landscape of barley and corn 
 and wheat that swished and swished like 
 feminine music of taffeta petticoats. 
 
 We felt reasons all around us why we 
 should be happy the trees were greens and 
 
 100 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 browns no one like the other, blended in 
 the harmonious colorings of an old French 
 tapestry stolen from a deserted chateau. 
 
 All the earth seemed so sweet and so 
 pure, and we were enjoying the world as a 
 clean open-air playground. A few fluffy 
 clouds began to appear, but old Boreas blew 
 them away as soon as the west wind 
 brought them up. 
 
 Suddenly his gaze betrayed remembrance 
 and he drew me into his arms and our lips 
 met. Thus we remained, languidly content, 
 until long after the sky man had studded 
 the heavens with millions of silver nails. 
 And there, near a field of cattle, like Paul 
 Potter painted, under a sky worthy of Ra 
 phael, in a cove overhung with trees like 
 a picture by Hobbema, he asked me to be 
 his wife. And then the sweetest ceremony 
 
 101 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 that ever was solemnized under God s 
 loving eyes was fulfilled there in the still 
 ness of the night. He said : "I love you," 
 and for answer I said: "I love you too," 
 and on my finger was placed a cool new 
 band, which reads within : "For all eter 
 nity." As old and worldly as I am, I felt 
 all the instinct of chastity and delicacy 
 which is the very material of a first love. 
 Our wedding feast was spread out in the bot 
 tom of the craft, with no effulgence of light 
 save the reflection of God s own lanterns. 
 
 All sorts of night things chirped and sang 
 of our joy, and trout leaped from the water 
 in answer to the bread that I crumbled for 
 them. 
 
 Our boat rocked and swayed as the cur 
 rent reached us more directly, and leaves 
 and sticks and weeds went floating by with 
 
 102 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 turgid little whirlpools swirling aft. We 
 were lazy lurdans, nestling there in the 
 moonlight, but time is the precious gift of 
 the Almighty and man may gamble it away 
 if he chooses. Finally dawn found us 
 floating homeward in the mists of awaken 
 ing morn. 
 
 Months and months have passed since 
 then strange new mother instincts have 
 arisen in my soul, and he still presses me to 
 his heart and whispers: "For all eternity." 
 
 You could not discover my whereabouts, 
 as I left no address in Sioux Falls. I did 
 not want the world nor society, not even 
 you, but just solitude and my husband. 
 Now we want you to know that in this 
 beautiful wilderness we have a home a 
 mountain home with placid Indian servants, 
 who glide in and out and serve noiselessly 
 
 103 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 and speechlessly : I must confess that I am 
 only one-half brave, as the world, all but 
 you, thinks that a minister has mumbled 
 over us for a second time. 
 
 You are great enough to appreciate the 
 Joy we feel in cheating all humanity. Carl- 
 ton has willed all of his possessions to me 
 and to our precious little future reproduc 
 tion of our love, who can but be perfect, as 
 he is a creature of perfect conditions. We 
 are also but half great, as it pleased us that 
 the New York papers reported our mar 
 riage; but in our lives we are all-great and 
 all-sufficient for each other. 
 
 Our bungalow is built in rugged, prim 
 eval "Spearfish Canon," but you may ad 
 dress all mail to Custer, where Carlton goes 
 in his motor every day for things that please 
 me. 
 
 104 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 I am so happy, so proud, so grateful that 
 my mate is as far-seeing as I am, and we 
 feel a mutual dread for the time when we 
 must forsake our Black Hills for the fuller 
 and less satisfying life in New York but 
 we can t play always, out here in the sun 
 shine. 
 
 Write to me soon and forgive me for 
 doubting that you would understand. 
 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 105 
 
Black Hills, 
 November 25. 
 Dearest : 
 
 How happy your letter has made me and 
 how slow you were in making up your 
 mind, but I d rather have you love me after 
 thinking than to love me just because I m 
 I. Had you not understood, I should have 
 loved you but because you understand I 
 bow down and idolize you as I have done 
 all my days. 
 
 Every girl deserves a mother it is her 
 natural heritage and Nature risks a great 
 deal in cheating her out of her original 
 right. I have been defrauded, but a friend 
 like you compensates for much and is a 
 straight gift from God and Heaven. 
 
 Carlton and I have motored over to Cus- 
 
 106 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 ter every day for your letter but not until 
 yesterday were we recompensed for all the 
 anxiety and doubt that I might have suf 
 fered. We read it together and I am not 
 ashamed that our eyes were moist with joy 
 as we drove slowly aw r ay from the little vil 
 lage and out into our free and glorious prim- 
 evalism again. The twilight fell like a sil 
 ver dust on the crests of two double rows 
 of ancient elms in a long and lordly country 
 road, and lighted up the sand and the dry 
 ing wild grass that had waved like so many 
 spears of gold in the sunset of a few mo 
 ments before. On and on we flew he with 
 a trembling hand on the wheel and I with 
 my arm around him and my lips pressing 
 his cheek. 
 
 The rays of our acetylene lamps began to 
 cast lurid lights before us as the darkness 
 
 107 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 thickened, just as my soul s fire is luminous 
 now in an atmosphere ordained to bring 
 forth all its normal glory and all the while 
 the back seats were empty ; empty dear. Do 
 you know the luxury of it? 
 
 We were both dreaming and praying 
 dreaming of a thousand more such perfect 
 nights, praying in all our fervor and grati 
 tude for more and yet more of our bound 
 less and mutual passion. And then we lost 
 our way as the machine rushed into a mys 
 tic cross-road that led due north, for the 
 Dipper was before us. I crawled closer and 
 closer to him until I could hear his heart 
 pounding mercilessly as his breath came 
 quicker and my lips pressed closer. The 
 lamps were brilliant then and the woods 
 and fields as silent and endless as eternity. 
 A long snake stretched its lazy length 
 
 108 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 across our path and frogs held mute high 
 carnival on all the little hills and bumps on 
 the high road. 
 
 We both felt the inspiration of the mo 
 ment and neither profaned it with words. 
 As far as our lights fell three waving, nod 
 ding bands of seered grass, beckoned us on 
 and heedless of the danger we might be 
 rushing toward our empassioned lips met. 
 And like eternity the mystic course lay hid 
 den in darkness before us, but also like the 
 things that look most forbidding in the fu 
 ture, as we rushed by, the yellow hedge 
 turned golden by our lamps, the grassy plu 
 mage rose and fell in sallow waves of ap 
 probation. 
 
 The good little people were with us (you 
 know I believe in fairies) and the faithful 
 engine puffed and struggled and tried its 
 
 109 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 best on the incline that we were ascending, 
 but we were too jealous of our sensations 
 to pay much heed to its unaided success. 
 I would work in the fields for ten days were 
 I sure that the eleventh night would be such 
 another as this. 
 
 So lofty are the regions where I soar, that 
 a fall would shiver me to atoms, but just 
 to breathe the same air with my love lifts 
 me to the vault of paradise. Whole hours 
 each evening I lie on an Indian blanket in 
 front of the open grate and dream of the 
 legacy of love that we shall hand down to 
 our children and our children s children un 
 til the end of time. 
 
 Ecstatically yours, 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 110 
 
December 25. 
 Dearest Friend: 
 
 We are snowed in and our two bronze 
 boys are trying to make a path to the road. 
 We are all so abnormally well and with the 
 nurse and Carlton s friend Dr. Harmen, con 
 stitute a lively household thought I liked 
 the sweetness of our oneness better. These 
 are happy times and they watch and guard 
 me as though I were another Wilhelmina. 
 
 Was ever Christmas day so wonderful! 
 Our tree is a real cedar of Lebanon, uproot 
 ed by our beloved Indians and decorated 
 with their handiwork. Last eve we romped 
 and sang and played tricks upon each other 
 until midnight, when we saucily hung up 
 the biggest stockings and sneaked off to bed 
 to leave our Santa Claus with his labors. 
 
 Ill 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 It must have taken him hours for I slept 
 for ages when I finally heard him getting 
 ready for bed. I slipped into my kimono 
 and tried to crawl down stairs and take a 
 peep, but he heard me and would not count 
 enance any cheating so I snuggled up 
 again and went to sleep, but like children, 
 we were all up at daybreak. For days and 
 days Carlton has been going on clandestine 
 shopping tours to the meccas around us 
 and has kept all purchases locked and 
 guarded. He can t bear the thought of 
 grown-ups not loving and believing in San 
 ta. 
 
 Aside from all the valuable and exquisite 
 things that each received, the gift that 
 proved Carlton s feeling toward me, if I 
 may insult that feeling by even suggesting 
 the necessity of a proof was a tiny silk 
 
 112 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 stocking, hung quite at the end of the man 
 tel shelf, all alone as though it needed no pro 
 tection, and filled with you would never 
 guess in a thousand years, so I shan t keep 
 you suspended in mid air fifty thousand 
 dollars in U. S. bonds to start a bank ac 
 count for the little visitor that is to come. 
 Every night before we sleep, we talk to our 
 baby we pray to our baby, we worship our 
 baby. Only beautiful thoughts come to our 
 minds ; only beautiful things come to our 
 hands, surely God sends babies for other 
 reasons than to propagate the species we 
 are grown entirely unselfish; we are filled 
 with kindly sympathies and affection, and 
 our energies and aims reach to Heaven. 
 
 A beautiful pink satin baby basket came 
 direct from Printemps, filled with the most 
 delicate little garments that a human hand 
 
 113 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 could create. Do you remember the day 
 when we were at school in Paris, that we 
 passed Printemp s baby shop and planned 
 our progenys outfits twenty years ago? 
 I am now fuller of the joy of living than I 
 was then but on the threshold of womanly 
 emotions. 
 
 From my window I can see far down the 
 icy canon. The mountain stream is a fluted 
 ribbon of snow and ice, and where the spray 
 tumbled before it froze, there are thousands 
 of filmy rosettes iridescent in the sun s rays. 
 The path is finished and Dr. Harmen is 
 building a snow man. We are civilized 
 aborigines gone mad with youth out here 
 in the frigid zone, and anything as grown 
 up as bridge has failed to interest us. From 
 our home on the summit of "Kewanas 
 Crag," Silver Lake looks like a stray tur- 
 
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Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 quoise below and the mysterious Black 
 Hills around us catch glimpses of gold in 
 the sunset hour, then dye themselves pur 
 ple, take a tint of glowing rose-water, then 
 turn dull and gray; a drama of color goes 
 on ceaselessly ; a play of ever shifting hues 
 like those on a pigeon s breast. 
 
 Do you know of anyone who has ever 
 died in childbirth? If you do, don t tell me, 
 as I am beginning to be frightened. Not 
 afraid of the agony, for I rather enjoy pon 
 dering over the sacrifice, but so fearful of 
 leaving all of this barely tasted sweet be 
 hind me. It seems as though my impa 
 tience would consume me I want so to 
 know whether I may be spared for more 
 and more days of our endless joy. 
 
 Your Christmas box came one day too 
 soon and, like the child that I am trans- 
 
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Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 formed into, I resorted to tears in order to 
 wheedle Carlton into permitting me to open 
 it. The little things are wonderful and the 
 discretion of your love is more so. Each 
 little article is an expression of your fault 
 less friendship, for losing which, not even 
 Carlton s love could compensate me. 
 
 The new decorations in my bed room are 
 all in bloom like our love, and I lie awake 
 during my specified hours of rest, gather 
 ing mental roses from my wall garden. My 
 revival is as natural as the effect of May on 
 the meadows ; of a shower on a dry plant. 
 I awaken with the breath of my Spring, 
 which is heavy with Oriental sweetness like 
 a rose of Frangistan. I should not in such 
 moments as these, feel a death blow. 
 
 All of the old mental bruises caused by 
 knocking myself against corners, some that 
 
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Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 I myself created at times, and others that I 
 saw but could not escape, are healed and 
 quite forgotten in this new world of mine. 
 I press a goodnight kiss on your dear un 
 derstanding lips. 
 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 117 
 
The Black Hills. 
 
 February i. 
 Dearest of all Friends : 
 
 Today for the first time I am permitted 
 to write one letter, while Dr. Harmen and 
 Carlton are trying to discover traces of rare 
 genius on the head of Carlton Church Som- 
 erville Junior, who resembles one of those 
 cherubs circling about the Eternal Father in 
 an old Italian picture. 
 
 Dizzy with the wonder of it all, I lie for 
 hours trying to convince myself that the 
 world is real. When my child awakens and 
 craves his nourishment, I cry for very ec- 
 stacy of giving him life. What woman on 
 earth who has nursed her child once, can 
 refrain from doing so again? His velvet lips 
 kiss me ; his precious hand, dimpled and in- 
 
 118 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 mature, fondles me in gratitude. How can 
 any mother ever be unhappy while her in 
 fant breathes upon her breast. 
 
 My wasted years squandered in society 
 seem hideous fancies of a perverted mind, 
 while my one glorious year out here is a 
 deep-breathing, pure record of clean 
 thoughts and a perfect life. No one save 
 God Almighty to wish us well on our wed 
 ding day; no purring women and overfed 
 men to throw rice and old shoes along with 
 the "wedding formula" "Isn t she a perfect 
 bride," "did ever couple seem so well 
 suited," "they are real affinities et cet 
 era," all of which started me out on my 
 bridal trip sixteen years ago. I shall never 
 witness another wedding as long as I live 
 it is too insufferably sad a contemplation. 
 
 It seems strange and pitiful that your 
 
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Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 sweet daughter is now old enough to make 
 her formal bow into an atmosphere of 
 hatred and vice. If she could but seek rap 
 turous peace out here in my wilderness with 
 some man that she really loves but no wo 
 man is born into mature society with a 
 knowledge of its utter worthlessness. And 
 even were you able to convince her of it 
 now, it would be a sin to rob her sweet 
 mentality of its blushes. No, the precious 
 child must first suffer and find out alone. 
 Almost childlessly greedy do I feel, to 
 live so perfectly while you are still sacri 
 ficing your years on the altar of mother 
 hood. At least I am thankful that Walter 
 has decided to parade his affairs less, now 
 that Evelyn is coming out. You proud, 
 queenly, beautiful woman, how can you be 
 so brave? In your place I should have 
 
 120 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 died of hopelessness and grief years ago. 
 But you go on with your precious head high 
 in the air, smiling, though crushed by your 
 agony. Day in and day out your nerves are 
 taut you never rest. Why hasn t some 
 thing snapped years ago? Perhaps God 
 gives an abundance of strength to those 
 who are ordained to suffer most. 
 
 You ask if I have any regrets. No no 
 a million times no. I have torn the word 
 from my dictionary and have forgotten the 
 meaning. I repeat a thousand times a day 
 my honest prayer: 
 "Spare me O Lord the crowded way, 
 Life s busy mart where men contend, 
 For me the home the tranquil day, 
 A little sock to mend." 
 
 I try never to think of an end to my hap 
 piness, but somehow the crushing thought 
 
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Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 comes and stifles me into abject fear. Then 
 my husband brings me my little child and 
 the evil thoughts are kissed away. 
 
 Yesterday Carlton s eyes filled with tears 
 of gratitude as I sat nursing our baby be 
 fore the open grate and running my hand 
 through his thick brown hair as he sat on 
 the floor beside us. We remain long hours 
 in silence watching the pictures in the 
 blazing back logs, then suddenly we em 
 brace to prove mutually that we still have 
 each other. 
 
 The river is still a frozen jagged band all 
 down the canon, and the roads are knee 
 deep with snow and ice. I scarcely breathe 
 while Carlton is away in his motor, for fear 
 the wheels will skid and hurl him into end 
 less depths down the mountain side. It is 
 impossible to procure food without his go- 
 
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Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 ing to the railroad, but each day I try to 
 believe that I don t need nourishment just 
 to see if I can t prevent these precarious 
 errands. We live so naturally and so hap 
 pily that we are staying on indefinitely in 
 our frozen love bower. 
 
 Dr. Harmen leaves tomorrow after weeks 
 of rejuvenating pleasures out here. The 
 nurse will remain to render me such assist 
 ance as I need, though I am so jealous of her 
 care of my son that I shall claim my mother 
 rights as soon as I am strong enough. Jun 
 ior has his father s eyes with all the softness 
 of the blue periwinkle flower in their splen 
 did depths, and I feel when I hold him in 
 my arms and am held in turn in Carlton s 
 that I can never give either of them up = 
 even to the Almighty. I will never give 
 
 123 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 them up. They are mine and I am theirs 
 for all eternity. 
 
 Adieu sweet friend, 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 124 
 
February 25. 
 
 It has come. The bright fire in the grate 
 is a heap of smouldering ashes and all the 
 pictures and dreams are dead. I cannot 
 breathe I cannot live I am insane with 
 grief. And the ignorant world teaches of an 
 all merciful God an all seeing Father ! The 
 irony of it! I cannot live I must go too. 
 It will be impossible to go on, and on, alone 
 forever and for all eternity alone I 
 cannot I will not ! 
 
 They are lying down there in their 
 shrouds my husband and his faithful Mon- 
 kaushka with their poor bodies crushed and 
 mangled O! I cannot tell you more! The 
 machine is an unsightly heap at the bot 
 tom of the ravine. I cannot write -I can 
 not think and yet I must do both. What 
 
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Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 have I done but love with all my womanhood 
 and all my motherhood! 
 
 After all it was beautiful for him to die 
 and go to heaven while flowers filled his 
 hands. A loud cry has gone up in my soul ; 
 an echo as it were of the funereal Consum- 
 matutn est, which is pronounced in church on 
 Good Friday at the hour when the Saviour 
 died. And all day I wring my hands help 
 lessly and can do nought but build dun 
 geons and dungeons in the air. I speak in 
 an altered voice as though my instrument 
 had lost several strings and those that re 
 mained were loosened. 
 
 Dearest can you tell me am I respon 
 sible for his death? All during last night 
 I seemed to hear God s voice asking: "Cain, 
 where is Abel?" and I wail and beseech: 
 "Am I my brother s keeper?" My soul is 
 
 126 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 guilty guilty of loving him guilty of his 
 death, for had I not loved him he would 
 never have known the Black Hills. Oh! if 
 I could but be resigned if I could but bind 
 up my bleeding wounds and lose myself in 
 immeasurable lassitude ! 
 
 I have pressed his lips for the last time, 
 my precious son is at my breast his long 
 lashes are pressed tightly against his cheeks 
 as if to secure his eyes from too strong a 
 light, or to aid an effort of his young soul 
 to recollect and hold fast a bliss that had 
 been perfect but fleeting. His tiny pink and 
 white ear framed by a stray lock of his 
 hair and outlined by a wrapping of lace 
 from you, would make an artist, a painter, 
 even an old man wildly in love with his per 
 fect little being, and will, please God, re 
 store me, a mad woman to her senses! 
 
 127 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 Come to my Black Hills, I am crushed, 
 desolate, heart-broken come to 
 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 128 
 
I 
 
 The Black Hills. 
 July 2. 
 
 One week has passed Dear, since you 
 left us a strange week of readjustment and 
 thought. All of those precious months that 
 you have given me are but another expres 
 sion of your divine friendship. The poig 
 nant grief is gone with you and my grati 
 tude to you can but be shown by the de 
 gree of bravery that I now manifest. 
 
 Every day this week, my son and I have 
 sat in the sunshine near the two mounds, 
 which my remaining bronze boy has dec 
 orated with crocuses from the neighboring 
 ravine. He spends long hours after dark, 
 gathering wild flowers in the moonlight. 
 His devotion to me and my dead love, is the 
 saddest, most boundless tribute that an un- 
 
 129 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 civilized mind could offer. Silently he goes 
 about his duties; silently he grieves, and 
 more silently he gathers flowers as a tan 
 gible evidence of his devotion. 
 
 Your letters have come each day and will 
 come each day until I lie too, beside my 
 love on the desolate mountain side. Such 
 is your unfailing love and sympathy for 
 me, all unworthy of your months of sacri 
 fice and isolation out here in my new home. 
 My son, bless his precious heart, tried to 
 crawl today but the newly developed feat 
 frightened his baby mind and he cried. 
 Closely almost roughly, I crush him to me 
 a thousand times a day, so fearful am I 
 that he too may go to join infinitude. 
 
 You ask me to come back to New York. 
 I must refuse your request. I cannot I 
 cannot leave my home the only place wor- 
 
 130 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 thy of the name that I have ever possessed ! 
 Some day, maybe, but not now it is all too 
 dear and consoling to breathe the same air 
 that sustained me in my perfect happiness. 
 How can you say : "Don t regret." What 
 do you mean? Regret the only joy that my 
 poor starved soul has ever known? No 
 atom of regret enters my grief only a 
 great unbounded gratitude to God, to the 
 world, to Nature, that one perfect year has 
 been saved from out the wreck of time ! 
 
 Gratefully, 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 131 
 
The Black Hills, 
 September 20. 
 
 Two marvelous things have come to me 
 today dear ; my son took his first trembling 
 steps alone, and a letter came to me from 
 the man who was my husband. I am trem 
 bling with joy over the first and still dazed 
 with lack of understanding of the second. 
 I enclose the letter as I have long since 
 given up trying to think clearly, and must 
 depend upon you, to decide for me any mat 
 ters of grave import. I am plunged in per 
 plexity; advise me after reading the en 
 closed letter. 
 
 Lovingly, 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 132 
 
New York, 
 
 Sept. 16. 
 Dear Marianne: 
 
 Six years ago, I found myself, though 
 fond of you, glad when business took me 
 away. We spent that summer in different 
 places, but about October lived together 
 again. I was still fond of you, but at that 
 time found Vera, whose company was very 
 pleasing to me. You and I seemed to be 
 drawn away from each other and we decided 
 to separate at the end of December, when I 
 started on my long cruise. 
 
 I felt very, very sorry to leave you, but 
 something told me that it was better to do 
 so. I remember you seemed to feel the 
 same, and we kissed each other goodbye as 
 
 133 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 though we were both sorry for something 
 that had to be. 
 
 Leaving the question of dual or multi 
 ple personality aside, and putting the mat 
 ter very simply, I believe that my soul made 
 a right choice in you my wife. I believe 
 that alcohol was necessary for a while to 
 put my body, even at its expense, into a 
 state of conductivity, so that my soul, when 
 I was somewhat alcoholized, could gain 
 some expression ; give some glimpses of it 
 self and suggest the trend of my powers. 
 For this reason I believe that some men are 
 made to drink and drug but that is another 
 subject which I hope to take up with you 
 more fully at some future time. 
 
 My soul self has always wanted my wife s 
 soul self, and I believe that if I could have 
 you back, my conquered body self would 
 
 134 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 never need to wander from home. A little 
 more pliability all you ever lacked, and 
 which your trouble should have brought 
 you, could make it so that we could live 
 together in very perfect harmony. Then I 
 could release a lot of good plays and good 
 writings, much of which I know already has 
 been completed by my subliminal self. I 
 get frequent glimpses of parts of plays, 
 plots and ideas. 
 
 You cannot but feel proud of the success of 
 my last book, which ought to show you 
 that I m getting a grip of myself. My 
 mother and I were en rapport and under the 
 dual personality theory, it is reasonable to 
 suppose that I have been guided by her 
 since her death. I certainly have been 
 guided by God or by her, and it is reason- 
 
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Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 able to believe that she is God s instrument 
 of my guidance. 
 
 A young man makes whole ranges of 
 mountains out of tiny mole hills which, 
 when he has learned sense, he will spread 
 under his foot without noticing them. Most 
 of our differences were mere mole hills, 
 dear, which couldn t thwart us now. For 
 we are too big now, to be so easily thwart 
 ed. Can t we give each other the chance to 
 prove this to each other? 
 
 If you will permit me I will love your 
 child as my own as every real man ought 
 to love every child, dear little unfinished 
 human beings. Formerly I thought I knew 
 a good deal ; but God knew better and took 
 me away from you to teach me a few les 
 sons. For they were lessons that I alone 
 needed and God did not want you to un- 
 
 136 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 dergo them as well as me. They were les 
 sons calling for chastisement and you didn t 
 need chastising. 
 
 I ve taken God s punishment dear, and 
 thanked Him for it. And I believe I m fit 
 company for you now. 
 
 I am coming next Monday to Custer, four 
 miles from where you are, and on Tuesday 
 morning, starting at eight, I shall walk 
 toward your bungalow by way of the path 
 by the river. I am familiar with every inch 
 of the road, as you know I wrote "Treasure- 
 trove" at the Wilson ranch near your canon. 
 
 Will you and your little son meet me if 
 only a few yards from your home so that 
 you may judge for yourself if I am fit com 
 pany for you now. 
 
 If you do not meet me then the will of 
 Allah be done, for I shall turn back. 
 
 DONALD. 
 137 
 
October 10. 
 
 Your message came too late, dear; 
 already at eight o clock Tokacon, with my 
 son in his arms, and I were far along on 
 the river path that leads out to the world. 
 Our progress was slow with only the croon- 
 ings and gurglings of my beautiful child to 
 interrupt the silences of nature, as he clung 
 affectionately to the neck of our red man 
 protector, whose solemnity, though he knew 
 not my mission was superb. 
 
 Half way, where Tokacon has built an 
 exquisite rustic bower, we stopped and 
 waited while the Indian returned to the 
 bungalow. 
 
 What a strange hour I spent waiting with 
 my baby, who had fallen asleep in my arms. 
 Thousands of rebellious thoughts burned 
 
 138 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 themselves upon the retina of my brain, as 
 I sat planning and wondering. I want to be 
 just, before I m generous, or I m afraid I ll 
 never have the chance to be generous. I 
 sat staring like one at strife with a memory 
 and then he came, slowly, resignedly. His 
 hair is quite white and there are strange, 
 deep lines on his forehead, and marked par 
 entheses round his mouth which can be but 
 the foot-prints of pain and thought. He 
 could not see us in our secluded shelter and 
 I could not make my mouth utter his name 
 he who had wrung my heart as a peasant 
 twists an osier withe. 
 
 On he walked with his head hung low 
 and a lost look in his eyes then I called 
 "Don," as I used to do when I loved him, 
 and he stopped suddenly and listened with 
 his hand to his ear. Again I called "Don." 
 
 139 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 He turned and saw us. Slowly and with the 
 dignity that he cannot lose, he came back 
 to where we sat. He could not speak, but 
 knelt beside us and kissed the baby s lips; 
 my infant opened his innocent eyes and put 
 his arms around Donald s neck, as much at 
 ease as though he had known him all of his 
 dear little life. Awake and rested, he must 
 needs be tumbled about and played with, 
 which our visitor seemed pleased to do. The 
 strain would have been more than terrible, 
 had it not been for the sweet influence of 
 the child who occupied us both constantly 
 on our long walk, home. 
 
 Meeting one s husband again after so 
 many years, is something akin to the sen 
 sations of drowning every ugly scene of 
 our married life flashed across my brain, 
 also every kindness that he had done me 
 became equally prominent in my memory, 
 
 140 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 that faculty one cannot cast away as one 
 throws down a serviette at table. 
 
 Twilight found us still without words for 
 each other, but when the back logs were 
 lighted (these October nights are cold in 
 the Black Hills) our thoughts came more 
 freely. I find that I care for him as I would 
 for something long dead and half forgot 
 ten, but I am grateful for that, as I was 
 half afraid that I couldn t be even patient 
 with him. However the tolerance that we 
 learn through suffering is the most beautiful 
 offspring of real grief. 
 
 It was very difficult for me to speak of 
 Carlton and our wonderful life that is bur 
 ied out there on the mountain side, but he 
 is indeed sympathetic and never interrupted 
 the long and frequent silences that my in 
 most memory created. The logs burnt in 
 halves and fell with myriad sparks and dis- 
 
 141 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 play to the sides of the fireplace, but we 
 touched them not. He seemed to realize 
 that Carlton and I were not married in the 
 eyes of the law. How he divined it I do 
 not know, unless it is that he has an un 
 canny way of reading one s thoughts. He 
 said that he knew and that he understood, 
 and further, that I am a stronger and better 
 woman for all that I have suffered and done. 
 He wants me to leave my West and live 
 again in New York, where he hopes to 
 recreate in me the old feeling for him which 
 he so ruthlessly squandered, when it was 
 his own. 
 
 He is earnest and sad and I wish that I 
 might care again, for he needs help and so 
 do I, and at least, with our past experiences 
 we might escape some of the ways of 
 wounding each other that married people 
 
 142 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 seem to possess in such unlimited quanti 
 ties. 
 
 Toward midnight the last candles that 
 Tokacon had placed in the sconces, flick 
 ered and went out. The helpless embers 
 flared up for the last time, then sank down 
 resigned. Donald knelt beside me sobbing 
 bitterly, with his head upon my knee. All 
 seems to be grief here on this earth noth 
 ing but grief! For answer I raised his 
 head and kissed his eyes, then fetched a 
 candle and lighted him to his room. I 
 showed him my Indian, sleeping outside my 
 door, which he never forsakes except to 
 allow me to pass. 
 
 Long into the still night I heard sobs, and 
 opening my door I found Tokacon swaying 
 to and fro near Donald s room. He seems 
 to understand grief more keenly than any 
 
 143 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 cultivated mind that I have ever known, and 
 he never intrudes, though it takes a mighty 
 effort for him to suppress his own sympathy. 
 
 At last it grew quiet and we all rested 
 though we did not sleep. The next morning 
 baby and I walked with Donald to the 
 bower where we had met him, and there we 
 parted. Tokacon came and carried the baby 
 back to the bungalow and I followed later 
 on when I felt sufficiently calm to go about 
 my simple duties again. I am not a con 
 noisseur in consciences, therefore I want 
 days and still more days in which to think 
 and weigh, then maybe a decision will come 
 to me as an inspiration. 
 
 Donald will see you as soon as he returns 
 to New York be honest with him and yet 
 beneficent. 
 
 144 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 A thousand kisses from my son and me. 
 Goodnight, 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 145 
 
December i. 
 Dearest Lorna: 
 
 For the last time I am writing to you 
 from the place which is dearest to me in all 
 the universe. My personal things are 
 packed and on the way to Custer. Tokacon 
 is waiting with his torch to set fire to my 
 palace of dreams. 
 
 I could not return to your world to my 
 old world if I thought that other souls than 
 ours were living in my home. The land, I 
 have given to my Indian with sufficient 
 money to build a home for himself, but not 
 one corner of my own shall remain to be 
 profaned by other human emotions. 
 
 Now I am sitting in the machine at a safe 
 distance from the flames, which amuse my 
 son, who is wild with joy and excitement 
 
 146 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 over it. Tokacon groans and I weep, for it 
 is a tomb in flames before us. Ashes ashes 
 everywhere in my home and in my 
 heart, and every where except in the smiles 
 of my child. 
 
 Donald has given me back my home and 
 he has taken rooms at the club what peo 
 ple think and what people say, mean noth 
 ing to me. I shall try bravely to construct 
 something out of the ashes of three lives 
 that will be worthy of the respect of God s 
 elect. I cannot teach myself to forget ; I can 
 only await with patience the reawakening 
 which for the sale of Donald and my son, 
 pray God, will not delay too long its com 
 ing. I suppose the family cannot be 
 built on a foundation of passion, because 
 something on earth always becomes re 
 vengeful when human beings are too happy. 
 
 147 
 
Letters of a Dakota Divorcee 
 
 I shall never try to be too happy again. 
 
 Now my memories must lie entombed in 
 the arcana of memory. But some day when 
 my son is old enough to understand, I shall 
 come back with him to my Black Hills of 
 Dakota, and breathe to him every sigh of 
 my sorrow. Then if he takes me in his arms 
 and whispers "Precious Mother," I shall 
 not have loved and cherished in vain. 
 
 MARIANNE. 
 
 148 
 
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