The Prairie Wife
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Author
Stringer, Arthur
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General Book Summary
"The Prairie Wife" by Arthur Stringer is an epistolary novel written as a series of diary entries addressed to the narrator's friend Matilda Anne. The story follows Chaddie (nicknamed "Tabby" or "Gee-Gee"), a cultured young American woman who has lost her fortune when Chilean nitrate mine investments fail. After breaking off her engagement to Theobald Gustav, a German diplomat, she impulsively marries Duncan Argyll McKail ("Dinky-Dunk"), a Scottish-Canadian civil engineer turned wheat farmer, whom she met at Banff. The novel chronicles Chaddie's dramatic transition from a life of European travel, opera, and high society to the harsh realities of homesteading on the Canadian prairie. She moves to "Casa Grande," a tiny tin-covered shack on Duncan's ranch in the remote Northwest, where she must learn to cook, clean, make butter, tend chickens, and survive brutal blizzards with temperatures dropping to fifty degrees below zero. Through her witty, self-deprecating entries, Chaddie documents her struggles and triumphs: mastering domestic skills, shooting a hawk threatening her chickens, surviving encounters with an escaped murderer, weathering dangerous blizzards, and navigating the emotional challenges of her marriage. She befriends Percival Benson Woodhouse, an aristocratic English neighbor whose presence causes a jealous misunderstanding with Duncan on New Year's Eve. The couple faces financial pressures as Duncan risks everything on wheat farming, dreaming of future prosperity through modern farming techniques. Supporting characters include Olie, their devoted Swedish hired hand, and Olga Sarristo, a magnificent Finnish woman who helps with farm work. As the narrative progresses, Chaddie discovers she is pregnant, adding new dimensions to her prairie experience. Despite moments of loneliness, cultural deprivation, and marital tension, she gradually embraces her new life, finding unexpected fulfillment in the simple rhythms of frontier existence. The novel celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of love, while offering a vivid portrait of early twentieth-century homesteading life in the Canadian West.
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Book Excerpt
THE PRAIRIE WIFE
By ARTHUR STRINGER
With Frontispiece in Color by H. T. DUNN
A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK
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PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE BOBBS, MERRILL COMPANY COPYRIGHT 1915 THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT 1915 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
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TO VAN WHO KNOWS AND LOVES THE WEST AS WE LOVE HIM!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Thursday the Nineteenth 1 Saturday the Twenty-first 16 Monday the Twenty-third 33 Wednesday the Twenty-fifth 41 Thursday the Twenty-sixth 48 Saturday the Twenty-eighth 57 Wednesday the First 61 Thursday the Second 64 Friday the Third 67 Saturday the Fourth 68 Monday the Sixth 73 Wednesday the Eighth 80 Saturday the Tenth 88 Sunday the Eleventh 91 Monday the Twelfth 93 Sunday the Eighteenth 101 Monday the Nineteenth 103 Tuesday the Twentieth 105 Thursday the Twenty-second 115 Saturday the Twenty-fourth 119 Tuesday the Twenty-seventh 128 Thursday the Twenty-ninth 133 Friday the Fifth 136 Sunday the Seventh 137 Tuesday the Ninth 138 Saturday the Twenty-first 142 Sunday the Twenty-ninth 150 Monday the Seventh 152 Friday the Eleventh 153 Sunday the Thirteenth 155 Wednesday the Sixteenth 156 Sunday the Twentieth 157 Sunday the Twenty-seventh 158 Wednesday the Thirtieth 159 Thursday the Thirty-first 160 Sunday the Third 167 Thursday the Seventh 171 Saturday the Ninth 172 Monday the Eleventh 175 Tuesday the Nineteenth 182 Sunday the Thirty-first 186 Tuesday the Ninth 188 Wednesday the Seventeenth 189 Thursday the Twenty-fifth 190 Tuesday the Second 191 Thursday the Fourth 193 Wednesday the Seventeenth 194 Saturday the Twenty-seventh 195 Tuesday the Sixth 198 Monday the Twelfth 199 Tuesday the Twentieth 202 Monday the Twenty-sixth 205 Wednesday the Twenty-eighth 207 Monday the Second 209 Thursday the Fifth 210 Tuesday the Tenth 214 Monday the Sixteenth 217 Tuesday the Twenty-fourth 220 Friday the Third 222 Thursday the Ninth 224 Wednesday the Fifteenth 228 Friday the Seventeenth 230 Saturday the Nineteenth 231 Friday the Twenty-eighth 233 Saturday the Twenty-ninth 234 Sunday the Thirtieth 236 Tuesday the First 237 Monday the Seventh 243 Sunday the Thirteenth 247 Monday the Twenty-eighth 249 Saturday the Second 251...