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nothing but brag. The other reason is the haste I married in. I am
ashamed of that. I am afraid you will think me a Becky Sharp of a
person. But although I married in haste, I have no cause to repent.
That is very fortunate because I have never had one bit of leisure to
repent in. So I am lucky all around. The engagement was powerfully
short because both agreed that the trend of events and ranch work
seemed to require that we be married first and do our "sparking"
afterward. You see, we had to chink in the wedding between times, that
is, between planting the oats and other work that must be done early or
not at all. In Wyoming ranchers can scarcely take time even to be
married in the springtime. That having been settled, the license was
sent for by mail, and as soon as it came Mr. Stewart saddled Chub and
went down to the house of Mr. Pearson, the justice of the peace and a
friend of long standing. I had never met any of the family and
naturally rather dreaded to have them come, but Mr. Stewart was firm in
wanting to be married at home, so he told Mr. Pearson he wanted him and
his family to come up the following Wednesday and serve papers on the
"wooman i' the hoose." They were astonished, of course, but being such
good friends they promised him all the assistance they could render.
They are quite the dearest, most interesting family! I have since
learned to love them as my own.

Well, there was no time to make wedding clothes, so I had to "do up"
what I did have. Isn't it queer how sometimes, do what you can, work
will keep getting in the way until you can't get anything done? That is
how it was with me those few days before the wedding; so much so that
when Wednesday dawned everything was topsy-turvy and I had a very
strong desire to run away. But I always did hate a "piker," so I stood
pat. Well, I had most of the dinner cooked, but it kept me hustling to
get the house into anything like decent order before the old dog
barked, and I knew my moments of liberty were limited. It was blowing a
perfect hurricane and snowing like midwinter. I had bought a beautiful
pair of shoes to wear on that day, but my vanity had squeezed my feet a
little, so while I was so busy at work I had kept on a worn old pair,
intending to put on the new ones later; but when the Pearsons drove up
all I thought about was getting them into the house where there was
fire, so I forgot all about the old shoes and the apron I wore.

I had only bee