came down with _la grippe_ and was so
miserable that it kept me busy trying to relieve him. Out here where we
can get no physician we have to dope ourselves, so that I had to be
housekeeper, nurse, doctor, and general overseer. That explains my long
silence.

And now I want to thank you for your kind thought in prolonging our
Christmas. The magazines were much appreciated. They relieved some
weary night-watches, and the box did Jerrine more good than the
medicine I was having to give her for _la grippe_. She was content to
stay in bed and enjoy the contents of her box.

When I read of the hard times among the Denver poor, I feel like urging
them every one to get out and file on land. I am very enthusiastic
about women homesteading. It really requires less strength and labor to
raise plenty to satisfy a large family than it does to go out to wash,
with the added satisfaction of knowing that their job will not be lost
to them if they care to keep it. Even if improving the place does go
slowly, it is that much done to stay done. Whatever is raised is the
homesteader's own, and there is no house-rent to pay. This year Jerrine
cut and dropped enough potatoes to raise a ton of fine potatoes. She
wanted to try, so we let her, and you will remember that she is but six
years old. We had a man to break the ground and cover the potatoes for
her and the man irrigated them once. That was all that was done until
digging time, when they were ploughed out and Jerrine picked them up.
Any woman strong enough to go out by the day could have done every bit
of the work and put in two or three times that much, and it would have
been so much more pleasant than to work so hard in the city and then be
on starvation rations in the winter.

To me, homesteading is the solution of all poverty's problems, but I
realize that temperament has much to do with success in any
undertaking, and persons afraid of coyotes and work and loneliness had
better let ranching alone. At the same time, any woman who can stand
her own company, can see the beauty of the sunset, loves growing
things, and is willing to put in as much time at careful labor as she
does over the washtub, will certainly succeed; will have independence,
plenty to eat all the time, and a home of her own in the end.

Experimenting need cost the homesteader no more than the work, because
by applying to the Department of Agriculture at Washington he can get
enough of any seed and as many kind