Hattie Big Sky

by Kirby Larson

  My great-grandmother proved up on her claim, but I couldn’t let “my” Hattie keep hers. Most honyockers went bust; the railroad men did promise too much of eastern Montana, as the fat man on the train complained. Though one succeeded and one failed, both Hatties found something priceless during their time on the Montana prairie: family. And what happier ending could there be than that?

  Further Reading

  For those interested in reading more about the Montana of Hattie’s story, here are several favorites from my research:

  Bad Land: An American Romance, by Jonathan Raban, Pantheon Books, 1996.

  The Generous Years: Remembrances of a Frontier Boyhood, by Chet Huntley, Random House, 1968.

  Homesteading, by Percy Wollaston, Penguin, 1997.

  Photographing Montana 1894–1928: The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron, edited by Donna Lucey, Mountain Press Publishing, 2001.

  Riders of the Purple Sage, by Zane Grey, Grosset and Dunlap, 1912.

  The Stump Farm, by Hilda Rose, Little, Brown, 1928.

  A Traveler’s Companion to Montana History, by Carroll Van West, Montana Historical Society Press, 1986.

  When You and I Were Young, Whitefish, by Dorothy M. Johnson, Montana Historical Society Press, 1982.

  Wolf Point: A City of Destiny, by Marvin W. Presser, M Press, Billings, Montana, 1997.

  Learn more about World War I at www.firstworldwar.com.

  Learn more about your own family and state history at www.usgenweb.com.

  About the Author

  Thanks to her eighth-grade teacher, Kirby Larson maintained a healthy lack of interest in history until she heard a snippet of a story about her great-grandmother homesteading by herself in eastern Montana. Efforts to learn more about Hattie Wright’s homestead times felt like detective work; why hadn’t anyone told Kirby research could be this much fun? Her three years’ work on Hattie Big Sky, winner of a Newbery Honor, involved several trips to Montana, one by train, as well as countless hours in wonderfully dusty courthouse records rooms and newspaper morgues.

  Kirby Larson lives with her husband, Neil, in Kenmore, Washington, where they are both active in the community. Their son works in the film industry in New York; their daughter is an interior designer. When she’s not reading or writing, Kirby is teaching, gardening, traveling, or drinking lattes with friends.

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  1. In the first chapter, Hattie is given a “wonderful opportunity.” What do you learn about her as a person when she says yes to going to Vida?

  2. When Hattie arrives in Wolf Point, she meets with Mr. Ebgard (Chapter 3), who explains more fully the requirements of proving up on a claim. One requirement is to build a house, but fortunately for Hattie, Uncle Chester has already done that. The other tasks include setting 480 rods of fence (which is 7,920 feet; picture 587 VW Beetles in a very, very long row) and planting crops on one-eighth of the claim, or in Hattie’s case, 40 acres (picture an area nearly as big as 40 football fields). How would you have reacted to this if you had been in Hattie’s shoes?

  3. On Chapter 5, Hattie copies out a humorous poem about the trials and tribulations of rationing and other wartime deprivations. She sends it to Charlie to give him a laugh. How do you think people really felt about being deprived of such essentials as flour and sugar? How might people today respond if a war or other events necessitated rationing?

  4. After Violet’s tail becomes a snack for the wolf, Hattie goes to visit with Perilee and learns that Karl is being required to register as a “resident alien.” What is Hattie’s response to this? How does her reaction compare to Perilee’s?

  5. Charlie’s letters to Hattie start out full of bravado. She says he is “full of spit and vinegar” when he’s issued his bayonet (Chapter 3). Over the course of the story, the tone of his letters changes. Near the end, he writes, “I always bragged about killing some Germans. Killing is nothing to brag about. Nothing at all” (Chapter 18). What might have contributed to Charlie’s changed perceptions of the war?

  6. At one point in the story (Chapter 10), Hattie realizes that she and Traft may have more in common than she’d like to admit. What traits does she think they share? Do you agree with her assessment?

  7. In her May “Honyocker’s Homily” (Chapter 14), Hattie writes about the lessons she’s learning on the prairie and how they “pertain more to caring than to crops, more to Golden Rule than gold, more to the proper choice than to the popular choice.” Discuss what she might mean by this.

  8. Even though homesteaders worked long, hard hours, they still made time to write to friends and family back home. Hattie’s letters to Uncle Holt become the basis for her column, “Honyocker’s Homily,” in which she shares her story of life on the prairie. Letter writing isn’t as common today, but people still reach out to one another through the written word. Can you think of other, contemporary equivalents of letter writing? Why do you think it’s so important for us to tell our individual stories?

  9. One nickname for eastern Montana is “next year country,” as Hattie tells Uncle Holt in her letter to him dated June 22, 1918 (Chapter 17). Based on the story of Hattie Big Sky, does this seem like a fitting nickname? Why or why not?

  10. When Hattie stumbles upon the men harassing Mr. Ebgard, she wonders why no one comes forward to stop them. Then she realizes: “There was no ‘anyone’ at a time like this. There was only me” (Chapter 17). What gives her the courage to step forward?

  11. After Hattie fails to prove up on Uncle Chester’s claim, Rooster Jim tells her “things have a way of working themselves out…there’s reasons for our valleys and for our peaks” (Chapter 22). What is he trying to tell her? Do you think things will work themselves out for Hattie?

  In Her Own Words

  A Conversation with

  KIRBY LARSON

  A Conversation with KIRBY LARSON

  Q: Your great-grandmother’s experience as a homesteader inspired Hattie Big Sky. Is this your great-grandmother’s story?

  A: I do know that my great-grandmother homesteaded near Vida, Montana, and that she proved up and later sold her claim. And I found a newspaper article that said she had dinner with a Vida family one Sunday—big news! But our family doesn’t know much about her early life, before she married my great-grandfather when she was thirty-seven. This book is more a re-creation, based on reading and research, of what her time on the prairie and at the homestead might have been like.

  Q: Have you always been interested in history?

  A: Not at all! I detested memorizing dates and facts when I was in school; I thought that was what history was. When my daughter was in junior high, she introduced me to historical fiction and I became an avid reader, thoroughly enjoying books like The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan by Jennifer Armstrong, Catherine, Called Birdy and Matilda Bone by Karen Cushman, and Our Only May Amelia by Jennifer L. Holm. As much as I enjoyed reading those books, it never occurred to me that I could write historical fiction. It took two women who never went beyond eighth grade—my grandmother Lois Brown and my great-grandmother Hattie—to teach me to love history.

  Q: How much of Hattie Big Sky is fact and how much fiction?

  A: I spent three years researching Hattie Big Sky and worked hard to get enough information to accurately re-create another time and place. Many of the names, events, et cetera, are factual, but I’ve tweaked them so that they make a more engaging story. For example, I did read one journal entry where a woman reminisced about seeing a wolf bite off a calf’s tail when she was a young girl. That was such a delicious incident, I knew I would have to include it in Hattie Big Sky.

  Q: Which character is most like you?

  A: My daughter says Hattie sounds exactly like me at times! And, truth be told, there’s a lot of Violet in me, too.

  Q: Hattie is based on a real person; are any of the other characters based on real people?

  A: No doubt there is a touch of people I know in each of the characters I create. And I did use names of
real people—the postmaster, August Nefzger, for example—to honor the Vida pioneers. I also used names of some of my family members. (They know who they are!) But the characters in the story are created solely out of my imagination. The Hattie in the story is not my great-grandmother. And though people want to believe Charlie is real, he, too, is a created character. The letters he writes to Hattie, however, were inspired by letters my husband’s grandfather, Myron Hawley, sent home when he was a young man fighting in World War I.

  Q: Why does Mattie have to die?

  A: More people died from the Spanish influenza than died in the battles of World War I. Because of this, I felt that I couldn’t write a story set in 1918 without an influenza death. To be completely honest, I had planned for another character to be the one to die. When I wrote the scene where Hattie comes to the cabin and Perilee and the girls are all sick, I suddenly realized that it wasn’t going to be that other character but Mattie. I cried the whole time I wrote the scene; in fact, I still get teary about it. But it was the right thing to do for this book.

  Q: There are a lot of parallels between this story and current events. Did you write it to get a message across about war?

  A: I’m a quote collector, and one of my favorite quotes is from Samuel Goldwyn, about making movies. To paraphrase Mr. Goldwyn: If you want to send a message, call Western Union. I don’t think I can write a good story if my sole motivation is to get a message across. I tried to tell this story as best I could from Hattie’s point of view. My hope is that I left enough room for readers to figure out for themselves what this story means to them.

  Q: Does Hattie marry Charlie?

  A: Everyone asks me that! To be honest, when I finished Hattie Big Sky, I thought I was finished with Hattie’s story. But so many people have been writing to me asking what happens next that I’ve begun to think about writing a sequel. And I won’t know until I write it—if I write it!—what happens between Hattie and Charlie.

  Homesteads and Hamlet Traps

  June 4, 1919

  Great Falls, Montana

  Brown’s Boardinghouse

  Dear Perilee,

  You will never guess what I am posting in the mail besides this letter to you: my last check to Mr. Nefzger! After these long months, Uncle Chester’s IOU is paid in full. When first presented with that IOU some months ago, I couldn’t imagine how on earth I would repay it. Especially after that summer hailstorm knocked down my crops along with my hopes of making a go of the farm. The good Lord has quite a sense of humor, plunking me down here in Great Falls, in just the sort of job I left Iowa to escape, though I must confess, it was pure pleasure this past winter to have indoor plumbing. No more walking to the necessary when it’s forty below! And I’ve certainly perfected essential cleaning skills. I’ll have you know that I can now make a bed, scour the washbowl, and Hoover-sweep the carpet in a lodger’s room in fifteen minutes flat.

  Despite the glamour of my current position, I am counting the minutes until the next thing. What is that, you ask? I do not know. You are right, as always, that the sensible plan is to come to you in Seattle. Of course, I would love to be neighbors again, as we were on the Montana prairie. But you know I am not prone to the sensible. What sensible girl would have said yes to spending a year under Montana’s big sky, trying to make a go of a long-lost uncle’s homestead claim?

  And what sensible girl wouldn’t say yes to Charlie, who is quite convinced we are meant to grow old together? Only a fool would deflect his attentions. Well, I saw such a fool in the mirror this morning.

  It’s not that Charlie wouldn’t be easy to look at for the next fifty years. Aside from your Karl, I can’t think of another man so solid, kind, and true-blue. What is it that I want, one may wonder, if not to be Mrs. Charlie Hawley? That’s as much a mystery to me as Uncle Chester’s past. But I feel strongly that Hattie Here-and-There must change her life before she can change her name.

  I still puzzle over Uncle Chester, God rest his soul, calling himself a scoundrel. Perhaps this world needs more such scoundrels. Without him, I never would have had the chance to test myself on the homestead, to breathe in the promises carried on a prairie breeze, or to fill my heart with so many friends, among whom I count you the dearest.

  Mrs. Brown is hollering for me. She is in a perfect dither over the acting troupe soon to arrive. The Venturing Varietals are sure to be livelier boarders than our usual Fuller Brush salesmen.

  Your friend,

  Hattie Inez Brooks

  The floor began to vibrate beneath my feet. Mrs. Brown had progressed from hollering to pounding the ceiling below with the broom handle. Evidently, the workday had begun. I set the letter to Perilee aside, tied my apron on, and went to find my employer.

  She was in the kitchen, kneading bread dough. I was not to be trusted with this particular task. Despite Perilee’s expert tutelage, I never managed to bake a loaf of bread any lighter than a flatiron.

  Mrs. Brown clapped floury hands together. “Busy now! I want things spotless when the actors arrive. Spotless!” She slapped the dough for emphasis.

  Taking stock of what yet needed to be done, I dragged a rug outside, threw it across the clothesline, and began to beat it clean.

  As I swung the rug-beater back and forth, my thoughts back-and-forthed, too, settling first on a snippet from Charlie’s last letter:

  I should be grateful to be home. And I am, don’t mistake me. Too many families lost their sons in that war. It’s hard to explain what I feel. The best I can come up with is that it’s like trying to pitch without a baseball. Something’s missing. And I think you know what that something is.

  I shook my head. Why couldn’t I be more like other girls my age? Take Mrs. Brown’s niece. She spent her every waking hour sizing up this beau or that, stitching tea towels and petticoats and putting aside a little each month for a set of Spode Buttercup dishes.

  Perhaps I’d have been the same way had it not been for Uncle Chester leaving me the homestead in his will. Last year, working to prove up, I had been more than Hattie Here-and-There, the orphan girl with too many temporary homes. I had been Hattie Big Sky, carving out a place to belong. Like so many others who’d been drawn to Montana’s prairie, I was not successful. And losing the farm was not the worst of my losses. It was nothing compared to losing Mattie.

  I stopped my exertions and swiped at my eyes, suddenly thankful for this dusty job. Should anyone come upon me, I could blame it for my damp eyes, not memories of Mattie. The influenza had cut a wide swath of death through this country, but that one loss cut an even wider swath through my heart.

  After a moment, I resumed the rhythmic slapping of beater on rug, another thought moving to the forefront of my mind. For all its challenges and sorrows, my time on the homestead had given me a taste of what it might be like to stake out my own claim on life, and had left me craving more.

  After a while, I carted the last rug into the house, smoothing it back in its place on the floor. Windows were next. I lugged buckets and rags upstairs, catching my reflection in the glass in the Daisy room. Guilt was stamped all over my face. For good reason: I had been less than forthcoming with Perilee, my truest friend, in my letter to her. I did know what I wanted to do. Six long lonely months here in Great Falls had provided ample time to piece together new hopes.

  Those Honyocker’s Homilies I’d written from the homestead for the Arlington News back in Iowa were the first fleas to bite. Then I began to read the assorted newspapers our lodgers left behind, discovering articles written by female reporters like muckraker Ida Tarbell. And Nellie Bly, who earned her first assignment at eighteen, just a year older than me.

  I could not yet confess it to anyone, not even Perilee, but I had thrown a lasso around a dream even bigger than a Montana farm.

  I wanted to be a reporter.

  Even though I was about as worldly as Rooster Jim’s hens, I did know that a mild talent and a few pieces published in a small-town paper were not sufficient. Women li
ke Nellie Bly did Grand Things; that was how they got to be real writers. Despite its name, Great Falls was hardly the place to do something grand.

  Neither was Arlington, Iowa. And even though my heart approved of Charlie’s plan for an “us,” my mind feared that saying yes to him was saying no to myself. I needed to find my own place in the world. My own true place.

  And something in me believed that place was connected to the working end of a pen, not a plow. And certainly not a polishing cloth! Every night, after I was done for the day at Mrs. Brown’s, I’d been scribbling away in children’s composition books—the cheapest I could find at the five-and-dime. I copied down inspiring words and snippets of poems, but mostly I used those pages to practice being a reporter.

  The first article in my book was about Mrs. Brown’s neighbor Sam Blessing, who had the brains of a chicken. No, that was an insult to chickens. In a fit of pique at his wife, Sam had shut himself in the shed out back. The shed that locked from the outside. Equally piqued, his wife had not been inclined to unlock the door. It took some serious horse trading on his part to coax her to wield the key and let him out. The bargain they’d struck was reflected in the headline I’d written: “Mrs. Sam Blessing’s Mother to Visit Great Falls for Three Months.”

  I was also partial to the piece I’d written about Mrs. Maynard’s dog, Blue. Mrs. Maynard would send Blue, by himself, to the grocer’s with her shopping list and market basket, and he would return with the requested provisions, carrying the basket handle in his mouth. “Course, I don’t send him after cream,” she’d told me, “lest it would be butter by the time he trotted it home.”

  I’d written about the children’s story times at the public library and the Sons of Norway parade, and had even tried my hand at writing a review of the last movie I’d seen at the Gem.