Dawn's Early Light

The year was 1849. The wagon train moved slowly along the parched Oregon Trail in the empty desolation that was to become known as southern Wyoming. Martha Bradford was told she must discard either her cast-iron cook stove or her pianola to lighten the burden for the oxen. She has them both unloaded and then refuses to go on any further:

She declared that if the only things that made her life wort...