On Story Bent

 "When Pa decided at the last moment to set out for California to claim his share of the fabled gold, Minnie just knew she couldn't bear being left behind in quiet old St. Joe with her spinster Aunt Addie. The trail west was a trail of bones, she'd heard, but regardless, one bright sunshiny morning Minnie Weldon took leave of her pretty blue and white bedroom with its Rob Peter quilt and starched curtains and stowed away behind the flour barrel in the big covered wagon.  "Minnie took a gamble, a rash one at that, and Pa nearly turned back when she finally climbed out of the wagon. But it also won Minnie a whole new life in the vast freedom of the prairies, the arduous crossing of the Rockies, and at last the descent into the wild hurly-burly of San Francisco at the height of the Gold Rush. There, for a time, Minnie had to survive by her wits alone and in the process of doing so amassed her own crock of gold." (from the dust jacket) I distinctly remember reading T...