The Girl of the Golden West continues. This is pretty much a “comedy relief” chapter, in which the two Native American characters further their romance, and the Girl takes some pretty comical measures to get ready for her dinner guest. The Girl’s cabin is also described, which is interesting both as a description of a woman’s belongings in the Old West and as set design.
The Native American characters continue to be written in a stereotypical manner (though I’ve seen lots worse elsewhere). I continue to try to read in a way that’s a little less offensive, without actually bowdlerizing the text. Sometimes this is made easy. The setup of an unmarried mother planning a temporary marriage would have been a shocking condemnation of Native lifestyles to audiences back then, but seems depressingly normal to us today.
24:22.
Maria Lectrix 
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