55 pages • 1 hour read
Nancy E. TurnerThese Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “July 22, 1881”-“September 30, 1881”
Content Warning: The novel uses the term “Indians” to refer to Indigenous Americans. The study guide uses the term “Indian” in the summary material to follow the term used in the book; elsewhere, it refers to Indigenous people. The novel also includes episodes of rape and murder.
The novel opens as Sarah Prine and her family (Mama, Papa, and brothers Ernest, Albert, Harland, and Clover) are traveling by wagon toward San Angelo, Texas Territory. The Prines owned a horse ranch in Western New Mexico Territory, but one day Papa decided the family should sell their home, round up their livestock, and set off for greener pastures.
During the trip, Sarah breaks in her horse, Rose, and learns writing from Papa; otherwise, the journey is slow and difficult. In early August, the Prines meet two other wagons, one driven by an irritable couple from back East named Mr. and Mrs. Hoover and the other by a Quaker family, the Lawrences. Papa convinces both to travel to San Angelo, and Sarah enjoys having the Lawrence sisters—Savannah, Ulyssa, Alice, and Louisianna—around. Savannah lends Sarah materials to help with her writing, and Sarah surprises the girls with her hunting skills. The travelers hear rumors of hostile Indians in the area who may steal the Prines’ horses.
Bad luck descends on the group soon after: Sarah’s youngest brother, Clover, is bitten by a rattlesnake and dies. An Indian ambush also descends on the wagons: Mr. Hoover and Mrs. Lawrence are killed, the families lose livestock, and Papa and Ernest are shot. Mr. Lawrence amputates Ernest’s leg. They reach Texas Territory, but while they are there, two men rape Ulyssa while she bathes with Sarah and her sisters. Sarah kills the men. Then, a large band of Comanche people encounters the weary group and steals their horses; a warrior who scalped the men she killed returns Rose to Sarah.
They reach San Angelo, but Papa dies from an infection in his wound. Albert and Savannah become engaged, and Albert decides they should start an orchard in part of the territory they passed en route to San Angelo. Another wagon train guarded by cavalry soldiers is leaving soon, and Sarah is happy to travel back homeward.
Chapter 2 Summary: “November 24, 1881”-“December 16, 1881”
Savannah and Albert are married in San Angelo by Cavalry Captain Jack Elliot, and they celebrate among strangers with music and dancing. The next morning, the rest of the Lawrences leave in their wagon. Mama tells Sarah they missed her birthday while on the trail: She is 18 now, a young lady. Thus, Savannah suggests Sarah begin wearing skirts that cover her ankles; she is open to the change. She wants to be a lady, so she begins studying how Savannah speaks and walks.
The Prines set out with the new wagon train, but there is tension among the different groups of people. Sarah watches her fellow travelers and decides many of them are hateful; she also doesn’t like the army men—particularly Captain Jack Elliot. While Sarah and Ernest are cleaning rifles, Savannah asks Sarah if she’ll teach her to shoot. A man nearby makes negative remarks against women learning how to shoot; Sarah discovers he is Mike Meyers from Missouri. Ernest admires Mike’s rifle and challenges him to a shooting contest. Sarah competes and easily wins but rejects her prize—Mike’s rifle—for being too cumbersome. Mama rarely speaks anymore, and Sarah believes her mother has “lost her mind” (34).
One day, a page from a book blows into Sarah’s bonnet, and she is enchanted by an excerpt describing a woman who wears “a dress of scarlet velvet and pearls in her hair” (35); she saves the page. Days later, the wagon train is attacked by Indians and suffers heavy losses. Sarah watches Captain Elliot fighting and finds him both terrifying and impressive. The next day, Ernest announces he wants to become a soldier. After the attack, the travelers become more tolerant and helpful to one another.
Chapter 3 Summary: “December 19, 1881”-“January 11, 1882”
Sarah and Mama learn that Savannah is pregnant. Sarah is worried, as another woman recently died in childbirth on their journey.
While traveling on Christmas Day 1881, Sarah spots an abandoned campsite and a small covered wagon. She rushes over to explore the site and is thrilled to find the wagon filled with boxes of books. Sarah appeals to Captain Elliot, asking if she may have a deceased family’s horses to drive her new wagon; he proposes to trade the horses for two books of his choice. He selects a book on North African animals and another called The Duchess of Warwick and Her Sorrow by the Sea—the book from which a page flew into Sarah’s bonnet. Elliot senses her interest in the book and insists on taking it, angering Sarah.
During a storm one night, Sarah is awakened by the smell of smoke in her new wagon; she believes it is on fire. Sarah screams when she sees a man’s silhouette in her doorway. As she reaches for her pistol, the man grabs her, and they struggle to the ground: It is Captain Elliot. He tells her that the smoke came from his cigar and tries to calm her down, but she is overwrought and cries into his chest, sobbing about the horrors she’s faced since her journey began. She cries herself to sleep this way and wakes up ashamed. Elliot assures her that she has done nothing to be ashamed of—she merely had a good cry. But he tells her he should, nevertheless, leave her wagon to prevent others from starting rumors.
Chapter 4 Summary: “January 13, 1882”-“February 23, 1882”
Sarah’s younger brother Harland surprises the Prines one evening by bringing Captain Elliot to supper. He announces that Elliot has come to court the widowed Mama Prine, but she politely declines. Elliot stays for supper, but Mama’s conversation is strange; she asks Elliot if he is one of General Lee’s soldiers. Playing along, Elliot and the other Prines pretend he is a captain in the Confederate Army. The evening makes Harland incredibly sad.
Near the end of their journey to Arizona Territories, Sarah comes down with pneumonia. She is sure she will die and pens her last will. In this condition, she cannot hunt or work as usual; however, Mama suddenly transforms back to her former self, helping Sarah, driving the wagon, and fixing suppers for the family.
Sarah is on the mend as their journey winds down, and several wagons separate from the train to settle in parts of Arizona. This includes the Prines, who decide to settle outside Tucson. Ernest also leaves to join the army. As the Prines prepare to leave, Elliot returns one of Sarah’s books, reasoning that she helped the army by caring for the surplus horses. Sarah opens the package and disappointedly sees it’s not The Duchess of Warwick. She decides to later write to Elliot to buy it back from him.
Albert and Mama go to Tucson to file the family’s land claims while Harland, Savannah, and Sarah remain on their new settlement. Savannah discusses her worries about childbirth, and Sarah admits Mama has instructed her only to rely on the Lord for what she needs to know about the process. Harland is in a sad and irritable mood, which upsets Savannah; Sarah cheers them up by engaging them in the planning of their new home.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
The experiences registered in these early entries in Sarah’s diary reflect its writer’s toughness and wit, some of her most pronounced traits. Sarah’s first-person voice also reflects a limited point of view; however, her actions reveal that she is loyal to those who are close to her and quick to stand up for what she believes in. In contrast with the ladylike Savannah Lawrence and her sisters, Sarah is not afraid to speak directly to men, not even the intimidating Captain Jack Elliot. She is self-sufficient and handy with a rifle.
Sarah learned the alphabet from her father, and she taught herself to read by figuring out “words from the letters” in her family’s Bible (3). Moreover, Sarah is intent on improving her writing skills, hoping “there is schools in San Angelo” that will accept a girl her age, as she, like the rest of her family, has not received any formal education (3). In the novel’s first chapters, Sarah’s organization of ideas and her grammar reflect her educational limitations, but by Chapter 4, her storytelling becomes markedly smoother and more cohesive. This progress is the result of the instruction in writing that she receives from aspiring teacher Savannah Lawrence in Chapter 1 and the instructional materials loaned to her by Rudy Willburn, who plays the fiddle at Albert and Savannah’s wedding. Thus, books become an important symbol early in the story, denoting not only access to education but also feminine beauty and gentility, as Sarah comes to associate education with her new sister-in-law, Savannah.
By extension, through her interactions with Savannah, who becomes something of an aspirational model in the novel’s early chapters, Sarah also begins to take an interest in being more feminine and ladylike. For example, Savannah’s presence awakens in Sarah a new consciousness of her physical appearance. She wishes for a bonnet like Savannah’s to prevent her outdoor work from giving her freckles, and she compares her tall, “straight and thin” figure to Savannah’s more feminine shape (26). She also refers to herself as “plain and not pretty like the Lawrence girls” (26). As Sarah’s writing grows clearer, her innermost thoughts and feelings about herself as a woman come more sharply into focus.
In fact, Sarah’s interest in being a lady becomes an early theme in the novel. From her time studying Savannah and the Lawrence sisters, she deduces that being a proper lady requires a delicate balance of comportment and temperament, balancing her behavior and mannerisms with others’ perceptions. This is why Sarah reacts so severely after breaking down in front of Captain Elliot in Chapter 3. Because she sees the genteel and ladylike Savannah as a model of virtue, in comparison, Sarah becomes convinced that her presumed indiscretion fashions her “a wanton or harlot” (49-50). She frets that her falling asleep with Elliot “ruined” her and made her a “fallen woman,” and she repeatedly compares herself to Rahab from the Old Testament. However, Sarah learns that there is much more to being a “lady”—and a woman, more generally—than others’ feelings about her behavior.
For example, Sarah realizes that there are important facts of life that her Mama never taught her. Comparing herself to the pregnant Savannah, for instance, Sarah admits she “don’t know much” about giving birth to or conceiving children (73). To her diary, Sarah admits concern about this gap in her understanding, fearing she may inadvertently ruin her reputation one day. Savannah serves as Sarah’s teacher on these matters, reassuring her that if she marries for love, she will have little to fear. However, Savannah’s assurances to Sarah reflect only her own experience of love and marriage. Neither Mama nor the family Bible has taught her anything about love. Beyond Mama’s temporary catatonia following Papa’s death, Sarah reveals little evidence in her diary of her parents’ mutual affection or romantic love. Thus, Savannah’s advice to “marry for love” holds little concrete significance for Sarah (74); it not only foreshadows the unfortunate circumstances of her first marriage but also sets her up to continue to be unclear about what to expect of her future.
