I've been going through the journal bit by bit each day, slowly transferring it from its current Microsoft Word state into something called a "Scribus" - a free online publishing program I downloaded. It appears to be used mostly for posters and magazines, but I'm sure the difference in quality is negligible. Neither me nor my boss expect this to come out looking like a Modern Library Classic or a Vintage International or anything. Scribus is a Linux-based program - what that means exactly, I couldn't tell you - that involves me creating "squares" and then deciding if it's supposed to be a "text square" or an "image square".
The journal itself is surprisingly detailed, and the prose is flowing. Such wonderful names also! I must steal them for my own. It describes RCJ's journey from Chicago to North Dakota aboard the Great Northern railway. Here's a sample:
By Sunday night I was back in St. Paul and left there at 10:45 p.m. on the Great Northern . The train whisked me through Minnesota during the night, but when we struck the border of North Dakota I was wide awake.
What struck me was the peculiar aspect of the state at that time of the year. Everything was of the same dull, brownish hue. Not a speck of green to relieve the monotony, not a tree or shrub in sight. Besides I noticed that, in spite of the advanced season, nearly all the grain was still standing in shocks, that very little threshing had been done. It was noticeably colder than St. Louis had been. I found that most of the pools and creeks we passed had a thin coating of ice.
The train from Williston to Snowden Mont. was a wretchedly slow affair. But it was heaven compared to the train from Snowden to Watford , N. Dak. This latter train consisted of a series of freight cars, with an antediluvian passenger coach in its rear. I subsequently learned that this train ran only every two days; that on other days they had freight trains only.
As I approached my destination I began to feel wretchedly blue. Everything was so strange and a peculiar sense of loneliness stole over me that was very apprehensive. Judge my joy, therefore, when I saw that good old “Daddy” Roettger was at the station to meet me. “Daddy” had been in charge of this place since Rev. Frey left it in the middle of Sept., and he had been due to take charge of a school in Gardena, N. Dak. on Nov. 1st. Loyal as he always was, he had waited for me, however, and he helped me load up my trunk and took me over to Schafer, the county seat of McKenzie Co., although it was not situated on any railroad. The home which I was to occupy during my stay here, was not in Schafer at that time, although the people intended to move it soon. It was two miles in the country in the bleakest and loneliest spot imaginable, so it seemed to me.
The pictures provided are mostly desolate expanses of prairie and clouds, but there are a few diamonds.
All the work on the diary has left me precious little free time here at work to write Novel 1. I put in a vacation request for August 2-6. Think I'll disappear.
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