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We had such an enjoyable time last week, listening to the rambunctious stories of Hardluck Lin as told by Linda Teigland Clark, an entertaining storyteller that engages history lovers, both young and old alike. Our family enjoyed Linda’s stories so much that we came home and purchased her new book that night.

The Small Window: The Story of Hardluck’s Beginnings by Linda Clark

The Thorald homestead was located near the banks of St. Peter’s River in the southern portion of Wisconsin Territory. One day this region would become part of the great state of Minnesota; the river would be renamed the Minnesota River; and near the old homestead, a city would rise and identify itself after Chief Mankato of the Mdewakanton Sioux.

Pa and the twins worked hard to turn that rich black earth into life and subsistence for his wife and five young’uns. When the unpredictable weather fought his labor and sweat and the land turned against him, survival rose to new heights. And Pa caught the dream of the new land …It was 1848. Pa followed his dream; he was taking his family to the Promised Land, a land called California … Pa taught his family that God will not shut a door without opening a window.

He said it was God’s Way of leading His Children. And during these hard times, Pa added that it was the North wind that made the Vikings.What he didn’t tell Laurin, his 17 year-old-daughter, was how small and difficult “getting through” that window might be or how long and strong that North wind might blow …Laurin, like her father, dreamed big … …until tragedy struck! When cholera claimed the lives of her parents and older brothers in the Humboldt Sink, she had to find that window … set her own sail against that staunch wind … Only she remained to do it!

She had to find a way not just to survive the trek over the Sierra and into California, but to survive and be safe, once they arrived in this untamed land dominated by men, gold, and greed. It wasn’t for herself but for her younger brother, age 7, and sister, age 4. They were her responsibility … their future; their very lives depended upon her. They couldn’t go back; there was no “back”! She loved them and she had to find a way.

Join Laurin as she transforms into Hardluck Lin and becomes a part of the early history of the California Gold Rush.

My copy arrived Saturday at the post office, I’ll be posting my own review of the book in the near future. I can’t help but believe that if her book is nearly half as good as her storytelling, it’s sure to be a terrific read.

Linda Clark is a native Minnesotan, California transplant, living in the Twain Harte mountains. She has served as a wife, mother, teacher, and Deputy Sheriff. Her current occupation is that of her living-history persona Hardluck Lin, who today edu-tains, young and old alike, with authentic tales of the California Gold Rush and the westward movement throughout Northern California.

“Whoever called it ‘the gold rush’ was wrong,” says Sam Sackett, author of “Sweet Betsy from Pike,” a novel about the gold seekers who swarmed to California in 1849-1850.  “There wasn’t anything like a ‘rush’ about it.

Sackett’s point is that travel in those days was very slow.  “Today you could go from St. Louis to San Francisco in a few hours by plane,” he says.  “But in a covered wagon pulled by oxen the trip took months.”  The heroine of his novel started from Pike County, MO, in August 1849 and arrived at tghe Hangtown mining camp the next spring.  “Covering 25 miles a day was good time,” according to Sackett.

The “Sweet Betsy” of Sackett’s novel is a minister’s daughter, 18 and pregnant.  To escape the shame, she and her lover join a wagon train for the Hangtown gold fields.  Her experiences help her grow into a strong, independent woman.  The story is based on the folk ballad of the same name, which is reproduced in Sackett’s book.

Sackett is a retired university professor and a former president of the Kansas Folklore Society.  His nonfiction books include “Kansas Folklore” and a children’s book, “Cowboys and the Songs They Sang.”  Most of his fiction appeared in science-fiction magazines.

When the Rev. Elias Potter refuses to let his eighteen-year-old daughter, Betsy, marry nineteen-year-old Ike McNab, the two young lovers take matters into their own hands. With a baby on the way, the two decide to leave Louisiana, Missouri, in 1849 and journey to California to join the Gold Rush.

Betsy and Ike have no idea what the passage will entail, and it is not an easy one. Joining a wagon train, the two face danger and hardship as they climb mountains, cross the desert, and ford rivers on the long and arduous journey to California. Betsy and Ike must not only survive the passage itself, but must learn to eke out a living in the rough-and-tumble gold mining camp of Hangtown.

An epic poem in prose, Sweet Betsy from Pike follows the famous frontier ballad of the same name in tracing the story of a sweet girl who leaves Missouri and grows into a strong woman who learns to take charge of her own destiny.