She was a sprite, with a tinkling laugh and dancing eyes. There was something impish in her. Was it the way that she structured her grammar in her letters to her parents? Was it her frame: short, 4'11''? There was something inside her that filled her with an endless sense of adventure and travel. Later, she would describe it as having a "gypsy soul" and she would pass this on to her children, and through them to her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren. But now, she did not have any children. She was not yet married. No, now she was just a young woman who had packed all of her belongings into a trunk to take to an unknown state.
Perhaps she had said to her mother, "Momma, I'll travel." Suppose she said to her father, "I'll make my own way."
In the back of her mind she remembered walking and riding in a covered wagon with her parents and her siblings getting her first taste of travel. She had been so little then, so many of her siblings still really babies. She remembered stopping at school houses for a drink of water. She remembered visiting with people along the way. Now, there was no covered wagon. Now, a machine would take her to that destination so far away.
Still, she thought, as she smoothed the wrinkles out of her smart black dress with the peter pan collar, I will do this for myself. Yes, she knew that this was something that she had to do. She would be a Harvey Girl.