At age 70, Mildred Renaud took a creative-writing class in the adult-education program at the high school in Briarcliff Manor, New York, For class assignments she started writing an account of her childhood in Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas at the beginning of this century. Her teacher, impressed with the vividness of her memory and the charm and authenticity of her presentation, suggested that she submit these memoirs to AMERICAN HERITAGE; an account of an austere childhood lived in a harsh land.