A Star to Follow

By: Elizabeth Howard

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Synopsis: Arizona was a remote and primitive place in 1875--especially when compared to Detroit. Ellen and Nettie really found this out when they made the difficult trip to the Southwest to join their parents at the army post commanded by their father. Nettie, who was gay and pretty, with the interests suitable for a young girl, adjusted quickly to army life. There were too many attractive lieutenants around for life to become boring. Ellen, however, found nothing in the tea-parties and the army gossip to replace her dream of going to college and becoming a doctor. The only man who really interested her was Neil Brent, but he was an enlisted man and therefore an officer's daughter could not associate with him. In desperation Ellen strove to overcome the prejudice which her parents and the post doctor felt toward the idea of a girl's studying medicine, and she finally won permission to read the doctor's medical books as a first step toward realizing her ambition. No one except Neil Brent believed that Ellen could actually stick to a vocation so difficult and in many ways so repellent. The desert country has its own fascination, as Ellen discovered. Miss Howard captures its appeal in her vivid description of mountains and mesas and the weird beauty of the cactus. Set against this background, the story of Ellen's struggle to follow her star and her heart has a particular charm which girls will find absorbing and unusual.