Grandfather used to say that when a woman got ready to fall in love the man didn't matter, because she could drape her feeling over a scarecrow and pretend he was handsome...

The novel portrays the demise of a marriage and focuses on "the spirituality of female friendship. Anderson collaborated with Glasgow and provided copies of his speeches for her novel The Builders. " Glasgow stated that her third novel The Voice of People (1900) was an objective view of the poor-white farmer in politics.