Life on isolated rural area 150 years ago, was a difficult living style. For one, there were no shops to purchase goods for your family. Most likely, you would be living as a farmer or rancher to make ends meet. At this time in the Great Plains, there was a great demand for cattle. As a result, even towns sparked up because of it. In other parts of the country, you could choose to grow crops to sell to far-away towns. Either way, the government would support you choosing this as your lifestyle under the Homestead Act. Under the Homestead Act, any farmer who was a citizen of America could have 160 acres of land. Although being isolated in a rural area can be challenging, governments often offered an incentive for it.
7. It ends in despair because it uses words that relate to despair e.g. die, sink, and "only to" indicates that the creature could have done a lot more.