Two Sisters and the Christmas Groom (

by Zina Abbott

  Annie wondered, what were these plans he mentioned? Did they have something to do with his job at the mine? If he planned to try for a foreman position and work his way up, why would frugal living become more important instead of less? In spite of her curiosity, Annie kept the conversation light to allow Michael the time to enjoy his meal.

  Annie waited until she served them each a slice of pound cake before she broached the question. “And would you mind telling me, Mr. O’Hare? What are these plans you were talking about earlier? Or, if you’re wanting to be writing about them to Kate first, I’ll not be prying.” She glanced over at Michael. Once she realized he studied her while wearing an expression of contemplation, she dropped her head and focused on her pound cake.

  “Tell me, Miss Flanagan, do you think your sister would be happy being married to a rancher?”

  Her lips parted, Annie raised her gaze to meet Michael’s. “A rancher? I’d not be knowing. But, aren’t you working at the Prosperity, expecting to bring a wife to be living in mine company housing?” A thought occurred to her, and Annie could feel her temper flare. “What are you about, Mr. O’Hare? Are you writing to our Katie, hoping she’ll come thinking she’ll be marrying you, only for you to be passing her off to some rancher?” She scrunched her eyebrows and pressed her lips together to hold back her words while waiting for an explanation. As she watched him shake his head, she refused to quickly accept his reassurance.

  “I’m not sure I want you to discuss this with anyone in town, especially with anyone like Mr. and Mrs. Brinks, since I don’t want word of it to get back to the Bainbridge brothers at the mine. I don’t even know if I can accomplish it. I guess, now that I brought it up with you, I better include my long-term plans in my next letter to Kate.”

  “I would be expecting so. As much as I’m wishing for Kate to be living here close by me, I’ll not be allowing you bringing my sister out here under false assumptions. If you’ll not be telling her, I’ll be doing so myself.”

  “I’m not trying to deceive your sister, Miss Flanagan. Give me a chance to explain. I’m planning to work for Prosperity Mine for at least five years or until the silver plays out, whichever comes first. However, I have been saving as much money as I can in hope of someday being able to homestead or buy ranch land. I’ve had some experience with cattle, and it appeals to me more than working in a mine the rest of my life. That’s why I made mention about how your family’s ability to live frugally favorably impressed me. If it’s time for me to leave the mine, and I don’t have enough savings for starting a ranch with extra to spare, having a wife who can help with some of the chores and who is able to make do with less will be a help.”

  “We’d be knowing nothing but making do with less. Keeping a house, sewing clothes, and cooking good meals—that you can be expecting our Katie to be doing well. Helping with chores on a ranch, though? What are you meaning by that?”

  “I plan to have a milk cow, especially if there are two or three children by then. Also, chickens for eggs and meat. Generally, ranch women milk the cow, gather the eggs, butcher a chicken occasionally for Sunday supper, plant a garden to harvest all summer, and preserve what is grown for winter. Those kinds of things.”

  Annie sucked in her breath and answered carefully. “I’d not be knowing, Mr. O’Hare. All Katie and I are knowing is growing up in New York City. Da was often talking of his days in Ireland, when he and Ma were wee ones, living on a small farm, raising sheep and growing potatoes. However, with him coming to America before I was born, I’d be knowing nothing of that kind of life. What is turning you away from mining? Everything I’m hearing says a man can be making good wages mining.”

  Michael looked off to the side and took a deep breath. Several seconds passed in silence. “It’s true. Miners do make good money while they can still work. A lot of miners go into the work knowing they probably won’t live all that long. Being underground so much of your life does something to a man. Plus, the dust—there’s all kinds of minerals in the rocks and dirt down there, not just silver. Seems to poison a man over time. Sometimes, it gets in the blood and makes him sickly. Mostly, it’s the lungs that give out on a man. That’s not counting the accidents, even in a good mine like the Prosperity. If a miner can see most of his children raised and a nice nest egg put aside for his wife so she can go on without him after his lungs go bad and he dies, he considers himself successful.”

  Annie swallowed and glanced at Michael. She had no idea miners faced a shorter life expectancy than the average man. Did she want that for Kate? Then again, it struck her that in the West, there seemed to be many factors that caused people, especially men, to die before their time. Besides, from what little her sister had told her of the other man with whom she was corresponding, he also was a miner. She focused her attention back on Michael as he continued speaking.

  “I’ve worked for the Bainbridge brothers at the Prosperity Mine a little over two years. I figure, with this offer of a house, I need to give them several more years, out of loyalty, if nothing else. I hope to use the time to spend carefully and save more money. I probably have enough for land, but I need enough to put up at least a small cabin.” Michael captured Annie’s gaze with his and offered a knowing grin. “We may have to live in a tent or a wagon until I get something built, but I can’t expect a wife and small children to live like that for more than a few months.”

  “We’d not be knowing that kind of life, certain. With the tenement, we might have stairs we’re needing to climb, but we’ve a solid roof over our heads, now don’t we? Well, unless it starts leaking when it’s raining.”

  Annie looked off to the side, an expression of worry tightening the skin around her eyes and mouth. In the last letter Delly had read to her, Kate had explained how her mother had told the two boarders to find new places to live because her father had taken all their wages for drink instead of allowing at least some of it to go toward food and rent. If that kept up, her family could end up out on the street without even a tent to shelter them. She had been sending back what she could to the family’s sources of food. However, she could not afford to pay for the rent, too.

  “Miss Flanagan, is everything all right?”

  Annie turned her attention back to Michael and flashed him a warm smile. “Certain. I’ve just been considering what you were telling me.”

  “It would be a lot more isolated than living in town. Other than the ranch hands—assuming I could get my operation large enough to hire other men—and surrounding neighbors who might live miles away, there wouldn’t be much sociability unless I could find a place within a few miles of a small town like this.”

  The more Annie considered what Michael revealed to her, the more she realized such a life might appeal to her. She forced her thoughts back on her sister. “I’d not be knowing if Katie would be taking to such a life. I do know she’d not be complaining about cooking for extras besides the family. As for the rest—ranches having cows to milk and chickens laying eggs, and a ranch wife expecting to kill and prepare her own chickens instead of picking one up already cleaned at the butcher—you’ll have to be asking Kate if she’s willing to learn.”

  Michael threw back his head in laughter. “I suppose so. I could help her learn how to do all that until she becomes comfortable doing it herself. As long as she does know how to take care of the inside of a house…”

  Annie glanced at him with a scowl. “She’s been in service. She’ll be knowing how to keep a proper house, plus she’s been doing much of the cooking at home.” Then Annie grew more contemplative. “I’d not be knowing how she’d take to being a rancher’s wife. She most likely would be taking to the canning, but…” Annie shrugged. “Well, you’ll not be finding many gardens in lower Manhattan, now will you? Even if we were lucky to be owning a plot of ground, neighbors or hooligans passing through would be destroying or stealing what we’ve been growing before we could be picking it for eating or canning. The only life I’ve been knowing, it’s been the
green grocer for our fresh fruits and vegetables.”

  “I’m sure there will be some adjustments. I’ve lived in Chicago, which is sort of like New York City. I’ve also lived in places like this. There is a lot to be said for getting away from the crowded tenements of a large city and living a more rural life. However, I haven’t written to Kate about my plans, yet. I’d appreciate it if, when you have someone help you write a letter, you don’t mention it. On the other hand, after I do let her know about my future plans, if she says something in her letter to you that you think I need to know, I hope you’ll share it with me.”

  “Spying for you with my sister, is it? I can’t be promising you anything, Michael O’Hare.” Annie kept a hint of tease in her voice, but at the same time, she realized the idea of keeping secrets from her sister did not appeal to her.

  “No, I’m sorry, I meant nothing like that. I’m more worried she’ll be so concerned with being polite that she won’t tell me her true feelings about something. This marriage business—especially with me considering someone who did not grow up in the same area where I did, and who has different ideas about things than I do—is a worry. I have learned life is not easy. If those closest to you work at cross purposes to you, it makes it all that much harder. I don’t want for your sister and I to marry, only to have her accuse me later I misled her about the life she could expect being married to me.”

  “I see. Well, you have the right of it there, Mr. O’Hare. So, it’s Chicago you’re from, is it? I’ve been telling you of our life in New York—lower Manhattan, if you’re preferring that—but you’ve hardly been breathing a word of where you’ve come from and what was bringing you here.”

  “Yes, I was born in Chicago. If you want my history in a nutshell, as a boy, my grandfather came over from Ireland during the worst of the potato famine. New York was so crowded, his parents brought him and what was left of the family to Chicago, where there was also a large Irish population. My father was born there, and he ended up marrying my mother, who was half-Irish. Both my grandfather and Da fought in the Irish Brigade in the Civil War. Da was killed the last year of fighting, leaving me and my sister with my mother and grandparents. My grandfather O’Hare never fully recovered from the sickness he got in the war, and he died first, then my grandmother, then my mother. My sister went to live with my aunt on my mother’s side, which left me, at fifteen, to fend for myself. I soon decided I did not want to spend my future working in a meat packing shed. One payday, I took what little money I received and hopped a railcar headed west. I managed to get on at a ranch—at first, my ability to butcher beef impressed them more than my ability to ride herd on cattle. Then a depression hit. The next thing I knew, I was out of a job. I hopped another freight train and headed farther west. After picking up odd jobs here and there, I started looking for a job in mining.”

  Unsure what to say in response, Annie blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. “You were raised among the Irish in a city, but you don’t talk like the Irish.”

  “I quickly learned the best way to avoid getting into fights with those who resent the Irish was not to advertise myself as being Irish. Once I left Chicago, I changed my speech and dropped the “O” in my name. Fortunately, many assumed I might be Scottish and left me alone.”

  Her eyes sparking with annoyance, Annie jerked her gaze away from him and folded her arms. “We can’t all be so fortunate as to be denying our Irish roots, now can we?”

  “Now, Miss Flanagan. Please don’t be taking offense at my words. Your speech, your hair—they’re lovely, as is the rest of you. I only meant that for me, in my position, it caused less friction with others if they didn’t, right from the start, see an Irishman they could pick a fight with.”

  “Sure, it is, then, you’ll be liking our Katie well enough. Like our da, she’s got the dark hair and eyes of the black Irish.”

  “If she’s as pretty as you, I’m sure I will find her appearance very pleasing. Truly, I tend to be partial to red hair on a woman. My sister has red hair. But, for me, finding my way in life by myself, it was best I avoided advertising my being Irish.”

  Annie continued to look off to the side as she considered. She realized that somewhere in his explanation, he had paid her a compliment. He liked her red hair. For a second, he even slipped into a touch of the Irish lilt. And, no one knew better than her the sort of prejudice the Americans, the Italians who had moved into the blocks next to the Irish sector, or any other group heaped upon the Irish. Although there had been times when she had been caught alone and forced to face the disdain of others because she was Irish, she had always been able to flee to the safety and love of her family for reassurance. Based on what he had shared with her, for many years, Michael had faced the difficulties of life, on top of being Irish, by himself.

  “Sure, it is, you’ve not completely forgotten your Irish speech, Mr. O’Hare. And I’m noticing you’ve gone back to using the “O” in your name. The Flanagans are not ashamed of being Irish, and I’ll not be wanting my sister to be tied to a man trying to be something he’s not.”

  “I’m not ashamed of being Irish. I’ll admit, when I was younger, especially on a ranch where there were no other Irishmen, I worried more about getting along with the others. After I left my cowhand job behind and decided there was better money to be made in mining, I soon realized there are a lot of Irish working in the mines.”

  “So, it was easier for you to be Irish, was it?”

  “Yes. You might think me a coward, but that was exactly it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t troublemakers among the miners here picking fights with those of us who are Irish. It’s just that I don’t have to face them alone.”

  “I’m seeing that. I’ve not been running into any trouble in town for being Irish, and I’m hoping, when Katie’s coming here, she’ll not be dealing with trouble over being Irish, either.”

  Michael leaned forward and shoved his dessert plate aside as he reached his hand across the table. “Give me your hand and look at me, Miss Flanagan. Please.”

  Annie turned until her gaze met his once more. “I’m doubting that would be proper, Mr. O’Hare.”

  “I mean nothing improper by it. I’m offering a handclasp of friendship—maybe of one uniting a brother to a future sister-in-law.”

  Annie stared at the hand that remained stretched out before her. After several seconds, she reached her trembling fingers out and placed her own on top of his. She lifted her eyes as Michael’s fingers gently folded around her hand. She wondered, how could a man who worked in a mine swinging a pick and loading chunks of ore possess such a warm, comforting grip? She focused on the depths of his dark pupils surrounded by green-gray irises and quickly felt herself being captivated by his gaze. The words he spoke barely registered in her mind.

  “You asked me to tell you about myself. I’ve been honest about what I’ve shared with you. I hope you don’t hold it against me. When we talked last week, you told me of your concerns about how I spend my time outside of work. What I hope to convince you of, so you can reassure your sister, is I know if I want my plans for the future to work out, I need to save my money. I may allow myself one beer with my Saturday meal there at the Corner Saloon, and maybe a game of billiards, but I stay away from other things that use up most miners’ wages.” Michael stopped and grinned. “I do splurge on a visit to the bathhouse once a week. It’s a treat to wash all the mining dust off me.”

  Annie blinked and stiffened her back to break the spell. “I’d not be needing to know that, Mr. O’Hare.”

  Annie had wanted to know more about him but had never expected him to share that many personal details. She forced her thoughts away from picturing him entering the local bathhouse she had learned was located next to the bowling alley and the boarding house where most of the railroad workers lived. Delly had already advised her to avoid that stretch of road by crossing the street and walking in front of the River Valley Inn if she ever needed to go to the railway depo
t. “Grateful I am for you telling me about yourself, Mr. O’Hare. I’m sorry if I was sounding judgmental. Your life’s been so different than Kate’s and mine, yet so many of the challenges we’ve been facing have been the same.”

  “I’m not used to all this formality, Miss Flanagan. Maybe you could call me by my first name, Michael?” Michael turned to Annie with a grin. “After all, if Kate and I do marry, we will be almost brother and sister.”

  “The way I’m seeing it, there’s no wedding decided upon yet, now is there? It’s best we be leaving it as is until you and Kate are deciding what you’ll be doing.” Annie ignored his sigh of disappointment, determined to make sure he understood what she expected of him. “And, I’m warning you, Mr. O’Hare, I’m giving you two weeks. You need to be telling Kate all you’ve been telling me, or I’ll be telling her myself. She needs to be knowing what she’s getting into, should you be deciding to ask for her hand.”

  “I give my word, Miss Flanagan. As soon as I get back to the boarding house, I will write her a letter telling her all I told you.” Michael glanced in the direction of the bare window. “In fact, as much as I hate to see this afternoon end, I think I better head back now before it gets dark. It’s started to snow. If there’s ice on the bridge over the river, it will be miserable enough getting across if I still have some daylight to see by. I’d rather not cross in the dark.”

  “That’s best, now isn’t it? I’ve enjoyed having you over for Sunday supper.” Without giving Michael a chance to help with her chair, Annie arose and walked over to where she had draped his coat, muffler, and hat on a finished kitchen chair in the Nighys’ furniture inventory. “And, I’ll be seeing you here again next Sunday for supper?” Annie bit her lip, hoping her voice hadn’t sounded too desperate or needy in her desire to spend more time with his man who might bring her sister to her. She smiled in relief as Michael’s surprised expression morphed into one of pleasure.

  “Thank you, Miss Flanagan. I accept your invitation. Only, please allow me to bring part of the food. Better yet, I would love to take you to the River Valley Inn.”