Mail Order Bride_Cecily Finds a Husband

by Kate Whitsby

  Cicely asked, “There’s dances?”

  Jenna nodded eagerly. “Oh yes. Lots of them. Five. They’re some fun, I have to say. We don’t go to all the ones over that way, but there’s a few small ones here too.”

  That sounded nice. Cecily settled deeper in the bed, grateful for the chance to actually lie down and stretch her weary body out. Sleeping on the train and even in the buggy had been an uncomfortable venture at best.

  They chatted as they lay there drowsing, and when Cecily opened her eyes Jenna was already up and moving. She got up and dressed quickly, then Jenna went and got her shoes; they found, to their delight, that Jenna’s big shoes fit Cecily perfectly and Cecily’s small shoes fit Jenna perfectly.

  They traded gleefully, and Cecily found that with shoes that actually fit it was easier to move and far easier to relax as well.

  When the men came in from chores they had breakfast: biscuits, eggs, and fried onions and apples, already on the table. They ate quickly because Thom wanted to stop in at the mercantile and find Cecily a warmer coat before they headed out.

  Cecily helped with the dishes while Thom hitched the buggy up, and then Jenna surprised her by giving her a warm and affectionate hug. “Come see us when you can,” Jenna said as she broke the embrace. “And I’ll see you at the end of summer.”

  “Thank you for letting us stay here, and for the wonderful meals. And the shoes.” Gratitude filled Cecily. Jenna’s simple kindness had gone a long way toward alleviating her fears, but the large one could not be undone by anything but the truth and she knew it.

  The sun had come up as they stopped at the mercantile. There was a thick coat in there that fit Cecily well enough. She accepted it gratefully. It was a good coat, and it would last her for several years if she took good care of it. She folded her green coat carefully and put it into her valise, thinking she could use it on warmer days.

  They headed off to the east again; the grass stood high and thick, and she asked, “Is the grass always so green?”

  Thom shook his head. “It’s early April, so it’s started springing up good. The cold snaps like we had yesterday come and go and so sometimes it stunts it from coming up until the first part of May. In winter, it isn’t green at all. The snow covers it, mostly.”

  “Is there a lot of snow?”

  “Yes, but there are a lot of things that are wonderful about snow.”

  She couldn’t think of any. Today Thom sat in the buggy itself, having taken the high seat off the front of it. She thought that marvelous for many reasons, and said so. He smiled. “It’s an invention of mine. I figured the open buggy is nice to have, but sometimes you need more room than they can give. Yesterday I figured you might need some time and a little distance to get used to me.”

  Startled by that, she stared at him. His thick lashes were over his eyes and the hat cast shadows on his face. She could smell the soap he had washed up with, and a hint of tobacco too. Jenna had said that most men enjoyed the very occasional smoke, and that Thom enjoyed it even less frequently than occasionally. It wasn’t a bad smell though—in fact, it was actually rather nice.

  “The weather seems warmer today.”

  He nodded, lifting his head to the sky. “The storm passed on over. It could have dumped a frost on us, but didn’t. There’s always something to be grateful for.”

  There was. She smiled and watched as a few brave birds took flight against the sky. A long, flat lake lay to her left and she stared at it. “That’s beautiful.”

  Thom said, “That would be Long Lake. We fish it in the winter.”

  She blinked. “How do you fish in the winter if the water freezes?”

  “We cut holes in the ice. Fresh fish makes a nice change in our diets in the winter. Do you like to fish?”

  She bit her lip. “I’ve never been.”

  Thom gave her a smile. “I’ll take you out in the summer, if you like. If you do like it, maybe you’d like to try it in the winter too.”

  She smiled back. “I know I don’t have a lot of skills that most wives have—oh I mean I can cook, and clean, and sew. I’m good with...with...well, I don’t have a lot of experience with a lot of things women who are used to living out here are good at, but if you show me how to do them I can work really hard to be good at them. I’m...I’m sorry I don’t already know how to fish. I feel as if I should. It’s just that fishing in New York City isn’t...well I never knew of a place where I could, or anyone who would show me how even if I had thought of it.”

  His eyes surveyed hers. “Has nobody ever told you that you, all by yourself, are enough?”

  Her breath caught. Her chest constricted. “I’m sorry?”

  He lightly flicked the reins. “Don’t be sorry. You don’t have to be sorry. You aren’t from here, and a lot of the women out here aren’t either. I’m not from here.

  “My family left Texas because it’s just too bloody and godless right now. There’s too many men trying to get rich fast and there’s too many people willing to do whatever it takes no matter how wrong it is.

  “This place isn’t easy either. You’re here and you have the skills I need in a wife. That’s enough. You’ll learn new things; that’s just a fact. You don’t have to say you will or explain that you don’t know things you would have known if you’d grown up differently.”

  He was kind. Her face flamed. Her brain shrieked at her to tell him, and soon.

  They didn’t stop again because Thom wanted to get home. Jenna had packed them thick sandwiches for a lunch and as she ate the bread and slightly spicy meat, Cicely asked, “This is wonderful. What is it?”

  “Tongue.”

  Her appetite fled. She looked down at the bread and meat, her stomach turning over hard. “Did you say tongue?”

  “I did. We waste nothing out here. Most people waste nothing anywhere they live, but out here the thing you throw away might be the thing you really need later. Besides, tongue is tasty.”

  It had been quite tasty until she found out what it was. She wanted to put it away but she was actually hungry, and what was more, she did not want him to think she was wasteful. She managed a few more bites then asked if he would like the rest of her sandwich. He took it, said thanks, and finished it.

  The sky had turned a brilliant cerulean color. The warmth of his body next to hers seeped into her. She looked back at his face, her eyes tracing over the curves and contours of it. He was more handsome than he had said, or perhaps knew.

  He leaned against her a few times as he guided the horses and her heart beat a little faster each time. She wanted to take his hand, to feel the palms of his hands. He had the gloves on again and she found herself wondering if he had callouses.

  Of course he had callouses. His hands would be strong and warm and calloused, slightly rough and probably infinitely gentle. He had a light touch with the horses and he would not be unkind to her.

  Thom asked, “Are you afraid?”

  Jenna had asked her that too. Did her fear show so much?

  She nodded. “Yes, but not nearly as frightened as I was while I was on the train.”

  He sighed. “I truly wish you had not had to travel alone. I know that had to be difficult. You’re very brave to have done it.”

  Brave? Her? She opened her mouth to protest, but then it hit her. She was braver than she had ever imagined herself to be. Here she was, in the wilds of Montana! She had gotten there alone on a train and she was about to marry a man she did not know.

  That took courage, whether she had known it or not; even if that courage had been born of desperation, it was still courage.

  She had been very desperate. Desperate enough to go to the agency that offered mail-order brides to men in remote places like the one that Thom lived in. She had had little choice in the matter. It was marry someone far from the city—or risk...

  She cried out, “Look! Are those geese?”

  He followed the direction of her gaze. “Yes, they are.”

  She cla
pped her hands together, her lips curving into a big smile. “I have never seen them flying so freely. We had them in the city, but I have never seen so many!”

  “Those are Canadian geese. They’re very large, and they fly in a perfect V; see how they branch out behind their leader?”

  She shaded her eyes with her hands. “Where are they going?”

  “Back to Canada. Seeing them fly west is a good sign. It means winter is breaking and spring is really on its way.”

  Her eyes tracked them. They honked and beat their wings. There were at least twelve dozen of them, all flying in their little V formations across the sky, winging their way back to the lands they had been born into.

  The place was beautiful. It was so different from the crowded, dirty city with its open gutters and people dashing madly about. There were no milk wagons or stores on every corner. There were no clanging trains and loud cries to shatter the beautiful stillness.

  “I think this is the loveliest place I have ever seen.”

  Thom’s smile made her heart leap. “It is beautiful. Wait until you see the sun coming up or going down. It’s brighter here, and the sky turns more colors too. You can see reds and blues and gold, orange and even sometimes a tinge of green. It’s spectacular.”

  A man who enjoyed sunrises and sunsets? Her heart beat a little faster. “I haven’t seen many of those. The buildings in the city are so tall that they sometimes block it out. That and the smoke. Coal fires, you see, and so many. The smoke comes from every building in a thick black haze. I think I am going to enjoy being able to watch the sun come up and go back down again.”

  His hand met hers. The touch made her pulse race. He still wore the heavy gloves, but even so she could feel the strength of his fingers. Her stomach filled with butterflies and her limbs trembled.

  She had found little romance in his letters. He was very straightforward and forthright. His letters had not made him seem to be given to things like sunsets and pausing to watch geese fly against the sky, their ungainly bodies somehow beautiful in flight. Yet he did like those things, and she had a feeling that what she knew of him from the few letters they had managed to exchange was very minimal.

  And she wanted to know more.

  Far more.

  Chapter Three

  They arrived at the huge ranch near mid-afternoon. There was an enormous gateway made of stacked rocks, and a sign board rested between the two sides of the gate. The words Lazy T Ranch were burned into it.

  Her nerves rose higher as they trotted between the gates and under the sign board. This was her home now.

  The first house was wide and long. It was made of stone and clapboard, and she stared at it. The long porches were wide and deep and there were chairs on it. The windows were real glass too, not just tarpaper, which she had rather expected them to be as she knew how hard it was to get glass to places like this one.

  She said so and Thom chuckled. “I have shutters right now. There will be glass, but there is none to be had until the trains start to run more regularly. My father wrapped those windows and brought them with us. I’m afraid at most of the newer houses all there are is the shutters. My uncles have glass too, but it took them a year or two to get that glass and get it fitted.”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “Shutters?”

  He nodded. “The windows are cut out, but we use shutters that close, heavy wooden ones to keep out the cold, and just throw them open in the fine weather. It makes it darker in the winter but by the end of the summer, I hope to have glass in most of the windows.

  “I know my brother and cousin both have orders in as well, so it sort of depends on what arrives as to how many glass windows each of us get this year. We tend to share here. It wouldn’t be right for one of us to get glass and not the others, so when we put our orders in we agreed we would just share whatever came and when the next lot came in, we’d share again.”

  “That sounds very practical.”

  He nodded. “It is.”

  “Your parents moved here twelve years ago?”

  He nodded again. “Yes, but my house is only two years old and my brother’s is the same. He built his when he wed, as did my cousin. Last year the trains were held up and the glass didn’t come in time, so it should be on the first train that does.”

  “They don’t put it on the passenger trains?”

  He shook his head. “No, they say goods take up too much room and passengers pay more, so we have to wait for some things. I know that is a big change for you.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t think I will mind. I have never really needed much.”

  Oh, but once she had coveted much. She had also fallen prey to the temptation to collect much in the way of material goods. She’d learned the hard way that things were just things, and that what mattered most was not those things in her life but the people in it.

  Again the urge to tell him the truth surfaced. She would tell him, but first she had to try to find her footing in this wild and beautiful place.

  Thom said, “We’ll go look at the rest of the place first.”

  He led the horses around a long bend that ran by a creek. Cattle grazed and she looked at them. “There are so many!”

  “We have a thousand head total.”

  There was a quiet satisfaction in his voice. “I bought my own place right next to my folks by buying one cow from my father and tending it all by myself. Its sale gave me enough money for two. Now I’m twenty five and I own forty head.”

  Her hand found his and squeezed. “You worked hard for them.”

  “A man who doesn’t work hard for what he has will lose it, is what I was always taught.”

  It was true. She should know. She stayed quiet. The next house was much smaller, but it had a nice porch and glass windows. Thom said that was his uncle’s home. They rounded a bend to find a few more houses, most of them showing the signs of having been there a while.

  Thom’s house was almost directly across from his parents’, but set on a high hill to the west of it. She smiled as she saw it. It too had been built of hard granite, probably pulled from the mountains, and clapboard. The shutters were open and the porch was inviting.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said as they passed it.

  The tips of Thom’s ears went red. He said, “It’s got a good stove and a nice sitting room.”

  “I’m sure it does.”

  They saw the other houses and then he swung the buggy up into his parents’ front yard.

  The door opened and an older woman emerged. She looked so much like Thom that there was no doubt that she was his mother. Her face wore a solemn expression above her hesitant smile.

  Thom helped Cecily down, and she stood there smiling shyly.

  Thom said, “Mother, this is Cecily.”

  Cecily held her hand out. “It’s nice to meet you Mrs...”

  “Oh, call me Marianne.” Her smile didn’t broaden. “Thom, can you go on out to help the men now after you set her valise in your old room? All the women are here to greet your bride, so she’ll be in good hands.”

  He nodded. “Yes, Mama.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek, and then he gave Cecily one on the cheek as well. A giddy smile crossed her face.

  Marianne took her by the arm and led her toward the house. Thom took her valise in and left quickly, exiting before they even made the door.

  Marianne paused to watch him lead the horses toward the big barn on one side. Her face had a thoughtful expression. “You must be tired.”

  “A little, but I am really excited to. Your house is beautiful and the land! I can’t believe how stunning it is! What does it look like in autumn? And winter?”

  Marianne paused. Her brown hair was up in a neat chignon and her dress, a plain brown shirtwaist paired with a blue skirt, were both spotlessly neat and clean. Her eyes swept over Cecily, and then they moved past her.

  “It can be lonely if you don’t like your neighbors.”

  Cecily heard the very clear warning. She
twisted her hands together then spoke. “Marianne, I’m...I know this whole mail-order bride thing is...well, I cannot even say how I feel. I am scared to death. I know that I could have landed with a bad man, and in a place I hated, but Thom’s been kind and nothing but since we met.

  “I know it is vastly different here than what I was used to, but I love it already. I don’t want to go back to New York, ever. There’s beauty there, yes, but nothing like this. I won’t be unkind to him or to any of you, not on purpose, and if I ever am without meaning to I would hope you would tell me immediately so I could correct that.”

  Marianne thawed visibly. She jerked her head toward the house and said, “Well, come on in then.”

  Cecily followed her quietly. The front door opened onto a small hallway. There were several doors leading off of it. She glimpsed a front parlor, and what was probably Marianne’s bedroom. To the right was a long room that was probably used for living and another small bedroom. A set of stairs led upward, and she guessed there were bedrooms under the low-hanging attic beams.

  The kitchen was at the end of the house. It was long and wide and filled with women, all of them busy.

  Marianne said, “Cecily, this is my eldest daughter Julie.”

  Julie was a lovely blonde with a quiet smile. She took Cecily’s hand and shook it. Carol was next; she was the youngest daughter. An older woman with iron gray hair was Marianne’s sister-in-law Linda and her two daughters, one a plump, smiling redheaded young woman and the other a petite and pretty brunette, were named Rose and Lily.

  Marianne explained, “We don’t do communal dinners every night, but we always do a big lunch for the men. The men are busy with the cattle and the early planting, so we’re all very busy and it’s often easier for the men to come to one house.

  “Since you just arrived, we figured we would all have dinner here tonight so we could all meet you.”

  Cecily took off her coat, hat, and gloves, rolled up her sleeves and asked, “What can I do to help?”