Jessie listened to what Harold said, then she shook her head.
“I am glad I was able to help, but I’m not going through with the wedding. I can’t do this. That was the most terrifying thing I have ever done, and I know I can’t raise a little girl.”
Jessie took a drink of her coffee, then watched the warm liquid swirl about in her cup.
Ellie finally spoke.
“Now you wait just a minute. You are a hero, Miss Krane. A real life hero. There isn’t another person on this planet that could have been the right person to go into that mine today after Sadie, and I think God knew that. That is why He had us run into you when we did, and that is why He is sending you to this little girl now.”
Jessie sat silently for a moment, thinking. Her own mother had often told her God had a plan for her life, and He always put her right where He wanted her. Somehow, deep down inside of her, she suddenly felt a spark.
“Do you really believe that? Do you think God wants me of all people to be the one for that family?”
She looked at Harold and Ellie both, slowly watching them to make sure they were serious in what they said. Both of them nodded, and Ellie smiled.
“Without a doubt. God doesn’t make mistakes, Jessie. It was no mistake you were hear with us today, and it certainly isn’t a mistake that you are going to be in Wyoming tomorrow.”
Jessie didn’t say anything, but slowly finished her coffee. Harold changed the subject to a lighter story, and they chatted on, well into the night. After the fire finally died down and Jessie retired, she spent a very long time looking up at the starts, thinking.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe God really does want me to go through with this. What’s the harm in checking it out anyway? I can meet them tomorrow, and see how I feel about it then. If it seems like the right thing to do, I’ll do it.
“This is it!”
Harold pulled the wagon to a stop outside of a general store, and Jessie peeked out from behind the wagon curtain. She scanned the people on the walkway, and in an instant she spotted Thomas and Olivia.
“There they are! Oh, thank you both so much!”
Jessie offered to pay them, but Ellie and Harold refused.
“My dear, you have done more for us than we ever can for you. Now you go over there and meet your new family.”
Jessie thanked them and dropped to the ground, pulling her trunk behind her. She left it on the ground in front of the store, and made her way through the crowd to Thomas and Olivia. They didn’t see her at first, as they were expecting her to arrive on the stage, but suddenly she caught Thomas’s eye.
A smile broke across his face, and Jessie’s heart melted. She didn’t know what came over her, but all of her doubts were suddenly erased. She could see that right here in front of her was the man she was meant to marry. The man she was always meant to marry. Everything about him seemed so right.
Suddenly, he looked down, and pulled on the hand he was holding. Jessie suddenly remembered Olivia, and smiled as she kneeled down. Olivia was even cuter than she expected, with long brown curls framing her face. Jessie could see that she was timid, and her heart sank.
She held her arms out to Olivia, hoping the child would come over to her. Olivia slowly made her way through the swirling skirts, keeping her hand in Thomas’s and the other hand behind her back. They stopped a couple feet from Jessie, and Thomas let go of Olivia’s hand.
Olivia continued to slowly walk to Jessie, and stopped right in front of her. She touched Jessie’s brown hair, and held it against her own. Then she felt Jessie’s dress, and looked her full in the face. A smile slowly broke across the little girl’s face, and she pulled her hand out from behind her back.
There, in her small fist, was a tiny little bundle of wild flowers. Jessie gasped when she saw them, and smiled at Olivia.
“Are these for me?”
She asked softly, and Olivia nodded. She threw her arms around Jessie, and Jessie rose to be embraced by Thomas.
“At last! Now my family is complete!”
Thomas held both of his girls in his arms, then Jessie pulled back.
“Do you want me to be your mom?”
Olivia looked serious for a moment, then she nodded.
“I think we will make a wonderful family.”
She put a hand in Jessie’s and her other hand in Thomas’s, and started to hum a tune. Jessie and Thomas chucked, and Thomas leaned over and gave Jessie a kiss.
As the headed to the church, all the doubt was gone from Jessie’s mind. She knew that no matter what happened, she was now home. This was her family, and she belonged here.
Nothing was ever going to change that.
The End.
Western Love
Mail Order Bride
CHRISTIAN MICHAEL
Chapter One: Run-ins
California, 1885
Constance Lowell allowed her father to help her from the carriage, lifting her skirts to keep them from the mud that lay along the roadways.
“Be careful pumpkin,” Mr. Robert Lowell said as he held his daughter’s arm to save her from slipping. “If you ruin that dress your mother will have my hide for certain.”
“I’ll be careful, papa.”
“Good,” he smiled. “So Rupert, tell us more about this clothing company.”
“Yes, sir,” Rupert Merchant said with a solemn nod of his head. “The Bethel Clothing Company was founded on a street corner during the Great California Gold Rush. With no more to work with than rags, the owner’s wife would sew them into worthwhile breeches for men to purchase at half the cost of buy them brand new. As time went on, she garnered enough sales to purchase new material. Still, she kept her prices low and business poured in. By the time the gold rush lost interest, Mr. and Mrs. Smitz had built up enough revenue to purchase this here building and the acreage that surrounds it. It’s in the process of being passed down to their son Jameson, but as he’s away in college, there’s no telling when the transition will actually happen.”
“Can we take a more detailed tour of the facility?” Constance asked, her green eyes clearly interested in how a clothing company ran from the inside.
“Absolutely, Miss Lowell.”
She followed her father inside and gasped at the intense heat inside the building. Almost immediately it became harder to breathe and she started to sweat. She brought out her fan and began fanning herself as she scanned the workers. For the most part they looked worn thin, their bodies adapted to the life of hard labor. But when her eyes fell on a child who couldn’t have been more than seven, pushing around a car to collect garments in, Constance felt an unspeakable rage rush through her. She marched up to the foreman, taking leave of her father and demanded. “Does Mr. Smitz condone letting children labor in a sweat shop like this?”
“Excuse me, Miss?”
“I asked if Mr. Smitz supports the idea of letting children work in a sweat shop, doing no doubt, work meant for an adult?”
“Mr. Smitz wants efficiency and there’s no better way to get it, than the way I’m doing it.”
“I demand to speak with him.”
“Constance,” Robert Lowell said, a grin on his face. “Leave the man alone. He’s got a business to run.”
“Absolutely not, father. I beg your pardon, but I cannot stand by and watch a child suffer under the constraints that are barely tolerated by full grown men and women. He’s seven, maybe. How is it fair to ask that of him?”
Constance knew she was making a scene, but rarely did she care about such things. Stopping the boy with a gentle hand on his shoulder, she kneeled down in front of him, smudging her new dress with dirt. “What’s your name?”
“Billy, ma’am,” the little boy said. His frail body made tears swell in Constance’s eyes and she worked hard to swallow them back.
“Won’t you come with me now, Billy?”
“But I have to work, ma’am. If I don’t work, Mr. Strickland won’t pay me and that’s all the money my m
ama has.” The boy’s plight nearly broken Constance in two as she took the boy’s hand.
“Mr. Strickland, from here on out Billy will go to school and will never set foot in this factory again.”
“Whatever lady,” The foreman replied. “Just so you know, though, when his mother is better she’ll be out of a job.”
“Constance Marie,” Robert said, catching up to his headstrong daughter. “You can’t just yank a boy out of his job. What does he do tomorrow when his mother has no money because you took his job away?”
“He’s going to school just as I said father.”
“And how will his mother survive, let alone provide for him?”
“I’m going to hire her while we’re here. Then, I’m going to talk to Mr. Smitz about the operation he’s running here and the deplorable conditions of his workers, let alone the atrocity I witnessed today.”
“Oh, I blame your mother for you streak of stubbornness. And thank you very much by the way, she’ll tear me a new hide for the stain on your new dress.”
“It couldn’t be avoided and I’ll pay to have it professionally laundered out of my allowance.”
“What are you going to hire Billy’s mother to do exactly?”
“She’s going to be my assistant as I’m going to make sure that the Bethel Clothing Company is strongly reprimanded for hiring children and working them to the bone as if they were full grown adults. Despicable practice,” she huffed, taking her seat when her father handed her up in the carriage.
***
Jameson Smitz sat in his office trying to finish the inventory he’d need to send in today if he wanted to continue to supply clothes for is branding line without interruption. Frustration kept the numbers from tallying and every time Jameson tried to make them, he just succeeded in making himself madder. Tossing his pencil on his desk, He stood up and stepped outside, taking a deep breath of fresh air.
“Thank you, Lord,” Jameson said, planting a smile on his face.
“It seems odd to see a man thank God when he can’t even abide by decent labor practices,” came a soft, feminine voice from behind him.
“Excuse me?” Jameson said, turning to see a beautiful, if young, woman standing with her hands on her hips.
“I said, you shouldn’t be thanking God when you can’t keep children from working themselves to the bone in your sweat shop.”
“And you are?” Jameson said, feeling a headache develop behind his eyes. Her blonde hair was done up in a way that drew his gaze to her angry face, and the fire that seemed to spit from her pretty green eyes. Jameson had the urge to grin at her, but given her current stance, he figured it’d probably get him a kick in the teeth rather than a polite smile in return.
“My name is Constance Lowell. My father Robert is here attending an advisory meeting at Stanford University and I’m visiting with him. We took a tour of your factory yesterday and I was beyond appalled by the presence of a seven years old boy name, Billy, who was pushing a garment cart around. His face was darkened by dirt and he looked slim enough to fit in the leg of one of the pairs of britches your factory makes. Are you so hard up for workers that you’d take on a boy who should be in school learning?”
“You’re saying that there was a little boy working in my factory yesterday?”
“Yes,” she huffed, making Jameson grin after all. She had some attitude going on that was for sure.
“It isn’t a common practice for Bethel Clothing Company to hire anyone under sixteen, ma’am,” Jameson said, his own eyes hard, focused, and serious. In fact, it is strictly against our hiring policy and I guarantee you that I will deal directly with the person who’s in charge of hiring for that particular job.”
“Thank you,” she said, not quite smiling. “I’m sorry if I came off rudely Mr. Smitz. I just couldn’t stand by and let it go. I should also tell you that I took that little boy home, saw that he cleaned up, and escorted him to school. I’ve also hired his mother for the remainder of the school year so that Billy can attend class as a boy his age should.”
“I agree,” Jameson said, admiring the young lady’s spunk. She wasn’t one to just let things slide because it wasn’t exactly her place to speak of them. She was a go-getter and would make someone a very active and interesting wife when she was old enough to marry. “I promise Miss Lowell that this matter will be handled immediately. And to go a step further, I will keep in touch with you about the matter if you’re agreeable to that?”
“I’d greatly appreciate that, Mr. Jameson.”
“Excellent,” he smiled. He extended his hand and shook hers lightly. “I suppose I’ll see you at the gala at Stanford on Saturday night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” he said, adding a wink. “For now, I must ask you to excuse me. I have business to attend to, including a reprimand for my employees.”
“Yes, please. Ado, Mr. Jameson.”
Chapter Two: Heading Home
Constance didn’t know exactly how she should feel as the train pulled away from the station. She’d had a wonderful time in California. Visiting Stanford and seeing prominent places, meeting important people. She’d changed two lives while she was there. Little Billy Porter was able to stay in school until summer and his mother, Agnes, had risen to the opportunity she’d been offered. As a parting gift, Constance had asked her father for an advance on her allowance and sent a gift basket to the impoverished woman. Inside she’d tucked nearly five hundred dollars, enough for a year’s income. Hopefully it’d give her enough time to find a decent job. Constance had also written her an exemplary performance review, praising her work ethic and skills.
Her heart, however, was torn in two. She’d indeed seen Jameson Smitz at the Stanford gala that had been put on to raise money for the Leland Stanford, Jr. Museum. Jane Stanford was the main speaker of course, telling of the heartbreak of losing her only son.
“He was the light of my life,” she’d said, “Without him I am only existing.
“Opening this museum will be like bringing my son back to me and will give the public a glimpse of his brightness and the treasures from far off places.”
Still, if Constance was to choose a moment that changed her entire outlook on where her life was headed, it was confronting Jameson Smitz about little Billy Porter. Being an outspoken woman, she was used to seeing a plethora of people at speeches, women suffrage parades and the like. Even then she’d never seen a man as handsome as Jameson. His thick brown hair was as unruly as a child’s sticking out everywhere when the breeze blew so that he had to run a hand through it to keep it out of his eyes.
His face was young, despite the two-day beard he’d sported and his smile had been warm and welcoming. But if she were asked and forced to be honest, she’d have said it was the allure of his beautiful sky blue eyes that had truly pulled her in.
“What did you think, Pumpkin?”
“Excuse me?” Constance said, blushing a little when she realized her father had been addressing her and she’d neglected to listen. “I’m sorry, father. What did you ask?”
“I mentioned to mother that Jameson Smitz seemed to be an honorable and trustworthy young man, certainly worthy of consideration as a board member.”
“You’re going to resign as a board member of the university?”
“Your mother and I would like to travel during our golden years. You yourself will be off to school and there’s no sense of us waiting around for you to graduate and settle into a career or motherhood.”
“Oh,” Constance said, wondering which she’d choose when the time came. “Well, I suppose that’s the practical solution then.”
The train pulled into New York two weeks later and all too soon, Constance was back into the routine of school, friends, socials, and celebrating the Women’s Suffrage movement. Two weeks later her first correspondence from Jameson arrived and her hands shook just trying to open the letter.
August 1885
De
ar Miss Lowell,
I hope this letter finds you well and happy. I must say that your forthrightness is not something we encounter all that often here in California. I suppose as the ratio of men to women is still largely off balance that perhaps I just don’t get out enough.
It was an immense pleasure to see you at the gala. I don’t believe I told you so, but you looked radiant in your gown, truly a lady if I’ve ever seen one. Are you attending school this year? You must be near graduating for your speech and mannerisms were as polished as I’ve seen this side of the Mississippi.
You’ll be happy to know that I fired my hiring manager and hired my sister-in-law to take over. She dearly loves children and holds many of your same convictions. She too, raked me over the coals when news of Billy Parker’s plight made it to her ears. After telling her of our encounter she smiled. She says to tell you, “Well done.”
Here’s to a great semester for you and staying afloat for me!
With much affection,
Jameson Smitz
Constance didn’t quite know how to process what he’d written. There was so much going on in her head and heart. He’s signed the note with much affection, but did that mean he simply cared or that he cared for her in a way that was more than mere friendship. Biting her lip, she couldn’t help but wonder.
After dinner that night she curled up on her bed and grabbed a pen and the stationary she’d bought while in California. It showed a pretty lighthouse landscape on sand colored paper.
August 1885
Dear Jameson,
I am both well and happy, thank you. I must apologize again if I came off a bit strong. My parents raised me to be forthright and honest with my opinion, especially in matters of injustice. I do realize, however, that it can be a bit brusque.
Thank you for the compliment on my dress. I saved my allowance and made it myself! Whether or not I’m a lady is certainly yet to be seen. I, on the other hand, have no doubts that your business will only continue to flourish as you are an honorable leader.
[2016] Finding My Cowboy Page 8
