by Montana West
“I am not a farmer, nor do I wish to become one,” Louis shook his head. “Farming is noble but I am honest enough to know that I would soon tire of it and probably leave my poor wife to toil alone on the farm.” He wiped his face. “I am a trader at heart and my desire is to strike gold and start a transcontinental business, moving from coast to coast of the United States of America. That is my dream.”
William looked at the young man before him. His eyes were bright and William believed that Louis would eventually make it, he had strong faith. He sighed. “Alright then Louis, I know the women here can be quite daunting, but have you thought about getting yourself a mail-order bride from the East?”
Louis frowned. “Why would I want to do that?”
“You have cited your inability to provide for a woman as the reason why you are still single. A mail-order bride may be just the answer because she does not need to come here immediately. You can correspond with her for a time, a year even, and while you are exchanging correspondence you will work hard to secure a living. God willing by the time she gets here, your lot will have improved.”
Louis gave a lot of thought to his pastor’s words and by the time he went to bed that night he had decided to do as he had been advised. First thing tomorrow morning he would go down to the post office and find out how best to put his advertisement for a mail-order bride in the newspapers back East.
CHAPTER THREE
“No man wants a woman who is over-educated,” Henry teased Cora when he found her seated at the kitchen table perusing through a newspaper. There was a small pile of other newspapers on the table. “You are already smart enough, Cora, if you get any smarter you will not find a suitable mate.”
“Speak for yourself, dear brother,” she said without looking up. “If you like dumb women whose only joy is primping and preening themselves before mirrors and running around agitating themselves about the latest fashions and styles then that is you. I believe that out there is a man who will appreciate all the knowledge I am gathering. Besides, I can best every woman you know, well except of course Ma, in cooking, sewing, keeping a home and looking after a family. And now I am adding knowledge to it.”
Henry threw his head back and laughed out loudly. Cora smiled fondly at her nineteen-year-old brother who always seemed to be much older than he was because of the way he carried himself. He was tall and his slenderness fooled people into thinking that he was weak. Henry could down a bull by himself, a skill he had learned from his grandfather. “You just need courage and a sure foot and the rest is easy,” the old man used to tell him. He loved farming on the family farm and was hopeful of one day having his own farm where he could keep steers for their beef. He had a dream that one day he would be able to supply beef not only to customers in Akron and possibly Cleveland, but even as far West as he could go.
He spent many days talking about the possibilities that lay in the Wild West with Michael and they had decided that when he turned twenty-one they would bid their family farewell and head west to seek their fortune.
He ran a hand through his light brown hair that seemed to sparkle in the late afternoon sunshine, his green eyes, which were similar to Cora’s, twinkling. Cora looked at her brother and felt proud. Indeed when she was not angry at both of them, she believed that her brothers were the most handsome men that she had ever seen, apart from her father but he lay in another league altogether.
“Henry?”
“Yes, Cora?”
“Do you ever think about what lies beyond here?” She looked at him curiously. “I mean, is this life in Akron all we have to look forward to in the future?”
Once again Henry threw his head back and laughed. “This is one crazy family I tell you,” he said.
“Why would you say that?”
“It seems as though the water that we all drink is contaminated with a wander bug. Why, just the other day I heard Ma and Pa talking about the Wild West.”
“You know the old folks, they always have so much to discuss. It does not necessarily mean anything.”
Henry shook his head, joining his sister at the kitchen table. Their mother and father had gone to Cleveland to get some supplies and Michael had accompanied them. It was a Friday afternoon and Henry had come in from the farm. “From the way they were going about it I got the impression that their interest was not just the normal curiosity that Easterners had to the West. It was as though they were trying to make up their minds about something.”
“Ah well,” Cora sighed. “Should anything come out of their discussion we shall get to know of it in due course.”
“And why would you be interested in the Wild West, Cora? I thought you were aspiring to be an author. There are no prospects for authors in the Big Sky Country,” Henry teased. “Or perhaps you wish to run away from home and become a mail-order bride to some rich miner in the West?”
Cora looked at her brother, an incredulous look on her face. “Are you crazy? I am adventurous yes, but not to that extent. Besides, I would like to get to know a man better before I can commit to marrying him. If the man is hundreds of miles away and I am here in Akron how would I ever know if he is a good man or not?”
“I was just teasing you, little sister, do not get yourself in a tiff. And like I was telling you, no man wants an overly educated woman, least of all those uneducated miners in the West.”
“That is what you think,” she challenged. “I can bet you that there are a number of well-educated men who have gone East in search of better prospects. Sometimes I even feel that Akron is too crowded and wish that more people would leave to make room.”
“Now I know that I have a crazy woman for a sister.”
“Why? Because I am for the idea of people leaving their comfortable lives for adventure?’
“This is where I stop,” he stood up. “I need to check on the animals.” He ruffled her hair and she squealed at him.
“Stop messing around with my hair.”
“What hair?” He ruffled it again. “You are unlike all the other genteel woman that I know, Cora, insisting on cutting your hair when you should be filling your head with ribbons and bows. And stealing my breeches and downsizing them to fit you.”
Cora grinned at her brother, flushing to the roots at his words, guilty as charged. “Well, Ma will not buy me breeches so what would you have me do? I cannot ride astride in a frock, Henry, that is very inappropriate.”
“Which is another bone of contention. Why must you try to imitate being a boy when you are a very beautiful woman? Be satisfied with your lot and be as ladylike as you possibly can because men will soon be beating a path to come and ask Pa for your hand in marriage.”
Cora snorted. “Fat chance of that happening when you and Michael will not give me the time of day in as far as meeting suitable men goes. Now every man in Akron knows that Cora Richards is untouchable because of her bullies of brothers.” She put a hand to her chin and sighed. “Just be prepared to look after me your whole life when I end up as an old maid, troubling you and your wife to no end.”
Henry knew this was his cue to leave the house before he and Cora got into an argument which could go on and on.
Cora sighed when her brother had left. She flipped the page and then something caught her eye and she frowned. “What a coincidence,” she thought. Right in front of her eyes was a whole page of advertisements for mail-order brides. “Well I never,” she muttered as she read through the ten or so adverts. “Some of these men do not want wives, they want mules to work and bear as many children for them as possible. What woman in her right mind would want that kind of a life?” She perused through the adverts, laughing at some of them while frowning at others. She shook her head. “Mail-order bride indeed,” she put that newspaper to one side and reached for another.
Cora could afford to laze around at the kitchen table because the family’s supper was bubbling merrily on the large stove, and she had everything ready for their return. In all the newspapers she saw variou
s adverts for mail-order brides and none of them impressed her at all. “Now Henry has gone filling my head with madness and then even among this list I cannot find a decent man who would make a suitable husband,” she grumbled. And then she saw it and read through it three times.
“A thirty-year-old Christian man in Last Chance seeks his bride. 5’9”, trim, brown hair and brown eyes. I am a hard worker and promise to be a good provider for my bride and children when The Good Lord blesses us with offspring. Hoping to find the right woman who will not only be a wife, but will be my equal partner in every way.”
Cora smiled at last. “Now this is a good possibility,” she mused, not even certain herself as to what separated this man from all of the others. Perhaps it was his desire for an equal partner ‘in every way’? Or perhaps this was the whisper of God that her ma was always talking about. “This sounds like a man who is not just interested in a woman to breed for him, but someone to work alongside him. I wonder what line of work he is in,” she pondered. The man had not indicated his trade and she thought he was probably a farmer or a miner.
Long after the Richards household had settled down for the night, Cora lay awake in the darkness. She had put out the lamp because she did not want her mother coming to check on her. Thoughts were swirling in her mind as she went over the man’s advert over and over again. She had crammed it and his address as well because she knew that if she removed even one page from the newspapers her mother was bound to notice. The woman had the eye of an eagle!
Immediately Cora had mastered the address she had written it in the small journal that she kept hidden from her brothers and parents. Mr. Louis Albert, she repeated the name silently. “What kind of a man are you?” she wondered, sitting up in the darkness. “You sound like a good man, how do I know that you are not just like the rest of the men whose adverts I have read through?” Well, there was only one way to find out. She would write to Mr. Albert – no, if she was to think of herself as his wife, than she should be able to call him by his given name, at least in her own mind—Louis in Last Chance and ask him questions which if he answered appropriately would make her know what she should do next.
Even as she lay down after coming to the decision she suddenly remembered something and quickly sat up again. “How do I write to him without my parents and brothers finding out?” They were bound to find out when the mail came in because for the most part it was her father who handled matters relating to the post office and twice a week would check to see if they had any mail.. She was lost in thought with no answer and with a sigh gave herself up to sleep.
The next day was quite busy for Cora but she could not get thoughts Louis out of her mind. She had to find a way of communicating with him without arousing anyone’s suspicions. She knew her family would interfere as they always did and she had to find a way. A solution presented itself late that afternoon when her mother sent her to deliver bread and cakes to an elderly widow who lived down the road from them.
“Cora,” Mrs. Rachel Summers hailed the young lady gladly. “You and your mother are such angels to me,” the eighty year old woman said. “Were it not for you I would be long dead.”
“Mrs. Summers, you quite exaggerate. You are a strong woman who will live many more years and have always looked after yourself.”
“That is true, but it is the loneliness that would eventually kill me if you did not visit me as often as you do,” Rachel said sadly. She had only been thirty-six years old when she lost her husband in the War of 1812 against the British. Butch Summers had left her with three young daughters, both of whom were now grown up and married away from home. They could not visit their mother often because they lived well out of Akron. They made it home once a year for Thanksgiving, the snow usually making Christmas travel a trial.
Rachel and her husband had lived in Cincinnati for the sixteen years of their marriage.
“I like coming out here, Mrs. Summers, you are a very interesting person to be with,” Cora said truthfully.
Rachel Summers might have been eighty years old, but her mind was as sharp as ever. After her husband’s death she had refused to remarry, choosing to go to work at the docks in Cincinnati where she made a good living for her daughters and herself. Once her daughters were grown and gone, she had decided to sell the property they owned, and taking the proceeds from the sale of the house and her savings over the years, Rachel Summers had moved to Akron and bought a small three bedroom house sitting on ten acres of land. She had tried her hand at farming, and though she did not bring in much, it was enough for her and Mable, the freed slave who kept house for Rachel.
Mable, her housekeeper, did whatever asked of her with neither complaint nor unnecessary conversation, which suited Rachel just fine as she disliked small talk and didn’t want to alarm her servant by forcing it. Mable was a colored woman who had fled to the North from the cotton fields of South Carolina through the Underground Railroad, and though Rachel treated her as a freed servant, Mable still found it difficult to trust Whitefolks and would rarely share stories.
“It is always nice to have you with me,” Rachel agreed. “What shall we talk about today, dear Cora?” Rachel loved the young woman who visited her three times a week just to chat. Cora was a very curious girl and Rachel was happy to impart knowledge to her.
“What do you know about the Wild West, Mrs. Summers?”
Rachel smiled. The Wild West was her favorite topic. “Cora, if I was just twenty years younger I would go West in search of a new life.”
Cora’s eyes lit up. “Really? Why is that?”
Rachel laughed briefly. “Come child, let us sit on the porch. Summer is soon ending and we will have fewer days to enjoy the pleasant weather,” she said. “Mable,” she called out to her housekeeper and the woman came out, smiling at Cora.
“Why, Miss Cora, is it Saturday already?”
“Mable, you are such a tease,” Cora insisted on hugging the buxom lady who had long given up trying to resist the girl’s affections. Apart from Cora, only Rachel’s three daughters were allowed by Mable to hug her. “Of course it is Saturday, I know you are busy ironing your Sunday best frock.”
“You know me too well child,” Mable smiled fondly at her. She turned to her mistress. “Mrs. Summers, you called for me?”
“Yes, Mable, you see Cora and her mother have once again brought us bread and cakes.”
“Thank you, Miss Cora, and be sure to pass my regards to your ma when you go back home.”
“I will do that, and just so you know, Ma also sent you both her greetings and love.”
Mable served them with cold lemonade and Cora sighed. “How do you keep your drinks so chilled, Mrs. Summers?” she asked, as she did every time Mable served up a cold drink.
“And then it would not be a secret anymore,” Rachel laughed. “But one of these fine days I will tell you the secret and then you can begin your own business selling chilled lemonade and orangeade at the church. Meanwhile, let me have my spot in the sunshine okay?”
“Yes, Mrs. Summers,” Cora agreed. She knew eventually Rachel would give her the secret and she was contented to wait. “You were telling me about the Wild West.”
“Yes child,” Rachel took a long sip of her drink. “That is God’s country and I hear it is one of the most beautiful places on earth.”
“Have you been to many places on earth, Mrs. Summers?”
The older woman shook her head. “I did not have the privilege of doing so, but my Butch was a man of the sea. He travelled far and wide and he always told me wonderful stories of the places he had visited.” She sighed sadly. “I know in my heart that had my Butch lived we would have gone West a long time ago. He was quite an adventurer.”
Cora did not know what to say in the face of her companion’s nostalgia and so she kept silent.
Rachel laughed. “Forgive me child for sounding so melancholic and yet there is so much to rejoice about. Now, about the West,” Rachel held out her hands. She had a flair
for the dramatic and Cora knew that in her youth Rachel had been a very beautiful woman indeed. “That is a place that is full of gold and silver and the land there is rich and fertile, Cora, great opportunities lie in the West and I am just sorry for the younger generation who are just contented to live mediocre and complacent lives just because they cannot take risks. If you ever get the chance to go West, Cora, I tell you take it, embrace the chance with both hands and just go.”
“Mrs. Summers, according to what many people say the place is very hard to live in.”
“Which place isn’t, Cora? The pioneers who came on the Mayflower to found America were simple folk like you and me, and had they baulked at the chance to explore and live in a new land I do not know what their legacies would have been. As it is, they risked all and left all behind to begin a new life over the seas. The West is just over the land and besides it is now opening up with the transcontinental railroad going through the whole country. Take a chance and live. You only live once, Cora, live the best you can so that when the final trumpet sounds for you there will be no regrets about your life.” Rachel sighed. “Can you imagine facing God the Great Judge and when He asks you what you did with your life all you can tell him is that you were a good wife and mother and settled in one place, in Akron all your life?” She shook her head. “Think of all the lost opportunities and chances and how disappointed you will be when you realize that you could have done so much more with your life but were afraid to do so.”
