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My children deserve to eat decent meals and my mother needs a break from cooking for us and minding the children. I hope that you’ll find my plea worthy of your attention. There is no need to respond by letter. Simply send a telegram and be on your way. Someone will be at the train station waiting in Deforest for you. I live about five miles out of Deforest.
Please know there will be hard work involved and you will be expected to do it to the best of your ability. I don’t need any young, frivolous ladies coming here to me. I need someone who will take care of my children as their mother would have done, if she had lived long enough to do so.
Sincerely,
George Fleming
As Jessica read the letter again, she knew she was the woman George was looking for. At the moment, marriage and love didn’t seem important to him, but someone strong enough to be a wife and mother was. She could be that wife. Surely, love would come later.
Jessica looked up to see Elizabeth was working on something as she read. “I think he needs me,” she said softly.
Elizabeth nodded. “I think he does as well. He’s not requiring a letter in response, and he sent the train fare and spending money for the trip already. Do you want to leave tomorrow?”
“That seems so soon. I need to speak with my mother. Perhaps the day after tomorrow?”
“I think that would be just fine. I’ll buy the ticket and send a telegram to expect you. Will your mother be angry if you don’t give her more time to adjust to you leaving?”
Jessica shook her head. “Her dearest wish is to see me happily married with a family of my own. My siblings are difficult, but Mother will handle them just fine.”
“All right. I’ll send Bernard to your home to let you know when the train leaves. Will someone be available to drive you to town? It can be a long walk with all your belongings.”
“I’m sure my father won’t mind a bit. Besides, that will be Saturday which will free up my eldest brother. He can drive me to town if my father can’t get away.”
Already Jessica’s heart was on that train going west to marry a farmer with four children. She would go home, have a long talk with her mother, pack her belongings, and excitedly wait for her train to depart.
While waiting she’d help her mother do a fall clean of the house, so everything would be spick and span before she left.
Bernard came in then with cookies and lemonade. Jessica started to stand, but Elizabeth shook her head. “No, we must trade rotten sibling stories before you go!”
“I guess we should,” Jessica said with a smile. There were so many stories, and so little time.
On her walk home, Jessica’s heart was full. Already she was almost in love with the man who had been left with four children. She loved the idea of meeting his mother. She couldn’t help but fantasize a little about George Fleming and his family. George would see her at the train station, and he would stop, staring at her as he prayed the woman he saw was Jessica.
Upon meeting the children, they would all go to her and embrace her, telling her that having a mother was their dearest wish, and she was the prettiest mother they could have imagined.
She practically floated in the front door of her home, thinking about how she had been chosen to be a bride. Finally! All her school friends seemed to have married and moved on with their lives. It was her turn! It had to be.
Her mother was making lunch for the two of them when she walked in, and Jessica immediately set the table and cut off some pieces of the bread she and her mother had made the day before. Then she put a ball of butter on the table to go with the bread.
“Did you get the supplies ordered?” Mother asked.
Jessica nodded, then realized her mother was facing away. “I did. And I did something else as well.”
“Oh?” Her mother carried the leftover soup from the night before she’d heated for their lunch to the table.
Jessica poured them each a large glass of milk and then sat across from her mother at the long table they used for meals. “I talked to Elizabeth Tandy.”
Her mother smiled. “I was hoping you would.”
“You were?” Jessica had known her mother wouldn’t mind, but hoping she’d talk to a mail-order bride agency was more than she’d expected.
Mother nodded. “Oh, yes. I see that ad every time I walk into the store in town, and I think of you. You’ll never be able to marry here with the reputation your younger siblings have. They all need to be tied up and beaten, but that’s just not the kind of mother I am.”
Jessica laughed softly. “No, it’s not at all. Well, I plan to leave the day after tomorrow. Mr. Tandy will come out and tell me when my train will leave as soon as they purchase my ticket. I’ll be moving to Wisconsin, to a farm outside of a town called Deforest.”
“Well, that sounds promising. What does your future husband do? Tell me everything you know!”
“He’s a dairy farmer. His wife died in childbirth six months ago, and he has four children. His mother has been caring for them, and now he’s looking for a wife to take over from her. He said he has all his teeth, and he’s been called handsome once or twice.” Jessica shrugged. “I’m excited to meet him and the children.”
