Nathan's Nurse

by Zina Abbott

  Would her sister-in-law, who wants her own kitchen, be willing to return to the table and help cut vegetables to go into the bottles? Probably not.

  Dahlia swiped dried mush drips with a damp cloth in an effort to remove them. She heard the newsprint in her pocket crackle as her skirt brushed against the table edge. She found the thought that the advertisements for marital services being the answer for finding a good marriage prospect—even for a woman her age—intriguing. She must study the ads closely before she decided, but she could not ignore the thread of excitement coursing through her.

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  Chapter 3

  ~o0o~

  Jubilee Springs, Colorado – Friday, November 25, 1881

  N athan accepted the letter from Royce Bainbridge, who had made a mail run from the post office inside the mercantile to the single men’s boarding house. One glance at the handwriting sent his heart racing. It was from her—Dahlia Greenleaf—his latest potential bride.

  Around February of that year, Royce Bainbridge announced that he and his brother had decided to build ten company houses for married miners. The theory, as it was explained to the men, was that married miners were more settled, happier with their personal lives, and would, therefore, be more productive workers. The houses would also provide the men with incentive to stay with the mine, thus reducing turnover.

  The announcement had been greeted with mixed responses.

  Some men, particularly those who had grown tired of the single life, liked the idea. The miners made good wages, but for what purpose? To spend their money in one of the local bars—perhaps to enjoy an evening with a prostitute? The men who wanted a better future than that, Nathan among them, applied for a mine company house. To move in, they must be married. For that purpose, the Bainbridge brothers had contracted with the Colorado Bridal Agency to help each eligible miner find a suitable wife.

  Other miners, like his brother, Herbert, not wishing to give up their freedoms, viewed the process with disdain.

  Herbert had badgered Nathan more than once over the issue. He insisted a wife would tie him down and steal his freedom. Nathan grinned as he recalled Herbert warning him that a wife would expect him to come home each night, squire her to church on Sundays, and spend time with the children which inevitably would come to the union. The more he listened to Herbert’s warnings, the more he realized that those were the very things he wanted in his life.

  Nathan reflected on what most of the men knew, although the talk did not dwell on the topic. Mining held more than one kind of danger. First, like any physical labor, mine work involved the risk of accidents. Equipment could fail, support beams could give way, and dynamite blasts could go wrong.

  The other hazard provided a deterrent that kept many miners from desiring their own home and family. Poisonous elements existed underground. The mine employed enough miners who previously had worked in mines in Cornwall and the Appalachian Mountains to know substances in the dust settled in the lungs and shortened a miner’s life. Along with silver, small amounts of other metals like iron and lead in the Prosperity Mine could be poisonous if too much accumulated in the body. Then there was the silica—the element used to make glass—that many suspected was the biggest culprit in causing lung disease. Men, like those from Cornwall who grew up in mining regions, figured they were lucky if they lived to be thirty-five years old. Nathan had not started working in a mine at the age of seven or eight like the boys in Cornish families, so he knew he could expect to live beyond the age of thirty-five, even if he stayed with mine work. Still, if he made a career in the mines, he might earn good wages for a couple of decades, but it would also mean his life would come to an early end.

  Then again, had not his mother’s life been cut short due to illness? Nathan had been eleven when his mother died of pneumonia. And what of his stepmother’s former husband, Herbert’s father? Herbert, five years Nathan’s junior, had been a toddler when he lost his father after the man had been gored by a bull.

  Nathan, almost thirteen when his father married Herbert’s mother, had not known what he resented more—having a new woman move in to take his mother’s place, or having to endure a pesky, disagreeable stepbrother who had been spoiled rotten in the years his mother had lived as a widow with only him on which to focus her attention. From the start, Herbert had been a troublemaker within the family, at school, and in church. Nathan’s father assured him his new younger stepbrother—step-bother was more like it—merely needed the guidance of strong men to encourage him to make better choices. At the encouragement from his new wife, who resented her late husband’s drinking and abusive nature, he even allowed Herbert to use the Price surname, hoping that would inspire him to improve.

  Nathan had been tasked with setting a good example and looking out for Herbert—an obligation he originally resented, but which he now accepted as a fact of life. For the sake of his family, he always spoke of Herbert as his brother without going out of his way to clarify they were stepbrothers.

  As he reflected on his history with Herbert, Nathan huffed and shook his head. His father had been wrong. Not only had patient teaching and kindly discipline not guided Herbert to grow into a responsible adult, but Herbert had detested Nathan’s attempts to look out for him and help him out of trouble. He waffled between heckling Nathan for being a goody-goody and resenting him for not joining him in his troublemaking adventures.

  Yet, after Herbert left home to get away from his stepfather, whose patience had grown thin over the years, he sought out Nathan and stuck by his side like a newborn calf to its mama. After Nathan had been hired by the Prosperity Mine, within weeks, Herbert, trading on his relationship as Nathan’s brother, talked his way into employment at the mine. The problem Nathan had with that development was this—Herbert was still Herbert. More than once, Nathan worried his stepbrother’s shenanigans would get them both fired.

  Nathan finally decided he must look out for himself first and help out Herbert where he could after that. When Royce Bainbridge announced the plan to encourage miners to marry, he had put in his name to be considered for a house—and a wife.

  As he thought over the previous months while he sought his perfect bride, Nathan recalled his bouts of discouragement. In spite of the heckling he received from his brother, he dutifully wrote to the women Mrs. Lizett Millard of the bridal agency selected as the best choices for him. One after another, each rejected him for some reason of their own. Some declined by letter before they ever met face-to-face. Some he had written to, once they arrived in Jubilee Springs, decided upon another miner instead of him. It was almost as if people in town warned them that marriage to Nathan Price involved the burdensome package of having Herbert Price as a brother-in-law. Nathan grew discouraged as he watched miner after miner find their mates and move into married housing while he stayed in the single miners’ boarding house.

  Nothing had surprised Nathan more than when Herbert, on the night of the Harvest Dance the previous September, raised a ruckus about a cowboy being matched up with a bride selected by Mrs. Millard. Herbert had insisted the miners should get any brides who came to Jubilee Springs before anyone else in the region. In spite of the reprimand from Mr. Bainbridge over Herbert’s drunken state from indulging heavily from the spiked punch bowl—which Herbert, no doubt, had been responsible for doctoring, contrary to their boss’s orders—and Royce Bainbridge’s warning to Nathan regarding Herbert, there had been a part of Nathan who had appreciated Herbert’s efforts to look out for his interests. Perhaps Herbert thought the rejection of a Price for a husband was a black mark against him as well as Nathan. When it came to Herbert, who knew for sure? However, Nathan had felt a certain amount of satisfaction in his brother’s effort to tell the town that, if Nathan was so foolish as to want to tie himself down with a bride, he needed to get his bride sooner, rather than later.

  By then, he had started writing to Dahlia Greenleaf. He liked what he read in he
r first letters. He quickly decided God had been looking out for him. Because the other women rejected him, it forced him to wait until she contacted the agency to look for a husband.

  As Nathan turned to go back to his bunk to read the latest letter, his skin began to tingle with the awareness that another person approached him from behind. He turned his head to see who attempted to look over his shoulder and sighed in resignation. Charlie. Again.

  “Who’s it from, Nathan? Your lady who smokes the corncob pipe?”

  “Stop it, Charlie. She does not smoke a corncob pipe.” Nathan shook his head as Charlie darted ahead until he stood in front of him and blocked his path. He grabbed one of Nathan’s wrists and pulled the envelope toward him. Swaying side-to-side, he inhaled deeply. Putting on a show of ecstasy, he smiled as he affected a swoon, tumbling to the floor.

  “Ah! That stinks of some fine-smelling pipe tobacco, or my name’s not Charlie Brewster.” Moving less-than-gracefully, Charlie once again stood and eyed Nathan with a raised eyebrow. “You sure Miss Tobaccy don’t smoke a pipe? Although, more I think on it, if she can afford quality tobaccy like that, she’s probably smoking something a little fancier than a corncob. Figure they make ladies’ pipes? If so, you’ll have to tell Brinks so they can order some in for her.”

  As he pushed past Charlie, Nathan rolled his eyes. “I’m not asking Brinks to order in a selection of pipes suitable for a woman. Extremely few women take up the habit, and I’m sure she would have said something in her letters if she did indulge in tobacco. There must be a logical explanation for why her letters smell the way they do.” Nathan sat on his bunk and scooted until his back rested against the wall of the building. He glanced up to see Charlie standing at the edge of his bed, his gaze boring into Nathan.

  “Of course, there’s a logical reason for her letters smelling like that. She uses tobacco and keeps the paper and her pipe fixings in the same drawer. You remember Harold’s Miss Rosewater, don’t you? All the letters he got from his lady stunk like roses. She did, too, come to think of it—the one time I got close enough to get a good whiff. Must have doused herself and her letters every chance she got.”

  As he pried his letter open, Nathan sighed. Sometimes, he wondered who could be the biggest pest—Charlie or Herbert. “I’m sure she doesn’t rub pipe tobacco on her skin and clothes.”

  “Of course, she don’t. She smokes the stuff. I knowed some mighty fine women back home who smoked a pipe. Not in public, mind you, but in the evening, when they sat down a spell before turning in. She got anything interesting to say in that letter?”

  “Nothing of interest to you. Find something else to do, Charlie. There must be someone else you can pester while I read my letter.”

  “For someone keeping the rails hot sending letters back and forth, you sure don’t got much to say. My money’s on Miss Tobaccy smoking a pipe—a nice one, fit for a lady.”

  Nathan glared at Charlie until the man shrugged and walked away. He turned his attention to his letter. Although he refused to even consider announcing it to anyone, especially Charlie, Dahlia’s first sentence interested Nathan greatly. She accepted his proposal of marriage.

  In the same letter in which he asked for her hand, Nathan gave her two options. First, if she wished to marry before Christmas, she needed to come to Jubilee Springs as quickly as possible, before winter weather rendered train travel difficult and unpredictable. Otherwise, if she preferred to enjoy one last Christmas with her family in Kansas, she could wait until spring thaw to join him. Much to his delight, the letter informed him she chose to travel to Colorado as soon as he could arrange her transportation.

  Nathan clamped his lips tight to keep from blurting out his good news, but he could not prevent a smile from sneaking onto his face. He glanced at his pocket watch and all but leapt off his bunk. He still had time to get to the telegraph office before it closed for the night. Since he already paid all the required fees to Mrs. Lizett Millard of the Colorado Bridal Agency, he intended to notify her to send the tickets and travel money to Miss Dahlia Greenleaf immediately and to let him know the date she would arrive.

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  Chapter 4

  ~o0o~

  North of Kansas City, Kansas – Saturday, November 26, 1881

  D ahlia perched Sarah on her hip while she looked over the bolts of fabric in the mercantile. She sent her letter accepting the marriage proposal to Nathan Price the previous week. After she informed Elm of her decision, she told him she intended to go to town on Saturday instead of staying home with the children like Jenny often asked her to do. She wished to purchase the fabric for the two outfits he told her to make.

  Dahlia smirked and shook her head. Jenny enjoyed time away from home and her brood, but those days were limited. Once Dahlia boarded the train, Jenny would be on her own with her family. She hoped Elm increasingly did his part to keep the boys in line, but he was not one to take charge over all the children, especially when they were babies. Jenny’s parents provided her with her only hope for an occasional break from the children. However, they lived in the next township over. Since the trip between the two farms took almost three hours to drive in a wagon, Dahlia doubted they would take their grandchildren for the day or overnight very often.

  Not for the first time, Dahlia twisted Sarah and her grasping fingers away from the pink silk she considered for her wedding gown. She preferred a lighter pink, but, knew with the schedule she agreed to, she could not afford to be picky and wait for the mercantile to order in a paler shade. She hefted the bolt of fabric in her free arm and carried it to the counter to join the dove gray wool she had chosen for her traveling suit. Gray, a color considered drab by some, enhanced her skin tones. She picked out black piping and pewter buttons for the trim.

  Once she put the last of the fabric she needed on the counter, including the inexpensive lining cloth, she turned to search for Jenny. Her sister-in-law, a pout on her face, stood not six feet away with her arms folded and resting on top of her seven-months-pregnant bulging tummy. She eyed the bolts on the counter. Dahlia walked over to her and pried Sarah loose so she could hand over the two-year-old. “Please take your daughter, Jenny. I still need to pick out some lace and buttons, and those hold too much fascination for Sarah. I don’t want anything broken or tossed about.”

  As she reached for Sarah, Jenny sniffled. “You’re sure charging a lot, Dahlia. I don’t know how Elm and I are going to get everything paid for with all the clothes you’re making.”

  Dahlia refused to succumb to Jenny’s attempt to prick her conscience. “I’m getting enough for a nice gown and a travel suit—the two outfits Elm told me to buy fabric for—and nothing more.” She turned to walk toward the section of the store displaying notions. She ignored Jenny, who followed.

  “But we’re the ones who have to pay for everything. Don’t you feel at least a little bit guilty?”

  Dahlia, her hands on her hips, turned back. “No, I don’t, Jenny. I also do not wish to air our dirty laundry in public in the middle of the mercantile on a busy Saturday afternoon. If you have questions about anything, save it for the drive home.” When she knew Jenny realized discussing such matters so openly around others created a scene that could lead to unwanted gossip, she sighed with relief. Jenny wordlessly turned toward the section with housewares while Dahlia continued toward the notions and trims.

  Much to Dahlia’s frustration, Jenny’s attitude did not improve the entire time they remained in town. After Dahlia completed her purchases, Jenny repeatedly begged her to hold Sarah or chase after the boys. Once time came to climb in the wagon for the ride home, Dahlia refused to continue riding herd on her brother’s and sister-in-law’s children during the trip home. She quickly dropped her purchases over the side of the wagon and stepped up to sit on the bench next to her brother who would drive the team.

  “Aren’t you going to sit in back with the children?”

  Dahlia tu
rned to Jenny, who held her sleeping daughter in her arms. “No, I’m not. I thought, with you holding Sarah until she wakes, it would be more comfortable for you in back, where you can stretch out. The boys should settle down for a nap pretty soon.”

  After Elm climbed onto the wagon bench and picked up the leads, Dahlia glanced over long enough to catch his gaze shift between her and Jenny. He flipped the ribbons to get the horses moving and waited until they drove away from people before he spoke.

  “I’m afraid to ask what has you two at each other’s throats this time.”

  “Nothing, except she about bought out the store. Why did you tell her she could charge fabric for all those clothes, Elm? Do you have any idea how long it will take to pay off that bill at the mercantile?”

  Dahlia cringed at the whine in Jenny’s voice. She watched her brother huff out a breath as he turned to face his wife.

  “Yes, I do, Jenny. We may need to watch our expenses for the next year, but assuming we have a decent harvest next autumn, we’ll get it all caught up by then. Keep in mind—we inherited the farm and the house. It’s far more than my brothers and sisters are getting from my father’s estate. I know Papa allowed Rose and Violet to each make special dresses for their weddings, plus they left home with enough clothes to last them a couple years. It’s only right, now my father is gone, I see Dahlia gets the same.”