She regarded her father, Senator Jesse Cochran, who had been such a major influence in her life. He’d started from dubious beginnings as the illegitimate son of a whore, raised in a brothel, to become a United States Senator. “Oh, Papa. You say that because of your own childhood.”
Their attention was caught by the blast of a whistle and whoosh of steam coming from the eight-ten train to Denver as it chugged into the station. With a sigh, her father arranged for the loading of Priscilla’s trunks onto the train, then turned to her. “If you change your mind, just send a message and I’ll come fetch you.”
“See Papa, that’s exactly what I mean. Suppose I do change my mind. I don’t need you to ‘fetch’ me. I’m a grown woman, college educated, and ready for an adventure.”
Her papa took her face in his large hands. “You will always be your mama’s and my little girl, honey.” He bent and kissed her on the forehead. “Have a safe trip, and please write. I’m sure your mama is already waiting for a letter.”
Priscilla fought back tears she didn’t want to fall. She was an adult woman. Chin trembling, she kissed him on the cheek and turned to mount the train. Taking the conductor’s hand, she climbed the steps and hurried down the aisle as the train began to move forward. She found a seat next to a window and waved goodbye to her papa and her life of twenty years in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
By noontime, Priscilla was restless and hungry. She’d never been one to sit still for long periods of time, and the ride had already become arduous. Perhaps if she ate something, she might be able to take a short nap, since her excitement the last few days had not allowed for many restful nights.
She pulled out the cheese sandwich, apple, and oatmeal cookies Mama had packed for her. One look at the lovingly made food tightened her throat, and she had to push the tears away again. She shook her head. This was ridiculous. She was an adult, headed to Dogtown, Colorado, to teach children in a town far away from civilization. She was a trained educator, and this would be her opportunity to help children who needed her. She could make a huge difference in their lives.
Despite the pep talk she’d given herself, she still had a hard time getting the food past the lump in her throat. She wrapped the scraps from her meal and tucked it into her satchel, then leaned back, closing her eyes, thinking about her new life.
She’d been slightly misleading when she’d answered the ad in The Guthrie Daily Leader. A Mr. Mitchell Beaumont had advertised for a single or widowed female teacher of mature years to teach the children of Dogtown. Perhaps she wasn’t truly of “mature years” but she was certainly enthusiastic and a graduate of Central State Normal School.
Although she could have taken a job in her home town of Guthrie, she wanted to travel from home. Her cousin, Ellie, taught at the high school before her children were born, and her husband, Max, was still the principal there.
From the time she’d been a girl, Priscilla had known it was her destiny to make a difference in the world. Ellie had made her mark by being involved in women’s rights for years, and while Priscilla agreed with her cousin, her passion was children. There were so many who needed her. Beginning the career she was passionate about as a teacher in a school so far from the things she’d grown up with, and taken for granted, excited her.
It was four twenty-two in the afternoon when the train rolled into the Topeka station. She would spend the night at the hotel one block from the depot and then board the nine o’clock train the next morning with an arrival in Denver at nine that night. Although going to Topeka first seemed to take her out of the way, it was the only route to Denver from Oklahoma.
She checked the packet Papa had prepared for her. Her reservation was made for the Topeka Hotel for one night. The ticket for Topeka to Denver was tucked into the envelope, along with the pass for her ride on the Mail Coach from Denver to Dogtown. She could ride that conveyance any Monday, Wednesday or Saturday that she wished. There was more than sufficient money for her to pay for her meals and room in Denver until she took the Mail Coach.
As she studied the papers Papa had so diligently put together for her, tears welled in her eyes once again. Yes, she would certainly miss her family. She sniffed and reached for her satchel. But this was her new life. And she was more than ready for it.
Mitch Beaumont checked his appearance in the mirror over his dresser. He straightened his string tie and tucked his straight black hair behind his ears. He frowned, thinking he should have gotten a haircut. As the representative of the Dogtown Town Council to greet the new teacher, he wanted to make an impression and have her know she wasn’t coming to some backwoods town to teach a bunch of roughneck kids.
“Ian, you ready to go with me to meet the coach?”
“Pa, I don’t see why I have to go meet the new teacher.” His eleven-year-old son, Ian, leaned against the doorframe, his hands crossed over his chest, giving Mitch a jolt at how the boy was slowly turning into a man.
“I have to meet her, and it would be nice for her to see one of her students.”
“I don’t need a teacher. You’ve taught me all I need to know.”
Mitch backed up from the mirror and turned to his son. “No one knows enough, Ian. I’m learning every day. And besides, I’ve told you many times I want you to go to college. You’ll need more education than I can give you to pass those entrance exams.” He pulled his jacket from the back of the chair and shrugged into it. “Now hurry and wash up and change your shirt. The mail coach is due to arrive in about half an hour.”
He was relieved to be meeting the coach so the town would finally have a stable school. It had been a clever idea to advertise for a mature woman for the position. They’d had a difficult time with the last teacher Dogtown had hired. Miss Sally Fisher had stepped off the mail coach, looked around, and burst into tears. For two weeks she cried as she taught school until Mitch finally put her back on the mail coach with a month’s pay and wished her well.
This was not the town for a young woman. They wanted more stores, more social life, and more young men to flirt with. Miss Priscilla Cochran had sent her teaching certificate from a Normal School and said she was a woman of mature years, loved children, and teaching. She’d written that she would bring the list of schools she’d worked for with her. She was anxious to bring education and enlightenment to the children of a small town.
He envisioned a cheerful, plump woman of maybe fifty or so years, who would take the children to task and make them learn. If they ever expected to have the town grow by attracting more families and businesses, they had to have a stable school. The twenty or so children in Dogtown hadn’t had consistent teaching for the last two years since their last teacher, Mr. Hudson, had up and died.
“Ian, let’s go,” Mitch yelled as he headed to the front door. He wanted to make a quick stop at his gunsmith shop before he met the mail coach to make sure Ernest, the man who ran the shop in his absence, had everything under control. He was getting on in years and had a hard time hearing customer questions.
Mitch and Ian walked the length of the boardwalk, the heels of their boots thumping on the boards in rhythm. Mitch tried to see the town as the new teacher would. Up and down the street were his gunsmith shop, the church, a small schoolhouse, the general store with the telegraph office inside, Miss Janson’s dress shop, the bank, Mrs. Gillis’s boarding house, the newly opened restaurant, and the marshal’s office that doubled as Justice of the Peace and courtroom. Luckily the town saw very little in the way of crime so Marshal Anders performed more civic duties than anything else.
Doctor Benson attended to patients and mixed medicine out of his home two blocks over. There were many more businesses that would help the town grow, and Mitch worked hard on attracting them to Dogtown. The town desperately needed a blacksmith, a real pharmacy, an undertaker, and a barber. He also envisioned a butcher and bakery, but any new business he could attract would help,
The main street where the businesses stood was muddy from an earlier rainstorm, ano
ther drawback, especially for the ladies concerned about their skirts dragging in the mud.
“Run over to Mrs. Stevens’s house and see if she’ll part with a few of her flowers for us to give to Miss Cochran,” Mitch said to Ian as he entered the gunsmith shop. “I’ll meet you over at the mail coach stop in a little while.”
“Aw, Pa. You gonna make me carry flowers, too, like some girl?”
“If you ever want to have a girl, you better learn how important it is to the females.”
Ian made a face that looked like he’d tasted something nasty. “Ugh. Why would I want a girl?”
Mitch laughed. “I’ll ask you that in about four years. Now go on. Ernest, how’s business today?”
The man who had sold the gun shop to Mitch’s father years ago peered at him from behind his thick spectacles. “Is that you, Mitch?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Ernest.” Mitch sometimes worried about having a man who was half-blind behind the counter of a gun shop. One day he would have to hire another employee. Once he got the new teacher settled, he would have more time to devote to his business and to growing the town.
“That new teacher show up yet?” Ernest blinked rapidly.
“No. She’s arriving on the mail coach in about twenty minutes.”
“I sure hope this one stays. My granddaughter was upset when the last one left. Mary Lou said that goldarn teacher cried every day.”
“Well, I have that solved. I made sure the woman I hired this time was of more mature years. A young woman from outside just doesn’t take well to a town like ours. I’m sure Miss Cochran will be with us for a long, long time.”
The walk from his store to the mail coach was a quick one. Mitch looked around his town and smiled with satisfaction. There were a lot of things still needed, but they were on the right track to make Dogtown a nice town for families and a nice place to raise children.
He’d seen Dogtown for the first time when he was younger than Ian. His father, a French Canadian fur trapper, and his mother, a beautiful young woman from the Crow Nation, left Canada and moved south to the settlement called Dogtown in Colorado. So named because of all the dogs that roamed the streets of the tent town until the settlers rid the area of them.
Mitch had watched the settlement grow from tents to a thriving town that he hoped to see prosper even more. His father, Pierre Beaumont, had brought with him a cache of guns and rifles and set up the gun shop. His mother, Little Bright Star, made beaded clothing that she sold until she died of consumption when Mitch was eighteen. His brokenhearted father followed her to the grave not long after.
That was the year Mitch married Polly Gardner, who he buried nine months later after she died birthing Ian. Since then, it had been him and his son. Just the way he liked it. Loving a woman made a man weak and vulnerable. He suffered when Polly died, leaving him alone with an infant. He’d also watched his father wither and die after Little Bright Star had passed on.
Shaking off his somber thoughts, he headed to the general store where the mail coach made its stop. He flipped open his pocket watch. Ten minutes. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement. Ian slithered from building to building, looking behind him, hiding the fact he carried a bouquet of flowers.
Mitch smiled and waved his son over. “I’ll take that.” He accepted the flowers and leaned against the post holding the new gas lights the town had recently installed. Another improvement of which he was proud.
“We all ready for our new teacher?” Ray Morrow, the mayor of Dogtown, strolled up to Mitch, shifting his ever present cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Sure are. I checked the repairs on the schoolteacher’s house yesterday.” A small house was part of the teacher’s salary. Rodents had eaten away a portion of the floor in the kitchen while the place had remained vacant since the last teacher left several months ago.
“I hear that mountain lion took out two of Casper’s sheep last night,” Mitch said.
“We have to get a group up to rid ourselves of that animal.” Ray poked the air with his cigar. “A hunting party needs to be brought up at the town council meeting tonight.”
Mitch nodded. “Good idea. We can’t have the creature terrorizing our farmers.”
The mayor slapped Mitch on the back. “Our teacher should be here soon. Smart move to hire an older woman this time, Mitch.”
“I agree.” He checked his watch once more. “Five minutes.”
Priscilla smoothed the wrinkles in her blue linen dress. The ride from Denver to Dogtown on the mail coach had been the worst part of her journey. Because of the unseasonably warm weather for the Rockies, Mr. Boswick, who drove the coach, had left the flaps on the side of the coach open to allow for a breeze. However, it had also let in small bugs that Priscilla had practically choked on. At least the man had closed the flaps when they’d ridden through a heavy rainstorm.
She wiped sweat from her forehead and upper lip and pushed back the damp curls sticking to her face under her bonnet. If she wasn’t so nervous about her subterfuge, she would be thrilled to hear Mr. Boswick call over his shoulder that they were only about ten minutes outside of Dogtown.
After all, how important could age be for a teaching position? She was fresh out of college and had brought along an entire trunk loaded down with books, slates, and teaching supplies. Her head was full of ideas on new methods of teaching. She was anxious to meet her students and start introducing them to the better things in life that education provided.
The coach began to slow down as the edge of town came into view. She was surprised to see a small but tidy town. She moved from one side of the coach to the other, taking in the houses that lined the streets. Most of them were snug homes with white picket fences around them, many with flower gardens. Several children stopped playing and watched the coach pass by. Apparently word had spread that the new teacher was arriving on the mail coach. Two little girls holding hands waved at her.
Several women strolled the boardwalk, cloth shopping bags dangling from their arms as they chatted with each other. They also stopped and watched the coach pass. Parents of her students, she surmised.
Goodness, it appeared everyone in town was anxious to see her. She took a deep breath and smiled at the women and waved back to the children. This would be her home from now on. Excitement coursed through her. She swung her head to the left when Mr. Boswick shouted, “That there is the schoolhouse.”
A small red building sat on a lot by itself. A clapboard house was partially visible from the road. She’d been told by Mr. Beaumont, who had hired her, that a house came with the teacher’s job. That must be the house he’d written about. Once more she wiped her upper lip.
They came to a rolling stop, and Priscilla’s stomach lurched, threatening to bring up the breakfast she’d eaten before they left Denver three hours earlier. She peeked out the side of the coach and saw two men and a boy standing on the boardwalk in front of the mercantile. One of the men held a bouquet of flowers. Since she was the only passenger and it was obvious the men waited for the coach, the flowers must be for the new teacher.
Mr. Boswick brought the coach to a complete stop and jumped off. He lowered the steps on the side of the coach. “We’re here, miss. And it looks like you have a welcoming committee.”
Taking another deep breath, Priscilla clutched her reticule and made her way to the doorway. She accepted Mr. Boswick’s hand and took the two steps to the ground. She smiled brightly at the two men. The younger one looked puzzled. “Are you Miss Cochran?”
“Yes.”
He continued to stare at her.
“Are you Mr. Beaumont?”
He nodded, still gaping. Wondering if they were going to stand there all afternoon just gawking at each other, she stuck her hand out and moved forward. Her foot slipped out from under her on the wet, slick ground, and, arms flailing, she landed face first in the mud at Mr. Beaumont’s feet.
Two strong hands gripped her arms and pulled her up, a su
cking sound coming from the action. Mud dripping from her face, dropping in clumps down her dress and cape, she shook the mess from her hands.
Mr. Beaumont shoved the flowers at her and placed his hands on his hips. “A woman of mature years, Miss Cochran?”
For more information, visit my website at http://www.CallieHutton.com.
About the Author
Callie Hutton, the USA Today bestselling author of The Elusive Wife, writes both Western Historical and Regency romance, with “historic elements and sensory details” (The Romance Reviews). She also pens an occasional contemporary or two. Callie lives in Oklahoma with several rescue dogs and her top cheerleader husband of thirty-eight years. Her family also includes her daughter, son and daughter-in-law, and twin grandsons.
Callie loves to hear from readers. Contact her directly at [email protected] or find her online at www.calliehutton.com. Sign up for her newsletter to receive information on new releases, appearances, contests and exclusive subscriber content. Visit her on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.
Praise for books by Callie Hutton
A Run For Love:
“An exciting, heart-warming Western love story!" -NY Times Best Selling Author, Georgina Gentry
“I loved this book!!! I read the BEST historical romance last night...It's called A RUN FOR LOVE -NY Times Best Selling Author, Sharon Sala
“This is my first Callie Hutton story, but it certainly won't be my last.” -The Romance Reviews
A Prescription For Love:
"There was love, romance, angst, some darkness, laughter, hope and despair." -RomCon
“I laughed out loud at some of the dialogue and situations. I think you will enjoy this story by Callie Hutton.” -Night Owl Reviews
An Angel in the Mail:
Julia: Bride of New York (Amercan Mail-Order Bride 11) Page 14