Mail Order Brides Collection Boxed Set: Felicity, Frank, Verity and Jessica, Books 3-6 (Montana Mail Order Brides Series)

by Rose Jenster

  “They carry Colts on the stagecoach. You should have one of those,” Felicity added.

  “I hardly meant for you to tell her to carry a gun!” Leah teased. They all laughed heartily over their tea.

  Charlotte thanked them and went back to Mrs. Hostelman’s to prepare her dress, a pretty lawn in an apricot shade with a darker peach velvet ribbon at the throat. She took out the seed pearl pin and fastened it to the dress, her heart beating in her throat.

  Though she had been certain she’d never sleep that night, the writings of Mr. Dickens sent her quickly into a deep slumber. Soon the morning sunlight woke her. She was too excited to eat any breakfast but only crumbled her toast about the plate while her landlady went on about her own wedding morning. Once she was dressed, Charlotte awaited Leah who came to plait her hair into a coronet with ribbon wound through it. Tess loaned her a bonnet for her something borrowed.

  They made their way to the church where the Gibsons waited. Felicity was trying desperately to entertain Leah’s daughter, little Pearl with a paper flower she’d made. But, Pearl seemed determined to pick it to bits. Luke Cameron, Tess's husband, stood beside Frank. Charlotte did her best not to wince when Mrs. Gibson played a wrong note on the organ as she followed Leah down the aisle.

  Charlotte found herself looking down shyly as she gave Frank her hand. She repeated the vows in a soft voice, as if the words were meant for the two of them alone and God above to hear. Frank kissed her and Mrs. Gibson managed a sort of lopsided recessional hymn at the keys. Charlotte vowed inwardly to volunteer as a church pianist as soon as she had time to practice.

  At the inn, they all shared a little cake that Mrs. Hostelman had baked. Charlotte raised a glass of lemonade provided by Ben Cameron, the saloon owner who was also Luke’s uncle, in honor of Leah who had brought her all the way to Montana Territory on the strength of one hopeful letter. Frank leaned close and kissed Charlotte’s cheek, taking a sip from her lemonade glass. He was never far from her side during their small reception.

  “I ought rightly to buy an advertisement in the next Matrimonial Times, declaring my skill as a matchmaker for Albany spinsters who wish to relocate,” Leah joked.

  “You should!” Tess insisted and Charlotte enthusiastically agreed with the idea.

  “Don’t be silly. It was only the serendipity of having an acquaintance write with interest in being a mail order bride. I looked around town and there I saw a gruff newspaperman with no wife. It was the easiest thing imaginable.”

  “I venture that persuading my gruff newspaperman was far from the easiest thing you've ever done,” Charlotte said affectionately.

  “I'm glad that I listened at last, to you,” Frank said. “In truth, Mrs. Rogers, your matchmaking skill has brought me untold happiness today.”

  “And me as well,” Charlotte added.

  Leah bowed her head and let them toast her at last. Her husband Henry covered Leah's hand with his. Charlotte watched them share a quiet moment of fondness before little Pearl made a lunge for her father’s half-eaten slice of cake.

  * * *

  In the twilight, Frank and Charlotte settled onto the blue velveteen sofa and she laid her head in his lap, reading aloud. Not from Thoreau, but from the almanac predicting a hard winter. Frank referenced the farm commodities pricing table from the day before and muttered about the cost of flour going up if wheat prices continued to rise.

  “You’ll have to bear with it, for I’ve no intention of living on fatback and cornbread,” she told him.

  “I do think your biscuit recipe will be a good addition to the first women’s section we publish.”

  “How about Felicity’s canning instructions?” Charlotte laughed heartily.

  “Those were a disaster.” Frank groaned as he thought it.

  “It could be a humorous piece for entertainment.”

  “Only if you are sure no one would explode the glass jars on themselves in an attempt to copy her process,” Frank cautioned.

  “I feel certain that anyone who knew the results—to think she got that bit of glass imbedded in her eyebrow!—would avoid making preserves at all cost. She did have quite a good method of drying fruit though.” Charlotte felt she needed to defend her friend.

  “Indeed. Since it is usable and risks no grievous harm to the reader, we should include that.”

  Charlotte jotted something down in her notes and returned to the almanac.

  “Will you be bored here this winter? It can be harsh,” Frank asked.

  “No, I have a piano to practice, books to read, and a newspaper to write for,” she told him decisively.

  “I’m happy to hear that Your articles have already improved the quality of the newspaper immensely.”

  “Have you received hundreds of letters from appreciative readers?” Charlotte gave Frank a wink.

  “None so far but I’m sure they are grateful to you in spirit for your talent and dedication.”

  “I am never entirely sure if you’re joking with me or if you’re serious,” Charlotte said.

  “Both I think this time,” Frank replied.

  “I should get up from this shamefully lazy position and go practice my pianoforte.”

  “I like it you when you’re shamefully lazy,” Frank said, stroking her hair back from her forehead. “And subscriptions are up, thanks to your new section on women.”

  “It’s our section. It was your idea, my little genius,” Charlotte laughed.

  “No matter whose idea it was, it’s the reporter who makes the difference. I had painful doubts about the success of any section for women because I attempted to write myself without much of a response.” Frank looked at her with admiration.

  “In half an hour we ought to see the Camerons.”

  “Yes. I’ll tidy my hair,” Charlotte said, getting up and stretching.

  They dined weekly with the Camerons. Charlotte had baked a loaf of pumpkin bread with produce from the Cameron garden. She wrapped it in a dishcloth to take with them.

  From their spot at the end of the street, they heard some noise of wagons and riders. It was primarily a quiet area, nearer to Frank’s meadow of flowers than to the tumult of townspeople. When Charlotte heard the almighty clatter, the shouts, the sound of runaway hooves, she dropped her bonnet and ran out through the office and threw open the front door with Frank fast behind her. There before them was the clamor and chaos of a wagon being dragged by horses whose lines trailed behind them in a tangle. A child was clinging to the seat of the buckboard and bellowing at them.

  All along the street people looked out, staying back as the wagon careened madly from side to side. It was not going in a straight line as a team driven by an experienced horseman would proceed. Charlotte could only gape, fearing for the fate of the child while taking note instinctively of the details of the scene for a later report. Frank pushed her aside and took off running alongside the wagon, to her open-mouthed astonishment.

  Charlotte watched as Frank motioned and shouted to the stablemaster to bring the inn’s wagon across the road ahead. The man was already on the buckboard and he slapped the reins against the team’s flanks. Charlotte held her breath, terrified that the undriven team would crash into the inn’s wagon and all the horses would be hurt. And that child, the one lying across the seat and clinging for dear life—what would become of him? She heard a scream and knew it to be her own voice even above the clamor of the gathering crowd.

  Breathless, she watched the stampeding pair of bays shy and rear and come up short when blocked by the wagon and team from the inn. Frank climbed into the back of the wagon and Henry Rogers approached the horses first, with his phenomenal knack for calming animals. As he held the horses, Frank pried the child from his perch and lifted him down into the wagon bed. Charlotte rushed to his side now that the horses were stilled. Bending down, she discerned it was a boy of probably seven years or eight years old.

  “Jeremiah Coulson, sir,” the boy said to Frank as she knelt down. “I�
��m sorry about the horses. I thought I could—” He broke off, his stern expression melting into tears.

  “Why were you alone in the wagon, Jeremiah?” she asked.

  “My pa got a snakebit. He was fixing to go for the doctor, got the team hitched up and everything but he just dropped down. I figured I’d best go after the doctor myself.”

  “What about your mother? Was she taking care of him?” Charlotte asked.

  “No., my ma done passed away having the baby a while back,” Jeremiah said tearful and scared.

  “Oh Lord, Frank—” Charlotte said.

  “Jeremiah, I’m going to fetch Dr. Octavius and we’ll go out to your pa’s farm and see to him,” Frank said.

  “I’m going, too,” Charlotte said.

  “There’s not need for you to go,” Frank told her shortly.

  Ignoring Frank, she turned back to the boy. “Jeremiah, did the baby survive the birth? Do you have a little brother or sister at home by itself now?”

  “Except for my pa, yeah, I reckon he’s by himself now. ’Twas in the cradle when pa was hitching up the horses.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Not real big. He don’t walk or anything yet. Drinks milk and Pa said he’d be ready for some mash before long.”

  “So we have an infant out there unprotected, only a few months old,” Charlotte said grimly. “I’m going along. Wait here, five minutes.”

  She ran into the inn and called for Leah. Within moments she had a mug of hot sugary tea for the boy and a blanket to wrap round him and some of the herb formulas that Felicity had pressed upon her friends before returning to Fort Benton the week before.

  Charlotte sat on the buckboard beside Jeremiah Coulson and saw that he drank his tea. He swung his legs and so did she. She ached to put out her hand and smooth down his cowlick. His hair was brown and he had freckles. The brave set of his mouth was belied by the worried wrinkle of his forehead. She wanted to tell him that the doctor would help his pa and it would be all right, but she knew nothing of the sort, so she kept quiet on that subject.

  “I just moved here from out east,” she said conversationally.

  “We came from Missouri a few years back when I was small,” he said. She willed herself not to smile when he referred to himself as being little a few years ago…he was still little, so small in fact that she wanted to gather him up in her lap.

  “Does your pa have a farm?”

  “He got some cows.”

  “A rancher then. Do you come to town much? I know I haven’t seen you since I’ve been here.”

  “We went to town for the social last summer at the church. We keep busy around the farm.”

  “Do you have any family out here besides your pa? Grandparents? Aunts and uncles?”

  “Nah, it’s just my pa and me and the baby.”

  “You said it was a boy. What’s he called?”

  “We call him the baby most times,” Jeremiah said.

  “I’m sure he has a real name.”

  “I call him Dirty Pants sometimes.”

  “Jeremiah!” she said sternly, trying not to laugh.

  “All right. His name is Ben.”

  “Ben Coulson.”

  “Yep. Benjamin William Coulson. My pa’s name is Billy.”

  “I see, so Ben is named after your pa. Who are you named after?”

  “I dunno. I reckon my ma just liked the sound of my name.”

  “I bet you really miss her.” Charlotte ached for the pain he's experienced in his short life.

  “Course I do! What kind of boy doesn’t miss his mother when she dies? I

  don’t cry or nothing though. I have to help out my dad.” Jeremiah tried to sit up straight.

  “Right. Here comes Frank, my husband. He runs the newspaper here in Billings.”

  “Pa reads that. Said some lady’s been mucking it up and he’s about to quit taking the paper.”

  Charlotte laughed. “I’m Charlotte Barton, the lady who’s been mucking up your pa’s paper,” she said with a merry grin. “I used to write for a paper back east in New York, but this is the first time I’ve done it under my own name.”

  “Whose name did you use before?”

  “I had to use a boy’s name and pretend to be a boy,” Charlotte said mischievously.

  “Was you any good at it?”

  “I reckon I was. I made enough money to pay for our rooms in Albany and food, too.”

  Jeremiah seemed to consider this. “Did you have ham?”

  “No. It came too dear. We ate a lot of beans, vegetable stew, that sort of thing,” Charlotte said relieved that Jeremiah was speaking to her.

  “Oh,” he said almost with pity. “My pa shoots rabbits. We done ate lots of rabbit and squirrel lately. I don’t much prefer vegetables.”

  “Can you show the doctor where you live? I’ll go along if you’d like.”

  “Yes’m. I’d be right grateful,” he said. “So you and me, we’re going in the doc’s rig?” he asked.

  “No, I think my husband will go in case—in case we need his help.”

  She didn’t say that they would need his help lifting the father if he were badly hurt or if he were dead already. As Dr. Octavius stopped his rig, Frank stepped out to give Charlotte a hand up. He lifted Jeremiah easily onto the seat beside her and settled back in with the boy between them. Charlotte tucked the blanket over him even though he insisted he wasn’t cold. He looked a bit thin to her and she wanted to cut him a thick slab of bread and spread it thickly with butter.

  It seemed like they drove forever. The doctor had never been called to the Coulson homestead, but he knew whereabouts it was located. Charlotte was patient, casting worried glances at Frank who laid his arm across the seat back and rubbed her shoulder reassuringly. Somehow she felt a conviction that Frank would make this all right, that having him there gave some form of certainty that all would be well. She wasn't sure why, but Charlotte was comforted by his presence and felt sure that Jeremiah would be comforted, too.

  When the rig stopped, she had wondered at least five times how the child had found Billings from where the farm was located. It was not a simple journey. She figured the horses must’ve known the way. The house looked empty and ramshackle. Weeds were around the doorstep and it needed a coat of paint. The solitary window looked dull and dirty in the afternoon light.

  Frank was out first and then the doctor, still ginger in his movements after his recent injury. Charlotte took Jeremiah by the arm and rushed him past the scene on the ground where the two men were trying to revive his father. Inside, amid the smell of grease and unwashed dishes, there in the shadows of the end of the day Charlotte found a baby boy in a cradle. His diaper and gown were wet clean through. But he was alive and kicking and seemingly unhurt. He bellowed indignantly when he saw his brother and a stranger.

  Charlotte picked him up and cuddled him to her shoulder. With Jeremiah’s help she located a clean rag she could pin on for a diaper and another gown for him. She sent Jeremiah to the barn for milk and soon was feeding the baby in her lap with spoons of cow’s milk. He gobbled it eagerly, with gurgles and waves of his arms that indicated either approval or impatience. Charlotte wasn’t sure.

  “He seems to like you pretty well,” Jeremiah said grudgingly.

  “I like him pretty well, too,” she admitted, kissing the top of his bald baby head.

  Frank came in as she was holding the baby in her lap and clapping his hands together while she chanted a nursery rhyme. Jeremiah knew it, too, and they said it together. Frank shook his head sadly. Charlotte pressed her lips together and looked at Jeremiah who needed so much for his father to be well, to have survived. She shut her eyes for a second and the baby leaned his head against her shoulder, snuggling into her.

  “Jeremiah, I need to talk to you,” Frank said. “Come walk with me.” They stepped outside, though nature was no comfort.

  “It’s my pa isn’t it,” he said, a tremor in his voice.

 
“Yes, it is. I’m afraid he didn’t make it.”

  “I didn’t get to town fast enough!” the boy’s voice rose higher, a mixture of grief and regret.

  “Now that there was a poisonous snake. There’s nothing you could have done any better than you did. Even a grown man would not have done any better. You went and got help which proves you’ve got more brains than most people. You didn’t stand around twittering about, waving your arms and screaming that you’d seen a snake. You took those horses and headed to town for a doctor. That’s the smartest thing anyone could have done. You didn't do anything wrong, but had more sense than most grown people. Now don’t you ever let me hear you say this was your fault, boy.”

  “My brother and me, Ben and me, we don’t have relations round here.”

  “Where are your relations?”

  “We came from Missouri but I reckon my grandpa died last Christmas and he was the last one left.”

  “I’d like for you to speak with the doctor for a moment while I talk to my wife,” Frank said, patting the boy’s shoulder and slipping back into the shade of the house.

  “We’ll take them, won’t we?” Frank said to Charlotte.

  “Yes, please. I couldn’t bear it if we didn’t!” Charlotte's heart was breaking for these two boys.

  “No more could I. Jeremiah and Benjamin, then,” he said ruefully. “I certainly wish their father had been more careful.”

  “I wish he’d fed the boy better and taught him to handle horses,” Charlotte said. “We can rely on Henry for teaching him about horses I expect.”

  “Aye. That we can. I’ll go tell him.”

  “I’m going to gather up the diapers and see if I can find any daguerreotypes, family Bible, any keepsake they’ll want. I want them to have something of their ma and pa and their past.”

  “Good thought, Charlotte,” Frank said, kissing the top of her head.

  When next she saw Jeremiah, he was helping load the cradle into the doctor’s rig. Jermiah had taken his own pocketknife, his mother’s Bible and a rather dirty blanket off the bed that may once have been knitted white woolen.

  Charlotte sort through the pile of clothing on the floor and saw that everything was too small for the boys. Presumably no new clothes had been acquired since the mother’s death some months earlier and the children had outgrown what they had. Charlotte made a mental note to check Jeremiah’s boots for fit when they got home. Home, she thought, I will check and make sure his boots aren’t too tight once we get our boys home.