A Farmer For Christmas (Spinster Mail-Order Brides Book 4)

by Marisa Masterson

  A Farmer for Christmas

  Spinster Mail-Order Brides #4

  Marisa Masterson

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  Leave a Review

  Coming Soon

  About Marisa

  Dedication

  For my Samuel. Here's a book for you. I love you, kiddo.

  Prologue

  1887, Idyll Wood, Wisconsin

  The milk had curdled again. The sour smell filling his nostrils seemed appropriate. Life had turned sour since the birth of the twins.

  If Lydia were alive, she would have made cookies or bread from the tainted liquid. Reinhold Sittig--who answered only to Holder unless his mother was speaking to him --snorted in disgust. He supposed he should take the stuff over to his mother to see if she could use it for sourdough bread. That thought brought a sigh from him.

  Lately, his mother’s condition worsened daily. His shoulders sagged as he thought about her. The once jolly, vibrant woman now appeared to drag herself from her bed to the kitchen and back. Thank goodness she had his oldest daughter, Johanna, to help with meals and chores. Holder hoped that Johanna’s younger sister, Berta, also helped. Since Berta had only recently turned six, he couldn’t be sure of how much she could be counted on yet to do. Still, at least she could watch out for the one-year-old twins when she wasn’t in the barn with the animals.

  How deeply he regretted the twins. Each time he looked at their curly flaxen hair or saw their mother’s eyes mirrored in the color of their own, he remembered that they led to her death.

  This brought his thoughts back to the jar he held. If Lydia were here, she’d take care of this spoiled milk.

  Stiffening his spine, he mentally shied away from thoughts of his wife. What was the saying? There’s no use crying over spilt milk. He supposed that applied to spoiled milk as well. If he refused to cry over a dead wife, he certainly wasn’t about to allow this milk to get him down.

  Deciding to dump the smelly milk in the pig bucket on the porch, Holder grasped the door handle at the same time as someone pounded on the other side. Pulling it open, he saw his brother’s hand raised to strike the wood again. Surprise had his ice blue eyes opening wide before he chuckled. “Eager for a visitor brother? Standing by the door?” Frederick joked with this usual light-hearted attitude. A deputy in town, he only seemed serious when he was on the job. At home, Fred was much like their mother Jennie, jolly and energetic.

  Without saying a word, Holder stepped aside and signaled with his free hand for Fred to enter his cabin. Eager to close the door against the nippy fall air, he urged, “Get in here so I can keep the cold out,” when Fred merely stared at the jar of milk instead of stepping inside.

  His brother laughed. “Do you plan on drinking straight from the jar?” Taking off his coat, Fred hung it on the chair and then took a seat in that chair.

  Holder decided to enjoy the spoiled milk after all. “How about a glass of it? I’d be happy to share.” At Fred’s nod, he poured a small amount of it into one of the jelly jars placed on the shelf above the kitchen pump.

  Setting the small jar in front of Fred, Holder smiled charmingly at his brother. That man returned the smile before picking up his glass. When he took a huge drink, Holder stepped back and away from him. The milk exploded from his brother’s mouth and dripped down his neatly trimmed blonde beard, causing Holder to erupt into deep belly laughs.

  “You no-good skunk! Why’d you do that?” Fred moved to the sink and yanked a flour-sack towel from the nail on the wall. Wiping his face and shirt with it, he glared at his brother. Then he pumped the handle furiously, desperate for water to rinse his mouth.

  Still chuckling, Holder almost uttered a sincere apology. Almost, but he couldn’t quite smother his chuckles as he explained, “I know you love a good joke so I couldn’t resist. Kind of like you couldn’t resist bringing me a whole plate of cookies with blackened bottoms last week.” This tit for tat between him and his two brothers had been happening for as far back as any of them could remember. Until Carl’s beating.

  The thought sobered Holder. Carl had been a bloody mess when he and Frederick found him last month.

  By the look on Fred’s face, he knew his sudden change in mood had confused his brother. “I was just thinking about Carl. Wonder if he’s gonna be himself again and start pranking us?”

  Shaking his head, Fred suddenly slipped into his role as a deputy sheriff. “Redmond and I have followed the few leads but found nothing. At least, I haven’t.” His face showed his doubt about the sheriff and confused Holder. He hadn’t heard anyone say a bad thing about the man.

  Fred didn’t comment further about the sheriff. Letting out a deep breath, he continued with a sort of wistful sound in his voice, “I sure wish Carl would tell us who beat him like that. After all, I wanna catch Ralph Stinson’s killers. You gotta know those men who beat Carl also beat that man to death.”

  Both brothers worried when Carl started running to town most nights and not returning, according to his mother, until the crack of dawn. Ralph Stinson had been a terrible influence on his brother, but Holder still wouldn’t have wished the man dead.

  Fred continued in a tone that hinted at secrecy, “All Carl will tell me is that the red man did it. That sounds so much like Sheriff Redmond’s name that I’m keeping an eye on him.”

  Silence filled the cabin as if it permeated the very air they were breathing. Exhaling loudly and deeply, Fred broke the quiet first. “I come for a reason, other than to give you a chance to prank me.” The expression on his brother’s face had Holder tensing.

  Nodding his head for his brother to speak, Holder waited to hear the idea his brother would tell him. He knew that look, and it usually meant Fred had something to say he knew Holder wouldn’t like or want to hear.

  Clearing his throat, Fred blurted out, “You need to get a wife.”

  Stunned, Holder’s mouth gaped open and his eyebrows rose a notch. Reaching up, he ran a hand through his dark blonde waves. “What you wanna marry me off for?”

  The sadness that dogged the family for the last two years, since the sudden passing of their father, showed itself on Fred’s face. “Ma and those girls of yours can’t keep up. Don’t know if you ever really look at ‘em, but those twins are holy terrors now that they’re walkin’.”

  At the mention of his two youngest children, a chill entered Holder’s eyes and he turned away from his brother. Fred reached a hand out to his shoulder and pulled him back around so that they faced each other again. “She’s sick, Holder. You can’t expect Ma to chase after those kids of yours, even with help from Johanna and Berta.”

  “Did Ma send you to tell me this?” Holder asked defensively with arms crossed defensively.

  “Nah, you know better. She’d give any of us her last drop of blood if we needed it,” Fred answered with eyes that seemed suspiciously wet.

  Inclining his head to show he agreed with what Fred said about their mother, Holder gulped. “I see her getting’ skinnier every day. Don’t know how she can be thin and still have that round ball in her belly. The girls tell me they’re helpin’ though.”

  Fred shrugged and then looked his brother in the eye. “You can’t rely on girls that age to run a house, so I figured a way for you to get a woman to do it for us.”

  When Holder didn’t say anything, th
e other man continued. “Pastor Nillson’s wife talked to me after church last Sunday. She says her spinster sister found a woman who sent her to a man as a mail-order wife. Thought you might be able to write the woman and get a helper here for Ma.”

  Searching his mind for a reason to prove his brother’s idea wouldn’t work, Holder stood silently and stared out the kitchen window. Then he voiced the only argument that came to mind. “Carl could help more, now that he’s healing from that beatin’. I know his mind ain’t right, but that don’t stop him none from working.”

  At his brother’s snort, Holder reddened. Fred followed up his noise by complaining, “We can’t even keep Carl home now that he’s met Carlene Strong.”

  That caught Holder’s attention. “Carl’s in love? I didn’t know Banker Strong had a daughter.” He spent too much time alone in the barn with the animals or in this cabin.

  Fred smiled and shook his head. “Nah, she’s Manny’s wife. Carl’s got it in his brain that she’s his twin. Won’t leave the girl alone now.”

  “Huh? Manny’s back. Glad he’s married so he won’t lure Carl out to go drinking.” Holder had never liked spineless Manny Strong.

  “No worries that way. Manny’s living and working at the Hoffman farm. With that nice-looking wife and all those chores, he should stay busy. Problem is that Carl’s over there a lot, so you can’t count on him helpin’ Ma.” Neither Fred nor Holder knew how to control their grown brother, who had acted like a child since the beating.

  Holder needed to think and wanted to do it alone. “Give me a day or two, Fred. Lydia left a hole that needs fillin’, it’s true. Didn’t reckon on another wife for me. What Ma and the girls need, now that’s something different for me to think on.”

  The next few days found Holder more often at his mother’s two-story farmhouse, built not too far from his cabin. When he’d married Lydia, Holder’s father and brothers helped him build the small home so he and his bride would have some privacy. A recent immigrant, Lydia had been pleased with the snug home he provided. Now both she and Holder’s father had passed away.

  Spending the next few evenings with his children increased Holder’s loneliness. Alone in his cabin, he could read or whittle. Here, surrounded by people, he felt his wife’s absence. The sight of the twins intensified that feeling. He couldn’t bear having them live at the cabin. After watching his mother for the last two days, however, he could see that she no longer felt well enough to manage them.

  He wished Fred were there to talk to, but Manny had arrived during the afternoon with the news that the red man snatched Carlene. Fred rushed off to organize a posse and hadn’t returned.

  Funny that no one in town could find the sheriff. Could there be something to the idea that the red man, who Carl feared, and Sheriff Redmond were one and the same?

  While his oldest child got her sisters ready for bed, Holder knocked on his mother’s bedroom door. At her weakly voiced “Come in,” he pushed open the door and moved to stand beside her bed.

  Looking down at a face that seemed whiter than the pillow it lay against, he worried about what plagued her body. As he stared, she tried to sit up, making her pronounced abdomen more obvious. Why does it look like that?

  Picking up her hand in an unusually affectionate gesture, he shared his plans with her, speaking in German since she preferred her native tongue. “I’m thinking it’s time to bring another woman here. Girls are needin’ a ma and I would do better havin’ a wife again.”

  She gave him a small smile, the lamplight revealing the sad look in her eyes. “It’s time.” Then she closed her eyes. Leaning back against the pillow, she turned her head away from him and sighed.

  Determined now to follow through with his plan, he sat at the library table in the small parlor. From Fred, he knew the name of the matchmaker. He would find out the cost of train fare and enclose with a letter. Deciding to address the letter to the matchmaker rather than a future bride, he quickly wrote down what he required in a wife.

  November 30, 1887

  Dear Miss McKinley,

  I write you to ask for a wife since our Pastor Nillson’s sister-in-law found a husband with your help. It’s time I had a wife and want your help to find her.

  It might be that, from my letter, you know I’m just a farmer. I read and write, but I am not a man with much learning. I work hard and provide well. Tell my bride I am tall, blonde, and don’t make the small ones cry.

  I must have a bride who is a woman full-grown, no young girl. She must know how to clean and cook. I don’t want a widow with kids so don’t send one.

  My mother is ill. Nursing her must be a part of life for my bride. Please send someone who can take care of sick people.

  We need a wife here quick. The family is waiting for her to come. Her help is needed.

  Sincerely yours,

  Reinhold Sittig

  Reading over the letter, he hoped it gave the matchmaker a good idea about the kind of woman he needed. He didn’t specify looks since he didn’t care about the woman for himself. He just needed to get someone out here to raise the kids and nurse his mother. Holder had the same needs as most any other man and a bride would help with that. Still, he didn’t need to spend time with her.

  Chapter 1

  Children! How had her quiet, orderly life suddenly been dominated by unruly children? She did more laundry each week than a hotel has! As she thought that, she shooed another small child away from the crank of the mangle and put a hand to her aching back, stretching.

  Life had changed rapidly for Myra Smithson in the last month and all because of a loaf of bread. If not for that bread, she would now own a house as well as the small amount of money she’d thought to inherit. Why hadn’t she gotten up at four o’clock that morning and baked? Just remembering drew a groan from her.

  In the last two months that he’d been alive, her father grew increasingly difficult to please. On pins and needles to keep him happy, Myra had cleaned all of the curtains and ironed late into the night so they would be in place again when her father rose the next morning. Because of that, she’d overslept and hadn’t started the baking in time to have bread ready for toasting at breakfast.

  That morning, just over a month ago, she had raced from the house in a panic and bought a loaf from the baker three streets over. At the breakfast table, her father picked up his toast and examined it. While looking at it from different angles, sunlight reflected off his ruby ring. Then he roared, “You lazy spendthrift! I’m not made of money!” As he spoke, spittle flew from his lips.

  By this time, he’d risen from his chair. Using his free hand, her father pulled down on his fine brocade vest and walked to her end of the table. With a tomato-red face, he shook the toast. “With flour in the cupboard, why did you waste my coins on…”

  Keeping her eyes downcast, Myra didn’t immediately understand the reason for the silence. Looking up, she saw his eyes roll back into his head. Then he collapsed, dropping the slice of bread from useless fingers.

  Placing a finger to his neck, she let out a sigh of relief at feeling a pulse there. He was alive!

  She’d raced for a pillow and blanket. Making him as comfortable as possible, Myra ran the six blocks to Doctor Singleton. Once there, she briefly paused to explain the problem before making her way quickly back to her stricken parent.

  Father hadn’t died that day, nor the next. The doctor pronounced that he’d suffered some type of fit, causing Father to send for her brother and the family’s lawyer. Father had been able to make his wishes known, though his speech was far from clear.

  In the end, her brother, Oliver, had mockingly said, “Lost your inheritance over a slice of toast.” Then, brushing lint from the sleeve of his cleverly tailored wool overcoat, he’d left to bring his children and wife, Louise, to the house. “To say goodbye to their dear grandpapa, you know,” he’d assured her.

  Instead of only visiting, his brother’s family had arrived with all of their belongings. The fam
ily moved in, dismissing the children’s nanny and becoming more of a burden to her than Father had ever been. Shoes required shining each evening, children needed bathing, meals had to be cooked to her sister-in-law’s exacting specifications, and laundry seemed to sprout out of the walls as the piles towered around Myra three times weekly.

  What confused Myra the most was the need for the family’s visit. After all, her brother lived in the same town! It wasn’t as if he and his family needed to travel to be with Father. What had happened to their own home? And why did Oliver never check on the family business? He rarely seemed to leave the house and avoided being seen in front of the windows. In fact, when their father died two days after his breakfast fit, Oliver didn’t attend the funeral, sending his wife and oldest son in his place.

  Myra found it difficult to discuss anything with her brother. He was fifteen years older than her, an only child until Myra’s unexpected birth and, as he’d icily told her more than once, “Only too happy not to have had to share anything with a sibling until you showed up.”

  While her father was demanding and her brother was cold towards her, their mother had been loving. She’d doted on her, often telling her how much she’d wanted a daughter. Her mother would pat her lap and tell Myra to lay her little head there so she could smooth Myra’s dark brown hair. The distance the others showed her only made her mother’s love seem warmer and more devoted.

  When her father would rage at Myra, usually about some inconsequential behavior or an imagined slight, her dear mother would calm him. Typically, she would spout the same cryptic phrase, one that Myra never understood. “Just remember, Alfred, what Myra adds to our home every month.” Often, when saying it, she would touch or stand next to her husband’s latest purchase. For as much as he expected Myra and her mother to pinch pennies, the man loved luxuries.

  Mother had told her again and again that they never wanted Myra to leave. Her father reminded her that a daughter should be present in the home to care for her aged parents. Probably that accounted for the fact that at twenty-nine, Myra had passed from the blossom of youth to spinsterhood. She’d gone from caring for her parents to being the unpaid old maid who cares for the children and acts as a housekeeper, all while being reminded to be grateful for the home provided her.