A New Mam for the Girls (2 page)

“I beg forgiveness, Zebulon.  I am just distressed by Seth’s lack of concern for this poor child.  I implore you to do something, husband.”  She gave him the look that made him feel as though he could do no wrong, the one that expressed her complete faith in his ability to handle any challenge in the right and proper way. 

“I understand, my dear, and of course, I shall speak firmly to Seth.”

“Preacher, I wish I knew why you all are so upset with me…?”  He looked at the man, and his wife, and saw the shocked disbelief in their eyes.  “Sheriff, what the he—heck is going on?” he demanded, his impatience growing stronger by the moment.

“Did ye hear me, Reverend?  Take me back to town!  I’ll no’ be shamed in this way!”  The redhead’s eyes were full of tears; her cheeks were an embarrassed red, and Seth was on the verge of losing his own temper!

“You all can sit out here all day if you wish, but I am going inside out of this sun.”  It was unlike his girls not to come outside at the first sign of visitors, and they’d had more than enough time to wash up the dishes from noon.  Seth was positive he should go inside and check on them.  He hoped they hadn’t picked an inopportune time to ask Mrs. Trimbull questions about baking or sewing.  He surely didn’t want any of these people to think he was raising his girls in a pigsty.   “Please come inside,” he added a bit more graciously.  “I’ll see if the girls will get us something cold to drink.”

“I do no’ wish to go inside this mon’s home!  I do no’ feel welcome!” 

“Miss, I don’t engrave invitations.  You can sit out here if you want to, otherwise, come inside and keep a civil tongue when talking to my little girls!  They don’t deserve your temper.”  Seth turned and stomped inside the house.  The kitchen was perfectly clean, and it was obvious the table was scrubbed clean.  However, there was no sign of his girls!  That upset Seth.  It wasn’t like them to simply disappear when they had company.  He usually had trouble getting them to go outside and play when he had adult guests and wanted to talk without their little ears overhearing things not meant for children to hear!

“Where are Sally and Susie, Seth?” Mrs. Trimbull asked, looking at him as if he was hiding them in a closet!

“They were here just a couple of minutes ago, ma’am.  I’m not sure where they ran off to.  I’ll give them a call to come and pay their respects.”  He quickly climbed the ladder to the loft.  The girls weren’t up there.  He then went to the back door and looked outside.  There was no sign of them.  He called their names, but they didn’t answer.  Puzzled, he shut the door.  “This isn’t like the two of them,” he mumbled.

“I should say not.  They are such good little girls,” Mrs. Trimbull spoke to the redhead, who appeared ready to run out the door at the first little provocation.

“Seth, we need to get this matter settled,” the Sheriff said bluntly.  “What do you intend to do about Miss O’Grady?”

Seth gave the man an exasperated look, but walked over to pull out a chair for the petite redhead.  “Will you have a seat, Miss?” he offered as politely as he knew how.  He pulled out another chair for Mrs. Trimbull.  “Ma’am…?” he addressed her.  At least Mrs. Trimbull took a seat.  But not the redhead.  She was looking at him with murder in those green eyes!

“I wasn’t talking about your manners, Seth.”  The Sheriff’s eyes were full of humor in spite of his stern demeanor.

“Then what
are
you talking about, Bill?” Seth asked.  He was getting pissed off, and he was about to lose his temper… The one that Catherine had taught him to control, telling him he would need patience to be a father!  She was right about that, but these people were getting on his last nerve and if someone didn’t tell him what the hell they expected of him, he was going to throw them all out of his house!

“I’m talking about your promise to marry Miss O’Grady,” Sheriff Bill Holmes stated clearly.

Chapter Two

“What the hell are you talking about, Bill?  I sure as shootin’ never promised to marry this woman!  I never even saw her before you come bringin’ her out here!”  Seth was enraged.  “Look, lady, I don’t know what you think you are doing, but it isn’t going to work.  I don’t know you, never met you before, and I’m not marrying you or any other female who takes a notion in her head she wants a husband at any price!”

“Seth!  I am shocked by your behavior.  You made false promises to Bridget.”

“Ma’am,” Seth forced himself to speak civilly to the Preacher’s wife.  “I made no promises to this woman, and if she tells you I did, then she is lying.”

The redhead gasped in outrage, and in the next instant the palm of her hand cracked across his left cheek.  “I am no’ a liar, Seth Masterson!”

Seth’s hand went to his cheek, and for one brief instant he indulged in the fantasy of turning the redhead over his knee, tossing up her skirts, and putting his hand to her cheeks!

“I hope that hurt!” she declared.

“It does,” Seth replied.  “A lot.  And you can thank your lucky stars that you are a woman and not a man.”

“Exactly what I would expect from the likes o’ ye!” 

“Seth, if you didn’t intend to wed this young woman, then why did you ask her here?”

“Preacher, I did not ask this woman to come here!”  Seth maintained his innocence. 

“I’ve seen the letters you wrote to her, young man.  You clearly asked Bridget to marry you.  She traveled all the way here from Boston, by herself, just to marry you.”

“Ma’am, I didn’t write any letters.”

“No?  And, I suppose you have no’ seen these before?” Bridget drew a packet of letters from her handbag and shoved them at Seth.
He gave her a puzzled look, but took them, and looked at the return address on the top one before opening it to read:

Dear Miss O’Grady,
            It was a great pleasure to receive your letter in reply to my inquiry for a wife.  You asked me to
Tell you about myself, so I will.  I am a widower, thirty years of age.  I have two daughters, Sally, age ten,
and Susie, age nine.  We live on a small ranch.

Seth opened the next one, and kept right on reading until he reached the letter asking Miss O’Grady, or ‘dearest Bridget’, to marry him.  He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he looked Heavenward, begging God for patience.  Then he opened his mouth and yelled, “Sally, Susie!  Come here right this instant, and unless you want me to switch you daily for the next month, do
NOT
pretend you can’t hear me!”

Bridget was surprised when the two little girls came out of their hiding place behind the huge cupboard in the corner of the parlor area of the house.  They walked over to stand in front of their angry parent, their heads bowed.  Her heart went out to them, and she vowed that she was not going to permit the big man to take a switch to the little darlings.  They were precious with their braided blonde hair and big blue eyes.

“Girls, what do you know of these letters?”  Seth’s voice was surprisingly gentle when he spoke to his daughters, much to Bridget’s relief.

“We wrote them, Papa,” Susie admitted, her voice very small.

“Miss O’Grady is the nicest of them all, Papa!” Sally told him.

“Yes, she is.  And she is very pretty, too!” Susie added.  “She likes little girls, and Sally and I want a new Mama!”

“We loved our Mama, but she’s gone to be with God, and we need another one.  Besides, Preacher Trimbull says you aren’t being natural, and that is just terrible, Papa!”

Susie agreed with her sister.  “That mean ole Miss Nixon has set her cap for you, and we don’t like her at all!  So, we decided to be helpful.”

“Please don’t be mad, Papa.  We wanted to tell you, but you wouldn’t go to town today when we asked,” Sally explained.

“Miss O’Grady, we think you’d be a good wife for our Papa.  Won’t you please stay and marry him and be our Mama?” Susie pleaded with her, and Bridget’s heart went out to the child.

“Darlin’, it’s no’ for ye to do the askin’,” she said as gently as possible, her Irish lilt all the more pronounced.

“Please stay,” Sally added.

“Girls, that is more than enough.  You both are in big trouble, and I want you to go outside to the woodshed and wait for me.”

“Papa! Noooo!” Sally wailed, already crying.  Susie just grabbed her hand, whispered in her ear, and then hurried her out the back door.

“Do no’ whip them!” Bridget pleaded with him, her green eyes beseeching him to be merciful.

“They did something wrong, Miss O’Grady, and I have to be their father and punish them.  It is my duty.”

“But…”

“That is enough, child,” Preacher Trimbull spoke gently, but firmly.  “Seth is quite right to discipline his children when they do wrong, and bringing you across the country on false promises is very wrong.”

“If I am no’ upset with them, then why should he be?” Bridget demanded, her temper flaring once again.

“What do you intend to do about this situation, Seth?” Mrs. Trimbull spoke up. 

“Do?”

“Seth, this young woman traveled a long way to marry you, and she has no way to support herself.  I know you personally didn’t write those letters, but you are the girls’ father, and responsibility falls on your shoulders.  I’m positive that Judge Murray would see it this way, too.”  The Sheriff looked grim.

“’Tis no’ his fault, Sheriff!” Bridget spoke up.  Her cheeks were tinged with embarrassment, but it was because she was absolutely broke and she had no way of paying her fare to get back home.  As it was, she’d skimped on meals to make the trip.  She didn’t want to be beholden to the man, however.

“Zebulon, I insist you must do something.  Seth has no wife, and dear Bridget has traveled this far in good faith.  I think there should be a wedding right here and now.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mrs. Trimbull.  I can’t marry this woman!”

“Why not?” the Preacher demanded.  “It is not natural for a man to be alone.  Your Catherine left us over three years ago, young man.  It is time to put grieving aside and marry again.  If not for yourself, for those little girls of yours who are growing up motherless!  They need a woman’s gentle care and nurturing.  Catherine would expect you to provide this for them,” he argued.

“I will no’ have the mon shamed into marryin’ me!” Bridget argued.

“You are tired, Miss O’Grady, and not thinking clearly.  If your own Pa were here, he would insist you marry this man, and you know it.  It doesn’t matter who wrote the letters; if God didn’t have this in His Divine Plan, then you wouldn’t have made the trip.  He saw you safely here, and if Seth is the man I think him to be, he will do the honorable thing and offer you a home here with him and his daughters.”

“I can see this has caught you unawares, Seth, but the law will agree with the Preacher.  Miss O’Grady is entitled to your name, or enough money to support her here, or enough money to pay her passage home.”

Seth felt trapped.  He couldn’t afford to pay for one night’s lodging at the hotel, much less the redhead’s tickets home to Boston!  He knew that Mrs. Trimbull was right when she said there was no honorable employment for a woman in town… and it was his responsibility to pay for his daughters’ wrongdoing.  Bridget O’Grady was the innocent victim in all of this, and at least she wasn’t wailing and shredding a handkerchief in her hands and bemoaning the situation.  But, there was his Catherine; his precious wife.  The woman he still loved.  Would she understand?  What would she expect him to do?  What would he want to happen if it was one of his girls standing here with no money at all, the innocent party to mischief…?  “I cannot afford your passage home, Miss.  I can’t put you up at the hotel, either.  The only thing left to do is offer you my name.”

“Oh, I knew that you would be sensible, Seth!”  Mrs. Trimbull clapped her hands happily.

“I’ll no’ marry you, Mr. Masterson!” Bridget’s pride insisted it be heard.  Of course, it was at that moment that her stomach growled hungrily, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten a bite since yesterday morning.

“Of course you’ll marry Seth, my dear child.  He is a good man, and Sally and Susie are wonderful little girls.”  She still didn’t look convinced and the Preacher looked to Seth for help in convincing her.

“I don’t know what all my girls wrote to you, Miss, but I am a hard-working man.  I try to do right by others.  I go to church on Sundays.  I pay my bills, and I try to be decent in my speech and appearance.  I’m not a drinking man, and I never gamble.  What I would expect from you is that you be a good mother to my girls… teaching them to cook and sew, and how to conduct themselves as ladies should.  We work a garden in order to eat, and I can’t abide a messy house.  I won’t beat you with my fists, but I’ll flip you over my knee if I deem it necessary.  I don’t have money to throw away on unnecessary things, but I will try to provide for needs and a few wants if I can.  The choice is yours, Miss O’Grady.  If you leave now, I’ll not make the offer again.”

Bridget could feel all their eyes upon her, and it didn’t sit well with her to know she had no real choice in the matter.  She had no money, no job, and if Mrs. Trimbull was to be believed, a respectable woman couldn’t find a job anywhere in Lake Valley.  Bridget could sew, but not fast enough to make a living at it, and she absolutely, positively refused to take in wash.  “I’ll no’ be cussed at!” she warned.

“I don’t do that,” he reassured her, a sinking feeling in his stomach that he was about to be wed.

*****

“I really wish you would stop sniffling, Sally,” Susie begged of her.  “I will tell Papa it was all my idea, and I’ll take the spanking.”

“It won’t make a difference, Susie,” Sally predicted.  “Papa is so angry, and we are both going to be sleeping on our tummies tonight.”

“You sleep on your tummy every night!” Susie reminded her, then grinned, and finally laughed when Sally glared at her in disgust.

“I can’t believe you’re laughing, Susie Masterson.  We’re going to get a spanking!  Don’t you care?”

“I knew it would mean a spanking when we posted that advertisement in the paper, didn’t you?”  She couldn’t believe that her sister was so naïve.  She simply had to know that their Papa would punish them for what he would call a form of lying.