Instant Prairie Family

He only read the first few lines before he glanced back up to study the young woman again. It was the ad his mother had created to find him a housekeeper. The ad Miss Stewart had answered. But that meant... No, it couldn’t be. This girl didn’t look a day over twenty, and the letter he’d received had clearly stated that his new employee was in her fifties. The woman in front of him, who looked as if she might give in to tears at any moment, couldn’t be Abigail Stewart.

“What’s wrong, miss?” Tommy asked her, having come to stand next to her, his small hand on hers.

Will watched as some of the anger and frustration melted out of her expression as she looked down at his son. “I’m not quite sure of that myself, honey,” she answered, pressing his hand with hers. “It’s been a long trip and I have had a very taxing day. I was looking forward to meeting my new employer and her...his family. But this hasn’t gone at all like I thought it would.” She looked up from Tommy to glare at Will. “Especially the part where I was left alone on the train platform while your father walked away.”

“You’re...you’re Miss Stewart?” Will said incredulously.

She straightened her back and tilted her chin up to look him straight in the eye. “Yes, I’m Abigail Stewart.”

Any answer Will might have given was interrupted by Tommy’s response. Throwing his arms around the woman’s waist, he squeezed tight while yelling out, “You’re our auntie House!”

Chapter Two

“Housekeeper, not Auntie anything,” Willy hissed at his brother.

Abby didn’t know how to respond to that, so she addressed their father. “I came all the way from Ohio just to be part of Mrs. Francis Hopkins’s household. Now what am I going to do?” she asked out loud, not expecting an answer from him.

“But you’re not old!” Willy burst out. Abby tried to focus on the boy, but her head felt clouded.

“That’s right. You wrote you were fifty-eight.” Will eyed her suspiciously.

“I did no such thing. I’m twenty-six, as I told you in my letter.” How could he say something so strange? She had been a little uncomfortable when Mrs....er...Mr. Hopkins had asked her age, knowing that the posting had specifically requested a “mature” Christian woman, but she decided to be honest, deciding that if her honesty somehow lost her the opportunity to work for the family, it was because God was closing that door. When there had been no further mention of her age in the letters, she had assumed her new employer had decided that it wasn’t important.

“Here, I’ll show you.” Mr. Hopkins reached into his worn denim shirt pocket and pulled out a pile of letters that even from a distance Abby recognized. Her heart sank. There was no doubt about it. She had been corresponding with Mr., not Mrs. Hopkins.

He shuffled the papers and then scanned one, holding it out to her, his strong, calloused finger pointing to a paragraph. As she took it, she noticed that the page was watermarked and that the ink had run. Even Abby had to admit that the number she had written out did look like a fifty-eight.

“I’m sorry. It must have gotten wet. I did write that I’m twenty-six. I never intended to be dishonest or misleading.”

“I believe you,” he replied gruffly. “But I’m afraid that doesn’t resolve the problem. I’m sorry if there was a miscommunication, Miss Stewart, but I was specifically looking for a, um...” He looked uncomfortable as he searched for the right wording. “A more mature woman. Someone closer to the age of my mother.”

“Well, I’m not the age of your mother, but I can cook, clean and teach as well as anyone twice my age.” Suddenly, staying here and keeping the job was important to her. If Mr. Hopkins withdrew his offer, where else could she go? She couldn’t go back to Ohio. Emma and Palmer would never welcome her back, and if she went anywhere close by, they would make life impossible for her and anyone who was daring enough to help her. No. She had to find a way to stay out here in Nebraska. And since jobs for women in the area seemed to be scarce, her best chance was to convince Mr. Hopkins that she could be his housekeeper after all.

“I don’t doubt your capacity, miss. It’s just that on the farm it’s just me, the boys and my nephew, Jake. It wouldn’t be proper or right for us to have you out there with us, a single woman of your age. I’ll take care of paying your passage back to Ohio and then you can be with your sister again.” His words were meant to be reassuring but elicited the opposite effect.

“I can’t go back,” she whispered to herself. This was worse than not being picked up at the station. Before, she had wondered if something had interfered with Mrs. Hopkins’s arrival, but now she knew she had been judged unwanted again.

“Why not? Did something happen to your sister?”

“My brother-in-law...” She almost spilled out everything but then remembered the boys listening. Straightening her back, she lifted her chin. “I can’t. I’ll have to look for work around here.”

“I doubt there will be very much in the way of work for a decent woman.” He studied her for a moment more and then shook his head. “Why did you even apply to come out on the frontier at your age? You should be looking to settle down and marry. Have a bunch of kids of your own.”

He had no idea how she’d longed for that—a husband and children, a home of her own. But there had been no chance of that. No man in Ohio had any interest in a girl who wore her sister’s old castoffs and was too busy minding her nieces and nephews and looking after the housekeeping to go to any social events. This was the only way for her to leave her sister’s house—to find a job somewhere else. What would she do if that chance was taken away?

“I’m sure that once you get back to Ohio, some young man will be real glad to see that you’ve come back where you belong. And no doubt your family will be glad to have you home, too.”

“I wish it were that simple,” she answered. “I have lived with my sister and brother-in-law since my parents died when I was thirteen. My brother-in-law is very powerful... I can’t go back now that I left against their wishes.”

“So you disobeyed your sister and brother-in-law to come out here?”

“Yes. I came because...” She glanced at the boys and bit her lip. “I had to get away from Palmer—my brother-in-law. I didn’t feel quite...safe living with him anymore,” she finally finished, hoping he would understand what she had left unsaid. “But my sister, Emma, felt that I had a responsibility to stay and continue to take care of the house and the children. The day your last letter came to the house, Emma found it and I had to snatch it from her or I would never even have gotten the money or ticket. I ran all the way to my pastor’s house, and he and his wife helped me get away. I even have a letter from Pastor Gibbons for you...or at least it was to be given to Mrs. Hopkins.”

She reached down and once again sifted through the different letters until she found what she was looking for and handed it over to Mr. Hopkins. As she watched him unfold it, she felt dizzy. What if he still decided to send her back? What was she going to do?

“Have you made your choice?” The poor waitress was back, pad of paper in hand.

“Um...”

“Why don’t you try the chicken like me?” Tommy prompted.

“Or she could try the steak that I’m gonna get,” Willy suggested.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. She didn’t really feel like eating anything and was afraid that food wouldn’t stay in her churning stomach even if she could swallow past the huge lump of fear wedged in the middle of her throat. She took a sip of her water and willed it to stay down. “I guess I’m not really that hungry right now. It does all sound so good, but—”

“Don’t worry about the money,” Mr. Hopkins interrupted with a deep frown on his face, his eyes not even lifting for the first page of the letter. “I’ll cover it. It’s my fault, after all, that you’ve come all this way for nothing.”

Suddenly Abby knew that she had to get outside and breathe some fresh air. Her stomach threatened revolt. Even with the letter from Pastor Gibbons in his hand, the man was going to refuse to hire her.

Without explaining anything to anyone, she bolted from the room, out the door and around the side of the building. She was almost to the back of the clapboard restaurant when she couldn’t keep her stomach from emptying any longer. For the first time in her life, she wished she had died with her parents. What was to become of her? She was truly alone in this world—and in this strange and unfamiliar town. Back home, the sky had been high and the hills had surrounded her, but she had not known the immenseness of God’s creation until she sat hour after hour and watched prairie grass wave to an endless clear sky. She was a small speck on a wide-open prairie and only God cared she even existed. No wonder King David had asked, What was man that God was mindful of him? She was as insignificant as a stalk of the prairie grass.

“Oh, God, What am I going to do now?” she cried. The sobs that racked her body were almost as painful as the retching. She leaned her forearms against the clapboard wall and hung her head between her elbows. She didn’t even feel the coarseness of the building scratching her arms. Closing her eyes she prayed for a home. Somewhere to go where she could rest—where she could feel safe. She had traveled more than a thousand miles thinking she found a new home only to find it was the biggest mistake of her life.

* * *

Will sat staring at the spot the girl...Miss Stewart, had just vacated. He almost hoped that this was just a bad dream and he’d wake up any minute now to find that he was still camping down by the river on his way into Twin Oaks to pick up his new housekeeper. But Tommy’s little hand pushing on his shoulder, trying to get him to pay attention to yet another barrage of questions, made him aware this was all too real. The new housekeeper was a young, beautiful girl who looked as if a stiff wind could carry her off. She wouldn’t last a week on the frontier.

“Pa, where’d she go?” Tommy asked, his confusion making Will regret even more having started all this craziness. Surely he and Jake could handle the boys on their own just as they had done in the past. Maybe he would not plant in the western field he had cleared last month. He would still make a profit, though not as much as he had hoped. Still, that sounded better than adding more chaos and anxiety to his boys’ lives.

“Pa!” Tommy’s hand pounded harder and Will finally focused on his small son.

“I don’t know where she went. Maybe she needed to get a breath of air.” What did he know about women anymore? He’d been a failure at being a husband, and it had been more than ten years since he had seen his own mother or sisters.

“Um, sir?” The waitress was back again. This time she had two plates full of mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, chicken and broccoli. The third had a large steak and a baked potato with the same side vegetables. “I have your meals.”

She set a plate in front of each of them and then leaned a little closer to him. “Is the young lady all right? Will she be joining you again?”

Will groaned and closed his eyes. That was the question, wasn’t it? Would she be joining them on their trip back to the farm, or would he send her back to Ohio? The sliver of the letter he had been able to read stated the pastor’s approval. According to the pastor, Miss Stewart was an upstanding Christian girl, well respected by the other members of the church where she had attended since she had been little. The pastor indicated that he had known her parents and wanted to make sure she was arriving to a Christian home where she would be protected and respected. It had confirmed what Will surmised about her from her letters.

The only problem was her age—how could he bring a young woman to live with them? True, they wouldn’t be completely alone, thanks to Jake and the boys, but it still didn’t seem proper. Yet it hardly seemed proper to abandon a young woman in a strange town, either.

“Oh...all right!” He gave in to his guilty conscience. He needed to go search her out and see what solution he could offer. It was getting later in the day and he still needed to be back to the river by nightfall. “Can you keep an eye on my boys for a minute?” he asked the waitress, wondering what he could possibly do to make this situation better for everyone.

“We’ll be just fine here, right, boys? I remember when mine were this size.” The waitress smiled at Tommy and Willy and then nodded to Will.

Maybe he could ask Mrs. Scotts to let Miss Stewart stay on their homestead. The Scotts were his closest neighbors, and Mrs. Scotts had always struck him as a kind woman. He played with that idea as he left the building and blinked in the afternoon sun. Once his eyes adjusted, he turned and followed the forlorn sound of someone sobbing. When he found her, she was leaning against the building, crying so hard she looked on the verge of collapse. She was the picture of distress and disillusionment. Knowing he had created this big mess, causing her so much misery, struck him like a sucker punch to his stomach.

He had prayed and sought God’s guidance each step of the process that had brought her here. Mother had started everything when she suggested he advertize for a housekeeper last spring. Being that it was her idea, he’d asked his mother to write his ad and get it placed in a good Christian publication. Miss Stewart’s copy was the first he had seen of the original ad. He never even dreamed she had used his given name—Francis, the name he had grown to hate as a boy growing up. Miss Stewart was not the first person to think it a woman’s name. How could it have gone so terribly wrong? Now the poor girl was in a strange place with no one to count on and nowhere to go.