Secrets of the Heart (24 page)

Soon the heat from the stove had dried her hair enough to brush it, and the light from a nearby lantern cast golden highlights throughout her dark auburn locks. Before her hair was completely dry, Kathleen went to the cupboard to take out a small ornate wooden box, then sat back down in her chair and spilled the box’s contents in her lap—a wad of paper bills and a large number of coins.

She counted out every dollar and every single cent. Her savings was growing slowly but surely, and each week she felt more encouraged. She had looked in newspapers about investments, but every company seemed to want an initial investment of more money than she had yet collected. She still possessed the three hundred dollars in her bank account, but that combined with her saved income was still not enough to open an investment account. Kathleen would just keep adding to her funds until she could find a sure thing that would make money fast.

As she placed the money back in the box, she thought of her daughter. It seemed that every time she saw Meggie through the Stallworths’ back fence, the little girl had grown and changed. Her heart broke anew as she realized precious days were slipping away that could never be recaptured.

When Kathleen’s hair was finally dry she banked the fire in the stove, blew out the lantern, and snuggled down in her small, hard bed. Blessed sleep quickly claimed her.

As July came to Nevada, Tom Harned had exhausted his search to find a caretaker for Caleb. Laurie Humbert’s baby was due in September. At best, Tom had eight or nine weeks to come up with a solution.

Caleb had grown to love Laurie, and their relationship was a close one. It comforted Tom to know that his young son was well cared for when he was at work in the mine.

In addition, Laurie went to the Harned house once a week and
gave it a good cleaning. Tom had offered to pay her, but Laurie wouldn’t accept any money. Sometimes she invited Tom and Caleb to have supper with her and Bruce.

On those occasions, Pastor Bruce refrained from preaching to Tom, but he slipped Scripture into their conversations and silently prayed that the Lord would drive the Word deep into Toms heart.

The weather in that part of Nevada was hot and dry, and as Laurie approached her eighth month of pregnancy, her steps were slowed by her girth and her swollen ankles. Caleb was a great help, saving her as many steps as he could.

Every afternoon, Monday through Saturday, Laurie and Caleb sat on the shaded front porch of the parsonage, enjoying a cold glass of tea or lemonade. Laurie had gained Toms permission to read Bible stories to Caleb, and with every story Laurie told the boy of Jesus and His love.

On a hot midweek day, Tom left the mine and walked into town. His route to the parsonage always took him through the business district. As he drew near the office of the Butterfield Stagelines, he saw miner Jess Sherman watching the stagecoach that was rolling into town ahead of a cloud of dust.

Tom was almost abreast of the Butterfield office when the stage came to a halt and Jess stepped up to open the coach door. A lovely young woman emerged. Jess helped her down and they embraced. Tom was a bit surprised, for he knew Jess was a bachelor.

As other passengers alighted from the stagecoach the crew began handing down the luggage. Jess reached for the young woman’s luggage and noticed Tom coming along the boardwalk.

“Howdy, Tom!” he said. “Hold up a minute. I want you to meet someone.”

The young lady turned her gaze on Tom, and Jess said, “Tom Harned, I want you to meet Betty Thompson. She’s my mail order bride.”

“I’m very happy to meet you, Miss Thompson,” he said, touching his hat brim. Then to Jess: “Mail order bride, eh? All the times you and I have worked together, and you never told me about this!”

Jess laughed. “Betty’s been my little secret, but in a few days she’ll be Mrs. Jess Sherman.”

Smiling broadly, Tom said, “Well, congratulations to both of you! Especially
you
, Jess. She’s beautiful! And…ah…Miss Thompson, if there’s anything about Jess you want to know.”

“You keep out of this!” Jess said with a laugh. “Betty will learn enough without your help!”

Tom congratulated the couple again and moved on down the street. He had known about mail order brides, but the possibility of advertising for a bride himself had never crossed his mind.

He rolled the idea around, telling himself it might be the only option left to find someone to care for his six-year-old boy.

Chuck Ramsey, editor and owner of the
Virginia City Sentinel
was at his desk as the sun slanted through the side windows of the building. He looked up as someone opened the front door.

“Well, howdy, Tom! To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Tom smiled a greeting and moved up to stand in front of Ramsey’s desk. “I’m here because of a real need in my home, Chuck.”

“Oh?” Ramsey laid down the pencil in his hand. “You don’t take my paper?”

Tom laughed. “Oh, I most certainly do. What I need is your help in knowing how to place advertisements in some of the large eastern newspapers.”

“I can help you with that. What exactly do you want to advertise?”

“First I have to ask you to keep it confidential.”

Ramsey raised his right hand. “I promise.”

“All right. Do you have time right now?”

“Sure. And I’m all ears.”

On a hot, sticky day in Chicago, Kathleen O’Malley Stallworth wheeled her cart up to the home of Harold and Claudia Stuart, who were regular customers. When she knocked on the door, silver-haired Claudia opened it with a ready smile. “Hello, Kathleen. I’ll help you carry in the laundry.”

“Oh, no, I’ll do it.”

“There’s no reason I can’t help you, dear,” Claudia reasoned.

While both women carried ironed clothes and clean linens into the house, Claudia said, “I have to tell you, Kathleen, that we’ve sold our house, and we’ll be moving to Indianapolis before the week is out.”

“I…I wasn’t aware you had the house up for sale.”

“We didn’t. But our next-door neighbors knew that Harold was about to retire, and we had planned that when he did, we would move to where our children and grandchildren live. The neighbors have relatives who are moving to Chicago, so they brought them over a couple of days ago and they made us an offer on the house.”

Claudia saw Kathleen’s countenance fall and said, “Harold and I know this means you’ll miss the income from us until you find someone to take our place. We talked about it last night, and we don’t want you to come up short.”

“Oh, I’ll be all right,” Kathleen assured her.

Claudia moved toward her purse, which lay on a cupboard nearby. “Kathleen, you have worked hard to please us and have always done a good job with our washing and ironing.” She dipped a hand inside the purse and came up with a wad of currency. “We want to give you some money as our way of saying a special thank-you.”

Kathleen’s eyes widened. “Oh, Claudia, I couldn’t—”

“You’re going to, dear,” said the older woman as she pressed the money into Kathleen’s hand.

“But I haven’t earned it. I—”

“Yes, you have.” Claudia closed Kathleen’s hand over the money. “Let’s just call it a little bonus for your hard work.”

Kathleen blinked against the tears that welled up in her eyes and
wrapped her arms around Claudia. They embraced for a long moment, then took a few minutes to bid each other good-bye. Kathleen pushed her cart on down the street. When she reached the corner and started down the next street, she paused to count the money. Two hundred dollars! Added to the three hundred she had in the bank, and the $69.38 she had stashed in her little box, there was almost enough money to open an investment account!

The next day, Kathleen came home to her run-down apartment building with a load of clothing and linens to wash and iron. She had enjoyed making the acquaintance of her next-door neighbor, Sandie Patton, who was also a widow. Sandie’s husband and two children had died in the Chicago fire. Sandie worked as a clerk in a clothing store downtown.

As Kathleen wheeled her cart into the hallway of the building, she saw Sandie bidding good-bye to a middle-aged woman who lived in the apartments. She had a newspaper in her hand.

When Sandie saw Kathleen, she lifted the paper and said, “Have you seen this mornings edition of the
Tribune?”

“No. Something special in it?”

“There sure is. Something of interest to both of us since we lost loved ones in the big fire.” She turned to page three and folded the paper, displaying the page so Kathleen could see it. Bold headlines read: CITY COUNCIL APPROVES NEW FIRE ALARM SYSTEM.

“The city council has finally listened to the fire marshal. They’re providing the money to install fire alarms on street corners all over Chicago!”

“Well, it’s about time,” Kathleen said.

“I’ll say. The writer of the article says that if the city had installed this alarm system back when Chief Williams first asked for it, the loss of lives and property in the fire of ‘71 would’ve been minimal. Our families might still be alive, Kathleen.”

To Kathleen those words were like the prodding of an old wound that would never be completely healed. “I’d like to read the entire
article when you’re through with the paper, Sandie,” she said. “Could I borrow it?”

“Here you go. I’ve read all of it I’m going to read. You can throw it away when you’re through with it.”

“All right. Thank you.”

Kathleen entered her apartment, tossed the folded newspaper on a small table in the bedroom-parlor, and went to the kitchen. She put her supper on to cook, then wheeled the cart of dirty laundry out to the shed. She built a fire in the stove, heated the water, and put the laundry in the tub to soak.

The apartment was stifling. Kathleen left the outside door ajar and opened her one small window, hoping an errant breeze would find its way in.

After eating supper and doing the dishes, she went back to the shed and used a broken broom handle to stir the tub of hot soapy water. After rinsing the clothes and linens, she hung them on the clothesline in the small backyard, then checked to make sure the fire was out in the stove. She looked up at the darkening sky and the first twinkling stars.
Oh, for a good cooling rain!
she thought.

She ambled back to her apartment and reluctantly closed and locked the door, wishing she could leave the door open all night.

Still thinking of the longed-for rain, she poured cool water into the wash basin and removed her soiled clothes. The cool water on her skin helped to revive her. She dried herself and pulled on a faded cotton gown and put on her slippers.

As she eased into her overstuffed chair, she picked up the newspaper from the side table and began reading about the new fire alarm system. Her thoughts returned to the events of the night of the big fire and all the horror of that terrible disaster. If only they had installed the fire alarms when Chief Williams pressed the city council for them.

Kathleen pushed the painful thoughts from her mind and idly flipped through the paper, glancing at articles that captured her interest.
When she came to the classified advertisement section, her eyes fell on a special segment tided: WANTED: MAIL ORDER BRIDES.

A small article within the segment told how businessmen, miners, farmers, ranchers, and fur trappers were finding women quite scarce in the West and were advertising for eastern women to come out and marry them.

Kathleen found ads from men in each of the categories listed and smiled to herself. “Ridiculous,” she said aloud. “A woman traveling all the way out there to marry a man she’s never met!”

At that instant, her eyes fell on an ad placed by a man in his late twenties named Thomas Harned, who lived in Virginia City, Nevada. Harned was in silver mining and had plans to mine for gold. He was a widower and had a son named Caleb who would soon turn seven. Harned needed a wife, and the boy needed a mother. Any woman who was interested should send a recent photograph of herself, along with a letter, giving facts about herself. He wanted to know her time and place of birth, her family history, her likes and dislikes, and such.

Kathleen shook her head and chuckled. “Only a fool of a woman would do such a thing!”

She laid the paper on the small table and padded to the kitchen for a cup of water. Sudden weariness from her long workday set in, and before the end of her first yawn she headed for the welcoming bed.

Late the next afternoon, Kathleen wheeled her laundry cart up to the front of the apartment building and saw Sandie Patton coming along the boardwalk toward her.

“Hi, Kathleen.”

“Hi, yourself,” said the redhead.

“You get a chance to read the article about the fire alarms?”

“Sure did. I’m glad to see things improving in this town.”

Kathleen wheeled the cart into her apartment and out the back door to the wash shed. She built a fire in the stove and put a tub of water on to heat up.

When she returned to the apartment, her eyes fell on the
Chicago Tribune.
She sat down in the overstuffed chair and picked up the paper, flipping pages. She thought of the ad placed by the man in Virginia City, Nevada. What was his name?
Thomas… mmm… oh, yes. Thomas Harned.
She turned to the Mail Order Bride section and read Harned’s ad again.