Authors: Samantha Forest
But, she knew that Bill had not gotten the farm quite where he wanted it financially. They were still living on a heavy loan from the bank in town. They needed a prosperous harvest to pay it off.
Then she reasoned, there was every indication that this year would be a very good one for crops. They had had plenty of rain and the soil was rich. Besides that, as the baby was already growing inside of her, there was nothing left for them to do but accept it.
Bill would be happy. If she was honest with herself, she knew that the idea of a child would always make him happy. And that, in turn, made her the happiest woman in the county. Possibly in the entire country.
A bright grin remained on her face as the sun began to dip down in the sky.
It only faded when the door flew open and Jeff rushed in.
“Missus!” He said. His face was red and he was clearly out of breath. “You need to come to the barn quick!”
“What is it?” Emily asked turning away from the stove.
“There’s...there’s been an accident,” Jeff said. “Mr. Gordon...he…”
Emily didn’t wait for Jeff to finish. She rushed out the door and towards the barn.
When she reached the barn, she was only vaguely aware of Frank, the other farmhand standing anxiously at the barn doors. Her eyes remained firmly fixed on her husband lying on his back beneath a twelve-foot ladder.
“Frank! Get the doctor!” she called before she had even reached her husband. She heard Frank’s footsteps running away from the barn but when she finally reached her husband, she knew a doctor would do no good.
Bill’s eyes were closed, his hands limp and the blood had drained completely from his face. She grabbed for his hand where the post in his wrist had stopped jumping.
None the less, she stayed there, sitting on the dusty floor of their barn; holding onto her husband’s hand even though she knew he could no longer hold hers.
***
One week had passed since Bill’s death and Emily, once again, made her way back to her farmhouse from town.
It seemed strange that only one week ago she had been so ridiculously, blissfully happy. Now, as she walked slowly, dressed completely in black while Jeff’s mother, Mrs. Thompson held her arm, she was the complete opposite.
Once inside, Emily could not keep herself from sinking limply down into the chair beside the table. She sat there, staring out the window distantly while Mrs. Thompson kindly put together a small supper.
It was a bright day. Clear and cloudless. Even now, as the sun began to dip below the horizon, the green trees outside still caught a glimpse of its bright rays.
It was not right that this day should look so pleasant. If Emily had had her way, it would be freezing and raining. The weather would reflect the chill she felt inside herself.
Finally, as the smell of simple onion soup began to waft through the kitchen, Emily turned away from the window and wondered, as she had all day, what she would do now.
She had already been forced to dismiss Jeff and Frank. With Bill gone, there was no way she could afford to keep them on. With a child on the way as well, she would soon be unable to perform the tasks she usually took on at the farm.
That was why she had made the decision two days earlier to sell the land and their little house back to the bank. It was easier than having to try and cover the debt they had already placed themselves in. This meant that, in a week, when the bank would take the land back, she would have a small amount of money.
But, that still meant that she had nowhere to go. Both her parents had passed on years before. She had no other family and neither had Bill other than his aging mother. Now, with the baby on the way…
“I don’t suppose you’ve given any thought to your future yet,” Mrs. Thompson said as though reading Emily’s thoughts.
Emily turned to her and tried to offer a half smile in thanks as Mrs. Thompson ladled soup into a bowl for her.
“I have one more week in the house to get things in order,” Emily said. “But, after that…I don’t know.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Thompson said as she sat down opposite Emily, “You’re welcome to stay at my boarding house in town until you get on your feet.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Thompson,” Emily said. “That’s very kind.”
They ate in silence for a long while. But, every so often, Emily would look up and catch Mrs. Thompson eyeing her intently, as though she wanted to say something.
Finally, just as Emily was taking her final bite of soup, Mrs. Thompson cleared her throat to speak.
“Mrs. Gordon,” she said to Emily. “Now please, stop me if this seems too forward a question but, have you considered marrying again?”
Emily sat back, her heart constricting in her chest. She had not thought of a man coming after Bill. But, then again, she had believed that she and Bill would grow old together.
“Again, I know it’s very soon,” Mrs. Thompson said quickly, an embarrassed blush coming into her cheeks. “But, as you’ve got no family, I...I only thought you might like to consider your options.”
“There’s no need to apologize, Mrs. Thompson,” Emily said. “You are right, in a sense. I should begin to think about my future. Especially-”
Emily stopped herself quickly. No one but she and the town doctor knew about the baby, after all. And with Bill gone, Emily found that she wanted to keep it that way as long as possible.
“Especially now that I have sold the farm,” Emily finished lamely.
“I only brought it up,” Mrs. Thompson continued, now clearly glad that Emily did not seem put off by the discussion, “…Because one of my lodgers, a nice young lady, has recently had some good luck with this pamphlet.”
Mrs. Thompson searched in her satchel and produced a nicely printed booklet that, while small, looked several pages thick.
“I thought it might be some use to you,” she said as she handed it across the table to Emily. The title read, ‘The Heart and Hand’, which was printed neatly in bold black letters on the front page.
“Apparently, Men out west are having a difficult time finding suitable young women,” Mrs. Thompson said. “So, they make use of magazines like this to try to find young women back east. I’ve heard stories of several young girls who have met very suitable husbands using this method.”
Emily flipped through the small booklet and found several small advertisements from men asking for women of certain ages and with certain skills to correspond with. They always stipulated that the correspondence would be ‘with an eye towards matrimony’.
She looked disinterestedly at a few while, Mrs. Thompson, she could tell, was eyeing her eagerly from across the table.
Emily knew the older woman meant well. She had behaved as something of a mother to Emily ever since Emily’s own mother had passed. Still, Emily could not imagine leaving the home she had built up with her husband only to go out west and marry a stranger.
All the same, she made a show of looking at the advertisements. They were much the same even though some had pictures, none of which had inspired anything in Emily. Until she saw it.
It was a small advertisement, much like the rest but devoid of a picture. It was the name that intrigued her the most; the cursive signature underneath the paragraph caused her heart to stop inside her chest.
‘Elijah Woodrow’
That name, that signature sparked a memory in her mind that she thought had left her forever.
She suddenly remembered a boy with eyes as bright as a summer sky and a smile that caused her young heart to skip a beat. She remembered days spent with this boy beside their creek, talking for hours about everything and nothing.
She remembered the horrible pain that day. The pain she felt when this boy disappeared from her life forever.
Even with Bill’s loss still fresh in her mind, this long ago ache still caused a sharp stabbing in her chest.
Then she remembered his promise. ‘We will be together again’, he’d told her. She had not been able to believe him, even though she had tried.
Now, here he was. Or was he?
She looked at the surname one more time. Woodrow.
Try as she might, she could not seem to connect a family name with the Elijah that she knew. There was no picture with this advertisement, and the young man mentioned nothing of having lived in Kentucky.
All the same, she had to know. Mrs. Thompson was right, she would have to find a way to support herself. She had no skills beyond farm work and would soon be unable to perform even that. She needed a husband.
So, with her mind made up, she looked back at Mrs. Thompson once again.
“Thank you, Mrs. Thompson,” she said. “I believe this will prove useful to me.”
After Mrs. Thompson left that evening, promising to return later in the week in order to help Emily gather her things and move them into the boarding house, Emily sat down at her writing desk.
She took up her pen and ink with Mr. Elijah Woodrow’s advertisement open in front of her.
With her heart pounding in her chest, she wrote her response to him. She was careful to use her married name and not to mention her memories of an Elijah from Kentucky. If this man and the boy from her childhood were not one and the same, after all, she did not want to cause any embarrassment.
She tried as best she could to emphasize the desperation of her circumstances. She realized now, that if she was to wed again, it would have to be soon. She could not live as a boarder with no means of employment for long.
All the same, she hoped she did not sound too pitiful. Towards the end of the letter, she faced her biggest decision since deciding to answer Mr. Woodrow’s request.
She laid her pen down and put a hand to her stomach, unconsciously attempting to feel the small life which grew there.
Surely, a man, even a man out west, would object to a bride who was already in the family way. Even if she had come to be there through the most respectable of circumstances.
And, most men, that she knew, wanted to raise their own children. How would this Elijah Woodrow respond to raising the child of Emily’s dead husband?
In the end, she decided not to mention the child. After all, Elijah Woodrow may not respond to her at all, and, if he did, well...she would decide in time how and when to tell him of her situation.
For now, she simply ended the letter courteously and signed her name. All the same, as she sealed the envelope, she could not help but think that she might be sealing her own fate as well.
***
Two months later, Emily found herself staring at Mr. Woodrow’s latest letter. She had read it several times over but still did not dare to believe the words that had been written.
‘It would give me the greatest pleasure in the world if you would consent to be my wife’.
The line caused a stirring that was something between anxiety and elation to course through Emily’s entire body.
Since she had written to Mr. Woodrow, the couple had exchanged two more letters. This man, whoever he was, had proved to be a very skillful writer.
His words painted her beautiful portraits of the mountains and green valleys that made up the Oregon territory. He told her that it had built up quite a bit since the railroad came through, but still retained all the charm he remembered when he first laid eyes on it as a boy.
Emily was still unable to ascertain whether this Mr. Woodrow was indeed, her Elijah, but after his second letter, she discovered that it did not matter to her.
His words were beautiful and eloquent. Strange as it seemed to Emily, he seemed to think just as highly of her writing. When she offered to send him a photograph of herself, he told her that he didn’t need one.
He said her words had painted a portrait of a woman so beautiful and so sincere that he was certain no camera would be able to capture her beauty.
That, she supposed, was when she decided that she wanted to marry this man. That was also when she realized that she could not tell him about the child.
She could not bear the loss of his love or respect. Now that he had asked her, officially, she could not imagine the pain she would feel if he withdrew that request.
So, she wrote her letter of acceptance without any reference to the child, who had grown much more since the time of Bill’s death.
As soon as she sent the letter, her joy at being a bride faded into worry. How would she hide this secret from him once they met face to face?
The problem weighed over the next two weeks, as her stomach began to swell slightly and she began to be sick in the morning and afternoons.
When his letter arrived, she was filled with joy and confidence that they would make each other happy. Included with the letter a train ticket for her to leave for Oregon in two days’ time, which put Emily in a state of near panic.
So much so that she found herself forced to tell Mrs. Thompson the truth of her situation. She soon found herself sobbing over tea in Mrs. Thompson’s downstairs dining room as Emily relayed the whole situation.
“Don’t fret, dear,” Mrs. Thompson said kindly, putting her hand over Emily’s once the entire tale had been told.
With her eyes red and her face puffy, Emily looked up at the older woman, surprised to find that she was smiling as though she found Emily’s distress amusing.