need a name for our group, ladies—References are required, and those sending photographs will be given preference. Drunkards, Yankees, Carpetbaggers and other riffraff need not apply.”
“I think that’s excellent, Milly!” Maude Harkey cried, clapping. “Bravo! You’ve certainly covered everything.”
Some of Milly’s apprehension left her in the face of Maude’s enthusiasm and the approving glances of several ladies around the circle. “Thanks, Maude,” Milly said. “But we need a name for this group. What shall we call our organization? The Marriageable Misses? The Wedding Club?”
Mrs. Gilmore looked as if she wanted to say something but she held her peace.
“How about The Simpson Creek Society for Promotion of Marriage?” Caroline Wallace suggested.
It was a more formal name than Milly would have preferred, but she wanted each lady to feel she had a say in the formation of their organization, and everyone seemed to like this one.
“All right, that seems to be the consensus,” Milly said. “That’s what we’ll call ourselves. The rest of the advertisement could read, ‘Inquiries should be directed to the Simpson Creek Society for the Promotion of Marriage at post office box number—’ Caroline, can we arrange for a post office box before we leave town so I know what number to put in the ad?”
Caroline, the daughter of the postmaster, nodded. “I happen to know number seventeen is empty. I’ll tell Papa.”
“Will you need any money for the advertisement, Milly?” asked Jane Jeffries. Several of the ladies’ faces registered dismay. If there was one other thing the unwed ladies of Simpson Creek lacked, it was ready cash.
“I don’t think so,” Milly said, and hoped it was true. “I’ll write to my uncle this very day, sending our advertisement copy.” She was counting on Uncle William to run the advertisement gratis, or at the very least run it at a discount.
“Well, I think that went well, don’t you?” Milly said, after the last of the ladies had gone home and she and Sarah were alone in the social hall. She munched on one of the few cookies that hadn’t been devoured by the Simpson Creek Society for the Promotion of Marriage.
“Yes…yes, it did,” Sarah said, her tone thoughtful as she scooped up the plates and cups filled with crumbs and remains of the lemonade. “They all seemed very excited about your ideas.”
“But what about you, Sarah?” Milly asked. She hadn’t been able to gauge Sarah’s reaction during the meeting. “Are you going to be one of us, or do you think it’s a foolish idea? Would you rather I hadn’t suggested it?”
Sarah’s green eyes lost focus. “I…I don’t know. Won’t it look as if we’re somewhat…oh, I don’t know…fast?”
“Oh, I don’t think so, not if the advertisement is worded properly, as I believe it is,” Milly said. She had been very satisfied when the group agreed that the words she had composed in her head were perfect as they stood. “We’ll be able to tell by the tone of their letters if they’ve gotten the wrong impression, I should think, and we simply won’t extend an invitation to come and meet us.”
“I suppose you’re right…” Sarah said, but her tone was far from certain. “But Milly, what if—what if the men who answer the advertisement lie about their qualifications? What if they turn out to be men of bad character? Why, a man could say anything about himself on paper, and turn out to be quite the opposite,” Sarah said, twisting a fold of her apron. “Why, he could be an outlaw, or a cardsharp—or a Yankee!”
“That’s true,” Milly admitted frankly. “But if we find that to be the case, we’ll send them packing. And you know, there are no guarantees when one meets a man in the usual way either,” she pointed out.
Sarah looked puzzled. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Just look at that woman in Goliad we heard about, Bertha McPherson,” Milly said, with a wave of her hand, as if the woman stood before them. “She married that fellow from Goliad who courted her for six months, and once they tied the knot, she found out he still had a living wife back in St. Louis.”
Sarah sighed. “I always thought we’d marry boys from Simpson Creek, boys we’d known all our lives.”
“I know…” Milly had thought so, too. Just as she had believed the brave talk of the boys who’d marched off to war, promising they’d be back, victorious, in six months. “Yes, what we’re doing is a leap of faith,” she admitted. “But would you rather take a chance, or die an old maid? I don’t want to be called ‘Old Maid Milly Matthews,’ thank you very much.”
“They’re already calling you ‘Marrying Milly’,” Sarah said, then put a hand over her mouth as if she hadn’t meant to say it.
Milly blinked. “Who’s ‘they’?”
“Folks in town,” Sarah said, facing her sister as Milly also sank into a chair beside her. “I overheard Mr. Patterson talking to Mrs. Detwiler in the mercantile yesterday. They hadn’t seen me come in. She was telling him what you’d said in the Ladies Aid Society meeting the other day. Folks in town are already calling us the Spinsters Club.”
Milly winced but reached out and put an arm around her sister’s shoulder. “We mustn’t mind what people say, Sarah. People will always gossip.” She hadn’t missed the fact that Sarah had said us, and her heart glowed with love for her. Worried as she was, her sister was joining her in this project.
“Have you prayed about this?” Sarah asked. “I mean, I know we opened the meeting with prayer—that was a lovely prayer you said, by the way—but have you been praying about this? A lot?”
“Of course,” Milly said. “I’ve been praying for months, ever since the war ended and those first few men started returning, and none of them were the single men on the Missing in Action lists. But I suppose we’d both feel more confident if we prayed now, right?” They had always prayed together, first as a family and now just the two of them, after losing first their mother and more recently their father. Milly had always found it a source of strength.
Sarah nodded. Milly took her hand, and they bowed their heads and sought the Lord’s blessing on their enterprise.
Chapter Two
Nicholas Brookfield, late of Her Majesty’s Bombay Light Cavalry, reined in the handsome bay he had purchased after leaving the stagecoach and studied Simpson Creek. A small town, more like a village really, consisting of one main street, with a sprinkling of buildings on both sides of the dusty thoroughfare. Signs proclaimed the presence of a saloon, a boardinghouse, a general store, a livery, a combination barbershop-bathhouse, and at the far end of the street, a church. Branching off from the middle of the main street was another road with several houses of various sizes, some sturdy-looking fieldstone or brick two-stories, others smaller and of more humble construction, wood and even adobe cottages.
He wondered if Miss Millicent Matthews lived in any of these, or if her home was out on one of the ranches he’d passed on the road into Simpson Creek. And for the twentieth time, he wondered if he was on a fool’s errand. Had the intermittent fever he was prone to, and which had laid him low once again when he arrived in Texas a week ago, finally seared his brain, rendering him mad? What else explained why he’d let curiosity take control and come here in search of the writer
