Mail-Order Bride Arrived in Rags — The Rancher’s Daughter Whispered, “Please Be Our Mama”

Chapter 2

The wagon ride from the crossing to the ranch was a mile of rutted road that the spring melt had turned into something closer to a riverbed than a path, and Lucy filled every inch of the journey with words. She sat wedged between Hannah and her father, her small body pressed against Hannah’s side as if she had been doing it for years, and she talked without pause.

She talked about the cats — there were seven, she reported with authority, and she had named three of them herself after territorial governors, which was Thomas’s idea, and one of them was named Governor Hoy and he was the fattest cat in the territory. She talked about the schoolhouse in town, which she attended three days a week when the weather allowed, and about Miss Hattie, who was the teacher and who had said Lucy was the best reader in her class, though Thomas said that was only because there were four students in her class. She talked about her mother, briefly, in the unself-conscious way young children sometimes discuss loss — stating it as a fact among other facts, with no warning and no particular weight placed on it.

“Mama died and then the baby died too,” she said, matter-of-fact. “Thomas doesn’t like to talk about it, but I do sometimes. Is that all right?”

Hannah looked down at the child’s earnest face. “It’s always all right to talk about the people you love.”