A New Mam for the Girls Read Free Page B

wrote the letters; if God didn’t have this in His Divine Plan, then you wouldn’t have made the trip.  He saw you safely here, and if Seth is the man I think him to be, he will do the honorable thing and offer you a home here with him and his daughters.”
    “I can see this has caught you unawares, Seth, but the law will agree with the Preacher.  Miss O’Grady is entitled to your name, or enough money to support her here, or enough money to pay her passage home.”
    Seth felt trapped.  He couldn’t afford to pay for one night’s lodging at the hotel, much less the redhead’s tickets home to Boston!  He knew that Mrs. Trimbull was right when she said there was no honorable employment for a woman in town… and it was his responsibility to pay for his daughters’ wrongdoing.  Bridget O’Grady was the innocent victim in all of this, and at least she wasn’t wailing and shredding a handkerchief in her hands and bemoaning the situation.  But, there was his Catherine; his precious wife.  The woman he still loved.  Would she understand?  What would she expect him to do?  What would he want to happen if it was one of his girls standing here with no money at all, the innocent party to mischief…?  “I cannot afford your passage home, Miss.  I can’t put you up at the hotel, either.  The only thing left to do is offer you my name.”
    “Oh, I knew that you would be sensible, Seth!”  Mrs. Trimbull clapped her hands happily.
    “I’ll no’ marry you, Mr. Masterson!” Bridget’s pride insisted it be heard.  Of course, it was at that moment that her stomach growled hungrily, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten a bite since yesterday morning.
    “Of course you’ll marry Seth, my dear child.  He is a good man, and Sally and Susie are wonderful little girls.”  She still didn’t look convinced and the Preacher looked to Seth for help in convincing her.
    “I don’t know what all my girls wrote to you, Miss, but I am a hard-working man.  I try to do right by others.  I go to church on Sundays.  I pay my bills, and I try to be decent in my speech and appearance.  I’m not a drinking man, and I never gamble.  What I would expect from you is that you be a good mother to my girls… teaching them to cook and sew, and how to conduct themselves as ladies should.  We work a garden in order to eat, and I can’t abide a messy house.  I won’t beat you with my fists, but I’ll flip you over my knee if I deem it necessary.  I don’t have money to throw away on unnecessary things, but I will try to provide for needs and a few wants if I can.  The choice is yours, Miss O’Grady.  If you leave now, I’ll not make the offer again.”
    Bridget could feel all their eyes upon her, and it didn’t sit well with her to know she had no real choice in the matter.  She had no money, no job, and if Mrs. Trimbull was to be believed, a respectable woman couldn’t find a job anywhere in Lake Valley.  Bridget could sew, but not fast enough to make a living at it, and she absolutely, positively refused to take in wash.  “I’ll no’ be cussed at!” she warned.
    “I don’t do that,” he reassured her, a sinking feeling in his stomach that he was about to be wed.
    *****
    “I really wish you would stop sniffling, Sally,” Susie begged of her.  “I will tell Papa it was all my idea, and I’ll take the spanking.”
    “It won’t make a difference, Susie,” Sally predicted.  “Papa is so angry, and we are both going to be sleeping on our tummies tonight.”
    “You sleep on your tummy every night!” Susie reminded her, then grinned, and finally laughed when Sally glared at her in disgust.
    “I can’t believe you’re laughing, Susie Masterson.  We’re going to get a spanking!  Don’t you care?”
    “I knew it would mean a spanking when we posted that advertisement in the paper, didn’t you?”  She couldn’t believe that her sister was so naïve.  She simply had to know that their Papa