In Search Of Love: The Story of A Mail Order Bride (Mail Order Bride Series) Read Free

no, a lady was in earlier and left it on the table.  If you want it, please take it, since it was abandoned.”
     
    She smiled, revealing straight, white, perfect teeth.  “Thank you,” she said.  “I will take it.”  She picked up several pieces of fabric and along with the buttons, ribbons and lace she had already selected, and said, “I believe this will be all today.”
     
    “Yes, ma’am.  Uhh, er… my name is Reinold Kahler.  I wonder if I might call on you?”
     
    “I don’t think so, Mr. Kahler, but thank you for asking,” she smiled again.  “I really must be going, if you would get these things for me.”
     
    * * *
     
    The relationship between Katerina and her mother was such, she almost never engaged her in conversation.  Instead, it was her father to whom she turned, as she did this day. “Papa, I was shopping for material to make some new clothes for school.  Look in this newspaper I found in Adler’s yesterday.  There is nothing in the paper except ads posted by men and women in search of someone to marry.”  She handed the paper to her father.
     
    Karl’s old country nature looked at the ads in disbelief.  “Women do such things?” he asked.  “What could bring someone to do this?”
     
    “Desperation can cause a person to do desperate things.  Someone circled several of the ads.  Mama has never allowed a young man to call on me, let alone court me.  All of the men my age are too intimidated to even try.  I could do something like this, Papa.” 
     
    Her father turned back to his last and the shoe he was making.  “Liebchen, I don’t know what to say or do.  The thought of you going off to the frontier to make marriage with someone you don’t know terrifies me.”
     
    “The thought of growing old without ever having lived life or felt love terrifies me, Papa,” she said.
     
    Katerina had begun making dresses to wear to class.  She was in a chair by the window one afternoon, taking advantage of the light, to sew lace around the edge of the sleeves of a new dress, when her mother came into the room, without knocking, as usual.  “Where did this come from, young lady,” she asked, waving the tattered copy of The Matrimonial News in front of her.
     
    “Mama, why are you rummaging around in my room?” Katerina asked.
     
    “Don’t change the subject,” her mother said.  “What are you doing with this… this rag?”
     
    “My room is supposed to be private, Mama, you have no reason in here when I’m not here.  I am an adult and entitled to privacy.”
     
    “You are living in my house and I determine what you are entitled to,” her mother said.
     
    Katerina had never stood up to her mother before and this is where she decided to make her stand.  “It’s Papa’s house too, Mama, and I am paying for the privilege of living here now that I have work.”
     
    “A pittance.  You pay a pittance,” her mother said.
     
    “As soon as I can make other arrangements, I will move, Mama.  I hope you are satisfied.  For your  information, I found the paper in Adler’s store when I was getting the fabric.  I didn’t buy it, someone left it there and I asked if I might have it.  I find it interesting reading.  Now, I would like to have my paper, please,” she said.
     
    Her mother threw the paper on the bed and left the room, but not without a last parting shot, “You should show the proper respect to the mother that gave you birth, and after all I have done for you.”
     
    Katerina went downstairs to the shop, where she found her father putting the finishing touches on shoes he had been commissioned to make for the wife of one of the community leaders.  Upon seeing the expression on his daughter’s face, he stopped what he was doing to talk to her.
     
    “What is it, my little Katerina?  What is upsetting you so much you appear on the verge of being ill.  Tell your Papa, and I will make it right.”
     
    “Mama and I just had a bad