Christine Johnson - Mail Order Mix-Up

“Maybe looks are deceiving,” Pearl said with more hope than certainty. She had wanted a frontier experience, but this wasn’t at all like the stories she’d read. She had imagined tidy cabins with whitewashed fences. Any Indians would be friendly and helpful. After all, the advertisement had boasted of a civilized and prosperous town.

The crew threw out thick lines and men on the docks wrapped them around large pilings. A gangway was extended and the passengers began moving toward it. Pearl picked up her bag and shuffled forward with Amanda and the other ladies. Below, the first passengers streamed out of the ship. All were men, mostly laborers. One older couple disembarked, but not one other woman. From what she could see, the four of them were the only single women leaving the ship at Singapore. The rest must be going on. That meant they were the only ladies whose hopes of marriage had been dashed by Mr. Decker.

There that fox was! She leaned over the rail to be certain. Sure enough, there he stood on the gangway as tall and proud as the day they’d met, gesturing this way and that while conversing with Mr. Holmes.

The two men stepped ashore, and then Mr. Holmes stopped to talk to a porter. Mr. Decker, on the other hand, roamed down the dock. Pearl followed his movements, determined to find the man once she’d disembarked. He strode the dock, chatting with the men who’d helped tie the ship to the moorings. Judging by the laughter and smiles he received, he was well liked by every one of them.

Slowly she inched forward. Amanda gripped her arm. She’d seen Mr. Decker.

He waved at someone far down the dock, just this side of the large sawmill. That person must not have noticed him, because Mr. Decker cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Garrett! Over here.”

“Garrett?” all four women exclaimed at once.

That was the name on the advertisement. Could there be two Garretts in Singapore? Or was there more than one Mr. Decker?

Chapter Three

It was good to be home, which is what Singapore had become to Roland since he’d moved here eight years ago. At the time he’d been a clerk in Mr. Stockton’s Chicago emporium. His boss offered him the management of the Singapore general store, and he had leaped at the opportunity. It got him away from the scene of his greatest disappointment.

He had not expected his older brother to follow four years later. Garrett was as different from him as night from day. Garrett preferred to work with his hands. He boasted a massive frame and their father’s auburn hair. He never opened a book other than the Bible and enjoyed playing a harmonica at night. He was as rustic as the society in this lumber town.

What had Eva seen in him?

That’s the question that had haunted Roland for over eight years. He and Eva were the same age, while Garrett was four years older. Roland had taken her to the finest shows in Chicago. He’d spent every spare dollar on gifts for her. He’d shared his excitement over the latest scientific discoveries with her. He sought progress whereas Garrett preferred the stability of tradition. Roland thought Eva loved him, yet she had chosen his brother. She had married Garrett and in rapid succession bore him a son and a daughter.

Then they moved to Singapore.

Seeing her again had been difficult. He had kept his distance, but they could not avoid each other in such a small town. Disputes arose until brother separated from brother. Few words passed between them until Eva died. Even now, the memory of that day scored him to the bone. Every time he looked at Garrett’s son and daughter, he saw her. Garrett must have felt the same way, for he holed up with his grief and ignored the children. Roland made the first move. For the sake of the children. He could still hear Garrett’s hollow refusal. Yet in the end his brother relented and moved in with Roland.

The brothers reached a truce. The children were their bond. The two men did their best, but the children hadn’t rebounded. Little Isaac carried the weight of the world on his seven-year-old shoulders, and Sadie wouldn’t say a word.

“Give it time,” Mrs. Calloway, over at the boardinghouse, had told him. “It’ll take a while for those young’uns to get over losing their ma.”

Months and months had gone by, and it hadn’t seemed to help. Maybe this glassworks factory would be just the thing to pull those children from their self-imposed isolation. With success, he could provide the finest of everything. New toys for Isaac. Fancy dresses for Sadie. The prettiest dolls. Whatever their hearts desired.

To get the factory off the ground, Roland needed investors. Stockton had held back, calling the venture shaky at best, but if Roland could get Holmes on board, Stockton might follow. Two days in Chicago and another aboard ship showed him that Holmes valued honest labor and deep morality—the latter in short supply here, with the exception of his brother.

He called out again to Garrett, who apparently couldn’t hear him above the whine of the saws.

His brother looked this way and that.

Roland waved and pushed past the passengers and curious onlookers. Again he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Garrett!”

“Garrett?” The sharp question came from that new schoolteacher, Pearl Lawson, who stood an arm’s length away with her hands perched on her hips.

If she hadn’t been so obviously miffed, he might have found her flushed cheeks and flashing eyes irresistible. Instead he looked for his brother, who had disappeared again.

“Miss Lawson. I am busy.”

Holmes was walking toward him. He didn’t have time to deal with ladies who mistakenly thought he was in the market for a wife.

She stepped in front of him. “You are not too busy to answer a simple question.”

“Excuse me.” He skirted around her, using his long strides to reach Holmes before she could catch up. “Did Charlie agree to take your bags to the hotel?”

“Yes, he did,” Holmes said with a shake of his head. “Wouldn’t take a penny for his efforts.”

That’s what Roland had hoped would be the outcome when he told Holmes to inform the lad that Roland Decker had suggested him. Later, he would add a little extra to the lad’s wages, but now he had to catch Garrett. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

“Mr. Decker!” That schoolteacher was pestering him again. “I must have a word with you. In private.”

Roland bit back frustration. The candor that he’d once found refreshing was now beginning to irritate him. “As I said, I have business to attend to.”

“It will only take a minute.” Her jaw was set and her gaze did not waver. “It is most urgent.”

Holmes nudged Roland forward. “I can wait. Please take care of the lady.”

Roland did not care to address what he was certain she would ask, but to deny her would throw doubt on Holmes’s opinion of him and his project. He glanced up to see his brother had halted on the docks, staring up at the steamship, doubtless looking for him. Roland had a moment to calm the brewing storm.

“What is it, Miss Lawson?”

Holmes had thoughtfully stepped out of hearing range.

She rummaged through her bag and pulled out a tattered newspaper clipping, which she held out to him. “Did you or did you not place this advertisement?”

Roland had placed an advertisement in the Chicago papers looking for investors, but he couldn’t imagine why Pearl Lawson would get upset over that. He accepted the clipping from her gloved hand. It took only seconds to recognize the wording, but how on earth had it leaped out of the fire and onto the pages of a newspaper?

Garrett. It had to be. He must have taken Roland’s prodding seriously and rewrote the advertisement from memory. Roland pulled off his stifling hat. His brother’s memory was better than he’d figured. This advertisement was word for word what Roland had written as a joke.