The Barefoot Bride by Joan Johnston Page B

which he now found himself.
    When Seth had first imagined the drive home from Fort Benton with his mail-order bride, he had thought it might be an awkward trip. After all, he'd be sitting in the front seat with his new wife, and his daughter would end up being a twelve-year-old chaperone in the buggy's back seat. As it turned out, the drive was every bit as awkward as he had expected, but for a very different reason.
    In order to ensure peace on the trip, he put Patch beside him in the front seat. Whit, Nes-sie, and his new bride sat in back. At first Seth tried to carry on a conversation with Molly, but he was forced to turn around tohear her reply or let her talk to the back of his head. Neither alternative was comfortable, so he soon fell silent.
    Every time Seth turned to check on them, Molly gave him what she hoped was a bright smile but knew must look more like a grimace. So many feelings were struggling for dominance within her that she only felt anxious and wished the trip were over. The grassy prairies were endless, and the mountains seemed very far in the distance.
    Molly thought she heard Seth sigh with relief when a peak-roofed log cabin came into sight. A thin stream of white smoke drifted from a stone chimney at one end of the house.
    “We're almost home,” Seth announced. “It won't be long now.”
    The time went more quickly when they could see their destination, and very soon Seth was helping Molly down in front of her new home. As his letter had promised, it was nestled in a copse of cottonwood along a creek. There was also a pond not far from the house.
    “I know it isn't much,” Seth found himself saying.
    “It's fine,” Molly replied as she took thethree steps up onto a shaded front porch that ran the length of the cabin in front.
    Seth opened the door, but before she could walk through it, he scooped her up into his arms.
    “Every bride should be carried over the threshold,” he whispered to her.
    Molly lowered her eyes, moved by his gesture. Then he set her down, and it was a good thing she was feeling in charity with him. Because what she saw was enough to make any woman turn tail and run the other way.
    The house was split in half. A log wall to the left had two doors built into it that were closed. The righthand side of the house, the one onto which the front door opened, was all one room. It apparently served as parlor, dining room, office, and kitchen combined.
    In the center of the room stood a scarred maple table and four mismatched chairs. The sideboard on the righthand wall was filled with an odd assortment of half-empty medicine bottles. A rolltop desk had been shoved half-open to reveal a clutter of papers and medical books. It was situated on the front wall and looked out a window that provided a vista of the mountains.
    Along the back wall was a sink with an indoor pump—a real luxury, Seth assured her.There was also a new four-hole stove he'd had shipped up from St. Louis when he'd found out she was coming. To the right of the stove was a window with a view of the cot-tonwoods that lined the creek. To the left of the sink was a back door leading to what she could see through the window was another shaded porch.
    There was no decoration in the room, nothing on the walls, nothing to ameliorate the bleakness of the place and label it a home. The crackling fire Ethan had lit in the stone fireplace was the only spot of cheer in the room.
    “Pa and I neatened up the house for you,” Patch said.
    “I can see that.” Dirty dishes were stacked neatly in the sink. A heap of dirty clothes were layered neatly over a dining-room chair. A pile of dirt had been swept into the corner of the wooden-planked floor and hidden neatly behind the broom. “You did a fine job of neatening things up,” she said with a perfectly straight face.
    “We sure don't need you,” Patch pointed out belligerently.
    “But two hands make the load lighter, don't you agree?” Molly asked.
    As she focused on the