Finally pulling apart, they headed back to their picnic blanket for some pie and serious talk about the future.
“We need somewhere to live, I need to be near the girls, and you can’t live in the main house,” Katie said wondering if she should marry. Perhaps remaining unmarried the way Miss Ethel and Miss Edie had was the best idea, but her heart couldn’t let go of Benjamin. There had to be an answer.
Benjamin lay back on the blanket with his hands behind his head. “I have been thinking about this. Your guardians own a good deal of property surrounding the house. If I added an extension onto the house where we could have our own private entrance, parlor, bedroom, and maybe an additional bedroom for the first of our babies, you would still be close. I could make sure a doorway leading from the extension to the main house is easily accessible so you could get to the girls at night, and they can get to you. We could leave that doorway open or add a bell or anything you think would make you still feel close to the girls. If you feed me meals every day, we won’t have to add a kitchen.”
Katie looked at him wide-eyed, “You would do that?”
“Of course, it would be easy, I’m a carpenter.”
“That’s not what I meant. You’d live in a place attached to Howard House?” Katie asked knowing this was the answer to her worries.
Benjamin sat up and nodded. “I knew when I met you that you would steal my heart and that you were a package complete with a passel of sisters. I would never expect you to live anywhere else than Howard House and I know having a man running around at all hours wasn’t the answer.”
Katie jumped to her feet. “Let’s share the news with the others.”
Life was turning out exactly the way Katie hoped and wished.
Chapter Fifteen
In a small Ohio town.
Eli Warren sat at the kitchen table in his parent’s farmhouse in the middle of Ohio. He tore open the envelope he hoped contained a response to the letter he had written to the young woman needing a husband and someone with his skills as a carpenter. He was tired of farming and listening to his father tell him what to do. Eli was convinced the time he spent in town helping the local coffin and furniture maker was better spent than planting crops. He would move and become the success he knew he could be without his father’s insistence that he stay on the farm.
Eli had answered the young woman’s ad and poured his heart out telling her of his wish to move and start a carpentry business. It was the answer to his plans and his ticket out of the farming community he hated more each day. When he read the words on the paper, his hands clenched in anger crushing the missive. He straightened out the paper and read it once again. He crushed it back into a ball and threw it across the room. Grabbing the envelope from the table, he noticed a name on the back. K. Deidmann, Silverpines, Oregon. She had signed her letter, Sincerely, Katie so he knew the K stood for Katie.
Eli stood so abruptly that he knocked the chair he was using over with a loud crash. “Well, Miss Katie Deidmann, you may have sent your sincerest apologies for wasting my time and changed your mind about sending for a husband, but you did write the ad, and I believed you. I wrote to you and accepted your conditions. You may not believe it, my dear, but you will marry me, and I will be the new town carpenter as soon as I arrive in Silverpines.” He spun and left the room.
Hearing the loud crash and her brother’s angry voice, Eli’s sister rushed into the kitchen to find it empty. When she saw the crumpled letter on the floor and read it, she drew in a deep breath. She feared her brother’s anger, and it seemed now it was aimed at the writer of the letter she held in her hand. Knowing her brother’s wrath would fall on her if he found her with the letter, she crushed it once again and set it back on the floor where she found it. She retreated to the back porch before her brother saw her in the kitchen and said a silent prayer for the young woman who was the center of her brother’s ire.
~ * ~
The following week was busy for Benjamin, Katie, and her sisters. All the residents of Howard House were excited about Katie’s upcoming wedding and the new addition to the house. Miss Ethel and Miss Edie thought it was an excellent idea for the young couple to have private living quarters that connected to the main house and readily gave their approval for the small wing. Benjamin ordered lumber from the mill, sent off orders for window glass, and told Katie to order furniture. The wing wouldn’t take long to build, and he wanted to marry her as soon as possible. Katie agreed whole-heartedly. Two young people were never more in love than Katie and Benjamin.
Benjamin sent his father a telegram informing him of his upcoming wedding and plans. His father replied that his mother was packing household items she wanted to give to his new bride, and they would attend the wedding. Michael’s mother would accompany them.
Two men with building experience arrived from Astoria to help Benjamin construct the addition to the house. After the work at the house, they would help him turn the barn on the land he purchased into a workshop. Since Benjamin worked on the house each
