Ransom of Love (31 page)

“Well, come on, now. What’s wrong?”

Leah sighed. “You know that I’ve been wanting to get away from Madison since Frank broke off our engagement and left me for that other woman three months ago.”

“Mm-hmm. You’ve brought it up at least once a day since then. And honey, I can’t blame you. So what’s this got to do with being upset today?”

“Well, I haven’t told you about it, but a couple of weeks ago, I answered an ad in the
Madison Chronicle
.”

“You answered an ad?”

“Yes. A mail order bride ad.”

Tracie’s eyebrows arched. “You mean you wrote to a man and offered to be his mail order bride?”

“Exactly. I want out of here, Tracie.”

“So tell me about it. Who’s the man?”

“His name is Dan Johnson. He’s twenty-three years old, the same as me.”

Tracie smiled. “Well, I’m glad I’m not that old.”

Leah was able to manage a slight grin. “You will be on your next birthday.”

“Don’t remind me. Anyway, tell me more.”

“Dan Johnson owns a cattle ranch near San Antonio, Texas.”

“I see. Well, he’s probably well-off then.”

“Probably. But in his ad he said he wanted a born-again woman for his bride.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. He asked that any young woman who replied please enclose the testimony of her salvation. So I did. I told him I was born again when I got baptized and joined the church.” As she spoke, Leah opened her purse and pulled out an envelope. Shaking it angrily, she said, “He had the audacity to tell me that baptism doesn’t give the new birth. That it only takes place when a person receives Jesus Christ into his or her heart in repentance of sin, trusting Him alone to save them. He said it’s not Jesus plus religious rites or deeds or church membership.”

“Haven’t I told you the same thing, Leah?”

“Huh?”

“We’ve talked about this, and I told you the same thing. Don’t you remember? I showed you in the Bible that to become a child of God—to be born again—you must receive Christ into your heart: John 1:12 and Ephesians 3:17, among other Scriptures.”

Leah shook her head. “Tracie, I talked to my minister about that and he said you are misinterpreting it. Our church teaches that a person becomes a child of God when he or she is baptized, whether the person is an infant or an adult.” Tossing Dan Johnson’s letter in her waste basket, she said, “You and this Johnson guy are both wrong. I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

Tracie began her work, her heart burdened for Leah. But something else bothered her. She couldn’t get the Texas rancher’s letter off her mind. At closing time, Leah left the office, bidding Tracie good night and saying she would see her in the morning.

Tracie finished a letter she was writing for one of the officers of the company, sealed it in an envelope, and laid it in the mail basket to go out the next day. Rising from her desk, she sat down in Leah’s chair and foraged through the papers in the waste basket until she found the envelope postmarked San Antonio, Texas, with the name Dan Johnson in the upper left-hand corner.

Tracie sat with the other boarders at the supper table, attempting to eat her meal, but her mind was on the letter in her purse, which she had not yet read.

While conversation at the table went on around her, Tracie thought about Dan Johnson and his desire for a mail order bride. The marvelous thing was that the prospective bride had to be a young woman who was truly born again.

“… don’t you think so, Tracie?” a female voice said.

Tracie looked up to see everyone looking at her and realized it was the landlady, Maude Foster, who had addressed her.

“What was that, Maude?” she asked.

“We were discussing Madison’s new mayor. I said he’s doing a good job, don’t you think so?”

“Oh. Ah … yes. I’m sorry. I had my mind on something.”

As soon as dessert was over, Tracie excused herself and hurried from the dining room.

The others at the table looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

“You need to remember that Tracie is still grieving over the loss of the young man she was to marry,” Maude said in a low voice. “He’s been dead for almost a year, but she must have loved him dearly. Maybe she’s had a hard day, too, in addition to her grief.”

When Tracie had entered her room and closed the door, she took the envelope from her purse and sat down in a chair close to the open window. While the breeze did its best to cool her hot cheeks, she took out the letter and read it.

A smile curved her lips. She found this Dan Johnson quite interesting, noting that he was very kind and tactful in his reply to Leah, and explained to her from the Word of God how to be saved. Not only was he a Christian gentleman, but his handwriting captivated her. She could tell he was totally masculine but different from most rugged men. He wrote quite clearly, and his signature was intriguing.

Shaking her head in wonderment, she said, “Mr. Dan Johnson, I like you.”

By the light of the setting sun, she read the letter twice more, then left the chair and placed the letter on the small round table in the center of the room.

Questions plagued her mind as she paced the floor, stopping at the window periodically to stare at the gorgeous colors on the long-fingered clouds floating on the horizon.

When darkness prevailed over Madison, and it was almost time for bed, Tracie went to the closet, took out a well-worn cotton gown,
and laid it on the bed. Moments later, after hanging up her dress and donning the gown, she stepped in front of the dresser mirror and loosened the tight coil of long blond hair at the nape of her neck and let it fall in soft waves down her back.

She went to the washstand and poured water into a flowered basin from a pitcher of the same design and washed her face. After drying, she picked up a hairbrush and went back to the chair by the window to sit on the edge of the seat.

She glanced at the lanterns in the street below and gave her hair several quick strokes with the hairbrush. All the while, she couldn’t get Dan Johnson’s letter to Leah Desmond out of her mind.

She rose from the chair and walked to the dresser, saying aloud, “Oh, well, I’ll sleep on it,” then picked up her Bible. She sat on the edge of the bed to read a chapter from the Gospel of John.

Finally, she doused the two lanterns in the room and crawled into bed, fluffing the pillow, but she couldn’t seem to get comfortable. With each change of position, the letter kept invading her thoughts. Try as she might to fall asleep, she could not.

“Lord is this You keeping me from going to sleep?” she said aloud. “Has this letter come into my hands because You engineered it?”

She rose from the bed and flared the lantern on the small round table, then read the letter one more time. When she put the lantern out again, she slipped between the sheets and said, “Tracie McCleod, Dan Johnson may already have his mail order bride by now.” A few seconds passed. “But, Tracie, you’re not going to have any peace until you write him, are you?”

“Lord Jesus,” she said, “I can only do what I feel You are pressing my heart to do. I must write to him. Tomorrow.”

Once again, as Tracie tried to fall asleep, she lay awake with one thing on her mind. Sitting up, she said, “Oh, all right. There’s no time like the present.”

She left the bed and fired the lantern on the small round table and took out pen, paper, and ink from the table’s single drawer.

Before she began, she bowed her head and entreated her heavenly Father for wisdom, asking that every word she wrote would be the word He would have her use, and that His will would be accomplished.

After several attempts and many sheets of wadded-up paper, Tracie managed to write a complete letter, making sure her salvation testimony was as clear as possible. She read it over, folded it, and quickly sealed it in the envelope addressed to Dan Johnson.

As though Tracie had been holding her breath all the time she was writing, she gave a big sigh of relief, blew out the lantern, and returned to bed. Still her mind was wound tight as she tried to recall everything she had said in the letter.

It was a restless night for Tracie McCleod, but sometime in the wee hours, sheer exhaustion drove her to sleep.

It was the third week in May when Dan Johnson walked out of the San Antonio post office carrying his mail. There was a letter from his mother and one from Benjamin, plus four more letters from prospective mail order brides.

Dan smiled to himself. He had just posted a letter to the young woman he felt was to be his bride. He stuffed the mail into his saddlebag and rode home.

After supper that evening, Dan read the letter from his mother and thanked the Lord that all was well with his family. Benjamin’s letter advised him that his train would arrive in San Antonio on Friday, May 29 at 4:00
P.M.
A thrill shot through Dan’s heart at the thought of Benjamin actually coming to the ranch and working with him.

Finally, he picked up the four letters from young women back East who had written in response to his ads. Since they had taken the time to write, he figured it was only right that he at least read the letters.

The first three were laid aside one by one, each time with Dan
thinking how glad he was that the matter was settled. The letter was already on its way to Sally June Bender in St. Louis, Missouri. Then he read the fourth letter and something about it touched his heart. Tracie McCleod of Madison, Wisconsin, was no doubt a born-again child of God. The testimony of her salvation was clear and biblical. Her vibrant personality came through, and she made sure he knew that she had a heart full of love to give the man God had chosen for her.

Telling himself this was some fine young lady, he inserted the letter back in the envelope, read his Bible and prayed, then climbed into bed. As he tried to drift off to sleep, Tracie’s letter kept going through his mind. The obvious sweetness of her had captivated him.

After tossing and turning for at least an hour, Dan felt impressed to read her letter again. When he had done so he said, “Dear Holy Spirit, it is almost as if You are shouting at me in my heart. You want me to write Tracie McCleod, I know it. But Lord, I was sure it was Sally June that I was supposed to write to and offer to pay her way to San Antonio. What’s happening here?”

Dan mildly argued with the Lord about the situation. But the longer he argued, the more he knew he should write to Tracie and establish with her that she was the one he felt God was telling him should be his mail order bride.

“But Lord,” he said, looking heavenward in the darkness, “this means I have to get to the post office first thing in the morning and ask them to give me back the letter I mailed to Sally June.”

The Lord seemed to say, “Yes, son. You must do that.”

Dan sat down at his desk and prayed, asking for wisdom, then started the letter. As he wrote, he asked some things about Tracie, telling her that she very much interested him. One question was about the feeling he had in reading her letter that she had been through some heavy heartache. He wanted to know if he was right, and if so, could she share it with him.

With a prayer of thanks to the Lord for speaking to him so plainly in his heart, Dan sealed the letter.

The next morning, he was at the post office before opening time, tapping on the door and waving at the clerk who was almost ready to open for business. He was able to get the letter back that he had posted to Sally June Bender, and with peace flowing like a river through his heart, he posted his letter to Tracie McCleod.

O
N
S
ATURDAY
, M
AY
23, C
HARLES AND
E
VELYN
M
OORE
were in the library when Priscilla entered the room. “Benjamin is here to see Papa,” she said. “May I bring him in?”

“Certainly,” Charles said.

Priscilla disappeared for a few seconds, then returned with Benjamin at her side. Evelyn stood up and greeted him, then said, “I’ll leave you two men to your business. Are you still leaving on Tuesday, Benjamin?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Dorena has been counting the days, Priscilla tells me. She’s having a powerful case of mixed emotions. She knows she’s going to miss you terribly when you leave, but she also knows that in order for the two of you to have your life together, you have to go to work for Dan Johnson.”

“It’s very hard for me, too, Mrs. Moore,” Benjamin said. “But I know I have to keep focused on the day Dorena and I can be married.”

“That’s right.” Evelyn headed for the door. “And you just stay focused.”

“I will, ma’am.”

Joining Priscilla at the door, Evelyn turned and said, “I assume you and the Johnsons will want to take Dorena with you to the depot on Tuesday?”

“Yes, ma’am, if that is all right with you and Mr. Charles.”

“Of course,” said Charles.

Evelyn smiled. “We’ll tell you good-bye on Tuesday when you come to pick her up, then.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Charles closed the door behind the ladies and led Benjamin to an overstuffed chair that faced his. When they were seated, he said, “All right, son, what did you need to see me about?”