Jedadiah's Mail Order Bride Read Online Free PDF

some paper and a pen."  She left and returned with both shortly.  "You can use the desk in back," she said.
     
    When Jed came back into the sanctuary, he had three pages of his proposed letter.  He told of growing up in Lebanon, going off to the gold fields, and finally his decision to go into ranching.  His letter spelled out his successes and his failures.  It told of his need for companionship.  It  spoke to the rough and dangerous life on the frontier.  After John listened to the reading, he said, "I wouldn't change a thing.  It's perfect."
     
    Grace had tears in her eyes.  "It's beautiful.  You identified the warts along with the perfection.  You couldn't have made it more honest.  I would send it just the way it is."
     
    Jed signed the letter, sealed it in an envelope and took it to the post office.  He returned to his ranch and his cattle.  He intensified his efforts to make the cabin a place suitable to bring a wife. 
     
    It was three weeks before he received an answer.  Sarah Grace Harding  would like to continue the correspondence.  In her return letter, she said, "I feel as if I know you already."
     
    There would be two additional  letters exchanged before they decided to meet.

Sarah Gets Responses To Her Ad
     
     
     
    Sarah stopped by the post office every day to check for answers to her ad.  She wanted to go through the mail before her parents, since she had not told them of her taking out an ad in a matrimonial newspaper.  To her delight, she had received five answers to her ad. 
     
    She sat on a bench in the town square to read them.  Three of them were discarded at once.  There was something about them that sounded dishonest.  Two of them actually frightened her.  It was then she realized the enormity of what he was doing and the potential dangers involved in the process.  If she accepted, she would be forsaking her family and all she held dear to travel half the way across the country and possibly give herself to someone she had never met.  It could be a vicious person or some fat, bald, old man.  By the time she found out, it would be too late.  She would be two thousand miles from home with no money.  She would be stuck  She felt a chill run down her back.
     
    Left with two letters, one of them from a widower with two small boys, in desperate need for a mother to his sons, he was grasping at straws, citing the total lack of acceptable women where he lived.  His letter was a plea for help that tugged at her heart strings.  She laid it aside to answer.
     
    The other answer came from ad #378 which had piqued her interest originally.  This was a three page letter providing the main events in his life leading up to the present.  He asked for a Christian woman.  He identified the dangers of living on the frontier.  He mentioned the Sioux Indians, though quiet at the present time.  He spoke of how rugged life was and the primitive nature of the cabin he had built his own hands, using materials gathered from around his ranch and how he had lived in his barn for over a year during the construction.  He spoke also of the harsh winters.  The letter pointed to an honest man, a man not afraid of hard work.  A man that wanted his potential wife to understand what he was asking of any woman interested in marriage with him.  After reading it through several times, there was no doubt in her mind regarding the man's honesty and sincerity.  She would answer this letter immediately.
     
    Sarah bemoaned her lack of friends since there was no one to whom she could turn for advice.  She certainly couldn't talk with her parents.  She knew just how that would turn out.  The pastor of her church was a good friend of her parents so she couldn't talk to him.  Finally, she decided to talk with Martha, her sister closest to her in age.  They had confided in each other when younger, sharing their dreams, and desires.  Since Martha's marriage, there hadn't been much opportunity