Jethro’s Winter Watch

Jethro Bailey began stringing telegraph wire, but soon realized the demand for connecting cities, mines, lumber camps, and remote communities by telephone was a growing industry. However, rather than spend weeks on end in often remote locations among strangers, his true passion is to one day own his own supply store in Carson City so he could settle down and start a family. He had even found a woman through correspondence who intrigues him. Hoping he has sufficient capital to start the business of his dreams, he is ready to send for her. Then, as one of the few installers and repairmen familiar with the old Edison-style telephone system, he is offered a job in a remote mountain region over the winter maintaining a line between a mining company’s sites and suppliers. The pay for one winter season is too good to pass up. Hopefully, his intended in Ohio will understand.

Meliana Gardiner has watched two women she knows successfully use the Matrimonial Times to find husbands. She has waited a long time to find the right man—one who will support her goal of building a new dressmaking shop in a town large enough to have the clientele to appreciate her designs and quality of work. She already made arrangements to sell her existing business in Franklinton, Ohio, by the middle of November. And now, she receives a letter saying she must wait? Jethro has accepted a job that will keep him in a remote location all winter—one so isolated he will not be able to send or receive mail until the spring thaw? Is the man trying to back out of the marriage agreement? He obviously does not know who he is dealing with, but he will soon find out.