Mail-Order Barber

Rowena Healy’s happiness over being reunited with her husband in the gold mining town of Columbia, California, is short-lived after he is caught in the crossfire of a Saturday night shoot-out and killed. She must find a way to support herself and her nine-year-old son, Tobias. The only items of value she now owns are her late husband’s barber shop and its contents. As part of her plan to save the barber business for her son to someday inherit, she advertises for a husband of convenience. The catch? He must have experience as a barber and be willing to teach her son the trade.

Disillusioned now that most of the streams have been stripped of their easily panned placer gold, Baird Tucker knows he must either hire on as a wage-earning miner or find another occupation. Back east, he had worked as a barber. However, he sold the tools of his trade to finance his journey to California’s gold fields. A newspaper advertisement offers a position for a trained barber—including a shop, supplies, and equipment—in exchange for a marriage of convenience. He is not interested in marriage—he can barely support himself. Recognizing it might be a fool’s errand, the temptation to earn his gold by cutting hair and styling facial hair again is too strong to resist. What does he have to lose by looking into the matter?