Mail Order Blythe

Blythe Greenly works as a maid for the Stapletons, a prominent Chicago family until the oldest son returns home from the university and takes ungentlemanly notice of her. In spite of her attempts to avoid him, he manages to trap her. Because she knows her employer, who dotes on her son, will not support her cause against his best interests, she knows she has to get away.

Blythe answers a matrimonial advertisement and begins corresponding with several prospects who are willing to consider a widow. However, when she tells her first two choices she is carrying a child, they drop out. She keeps her baby a secret from her last hope for a husband, a U.S. Army sergeant stationed at Fort Fred Steele in Wyoming. Complications delay her marriage to a man who has other priorities than a loving companion who will give him a family.

Eli Morgan is a science instructor at the University of Iowa. His mother, who has been living with him, is intent on him responding to two letters from carefully-vetted women for Eli to consider so he might choose a wife suitable for a man in his position. However, as an amateur astronomer, he chooses to set matrimonial pursuits aside the summer of 1878 to spend his summer holiday with two fellow teachers traveling to Rawlins, Wyoming Territory. There they plan to view the total solar eclipse on July 29th. They will spend several weeks afterward exploring, hunting, and fishing.

However, Eli, who has never been a big fan of dust and dirt, keeps finding excuses to return to the hotel in Rawlins so he can take a bath and change into clean clothes. Or is it the pretty maid waiting for her soldier fiancé who draws him there?