The Erie Canal Brides Collection by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781683229865
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2019-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Monday, Josiah’s favorite day of the week. Monday mornings were full of possibilities and potential, a fresh start. Today he washed and dressed by lamplight in the gray dawn and hastened to the livery for his carriage.

There he realized his folly in keeping Papa Wells’s coach-and-six in Sweetwater Cove. Using the conveyance Papa had left behind instead of buying another had seemed prudent at the time, but now? His hired driver long gone, he’d need to sit aloft the carriage on the high driver’s seat and bump around town with no one, nothing inside, save his trunk of gold specie. With six horses pulling it. Although comfortable for his long trip from New Rochelle, this conveyance was not only conspicuous but also ridiculous here.

Nonetheless, a half hour later, he drove to the bank and deposited his gold. Returned the coach-and-six to the livery and asked the owner to put a FOR SALE sign on it.

From there he strode to the park. Sure enough, Deacon Bennett had delivered a shovel, hoe, and ax as he’d promised. But standing here alone, facing a mess like this …

Could he do it? Could he get the job done?

Certainly not by standing here and looking.

He rolled up the sleeves of his white work shirt and grabbed the ax, headed toward the farthest fallen tree, the one lying on the gazebo. Within minutes, he heard footsteps behind him.

“There’s your boss, gentlemen.”

Josiah turned at the sound of Betsy’s voice. He looked up to see her and a dozen or so men, all dressed in rough laborers’ clothing and caps, striding toward him and the pile of freshly painted lumber that had once been the gazebo. As they drew nearer, he noticed her faded brown dress and worn boots, the thick gloves in her hand. His heart warmed at the sight of her here to work. He also saw that these workers weren’t men, but youths. What could she have to do with a gang of young men who looked as if they’d just finished plowing and planting a hundred-acre field?

But these men carried saws, axes, and hatchets. Not plows, harrows, and hoes.

“Come and meet your cleanup crew,” Betsy called in a lilting voice.

What—only an hour into the workday, she’d found enough men to clear out this mess? He approached the crowd and offered his hand.

“This is the Reverend Josiah Wells,” she said.

Although he’d been Josiah Wells longer than he’d been Josiah Brown, the name still sounded strange on her lips.

With the breeze blowing wispy curls across her forehead, she laid her hand on the shoulder of the stockiest young man. “This is August Schmidt, the foreman. I recruited him and his men at the docks.”

Josiah scanned the crew. “Men” was an exaggeration. Other than August, none of them looked more than fifteen years old. “Don’t you already have jobs?”

“We did until today,” August said in a thick German accent. “Our boss owns six liners, but today he said he can’t pay us.”

“He left you here with no pay?” Josiah glanced around at the motley gang, but no one responded.

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