Central Kansas Library System

Set in rural Wisconsin in 1909, Ralph Truitt stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" that Ralph is expecting.

Fanny Agnes is a sturdy farm girl who dreams of marrying a prince, but when her fairy godmother doesn't show up, she decides on a local farmer instead.

Ellen has always known that the broom hanging on her family's cabin wall is a special symbol of her parents' wedding during slave days, so she proudly carries it to the courthouse when the marriage becomes legal.