“My sweet daughter Sophia has married and left Oklahoma. She fell in love with a man named Fred, who came to our parts a few months ago to buy cattle for his place in Texas. They corresponded when he went back to his home, and he asked her to marry him. I can’t say I’m happy about it. He still lives with his German parents, who I understand are very set in their ways. But she is eighteen and her mind was made up. It was either let her marry him or else she would have run away and done it anyway. She writes me a letter once a week. I learned that she hasn’t settled into the town or the place so well. I didn’t realize what a good friend she was to me until she wasn’t here anymore. To say that I miss her would be an understatement. I read her letters over and over and wish she would have listened to me. I could see that Fred was a controlling man, probably much like his own father. She wasn’t raised to bow down and kiss a man’s feet. I swear that I will be a nosy mother and give my boys a talking-to if they ever treat a woman like they own her. I just wish I could do that for Sophia. She sounds so homesick and miserable in her letters. I’ve told her that she can come back home, but she said that she made her bed and she will lay in it.”

“I don’t like that name—Fred,” Holly declared. “I’ll never marry a man with that name.”

“It’s not the name,” Lily told her. “He could be named Dixon or even Benjamin and still be a controlling fellow.”