MONTANA TEACHER PART 1 Sarah’s Story

This is a clean, western romance; a short story of about 17,000 words. It is the first part of a serial that tells of Sarah Collins’ heartbreaking loss of her husband in a tornado, and her struggle to make a worthwhile life for herself and her two sons. It is set in frontier Montana in the 1904 time frame.

A tornado touched down on the Collins farm in Battle Ground, Indiana, snatching Bart Collins into the air as he tried to run to the safety of a creek bed. The same storm flattened his house and barn, trapping his wife Sarah, and their three year old twin sons in a root cellar, until they were rescued by a neighbor.

Sarah secured a teaching position that paid so little she was forced to live with her parents. After two years with little or no money, Sarah answered a newspaper ad offering a subsidized teaching slot paying more than double her salary. The only catch… it was in Mountain View, Montana.

Tal Evans became a widower when his wife died giving birth to twin daughters. Neglected by their father, who was wallowing in self-pity, the twins were raised by their 60+ year old grandmother. The girls are completely undisciplined, and run wild. They wind up in Sarah’s classroom after their original teacher gave up and quit teaching because of them.

Sarah has run-ins with Tal when she disciplines his children. Sarah’s father has a heart attack and to the dismay of Tal and the townspeople, she returns to Indiana, probably not to return. Read this heartbreaking story of a young widow and her struggle with her path in life.

In the book, here are several intentional errors in grammar. It is the way cowboys and rural folks talk