The next letter he received had enclosed the receipt for the first payment of the purchase price of six dollars an acre, a charge the government had made on the land, amounting to some $210, in the first payment. She released him from his promise--but kept the ring.

"Now, don't that beat the devil!" he exclaimed angrily, when he read the letter. "As though this receipt is worth anything to me; or that it would suffice to get back the $2,000 I paid the man for the relinquishment. The only thing that will suffice is, for her to go on the land, so I guess I'll have to settle this nuisance at once by going to Chicago and marrying her."

So he started for the Windy City.

At Omaha he sent a telegram to her to the effect that he was on the way, and would arrive in the city on the morrow.

He arrived. He called her up from the Northwestern station, and she called back that it was settled; she had given him her word. The engagement was off.

"Oh, foolish," he called jovially.... "It isn't," she called back angrily.... "Well," said he, "I'll call and see you...." "No need," she said.... "But you'll see me," he called.... "Yes, I'll see you. I'll do you that honor...."

Now when Jean Baptiste had called over the 'phone, Glavis had answered the call, and thereupon had started an argument that Orlean had concluded by taking the receiver from his hand. Of course she had jilted Jean Baptiste and had sent back the papers; moreover, she had declared she would not marry him--_under any circumstances_. But she would attend to that herself and did not need the assistance of her brother-in-law....

Glavis was quite officious that morning--acting under his wife's orders.

When the bell rang, although he should have been at his work an hour before he opened the door. Baptiste was there and Glavis started to say something he felt his wife would be pleased to know he said. But, being affected with a slight impediment of speech, his tongue became twisted and when he could straighten it out, Baptiste had passed him and was on his way to the rear of the house where Orlean stood pouting. Ethel stood near with her lips protruding, and Mrs. McCarthy, whom he had termed, "Little Mother Mary," stood nearby at a loss as to what to say.

"Indeed, but it looks more like you were waiting for a funeral than for me," as he burst in upon them. Pausing briefly, he observed the one who had declared everything against him, turned her face away and refused to greet him.

"What's the matter, hon'," he said gaily and laughed, at the same time gathering her into his arms.

"Will you look at that!" exclaimed Ethel, ready to start something. But Glavis, countered twice the morning so soon, concluded at last that it was his time to keep his place. So deciding, he cut his eyes toward Ethel, and said: "Now, Ethel, this is no affair of yours," and cautioned her still more with his eyes.

"No, Ethel," commanded Orlean, "This is _my_ affair. I--" she did not finish, because at that moment Jean Baptiste had kissed her.

"It beats anything I ever witnessed," cried Ethel, almost bursting to get started.

"Then don't witness it," said Glavis, whereupon he caught her about the waist and urged her up the stairs and locked her in their room.

"You've been acting something awful like," chided Baptiste, with Orlean still in his arms. She did not answer just then. She could not. She decided at that moment, however, to take him into the parlor, and there tell him all she said she would. Yes, she would do that at once. So deciding, she caught him firmly by the arm, and commanded:

"Come, and I will get you told!"

He followed meekly. When they reached the parlor she was confronted with another proposition. Where would they sit? She glanced from the chairs to the davenport; but he settled it forthwith by settling upon the davenport. She hesitated, but before she had reached a decision, she found herself pulled down by his side--and dreadfully close. Well, she decided then, that this was better, after all, because, if she was close to him he could hear her better. She would not have to talk so loud. She did not like loud talking. It was too "niggerish," and she did not like that. But behold! He, as soon as she was seated, encircled her waist with his arm. Dreadful! Then, before she could tell him what she had made up all the night before to say to him, she felt his lips upon hers--and, my! they were so warm, and tender and soft. She was confused.

Ethel and her father had said that the country where Jean lived was wild; that all the people in it were hard and coarse and rough--but Jean's kisses were warm, and soft and tender. She almost forgot what she had intended telling him. And just then he caught her to him, and that felt so--well, she did not know--could not say how it felt; but she was forgetting all she had planned to tell him. She heard his voice presently, and for a moment she caught sight of his eyes. They were real close to hers, and, oh, such eyes! She had not known he possessed such striking ones. How they moved her! She was as if hypnotized, she could not seem to break the spell, and in the meantime she was forgetting more of what she had made up her mind to say. He spoke then, and such a wonderful voice he seemed to have! How musical, how soft, how tender--but withal, how strong, how firm, how resolute and determined it was. She was held in a thraldom of strange delight.

"What has been the matter with my little girl?" And thereupon, as if they were not close enough, he gathered her into his arms. Oh, what a thrill it gave her! She had forgotten now, all she had had in mind to say and it would take an hour or so, perhaps a day, to think and remember it all over again.... "Hasn't she wanted to see me? Such beautiful days are these! Lovely, grand, glorious!" She looked out through the window. It _was_ a beautiful day, indeed! And she had not observed it before.

"And hear the birds singing in the trees," she heard. And thereupon she listened a moment and heard the birds singing. She started. Now she had felt she was thoughtful. She really loved to listen to the twitter of birds--and it was springtime. It was life, and sunshine and happiness.

She had not heard the birds before that morning, therefore it must have been because she had let anger rule instead of sunshine. And as if he had read her thoughts, she heard his voice again:

"And because you were angry--gave in to evil angriness and pouted instead of being cheerful, happy and gay, you have failed to observe how beautiful the sun shone, and that the birds were singing in the trees."

She felt--was sensitive of a feeling of genuine guilt.

"And away out west, where the sunshine kisses the earth, and the wheat, the corn, the flax, and the oats grow green in great fields, everybody there is about his duty; for, when the winter has been long, cold and dreary, the settlers must stay indoors lest they freeze. So with such days as these after the long, cold and dreary winters, everybody must be up and doing. For if the crops are to mature in the autumn time, they must be placed in the earth through seed in the springtime. But there is, unfortunately, one settler, called St. Jean Baptiste, by those who know him out there, who is not in his fields; his crops are not being sown; his fields--wide, wide fields, which represent many thousands of dollars, and long years of hard, hard work, are lying idle, growing to wild weeds!"

"But, Jean," she cried of a sudden. "It is not so?"

"Unfortunately it is so, my love!"

"Then--Jean--you must go--hurry, and sow your crops, also!" she echoed.

"For years and years has Jean Baptiste labored to get his fields as they are. For, in the beginning, they were wild, raw and unproductive, whereupon naught but coyotes, prairie dogs and wild Indians lived; where only a wild grass grew weakly and sickly from the surface and yielded only a prairie fire that in the autumn time burned all in its path; a land wherein no civilized one had resided since the beginning of time."

"Oh, Jean!"

"And he has longed for woman's love. For, according to the laws of the Christ, man should take unto himself a wife, else the world and all its people, its activity, its future will stop forthwith!"

"You are so wonderful!"

"Not wonderful, am I," quoth Baptiste. "Just a mite practical."

"But it is wonderful anyhow, all you say!"

"And yet my Orlean does not love me yet!"

"I didn't say that," she argued, thinking of what she had written him.

"Since therefore she has not said it, then methinks that she does not."

"I--I--oh, you--are awful!"

"And she will not go to live alone with me and share my life--and my love!"

"I--oh, I didn't say I wouldn't do all that." She was done for then. She had shot her last defense.

"Then you will?" he asked anxiously. "You will go back with me, and be mine, all mine and love me forever?"

She sought his lips and kissed him then, and he arose and caught her close to him and kissed her again and looked into her eyes, and she was then all his own.

CHAPTER VIII

MARRIED

"Why--why--why, what does this mean!" exclaimed "Little Mother Mary"

coming upon them at this minute. Notwithstanding the fact that she was surprised, it was obviously a glad surprise. She admired Jean Baptiste, and had been much upset over their little controversy. She understood the root of the trouble, and knew that it had been on account of what Baptiste had written and intimated in the letter regarding the Elder.

Her husband did not admire real men, although of course, he was not aware of it. In truth, he admired no man, other than himself. And when others did not do likewise, he usually found excuses to disagree with them in some manner.

Jean Baptiste was not the type of man to make friends with her husband.

He was too frank, too forward, too progressive in every way ever to become very intimate with N. Justine McCarthy. To begin with, Jean had never flattered his vanity as it was not his wont to give undue praise.

And as yet he had no reason especially to admire the Reverend. That it had not been Orlean who had objected to coming West to marry him he was aware. Nor had it been her mother. It had been N. Justine who had a way of making his faults and shortcomings appear to be those of others--especially within his family, and in this instance his elder daughter bore the blame.

"What would you expect us to do, Little Mother," he said, turning a beaming face upon her.

"But--Orlean, I thought--I thought--"