"Can your father not understand, Orlean," he complained, with a deep frown, "that I cannot accept his charity? Because I have made up my mind not to go to Chicago, does not mean that I am not able to purchase our transportations there and back. It's the expense of the trip and what goes with it that has caused me to decide to dispense with it. But it's almost useless to try to reason anything with him, and I'll not waste the effort." Whereupon he would say no more.

He was having troubles of his own. He owed ten thousand dollars, and upon this, interest accrued every few months, and the rate was high.

Besides, he had other pressing bills, and the grain he had raised was bringing very low prices. Therefore, he was in no mood to dally with a poverty poor preacher whose offer was more to show himself off and place Baptiste in a compromising position, than his desire for them to be home. He made no effort to appreciate the sentiments or to understand Jean Baptiste. And the fact that his daughter loved her husband and was willing to help him seemed to be lost sight of by N. Justine McCarthy.

Being accustomed to having people flatter him as a rule, was so engraved in his shallow nature, that he was unable to see matters from a liberal point of view.

Their relations reached a climax when Orlean was with his sister on the claim a few days before the Yuletide. Baptiste received a letter addressed to her from the Elder. Thinking that, since she was on the claim, it might be something urgent, he opened it. It _was_ urgent. It contained a money order covering the price of a ticket to Chicago with a trite note that he expected her soon, and that he, her husband, could come on later.

We shall not attempt to describe the anger that came over Jean Baptiste then. And, as is most likely the case when a man is angry, he does the thing he most likely would not do when his feelings are under control.

With hands that trembled with anger, he turned the note over, wrote in a few words that he had defined his position with regards to coming to Chicago; that he would be obliged if the other would mind his own business; that he had married his wife and was trying to be a husband in every way to her; but that he was running his house, and was therefore returning the money therewith.

It served as a declaration of the war between the two that had been impending for months. We are too well acquainted with their regard for each other, so upon this we will not dwell; but upon receipt of Baptiste's letter, the Reverend sang his anger in a letter that fairly scorched the envelope in which it was enclosed. He threatened to turn the world over, and set it right again if the other did not do thus and so. To the threats, Baptiste made no reply. In a measure he was relieved; he had at last made his position clear to the other, and his wife, of course, was with him in the controversy. In view therefore, of the manner in which she had been trained, this made matters rather awkward. The yield of crops had not been one half the average, and it took almost all he had made to pay the interest, taxes and expenses.

Baptiste was not cheerful; but Orlean was to become a mother, and he was a practical man. So together they passed a happy Xmas after all. In fact the only cloud upon their horizon of happiness was her father.

Evidently he voiced what he had done to near friends, and they had not endorsed his action. Orlean was the wife of Jean Baptiste and if he expected her to stay with him, it was their affair, even if the Reverend had only intended to help. Attempting to force charity on others is not always sensible, so the Elder wrote later that it was "up to them," and if they had agreed to stay in the West Xmas, it was alright with him.

This was very considerate of him--apparently, after all the noise he had made, and Orlean was much relieved, and loved her father still. Her husband was also relieved, and forgot the matter for the time. But did the Reverend?

Well, that was not his nature. He never forgot things he should forget.

Oh, no! He had not been a hypocrite forty years for nothing! In the meantime, the Xmas passed as it has for more than nineteen hundred years, winter set in, and the spring was approaching when the catastrophe occurred.

CHAPTER XV

COMPROMISED

"Please don't go, Jean," she begged. "I don't want you to go. Stay with me."

"Now, Orlean," he said gently. "I have such a lot of work to do. I will go, tear down some of the old buildings on the homestead and be back before many days."

She cried for a time while he held her in his arms. Crying was nothing new with her. As the time for her delivery drew near, she was given to such spells. He was patient. After a few moments she dried her eyes and said:

"Well, dear, you can go. But hurry back. I want you to be home then, you understand."

"Of course I want to be home then, wifey, and sure want it to be a boy."

"It _will_ be a boy, Jean," she said with a strange confidence. "I believe it. I am sure it will."

"I shall love you always then, my wife. All our cares and burdens will vanish into the air, and we shall be as happy as the angels."

"Oh, Jean, you can make life seem so light."

"Life should be made to appear light, sweetheart," he said, caressing her. "Grandmother will be here with you and if you need for anything, draw a check and have the neighbors below bring it out. It is only three miles over the hill to Carter, you understand."

"By the way, dear," she said suddenly, going into the bedroom, and returning presently with a letter. "This is from mama. She writes that they have never told papa yet, and hopes that nothing serious will happen for then she would never--we would never be forgiven by him."

"Dear Little Mother Mary," he said fondly. "I hope nothing will happen, Orlean, for our sakes." And then he paused. He had started to say that he was not worried about her father's forgiveness. He had lost what little patience he had ever had with that one, and did not propose to be annoyed with his love, the love that he had to be continually making excuses and apologies to entertain. But before he had spoken he thought better of it, and decided to say nothing about it. His wife had been trained to regard her father as a king, and because he had succeeded in letting her see that after all he was just a Negro preacher with the most that went with Negro preachers in him, she had at last ceased to bore him with telling him how great her father was.

They were at her claim, and he was about to depart for his original homestead to clean up work preparatory to moving onto her claim permanently as he had intended to do. Already his wagons with horses hitched thereto stood near, and he was only lingering for a few parting words with her.

"I am kind of sorry we placed mother in this position," he heard her say as if talking more to herself than he.

"In what position, Orlean?"

"In keeping this a secret."

"From your father, you mean?" said he, frowning.

"Yes."

"Well, Orlean, I have tried to be a husband to you."

"And you have been, Jean."

"Then it is our business if I chose to keep such a secret."

"Yes, Jean," she said, lowering her eyes and thinking.

"But the one burden of our married life has been your father. I never anticipated that his love would be such a burden. Ever since we have been married we have had to waste our substance on fear over what he will think. He seems to lose sight of a husband's sentiment or right. I can fancy him in my position with regard to your mother before they had been married long. My God, if any father or mother would have ventured any suggestion as to how they should live or what they should do I can see him!"

His wife laughed.

"Have I spoken rightly?"

"Yes," she agreed and was momentarily amused.

"Yes. But he just makes our life a burden with his kind of love. Now take this matter for instance. Why should we be keeping this a secret from him--rather, why should I? It's just simply because I have too much other cares to be annoyed with a whole lot of to-do on his part. If he knew you were going to become a mother, he would just make our life unbearable with his insistences and love. Your mother knows it, and Ethel. Ethel who would have had you dispose of that innocent, knows it and keeps it from him, with fear all the while of what will come of it, should anything happen.

"Now, I'll say this much. I don't propose to make any excuses to him about anything I do or have you do hereafter. I'm going to be husband and master, and have nothing to do with what he does with regard to your mother. As long as I am good and kind to you, and don't neglect you, then I have a right, and positively will not be annoyed even by your father!"

"Please hush, Jean," she begged, her arms about him. But he was aroused.

He had made himself forget as he should have forgotten the punishment he had been given twenty-two years before. But he did not like the man's conduct. Everywhere and with everybody back in Illinois who knew N.

Justine McCarthy, he was regarded as an acknowledged rascal.

"Just look how he treats your mother!" She pulled at him and tried to still his voice; but speak he would. "If I was ever guilty of treating you as your father has treated your mother ever since he married her, I hope the Christ will sink my soul into the bottom-most pit of hell!"

"Jean, my God, please hush!"

"But I speak the truth and you know it. Would you like to look forward and feel that you had to go through all your life what your mother has endured?"

"Oh, no, no, no! But you must hush, Jean, in heaven's name, hush." He did then. The storm that had come over him had spent its force and he kissed her, turned then, went to where his teams stood, got into the front wagon, and looking back, drove upon his way.

"Poor Jean," murmured Orlean. "Father and he will never be friends and it makes it so hard for me." She continued to stand where he left her, looking after him until he had disappeared over the hills to the east.

Arriving at Gregory late that afternoon, Jean found a Lyceum concert, the number consisting of Negroes, one of whom, a girl, he had known some years before, for she had lived next door to where he then roomed.