So, for the first time the people in the new country were face to face with a real problem. And this continued to be augmented by the intense heat. Hotter it had grown, and at last came a day when all the small grain was beyond redemption, only the corn and the flaxseed were yet a possibility. So to Jean Baptiste we now return.

He had written to his wife, and she had replied to his letter. He read them where he lived, on the homestead she had left, and longed simply for her to return. He lived with his mind in a dull quandary. It was useless to try to find consolation hating the cause of his troubles, so him, he tried much to forget. It would all come right some day, he still hoped, and worried between times over his debts. He had borrowed more money to develop his land; was behind in the interest, now, and also the taxes, and his wife wrote for money.

This was what Glavis had advised him to do--Send her money and all would be right. Yes, that was what Ethel and her mother and her father had all thought right. Send her money. But the day of plenty of money for Jean Baptiste was slipping. The burning, dried crop that lay in the field, would bring no money. But this he dared not write. If he wrote and told the woman he had married--for a wife she surely was no more--that would be to tell the family. And that Prince of Evil, the Reverend, would say with his wonted braggadocio: "Um-m. Didn't I tell you right! That is a wild country out there for wild people, only." So Baptiste kept what was ruining the crops to himself.

He sent her five dollars, and this brought the most pleasant letter he had yet received. It also brought one from Glavis, who followed the same with another, which was more to the point. It was this he wrote:

"CHICAGO, ILL., June, 30th, 191--

"_Dear friend Baptiste_:

"I have your recent letter, and it gives me a great pleasure to reply to it. You would have had my last letter sooner; but I left it to Ethel to mail, and this she did not do, so that explains the delay.

"Now we are getting along very well in Chicago, and hope the same prevails in the West. By the papers I read where considerable dry weather is prevailing over a part of the West, but hope it hasn't struck your part of the country. Appreciating, however, your disposition to come directly to a point, I will now turn to a subject that I am sure will be of greater interest to you than anything else, and which is Orlean, your wife.

"It gives me a pleasure to state that she appears more relieved of recent than she has since returning home. But I will not hesitate to tell you why. It is because of you, and you only. Always she talks of you--to me--and it pleases me to talk with her concerning you, for it is with you her mind is at all times. I fear that you cannot appreciate her now as you were once inclined to do; but really think you would be justified, fully so, if you did.

"Now, for instance, when you sent the money not long ago, it gave her great delight. That you haven't forgotten that she is your wife and have some regards, in spite of all, meant to her very much.

She took it and bought her a pair of shoes, with a part; the other she spent to have pictures made so that she might send you one. And I speak truly that to send you one was the sole object in her having them made.

"The poor girl has suffered much--agonies. It is not her disposition to be as she has somehow been compelled to be. I can't quite explain it, but if it was left to Orlean's dictates, things would not be as they are. Yet, you might not appreciate this, either. But to make it plainer: Orlean has her mother's disposition, and that is not to assert her rights. Too bad.

"Well, there was a little incident that touched me the other day, and which I will tell you of. A certain lady was over and seeing her with the new shoes, she asked who had bought them. Poor Orlean!

It is certainly to be regretted that a girl of her temperament, and kind disposition must be placed forever in a false light. Frankly it worries me. I trust you will understand that the true state of affairs has not been given to the public, and here I will draw a long line instead of saying what will be best left unsaid----But Orlean replied to the lady in these words: 'My husband bought them for me.'

"I wish you could understand that it is all one great mistake. I wish you knew the truth and the suffering this poor girl has been put to; for if you did you would know that she is a good girl, and loves the man she has married with all her soul--but Orlean is not like other women. She's weak and--oh, well, I must close here because it hurts me to tell more.

"I will, however, in conclusion say: Do not despair, or grow bitter toward her. This is a strange world, and strange things happen in it. Of but one thing I can assure you, and that is: The right must come and rule in the end. Yes, nothing but right can stand, all else passes. Therefore, hoping that you will be patient, and trust to that I speak of, believe me to be,

"Always your friend,

"E.M. GLAVIS."

Now it so happened that when Glavis had completed this letter, he was called to the phone, and later into the street. He was gone a half hour or more, and in the meantime, Ethel came upon it, and read it. Her evil little eyes narrowed to mere slits when she had finished. She had noted what had been going on--Orlean and her husband always finding each other's company so congenial.

"Well," she muttered after a time. "The time to strike iron is while it's hot. I'll have to get that man of mine straightened out." Whereupon she went to her room, and here is the letter she wrote:

CHICAGO, ILL., June 30TH, 191--

"_THE REVEREND N.J. MCCARTHY, CAIRO, ILL._

"DEAR FATHER: We received your letter and were glad to hear you say that you expected to come to Chicago soon. I was just thinking awhile ago, that if you could come soon, real soon, it might be best. Certain matters need your attention. I will not state which, but I, you know, am aware of how you have been slandered and vilified by a certain person that you know. Well, that person is again finding a way to influence those who are near to us. So knowing how equal you are to the most arduous task, I take this means of communicating that which is most expedient.

"Hoping that your health is the best, and that we may see you real soon, believe me to be, as ever,

"Your loving daughter,

"ETHEL."

So it happened that out in the West where the most terrific and protracted drought the country had ever experienced was burning crops and hopes of the people included, Jean Baptiste was made joyful.

He understood Glavis' letter; he understood what he had said and what he had not said. He had suffered. He saw disaster creeping upon him from the drought rent fields. Is it, therefore, but natural that in his moments of agony and unhappiness, shattered hopes and mortal anguish, that he should turn to the woman who had been his mate. To have her to talk to; her to tell the truth to and share what little happiness there was to be had in life, he became overly anxious? Thereupon he wrote her, sending another check for five dollars.

July 5th, 191--

"_My dear wife_:

"I am writing and sending you a little more money, and since you must be well by now, and realize how much I need you, I am enclosing a signed but not filled-in-amount check, with the request that you come home right away. You will start, say the 10th, that will place you in Winner on the night of the eleventh, on Saturday, where I will meet you.

"I will expect you, dear; and please don't disappoint me. I have not seen you for three months now, and that has not been my preference. The amount will be sufficient for your fare, and expenses please, and I will write no more; but should anything happen that you can not start on that date, then write or wire me that I may know.

"With love to you, I am,

"As ever, your husband,

"JEAN."

CHAPTER VIII

N. JUSTINE MC CARTHY PREACHES A SERMON

The text of Reverend N.J. McCarthy's sermon to be delivered on Mothers'

Day, was one of the most inexhaustible. Most of his sermons he did not prepare. But because this was one of the greatest days in the annual of the church, he spent a half a day in the preparation thereof. The title he selected for it suited him fully, and he called it: "The Claim of the Wicked."

Into it he put all the emotion that was in him. He drew a picture in illustrious words, of the wicked, the vicious man, and the weak, the undefended woman, and made many in his dark congregation burst into emotional discordance thereby. He ridiculed the vain; he denounced, scathingly, the hypocrite; he made scores in his audience turn with perspiration at the end of their noses with conscious guilt. Oh, never before in the years since he had mounted to the pulpit and begun what he chose to call, "an effort for the salvation of souls," had he preached such a soul stirring sermon.

"Live right, live right, I say!" he screamed at the top of his voice.

"How many of you are there as you sit here before me, that have done evil unto thy neighbor; have made some one unhappy; have cast a soul into grief and eternal anguish? Think of it! Think of what it means before God to do evil, spite; vent your rotten deceit upon others! I stand before you in God's glory to beseech you to desist; to pray with you to live according to your consciences; to dispense with that evil spirit that in the end you may face your God in peace! Go forth hereafter in this world of sin; go to those whom you have wronged and made thereby to suffer, and ask forgiveness; ask there and repent forthwith! Oh, I'll tell you it is a glorious feeling to know you have lived right," and he turned his eyes dramatically heavenward, and affected his audience by the aspect. "To feel that unto others you have been just; that you have been kind; that you have not caused them to suffer, but to feel happy! Think of the thrill, the sensation such must give you, and then let your conscience be henceforth your guide in all things!"

When the services were over, and he had shaken hands with all the sisters, and bowed to the brothers, a boy, the son of the lady where he stayed, approached and handed him a letter. He looked at it with his spectacles pinched upon his nose, and then read it. It was from Ethel, and we know the contents.

"So," he said easily as he read it. "The evil seeks to influence my household in subtle matters, eh! Oh, that man has the brain of a Caesar, but the purpose of Satan! Drat him, and his infernal scheming! Ever since the day I first knew him in the country four miles from this town, he has been wont to annoy, to aggravate me--and after all my daughter, my poor daughter, and myself have done for him!"

He began preparation to go to Chicago at the earliest convenience. As his work was so urgent, he wrote Ethel in reply that same day:

"_My dear daughter_:

"I am in receipt of your letter and make haste to reply. To begin with, I am not surprised to hear what you wrote in your letter. I am not surprised to hear anything these days. Ever since your mother committed the unpardonable blunder of letting my poor child go straggling off into the West, that wild West, where only the rough and the uncivilized live, I have not been surprised with what each day might bring. It is certainly to be regretted that when one has sacrificed as much as I have to raise two of the nicest girls that ever saw the light of day, a fortune hunter should come along and bring misery into a peaceful home as that man has done. God be merciful! But it is to be hoped that we will see fit to adjust rightly the evil that we are threatened with.

"I cannot come to Chicago until a week from next Thursday or Friday. I am so behind with God's work, caused by the trip we made to that land of wilderness last spring, that I am almost compelled to be at Cairo next Sunday. But should anything transpire that will necessitate my presence before that time, wire or write me right quick and I will be there.

"From yours in Christ,

"N. JUSTINE MCCARTHY."