: The Homesteader: A Novel by Micheaux Oscar Farrow W M Illustrator - Western stories; Pastoral fiction; Frontier and pioneer life South Dakota Fiction; African American pioneers South Dakota Fiction; South Dakota History Fiction

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whether I can let you go to Chicago or not."

The Elder sighed, and said to her low enough for her husband's ears not to hear: "Just listen to that. After all I have done! Then I will have to pay your way to Chicago where I shall endeavor to save your life, your dear life which this man is trying to grind out of you to get rich."

"But I'll think it over," said Baptiste. "We have lots of work this summer, and will try to get caught up," and the next moment he was gone.

"Did you hear that, daughter?" said the Reverend, now aloud, when the other's back was turned. "Oh, it's awful, the man you have married! Just crazy, crazy to get rich! And puts you after his work; after his horses; after his everything! And after all your poor old father has done for you," whereupon he let escape another sigh, and fell into tears of self pity.

Orlean stroked his head and swallowed what she would have offered in defense of the man she had married. It was useless to offer defense, he had broken this down long since.

"Yes, he is wanting to kill, to kill my poor daughter after all she has sacrificed," he sobbed, "and when you are dead and in your grave like your baby is out in this wild country," his voice was breaking now with sobs, "he will up and marry another woman to enjoy the fruits of your sacrifice!" He was lost in his own tears then, and could say no more.

"Now, dear," she suddenly heard her husband, and looked up to find that he had returned. He stooped and kissed her fondly, and then went on: "I am going up to my sister's homestead to start the men to work with the engine breaking the land and I must haul them the coal, which I will get at Colome. Now I will not be back for several days, but will make up my mind in the meantime as to whether I can let you go to Chicago or not."

"All right, dear," she said, raising from the bed and caressing him long and lingeringly. She could not understand how much she wanted him then, it seemed that she could hold him so forever. She kissed him again and again, and as he passed out of the room she looked after him long and lingeringly, and upon her face was a heavenly smile as he passed out of sight and disappeared over the hill. As he did so, the Elder got from his position at the other side of the bed, went to the door, and also watched him out sight. As he turned away, Baptiste's grandmother who had fed many a preacher back there in old Illinois, the Reverend included, started. She had seen his face, and what she had seen therein had frightened her. When he went back into the room and to the bed where Orlean lay, she dropped by the table and buried her face in her old arms and sobbed, long and silently. And a close observer could have heard these shaken words:

"Poor Jean, poor Jean, poor Orlean, oh, poor Orlean! You made all the fight you could but you were weak. You were doomed before you started, for he knew you and knew you were weak. But would to God that the world could end today, for it will end tomorrow for you two. Poor Orlean, poor Jean!"

THE COWARD

"Hello, Jean," cried a friend of his at Colome some days later, as he was leading his horses into the livery barn, after loading the coal he was hauling to the men who were breaking prairie on his sister's claim with a steam tractor. "Were those your folks I seen driving into town a while ago?"

"My folks?"

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