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Ebook has 1715 lines and 76429 words, and 35 pages

"How much for, Orlean?"

"Two--two--hundred dollars."

"Why--two hundred dollars!" he cried. "Why, Orlean, what has come over you?" She burst into tears then, and clung appealingly to him. And in that moment she was again his God-given mate.

"Besides," he went on, "I haven't such an amount in the bank, even." He looked up. A half a block in their lead walked Reverend McCarthy, carrying the luggage.

"Papa, p-a-pa!" called Orlean at the top of her voice. "Pa-p-a," she called again and again until she fell into a fit of coughing. He halted, and was uneasy, Baptiste could see. They came up to him. Orlean was running despite her husband's effort to hold her back.

"Papa, papa! My God, give Jean back that money. Give it back, I say! Oh, I didn't want to do this, oh, I didn't want to! It was you who had me sign that check, you, you, you!" She was overcome then, and fell into a swoon in her husband's arms. He stood firmly, bravely, then like the Rock of Gibraltar. His face was very hard, it was very firm. His eyes spoke. It told the one before him the truth, the truth that was.

And as the other ran his hand to his inside vest pocket and drew forth the money, he kept saying in a low, cowardly voice:

Baptiste took the money. He looked at it. He took fifty dollars from it and handed the amount to the other. He spoke then, in a voice that was singularly dry:

"I will not keep her from going. She can go; but you know I ought not let her."

They carried her to where the cars stood, and made her comfortable when once inside. She opened her eyes when he was about to leave upon hearing the conductor's call. She looked up into his eyes. He bent and kissed her. She looked after him as he turned, and called: "Jean!"

"Yes, Orlean!"

"Goodby!"

He stood on the platform of the small western station as the train pulled down the track. A few moments later it disappeared from view, and she was gone.

EPOCH THE THIRD

EPOCH THE THIRD

CHICAGO--THE BOOMERANG

The Reverend McCarthy had scored. He had succeeded in separating his daughter from the man she married. The fact that there was positively no misunderstanding between the two, was not seen or considered by him. Jean Baptiste had opposed him, and that was enough. He hated any member of his household, or any one related to the one of his household who dared disagree with him. Of course his "Majesty" did not see it that way. He saw himself as the most saintly man in the world and sympathized with himself accordingly. No man thought himself more unjustly abused than did N. Justine McCarthy.

But there were other things to complete. He had not wilfully participated in what had just passed--in fact, he had not meant to part the couple at all. He prided himself with having some judgment. He was merely undertaking that which in a way had grown common to him--the task of getting even.

Now he had estimated that he knew Jean Baptiste, although studying characters and their natural tendencies had not been a part of his theme in life. He felt albeit, that he had this one's tender spot clearly before him. To begin with: he put himself right with his own conscience by believing that Baptiste was a vain, selfish character, bent on one purpose--getting rich! He concluded--because he wished to--that Baptiste did not, and had never, loved Orlean. The fact that Orlean had not said anything to the contrary did not matter. He was her father, and therefore predicated and privileged to think and act for her. That was why he had always been of so much service, such fatherly help. He was protecting his daughter from the cruelty of men. But how he had planned it all!

"Now that hard-headed rascal," meaning of course his son-in-law, "is not going to lay down. Oh, no! My poor girl has that claim. He does not want her, but he does want the claim. To hold the claim, he must have her, and have her back on the claim. He's all war now; but when he realizes that to lose her is to lose the claim into the bargain--oh, well, I'll just set right down at home here and wait. Yes, I'll wait. He'll be coming along. And when he appears here, then I'll bend his ornery will into the right way of seeing things." So thereupon he took up his vigil, waiting for Jean Baptiste to put in his appearance.

But for some reason the other had not hastened to Chicago as soon as the Elder had anticipated he would. Three weeks had been consumed in the trip West, so he was somewhat behind in his church work. While it was true that ministers in some of the towns in his itinerary collected from the members at the quarterly conference and sent the money to him; on the other hand if he expected to get what was due him in any great measure, it was highly necessary that he be there in person. Accordingly, the time he spent in Chicago, waiting for the coming of his son-in-law that he might have the satisfaction of bending the other to his will began to grow long and irksome.

Moreover, if he sat at home, he was obliged to meet and greet the many visitors who called to see his sick daughter. More largely of course for the purpose of securing information for gossip, but compelling him therefore to make or offer some explanation. And here arose another phase of the case that was not pleasant. Following Jean Baptiste's marriage to Orlean, and after the Reverend had paid them his first visit, he had said a great deal in praise of his "rich" son-in-law. That he was so extremely vain, was why he had done this. It had tickled his vanity to have the people see his daughter marry so well, since it was well known about Chicago that Jean Baptiste was very successful. When the Elder had boasted to the people he met of the "rich" man his daughter had married, he wrote telling the young couple of it. To be referred to as "rich" he conjectured, should have flattered any man's vanity--it would have his--and he estimated that he was doing Baptiste a great favor when he let him know that he, the Elder, was advertising him as rich.

But the same had brought no response from that one. He had been too busy to take any interest in being praised. And even after the Elder had made his first visit, and returned and told of the wonders his daughter had married into, he still hoped this would soften Baptiste's disposition into praising and fawning upon him. It was not until Baptiste had returned the money he had sent his daughter for railway fare the Xmas before that the Reverend had thrown down the gauntlet and declared war. So the very thing he had played up a few months before, came back now to annoy him. Because he had never lived as he should have it was proving a boomerang. He had made a practice of pretending not to hear what was being said about him by others. But he could not seal his ears to the fact that the people were asking themselves and everybody else what had happened to his daughter, or between his daughter and the "rich" son-in-law. This was very uncomfortable, it was very annoying. It was reported that he was compelled to go out West and get her, and it was exasperating to explain all without making it seem that what he had said a few months before was boast, pure and simple.

"Yeh. All you could hear a few months ago, was the 'rich' man Orlean had married. Yeh. Mr. Mc. would make it his business to get around so you had to ask 'im about them. Then he'd swell up lak a big frog and tell all about it. Then of a sudden he jumps up and goes out there and brings her back. Ump! Now I wonder what is the mattah."

During these times, those of the household had little peace. With impatience over Baptiste's not showing up so he could read him the riot act, and his work being neglected; with having to listen to no end of gossip that his meddling had brought about, he became the most obstinate problem imaginable about the house. All the love he had pretended for Orlean while on the claim, was now changed to severe chastisement. He no longer fondled and wasted hours over her. She had no longer the convenient check book. The fact that she had to have a little medicine, and that she also had to have other necessities; that she had to eat--and the most of this he was forced to provide, made him so irritable, that those near prayed for the day when he would leave. But if Jean Baptiste would only come so that he could say to him what he had planned to say. Just to have the opportunity to bend that stubborn will--that would be sufficient to repay him for all he was now actually sacrificing.

As for "Little Mother Mary" these were the darkest days of her never happy married life. Of all the men she had met or known, she had truly admired and loved Jean Baptiste more than any other. In truth it was her disposition to be frank, kind and truthful. She dearly loved her son-in-law for his manly frank and kind disposition. She trusted him, and, knowing that Orlean was of her disposition, weak and subservient to the will of those near, she had been relieved to feel that she had married the kind of man that would be patient and love a person with such a disposition.

She had been sincere in her praise of him to her many friends. She had told of him to everybody she knew or met. So much so indeed, that the Reverend on his last trip West in his daily rebuke, then had said: "And Mary has just sickened me with telling everybody she meets about Jean." Ethel had joined with him in this. The truth was that when her mother had sung her praise to the people regarding Jean Baptiste, there was nothing left to say about Glavis, but more especially about the Elder.

What the Reverend was forced to endure at this time, he promptly of course charged to the indiscretions of Jean Baptiste. If he had not done this, or if he had done that, the Elder would not have been forced to endure such annoyance. If he would only show up with his practical ideas in Chicago! Every morning when the door bell rang, he listened eagerly for the voice of his son-in-law. He watched the mail, and in assorting the letters, looked anxiously for the Western postmark. But a week passed, and no letter and no Jean Baptiste. Then at the end of two weeks, the same prevailed. And at the end of three weeks, he knew he would have to go to work or reckon with the bishop.

So on Tuesday of the following week, the Elder left for his work, and that same afternoon, Jean Baptiste arrived in Chicago.

THE GREAT QUESTION

The days that followed after the Elder had taken his wife away, were unhappy days for Jean Baptiste. In his life there were certain things he had held sacred. Chief among these was the marriage vow. While a strong willed, obviously firm sort of person, he was by nature sentimental. He had among his sentiments been an enemy of divorces. Nothing to him was so distasteful as the theory of divorce. He had always conjectured that if a man did not drink, or gamble, or beat his wife there could be no great cause for divorce; whereas, with the woman, if she was not guilty of infidelity a man could find no just cause, on the whole, to ask for a divorce. But whatever the cause be--even a just cause--he disliked the divorcing habit. He persisted in believing that if two people whose lives were linked together would get right down to a careful understanding and an appreciation of each other's sentiments, or points of view, they could find it possible to live together and be happy.

Fancy therefore, how this man must have felt when he arrived at the little house upon the wife's claim and found his grandmother alone. They had taken his wife and all her belongings. He lived in a sort of quandary in the days that followed. His very existence became mechanical. And one day while in this unhappy state, he chanced to find a little sun bonnet that they had evidently overlooked. She had bought it the summer before, and it was too small. But he recalled now that he had thought that it made her look very sweet. How much the bonnet meant to him now! He placed it carefully away, and when he was alone in the house in after days with only her memory as a companion he would get and bring it forth, gaze at it long and tenderly. It seemed to bring back the summer before when he had been hopeful and happy and gay. It brought him more clearly to realize and appreciate what marriage really meant and the sacred vow. And during these hours he would imagine he could see her again; that she was near and from under the little bonnet that was too small he communed with her and he would thereupon hold a mythical conversation, with her as the listener.

Oh, the agony this question gave the man of our story.

Not one serious quarrel had they ever had. Not once had he spoken harshly to her, nor had she been cross with him. Not once had the thought entered his mind that they would part; that they could part; that they would ever wish to part. In the beginning, true, there had been some little difficulties before they had become adjusted to each other's ways. But that had taken only a few months, after which they had gradually become devoted to each other. And so their lives had become. Out there in the "hollow of God's hand," their lives had become assimilated, they had looked forward to the future when there would be the little ones, enlarging their lives and duties.

N. Justine McCarthy!

Oh, the hatred that began to grow--spread and take roots in the breast of this man of the prairie toward the man who had wilfully and deliberately wronged him, wrecked that which was most sacred to him. The days came and went, but that evil, twisting, warping hatred remained; it grew, it continued to grow until his very existence became a burden and a misery. No days were happy days to him. From the moment he awakened in the morning until he was lost in slumbers in the evening, Jean Baptiste knew no peace. While that perpetrator of his unhappiness waited impatiently in Chicago with plans to grind and humiliate him further, this man began to formulate plans also. With all the bitter hatred in his soul against the cause of his unhappiness, his plans were not the plans of "getting even," but merely to see his wife where no subtle influences could hamper her or warp her convictions and reason. He knew that to write to her would be but to prove useless. The letters would be examined and criticized by those around her. He knew that sending her money would be only regarded as an evidence of weakening on his part, and if he was to deal, weakness must have no place. So as to how he might see his wife, and give her an opportunity to appreciate duty, became his daily determination.

The great steam tractor, breaking prairie on his sister's homestead was diligently at its task, and while it turned over from twenty to thirty acres of wild sod each day, it also ate coal like a locomotive. So to it he was kept busy hauling coal over the thirty-five miles from Colome. On the land he was having broken he had arranged to sow flaxseed. For two years preceding this date, crops had been perceptibly shorter, due to drought. Therefore seeds of all kind had attained a much higher price than previously. Flaxseed that he had raised and sold thousands of bushels of in years gone by for one dollar a bushel he was now compelled to pay the sum of .00 a bushel therefor.

So with a steam tractor hired at an average cost of a day; with extra men in addition to be boarded; and with hauling the coal for the tractor himself such a distance and other expenses, Jean Baptiste, unlike his august-father-in-law, had little time or patience to sit around consuming his time and substance perpetrating a game of spite.

But he was positive that he would needs lose his mental balance unless he journey to Chicago and see his wife. Alone she would have time, he conjectured to think, to see and to realize just what she was doing. Why should they be separated? Positively there was nothing and never had been anything amiss between them, was what passed daily through his mind. Well, he decided that he would go to her as soon as he had arranged matters so he could. He was peeved when he recalled that the spring before he had been forced to make a trip to that same city that could as well have been avoided. But when anything had to be done, Jean Baptiste usually went after it and was through. In business where he was pitted against men, this was not difficult, and instead of disliking to face such music, he rather relished the zest it gave him. But when a man is dealing with a snake--for nothing else can a man who would sacrifice his own blood to vanity be likened to, it must be admitted that the task worried Jean Baptiste. If N. Justine McCarthy had been a reader, an observer, and a judge of mankind as well as a student of human nature and its vicissitudes he could have realized that murder was not short for such actions as he was perpetrating. But here again Jean Baptiste was too busy. He had no time to waste in jail--for even if killing the man who had done him such an injury be justified he realized that justice in such cases works slowly. But it would be vain and untruthful to say that with the bitterness in his heart, Jean Baptiste did not reach a point in his mind where he could have slain in cold blood the man with whom he was dealing.

At last came the time when he could be spared from his farm, and to Chicago he journeyed. Positively this was one trip to that city that gave him no joy. He estimated before reaching there, that he should best not call up the house, but bide his time and try to meet his wife elsewhere. But when he arrived in the city, and not being a coward, he dismissed this idea and went directly to the house in Vernon Avenue.

He was met at the door by "Little Mother Mary," who did not greet him as she might have, but for certain reasons. The most she could do even to live in the same atmosphere with her husband was to pretend to act in accordance with his sentiments. Baptiste followed her back to the rear room where she took a seat and he sat down beside her. She had uttered no word of greeting, but he came directly to the point. "Where is Orlean?"

"She's out."

"Out where?"

"She just walked out into the street."

"How is she?"

"Better than when she came home," meaningly.

"Well?"

"But I am not here to argue whereof. I am here to see her."

"But she's out."

"However, she'll return, I hope. If not, then, where might I find her?"

"She'll return presently."

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