VANITY

"MY FATHER is home, and, oh! but he did carry on when he was informed regarding my trip West to take the homestead," Orlean wrote her betrothed in her next letter. "He was so much upset over it that he went out of the house and walked in the street for a time to still his intense excitement. When he returned, however, he listened to my explanation, and, after a time, I was pleased to note that he was pacified. And still later he was pleased, and when a half day had passed he was tickled to death.

"Of course I was relieved then also, and now I am fully satisfied. I have not written you as soon as I should have on this account. I thought it would be best to wait until papa had heard the news and was settled on the matter, which he now is. He has written you and I think you should receive the letter about the same time you will this. He has never been anxious in his simple old heart for me to marry, but of course he understands that I must some day, and now that I am engaged to you, he appears to be greatly pleased.

"By the way, I have not received the ring yet, and am rather anxious. Of course I wish to be quite reasonable, but on the whole, a girl hardly feels she's engaged until she is wearing the ring, you know. Write me a real sweet letter, and make it long. In the meantime remember me as one who thinks a great deal of you,

"From your fond,

"Orlean."

Baptiste heard from his father-in-law-to-be in due time, and read the letter carefully, replying to the same forthwith.

We should record before going further that the incident which had happened between them in his youth had been almost as completely buried as it had been before the day of its recent resurrection. In his reply he stated that he would come into the city Xmas, which meant of course, that they would meet and come to understand each other better. He was glad that the formalities were in part through with, and would be glad when it was over. He did not appreciate so much ado where so little was represented, as it were. He had it from good authority without inquiry that the Reverend McCarthy had never possessed two hundred dollars at one time in his life, and the formalities he felt compelled to go through with far exceeded that amount already. And with this in mind he began gathering his corn crop which he had been delayed in doing on account of the stress of other more urgent duties.

He had been at work but a few days when snow began to fall. For days it fell from a northwesterly direction, and then turning, for a week came from an easterly direction. This kept up until the holidays arrived, therefore most of the corn crop over all the country was caught and remained in the field all the winter through. By the hardest work his sister and grandmother succeeded in reaching his place from their homesteads, and stayed there while he went into Chicago.

"Mr. Baptiste, please meet my father," said Orlean when he called, following his arrival in the city again. He looked up to find a tall, dark but handsome old man extending his hand. He regarded him, studied him carefully in a flash, and in doing so his mind went back twenty years; to a memorable day when he had been punished and had followed it by running away. He extended his hand and grasped the other's, and wondered if he also remembered.... They exchanged greetings, and if the other recalled him, he gave no evidence of the fact in his expression.

When he had sat beside the teacher, such a long time before, Baptiste recalled now, that at the back of the other's head there had been a white spot where the hair was changing color; but now this spot spread over all the head, and the hair was almost as white as snow. With his dark skin, this formed a contrast that gave the other a distinguished appearance which was noticeably striking. But his eyes did not meet with Baptiste's favor, though he was not inclined to take this seriously. But as he continued to glance at him at times during the evening he did not fail to see that the other seemed never to look straight and frankly into his eyes; and there was in his gaze and expression when he met Baptiste,—so Baptiste thought—a peculiar lurking, as if some hidden evil were looking out of the infinite depths of the other's soul. It annoyed Baptiste because every time he caught the other's gaze he recalled the incident of twenty years before, and wanted to forget it; declared he would forget it, and to that task he set himself, and apparently succeeded while in the city.

With Ethel and her husband, whose name was Glavis, he never got along at all. Ethel was pompous, and known to be disagreeable; while Glavis was narrow, and a victim of his wife's temper and disposition. So unless the talk was on society and "big" Negroes, which positively did not interest Jean Baptiste, who was practical to the superlative, there was no agreement.

So when Jean Baptiste returned West, he was conscious of a great relief.

The severe winter passed at last and with early spring everybody completed the gathering of the corn and immediately turned to seeding their crops. Work was plentiful everywhere, and to secure men to complete gathering his crop of corn, Baptiste had the greatest difficulty. Stewarts had failed to secure any land at all—either of the four in the drawing, and, being unable to purchase relinquishments on even one quarter at the large sum demanded therefor, had gone toward the western part of the state and taken free homesteads. As for Agnes, she had apparently passed out of his life.

He labored so hard in the cold, wet muddy fields in trying to get his corn out that he was taken ill, and was not able to work at all for days, and while so, he wrote his fiancÉe his troubles; and that since he was so indisposed, with a world of work and expense upon him she would do him a great favor if she would consent to come to him and be married.

Now the McCarthys had given Ethel a big wedding although her husband received only thirteen dollars a week for his work. Two hundred dollars, so it was reported, had been expended on the occasion. Such display did not appeal to the practical mind of Jean. He had lived his life too closely in accomplishing his purpose to become at this late day a victim of such simple vanity; the ultra simple vanity of aping the rich. Upon this point his mind was duly set. The McCarthys had started to buy a home the summer before which was quite expensive, and had entered into the contract with a payment of three hundred dollars. The Reverend had borrowed a hundred dollars on his life insurance and paid this in, while Glavis had paid another. Ethel had used what money she had saved teaching, to expend in the big wedding, so Orlean had paid the other hundred out of the money she had saved teaching school.

Now, if there was any big wedding for Orlean, then he, Jean Baptiste, knew that he would be expected to stand the expense. Therefore, Baptiste tried to make plain to Orlean in his letters the gravity of his position. She would be compelled to establish residence on her homestead early in May, and this was April, or forfeit her right and sacrifice all he had put into it.

But Orlean became unreasonable—Jean Baptiste reasoned. She set forth that she did not think it right for her to go away out there and marry him; that he should come to her. She seemed to have lost sense of all he had written her, regarding the crops, responsibilities, and other considerations. He wrote her to place it up to her mother and father, which she did, to reply in the same tenor. They had not agreed to it, either. He replied then heatedly, and hinted that her father was not a business man else he would have realized his circumstances, and, as man to man, appreciated the same.

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.