"UNTIL THEN"

IT DID NOT rain the night Jean Baptiste went to Winner to meet the wife who failed to come, but the protracted drought continued on into July. For three weeks into this month it burned everything in its path. From Canada to Kansas, the crops were almost burned to a crisp, while in the country of our story proper, only the winter wheat, and rye, and some of the oats matured. And this was confined principally to the county where Jean Baptiste had homesteaded. Here a part of a crop of small grain was raised, but everything else was a failure.

His flaxseed crop in Tripp County which had given some promise if rain should come in time, had now fallen along with all else, and when he saw it next, after his trip to Winner, it was a scattered mass of sickly stems, with army worms everywhere cutting the stems off at the ground. The whole country as a result, was facing a financial panic. Interest would be hard to raise—and this, in view of the fact that the year before had seen less than half a crop produced, was not a cheerful prospect. With Baptiste, and others who had gone in heavily, disaster became a possibility; and, unless a radical change intervened, disaster appeared as an immediate probability.

During these days there was little to do. He had harvested what little crop he had raised, and having no hauling or anything, to engage him he found going fishing his only diversion. And it was at about this time that he received a letter. It bore the postmark of the town where he had met his wife in the beginning, and read:

"My dear Jean:

"I thought I would be bold this once and write you, since it is a fact that you are on my mind a great deal. You will, of course, remember me when I mention that it was in my home that you met your wife. Rather, the woman you married, whom, I suppose, from what I hear, has not proven very faithful. I daresay that your trip to my home that day was the beginning of this episode. But it is of him, the Reverend, her father, of whom I wish to speak.

"He used to speak of you. You see this town is in his itinerary, and I therefore, see him quite often. In fact, he is quite well known to me, and visits my home, and has been here recently. He was here just a week ago yesterday before going into Chicago, and I asked about you. He ups with his head when I did so, and I estimated that the trouble that is supposed to be between you and Orlean, is possibly between him and yourself.

"Well, you see, it is like this. After you married Orlean, we could hear nothing from him but you. You were the most wonderful, the most vigorous, the wealthiest—in fact you were everything according to his point of view. He preached of you in the pulpit; he set you up as the standard and model for other young men to follow. Therefore, you must imagine our surprise when almost over night you had changed so perceptibly. From everything a man should be—or try to be, as a young man, you became the embodiment of all a man should not be. Now it is rather singular. Apparently the Elder must have been possessed with very poor judgment to begin with, or you must have become in a few weeks an awfully bad man.

"Well, I don't know what to say; but in as much as I have known you some little time—before you met Orlean in the house where I write this, I cannot conceive or realize how you could change so quickly. But what is more to the point—I have known the august Elder even longer than I have you—know him since I have been large enough to[Pg 341] know anybody, and I have known him always to be as he is yet. One wonders how such men can have the conscience to preach and tell people to live right, to do right, so they may be prepared to die right. But somehow we take the Elder's subtle conduct down this way as a matter of course. We think no more—I daresay not as much—of what he does in that way than we would the most common man in town. But it is too bad that his daughter must suffer for his evil. Orlean is a good girl, but she has been raised to regard that old father as a criterion of righteousness, regardless of the life he does, and always has lived. But withal, honestly, I do feel so sorry for you. I am aware that this letter and the nature of its contents is unsolicited, but it is and has been in my heart to say it. I really feel that it is no more than honest to protest against in some manner, the wrong that man is practicing. But to the point.

"The last time he was here, and mama asked him about you, and he was made angry because of it, he remarked among the discredits he endeavored to pay the country and you, that there was no church for her to attend. I remarked that you had said you attended the white churches. Thereupon he became very demonstrative. He said you did attend the white churches, and had taken her, but that you went to the Catholic church where there was, of course, no religion in the sense to which she had been raised. I hardly knew how to reply to or counter this, but I thought that if you had, and she had belonged to the Catholic church, how easy it would be now for you to lay your cause before the priest and have it considered. But if you did such before the ministers of his church—oh, well, I am saying too much.

"And only now have I arrived at the event I choose to relate. It is always so when one chooses to gossip, to forget the things that may be of real interest. Well, word has come that the Elder was taken violently ill in Chicago the other day, and grave fears are held of his recovery. I hear that he is very low, and perhaps the Lord might see fit to remove a stumbling block....[Pg 342]

"I must close. I am sure I have bored you with such a long letter and so much gossip; but I have at least satisfied my own conscience. So hoping that all comes out well with you in the end, believe me to be,

"Your dear friend,

"Jessie Mansfield."

It so happened that the exhausted Jean Baptiste turned to the hope that illness might claim his enemy, and he exchanged letters with Jessie Mansfield, regularly, and after a time, found her correspondence a great diversion.

And so the summer passed. Near the last days of July the severe drought was broken, but too late to benefit the crops which had been so badly burned by the drought. He managed to get considerable land into winter wheat, and the fall came on with only a crop of debts and overdue bills that made him regard the mail box dubiously.

Winter followed, one of the coldest ever known, and spring was approaching when Jean Baptiste decided to make his last attempt for a reunion with his wife.

In all the months that had followed his previous trip he had planned that if he could only see her, could only see her and be alone with her for a day, they would abridge the chasm that had been forced because of the Reverend. That one had not obliged him by dying by any means, but had regained his health in a measure, so Baptiste read in the letters he received from Jessie. However, she wrote, it seemed that something had come over him, for he was not the same. He had lost much of his great flesh, wore a haggard expression, and seemed to be weighted down with some strange burden.

It was April again when at last he took the train for Chicago, for the last time, he decided, on the same mission that had taken him there twice before. He planned now, to exercise more discretion. Inasmuch as the Reverend was as a rule, always out of the city, he trusted to fate that he would be out this time. The bitterness that had grown up in his heart toward the Elder, he feared, might make him forget to observe the law of the land if he chanced to encounter that adversary. So when he arrived in the great city, he went about the task of seeing his wife under cover.

He first visited a barber shop. He happened into one near Van Buren on State Street, where lady barbers did the trimming. He did not find them efficient, and was glad when he left the chair. He decided that he would act through Mrs. Pruitt, who he had heard from the fall before, and who was being charged along with Mrs. McCarthy, as being the cause of all the trouble.

He had not written her that he was coming, calculating that it would be best for her not to have too long to think it over. Upon leaving the barber shop, he ventured up State Street, through the notorious section of the "old tenderloin" to Taylor Street, and presently turned and discovered himself in the Polk and Dearborn Street station. He found that slipping about the street under cover like a sneak thief was much against his grain, and he was nervous. In all the months he had contemplated the trip, he had taken great care not to let Ethel or any of the family know in advance of his coming. He wanted his wife. The agony of living alone, the dreaded suspense, the long journey and the gradual breaking down of what he had built up, played havoc with his nerves, and he was trembling perceptibly when he took a seat in the station. He encountered a man upon arrival there, whom he had known years before, and because he had been so intent on keeping out of sight, the recognition by the other frightened him. He managed to control himself with an effort, and greeted the other casually. However, he was relieved when he recalled that the other knew nothing of his relations—not even that he had ever married.

After he felt his nerves sufficiently calm, he ventured to the telephone booth, and secured Mrs. Pruitt's number. He paused briefly before calling her to steady his nerves, and then got her in due time.

"Hello, Mrs. Pruitt," He called.

"Hello," came back, and he caught the surprise in her voice. "Is it you?" she asked, and he noted that her voice was trembling.

"Yes," he called back nervously. "Do you recognize my voice?"

"Yes," he heard, and the uneasiness with which she answered discouraged him. He had great faith in Mrs. Pruitt. Notwithstanding the gossip that connected her name with the Elder's she was regarded as a woman of unusual ability and mental force. She was speaking again in a very low tone of voice. Almost in a whisper.

"Listen," said she. "Call this same number in about ten minutes, understand? Yes. Do that. I'll explain later."

He sat before the clock now, in the station, and watched the minutes pass. They seemed like hours. He was now aware that the strain of these months of grief and eternal mortification, had completely unnerved him. His composure was like that of an escaped convict with the guards near. His heart beat so loud until he looked around in cold fear wondering whether those near heard it. And all the while he sat in this nervous quandary, he kept repeating over, and over again: "Mrs. Pruitt, Mrs. Pruitt—surely even you have not gone back on me, too. Oh, Mrs. Pruitt, you can't understand what it means to me, what I have suffered,—the agony, the disgrace—the hell!" He regarded the telephone booth before him and his eyes were like glass. All the busy station was a hubbub. After what seemed to him an eternal waiting, he was slightly relieved to see that fifteen minutes had passed, and he got up and slipped back into the booth and called Mrs. Pruitt.

"Yes, I'm here, Jean", she called, "and the reason I told you to call later was that your people—your father-in-law is right here in the house at this moment. He was sitting right here by the 'phone when you called awhile ago, so now you understand."

"Oh," he cried, his head swimming, and everything grew dark around him. After one long year of agony, of eternal damnation, one long year of waiting and suspense, he had banked his chances, and encountered his enemy the first thing. Right under the telephone he had been! Jean Baptiste who had once been a strong, brave and fearless man, was now trembling from head to foot.

"Now, Jean," he heard Mrs. Pruitt. "I understand everything. You are here to see and get Orlean if you can; but you want to do so without them knowing anything about it, and I agree with you. You wish me to help you, and I will. I'll do anything to right this terrible wrong, but give me time to plan, to think! In the meantime, he is so near that it is not safe for me to talk with you any longer. So you go somewhere, and come back, say: in about an hour. If he is still here, I will say: 'this is the wrong number,' Get it?"

"Yes, Mrs. Pruitt," he replied, controlling the storm of weakness that was passing over him. "I get you."

"Very well, until then."

"Until then," he called, and hung up the receiver.