The Homesteader: A Novel

  CHAPTER II

  WHICH?

  Jean Baptiste returned to the West after two months' travel through theEast, and the spring following, sowed a large crop of small grain andreaped a bountiful yield that fall. About this time the county just westof where he lived was opened to settlement, and a still larger crowdthan had registered for the land in the county he lived came hither andsought a quarter section.

  The opening passed to the day of the drawing, and when all the luckynumbers had secured their filings, contracts for the purchases ofrelinquishments began. By this time the lands had reached great values,and that which he had purchased a short time before for twenty dollarsthe acre, had by this time reached the value of fifty dollars the acre.And now he had an opportunity of increasing his possessions to thenumber coveted, one thousand acres.

  He had paid a visit to his parents that winter, and found his sisters,who were mere children when he had left home, grown to womanhood, andold enough to take claims. So with them he had discussed the matter.Inspired by his great success, they were all heart and soul to followhis bidding; so thereupon it was agreed that he would try to securethree relinquishments on good quarters, and upon one or more of thesethey would make filings.

  His grandmother, who had raised a family in the days of slavery agreedand was anxious to file on one; one sister on another, and the thirdplace,--was to be his bride's.

  By doing this, he could have her use her homestead right, providing shefiled on the claim before marrying him. So it was planned. But JeanBaptiste knew no girl that he could ask to become his wife, thereforethis was yet to be. When he had given up his real love to be loyal tohis race, he had determined on one thing: that marriage was a business,even if it was supposed to be inspired by love. But when Agnes was leftout, he loved no one. Therefore it must be resolved into a businessproposition--and the love to come after.

  So, resigned to the fact, he set himself to choose a wife.

  On his trip East the winter before he met two persons with whom he hadsince corresponded. One, the first, was a young man not long out of anagricultural college whose father was a great success as a potatogrower. He and Jean became intimate friends. It now so happened that theone mentioned had a sister, and through him Jean Baptiste was introducedto her by mail.

  Correspondence followed and by this time it had become very agreeable.She proved to be a very logical young woman, and Jean Baptiste wasfavorably impressed. She was, moreover, industrious, ambitious, and welleducated. Her age was about the same as his, so on the surface hethought that they should make a very good match. So be it.

  In the meantime, however, he had opened a correspondence with anotherwhom he had met on his trip the winter before where she had beenteaching in a coal mining town south of Chicago. The same had developedmutually, and he had found her agreeable and obviously eligible. Herfather was a minister, a dispenser of the gospel, and while for reasonswe will become acquainted with in due time, he had cultivated smallacquaintance with preachers, he took only such slight consideration ofthe girl's father's profession that he had good cause to recall sometime later.

  About the time he was deeply engrossed in his correspondence with boththe farmer's daughter and the young school teacher, he received a letterfrom a friend in Chicago introducing him to a lady friend of hersthrough mail. This one happened to be a maid on the Twentieth CenturyLimited, running between New York and Chicago. Well, Jean Baptiste waslooking for a wife. Sentiment was in order, but it was with him, firstof all, a business proposition. So be it. He would give her too achance.

  He was somewhat ashamed of himself when he addressed three letters whenperhaps, he should have been addressing but one. It was not fair toeither of the three, he guiltily felt; but, business was business withhim.

  From his friend's sister he received most delightful epistles, notaltogether frivolous, with a great amount of common sense between thelines. But what was more to the point, her father was wealthy, and shemust have some conception of what was required to accumulate and tohold. He rather liked her, it now seemed.

  Now from the preacher's daughter he received also pleasing letters.Encouraging, but not to say unconventionally forward. He appreciated thefact that she was a preacher's child, and naturally expected to conformto a certain custom.

  But from New York he received the most encouragement. The position themaid held rather thrilled him. He loved the road--and she wrote suchletters! It was plain to be seen here what the answer would be.

  Which?

  He borrowed ten thousand dollars, giving a mortgage upon his land insecurity therefor. He purchased relinquishments upon three beautifulquarter sections of land in the county lying just to the west. The same,having to be homesteaded before title was acquired, had all ready beenin part arranged for. His grandmother and sister were waiting to file ona place each--the third was for the bride-to-be. There remained a fewweeks yet in which to make said selection; but, notwithstanding, allmust be ready to make filing not later than the first day ofOctober--and September at last arrived.

  He became serious, then uneasy. Which? He wrote all three letters thatwould give either or all a right to hear the words from him, but did notsay sufficient to any to give grounds for a possible breach of promisesuit later.

  He rather liked the girl whose father had made money. Yes, it soseemed--more than either of the other two. A match with her on thesurface seemed more practical. But for some reason she did not replywithin the time to the letter he had written her. Oh, if he could onlyhave courted her; could have been in the position to have seen her of awarm night; to have said to her: "----." Poor Jean Baptiste your lifemight not have later come to what it did....

  He waited--but in vain. October was drawing dangerously near when atlast he left for somewhere. Indeed he had not a complete idea where, butof one thing he had concluded, when he returned he would bring thebride-to-be.

  At Omaha he made up his mind. The girl whose father had made money hadhad her chance and failed. He regretted it very much, but this was abusiness proposition, and he had two thousand dollars at stake that hewould lose if he failed to get some one to file on that quarter sectionhe had provided, on October first.

  He was rather disturbed over the idea. He really would have preferred alittle more sentiment--but time had become the expedient. "Of course,"he argued, as he sped toward Chicago, "I'll be awfully good to the one Ichoose, so if it is a little out of the ordinary--why, I'll try to makeup for it when she is mine."

  With this consolation he arrived in Chicago, wishing that the girl wholived two hundred miles south of Omaha and whose father was well-to-dohad replied to his letter. He really had chosen her out of the three.However, he resigned himself to the inevitable--one of the other two.

  He left the train and boarded the South Side L. He got off again atThirty-first Street, and found what he had always found before, StateStreet and Negroes. He was not interested in either this time. He hadsent a telegram to New York from Omaha to the effect that he was headedfor Chicago. It was to the maid, for she had drawn second choice. Heplanned to meet her at the number her dear friend--and the match maker,lived.

  So it was to this number he now hurried.

  "Oh, Mr. Baptiste," cried this little woman, whose name happened to beRankin, and she was an old maid. She gave him her little hand, and was"delighted" to see him.

  "And you've come! Miss Pitt will be so glad! She has talked of nobodybut Mr. Baptiste this summer. Oh, I'm so glad you have come!" and sheshook his hand again.

  "I sent her a telegram that I was coming, and I trust she will let meknow...."

  "She is due in tomorrow," cried their little friend, and her voice waslike delicate music.

  "I expect a telegram," he said evenly. "I am somewhat rushed."

  "Indeed! But of course, you are a business man, Mr. Baptiste," chimedMiss Rankin with much admiration in her little voice. "How Miss Pittwill like you!"

  Jean Baptiste smiled a smile of vanity. He was getting anxious t
o meetMiss Pitt himself--inasmuch as he expected to ask her to become his wifeon the morrow.

  "Ting-aling-aling!" went the bell on the street door, and little MissRankin rushed forth to open it.

  "Special for Mr. Jean Baptiste," he heard and went to get it. Aftersigning, he broke the seal a little nervously, and drawing the contentsforth, read the enclosed message.

  He sighed when it was over. Miss Pitt had been taken with a severeattack of neuralgia in New York, was indisposed and under the care of aphysician, but would be in Chicago in six days. He studied the calendaron the wall. Six days would mean October second!

  Too late, Miss Pitt, your chance is gone. And now we turn to the partyof the third part who will follow us through our story.

  From a painting by W.M. Farrow.

  "MISS PITT WAS SO ANXIOUS TO MEET YOU AND I WAS, TOO, BECAUSE I THINKYOU AND HER WOULD LIKE EACH OTHER. SHE'S AN AWFULLY GOOD GIRL ANDWILLING TO HELP A FELLOW."]