CHAPTER V
"TELL ME WHY YOU DIDN'T ANSWER THE LAST LETTER I WROTE YOU"
"Now I wish you would tell me all about yourself, that is, all you_care_ to tell," said Irene Grey to the man who sat beside her on theveranda of their beautiful home, some time after luncheon had beenserved. "I have always been peculiarly interested in you and your lifealone off there in the Northwest," whereupon she made herselfcomfortable and prepared to listen.
"Oh," he said hesitatingly, thinking of the series of dry years andtheir attendant disaster, and hoping that he could find some way ofavoiding a conversation in which that was involved. "I really don'tconsider there is much to relate. My life has been rather--well, in ameasure uneventful."
"Oh, but it hasn't, I know," she protested. "All alone you were for somany years, and you have been, so I have been told, an untiring worker."She was anxious, he could see, but withal sincere, and in the course ofthe afternoon, she told him of how her father had came to Kansas a poorman, bought the land now a part of what they owned on payments, foundthat raising potatoes was profitable--especially when they were readyfor the early market, and later after his marriage to her mother, andwith her mother's assistance, had succeeded. From where they sat, theirproperty stretched before them in the valley of the Kaw, and comprisedseveral hundred acres of the richest soil in the state. Indeed, hissuccess was widely known, and Jean Baptiste had been rather curious toknow the family intimately.
After some time he walked with her through three hundred acres ofpotatoes that lay in the valley before the house, and he had for thefirst time in his life, the opportunity to study potato raising on alarge scale.
"From your conversation it seems that you raise potatoes on the sameground every year. I am curious to know how this is done, for even onthe blackest soil in the country I live, this is regarded as quiteimpossible with any success."
"Well, it is generally so; but we have found that to plow the land afterthe potatoes have been dug, and then seed the same in turnips ispractical. When the turnips, with their wealth of green leaves are attheir best, then, we plow them under and the freezing does the rest."
"A wonderful mulch!"
"It is very simple when one looks into it." They were walking throughthe fields, and without her knowing it, he studied her. The kind of girland the kind of family his race needed, he could see. In his observationof the clan to which he had been born, practicability was the greatestneed. Indeed he was sometimes surprised that his race could be soimpracticable. Further west in this State, his uncles, who, like allNegroes previous to the emancipation, had been born slaves, had goneWest in the latter seventies and early eighties, and settled on land.With time this land had mounted to great values and the holders had beenmade well-to-do thereby. A case of evolution, on all sides. Over all theCentral West, this had been so. At the price land now brought it wouldhave been impossible for any to own land. There happened, then as hadrecently, a series of dry years--seemingly about every twenty years. Topull through such a siege, the old settlers usually did much betterthan the new. To begin with, they were financially better able; but onthe other hand, they did not, as a rule, take the chances new settlerswere inclined to take. Because two or three years were seasonable, andcrops were good, they did not become overly enthusiastic and plungedeeply into debt as he had done. He could see his error now, and thechances new settlers were inclined to take. Because moreover, he hadbeen so much alone--his wedded life had been so brief, and even duringit, he was confused so much with disadvantages, that he had neverattempted to subsidize his farming with stock raising. Perhaps this hadbeen his most serious mistake; to have had a hundred head of cattleduring such a period as had just passed, would have been to have gonethrough it without disaster.
He felt rather guilty as he strolled beside this girl whose father hadsucceeded. But one thing he would not do, and that was make excuses. Hehad ever been opposed to excusing away his failures. If he had failed,he had failed, no excuses should be resorted to. But as they strolledthrough the fields of potatoes he could not help observe the contrastbetween the woman he had married, and the one now beside him that hemight have had for wife. Here was one, and he did not know her so wellas to conclude what kind of girl in all things she was, but it was aself evident fact that she was practical. Whereas, he had only to recallthat not only had his wife been impractical, but that her father beforeher had been so. He recalled that awful night before he had taken heraway, at Colome, when that worthy when he chanced to use the wordpractical, had exclaimed: "I'm so tired of hearing that word I do notknow what to do!" and it was seconded by his cohort in evil, Ethel.
His race was filled with such as N.J. McCarthy, he knew; but not onlywere they hypocrites, and in a measure enemies to success but enemies tosociety as well. How many were there in his race who purported to besacrificing their very soul for the cause of Ethiopia but when so littleas medical aid was required in their families, called in a whitephysician to administer the same. This had been the case of his augustfather-in-law all his evil life.
"Would you like to walk down by the river?" she said now, and looked upinto his face. She had been silent while he was so deeply engrossed inthought, and upon hearing her voice he started abruptly.
"What--why--what's the matter?" she inquired anxiously.
"Nothing," he said quickly, coloring guiltily. "I was just thinking."
"Of what?" she asked artfully.
"Of you," he said evasively.
"No, you weren't," she said easily. "On the contrary, I venture tosuggest that you were thinking of yourself, your life and what it hasbeen."
"You are psychological."
"But I have guessed correctly, haven't I?"
"I'm compelled to agree that you have."
They had reached the river now, and took a seat where they could lookout over its swiftly moving waters.
"Frankly I wish you would tell me of your life," she said seriously. "Mybrother who, as you know is now dead, told me so much of you. Indeed, hewas so very much impressed with you and your ways. He used to tell me ofwhat an extraordinary character you were, and I was so anxious to meetyou."
He was silent, but she was an unconventionally bold person. She wascurious, and the more he was silent on such topics, the more anxious shebecame to know the secret that he held.
"I appreciate your silence," she said, and gave him the spell of herwonderful eyes. Stretched there under a walnut she was the picture ofenchantment. Almost he wanted to forget the years and what had passedwith them since she wrote him that letter that he had received too late.
"I want to ask you one question--have wanted to ask it for years," shepursued. "I want to ask it because, somehow, I am not able to regard youas a flirt." She paused then, and regarded him with her quick eyes,expectantly. But he made no answer, so she went on. "From what _I_ haveheard, I think I may be free to discuss this," and she paused again,with her eyes asking that she may.
He nodded.
"Well, of course," she resumed, as if glad that she might tell what wasin her mind. "It is not--should not be the woman to ask it, either; butwon't you tell me why you didn't answer the last letter I wroteyou--tell me why you _didn't_ come on the visit you suggested?"
He caught his breath sharply, whereat, she looked up and into his eyes.His lips had parted, but merely to exclaim, but upon quick thought hehad hesitated.
"Yes?"
"I heard you."
"Well?"
"I hardly know how to answer you."
"Please."
"Don't insist on a reply."
"I don't want to, but--"
"I'd rather not tell."
"Well, I don't know as I ought to have asked you. It was perhapsunladylike in me so to do; but honestly I _would_ like to know thetruth."
He permitted his eyes to rest on the other bank, and as a pastime hepicked up small pebbles and cast them into the river, and watched theripples they made subside. He thought long and deeply. He had almostforgotten the
circumstances that led up to the unfortunate climax. She,by his side, he estimated, was merely curious. Should he confess? Wouldit be worth while? Of course it would not; but at this moment he felther hand on his arm.
"We'll go now."
They arose then, and went between the rows of potatoes back to thehouse. When they arrived there was some excitement, and she was greetedanxiously.
"Papa has returned," said one of the boys, coming to meet them.
"Oh, he has," whereupon she caught his hand and led him hurriedly intothe presence of the man who was widely known as Junius N. Grey, theNegro Potato King.