The Homesteader: A Novel

by Oscar Micheaux

  CHAPTER IX

  WHAT THE PEOPLE WERE SAYING

  N.J. McCarthy arrived in the city late on Friday afternoon and was metby both his daughters. Ethel had, of course, read the letters JeanBaptiste had written his wife requesting her to return home, and so shetook Orlean with her to meet her father, instead of permitting her to goto the station to return to the husband who had asked for her. The Elderwas due in about the same time the train that would have taken OrleanWest was due out.

  "Ah-ha," he cried as he stepped from the car. "And both my babies havecome to meet their father! That is the way my children act. Alwaysobedient to their father. Yes, yes. Never have contraried or disobeyedhim," a compliment he meant for Orlean, but Ethel could share it thisonce, although the times she had contraried or sauced him would havebeen hard to recount.

  Upon arriving home, they met Glavis just returning from work, and he wasalso greeted in the same effusive manner by the Reverend.

  "And how is everything about the home, my son?" asked the Elder in a bigvoice. At the same time he eyed Glavis critically. He had come to thecity with and for a purpose, and that purpose was to put down early theintimacy that had been reported as growing up between Glavis andBaptiste. So he had planned to attend to it diplomatically.

  "Why everything is alright, father," glabbed Glavis, grinning broadlyand showing his teeth. He was ever affected by the other's lordlyism,and he had never tried matching his wits with those of the other's in anextraordinary manner. The Elder was aware of this, and it made himrather grateful. However, he regarded the other closely as Glavisstepped about in quick attention to his possible needs or desires. Thatwas as he had hoped to have both his sons-in-law, wherefore his teamwould have been complete. It made him sigh now regretfully when herecalled how he had failed in the one case. He gave up momentarily to asiege of self pity. How different it would have been had Jean Baptistechosen to admire him as Glavis apparently did. But--and he straightenedup perceptibly when it occurred to him, instead of being as Glavis was,the other had chosen to be independent, to call him "Judge," "Colonel,""Reverend," and "Elder" and any other vulgar title he happened to thinkof on the moment. Moreover, he had also chosen to ask him a thousandquestions about things he did not understand--that was the trouble,though the Elder had not seen it that way--asking him questions aboutthings he did not understand. The Elder saw it as "impudent." He saw andregarded that persistency which had been the making of the man in JeanBaptiste as "hardheadedness." He regarded that tenacity to stick toanything in the other, sufficient to characterize "a bulldog."

  "M-m, my boy," he said now to Glavis. "You are certainly a fine youngman, just fine, fine, fine!" He paused briefly while Glavis couldswallow the flattery, and then went on: "Never in the thirty years Ihave been a minister of the gospel and been compelled to be away fromhome in God's work, has it ever been like it has since you marriedEthel. I simply do not have to worry at all now; whereas, I used tohave to worry all the time." Whereupon he paused again, affected alordly sigh, and permitted Glavis to become inflated with vanity beforegoing on.

  "Now, before you married Ethel, I was a little dubious." He always saidthis for a purpose. "I am so well informed and understand men so well,and the ways of men, until I was hesitant to risk trusting you with mydaughter's love. You will understand how it is when you have raisedchildren with the care I have exercised in the training of my preciousdarlings. A man cannot be too careful, and for that reason, I wasdubious regarding her marrying you. Besides, we, I think you understand,are among the best colored people of the city of Chicago, and the Stateof Illinois, so it behooved me to exercise discretion."

  "Yes, father," Glavis swallowed. He felt then the dignity of hisposition as a member of such a distinguished family.

  "Well," went on the other, "you know how much grief I must be enduringwhen I see this poor baby," pointing to Orlean, "as she is. The finestgirl that ever trod the earth, and my heart always, and then to see herdragged down to this, and all this attendant gossip, grieves my oldheart," whereupon big tears rolled down his dark face. All those aboutsighed in sympathy and were silent.

  "Oh, it's a shame, a shame, my father, it is a shame!" he cried betweensobs. "Oh, his immortal soul! Come in here like a thief in the night,and with his dirty tongue just deliberately stole her from her goodhome--her an innocent child to go out into that wilderness and sacrificeher poor soul to make him rich!" He ended with the eloquence that hisyears of preaching had given him. He shed more tears of mortification,and resumed:

  "And my wife, her own mother, was a party to it!" He was killing twobirds with one stone now. Nothing was more gratifying to him than toseize every possible opportunity to place all his failures, all hisshortcomings, all his blunders, and last, but not least, all the resultsof his evil nature, on the shoulders of his little helpless wife. Foryears--aye, since he had taken her as wife, had it been so. Never hadshe shared even in reflected light the honors that had come to him. Shedid as he requested, and endeavored to please him in every way. The lovehe had given her was an affected love. It was not from his heart. He hadgiven her little that was due her as his wife.

  "I went out there," he went on, "to find this child lying there in thebed with only his sister and grandmother to look after her. The doctorwas coming twice a day, but that man asked him, when she could but openher eyes, whether such was necessary; and that when it wasn't, then tocome but once. I sat there by her bed, I, her poor old father, andnursed her back to life from the brink of death, the death that surelywould have come had it not been for me. And when she was well enough, Iwent to all the expense of bringing her out of that wilderness back toher home and health.

  "And for that, for all that I have sacrificed, what am I given? Credit?Well, I guess not! I am being slandered; I'm being vilified by evilpeople--and right in my own church! Think of it! For thirty years I havepreached the law of the gospel and saved so many souls from hell, andnow, now when my poor old head is white and my soul is grieved with theevil that has come into my home, I am vilified!

  "No longer than last week, I was approached by a woman, a womanpurporting to be a child of God, but who ups to me and said: 'ReverendMac., what is the matter with your daughter and the man she married? Ihear they are parted?' I was so put out that I did not attempt toanswer, but just regarded her coldly. But did that stop her mouth? Well,I guess not! She went right on as flip as she could be: 'Well, you know,Reverend, there is all kinds of reports about to various effects. One isthat you didn't like him because of his independent ways, and because hewas successful, and he didn't take much stock in you because he didn'tlike the way you had lived. And then there's other reports that he madean enemy of you because he didn't praise and flatter you, and that youdid it to "get even." They say that you had your daughter to sign herhusband's name to a check for a large sum of money and used it to slipaway from him and so on. But the one thing that everybody seems to beagreed upon is, that there was nothing whatever wrong between thecouple, and that they had never quarreled and never had thought ofparting. That all the trouble is between you and your son-in-law.'

  "I had stood her gab about as long as I could, I was so angry. So all Icould say was: 'Woman, in the name of heaven, get you away from mebefore I forget I am a minister of the gospel and you a woman!' Butbefore she had even observed how angry I was, she ups and says: 'Why,now, Elder, as much as you love the ladies, and then you'd abuse a poorwoman like me,' and right there, after such a tonguing as she had letout, fell to crying!

  "Those are some of the things I must endure, my son, in this work. Imust endure slander, vilification, misunderstanding, and all that. It'sterrible."

  "People are certainly ungrateful," cried Ethel at this point. "And theydon't try to learn the truth about anything before they start theirrotten gossip. More, they have nerve with it! A certain woman stopped meon the street downtown the other day, a woman who claims to have been myfriend and a friend of our family for years. And what do you think shehad the nerve to say to me?
Well, here's what it was, and I _hope_ shesaid it: 'Why, Ethel, how is Orlean?' I replied that she was gettingbetter. She says: 'Is she sick physically, or mentally?' I said: 'Idon't understand you?' She looked at me kind of funny as she replied,'Why, don't _you_ know, Ethel Glavis, that it's the talk aroundChicago--everybody is saying it, that you and your father went out Westthere, and made her forge his name to a check for a large sum of moneyand for spite and spite only, took poor Orlean away from her husband andcame back here and spread all this gossip about her being sick andneglected when the doctor had come to see her every day? I know JeanBaptiste and I have not lived in this world for thirty-five years andnot able yet to understand people. And Jesus Christ couldn't make mebelieve that Jean Baptiste would mistreat Orlean. Besides, all this talkcomes from you and your father. Orlean has said nothing about it. She isjust simple and easy like her mother and will take anything off you andyour father. Now, it's none of my business; but I am a friend ofhumanity, and I want to say this, that anybody that is doing what youand your father are doing will suffer and burn in hell some day for it!'And she flies away from me and about her business."

  "It's outrageous," the Reverend cried. "We hardly dare show our heads onthe street; to greet old friends for fear we are going to be ridiculedand abused for what we have done."

  "It's certainly an ungrateful world, that's all," agreed Ethel.