 CHAPTER 30 Ernest Nicholson takes a hand. After completing the first survey, however, the surveyors returned and made another that struck Amrow. This survey swerved off from the first survey to the southwest between Cologne and Amrow, and struck the valley of a little stream, known as Mud Creek, which empties into the dog ear at Amrow. But being a most illogical route, I felt confident this sea and RW had no intention of following it. Ernest only making the survey out of courtesy to the people in Amrow, or possibly to show to the state railroad commissioners if they became insistent why they could not strike the town. About this time Ernest Nicholson appeared on the scene and purchased a 40-acre tract of land north of the town, for which he paid $55 an acre, later paying $10,000 for a quarter, joining the 40. Until later he purchased the entire section of airship land belonging to a man named Jim Riggins, an Orristown city justice, and a former squaw man, whose deceased wife had owned the land. For this section of land, the Nicholsons paid $35,000. The price staggered the people of Amrow, who declared Nicholson had certainly gone crazy. They set up a terrible howl. What were the blank Nicholson sticking their noses into Tip County towns for? Were they not satisfied with Calius, where they had grafted everybody out of their money? No. The trouble, they all agreed, was that Ernest wanted to run the country and wanted to be the big stick. But they consoled themselves for a while with the fact that Amrow had the county seat and was growing. The settlers were trading in Amrow, for Amrow had what they needed. An indignation meeting was held, where, with much feeling, they denounced the actions of Ernest Nicholson in buying land north of the town, and denouncing that he would build a town such as the Little Crow had never dreamed of, and that Amrow should at once begin to move over to the new town site and save money. But they were hot. Old Dad Derpy in his shirt sleeves, corduroy and boots, his shaggy beard flowing, declared that the low-down stinking lying cuss would not dare to ask him to move to the town he had as yet not even named. But Ernest, at the wheel of a big new 60-horse power packard, continued to buy land along the railroad survey all the way to the west line of the county. In fact, he bought every piece of land that was purchasable. I watched this fight from the beginning with interest, for I had become well enough acquainted with Ernest to feel that he knew what he was about. When the surveyors had arrived in Calius, Ernest had gone to Chicago. In declaring the road could not miss Amrow. The people were much like inhabitants of Magory had been a few years before. While they prattled and allowed their ego to rule, they should have been busy. And when it was seen that the town might not get the railroad, they should have gone to Chicago and seen Marvin Hewitt putting the proposition squarely before him, and requested that if he could not give them the road to give them a depot if they moved to the line of the survey. By that time it was a town with two solid blocks of business houses and many good merchants and bankers. I often wondered how such men could be so pinheaded, sitting back, declaring the great C&RW Railway could not afford to miss a little burg like Amrow. But from previous observations and experience, I felt sure they would wait until the last dog was dead before trying to see what they could do. And they did. In the meantime, the promoters, who were nearly all from Magory or somewhere in Magory County, had learned that Ernest Nicholson was nobody's fool. They hooted the Nicholsons along with the rest of the town, declaring Ernest to be anything but what he really was until they had roused enough excitement to make Amrow seem like a good thing. Then they quietly sold their interest to the Amrow brothers, who raked up about all that was left of the fortune of a few years previous, and paid $6,600 for the interest of the promoters, which made the Amrow the sole owners of the town site, and placed them in obvious control of the town's affairs, and again in the white society they liked so well. All the callious lumber yards owned branch yards at Amrow, and everybody continued to do a flourishing business. The Amrowites paid little attention to the plating of the town site to the north, nor made a single effort to ascertain which survey the railroad would follow, but continued to boast that Amrow would get the road. About this time Ernest Nicholson called a meeting in Amrow, inviting all the businessmen to be present and hear a proposition that he had to make, stating he hoped the citizens of the town and himself could get together without friction or ill-feeling. The meeting was held in Derpy's Hall, and everybody attended, some out of curiosity, some out of fear, and but few with any expectation or intention of agreeing to move to the north town site. Ernest addressed the meeting, first thanking them for their presence, then plunged headlong into the purpose of the meeting. He explained that it was quite impossible for the road to go to Amrow. This he had feared before a survey was made, but that he had ascertained while in Chicago that the road would not strike Amrow. He then read a letter from Marvin Hewitt, the man of destiny, so far as the location of the railroad was concerned, which stated that the road would be extended and the depot would be located on Section 20, which was the section Ernest had purchased. Then he brought up the matter of the distribution of lots, which was that to every person who moved or began to move to the new town site within 30 days, one half of the purchase price of the lot would be refunded. The price of the business lots ranged from $800 to $2000, while residence lots were from $50 to $300. Think it over, he said, in closing, and was gone. Needless to say, they paid little attention to the proposition. The Amrow Journal roasted and cartooned the Nicholson brothers in the same way Megori Papers had done, on account of the town of Calius. After 30 days had elapsed, the Nicholsons warned the people of Amrow that it was the last opportunity they would have to accept his proposition. And when they paid no attention to his warning, he named the new town. I shall not soon forget how the people outside of the town of Amrow laughed over the name applied to the new town, as its application to the situation was so accurate and descriptive of later events that I regret I must substitute a name for the purposes of this story, but which is the best I am able to find, Victor. Instead of moving to Victor, taking advantage of choice of location and the purchase of a lot at half price, the Amrowites began making improvements in their town, putting down cement walks 10 feet wide the length of the two business blocks, and walks on side streets as well. A school election was called, and as a result, an $11,000 schoolhouse was erected, a modern two-story building with basement and gymnasium. The building was large enough to hold all the population of Amrow if all the men, women, and children were of school age, and still have room for many more. This act brought a storm of criticism from the settlers, and even many of the people of the town thought it quite a needless extravagance, but Van Nieder, who was strong for education and for Amrow, had put it through and figured he had won a point. He was the county superintendent. Most of the people claimed the town would soon grow large enough to require the building and let it go at that. People began drifting into Victor, buying lots and putting up good buildings. Nicholson's announced a lot sale, and preparations began for much active boosting for the new town. In the election, to be held a year later, they hoped to rest the county seat from Amrow. When Ernest Nicholson saw the improvements being made in Amrow and no sign of moving the town, he began to scheme, and I could see that if Amrow wasn't going to move peacefully, he would help it along in some other way. However, nothing was done before the lot sale, which was advertised to take place in the lobby of the Nicholson Brothers' new office building in Calleus. On the date advertised for the lot sale, crowds gathered and many who had no intentions of investing attended the sale out of curiosity. I took a crowd to Calleus from Megori, among whom was Joy Flakler, cashier of the Megori National Bank, who stated that Frank Woodring had loaned the Nicholson's fifty thousand dollars to buy the town site. Megoriites still held a grudge against the Nicholson's, and Flakler seemed to wish they had asked the loan of him, so he might have the pleasure of turning them down. The second day of the lot sale, a bunch of bartenders, gamblers, and Amrow's rougher class appeared on the scene and distributed handbills, which announced that Amrow had contracted for a half-section on the survey north of the town, and would move in a body if moving was necessary. The crowds styled themselves Amrow knockers, whose purpose it was to show prospective lot buyers that in purchasing Victor lots, they were buying a pig in a poke. The knocking was done mostly in saloons where the knockers got drunk and were promptly arrested before the sale started. The sale went along unhindered. The auctioneer, standing above the crowds, waxed eloquent in pointing out the advantages describing Seuss City on the east and Deadwood and Lead on the west, and explaining that eventually a city must spring up in that section of the country that would grow into a prairie metropolis of probably ten thousand people. And whether the crowd before him took his eloquence seriously or not, they at least had the chance at the choice of the lots and locations, and eighty-four thousand dollars worth of lots were sold. CHAPTER XXXI The Macraeolines As before mentioned, I was given largely to observation and to reading, and was fairly well posted on current events. I was always a lover of success, and nothing interested me more after a day's work in the field than spending my evening hours in reading. What I liked best was some good story with a moral. I enjoyed reading stories by Maude Radford Warren, largely because her stories were so very practical and true to life. Having traveled and seen much of the country, while running as a porter for the PN company, I could follow much of her writings, having been over the ground covered by the scenes of many of her stories. Another feature of her writings, which pleased me, was the fact that many of the characters, unlike the central figures in many stories, who all become fabulously wealthy, were often only fairly successful, and gained only a measure of wealth and happiness that did not reach prohibitive proportions. Perhaps I should not have become so set against stories whose heroes invariably become multi-millionaires. Had it not been for the fact that many of the younger members of my race, with whom I had made acquaintance in my trips to Chicago and other parts of the country, always appeared to intimate in their conversation that a person should have riches thrust upon them if they sacrificed all their good times, as they termed it, to go out west. Of course, the Easterner in most stories conquers and becomes rich, that is, after so much sacrifice. The truth is, in real life, only about one in ten of the Eastern people make good at ranching or homesteading, and that one is usually well supplied with capital in the beginning, though of course there are exceptions. Other people are much unlike the people of other races. For instance, all around me in my home in Dakota were foreigners of practically all nations except Italians and Jews, among them being Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Assyrians from Jerusalem, many Austrians, some Hungarians, and lots of Germans and Irish, these last being mostly American-born, and also many Russians. The greater part of these people are good farmers and were growing prosperous on the little crow, and seeing this I worked the harder to keep abreast of them, if not a little ahead. This was my fifth year, and still there had not been a colored person on my land. Many more settlers had some, and Tip County was filling up, but still no colored people. My white neighbors had many visitors from their old homes, and but few but had visitors at some time to see them and see what they were doing. During my visit to Kansas the spring previous, I had found many prosperous colored families, most of whom had settled in Kansas in the 70s and 80s, and were mostly ex-slaves, but were not like the people of southern Illinois, contented and happy to equal living from the farm they pretended to cultivate, but made their farms pay by careful methods. The farms they owned had from 160 acres to 640 acres, and one colored man there at that time owned 1,100 acres with $12,000 in the bank. Wherever I had been, however, I had always found a certain class in large and small towns alike whose object in life was obviously nothing but who dressed up and ate the white people. After Miss Rooks had married, I was again in the condition of the previous year, but during the summer I had written to a young lady who had been teaching in M. Burrow, and whom I had met while visiting Miss Rooks. Her name was Orlean McCrellyn, and her father was a minister and had been the pastor of our church in M. Pliss when I was a baby, but for the past 17 years had been acting as presiding elder over the southern Illinois district. Miss McCrellyn had answered my letters, and during the summer we had been very agreeable correspondents, and when in September I contracted for three relinquishments of homestead filings, I decided to ask her to marry me, but to come and file on a tip county claim first. To get the money for the purchase of the relinquishments, I had mortgaged my 320 acres for $7,600. There were relinquishments costing in the neighborhood of $6,400. October was the time when the land would be open to homestead filing, and Miss McCrellyn had written that she would like to homestead. After sending my sister and grandmother the money to come to Dakota, I went to Chicago where I arrived one Saturday morning. I had, since being in the West, stopped at the home of a maiden lady about 35 years of age, and in talking with her I had occasion to speak of the family. Evidently she did not know I had come to see Orlean, or that I was even acquainted with the family. I spoke of the Reverend McCrellyn and asked her if she knew him. Who, old N.J. McCrellyn, she asked? She went on with a contemptuous snort. Yes, I know him, and know him to be the biggest old rascal in the Methodist Church. He's lower than a dog, she continued, and if it wasn't for his family they would have thrown him out of the conference long ago. But he has a good family, and for that reason they let him stay on. But he has no principle and is mean to his wife, never goes out with her nor does anything for her. But courts every woman on his circuit who will notice him and has been doing it for years. When he is in Chicago he spends his time visiting a woman on the West side. Her name is Mrs. Ues. This recalled to my mind that during the spring I had come to Chicago I had become acquainted with Mrs. Ues' son and had been entertained at their home on Vernon Avenue, where at that time the two families, McCrellyn and Ues, rented a flat together. And although I had seen the girls I had not become acquainted with any of the McCrellyn family then. Orleon was the older of the two girls. What Miss Anken had said about her father did not sound very good for a minister. Still I had known in southern Illinois that the colored ministers didn't always bear the best reputations. And some of the colored papers I received in Dakota were continually making war on the immoral ministers. But since I had come to see the girl it didn't discourage me when I learned her father had a bad name although I would have preferred an opposite condition. I went to the phone a few minutes after the conversation with Miss Anken and called up Miss McCrellyn and when she learned I was in the city she expressed her delight with many exclamations saying she did not know I would arrive in the city until the next day and inquired as to when I would call. As nothing is so important as seeing you I answered I will call it to a clock if that is agreeable to you. She assured me that it was and at the appointed hour I called at the McCrellyn home and was pleasantly received. Miss McCrellyn called in her mother whom I thought a very pleasant lady. We passed a very agreeable evening together going over on State Street to supper and then out to Jackson Park. I found Miss McCrellyn a kind, simple and sympathetic person in fact agreeable in every way. I had grown to feel that if I ever married I would simply have to propose to some girl and if accepted marry her and have it over with. I was tired of living alone on the claim and wanted a wife and love even if she was a city girl. I felt that I hadn't the time to visit all over the country to find a farmer's daughter. I had lived in the city and thought if I married a city girl I would understand her anyway. I could not claim to be in love with this girl nor with anyone else but had always had a feeling that if a man and woman met and found each other pleasant and entertaining there was no need of a long courtship and when we came in from a walk I stated the object of my trip. Miss McCrellyn was acquainted with a part of the story for as stated she had been teaching in M. Burrow at the time I went there to see Miss Rooks and had seen her take up with the cook and marry foolishly. She had stated in her letters that she had been glad that I wrote to her and that she thought Miss Rooks had acted foolishly and when I explained my circumstances and stated the proposition she seemed favorable to it. I told her to think it over and I would return the next day and explain it to her mother. When I called the next morning and talked with her and her mother both thought it all right that Orleans should go to Dakota and file on Homestead then we would marry and live together on the claim but her mother added somewhat nervously and apparently ill at ease that I had better talk with her husband. As the reverend was then some 375 miles south of Chicago attending conference I couldn't see how we could get together but we put in the Sunday attending church and Sunday school and that evening went to a downtown theater where we saw Lou Dockstader's Minstrels with Neil O'Brien as captain of the fire department which was very funny and I laughed until my head ached. The next day was spent in trying to communicate with the reverend over the long distance but we did not succeed. Fortunately at about five o'clock Mrs. Uis came over from the west side. I had known Mrs. Uis to be a smart woman with a deeper conviction than had Mrs. McCrellyn whom she did not like but as Mrs. McCrellyn was in trouble and did not know which way to turn Mrs. Uis was approached with the subject. Orleon was an obedient girl and although she wanted to go with me it was evident that I must get the consent of her parents. She was nearly 27 years old and girls of that age usually wish to get married. Her younger sister had just been married which added to her feeling of loneliness. The result of the consultation with Mrs. Uis as she afterward explained to me was that it was decided that it would not be proper for Orleon to go alone with me but if I cared to pay her way she would accompany us as chaperone. I was getting somewhat uneasy as I had paid $1,200 into the bank at McGory for their relinquishment which I would lose if someone didn't file on the claim by the second of October. It was then about September 25th and I readily consented to incur the expense of her trip to McGory where we soon landed. While I had been absent my sister and grandmother had arrived. On October 1st all three were ready to file on their claims and Dakota's colored population would be increased by three and 480 acres of land would be added to the wealth of the colored race in the state. Hundreds of others had purchased relinquishments and were waiting to file also. A ruling of the department had made it impossible to file before October 1st and when it was seen that only a small number would be able to file on that day the register and receiver inaugurated a plan whereby all desiring to file on tip county claims should form a line in front of the land office door and when the office opened the line should file through the office in the order in which they stood and numbers would be issued to them which would permit them to return to the land office and make their filings in turn thereby avoiding a rush and the necessity of remaining in line until admitted to the land office. It began forming into line immediately after luncheon on the afternoon of the last day of September and continued throughout the afternoon. When I saw such a crowd gathering I got my folks into the line. When it is taken into consideration that the land office would not open until nine o'clock the next morning this seemed like a foolish proceeding. It was then four o'clock and the crowd had to remain in line all night to hold their places to be exact just 17 hours. Remaining in line all night was not pleasantly anticipated and nights in October in South Dakota are apt to get pretty chilly but the line continued to increase and by ten o'clock the street in front of the land office was a surging mass of humanity mostly purchasers of relinquishments waiting for the opening of the land office the next morning and to be in readiness to protect the claim they had contracted for. Hot coffee and sandwiches were sold and kept appetite supplied and drunks mixed here and there in the line kept the crowd wakeful many singing and telling stories to enliven the occasion. I held the place for my fiancé through the night and although I had become used to all kinds of roughness sitting up in the street all the long night was far from pleasant. About two o'clock in the morning squatters who had spent the early part of the night on the prairie in order to be on their claims after midnight began to arrive and took their places at the foot of the line. All land not filed on by the original number-holders was to be open for filing as soon as the land office opened and squatters had from midnight until the opening of the land office in which to beat the man who waited to file before locating on the land a squatter's right holding first in such cases. Many had hired autos to bring them in from the reservation immediately after midnight or as soon after midnight as they had made some crude improvements on the land. Many auto-loads arrived with a shout and claimants leaped from the ta nos falling into line almost before the vehicles had stopped. The line wound back and forth along the street like a snake and formed into a compact mass until after sunrise the noisy autos kept a steady rush dumping their weary passengers into the street. By the time the land office opened in the morning the line filled the street for half a block and fully seventeen hundred persons were waiting for a chance to enter the land office. An army of tired swollen-eyed and dusty creatures they appeared, some of whom commenced stealing their positions in the line to late comers having gotten into line for speculation purposes only and offered their places for from ten to twenty-five dollars and in a few instances places near the door sold for as high as fifty dollars. Under a ruling of the land officials no filings were to be accepted except from holders of original numbers until October 1st and this ruling made it expedient for holders of relinquishments of early numbers to get into line early as the six months allowed for establishing residents expired for the first hundred original numbers on that day and in cases where residents had not been properly established the land would be open to contest as soon as this period had expired. Many hundreds had purchased relinquishments hence the value placed on the positions nearest the land office store. It was three o'clock by the time the line had passed through the land office and received their numbers. The land office closed at four o'clock for the day which left but one hour for the protection of those who must offer their filings that day or face the chances of a contest. Some had protected their claims by going into the land office before the ruling was made and filing contests on the claims for which they held relinquishments but most of the buyers had not thought of such a thing and land grafters had complicated matters by filing contests on various claims for which they knew relinquishments would be offered and then withdrawing the contest for a consideration. This practice met with strong disapproval as most of the people had invested for the purpose of making homes and the laws made it impossible to change the circumstances. These transactions had to be completed before the line formed. However, as after the line formed no one could enter the land office to offer either filing, relinquishment or contest without a number issued by the officials. The line was full of such grafters and as not more than 100 filings could be taken in a day it can readily be seen that some of the relinquishment holders were in danger of losing out through a contest offered before they had an opportunity to file. The crowds that flock to land openings like other games of chance are made up in a measure of speculators, people who journey to one of the registration points and make application for land figuring that if they should draw an early number that is the first 500 they would file. No thought of making a home but simply to sell the relinquishment for the largest possible price. When the filings were made about 60 had dropped out of the first 500 and even more out of the second 500, evidently thinking they were not likely to get enough for the relinquishment to pay them for their trouble and original investment. Since it cost them a first payment of $206 on the purchase price of $6 per acre and a locating fee of $25 and in some cases the first expense reached $300. If the relinquishment was not sold before the six months allowed for establishing residents expired it was necessary to establish residents making sufficient improvement for that purpose or lose the money invested. Out of the first 4,000 numbers some 2,000 had filed and practically half of this number had contracted to sell their relinquishments. The buyers had deposited the amount to be paid in some bank to the credit of the claimant to be turned over when the purchaser had secured filing on the land the bank acting as agent between the parties to the transaction. I shall long remember October 1st 19 blank in Magori called the Magic City and claiming a population of 3,000 but probably not exceeding 1,500 actual inhabitants though filled with transience from the beginning of the rush a year before and had at no time during this period less than 2,500 persons in the town. My bride-to-be and my grandmother had received numbers 138 and 139 which would likely be called to file the second day while my sister received 170. On the afternoon of the second or Leon and my grandmother who had raised a family in the days of slavery and was then about 77 years of age were called and came out of the land office a few minutes later with their blue papers receipts for the $206 first payment and fees which I had given the agent before they entered the land office their agent went into the land office with them to see that they got a straight filing which they received my sister however was not called that day and the next day being Sunday she would not be called until the following Monday the place my grandmother had filed on had been bought by a Megori school teacher who had paid $1,400 to a real estate dealer for the relinquishment of the same place the claimant had issued two relinquishments which was easy enough to do though the relinquishment accompanied by his land office receipt was the only bonafide one and we had the receipt the teacher had stood in line the long night through behind my sister and then lost the place the dealer who sold her the relinquishment was very angry as he was to get $600 in the deal giving the claimant only $800 when I learned this and that the teacher had lost out I was very sorry for her but it was a case of first come first served and many other mix-ups between buyers and dealers had occurred I went to the teacher and apologized as best I could she looked very pitiful as she told me how she had taught so many years to save the money and her dreams had been of nothing but securing a claim her eyes filled with tears and she bent her head and began crying and thus I left her the next morning I sent Miss McCrellyn and Mrs. Lewis back to Chicago and proceeded to the claims of my sister and grandmother which I found to be good ones I had whirled around them in an auto before I bought them and though being satisfied that they laid well I had not examined the soil or walked across them in a week I had two frame houses ten by ten built on them and within another week they had commenced living on them shortly after they moved on to the claims came one of the biggest snow storms I had ever seen it snowed for days and then came warm weather thawing the snow then more snow the corn in the fields had not been gathered nor was it all gathered before the following April most of the settlers in the new county were from 20 to 50 miles from Calias and winter but many of them without fuel and the suffering from cold was intense the snow continued to fall until it was about four feet deep on the level fortunately I had hauled enough coal to last my folks through the winter and they had only to get to written a distance of eight miles to get food I had just gathered two loads out of a 90 acre field being snowbound with nothing to do I watched a fight between Amro and Victor with interest end of chapter 32 chapter 33 of the conquest this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the conquest by Oscar Misha chapter 33 the survival of the fittest under the lot sale Amro still refused to move it was then Ernest Nicholson said the town had to be overcome somehow and he had to do it the businessmen of the town continued to hold meetings in past resolutions to stick together they argued that all they had to do to save the town was to stick together this was the slogan of each meeting the county seat no doubt held them more than the meetings but it was not long before signs of weakening began to appear here and there along the ranks Victor to the north in the opinion of the people abroad would get the road lots were being bought up and business people from elsewhere were continuing to locate and erect substantial buildings in the new town and then it was reported that George Roan who had recently sold his livery barn in Amro where he had made a bunch of money had bought five lots in Victor paying fancy prices for them by getting a refund of 50% if he moved or started his residence hotel by January 1st this report could not be confirmed as Roan could not be found but soon conflicting reports filled the air and old dad Derpy who loved his corn a lot in Amro like the hog loves corn made daily trips up and down main street railing the boys the more he talked the more excited he became my good man he would shout with his arms stretched above his head like every Sunday after preaching a while stick together stick together we've got the best town in the best county in the best state in the best country in the world what more do you want he would fairly rave with his old eyes stretched widely open and his shaggy beard flowing in the breeze he continued this until he bored the people and weakened the already weakening forces there were many good businessmen in Amro one of them young man of sterling qualities ambitious and with dreams of great success and of establishing themselves securely many of them had sweethearts in the east and desired to make a showing in profit as well and how were they to do this in the town in which even outsiders though they might not admire the Nicholson's were predicting failure for those who remain in declaring they were foolish to stay this young blood was getting hard to control and hold them something more had to be done than declaring Ernest Nicholson to be trying to wreck the town and break up their homes poor fools I would think as I listened to them talking as though Ernest Nicholson had anything to do with the railroad missing the town it was simply the mistaken location it had been an easy matter for the promoters whose capital was mostly in the air to locate Amro on the allotment of Oliver Amaro because they could do so without paying anything and did not have to pay fifty-five dollars an acre per deed land as Nicholson had done being centrally located with enough buildings to encourage the building and more they induced the governor to organize the county when few but illiterate Indians and thieving mixed bloods could vote fairly stealing the county seat before the bona fide settlers had any chance to express themselves on the matter they had doggedly invested more money in cement walks and other improvements when disinterested persons had criticized their actions loading the township with eleven thousand dollars seven percent interest bearing bonds that sold at a big discount to build a schoolhouse large enough for a town three times the size of Amro this angered the settlers in being dissatisfied because they were disenfranchised by the rascals who engineered the plan Amro began rapidly to lose outside sympathy Ernest Nicholson had a pleasing personality and forceful as well he was a king at reasoning and whenever a week Amorite was in Calius he was invited into the town site company's office which was luxuriously furnished the walls profusely decorated with pictures of prominent capitalists and financiers of the middle west some of whom were financing the schemes of the fine looking young man who were trying to show these struggling waves of the prairie the inevitable result all that was needed was to break into the town in some way or other for it was essential that Amro be absorbed by Victor before the election ten months away the town should be entirely broken up if it still existed with or without the road it had a good chance of holding the county seat the county seat is very hard thing to move in fact according to the records of western states few county seats have ever been moved megari's county seat was located 40 miles from megari in the extreme east end of the county where the county ran to a point and the river on the north and the south boundary of the county formed an acute angle yet the county seat remains at Fairview and the voters keep it there where no one but a handful of farmers and the few hundred inhabitants of the town reside when trying to remove the county seat every town in the county jumps into the race persisting in the contention that their town is the proper place for the county seat and when election comes the farmers who represent from 65 to 90% of the vote in states like Dakota vote for the town nearest their farm thinking only of their own selfish interests and forgetting the county's welfare as the victor must have a majority of all votes cast another example of this condition is near where this story is written on the east bank of the Missouri it is a place called Keeler the most godforsaken place in the world with only three or four ramshackle buildings in a post office with little or no county trade yet this is the county seat the capital of one of the leading counties of the state well half a dozen good towns along the lines of the CM and St. Louis road cart their records and hold court in Keeler 20 miles from the railroad every four years for 30 years the county seat has been elected to stay at Keeler as no town can get a majority of all votes cast against Keeler which doesn't even enter the race all of these facts had the bearing on Ernest Nicholson in his office at Caliis and had helped to hold Amro together until Van Netter was called into Caliis and into the private office of King Ernest as Amro had named him what passed in that office at this interview is a matter of conjecture but when Van Netter came out of the office he carried a check for $7,500 and Ernest Nicholson became the owner of the two-story 50 by 100 foot hotel and lot Amro's most popular corner when this news reached Amro pandemonium reign businessmen passed from one place of business to another talking in low tones and shaking their heads significantly while old dad Derpy near Maniac than ever before went the rounds of the town shouting in a high staccato tone what do you think of it what do you think of the ordinary low down rascals selling out to that band of dirty thieves in town records by the living gods with his arms folded like a tragedy and eyes rolled to the skies and his form reared back till his knees stuck forward then raising his hand he solemnly swore I'll stay in Amro, I'll stay in Amro, I'll stay in Amro till his voice rose to a hoarse scream I'll stay in Amro until the town is deserted to the last D blank and building and the last dog is dead and he did though I cannot say as to the last dog Nicholson had the hotel closed and although the snow was more than knee deep on the level a force of carpenters at once began cutting the building in two preparing to move it into the new town old Macalacy Finn a one armed hatchet faced Irishman with a long sandy mustache and pop eyes who had moved brick buildings in the windy city was sent to Amro and declared in Joe Cook's saloon that he'd put that damn cracker box in Victor in 15 days an arm with a force of carpenters and laborers the plaster was soon knocked off the walls of the largest and best building in Amro and thrown into the streets while the new cement walks only 50 feet in front and 100 by eight at the side were broken into slabs and piled roughly a side then huge timbers 24 by 32 inches and 60 feet long from the redwood forests of Washington followed the jack screws and blocks under the building the horse power mounted tractors with double boilers and horsepower locomotive construction low wheels and high cabs where the engineer perched like a bird steamed into the town and prepared to pull the structure from its foundations the crowd gathered to watch as the powerful engines began to cough and roar with an occasional short puff like fast passenger engines on the New York Central the power being sufficient to tear the building to creaky in every joint the hotel building began slowly moving out into the street the telephone wires which belong to the Nicholson's had been cut and thrown aside and the town was temporarily without telephonic communications the powerful engines easily pulled the hotel between banks of snow which had been shoveled aside to make room for the passing of the building across the grades and ditches and on toward Victor was used whenever the building became stuck fast and in a few days the hotel was serving the public on a corner lot in Victor where it added materially to the appearance of the town following the footsteps of old Callius the town now being broken by the removal of the hotel the dark cellar over which it stood gaping like an open grave to be gazed into at every turn became a small consequence and in Victor the price of corner lots had advanced from one thousand five hundred to two thousand and three thousand dollars while inside lots were being offered at from one thousand two hundred to one thousand eight hundred dollars which had formerly priced from eight hundred to one thousand two hundred dollars this did not discourage those who wanted to move to the new town all that was desired by former rock ribbed Amorites was to get to Victor they talked nothing but Victor the name of Amro was almost forgotten before the hotel building had fairly left the town other traction engines were brought to the town the snow was a great hindrance and to get coal haul from Callius cost seventy five cents a hundred labor and board was high in effect all prices for everything were very high it was in the middle of one of the cold winters of the planes but money had been made in Amro and was offered freely in payment for moving to the new town it was bitter cold and the snow was light and drifting the ground frozen under the snow two feet deep but the frozen ground would hold up to the buildings better than it would when the warm weather came and started to thaw the soil being underlaid with sand it would be impossible to move the buildings over it if rain should come as it would be likely to do in the spring and with the melted snow to hinder it would then be very difficult to move the buildings it was small wonder that they were anxious to get away from the disrupted town at this time in the road between Amro and Victor became a much used thoroughfare the traction engines pounding from early morning until late at night fill the air with the noise as of railroad yards while the happy faces of the owners of the buildings arriving in Victor and the anxious ones waiting to be moved gave material for interesting study of human nature George Rowan had built a new barn in Victor and was much pleased over having sold the old one in Amro before the town went to pieces thereby saving the expense of removal and getting a refund of 50% of the purchase price of the lots he purchased in Victor many buildings continued to arrive from Amro the new ones being erected did credit to the name of the new town by growing faster than any of the towns on the reservation including Calius or Megary end of chapter 33 chapter 34 of the conquest this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Phyllis Vincelli the conquest by Oscar Michaud chapter 34 East of State Street I had in due time heard from Orlean saying she and Mrs. Ues had arrived safely home she wrote when I came into the house mama grabbed me and held me for a long time as though she was afraid I was not real she had been so worried while I was away and was so glad I had returned before father came they had received a telegram from her father saying that he had again been appointed presiding elder of the Cairo district and would be home within a few days I judged from what Mrs. Ues had told me that the Reverend was not much of a businessman and a hard one to make understand a business proposition or to reason with he had only two children and Orlean as Mrs. Ues informed me was his favorite she had always been an obedient child was graduated from the Chicago High School and spent two years at a colored boarding school in Ohio that was kept up by the African M.E. Church had taught two years but had not secured a school that year she had saved $100 out of the money she had earned teaching school the young man who married her sister worked for a trading stamp corporation and received $13 a week while the Reverend was supposed to receive about $1000 a year as presiding elder there were some 12 or 15 churches on his circuit where the conference was held every three months and each church was expected to contribute a certain amount at that time each member was supposed to give $0.25 which they did not always do in a town like Emberow for instance where the church had 100 members not over 25 are considered live members that is only 25 or could be depended upon to pay their quarterly dues regularly the others being spasmonic contributing freely at times or nothing at all for a long time Orlean often laughed as she told me some of the many ways her father had of making the dead ones contribute but with all the tricks and turns the position was not a lucrative one there being uncertainty as to the amount of the compensation mrs. US told me the family had always been poor and got along only by saving in every direction I could see this as Orlean seemed to have few clothes and had worn her sister's hat to Dakota her sister was said to be very mean and disagreeable and if anyone in the family had to do anything it was never the sister she was quarrelsome and much disliked while Orlean was the opposite and would cheerfully deprive herself of anything necessary her mother mrs. US went on to tell me was a devil spiteful and mean and as helpless as a baby I believed a part of this but not all mrs. mcrayline and while I felt she was somewhat on the helpless order I did not believe she was mean nor a devil meanness and devil tree are usually discernible in the eyes and I had seen none of it in the eyes of either mrs. mcrayline or Orlean but I did not like Ethel and from what little ms. Enkin told me about the reverend I was inclined to believe that he was likely to be the devil and mrs. US's information regarding mrs. mcrayline was probably inspired by jealousy I remember that back in M-plus the preachers wives were timid creatures submissive to any order or condition their elder husbands put upon them submitting too much in order to keep peace never raising a row over the gossip that came to their ears from malicious sisters and church workers as long as I could remember the colored ministers were accused of many ugly things concerning them and the sisters mostly women who worked in the church but I had forgotten it until I now began hearing the gossip concerning reverend mcrayline her father and her brother-in-law had begun buying a home on Vernon Avenue for which they were to pay four thousand five hundred dollars of this amount three hundred dollars had been paid one hundred by each of them it was a nice little place with eight rooms and with a stone front Ethel had not paid anything using her money in preparation for her wedding which had taken place in September claves and her father had spent two hundred on it which seemed very foolish and were pinched to the last cent when it was done claves had borrowed five dollars from his brother when they went on the wedding trip to pay for a taxi to the depot the wedding tour and honeymoon lasted two weeks and was spent in Wisconsin sixty miles north of Chicago they had just returned when I went to Chicago when I first called Mrs. Claves did not come down but when we returned to the house she condescended to come down and shake hands she put on enough heirs to have been a king's daughter with the three hundred dollars already paid on the home they figured they should be able to pay for it in seven years in monthly installments of thirty-five dollars paying the interest upon the principal at the same time accepting two thousand which was in a first mortgage and drew five percent and payable semi-annually the house was in a quiet neighborhood much unlike the south end of Dearborn Street and Armor Avenue where none but colored people live the better class of Chicago's colored population was making a strenuous effort to get away from the rougher set as well as to get out of the black belt which is centered around Armor Dearborn State and Thirty First here the saloons barbershops restaurants and vaudeville shows are run by colored people also the clubs and dance houses east from State Street to the lake which is referred to by the colored people of the city as east of state there is another and all together different class here for a long while colored people could hardly rent or buy a place then as the white population drifted farther south to Greenwood Avenue Hyde Park Kenwood and other parts now fashionable districts some of the avenues including Wabash Calumet Vernon and Indiana began renting to colored people and a few began buying Chicago is the mecca for southern Negroes the better class continued to desert Dearborn and Armor and paid exorbitant rent east of State Street some lost what they had made on Armor Avenue where rent was sometimes less than one half what was charged five blocks east and had to move back to armor as more colored people moved toward the lake more white people moved farther south rent began falling and real estate dealers began offering former homes of rich families first for rent then for sale and many others began buying as Reverend McRailine had done making a small cash payment and in this way otherwise unsellable property was disposed of at from five to ten percent more than it would have brought at a cash sale the place they were buying could have been purchased for three thousand eight hundred dollars or four thousand dollars in cash after moving east of State Street these people formed into little sets which represented the more elite and later developed into a sort of local aristocracy which was not distinguished so much by wealth as by the heirs and conventionality of its members who did not go to public dances on State Street to drink can beer here for a time they were secure from the vulgar intrusion of the noisy loud mouths as they called them of State Street the last time I was in Chicago State Street the deadline had been crossed and a part of Wabash Avenue is almost as noisy and vulgar as Dearborn beer cans rough pubs and dudes were becoming as familiar sites as on armor and a large part of that part of the east side is so filled up with colored people that it is only a question of time until it will be a part of the black belt. Orlean's brother-in-law had come to Chicago several years previous from a stumpy farm in the backwoods of Tennessee he was the son of a jack-legged preacher and was very ignorant but had been going with the girl he married some six years and she had trained him out of much of it and when he finally figured in the two hundred dollar wedding referred to he felt himself admitted into society and highly exalted. He thought the reverend a great man, Mrs. US had told me, referring to him as a simian-headed negro who tried to walk and act like the reverend. The McCray lines, especially Ethel, refer to themselves as the best people. I thought they were they were not wicked and I also guessed that Ethel felt very aristocratic and I wondered whether I would like the reverend. He seemed to be regarded as a sort of monarch, judging from the way he was spoken of by the family, but I had a hunch that he and I were not going to fall in love with each other. Still I hoped not to be the one to start any unpleasantness and would at least wait until I met him before forming an opinion. I received a letter from him when he returned from the conference. He did not write a very brilliant letter but was very reasonable and tried to appear a little serious when he referred to my having his daughter come to South Dakota and file on land. He concluded by saying he thought it a good thing for colored people to go west and take land. I received another letter from Orlean about the same time telling me how her father had scolded her about going to the theater with me the Sunday night I had taken her and pretended, as he had to me, to be very serious about the claim matter. But she wrote like this quote, I know papa and I could see he was just pleased over it all that he just strutted around like a rooster end quote. She wanted to know when I was going to send the ring. But as I had not thought about it I do not recall what answer I made her. But do remember that my trip to get her and Mrs. Ues and send them home again including my own expenses amounted to one hundred sixty dollars. Besides the cost of the land and having had to pay my sisters and grandmother's way also and get them started on their homesteads had taken all of seven thousand six hundred dollars I had borrowed on my land. That I was snowbound with my corn in the field and my wheat still unthreshed. I began to write long letters trying to reason this out with her. She was willing to listen to reason but seemed so unhappy without the ring and I imagined as I read her letters that I could see tears. She said when a girl is engaged she feels lost without a ring and too here she seemed to emphasize her words everybody expects it. I was sure she was telling the truth for with girls east of State Street and west as well the most important thing in an engagement is the ring. Sometimes being more important than the man himself. When I lived in Chicago and since I had been living in Dakota and going to Chicago once a year I knew that loftest brothers had more mortgages on the moral future and jobs of the young society men for the diamonds worn by their sweethearts or wives then would appear comforting to the credit man. It made no difference what the man might have as all the way from a boot black or a janitor to head waiters and post office clerks were included and their women folks wore some size of a diamond. I asked myself what I was to do. I could not hope to begin changing customs so I bought a $40 diamond sap and a small 18 carat ring which just as she wrote later in the sweetest kind of letter I had written I was sorry that I could not be there to put it on such a story. I had never thought of diamond rings or going after my wife after spending so much on preliminaries. What I had pictured was what I had seen while running to the Pacific Coast girls going west to marry their pioneer sweethearts and send them the money or a ticket. They had gone lots of them to marry their brawny bow and lived happily ever after but the bow weren't negroes nor the girls colored. Still there are lots of colored men who would be out west building an empire and plenty of nice colored girls who would journey, thither, and wed if they really understood the opportunities offered but very few understand the situation or realize the opportunities open to them in this western country. I had expected to get married Christmas but the snow had put a stop to that plan. Besides I was so far behind in my work and had no place to bring my wife. I had abandoned my little soddy and was living in a house on the old town site where I intended staying until spring. Then I would build and move on to my wife's homestead in Tip County. When Christmas came Grandma and sister came down from Britain and stayed while I went to Chicago. I could scarcely afford it but it had become accustomed for me to spend Christmas in Chicago and I wanted to know Orlean better and I wanted to meet her father. I had written her that I wasn't coming and when I arrived in the city and called at the house her mother was surprised but pleasantly. I thought she was such a kind little soul. She promised not to tell Orlean I was in the city. Orlean had secured a position in a downtown store ladies furnishings and received five fifty per week but couldn't keep it and when I was gone she called up Orlean and told her I was in the city. When I called in the evening instead of surprising Orlean I was surprised myself. The reverend hadn't arrived from southern Illinois but was expected soon. Orlean had worked long enough to buy herself a new waist and coat and Mrs. Uis who was a milliner had given her a hat and she was dressed somewhat better than formerly. The family had wanted to give her a nice wedding like Ethels but found themselves unable to do so. The semi-annual interest on their $2,000 loan would be due in January and a payment also about $150 in all. The high cost of living in Chicago did not leave much out of $18.50 per week and colored people in southern Illinois are not very prompt in paying their church dues especially in midwinter. In fact many of them have a hard time keeping away from the poor house or off the county and when the reverend came home he was very short of money. I remember how he appeared the evening I called. He had arrived in town that morning. He was a large man standing well over six feet and weighing about two hundred pounds small boned and fleshy which gave him a round plump appearance and although he was then near sixty not a wrinkle was visible in his face. He was very dark with a medium forehead and high bridged nose making it possible for him to wear nose glasses the nose being very unlike flat-nosed negro. The large square upper lip was partly hidden by a mustache sprinkled with gray and his nearly white hair worn in a massive pompadour contrasted sharply with the dark skin and rounded features. His great height gave him an unusually attractive appearance of which he I later learned was well aware and made the most. In fact his personal appearance was his pride but his eye was not the eye of an intelligent or deep-thinking man. They reminded me more of the eyes of a pig full but expressionless and he could put on airs such a drawing up and spreading out seeming to give the impression of being hard to approach. When introduced to him I had another hunch we were not going to like each other I was always frank forward and unafraid and his ceremonious manner did not affect me in the least I went straight to him taking his hand in response to the introduction and saying a few commonplace things they were very home like for city people inviting me to supper and treating me with much respect. The head of the table was occupied by the reverend when he was at home and by claves when the reverend was away I could readily see where Ethel got her airs it took him about thirty minutes to get over his ceremonious manner after which we talked freely or rather I talked. He was a poor listener and although he never cut off my discourse in any way I would listen as I had been used to having people listen apparently with encouragement in their eyes which makes talking a pleasure so I soon ceased to talk this however seemed still more awkward and I grew to feel a trifle displeased in his company. On the following Sunday we went to morning service on Wabash Avenue at a big stone structure it appeared to be a hell of a household that the girls should go out together this displeased me very much as I had grown to dislike Ethel and claves did not interest me both talked of society and swell people they wanted me to meet putting it in such a way as to have me feel I was meeting my betters while the truth of the matter was that I did not desire to meet any of their friends nor to have them with us anywhere we went. When church services were over we went to spend the time before Sunday school opened with some friends of theirs named Latimer who lived on Wabash Avenue near the church and who were so nearly white that they could easily have passed for white people. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Latimer and Mr. Latimer's sister and were the most interesting people I had ever met on any of my trips to Chicago. They inquired all about Dakota and whether there were many colored settlers in the state listening to every word with careful attention and approving or disapproving with nods and smiles while they were so deeply interested claves who had a reputation for budding in and talking too much interrupted the conversation, blurting out his opinion stopping me and embarrassing them by stating that colored people had been held in slavery for two hundred years and since they were free they did not want to go out into the wilderness and sit on a farm but wanted to be where they could have freedom and convenience and this was sanctioned by a friend of claves who was still more ignorant than he. This angered Orlean and when we were outside even Ethel expressed her disgust at clave's ignorance. They told me that the Latimer's were very well to do owning considerable property besides the three-story building where they lived. To me this accounted for their careful attention for it is my opinion that when you find a colored man or woman who has succeeded in actually doing something and not merely pretending to you will find an interesting and reasonable person to converse with and one who will listen to a description of conditions and opportunities with marked intelligence. Orlean and I attended a few shows at the downtown theaters during the week the first being a pathetic drama which our friends advised us to see entitled Madam X I did not like it at all. The leading character is the wife of a businessman who has left her husband and remains away from him two years presumably discouraged over his lack of affection. His very young and wants to be loved as the old story goes and the husband is too busy to know that she is unhappy. She returns after two years and asks forgiveness and love but is turned away by the husband. Twenty years later in the closing act a court scene decorates the stage a woman is on trial for killing the man she has lived with unlawfully. She had been a woman of the street and lived with many others before living with the one murdered. The young lawyer who has her case is her son although he is not aware of this fact. He has just been admitted to the bar and this is his first case having been appointed to the defense by the court. He takes the stand and delivers an eloquent address on behalf of the woman who appears to be so saturated with liquor and cocaine as to be oblivious of her surroundings. She expires from the effect of her dissipations but just before death she looks up and realizes her son. She having been the young wife who left her home twenty-two years before. The unhappy father who had suffered as only a deserted husband can and who had prayed for many years for the return of the wife is present in the courtroom and together with the son are at her side in death. As the climax of the play is reached suppressed sobs I am audible in the balcony where we had seats. The scene was pathetic indeed and I had hard work keeping back the tears while my betrothed was using her handkerchief freely. What I did not like about the play was the fact of her going away and taking up an immoral life instead of remaining pure and returning later to her husband. The husband as the play goes had not been a bad man and was unhappy throughout the play and I argued this with Orlean all the way home. Why did she not remain good and when she returned he could have gathered her into his arms and lived happily ever after. Not only my fiancee but most other woman I have talked with about the play contend that he could have taken her back when she returned and been good to her. The man who wrote the play may have been a tragedian but the management that put it on the road knew a moneymaker and kept it there as long as the people patronized the box office. The next play we attended suited me better as to my mind it possessed all that Madam X lacked and instead of weakness and an unhappy ending this was one of strength of character and a happy finale. It was The Fourth Estate by Joseph Metal Patterson who served his apprenticeship in writing on the Chicago Tribune. It was a newspaper play and its interest centered around one Wheeler brand who through the purchase of a big city daily by a western man with the bigness to hand out the truth regardless of the threats of the big advertisers becomes managing editor. He relentlessly goes after one judge Bartling whose rotten decisions had but sufficed to help big business and without regard to their effect upon the poor. The one really square decision was recalled before it took effect. To complicate matters the young editor loves the judge's daughter and while brand holds a high place in Miss Bartling's regard he is made to feel that to retain it he must stop the fight on her father. Brand pleads with her to see the moral of it but is unable to change her views. One evening brand secures a flashlight photo and telephone witnesses of an interview with the judge. The photo showing the judge in the act of handing him a $10,000 bribe. Late that night brand has the article exposing this transaction in type and ready for the press when the proprietor who has here before been so pleased with brand's performance but whose wife has gained an entrance into society through the influence of judge Bartling enters the office with the order to kill the story. This was a hard blow to the coming newspaper man. The judge calls and jokes him about being a smart boy but crazed with ideals but is shocked when he turns to find his daughter has entered the office and has heard the conversation. He tells her to come along home with papa but she decides to remain with brand. She has thought her father in the right all along but now that she has heard her father condone dishonesty she can no longer think so. Wheeler disobeys orders and sends the paper to press without killing the story and all's well that ends well. In a week or so I was back in Dakota where the thermometer registered 25 below with plenty of snow for company. I received a letter from the reverend shortly after returning home saying they hoped to see me in Chicago again soon. I did not know what that meant unless it was that I was expected to return to be married but as I had been to Chicago twice in less than four months and had suggested to Arlene that she come to Magory and be married there I supposed that it was all settled but this was where I began to learn that the McCreyline family were very inconsiderate. I had not claimed to be wealthy or to have unlimited amounts of money to spend in going to and from Chicago as though it were a matter of 80 miles instead of 800. I had explained to the reverend that it was a burden rather than a luxury to be possessed of a lot of raw land until it could be cultivated and made to yield a profit. I recall that while talking with the reverend in regard to this he had nodded his head in a scent but with no facial expression to indicate that he understood or cared. The more I knew him the more I disliked him and was very sorry that Arlene regarded his as a great ma'am although his immediate family were the only ones who regarded him in that light. I had learned to expect his ceremonious manner but was considerably tried by his apparent dullness and lack of interest or encouragement of practical ideas. I put volumes into my letters to Arlene trying to make clear why she should condescend to come to Magory and be quietly married instead of obliging me to return to Chicago. I had no more money as it was expensive to keep my grandmother and sister on their claims. They had no money and I had no outside support not even the moral support of my people nor of Arlene's who all seemed to take it for granted that I had plenty of ready money. I had not taken a scent out of the crop I had raised, the corn still standing in the field with a heavy snow on the ground and my small grain still unthreshed. However my letters were in vain. Miss McCrae-Line could see no other way than that if I cared for her I had come and marry her at home, which she contended was no more than right and would look much better. I sighed wearily over it all and began to suspect I was in the right church but in the wrong pew. End of Chapter 34 CHAPTER 35 OF THE CONQUEST CHAPTER 35 Toward spring the snow melted and with gum boots I plunged into the cold wet corn field and began gathering the corn. It was nasty cold work. The damp earth sent cold chills up through my limbs and as a result I was ill and could do nothing for a week or more. In desperation I wrote the Rev. and being a man I hoped he'd understand. I told him of my sickness and the circumstances of Arlene's claim and of my crops to be put in. It was then April and soon the oats, wheat and barley should be seeded. It was a business letter altogether but I never heard from him and later learned that he had read only a part of the letter. While in Chicago one evening I had called at the house and found the household in a ferment of excitement with everyone saying nothing and apparently trying to look as small and scarce as possible. While in their midst standing like a jungle king and in a platted bathrobe the Rev. was pouring a storm of abuse upon his wife and shouting orders while the wife was trotting to and fro like a frightened lamb protesting weakly. The way he was storming at her made me feel ashamed but after listening to his tirade for some 15 minutes I was angry enough to knock him down then and there. He reminded me more of a brute than a pious minister. When he had finally exhausted himself he turned without speaking to me and strode up the stairs head reared back and carrying himself like a brave soldier returning from war. I wonder then how long it would be before I would be commanded as she had been. Shortly afterward I could hardly control the impulse to take her in my arms and comfort her. She was crying quietly and looked so pitiful. I was told she had been treated in a like manner off and on for thirty years. As stated I did not hear from the Rev. and when I wrote to Orlean I implied that I did not think her father much of a business man. Perhaps this was wrong. At least when I received another letter from her it contained the receipt for the payment on the claim and the single sheet of paper comprising the letter conveyed the intelligence that since she thought it best not to marry me she was forwarding the receipt with thanks for my kindness and hopes for future success. I received the letter on Friday. Saturday night I went into Magory and took the early Sunday morning train bound for Chicago and to marry her. And while I did not think she had treated me just right I would not allow a matter of a trip to Chicago to stand in the way of our marriage. I had an idea her father was indirectly responsible. He and I were much unlike and disagreed in our discussions concerning the so-called Negro problem and in almost every other discussion in which we had engaged. Arriving in Omaha I sent a telegram to Orlean asking her not to go to work that day as I would be in Chicago in the morning. At the depot I called up the house and Cleves answered the phone and was very impertinent but before he said much Orlean took the receiver and without much welcome started to tell me about the criticisms of her father in my letters. You are not taking it in the right way I hurriedly told her. I'll come to the house and we'll talk it over. You will see me won't you? Yes she answered hesitatingly appearing to be a little frightened but I'll do you that honour. The reverend had returned to southern Illinois and when I entered the house the rest of the family appeared to have been holding a consultation in the kitchen which they had as Orlean informed me later with Orlean standing poutingly to one side. She commenced telling me what she was not going to do but I went directly to her and gathered her in my arms with her making a slight resistance but soon succumbing. I looked down at her still pouting face and remonstrated teasingly. Ethel broke in her voice resembling a scream protesting against such boldness on my part saying Orlean doesn't want you and she isn't going to go on to your old farm. Here Orlean silenced her saying that she would attend to that herself and took me to the front part of the house with her mother tagging after us in a sort of half stupor and apparently not knowing what to do. We sat down on the Davenport where she began giving me a lecture and declaring what she was not going to do. Her mother interposed something that angered me though I do not now recall what it was and a look of dissatisfaction came into my face which Orlean observed. Don't you scold Mama? She finished. Now do you hear? Yes dear, I answered meekly with my arm around her waist and my face hidden behind her shoulder. Anything more? Well, well, she appeared at a loss to know what further to say or how to proceed. Ethel remarked afterward to her mother that Orlean had not been near me a half hour until she was listening to everything I said. She finally succeeded in getting off to work after commanding me to free her as she wanted to get away to think. Her mother bristled up with an, I'll talk to you. This was entirely to my liking. I loved her mother as well as my own and had no fear that we would not soon agree and we did. She couldn't be serious with me very long. She persisted in saying, however, I want my husband to know you are here and to know all about this. You must not expect to run in and get his daughter just like something wild, nor you just must not. All right, mother, I assented, but I must hurry back to Dakota, you know, for I can't lose so much time this time of year. You're the worst man I ever saw for always being in a hurry. I'll, well, I do declare. And she bustled off to the kitchen with me following and talking. Oh, can't I get away from you? This is just awful, Mr. Devereaux. Don't you like the name? I put in me and cutting off her discourse and in spite of her attempt at seriousness, she smiled. It is a beautiful name, she admitted, looking at me slyly out of her small black eyes. She was part Indian, just a trifle, but sufficient to give her black eyes instead of brown as most colored people have, and she had long black hair. Before Orlean returned from the store, her mother and I were like mother and son, and Orlean seemed pleased, while Ethel looked at claves and admitted that I would get Orlean anyhow. The only thing necessary now was to reach the elder, and the next morning we spent a couple of hours trying to locate him by telephone. We finally succeeded, as I thought, but he denied later he was the party, though I would have sworn to the voice being his, as I could hear him distinctly. An answer to my statement that we were ready to marry, he shouted in a frantic voice, I don't approve of it, I don't approve of it, I don't approve of it, and kept shouting it over and over until the operator called the time was up. A letter had been sent him by special delivery. The day I arrived and the following morning a reply was received, stating that if Orlean married me without my convincing him that I was marrying her for love and not to hold down a Dakota claim, she would be doing so without his consent. In discussing the matter later Ethel, who had become resigned to the inevitable, said, if you want to get along with Papa you must flatter him, just make him think he is king. Ah! I thought, here is where I made my mistake. I had started wrong, just make him think he is king, His Majesty Newton Jasper. The idea kept revolving in my mind as I realized the reason I had not made good with him. I was too plain and sincere. I must flatter him, make him think he was what he was not, and my failure to do that was the reason for his listening to me in such an expressionless manner. Somewhere I had read that to be a king was to look wise and say nothing. This is what he had done. Evidently he liked to feel great. I recalled the name he was known by, the Reverend N. J., and I had heard him spoken of jokingly as the great N. J. The N. J. was for Newton Jasper. Ha! Ha! The more I thought of his greatness the more amused I became. I might have settled the matter easily if I had no objection to flattering him. He arrived home the next morning and was sitting in the parlor when I called, trying to look serious and surveying me as I entered, just as a king might have done a disobedient subject. I had been so free and without fear for so long that it was beyond my ability to shrivel up and drop as he continued to look me over. I proceeded to tell him all that I had written in my letter to him, the one he had not read, but did not intimate that I knew he had not read it. In the dining-room where we gathered a few minutes later, with the family assembled in mute attention, he asked Orlean whether she wanted to marry me and live in Dakota, and she admitted that she did. Then turning to me he began a lengthy discourse with many ifs and if-nots and kept it up until I cut in with, my dear people, when I first came to see Orlean I didn't profess love. Circumstances had not granted us the opportunity, but we entered a mutual agreement that we would wait and see whether we could learn to love each other or not. Hesitating a moment I looked at Orlean and gaining confidence as I met her soft glance I went on. I cannot guarantee anything as to the future. We may be happy, and we may not, but I hope for the best. That seemed to satisfy him, and he was very nice about it afterward. Orlean and I had been to the courthouse the day previous and got the license, and when her father told us we should go and get the license, we looked at each other rather sheepishly and stammered out something, but went downtown and bought a pair of shoes instead. When we arrived home preparations were made for the wedding. The elder called up the homes of two bishops who lived in the city, and when he found one sick and the other out of town he was somewhat disappointed, as it had always been his desire to have his daughters married by a bishop. He had failed in the first instance and was compelled to accept the services of the pastor of one of the three large African M.E. churches of the city at the wedding of Ethel and had to call upon this pastor again, but found he also was out of the city. He finally secured the services of another pastor by whom we were married in the presence of some twenty or more near friends of the family, orlean wearing her sister's wedding dress and veil. The dress was becoming, and I thought her very beautiful. I wore a Prince Albert coat and trousers to match, which belonged to claves and were too small and tight, making me uncomfortable. I was not long in getting out of them after undergoing the ordeal of being kissed by all the ladies present. Mrs. Ues invited us to spend the evening at her home and the next day we left for South Dakota. End of Chapter 35 Chapter 36 of the Conquest This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Jeff Blanchard The Conquest by Oscar Mejo Chapter 36 A Snake in the Grass Usually in the story of a man's life, or in fiction, when he gets the girl's consent to marry, first admitting the love, the story ends. But with mine, it was much to the contrary. The story did not end there, nor when we had married that afternoon at two o'clock. Instead, my marriage brought the change in my life, which was the indirect cause of my writing this story. From that time, adventures were numerous. We arrived in Meguri several hours late and remained overnight at a hotel, going to the farm the next morning and then to the house I had rented temporarily. I breathed a sigh of relief when I looked over the fields and saw that the boy I had hired had done nicely with the work during my absence. The next night about 60 of the white neighbors gave us a charovary and my wife was much pleased to know there was no colored prejudice among them. We purchased about $100 worth of furniture in the town and at once began housekeeping. My bride didn't know much about cooking but otherwise was a good housekeeper and willing to learn all she could. She was not a forceful person and could not be hurried but was kind and good as she could be and I soon became very fond of her and found marriage much of an improvement over living alone. In May we went up to her claim and put up a sod house and stayed there a while, later returning to Meguri County to look after the crops. Our first trouble occurred in about a month. I was still rather angry over the reverence obliging me to spend the money to go to Chicago. This had cost me $100 which I needed badly to pay interest on my loan. Letters began coming from the companies holding the mortgages besides I had other obligations pending. I had only $50 in the bank when I started to Chicago and while there drew checks on it for $50 more. Making an overdraft of $50 which it took me a month to get paid after returning home. The furniture required for housekeeping and improvement in connection with the homesteads took more money and my sister went home to attend the graduation of another sister and I was required to pay the bills. My corn was gathered and I now shelled it. As the price in Meguri was only $0.40 at the elevators I called it to Victor where I received $0.70 and sometimes $0.75 for it but as it was 35 miles that took time and the long drive was hard on the horses. Orleans folks kept writing letters telling her she must send money to buy something they thought nice for her to have and while no doubt not intending to cause any trouble they made it very hard for me. Money matters are usually a source of trouble to the lives of newlyweds and business is so cold-blooded that it contrasts severely with love's young dream. My position was a trying one for the reason that all the relatives on both sides seemed to take it for granted that I should have plenty of money and nothing I could say or do seemed to change matters. From his circuit the reverent wrote glowing letters to his daughter and son of what all the people were saying. Everybody thought she had married so well. Mr. Devereaux or Oscar as they put it was of good family, a successful young man and was rich. I hadn't written to him and called him dear father. Perhaps this is what I should have done. In a way it would have been easy enough to write and since my marriage I had no letters to spend hours in writing perhaps I should have written to him but when a man is in the position I faced debts on one side and relatives on the other I thought it would not do to write as I felt and I could not write otherwise and play the hypocrite as I had not liked him from the beginning and now disliked him still more because I could find no way of letting him know how I felt. This was no doubt foolish but it was the way I felt about it at the time. My father-in-law evidently thought me ungrateful and wrote all in that I should write him or the folks at home occasionally but I remained obdurate. I felt sure he expected me to feel flattered over the opinions of which he had written in regard to my being considered rich but I did not want to be considered rich for I was not. I had never been vain and hated flattery I wanted to tell her people the truth I wanted them to understand if they did not what it took to make good in this western country and that I had alone and wanted their encouragement and invited criticism not empty praise and flattery before I had any coloured people to discourage me with their ignorance of business or what is required for success I was stimulated to effort by the example of my white neighbours and friends who were doing what I admired building an empire and to me that was a big idea their parents before them knew something of business and this knowledge was a goodly heritage if they could not help their children with money they at least gave their moral support and visited them and encouraged them with kind words of hope and cheer the people in the new country lived mostly on hopes for the first 5 or 10 years my parents and grandparents had been slaves, honest but ignorant my father could neither read nor write had not succeeded in a large way and had nothing to give me as a start not even practical knowledge my wife's parents were a little different but it would have been better for me had her father been other than the big preacher as he was referred to who in order to be at peace with it was necessary to praise what I wanted in the circumstances I now faced was to be allowed to mould my wife into a practical woman who would be a help in the work we had before us and some day I assured her we would be well to do and then we could have the better things of life how long she would ask weeping she was always crying and so many tears got on my nerves especially when my creditors were pestering me with duns and it is Hades to be done especially when you have not been used to it oh I'd say five or ten years and then she'd have another cry and I would have to do a lot of petting and persuading to keep her from telling her mother this all had a tendency to make me cross and I began to neglect kissing her as much as I had been doing but she was good and had been a nice girl when I married her she could only be made to stop crying when I would spend an hour or two petting and assuring her I still loved her and this when I should have been in the fields she would ask me a dozen times a day whether I still loved her or was I growing tired of her so soon she was a veritable clinging vine this continued until we were both decidedly unhappy and then began ugly little quarrels but when she would be away with my sister to her claim in Tip County I would be so lonesome without her simple as I thought she was and the days seemed like weeks one day she was late in bringing my dinner to the field where I was plowing and we had a quarrel which made us both so miserable and unhappy that we were ashamed of ourselves by some power for which we were neither responsible our disagreements came to an end and we never quarrelled again the first two weeks in June were hot and dry and considerable damage was done to the crops in Tip County and in Macquarie County also the winds blew from the south and became so hot the young green plant began to fire but a big rain on the 24th saved the crops in Macquarie County about that time the Reverend wrote that he would come to see us after conference which was then three months away one day we were going to town after our little quarrels were over and I talked kindly with Orlean about her father and tried to overcome my dislike of him for her sake I had learned by that time just how she had been raised and that was to praise her father she would say you know Papa is such a big man or he's so great she had begun to call me her great and big husband and I think that had been the cause of part of our quarrels for I had discouraged it I had a horror of praise when I thought how silly her father was over it and she had about ceased and now talked more sensibly weighing matters and helping me a little mentally we talked of her father and his expected visit she appeared so pleased over the prospect and said won't you make a hit up here won't those white people be foolish over his fine looks and that beautiful white hair and she raised their hands and drew them back as I had seen her do in stroking her father's hair I agreed with her that he would attract some attention and change the subject when we returned home she gave me the letter to read that she had written to him she was obedient and did try so hard to please me and when I read in the letter she had written that we had been to town and had talked about him all the way and were anxious for him to visit us that we had agreed that he would make a great impression with the people out here and tell her not to send that letter as it placed me in a false light and would cause him to think the people were going to be crazy about him and his distinguished appearance but she was watching me so closely that I could not be mean enough to speak my mind and did not offer my usual criticism a short time before her father arrived a contest was filed against Orleans claim on the grounds that she had never established a residence we had established residence but by staying much of the time in McGory County had laid the claim liable to contest the man who filed the contest was a banker in Amro this bank being one of the few buildings left there I knew we were in for a big expense and lots of trouble which I had feared and had been working early and late to get through my work in McGory County and get on to her claim permanently we did not receive the reverence letter when he would arrive so I was not at the train to meet him but happened to be in town on horseback in answer to my inquiries a man who had come in on the train gave me a description of a colored man who had arrived on the same train and I knew that my father in law was in town I went to the hotel and found he had left his baggage but had gone to the restaurant where I found him he seemed pleased to be in McGory I explained that I had not received his letter I went to look up a German neighbor who was in town in a buggy thinking I would have the reverent ride out with him when we got ready to go the gem was so drunk and noisy that the reverent was frightened and remarked cautiously that he did not know whether he wanted to ride out with a drunken man or not the German heard him and roared in a still louder tone you don't have to ride with me no, no, no no the elder became more frightened at this and hurriedly ducked into the hotel where he stayed I hitched a team of young mules to the wagon the next morning and sent Orlean to town after him the reverent seemed to be carried away with our lives on the little crow and we got along fine until he and I got to arguing the race question which brought about friction it was as I had feared but it seemed impossible to avoid it he had the most ancient and backward ideas concerning race advancement I had ever heard he was filled to overflowing with condemnation of the white race and eulogy of the negro in his idea the negro had no fault nor could he do any wrong or make any mistake everything had been against him and according to the reverent's idea was still this he would declare very loudly from the race question we drifted a discussion of mixed schools the reverent had educated his girls with the intention of making teachers of them and would speak of this fact with much pride speaking slowly and distinctly like one who had years of oratory he would insist that the public schools of Chicago have not given them a chance I am opposed to mixed schools he would exclaim they are like everything else the white people control they are managed in a way to keep the colored people down here all in dissented this being about the only time she did openly disagree with him she was firm in declaring there was no law or management preventing the colored girls teaching in Chicago if they were competent in the first place she carefully continued the school we attended in Ohio does not admit to teach in the city in order to teach in the city schools it is either necessary to be a graduate of the normal or have a certain number of years experience elsewhere I do not remember all the wise but she was empathetic and continued to insist that it was to some extent the fault of the girls who were not all as attentive to books as they should be spending too much time in society or with something else that kept them from their studies which impaired their chances when they attempted to enter the city schools she held up instances where colored girls were teaching in Chicago schools and had been for years which knocked the foundation from his argument there are very few colored people in a city or state which has mixed schools who desire to have them separated the mixed schools give the colored children a more equal opportunity and all the advantage of efficient management of mixed schools lack this even in the large cities where separate schools are in force the advantage is invariably with the wide schools another advantage of mixed schools is it helps to eliminate so much prejudice many ignorant colored people as well as many ignorant white people fill their children's mind with undue prejudice against each race if they are kept in separate schools this line becomes more distinct a colored child filling the mind of another colored child with bad ideas and the white child doing likewise which is never helpful to the community by nature in the past at least the colored children were more ferocious and aggressive too much so which is because they have not been out of heathenism many years the mixed school helps to eliminate this tendency with the reverend it was a self evident fact about was that it would be easier for the colored girls to teach if the schools were separate I was becoming more and more convinced that he belonged to the class of the negro race that desired ease privilege, freedom, position and luxury without any great material effort on their part to acquire it and still held to the time-worn cry of no opportunity following this disagreement came another I had always approved of Booker T. Washington his life and his work in the uplift of the negro before his name was mentioned I had decided just about how he would take it and I was not mistaken he was bitterly opposed to the educator End of chapter 36