The Homesteader. Micheaux Oscar

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СКАЧАТЬ Baptiste is the man who can bring it if anybody," rejoined the other.

      At this moment a large, stout man came driving up in a one horse rig.

      "Any coal?" he called lazily from his seat.

      "Plenty," cried Barr.

      "Thank God," exclaimed the other, whose name was Stark, and who held the claim that cornered with the town on the northeast, and therefore joined with the Baptiste claim on the east.

      "Thank Jean Baptiste," advised Barr. "He's the man that brought it."

      "So?" said Stark thoughtfully. "When?"

      "Yesterday."

      "Yesterday?"

      "That's what the lumberman said."

      "Well, I'll be blowed!"

      "You'll be warmed, I guess."

      "Well, I should say!"

      "That Baptiste is some fellow."

      "Well, yes. Although I sometimes think he is a fool."

      "Oh, not so rash!"

      "Any man's a fool that would have left Bonesteel with loads yesterday."

      "Then I suppose we should be thankful to the fool. A fool's errand will in this case mean many lazy men's comfort."

      "And last summer you recall how it rained?"

      "I sure do."

      "Well, you know that fellow would go out and work in the rain."

      "And has a hundred and thirty acres ready and into crop while I have but thirty."

      "I have but ten, but—"

      "You will be in the hole—at least behind at the end of this summer."

      "But I'm advertised to prove up."

      "And leave the country when you have done so."

      "Well, of course. I have a house and lot and three acres back in Iowa."

      "And Jean Baptiste has 320 acres. In a few years he will have a rich, wonderful farm that will be a factor in the local history and development of this country; it will also mean something for posterity."

      "Well, I don't care."

      "You drew your land and got it free excepting four dollars an acre to the government. Baptiste bought his and paid for the relinquishment. You were lucky, but it will be up to Jean Baptiste and his kind to make the country. Had they been as you appear to be, we would perhaps all be in Jerusalem, or the jungle. Let's load the coal."

      "Good lecture, that," muttered the lumberman when the two were at the bin. "Lot's o' truth in it, too. Old Stark needed it. He's too lazy to hitch up a team, so rides to town in that little buggy with one horse hitched to it."

      "What are you talking about?" inquired another, coming up at this moment.

      "Jean Baptiste."

      "So?"

      "Barr and Stark have just had a set-to about him."

      "M-m?"

      "Stark says a man that would come from Bonesteel a day like yesterday was a fool."

      "Why will he partake of the fuel he brought to keep from freezing, then?"

      "Well, Stark is too lazy to care. He's advertised to prove up, you know, and he always has something to say about working."

      "Used to come to town after the mail during the rainy spell last summer, and upon seeing Baptiste at work in the field, cry 'Just look at that fool nigger, a workin' in the rain.'" Both laughed. A few minutes later the town was thrown into an uproar over the incident related in the last chapter.

      Now it happened that day that Augustus M. Barr went to the postoffice and received a heavy envelope. He glanced through the contents with a serious face, and put the papers in his pocket. On the way to his claim, he took them out and went through them again, and returned them to his pocket. A few minutes later he reached into the pocket, drew out what he thought to be the papers, and silently tore them to threads, and flung the bundle of paper to the winds.

      When Jean Baptiste left the town for his little sod house on the hill, he saw A.M. Barr just ahead of him. He followed the same route that Barr had taken, and when he reached the draw on the town site that lay between his place and the town, he espied some papers. He picked them up, continued on his way, and presently observed the torn ball of paper that Barr had cast away. He idly opened the package he held. He wondered at the contents and as he read them through he became curious. The papers had to do with something between Augustus M. Barr, Isaac Syfe, and Peter Kaden.

      "Now that is singular," he said to himself. He continued to read through the papers, and as he did so, another fact became clear to him. Kaden was a sad character. And because he was so forlorn, never cultivated any friendship, lived alone and never visited, the people had begun to regard him as crazy. But now Jean Baptiste understood something that neither he, nor any of the people in the country had dreamed of. He read on. He recalled that the summer before a young lady, beautiful, refined but strange at times, had stayed at the Barr claim. Barr had introduced her as his niece. The people wondered at her seclusion. She had a fine claim. Barr had come to him once and spoken about selling it, stating that the girl had fallen heir to an estate in England and was compelled to return therewith.... Later he had succeeded in selling the place. She had disappeared; but he had never forgotten the expressions he had observed upon the face of Christine.... He had thought it singular at the time but had thought little of it since. He read further into the papers, and learned about some other person, a woman, but concerning her he could gather nothing definite. He could not understand about Christine either, except that she had fallen heir to nothing in England; was not there, but not more than three hundred miles from where he stood at that moment. But there was before him what he did understand, and which was that there was something between Augustus M. Barr, Isaac Syfe, and Peter Kaden, and something was going to happen.

CHAPTER VII

       Table of Contents

      THE DAY BEFORE

      NEVER since the night at the sod house had Agnes Stewart been the same person. She could not seem to dismiss Jean Baptiste, and the instance of her providence in getting lost and thereby saving him, from her mind. His strange words and singular recognition of her was baffling. Being so very curious therefore, she had since learned that he was well known in the community and held in popular favor.

      She knew little and understood less with regard to predestination; but she had, since meeting him, recalled that he was the one she had seen in her dream—and loved! She tried to laugh away such a freak; but do what she might, she grew more curious to see him again as the days passed; to talk with him, and learn at last what she was anxious to know—curious to know. How did he come to utter her name and say that he had waited?

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