The Lone Black Pioneer: Oscar Micheaux Boxed Set. Micheaux Oscar

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СКАЧАТЬ to come and file on a Tipp county claim first.

      To get the money for the purchase of the relinquishments, I had mortgaged my three hundred and twenty acres for seven thousand, six hundred dollars, the relinquishments costing in the neighborhood of six thousand, four hundred dollars. October was the time when the land would be open to homestead filing, and Miss McCraline 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 thirty-five 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 Rev. McCraline and asked her if she knew him.

      "Who, old N.J. McCraline?" she asked. "Humph," 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. Ewis."

      This recalled to my mind that during the spring I had come to Chicago I had become acquainted with Mrs. Ewis' son and had been entertained at their home on Vernon Avenue where at that time the two families, McCraline and Ewis, rented a flat together, and although I had seen the girls I had not become acquainted with any of the McCraline family then. Orlean was the older of the two girls. What Miss Ankin 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 Ankin and called up Miss McCraline, 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 at two o'clock, if that is agreeable to you."

      She assured me that it was and at the appointed hour I called at the McCraline home and was pleasantly received. Miss McCraline 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 McCraline 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 McCraline was acquainted with a part of the story for, as stated, she had been teaching in M—boro 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, they both thought it all right that Orlean should go to Dakota and file on the 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 three hundred and seventy-five 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 theatre where we saw Lew Dokstader'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. Ewis came over from the west side. I had known Mrs. Ewis to be a smart woman with a deeper conviction than had Mrs. McCraline, whom she did not like, but as Mrs. McCraline was in trouble and did not know which way to turn, Mrs. Ewis was approached with the subject. Orlean 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 twenty-seven 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. Ewis, as she afterward explained to me, was that it was decided that it would not be proper for Orlean to go alone with me but if I cared to pay her way she would accompany us as chaperon. I was getting somewhat uneasy as I had paid twelve hundred dollars into the bank at Megory for the relinquishment, which I would lose if someone didn't file on the claim by the second of October. It was then about September twenty-fifth and I readily consented to incur the expense of her trip to Megory, where we soon landed. While I had been absent my sister and grandmother had arrived. On October first, all three were ready to file on their claims, and Dakota's colored population would be increased by three, and four hundred and eighty 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 first, 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 Tipp 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.

      CHAPTER XXXII

       A LONG NIGHT

       Table of Contents

      People 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 would have to remain in line all night to hold their places (to be exact, just seventeen 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 appetites 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 fiancee 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 СКАЧАТЬ