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

      To me the days were long, and the nights lonely. The late fall rains kept my flax growing until winter had set in, and snow fell before it was all harvested. All I could see of my crop was little white elevations over the field. There was no chance to get it threshed. My capital had all been exhausted, and it was a dismal prospect indeed. I used to sit there in my wife's lonely claim-house, with nothing else to occupy my mind but to live over the happy events connected with our courtship and marriage, and the sad events following her departure.

      During my life on the Little Crow, I had looked forward joyfully to the time when I should be a husband and father, with a wife to love, and a home of my own. This had been so dominant in my mind, that when I thought it over, I could not clearly realize the present situation. I lived in a sort of stupor and my very existence seemed to be a dreadful nightmare. I would at times rouse myself, pinch the flesh, and move about, to see if it was my real self; and would try to shake off the loneliness which completely enveloped me. My head ached and my heart was wrung with agony.

      I read a strange story, but its contents seemed so true to life. It related the incident of a criminal who had made an escape from a prison—not for freedom, but to get away for only an hour, that he might find a cat, or a dog, or something, that he could love.

      It seems he had been an author, and by chance came upon a woman—during the time of his escape—who permitted him to love her, and during the short recess, to her he recited a poem entitled, "The right to love." The words of that poem burned in my mind.

      "Love is only where is reply,

       I speak, you answer; There am I,

       And that is life everlasting."

      "Love lives, to seek reply.

       I speak, no answer; Then I die,

       To seek reincarnation."

      As the cold days and long nights passed slowly by, and I cared for the stock and held down my wife's claim, the title of that story evolved in my mind, and I would repeat it until it seemed to drive me near insanity. I sought consolation in hope, and the winter days passed at last; but I continued to hope until I had grown to feel that when I saw my wife and called to her name, she would hear me and see the longing in my heart and soul; then would come the day of redemption.

      CHAPTER XLIII

       "AND SATAN CAME ALSO."

       Table of Contents

      Came a day when the snow had disappeared; my threshing was done; I had money again, and to Chicago I journeyed

      During the winter I had planned a way to get to see my wife, and took the first step toward carrying it out, immediately following my arrival in the city.

      I went to a telephone and called up Mrs. Ewis. She recognized my voice and knew what I had come for. She said: "I am so glad I was near the phone when you called up, because your father-in-law is in the house this very minute." On hearing this I was taken aback, for it had not occurred to me that he might be in the city. As the realization that he was, became clear to me, I felt ill at ease, and asked how he came to be in the city at that time.

      "Well," and from her tone I could see that she was also disturbed—"you see tomorrow is election and yesterday was Easter, so he came home to vote, and be here Easter, at the same time. Now, let me think a moment," she said nervously. Finally she called: "Oscar, I tell you what I will do, P.H. is sick and the Reverend has been here every day to see him." Here she paused again, then went on: "I will try to get him to go home, but he stays late. However, you call up in about an hour, and if he is still here, I'll say 'this is the wrong number, see?'"

      "Yes," I said gratefully, and hung up the receiver.

      I had by this time become so nervous that I trembled, and then went down into Custom House place—I had talked from the Polk Street station—and took a couple of drinks to try to get steady.

      In an hour and a half I called up again and it was the "wrong number," so I went out south and called on a young railroad man and his wife, by the name of Lilis, who were friends of Orlean's and mine.

      After expressing themselves as being puzzled as to why the Reverend should want to separate us, Mrs. Lilis told me of her. During the conversation Mrs. Lilis said: "After you left last year, I went over to see Orlean, and spoke at length of you, of how broken hearted you appeared to be, and that she should be in Dakota. Mrs. McCraline looked uncomfortable and tried to change the subject, but I said my mind, and watched Orlean. In the meantime I thought she would faint right there, she looked so miserable and unhappy. She has grown so fat, you know she was always so peaked before you married her. Everybody is wondering how her father can be so mean, and continue to keep her from returning home to you, but Mrs. Ewis can and will help you get her because she can do more with that family than anyone else. She and the Elder have been such close friends for the last fifteen years, and she should be able to manage him."

      Then her mother said: "Oscar, I have known you all your life; I was raised up with your parents; knew all of your uncles; and know your family to have always been highly respected; but I cannot for my life see, why, if Orlean loves you, she lets her father keep her away from you. Now here is my Millie," she went on, turning her eyes to her daughter, "and Belle too, why, I could no more separate them from their husbands than I could fly—even if I was mean enough to want to."

      "But why does he do it, Mama? The Reverend wants to break up the home of Orlean and Oscar," Mrs. Lilis put in, anxiously.

      "Bless me, my child," her mother replied, "I have known N.J. McCraline for thirty years and he has been a rascal all the while. I am not surprised at anything that he would do."

      "Well," said Mrs. Lilis, with a sigh of resignation, "it puzzles me."

      I then told them about calling up Mrs. Ewis and what I had planned on doing. It was then about nine-thirty. As they had a phone, I called Mrs. Ewis again.

      While talking, I had forgotten the signal, and remembered it only when I heard Mrs. Ewis calling frantically, from the other end of the wire, "This is the wrong number, Mister, this is the wrong number." With an exclamation, I hung up the receiver with a jerk.

      Mrs. Ankin lived about two blocks east, so I went to her house from Mrs. Lilis'. On the street, the effect of what had passed, began to weaken me. I was almost overcome, but finally arrived at Mrs. Ankins'. Just before retiring, at eleven o'clock, I again called up Mrs. Ewis, and it was still the "wrong number." I went to bed and spent a restless night.

      I awakened about five-thirty from a troubled sleep, jumped up, dressed, then went out and caught a car for the west side. I felt sure the Elder would go home during the night.

      It is always very slow getting from the south to the west side in Chicago, on a surface car, and it was after seven o'clock when I arrived at the address, an apartment building, where Mrs. Ewis' husband held the position as janitor, and where they made their home, in the basement.

      She was just coming from the grocery and greeted me with a cheerful "Good Morning," and "Do you know that rascal stayed here until twelve o'clock last night," she laughed. She called him "rascal" as a nickname. She took me into their quarters, invited me to a chair, sat down, and began to talk in a serious tone. "Now Oscar, I understand your circumstances thoroughly, and am going to help you and Orlean in every way I can. You understand Rev. McCraline has always been hard-headed, and the class of ministers he associates with, are more hard-headed still. The Elder has never liked you because of your independence, and from the fact that you would not let him rule your house and submit to his ruling, as Claves does. Now Oscar, let me give you some advice. Maybe you are not acquainted with the circumstances, for if you had been, in the beginning, you might have avoided this trouble. What I am telling you is from experience, and I know it to be true. Don't ever criticize the preachers, to their faces, especially the older ones. They know their views and practices, in many instances, to be out of keeping with good morals, but they are not going to welcome any criticism of their acts. In fact, they will crucify