"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—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 winningly 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. In 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 a king."
"Ah," I thought. "Here is where I made my mistake."