"Well," he answered, "suppose you come down to where I work and we will talk it over."
"I'll do that," I answered, and went down town where he worked on Wabash avenue.
One thing I had noticed about him was, that while he was ignorant, he was at least an honest, hard-working fellow, but was kept in fear by his wife and the elder. I saw after talking to him, that he, like Mrs. McCraline, did not believe a word of what the Reverend had told about my mistreating his daughter, and that he submitted to the elder, as the rest of the family did, for the sake of peace. But they were all trained and avoided saying anything about the elder.
During the conversation with Claves he told me he kept up the house, paid all the grocery bills, and half the payments. He had been advanced to a salary of eighteen dollars a week and seemed to be well liked by the management.
I went to a hotel run by colored people, and at about seven-thirty that evening, called up the house to see if Orlean had returned. She came to the phone but before we had said much, were accidentally cut off. Hearing her voice excited me, and I wanted to see her, so hung up the receiver and hurried to the house, some ten or twelve blocks away. When I rang the bell, Claves came to the door. Before he could let me enter, Ethel came running down the stairs, screaming as loudly as she could:
"Don't let him in! Don't let him in! You know what papa said! Don't you let him in," and continued screaming as loud as possible.
I heard my wife crying in the back room. Claves had his hat on and came outside, saying:
"For God's sake, Ethel, hush up! You'll have all the neighborhood out."
She continued to scream, and to stop her, he closed the door. We went together on State street and I took a few Scotch highballs and cocktails to try to forget it.
The next day being Sunday, Claves said he would try to get Ethel off to church and then I could slip in and see Orlean, but she refused to go and when I called up, about the time I thought she would be gone, she was on guard. My wife was at the phone and told me to come over and she would try to slip out, but when I called, Ethel had made her go to bed. It seemed that she ran the house and all in it, when the elder was away. Mrs. McCraline came outside, took me by the arm and led me over to Groveland park, near the lake. Here she unfolded a plan whereby I should find a room nearby, and she would slip Orlean over to it, but this proved as unsuccessful as the other attempt, to steal a march on Ethel. She held the fort and I did not get to see my wife but one hour during the four days I was in Chicago. That was on Tuesday following, after Claves had tried every trick and failed to get Ethel away. This time he succeeded by telling her I had left town, but when I had been in the house an hour, Ethel came and started screaming. I had to get out before she would stop.