"Oh, so he has them living out there alone like cattle, helping him to get rich!"
"They do not live like cattle, father," she defended in the patient manner she had been trained to. "They have a horse and buggy that he has furnished them, and get all their needs at the stores which is charged to him. They have good neighbors, awfully nice white people—women, too, who live alone on their claims as his sister and grandmother are doing."
"But they are not like you, daughter. Those are all rough people. You cannot live like them. You have been accustomed to something."
She sighed unheard again and did not try to explain to his Majesty that most of the people—women included—were in a majority from the best homes in the East, as well as families; that many had wealth where she had none; and that Jean's sister had been graduated from high school and was very intelligent. It was difficult, and she knew it, to explain anything to her father; but she would endeavor to tell him of the contest.
"Well, father, since I was not on my place as I should have been, a man contested it, and now we must fight it out, Jean says, so that is it."
"M-m-m," sighed that one. "He's going to kill you out here to make him rich. And then when you are dead and—"
"Please, don't, father," she almost screamed. She knew he was going to say: "and in your grave, he will marry another woman and bring her in to enjoy what you have died for." But she could not quite listen to that. It was not fair. It was not fair to her and it was not fair to Jean. She was surprised at the way she felt. She forgot also, and for his benefit, that they had never been very happy at home when he was in Chicago. They had only pretended to be. It had been because of him being away all the time and their relation having been confined to letters that they had been contented. But Orlean had made herself believe for this occasion that when he came to visit, they were going to have a really pleasant time. And now so soon she was simply worn out. She had become more sensitive of her tasks in life than it had occurred to her she could ever be. For the first time she was getting the idea that, after all they were burdensome.
From a painting by W.M. Farrow.