CHAPTER IX
WHAT THE PEOPLE WERE SAYING
N.J. MCCARTHY arrived in the city late on Friday afternoon and was met by both his daughters. Ethel had, of course, read the letters Jean Baptiste had written his wife requesting her to return home, and so she took Orlean with her to meet her father, instead of permitting her to go to the station to return to the husband who had asked for her. The Elder was due in about the same time the train that would have taken Orlean West was due out.
"Ah-ha," he cried as he stepped from the car. "And both my babies have come to meet their father! That is the way my children act. Always obedient to their father. Yes, yes. Never have contraried or disobeyed him," a compliment he meant for Orlean, but Ethel could share it this once, although the times she had contraried or sauced him would have been hard to recount.
Upon arriving home, they met Glavis just returning from work, and he was also greeted in the same effusive manner by the Reverend.
"And how is everything about the home, my son?" asked the Elder in a big voice. At the same time he eyed Glavis critically. He had come to the city with and for a purpose, and that purpose was to put down early the intimacy that had been reported as growing up between Glavis and Baptiste. So he had planned to attend to it diplomatically.
"Why everything is alright, father," glabbed Glavis, grinning broadly and showing his teeth. He was ever affected by the other's lordlyism, and he had never tried matching his wits with those of the other's in an extraordinary manner. The Elder was aware of this, and it made him rather grateful. However, he regarded the other closely as Glavis stepped about in quick attention to his possible needs or desires. That was as he had hoped to have both his sons-in-law, wherefore his team would have been complete. It made him sigh now regretfully when he recalled how he had failed in the one case. He gave up momentarily to a siege of self pity. How different it would have been had Jean Baptiste chosen to admire him as Glavis apparently did. But—and he straightened up perceptibly when it occurred to him, instead of being as Glavis was, the other had chosen to be independent, to call him "Judge," "Colonel," "Reverend," and "Elder" and any other vulgar title he happened to think of on the moment. Moreover, he had also chosen to ask him a thousand questions about things he did not understand—that was the trouble, though the Elder had not seen it that way—asking him questions about things he did not understand. The Elder saw it as "impudent." He saw and regarded that persistency which had been the making of the man in Jean Baptiste as "hardheadedness." He regarded that tenacity to stick to anything in the other, sufficient to characterize "a bulldog."
"M-m, my boy," he said now to Glavis. "You are certainly a fine young man, just fine, fine, fine!" He paused briefly while Glavis could swallow the flattery, and then went on: "Never in the thirty years I have been a minister of the gospel and been compelled to be away from home in God's work, has it ever been like it has since you married Ethel. I simply do not have to worry at all now; whereas, I used to have to worry all the time." Whereupon he paused again, affected a lordly sigh, and permitted Glavis to become inflated with vanity before going on.
"Now, before you married Ethel, I was a little dubious." He always said this for a purpose. "I am so well informed and understand men so well, and the ways of men, until I was hesitant to risk trusting you with my daughter's love. You will understand how it is when you have raised children with the care I have exercised in the training of my precious darlings. A man cannot be too careful, and for that reason, I was dubious regarding her marrying you. Besides, we, I think you understand, are among the best colored people of the city of Chicago, and the State of Illinois, so it behooved me to exercise discretion."