The Homesteader: A Novel

by Oscar Micheaux

"I am sometimes a little afraid that he didn't get the right kind of woman.

"He was such a prince of a good fellow, that it would most likely have been his luck to have gotten a woman who would betray him in some way. It is all rather strange, for I don't think he loved any woman but you, Aggie."

He darted his eyes quickly in her direction, recalling a time before when he had intimated something of the kind. This time, however, she did not cry out, but continued at her sewing as though he had not spoken.

As he slowly walked out, what was in his mind was the thing that had worried him before.

She looked after him and sighed. It was her effort then to forget the past, and in so doing, the inspiration with regard to music came again, and developed in her mind. But her efforts had brought so little encouragement from those to whom she had submitted her compositions that she for a long time despaired of making another effort.

So it was not until the great drought swept over the land and drove almost all the settlers from their claims in a search for food, that made her again resort to the effort.

The drought was even worse in the part of the country they now called home than it had been in Tripp County and other parts farther East. Corn that was planted under the sod one spring had actually not sprouted for two years, for the moisture that fell had never wet the earth that deep. So, after two years in which they came nearer to starvation than they had ever before, she secured a position in a hotel in a town farther West, and the money earned thereby, she gave to her father and brothers to live on.

It was then she had returned to compositions in a desperate effort and hope to save them from disaster. For a long time she met with the usual rejections, and it was a year or more before anything she composed received any notice.

But O, My Homesteader was an instantaneous success. While she still worked in the kitchen of the little hotel in the western village, the royalties came pouring in upon her so fast until she could hardly believe it. And coincident with the same, she became the recipient of numerous offers from almost everywhere. Most were for compositions; while many were offers to go on the stage, at which she was compelled to laugh. The very thought of her, a dishwasher in a country hotel, going on the stage! But she resigned her position and went back to her father and brothers on the farm. She used her money to pay off their debts and started them to farming, and made herself contented with staying on as she had done before, and keeping house for her father and the boys. She refused to submit any more manuscripts until the success of her first song was growing old, and then she released others which followed with a measure of success.

The offers from the East persisted; and with them, drought in the West continued and they saw that trying to farm so far west was, for the present time, at least, impractical. So they returned to Gregory where she purchased the place they had lived on. Owing to the fact that the drought had been severe there, also, she secured the place at a fair bargain, and they returned to farming the summer following the publication of Baptiste's book.