"Ah-m ahem!" began the Reverend with a great effort at self composure. "It is, to say the least, my dear Bishop, with much regret that I am compelled to explain a matter that has caused me no end of grief. To begin with: It was not with my consent that my daughter was allowed to go off into the West and file on a homestead."
The other's face was like a tomb upon hearing this. Indeed, the Elder would have to put forth a more logical excuse. It has been said that the Bishop was a practical man which in truth he was, and the fact is, he regarded it as far more timely if a larger number of the members of his race in the city would have taken up homesteads in the West, than for them to have been frequenting State Street and aping the rich. Also, the Bishop had read Baptiste's book—although the Reverend was not aware of it,—and was constrained to feel that a man could not conscientiously write that which was absolutely false.
"But I came into the city here after a conference to find that my daughter had been herded off out West in a wild country to take a homestead."
"Now, just a minute, Reverend," interposed the Bishop astutely. "Regarding this claim your daughter filed on. What was the nature of the land? You have been over it, I dare say."
"Of course, of course, my dear Bishop! It was a piece of wild, undeveloped land. At the time she took it, it was fifty miles or such a matter from the railroad. She gave birth to a child—"
"But," interposed the Bishop again, "you say the land was a considerable distance from the railroad at the time your daughter filed on the place? Very well. Now, Reverend, isn't it a fact that in the history of this country, all new countries when opened to the settler may have been some distance from the railroad in the beginning? For instance, somebody started Chicago, which was certainly not the convenient place then that it is now in which to live."
"Of course, my dear Bishop, of course."
"So the fact that the railroad was, as you say, fifty miles away, could not be held as an argument against it. Besides, is it not a fact that there were other people, men and women, who were as far from the railroad and therefore placed at an equal disadvantage?"
"Of course, of course."
"Then, my dear Reverend, it does not appear to me that that should be a fact to be condemned."