Upon seeing him Agnes had for the moment forgotten what she was thinking about. But when he had passed by, she was suddenly struck with an inspiration. She jumped quickly to her feet: She raised her hands to her breast and held them there as if to still a great excitement, as she cried:
"Jean! Jean, Jean Baptiste! It was you, you, who did it. It was you who saved my father, saved me; saved us all! Oh, my Jean!"
She was overcome then with a great emotion. She sank slowly upon a chair. And as she did so sobs broke from her lips and she wept long and silently.
CHAPTER XVI
BILL PRESCOTT PROPOSES
SUMMERTIME over the prairie country; summertime when the rainfall has been abundant, is a time of happiness to all settlers in a new land. And such a summer it was in the land of our story. God had been unusually kind to the settlers; he had blessed them with abundant moisture; with sunshine, not too warm and not too cold. The railroad was under course of construction and would be completed far enough west for the settlers from the most remote part—from the farthest corner of the reservation to journey with their grain or hogs, chickens or cattle to it and return to home the same day. And now the fields which had been seeded to winter wheat had turned to gold. Only a few thousand acres had been sowed over the county, and of this amount one hundred thirty acres grew on the homestead of Jean Baptiste. The season for its growth had been ideal, and the prospects for a bumper yield was the best. Ripe now, and ready to cut, the air was filled with its aroma.
He had brought a new self-binder from Gregory which now stood in the yard ready for action, its various colors green, red, blue and white, resplendent in the sunlight.
So now we see Jean Baptiste the cheerful, Jean Baptiste the hopeful, with hopes in a measure about realized; Jean Baptiste the Ethiopian in a country where he alone was black. He whistles at times, he sings, he is merry, cheery and gay.
But while Jean Baptiste was happy, cheerful and gay, there was in him what has been, what always will be that which makes us appreciate the courage that is in some men.