The Homesteader: A Novel

"It is," agreed Baptiste. "I will not get to see her, since I shall have to return to the West not later than two or three days." He was extremely disappointed. He sat down with...

The reverend McCarthy was commonly regarded as a good politician in church affairs, meaning, that he was successful with the Bishop in being able to hold the office of Presiding...

When Jean Baptiste had found the papers belonging to Barr, and had come to understand that it had been Barr's intention to destroy the same, natural curiosity had prompted him t...

"Oh, Mama," cried Orlean E. McCarthy, coming hastily from the hallway into the room where her mother sat sewing, and handing her a note, "Mr. Baptiste is in the city and wishes...

"My father is home, and, oh! but he did carry on when he was informed regarding my trip West to take the homestead," Orlean wrote her betrothed in her next letter. "He was so mu...

The days that followed after the Elder had taken his wife away, were unhappy days for Jean Baptiste. In his life there were certain things he had held sacred. Chief among these...

It was winter, and the white snow lay everywhere; icicles hung from the eaves. All work on the farms was completed. People were journeying to a town half way between Bonesteel a...

It is not likely that the people in the neighborhood of Dallas would have ever known any more than they did regarding A.M. Barr, had it not been for two accounts. When proof had...

She enjoyed the horseback ride to Gregory. Although she trembled at times from the sting of the intense cold, the exercise the riding gave her body kept the blood circulating fr...

Harvest time, harvest time! When the harvest time is, all worries have passed. When the harvest time is, all doubts, droughts, fears and tears are no more. When the golden grain...

"Hello, Jean," cried a friend of his at Colome some days later, as he was leading his horses into the livery barn, after loading the coal he was hauling to the men who were brea...

Not long ago a man died who had made astronomy a specific study for sixty years. He knew the planets, Mars and Jupiter, and Saturn and all the others. He knew the constellations...

The play they witnessed that afternoon was an emotional play, and in a degree it sufficed to arouse the emotion in all three. The meeting between Orlean and her husband had been...

Their cognomen was Stewart, and three years had gone by since their return from Western Kansas where they had been on what they now chose to regard as a "Wild Goose Chase." The...

"Jean!" called Orlean three months later, as she came out of the house, the house where Stewarts had lived, and which Jean Baptiste had rented for the season so as to be near al...

Jean Baptiste had come eight hundred miles after one terrible year, to the feet of his father-in-law, and when he realized that such was the case upon hanging up the receiver, h...

"So I thought I would just come over and cheer you up. There is something mysterious about it all, and the newspapers are devoting much space to it. Oh, I'm so glad to hope that...

He had come unto the house then, and the man in him was much downcast. He was, and had cause to feel discouraged, sorrowful and sad. So he explained to the one who lay upon the...

It did not rain the night Jean Baptiste went to Winner to meet the wife who failed to come, but the protracted drought continued on into July. For three weeks into this month it...

"I've been over to the McCarthys today," cried Mildred Merrill, greeting her mother, as she returned home the Sunday following the filing of the suit. "And, oh, mama, they are c...

When Jack Stewart left Indiana, and left owing the two hundred dollars which was secured by a chattel mortgage on his horses, he failed to do something he now had cause to regre...

Jean Baptiste called by to see the Merrills before leaving the city, and took Mildred and her mother one afternoon to a matinée at the Colonial theatre. It was a musical reperto...

When the others had gone, Jean Baptiste rolled over again upon the floor, and was conscious that one eye was closed and swollen, filled with blood from a wound inflicted by his...

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 o...

He had some friends who lived on Federal Street and to their home he decided to go. He thought of the day when he had married. The man ran on the road. His wife he had known lon...

"Now, Orlean," he said gently. "I have such a lot of work to do. I will go, tear down some of the old buildings on the homestead and be back before many days."

Junius Grey inquired at length concerning the land whence he had come, of the prospects, of the climate, and at last relieved Baptiste by inquiring as to whether the drought had...

The day was cold and dark and dreary. A storm raged over the prairie,--a storm of the kind that seem to come only over the northwest. Over the wide, unbroken country of our stor...

Men of the type of Jean Baptiste don't waver and despair regardless as to how discouraged they may at times, under adverse circumstances, become. When he was confronted with the...

Never before since Jean Baptiste had come West and staked his lot and future there, doing his part toward the building of that little empire out there in the hollow of God's han...

Jean Baptiste was so elated over being invited to call early to see Miss Irene Grey, that he went back to the bar where his acquaintances lingered, ordered drinks for all, and i...

The text of Reverend N.J. McCarthy's sermon to be delivered on Mothers' Day, was one of the most inexhaustible. Most of his sermons he did not prepare. But because this was one...

Early in July when the drought had burned the crops to a crisp, and plant life was beyond redemption, the Banks, Trust and Insurance Companies holding notes secured by mortgages...

Agnes decided to visit Chicago and planned to be married there. Besides, since she was now engaged, the legacy in the bank at Rensselaer must be secured, and, according to her m...

Coincident with the finding of Peter Kaden's body in the well, certain things became public with regard to others. But to complete this part of it. After finding the body Jean B...

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 requestin...

The court room was silent for a time before any one stirred. It had been apparent that the decision would be so; because there were several reasons why the jury was constrained...

Reverend Newton Justine McCarthy had once lived in Peoria, Illinois, and was well acquainted with the late Robert Ingersoll. Moreover, he had admired the noted orator, and altho...

"Now, Elder," said Baptiste, getting up from the table without going through the usual formalities of resting a few minutes after the meal. "I've bought a building in town that...

Jean Baptiste slept soundly all the night through, snoring loudly at times, turning frequently, but never awakening. And while he slept, unconscious of how near he had come to f...

"Well," said Baptiste to his wife, following the service of the summons. "We're up against a long, irksome and expensive contest case." Under his observation had come many of su...

A mile north from where stood the house of St. Jean Baptiste, there lived a quaint old man. He was a widower; at least this was the general opinion, especially when he so claime...

Because she feared that rising as early as she had been accustomed to might serve to embarrass her fiancé and his aunt, Agnes took a magazine from her bag, returned to bed and t...

"I think that would be best," she resumed. "As I was coming downtown on the car I observed the Pinkerton Office on 5th Avenue and now, Jean, if you think that would be a practic...

"Now the first thing, daughter," said the Reverend, "when Jean comes and you have the time, is to go up and see your claim." Orlean swallowed, and started to tell him that it wa...

Jean Baptiste returned to the West after two months' travel through the East, and the spring following, sowed a large crop of small grain and reaped a bountiful yield that fall....

Jean Baptiste was thoughtful for a long time after the other had left him. He had heard before he married Orlean that the Reverend was the father of two illegitimate children, b...

The keystone was the oldest and most élite hostelry for Negroes in Chicago and the West for many years. It is located near Thirty-first and State Street, in the heart of the bla...

"Now I wish you would tell me all about yourself, that is, all you _care_ to tell," said Irene Grey to the man who sat beside her on the veranda of their beautiful home, some ti...

The claim of Jean Baptiste, containing 160 acres of land, adjoined the little town of Dallas on the north, and it was one of the surprises that Agnes Stewart had not wandered in...

"My mother grabbed me, kissed and hugged me time and again when I returned," Jean Baptiste read in the letter he received from his wife-to-be a few days after she had returned t...

Never since the night at the sod house had Agnes Stewart been the same person. She could not seem to dismiss Jean Baptiste, and the instance of her providence in getting lost an...

The trial was called for early June, and Baptiste reached the city a week or ten days before the time set. He had become very friendly with the Negro lawyer who was conducting h...

With all Ethel's excited ways, she was not to be reckoned a fool when she had in mind to accomplish some purpose. She understood full well, that it would be up to her at this ti...

The Reverend McCarthy had scored. He had succeeded in separating his daughter from the man she married. The fact that there was positively no misunderstanding between the two, w...

The April morn shone beautifully over Chicago, when Jean Baptiste came from the basement of the apartment where Mrs. Pruitt lived, and had bade Godspeed to him. It was election...

"I have been consumed with some very delicate business," she said, and notwithstanding the excitement she was laboring under, allowed him to caress her. At the same time he was...

Jean Baptiste went directly to an attorney, a Negro attorney with offices in the loop district, upon his arrival in Chicago, and did not lurk around the depots to keep from bein...

Glavis tried to appear very serious when Baptiste called at where he worked an hour later, but it was beyond him to be so. It was said that he was in the habit of trying to appe...

"Why--why--why, what does this mean!" exclaimed "Little Mother Mary" coming upon them at this minute. Notwithstanding the fact that she was surprised, it was obviously a glad su...

Tripp County, laying just to the west of the town of Dallas and where Jean Baptiste had purchased the relinquishments for his people was a large county and rich in soil. There h...

One week from the day Peter Kaden made proof at Gregory on the homestead he held, the court record showed that he had transferred the same to some unknown person. In the course...

Moving a building fifty miles across even a prairie is not an easy task, and before Jean Baptiste reached his wife's homestead with the building he had purchased, he had suffere...

It was in the autumn time, after the wheat and the oats, the rye, the barley and the flaxseed had all been gathered, and threshed, and also after the corn had been husked. Wheat...

Jean Baptiste jumped from the bed and went quickly to where his trousers hung on a chair, and went through the pockets hurriedly. He laid them down when through, and got his bre...

"Why, I met him. Mrs. Reynolds, who knows you--she and I became acquainted, and we met and had a long talk with Mr. Baptiste, and he is going to hire a man, so we discussed Bill...

"Well, my friend," said A.M. Barr, stopping before Baptiste's hut one day shortly after his visit to Kaden's, "I have my date and will make proof on the 22nd of March. I have li...

"Oh, mama, Mr. Baptiste has asked me to marry him," cried Orlean, rushing into the room and to the bed where her mother lay reading, after Jean Baptiste had left.

The people of Winner and vicinity had no opportunity to rush to the Farmers' State Bank, of which Eugene Crook, mentioned earlier in our story was president, and draw any portio...

The conference that followed was one of grave apprehensions for the Reverend McCarthy. Before, he had always looked forward to this occasion with considerable anxiety. He had us...