The Conquest: The Story of a Negro PioneerMicheaux, Oscar
General
The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer
Micheaux, Oscar
African American pioneers -- Fiction; Autobiographical fiction; South Dakota -- Fiction; Western stories
During the conversation with Claves he told me he kept up the house,
paid all the grocery bills, and half the payments. He had been advanced
to a salary of eighteen dollars a week and seemed to be well liked by
the management.
I went to a hotel run by colored people, and at about seven-thirty that
evening, called up the house to see if Orlean had returned. She came to
the phone but before we had said much, were accidentally cut off.
Hearing her voice excited me, and I wanted to see her, so hung up the
receiver and hurried to the house, some ten or twelve blocks away. When
I rang the bell, Claves came to the door. Before he could let me enter,
Ethel came running down the stairs, screaming as loudly as she could:
"Don't let him in! Don't let him in! You know what papa said! Don't you
let him in," and continued screaming as loud as possible.
I heard my wife crying in the back room. Claves had his hat on and came
outside, saying:
"For God's sake, Ethel, hush up! You'll have all the neighborhood out."
She continued to scream, and to stop her, he closed the door. We went
together on State street and I took a few Scotch highballs and cocktails
to try to forget it.
The next day being Sunday, Claves said he would try to get Ethel off to
church and then I could slip in and see Orlean, but she refused to go
and when I called up, about the time I thought she would be gone, she
was on guard. My wife was at the phone and told me to come over and she
would try to slip out, but when I called, Ethel had made her go to bed.
It seemed that she ran the house and all in it, when the elder was away.
Mrs. McCraline came outside, took me by the arm and led me over to
Groveland park, near the lake. Here she unfolded a plan whereby I should
find a room nearby, and she would slip Orlean over to it, but this
proved as unsuccessful as the other attempt, to steal a march on Ethel.
She held the fort and I did not get to see my wife but one hour during
the four days I was in Chicago. That was on Tuesday following, after
Claves had tried every trick and failed to get Ethel away. This time he
succeeded by telling her I had left town, but when I had been in the
house an hour, Ethel came and started screaming. I had to get out before
she would stop.
The next day I called up and suggested to Orlean that I bring a doctor
and leave her in his charge for I must return to Dakota. She consented
and I went to a young negro doctor on State street and took him to the
house, but when we arrived, Ethel would not admit us. The doctor and I
had roomed together before I left Chicago, while he was attending the
Northwestern Medical School, and we had always been good friends. He had
been enthusiastic over my success in the west and it made me feel
dreadfully embarrassed when we were refused admittance. When I called up
the house later Ethel came to the phone, and said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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