Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/248

 build and move onto my wife's homestead in Tipp county. When Christmas came grandma and sister came down from Kitten and stayed while I went to Chicago. I could scarcely afford it but it had become a custom for me to spend Christmas in Chicago and I wanted to know Orlean better and I wanted to meet her father. I had written her that I wasn't coming and when I arrived in the city and called at the house her mother was surprised, but pleasantly. I thought she was such a kind little soul. She promised not to tell Orlean I was in the city, (Orlean had secured a position in a downtown store—ladies' furnishings—and received five-fifty per week) but couldn't keep it and when I was gone she called up Orlean and told her I was in the city. When I called in the evening, instead of surprising Orlean, I was surprised myself. The Reverend hadn't arrived from southern Illinois but was expected soon.

Orlean had worked long enough to buy herself a new waist and coat, and Mrs. Ewis, who was a milliner, had given her a hat, and she was dressed somewhat better than formerly. The family had wanted to give her a nice wedding, like Ethel's, but found themselves unable to do so. The semiannual interest on their two-thousand-dollar loan would be due in January and a payment also, about one hundred and fifty dollars in all. The high cost of living in Chicago did not leave much out of eighteen dollars and fifty cents per week, and colored people in southern Illinois are not very prompt in paying their church dues, especially in mid-winter; in fact, many of them have a hard time