Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/261

 Orlean took the receiver and without much welcome started to tell me about the criticisms of her father in my letters.

"You are not taking it in the right way," I hurriedly told her. "I'll come to the house and we'll talk it over. You will see me, won't you?"

"Yes," she answered hesitatingly, appearing to be a little frightened. Then added, "I'll do you that honor."

The Reverend had returned to Southern Illinois, and when I entered the house the rest of the family appeared to have been holding a consultation in the kitchen, which they had, as Orlean informed me later, with Orlean standing poutingly to one side. She commenced telling me what she was not going to do, but I went directly to her, and gathered her in my arms, with her making a slight resistance but soon succumbing. I looked down at her still pouting face and remonstrated teasingly..

Ethel broke in, her voice resembling a scream, protesting against such boldness on my part, saying: "Orlean doesn't want you and she isn't going to go onto your old farm". Here Orlean silenced her saying that she would attend to that herself, and took me to the front part of the house, with her mother tagging after us in a sort of half-stupor and apparently not knowing what to do. We sat down on the davenport where she began giving me a lecture and declaring what she was not going to do. Her mother interposed something that angered me, though I do not now recall what it was, and a look of dissatisfaction came into my face which Orlean observed.