Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/288

 me, but she's only a weak woman, and being so far away from colored people, she will naturally feel lonesome and want to visit home."

He paid no more attention to me than if I had never spoken. In fact, he talked more about Chicago than ever, saying a dozen times a day:

"Yes, children, I'll send you the money."

I finally became angry and told him I would not, under any circumstances whatever, accept such charity, and that what my money was invested in, represented a value of more than thirty thousand dollars, and how could I be expected to condescend to accept charity from him.

He had told me once that he never had as much as two hundred dollars at one time in his life. I did not want a row, but as far as I was concerned, I did not want anything from him, for I felt that he would throw it up to me the rest of his life. I was convinced that he was a vain creature, out for a show, and I fairly despised him for it.

At last he went home and Orlean and I got down to business, moving more of our goods onto the claim, and spending about one-third of the time there. We intended moving everything as soon as the corn was gathered. As Christmas drew near, her folks wrote they were looking for her to come home, the RevernedReverend [sic] having told them that she was coming, and that he was going to send her the money for her to come. Her mother wrote about it in letter, saying she didn't think it was right. Just before Christmas, she wrote that maybe if she wrote Cousin Sam he would send her the money. Cousin Sam was a porter in a down town saloon.