Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/292

 the old farm, tore down the old buildings, loaded them onto wagons, and finally got started again for Tipp county. That was on Saturday. The wind blew a gale, making me feel lonely and far from home. Sunday morning I started early out of Colone planning to get home that night, but the front axle broke and by the time we got another it was growing late. We started again and traveled about two miles, when the tongue broke, and by the time that was mended it was late in the afternoon. About six o'clock we pulled into Victor, tired and weary. The next day, when about five miles from home, we met one of the neighbors, who informed me that he had tried to get me over the phone all along the way; that my wife had been awfully sick and that the baby had been born, dead. It struck me like a hammer, and noting my frightened look, he spoke up quickly:

"But she's all right now. She had two doctors and didn't lack for attention."

On the way home I was so nervous that I could hardly wait for the horses to get there. I would not have been away at this time for anything in the world. I knew Orlean would forgive me, but we had not told her father. Orlean had told her mother and thought she would tell him. He made so much ado about everything, we hoped to avoid the tire of his burdensome letters, but now, with the baby born during my absence, and it dead, when we had so many plans for its future. It was to have been the first colored child born on the Little Crow, and we thought we were going to make history.