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 Reverend 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. I felt so mortified that I swore I would never again have anything to do with her family. They never regarded my feelings nor our relations in the least, but wrote a letter every few days about who was coming to the house to see Orlean Christmas, of who was going to have her at their homes for dinner when she came home, until the poor girl, with a child on the way, was as helpless as a baby, trying to be honest with all concerned. It had never been her lot to take the defensive.

My sister came down from her claim and took Orlean home with her. While she was in Tipp county a letter came from her father for her, and thinking it might be a matter needing immediate attention, I opened it and found a money order for eighteen dollars, sent from Cairo, with instructions when to start, and he would be home to meet her when she arrived, suggesting that I could come later.

I was about the maddest man in Megory when I was through reading the letter, fairly flying to the post office, enclosing the money order and all, with a curt little note telling what I had done; that Orlean was out on her claim and would be home in a few days, but that we were not coming to Chicago. I would have liked to tell him that I was running my own house, but did not do so. I was hauling shelled corn to a feeder in town, when Orlean came. She was driving a black horse, hitched to a little buggy I had purchased for her, and I met her on the road. I got out and kissed her fondly, then told what I had done. My love for her had been growing. She had been gone a week and I was so glad to see her and have her back with me. I took the corn on into town and when I returned home she had cleaned up the house, prepared a nice supper and had killed a chicken for the next day, which was Christmas. She then confessed that she had written her father that he could send the money.