It was no surprise since he had been threatened with such for many months, he regarded it therefore as unavoidable. But when the grim reality of the situation dawned upon him, it weakened him. Never had he dreamed that it would come to this. He took mental inventory of his possessions and what he could lay claim to, and he happened to think about his wife's homestead. On this he had made his home since her departure, and no trouble had been given him. While the local land office had rendered a decision in her favor; the contestee had taken an appeal to the general land office and the commissioner and upon being represented by an attorney, the local land office's decision had been reversed. It had been up to him then to go further, which he had done, by appealing the case to the highest office in the land department, the Secretary of the Interior, and here it rested. To do this, he had agreed to pay the attorney $300 to win, and one hundred dollars in the event he should not, the latter amount he had paid, and so the case stood. He had formulated no plans regarding it beyond this as to how he would continue to hold it, since now it was a settled fact in his mind that he and the woman he had married were parted forever.

But poverty accompanied by crop failures for three years was a general and accepted thing now. And the fact that he was being foreclosed, occasioned no comment, and at least he could continue on without intensely feeling the attendant disgrace.

It was at this juncture in life that a new thought came to Jean Baptiste. In all his life he had been a thinker, a practical thinker—a prolific thinker. Moreover, a great reader into the bargain. So the thought that struck him now, was writing. Perhaps he could write. If so then what would he write? So in the days that followed, gradually a plot formed in his mind, and when he had decided, he chose that he could write his own story—his life of hell, the work of an evil power!

Of writing he knew little and the art of composition appeared very difficult. But of thought, this he had a plenty. Well, after all that was the most essential. If one has thoughts to express, it is possible to learn very soon some method of construction. So after some weeks of speculation, he bought himself a tablet, some pencils and took up the art of writing.

He found no difficulty in saying something. The first day he wrote ten thousand words. The next day he reversed the tablet and wrote ten thousand more. In the next two days he re-wrote the twenty thousand, and on the fifth day he tore it into shreds and threw it to the winds.