"His Onliest One" emphasizes many of the constraints placed upon women in the West. The need for a woman as helper in the homesteading experience, cultural customs of immigrant families, and the passive role expected of women in Victorian society join in Irma Destarch's decision to remain with her brother until he should become settled on his one hundred and sixty acre farm before she could begin to live her own life. The vagaries of the weather and crops cause further delay for Irma. Even Irma's "community of women" is self-serving, and she has no where to turn. The ironic twist at the end serves as satire, stressing Cleary's opinion of the futility of such self-scarifice.

She was an odd-looking little figure when she came into the general store of the Nebraska town on that particular August afternoon. She was small, and fair, and slender, and, in some indescribable way, foreign-looking. She had rosy cheeks, rather large, white teeth, gentle blue eyes, a nondescript nose, a square chin, and straight flaxen hair brushed back from her broad forehead and hanging in two thick blonde braids below her waist. She wore a white lawn waist, a short blue woolen skirt, and a little, flat black straw hat.

The dozen women and girls in the store, clad in their Sunday best, always assumed for Saturday afternoons in town, and consisting chiefly of coarse muslins, "slimpsy" silks, and ribbons of divers glaring hues, looked at her with bovine curiosity. The adroit Bohemian proprietor of the store regarded her interrogatively.

"You're a newcomer, I judge," she ventured, when a few purchases had been made.

"Yes," replied a sweet, slow, hesitant, foreign voice. "My brudder an' me haf taken the Colbert farum. It is northwest from here."

"Yes, yes," the shopkeeper answered quickly. "I know." The Colbert place was a fine farm, that had been for some time unrented.

"You ain't long in this country?" a woman queried.

"We are here one year. We haf had a farum in Butler County, Kansas, but my brudder he did not do well on it. We think we shall prospaire here."

"I hope so," the woman behind the counter replied in friendly fashion. "Your brother has no relative except yourself in this country?"

The girl, picking up her parcels with deft brown hands, smiled up at her questioner quite suddenly and beautifully.

"No; not in our Holland. I am his ownliest one."

The woman smiled back at her as she heard the quaint phrase.

The girl left the store, walked half a block north, and turned into a side street, where many vehicles were hitched to a limp iron chain, suspended between posts. Irma Destarch climbed into one of the wagons. She sat there, waiting while an hour passed. Bevies of rustic maidens passed along the main street. Women, carrying baskets filled with store parcels, for which they had traded eggs or butter, got themselves with considerable effort into the high wagons and were driven away. The heat no longer was intense, but the white blure of dust was still blinding and suffocating. The girl could see but little from her place on the wagon. Only the rear of general stores and the rear of cottage gardens jutted on the street where the town hitching posts were located.

The shopkeepers began to pass and repass the main street crossing on their way to and from supper. It was not growing dark, but the day held less brilliance. It was two hours since Irma had made her purchases. She felt stiff and tired. She wished Jan would come. She would go to seek him, but he might not like it. Perhaps he was having a pipe with a comrade, and did not notice the time passing. Surely he should have any fine comfort he could, when he worked so hard to pay rent for the farm, to support her and to send money for the tuition of a friend in the old land, who would be a priest some day, God willing.

So, striving to hold fast to such thoughts for company, but feeling nevertheless a little hungry, and a little grieved, and not a little anxious, Irma sat there. The lantern before the doctor's office was lit. The street on the east, where the maples stood, became an avenue all roofed and floored, and walled, with dusky velvet. And over in the west the sun had gone down behind the cliffs. A step came along the loose wooden sidewalk.

"Hallo, little one!"

The tone was kindly, if the voice was a trifle thick.

"O, Jan, it is you at last! I have been so long watching."

He unhitched the horses, climbed up beside her, turned the horses' heads northward.

"I was talking on a business matter," he answered, in English that was much better than hers. "I could not come sooner. Are you tired?"

"Very tired, Jan."

Their way wound for awhile in and out along the railroad track, then they came out on a long, level stretch of ground. A faint wind came up. a young moon had risen. At either side the corn stretched away in rustling, tawny billows. The stalks of sunflowers, which held their golden crowns high above the heads of those in the wagon, crackled against the wheels. The milkweed made pale patches in the gloom of the wayside grass.

Jan opened a barred gate, and they drove for about a quarter of a mile up a gentle ascent. On the crest of the bluff, looking, in the midst of the rolling prairies, like wreckage which had been drifted up and left there when the tide receded, was their home--a little log cabin. Down in the draw on the right stood a huge barn and a row of corncribs.

"We'll own the farm one of these days, Irma," Jan had prophesied when they took possession, "and then we'll build a fine frame house and turn the cabin into a chicken coop. Just a few good crops will fix us all right." And Irma had smiled confidently. She had not lived long enough in Nebraska to know all the disappointment so frequently included in the hope of "a good crop."

When Irma had lighted the lamp you could see that it was a cozy little cabin, indeed. In one corner of the room was a small cook stove, in another a tiny cot bed, in immaculate attire. Two chairs, a small table, and some kitchen utensils comprised the rest of the furnishings. Jan built a fire of cobs in the stove, and Irma prepared supper while her brother went out to attend to the horses. They sat down together, and as Irma ate and drank her tea her spirits rose. She chatted and laughed. Jan would not eat.

"Are you not well?" she asked anxiously, noticing his flushed face.

"O, yes, but I was up early--I am tired," he answered rather stupidly. He was a slenderly proportioned man of 30, so fair and boyish of appearance he did not look nearly his age. "I think," he added, "I will go to bed. good-night, little one."

"Good-night, Jan."

He mounted the ladder to the loft, where he had to bend almost double to disrobe. Irma, feeling guilty as she considered the lateness of the hour, was hastily washing the dishes when Jan's voice startled her.

"Irma!"

"Yes, dear."

He had extended his hand through the aperture above. Something white he held fluttered to the floor.

"There's a letter I got for you at the postoffice today. I had forgotten about it."

"O!" she cried, the word one grasp of pleasure. She picked up the envelope, opened it, sat down and read the words in her own familiar language. It was a long letter, and evidently a welcome one. The girl's cheeks grew a deeper rose as she read on, and her eyes became soft and misty. She slipped the letter under her pillow when she went to bed, and a smile blossomed on her lips as she slept.

The winter that followed was a severe one. Fuel had to be hoarded. Man and beast suffered. For many a mile around the isolated cabin, from Chester on the west to Hubbell on the east, and from Hebron on the north to Mahaska on the south, the snow swept and glistened, a wonderful world of ridged whiteness. Only the bare brown branches of the trees outlining the creek broke the pallor of the illimitable expanse. for months the little maiden did not go into town. Jan managed to make the trip every Saturday, frequently walking in. There was always something to repay him for the effort, if it were only a drink and a chat in the saloon, He returned home generally sleepy, sometimes cheerful, occasionally incomprehensibly exhilarated. Then he would assure Irma how more than improbable it was that there would not be a good crop the following year.

"For it is seldom," he declared, "that one failure follows another. And when I sell the corn and get the rest of the money coming to me from Perter Van Fluyn in Holland I shall build the frame house--we'll own the farm then, little one--and maybe I can give you enough to buy some pretty new clothes if by any chance Franz should be coming over--eh?"

Whereat Irma would blush and shake her blonde braids and vow that surely before this Franz had found some one he loved better than her.

Spring came. Planting began. During the early part of May there were several soft rains, followed by a week of scorching weather. These sent the wheat up greenly and stirred the hard kernels sunken in the soil. Among the farmers a certain jubilant anticipation awoke. The last year had been so unfavorable this must surely be the reverse. In their enthusiasm many branched out and bought farming utensils on credit. In the middle of May there came three nights of rattling frost. It shriveled sections of young corn, it ate the potatoes to the ground, it blackened the fruit buds, it crumpled the catalpa leaves in town yards, it fettered the sturdy young grape vines, it left everywhere a trail of devastation. And the devastation begot discouragement.

May passed. June came. There was no more rain, only, day in the day out, the same monotonous, merciless weather. Sun, wind, dust--dust, wind, sun! Not for an hour did the scrub oaks by the creek or the maples by the road or the forlornest weed in the farmyard cease blowing--not for five long weeks. And all the time the sun blazed down and on the country roads the dust dashed up like spray--but spray that stung and blinded. Once or twice rain threatened. Promised is the word, rather. The green things ceased their fantastic curtseying. A chill crept into the air. A purple cloud crawled up from the horizon and hung, dark and sluggish, overhead.

Close to the ground birds whirled and circled. farm people fairly held their breath in hope. And then the cloud would shift, the sun shine out, the birds spring upward, and the tantalizing delight of expectation was at an end. So the summer wore away, with occasional insufficient showers and successive days of intolerable heat. In August the corn was only up to a man's shoulder, a tattered army, in few places averaging an ear to a stalk.

"Another failure," Jan said to his sister. "God only knows how many can weather the coming winter. It puts the frame house off farther than ever, little one."

Irma sighed, not because of their inability to purchase the farm or build the house, nor even because her letters to her lover across the sea must continue to counsel patience. It was because Jan came home more frequently than formerly with unsteady steps and sullen brow. Once the little maiden timidly remonstrated with him.

"I do not think, Jan, it is well you haf so much beer when you go to the town. You do not eat now. You do not seem so healthy nor so happy."

"Eat!" he burst out. "How can a man eat, or look well, or feel happy, when he knows that, after all his hard work, he won't raise enough to even feed his stock! I did not think, Irma, that you would object to my taking a drink once in a while to raise my spirits."

Her eyes filled with tears.

"No, no, Jan; I do not. And you are so kind a brother. That dress pattern you did bring me from the county seat is so pretty. But the beer that you do drink here does not smell like that we did have at home nor seem to so well agree with you."

He laughed and kissed her.

"It is a different brew. don't worry, little one."

But she did worry. she had time enough to do so. It was lonely during the long, hot days of August and September. Rising at dawn, her household and farm duties were early accomplished. Then there was the long, sultry afternoon, when she sat knitting or sewing at the cabin door. How she missed her companions in the home beyond the sea! And to reach the sea, Jan had told her, one must first go a thousand miles across the prairies! Then she would try to gain courage by looking at the spot where it had been planned the new house would one day stand. What if they should be living there when Franz came! though he must not come for a long time yet, at least not until after they had a crop. But Jan might today bring a letter. And so, with the big inverted brass bowl of sky above and the desolate drought-stricken billows of prairie all around, the little maiden sat while the hours lagged by.

Another cruel winter settled down. Irma was closely confined to the cabin, which she had made bright and cozy with rugs and cushions her own fingers had wrought. Her cheeks lost their rosiness, and her childish eyes took on the contemplative expression of one who is much alone. Once in awhile on Sunday evenings Jan drove her to church. She came to know some of the members. But as her attendance was necessarily irregular and she was such a shy, retiring, little creature anyway, no acquaintanceship ripened into friendship.

One leaden February afternoon a most wonderful, unexpected, delightful thing happened. Irma heard the wheels of Jan's buggy crunching the snow before the door. She rushed out to ask if he had a letter for her. A stalwart stranger, brown-haired and brown bearded, stood before her.

"Irma!" he cried, and took the little lassie, blue apron, floury hands, and all into his hearty embrace.

"O Franz! Franz!" And she fell to laughing and crying all at once.

It was a pleasant enough evening the three spent. It would have been an ecstatic one if it were not for the fact that Jan, while not unfriendly, was in no way disposed to be cordial to the lover of his sister. He would have been taciturn and actually uncivil if it were not for his anxiety to learn from the newcomer news of home and home people. Franz talked on eagerly, the inspiration of intensely interested auditors lending him eloquence.

He was not sufficiently familiar with Jan to notice slight changes in his manner. But Irma, to whose loving eye Jan was as an open book, observed his mute antagonism and grieved in her warm heart. But then the amazement, the happiness of having Franz--Franz himself, sitting there, puffing his pipe, and looking at her now and then with adoring eyes--that was so ineffably sweet it almost obliterated regret concerning Jan's lack of camaraderie.

There was no room in the cabin where the big Hollander could be bestowed, so Jan drove him back to town that night.

"I shall come tomorrow," he avowed at parting, "and tell you my plans for the future."

Irma resolved to sit up and await Jan's return. But he was gone a long time. Her lids drooped. Sitting in the low rocker, she fell sound asleep. And so at midnight, Jan, stamping in, found her.

She started up.

"I did sleep. I did not mean to. You," with a glance at the clock, "are late, Jan."

But Jan was already lurching up the ladder in a manner which made her stand motionless and hold her breath, until a thud overhead told her that he had fallen heavily upon his pallet.

The next day Franz came out. He was not handsome, like Jan, but he was such a lofty, muscular individual he inspired respect, and his frank and gentle smile suggested a nature which could easily win affection.

Jan was at home. His eyes looked red and puffy, and his hands were somewhat tremulous. Irma, in her best gown of scarlet cashmere, set off with a sheer white apron, and her braided hair burnished with much brushing, met Franz at the door.

"It is this way," he explained. "My sister's husband has gone into fruit farming in Iowa. He wrote me to come out, and go into business with him. I stopped off at Rosillion, the town where he lives. He has done well, and I have accepted his offer. I am to go in as overseer and part sharer of the profits. But the first I came out here to see Irma, and to claim her promise to be my wife."

Jan sprung up, knocking over his chair.

"What's that? Irma!"

Franz looked him coolly in the eye and repeated his words.

Jan crimsoned with rage.

"If you think," he cried, hotly, "that you can come here and get Irma to go and work for you, you are mightily mistaken!"

Franz rose slowly. He looked down on the slim-built fellow confronting him, much as a huge St. Bernard might have looked down on a little King Charles spaniel.

"Work!" he repeated. "I do not win a wife to work. For that I hire servants."

Irma looked from one to the other of them in sad consternation.

"You know," Jan went on, hastily, "what bad luck I have had. For two years there has been no crop. To sell, to succeed, or even to leave this accursed country, I must hold on till I have something that can be turned into money. And here you come--"

He paused, fairly choking with rage. The cumulative effects of much tippling were evident in his shattered nervous system. The deep potations of the previous night had rendered him irritable to the point of pugnacity. Franz stared at him in astonishment--Irma in grief that was half fear.

"Here you come to induce Irma to leave me. If she were to go, what could I do? I could not afford to keep a housekeeper. Who would make the butter, and tend the young calves and turkeys? Who would make a home for me?

The profound selfishness of this view of the case was borne in upon Franz. He glanced toward Irma. She was looking at her brother, in her face a great compassion and affection.

"Irma," cried her lover in a hoarse, steady voice, "you have heard Jan. Will you remain with him, or will you come with me?"

The tears in the little maiden's blue eyes brimmed over, and rolled down her cheeks. Her sorrowful gaze strayed from her brother to her lover, and back again. How strong and calm and capable and self-reliant Franz looked! How weak, petulant, indeterminate, and helpless Jan appeared! The passion of every woman who loves her lover thrilled her when she let her eyes rest on Franz. The divine maternal instinct of most women soared in her spirit when she regarded her brother. And the former emotion, which would at worst be selfish, was conquered by the latter, which was wholly sacrificial.

She moved a step away from Franz. "I must stay with Jan," she murmured.

For a while there was silence in the little room. Without the snow was falling, thickly, soundlessly, ceaselessly.

"Irma!" cried the deep, grave voice of Franz. "Is this your truth--your loyalty? After plighting your troth to me--now that I have come for you, you bid me go! Is there," in sudden suspicion, "another lover in this land--"

The flash in her eyes checked the half-uttered words.

"There is no new lover. There never will be--save you--any lover for me. But now, for the present at least, i must stay with Jan. He needs me."

Jan smiled triumphantly. He extended his arm, and would have drawn his sister to his side, but she moved backward. She knew that it was chiefly pity that had actuated her in her decision to stay--that, and the hope she might prove for Jan a check and guard.

"I need you, too, Irma," said Franz.

She smiled--a smile so sad he could not comprehend its meaning.

"Not as he does, dear."

Then Franz broke into a fierce protest, and said some bitter words.

"You belong to me--to me!" he ended passionately. "I have come across the ocean and across the prairie for you. And now you tell me you will stay with Jan."

She was not weeping, but here eyes were sadder than ever as she returned his glance.

"I am his ownliest one," she said.

Angry as Franz was the unconscious pathos of the words appealed to him. But he flung off in a passion. That night he left town on the east-bound train. That night, and many a night thereafter, Irma cried herself to sleep.

To a certain extent Jan appreciated her devotion. In a vague kind of way he felt that his sobriety would be her best reward. And he was grimly and painstakingly sober for a time.

With spring came mild weather, a humid atmosphere, profuse, gentle rains. The wheat reared itself in oceans of green spears. The oats sought the sun. The sorghum shot upward. One could see and hear the corn grow. The rains and sun succeeded each other, and finally the people admitted the delicious conviction that they were to have a crop at last--a full crop of grain, fruit, vegetables.

It was a great year--a year of plenty. A year when apples could be had for the picking; when the cherry trees were masses of blood-red rubies; when the grapes raisined on the vines for lack of hands to pluck them; when peaches, in half a thousand orchards, fell sun-flushed and nectar-filled, to lie and rot in the lush grass. A great year-a wonderful year! A year that so bewildered the hard, hopeless, phlegmatic farmer folk they could hardly accept it. They would not let themselves become enthusiastic if they could. And it was doubtful if they could express joyousness. Long disappointments, successive defeats, had dried the springs of pleasure in their bosoms. And to find all their grain, fruit, pasturage, attaining perfection unequaled and superb, beyond their dearest hopes and their wildest dreams, overleaped delight and became depression.

They could not gather, garner, barter all. And next year there might be no crop! But Jan Destarch was not one of those who had been made pessimistic by failure. He took the good fortune that came to him joyously and with a hopeful heart. As it was, so it might be! This was a wonderful country, after all! And if another good year were to follow this year of plenty, and then another-- He could not face such a probability. It dazzled him literally. When he thought about it he used to put his hand across his eyes, as if the sun shone into them. He sold at good prices his oats, his wheat, his hogs, his corn. With the help of the money secured from home he purchased the farm. And he built the new house.

That was a tremendous event--an exciting time. The visits of the carpenters, the discussions concerning dimension, and shiplag, and sheathing, and siding, and molding. The digging the foundation, the hauling of the rock, the uprearing of the posts, the clamor of the hammers, the voices of the workmen, the metallic jar and jangle, and the energy of it all!

Irma used to stand at the cabin door, and watch the fair structure of her dream and Jan's taking material shape. It oppressed her at times, that two-storied, eight-roomed pine skeleton. Such a large house for only herself and Jan! But it would be beautiful, and she would be so proud when they were living there. And when she had quite assured herself of this latter fact, she would turn around and look at the little log house which was to be turned into a chicken coop--and envy the chickens.

She could not be sorry she had sent Franz away. At least she would not let herself be selfishly sorry. For Jan had become so gay, temperate, and contented. He spent much time in town to be sure, in fact all his time, unless when he slept, or when he and Irma, hand in hand, tiptoed over the boards which spanned the chasm of the new house. He brought her gifts. He was more affectionate than he had ever been. But he did not notice how pale his little sister was growing, nor how the umber shadows deepened below her eyes.

One day he brought her a letter. She turned scarlet as she read it. It was a cruel letter. It said that the writer was in Rossilion, and doing well. That he was trying his best to forget the girl he had loved and trusted--who had failed him.

Irma handed the letter to Jan.

"Put that by for me," she said. No other allusion to it was made by either.

In November the new house was finished. The calcimining and painting were done, and Jan drove Irma to the county seat to select furniture. She was somewhat amazed at the extent of his expenditure.

"It's all right, little one," he assured her. "I can pay."

Irma put the finishing touches to the rooms while Jan was absent at Concordia. She showed him the result with pride on his return.

"I-I'll keep this room," he remarked with some confusion. "I believe I forgot to tell you, Irma, that I'm going to be married."

Neither spoke for a minute or two. Then "Yes," Irma answered quietly, "you forgot to tell me." She felt as if she had been suddenly drenched with ice-water.

"She's the niece of the grain man in town," Jan said. "She's pretty-the prettiest girl I ever saw."

Irma did not speak. She thought in that instant of Franz, of her sacrifice, of the fact that she was second in Jan's affection after all, and a pain came to her throat that was like the turning of a rusty knife.

"You won't mind, little one?"

The words seemed to come to her dimly through a haze of lamp-light and a smell of fresh paint.

"O, no!-I am-very-glad."

A few weeks later Jan brought home his wife. He had told Irma in the morning that he and Effie Carlin were to drive to Hebron that day and be married. "We'll go over alone," he said. "There will be no fuss."

Irma cooked the most delicious supper she could offer. She donned her best gown, lighted every lamp, and awaited Jan and his bride. They drove up at last in the chill gloom. The bride was a big, blonde, giggling girl, clad in a brilliant green gown of cheap satin, and wearing enough tawdry jewelry to delight the heart of a Zulu belle.

"And so you're Jan's sister?" she said, offering two pink lips to be kissed. And then, in an audible aside to Jan, "What a funny little thing! Doesn't she ever wear bangs?"

The months that followed were hard for Irma. Not that the fact of resigning her sovereignty, and on such scant notice, too, that her abdication was desired, troubled her much. But to find a girl who had come from a town home, and had never had experience in house or farm work, dictating directions to her, to which Jan listened in a maze of idiotic admiration, was hardly pleasant. Yet Effie was a nice girl--as brothers' wives go. But she laughed at Irma's little, neat, old-fashioned ways, she ridiculed her clothes, she derided her systematic housekeeping, she demanded a late breakfast, she insisted in following the merry-go-round as it made the circuit of surrounding towns, and she resented the fact that Jan should spend either time or speech with Irma. And soon Irma knew that all Jan's future lay in the hands of his pretty, frivolous wife, and that from hence-forth she possessed no influence over him.

But she was self-controlled and patient. She smothered the pain in her heart, and was as brave as a sad little girl could be. Except in so far as she could wait on his wife, or save her exertion, Jan now never seemed conscious of his sister's existence.

His brilliant hopes concerning a succession of crops were blasted the following summer. There was another drought. He began again to spend a good deal of time in town. Daily Effie grew more exacting, querulous, despotic. One July evening, quite worn out with work, submission, heart hunger, and self-effacement, Irma announced her intention of going back to Holland.

Effie burst into petulant sobs.

"No, no! You will not be so unkind. You will wait until after--September."

"You will have your mother."

"My mother is like me. She is foolish. I cannot hold to her as I could to you, Irma! You will stay!"

So Irma stayed till after the baby came. She took care of the child for a month and did the housework, and all the time Effie's mother, a shrewish, shallow woman, treated her with the profound disdain of a woman arrogantly ignorant. The indignities of the two women were more than Irma could bear. Irma felt she must leave or go mad. So she wrote Jan a note, packed her trunk, to be sent after her, put a few things in a handbag, kissed the baby, and stole away. She walked into town, where she took the train East. When the note was found young Mrs. Destarch promptly went into hysterics.

"We were wicked to her, mother!" she cried when she recovered, "wicked! Now we don't know how to reach her. What will Jan say when he gets back from Red Cloud? Wait! I know what I will do!" She went quickly to Jan's desk, came back with a letter in her hand. "Here is her lover's name and address. Mother, call Martin. He must ride into town at once!"

Martin did go into town at once and proceeded to the depot. And this was the message he handed the agent, with instructions to send it immediately:

"To Mr. Franz Venderlyn, Rossilion, Ia.: Irma is on east-bound B. and M. train. Meet and keep her till Jan comes.

"Effie Destarch."

The train on which Irma was had to wait over at Wymore, so it was late the following day when it slackened speed at Rossilion. Faint from fatigue, sorrow, and lack of food, anxious only to reach the sea and the loved old world beyond it, the little maiden cowered back in her seat.

"Irma!" said a deep, familiar voice.

She looked up at a black shadow.

"Come! You get off here. Are these your things? Hurry, my dear. Why--what--"

For the girl had swayed forward in a dead faint.

An hour later he was driving her out to his sister's.

"I have sent word to a clergyman to meet us there," he said. "We shall be married, and go direct to our own home. It is a dreary place now, but you will make it blossom like the rose, Irma."

"How did you know I would be on that train?"

He showed her the telegram.

"O, from Effie! Jan was away. She must have seen your address on that letter you wrote me, dear. That unkind letter!"

"I wanted my promised wife!" he returned.

She looked up at him with gentle blissful eyes.

"Yes, Franz, but--"

He laughed, the heartsome laugh of a man who has at last his dearest desire.

"But--I know! Here we are at Lisa's. And from this day, dear, you shall be my ownliest one!"

(Reprinted in The Nebraska of Kate McPhelim Cleary. Ed. James M. Cleary. Lake Bluff, Ill: United Educators, 1958: pp. 110-123.)