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A Daughter of the Land

by Gene Stratton-Porter · English · Gutenberg #3722 · 696,685 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Daughter of the Land

Author: Gene Stratton-Porter


        
Release date: February 1, 2003 [eBook #3722]
                Most recently updated: January 8, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3722

Credits: Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer. HTML
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DAUGHTER OF THE LAND ***




Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer. HTML
version by Al Haines.










A DAUGHTER OF THE LAND


by

Gene Stratton-Porter




CONTENTS

Chapter

      I. The Wings of Morning
     II. An Embryo Mind Reader
    III. Peregrinations
     IV. A Question of Contracts
      V. The Prodigal Daughter
     VI. Kate's Private Pupil
    VII. Helping Nancy Ellen and Robert to Establish a Home
   VIII. The History of a Leghorn Hat
     IX. A Sunbonnet Girl
      X. John Jardine's Courtship
     XI. A Business Proposition
    XII. Two Letters
   XIII. The Bride
    XIV. Starting Married Life
     XV. A New Idea
    XVI. The Work of the Sun
   XVII. The Banner Hand
  XVIII. Kate Takes the Bit in Her Teeth
    XIX. "As a Man Soweth"
     XX. "For a Good Girl"
    XXI. Life's Boomerang
   XXII. Somewhat of Polly
  XXIII. Kate's Heavenly Time
   XXIV. Polly Tries Her Wings
    XXV. One More for Kate
   XXVI. The Winged Victory
  XXVII. Blue Ribbon Corn
 XXVIII. The Eleventh Hour




To Gene Stratton II




A DAUGHTER OF THE LAND



CHAPTER I

THE WINGS OF MORNING

"TAKE the wings of Morning."

Kate Bates followed the narrow footpath rounding the corner of the
small country church, as the old minister raised his voice slowly and
impressively to repeat the command he had selected for his text.
Fearing that her head would be level with the windows, she bent and
walked swiftly past the church; but the words went with her, iterating
and reiterating themselves in her brain.  Once she paused to glance
back toward the church, wondering what the minister would say in
expounding that text.  She had a fleeting thought of slipping in,
taking the back seat and listening to the sermon.  The remembrance that
she had not dressed for church deterred her; then her face twisted
grimly as she again turned to the path, for it occurred to her that she
had nothing else to wear if she had started to attend church instead of
going to see her brother.

As usual, she had left her bed at four o'clock; for seven hours she had
cooked, washed dishes, made beds, swept, dusted, milked, churned,
following the usual routine of a big family in the country.  Then she
had gone upstairs, dressed in clean gingham and confronted her mother.

"I think I have done my share for to-day," she said.  "Suppose you call
on our lady school-mistress for help with dinner.  I'm going to Adam's."

Mrs. Bates lifted her gaunt form to very close six feet of height,
looking narrowly at her daughter.

"Well, what the nation are you going to Adam's at this time a-Sunday
for?" she demanded.

"Oh, I have a curiosity to learn if there is one of the eighteen
members of this family who gives a cent what becomes of me!" answered
Kate, her eyes meeting and looking clearly into her mother's.

"You are not letting yourself think he would 'give a cent' to send you
to that fool normal-thing, are you?"

"I am not! But it wasn't a 'fool thing' when Mary and Nancy Ellen, and
the older girls wanted to go.  You even let Mary go to college two
years."

"Mary had exceptional ability," said Mrs. Bates.

"I wonder how she convinced you of it. None of the rest of us can
discover it," said Kate.

"What you need is a good strapping, Miss."

"I know it; but considering the facts that I am larger than you, and
was eighteen in September, I shouldn't advise you to attempt it.  What
is the difference whether I was born in '62 or '42? Give me the chance
you gave Mary, and I'll prove to you that I can do anything she has
done, without having 'exceptional ability!'"

"The difference is that I am past sixty now.  I was stout as an ox when
Mary wanted to go to school.  It is your duty and your job to stay here
and do this work."

"To pay for having been born last?  Not a bit more than if I had been
born first.  Any girl in the family owes you as much for life as I do;
it is up to the others to pay back in service, after they are of age,
if it is to me.  I have done my share.  If Father were not the richest
farmer in the county, and one of the richest men, it would be
different.  He can afford to hire help for you, quite as well as he can
for himself."

"Hire help!  Who would I get to do the work here?"

"You'd have to double your assistants.  You could not hire two women
who would come here and do so much work as I do in a day. That is why I
decline to give up teaching, and stay here to slave at your option, for
gingham dresses and cowhide shoes, of your selection.  If I were a boy,
I'd work three years more and then I would be given two hundred acres
of land, have a house and barn built for me, and a start of stock given
me, as every boy in this family has had at twenty-one."

"A man is a man!  He founds a family, he runs the Government!  It is a
different matter," said Mrs. Bates.

"It surely is; in this family.  But I think, even with us, a man would
have rather a difficult proposition on his hands to found a family
without a woman; or to run the Government either."

"All right!  Go on to Adam and see what you get."

"I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that Nancy Ellen gets dinner,
anyway," said Kate as she passed through the door and followed the long
path to the gate, from there walking beside the road in the direction
of her brother's home.  There were many horses in the pasture and
single and double buggies in the barn; but it never occurred to Kate
that she might ride:  it was Sunday and the horses were resting.  So
she followed the path beside the fences, rounded the corner of the
church and went on her way with the text from which the pastor was
preaching, hammering in her brain.  She became so absorbed in thought
that she scarcely saw the footpath she followed, while June flowered,
and perfumed, and sang all around her.

She was so intent upon the words she had heard that her feet
unconsciously followed a well-defined branch from the main path leading
into the woods, from the bridge, where she sat on a log, and for the
unnumbered time, reviewed her problem.  She had worked ever since she
could remember.  Never in her life had she gotten to school before noon
on Monday, because of the large washings. After the other work was
finished she had spent nights and mornings ironing, when she longed to
study, seldom finishing before Saturday.  Summer brought an endless
round of harvesting, canning, drying; winter brought butchering, heaps
of sewing, and postponed summer work.  School began late in the fall
and closed early in spring, with teachers often inefficient; yet
because she was a close student and kept her books where she could take
a peep and memorize and think as she washed dishes and cooked, she had
thoroughly mastered all the country school near her home could teach
her.  With six weeks of a summer Normal course she would be as well
prepared to teach as any of her sisters were, with the exception of
Mary, who had been able to convince her parents that she possessed two
college years' worth of "ability."

Kate laid no claim to "ability," herself; but she knew she was as
strong as most men, had an ordinary brain that could be trained, and
while she was far from beautiful she was equally as far from being
ugly, for her skin was smooth and pink, her eyes large and blue-gray,
her teeth even and white.  She missed beauty because her cheekbones
were high, her mouth large, her nose barely escaping a pug; but she had
a real "crown of glory" in her hair, which was silken fine, long and
heavy, of sunshine-gold in colour, curling naturally around her face
and neck.  Given pure blood to paint such a skin with varying emotions,
enough wind to ravel out a few locks of such hair, the proportions of a
Venus and perfect health, any girl could rest very well assured of
being looked at twice, if not oftener.

Kate sat on a log, a most unusual occurrence for her, for she was
familiar only with bare, hot houses, furnished with meagre necessities;
reeking stables, barnyards and vegetable gardens. She knew less of the
woods than the average city girl; but there was a soothing wind, a
sweet perfume, a calming silence that quieted her tense mood and
enabled her to think clearly; so the review went on over years of work
and petty economies, amounting to one grand aggregate that gave to each
of seven sons house, stock, and land at twenty-one; and to each of nine
daughters a bolt of muslin and a fairly decent dress when she married,
as the seven older ones did speedily, for they were fine, large,
upstanding girls, some having real beauty, all  exceptionally
well-trained economists and workers.  Because her mother had the
younger daughters to help in the absence of the elder, each girl had
been allowed the time and money to prepare herself to teach a country
school; all of them had taught until they married.  Nancy Ellen, the
beauty of the family, the girl next older than Kate, had taken the home
school for the second winter.  Going to school to Nancy Ellen had been
the greatest trial of Kate's life, until the possibility of not going
to Normal had confronted her.

Nancy Ellen was almost as large as Kate, quite as pink, her features
assembled in a manner that made all the difference, her jet-black hair
as curly as Kate's, her eyes big and dark, her lips red.  As for
looking at Kate twice, no one ever looked at her at all if Nancy Ellen
happened to be walking beside her.  Kate bore that without protest; it
would have wounded her pride to rebel openly; she did Nancy Ellen's
share of the work to allow her to study and have her Normal course; she
remained at home plainly clothed to loan Nancy Ellen her best dress
when she attended Normal; but when she found that she was doomed to
finish her last year at school under Nancy Ellen, to work double so
that her sister might go to school early and remain late, coming home
tired and with lessons to prepare for the morrow, some of the
spontaneity left Kate's efforts.

She had a worse grievance when Nancy Ellen hung several new dresses and
a wrapper on her side of the closet after her first pay-day, and
furnished her end of the bureau with a white hair brush and a brass box
filled with pink powder, with a swan's-down puff for its application.
For three months Kate had waited and hoped that at least "thank you"
would be vouchsafed her; when it failed for that length of time she did
two things:  she studied so diligently that her father called her into
the barn and told her that if before the school, she asked Nancy Ellen
another question she could not answer, he would use the buggy whip on
her to within an inch of her life. The buggy whip always had been a
familiar implement to Kate, so she stopped asking slippery questions,
worked harder than ever, and spent her spare time planning what she
would hang in the closet and put on her end of the bureau when she had
finished her Normal course, and was teaching her first term of school.

Now she had learned all that Nancy Ellen could teach her, and much that
Nancy Ellen never knew:  it was time for Kate to be starting away to
school.  Because it was so self-evident that she should have what the
others had had, she said nothing about it until the time came; then she
found her father determined that she should remain at home to do the
housework, for no compensation other than her board and such clothes as
she always had worn, her mother wholly in accord with him, and marvel
of all, Nancy Ellen quite enthusiastic on the subject.

Her father always had driven himself and his family like slaves, while
her mother had ably seconded his efforts.  Money from the sale of
chickens, turkeys, butter, eggs, and garden truck that other women of
the neighbourhood used for extra clothing for themselves and their
daughters and to prettify their homes, Mrs. Bates handed to her husband
to increase the amount necessary to purchase the two hundred acres of
land for each son when he came of age.  The youngest son had farmed his
land with comfortable profit and started a bank account, while his
parents and two sisters were still saving and working to finish the
last payment. Kate thought with bitterness that if this final payment
had been made possibly there would have been money to spare for her;
but with that thought came the knowledge that her father had numerous
investments on which he could have realized and made the payments had
he not preferred that they should be a burden on his family.

"Take the wings of morning," repeated Kate, with all the emphasis the
old minister had used.  "Hummm!  I wonder what kind of wings. Those of
a peewee would scarcely do for me; I'd need the wings of an eagle to
get me anywhere, and anyway it wasn't the wings of a bird I was to
take, it was the wings of morning.  I wonder what the wings of morning
are, and how I go about taking them.  God knows where my wings come in;
by the ache in my feet I seem to have walked, mostly.  Oh, what ARE the
wings of morning?"

Kate stared straight before her, sitting absorbed and motionless. Close
in front of her a little white moth fluttered over the twigs and
grasses.  A kingbird sailed into view and perched on a brush-heap
preparatory to darting after the moth.  While the bird measured the
distance and waited for the moth to rise above the entangling grasses,
with a sweep and a snap a smaller bird, very similar in shape and
colouring, flashed down, catching the moth and flying high among the
branches of a big tree.

"Aha!  You missed your opportunity!" said Kate to the kingbird.

She sat straighter suddenly.  "Opportunity," she repeated.  "Here is
where I am threatened with missing mine.  Opportunity!  I wonder now if
that might not be another name for 'the wings of morning.'  Morning is
winging its way past me, the question is: do I sit still and let it
pass, or do I take its wings and fly away?"

Kate brooded on that awhile, then her thought formulated into words
again.

"It isn't as if Mother were sick or poor, she is perfectly well and
stronger than nine women out of ten of her age; Father can afford to
hire all the help she needs; there is nothing cruel or unkind in
leaving her; and as for Nancy Ellen, why does the fact that I am a few
years younger than she, make me her servant?  Why do I cook for her,
and make her bed, and wash her clothes, while she earns money to spend
on herself?  And she is doing everything in her power to keep me at it,
because she likes what she is doing and what it brings her, and she
doesn't give a tinker whether I like what I am doing or not; or whether
I get anything I want out of it or not; or whether I miss getting off
to Normal on time or not.  She is blame selfish, that's what she is, so
she won't like the jolt she's going to get; but it will benefit her
soul, her soul that her pretty face keeps her from developing, so I
shall give her a little valuable assistance.  Mother will be furious
and Father will have the buggy whip convenient; but I am going!  I
don't know how, or when, but I am GOING.

      "Who has a thirst for knowledge, in Helicon may slake it,
      If he has still, the Roman will, to find a way, or make it."

Kate arose tall and straight and addressed the surrounding woods. "Now
you just watch me 'find a way or make it,'" she said.  "I am 'taking
the wings of morning,' observe my flight!  See me cut curves and
circles and sail and soar around all the other Bates girls the Lord
ever made, one named Nancy Ellen in particular.  It must be far past
noon, and I've much to do to get ready.  I fly!"

Kate walked back to the highway, but instead of going on she turned
toward home.  When she reached the gate she saw Nancy Ellen, dressed
her prettiest, sitting beneath a cherry tree reading a book, in very
plain view from the road.  As Kate came up the path:  "Hello!" said
Nancy Ellen.  "Wasn't Adam at home?"

"I don't know," answered Kate.  "I was not there."

"You weren't?  Why, where were you?" asked Nancy Ellen.

"Oh, I just took a walk!" answered Kate.

"Right at dinner time on Sunday?  Well, I'll be switched!" cried Nancy
Ellen.

"Pity you weren't oftener, when you most needed it," said Kate, passing
up the walk and entering the door.  Her mother asked the same questions
so Kate answered them.

"Well, I am glad you came home," said Mrs. Bates.  "There was no use
tagging to Adam with a sorry story, when your father said flatly that
you couldn't go."

"But I must go!" urged Kate.  "I have as good a right to my chance as
the others.  If you put your foot down and say so, Mother, Father will
let me go.  Why shouldn't I have the same chance as Nancy Ellen?
Please Mother, let me go!"

"You stay right where you are.  There is an awful summer's work before
us," said Mrs. Bates.

"There always is," answered Kate.  "But now is just my chance while you
have Nancy Ellen here to help you."

"She has some special studying to do, and you very well know that she
has to attend the County Institute, and take the summer course of
training for teachers."

"So do I," said Kate, stubbornly.  "You really will not help me,
Mother?"

"I've said my say!  Your place is here!  Here you stay!" answered her
mother.

"All right," said Kate, "I'll cross you off the docket of my hopes, and
try Father."

"Well, I warn you, you had better not!  He has been nagged until his
patience is lost," said Mrs. Bates.

Kate closed her lips and started in search of her father.  She found
him leaning on the pig pen watching pigs grow into money, one of his
most favoured occupations.  He scowled at her, drawing his huge frame
to full height.

"I don't want to hear a word you have to say," he said.  "You are the
youngest, and your place is in the kitchen helping your mother.  We
have got the last installment to pay on Hiram's land this summer.
March back to the house and busy yourself with something useful!"

Kate looked at him, from his big-boned, weather-beaten face, to his
heavy shoes, then turned without a word and went back toward the house.
She went around it to the cherry tree and with no preliminaries said to
her sister:  "Nancy Ellen, I want you to lend me enough money to fix my
clothes a little and pay my way to Normal this summer.  I can pay it
all back this winter.  I'll pay every cent with interest, before I
spend any on anything else."

"Why, you must be crazy!" said Nancy Ellen.

"Would I be any crazier than you, when you wanted to go?" asked Kate.

"But you were here to help Mother," said Nancy Ellen.

"And you are here to help her now," persisted Kate.

"But I've got to fix up my clothes for the County Institute," said
Nancy Ellen, "I'll be gone most of the summer."

"I have just as much right to go as you had," said Kate.

"Father and Mother both say you shall not go," answered her sister.

"I suppose there is no use to remind you that I did all in my power to
help you to your chance."

"You did no more than you should have done," said Nancy Ellen.

"And this is no more than you should do for me, in the circumstances,"
said Kate.

"You very well know I can't!  Father and Mother would turn me out of
the house," said Nancy Ellen.

"I'd be only too glad if they would turn me out," said Kate.  "You can
let me have the money if you like.  Mother wouldn't do anything but
talk; and Father would not strike you, or make you go, he always
favours you."

"He does nothing of the sort!  I can't, and I won't, so there!" cried
Nancy Ellen.

"'Won't,' is the real answer, 'so there,'" said Kate.

She went into the cellar and ate some cold food from the cupboard and
drank a cup of milk.  Then she went to her room and looked over all of
her scanty stock of clothing, laying in a heap the pieces that needed
mending.  She took the clothes basket to the wash room, which was the
front of the woodhouse, in summer; built a fire, heated water, and
while making it appear that she was putting the clothes to soak, as
usual, she washed everything she had that was fit to use, hanging the
pieces to dry in the building.

"Watch me fly!" muttered Kate.  "I don't seem to be cutting those
curves so very fast; but I'm moving.  I believe now, having exhausted
all home resources, that Adam is my next objective.  He is the only one
in the family who ever paid the slightest attention to me, maybe he
cares a trifle what becomes of me, but Oh, how I dread Agatha!
However, watch me take wing!  If Adam fails me I have six remaining
prospects among my loving brothers, and if none of them has any feeling
for me or faith in me there yet remain my seven dear brothers-in-law,
before I appeal to the tender mercies of the neighbours; but how I
dread Agatha!  Yet I fly!"



CHAPTER II

AN EMBRYO MIND READER

KATE was far from physical flight as she pounded the indignation of her
soul into the path with her substantial feet.  Baffled and angry, she
kept reviewing the situation as she went swiftly on her way, regardless
of dust and heat.  She could see no justice in being forced into a
position that promised to end in further humiliation and defeat of her
hopes.  If she only could find Adam at the stable, as she passed, and
talk with him alone!  Secretly, she well knew that the chief source of
her dread of meeting her sister-in-law was that to her Agatha was so
funny that ridiculing her had been regarded as perfectly legitimate
pastime.  For Agatha WAS funny; but she had no idea of it, and could no
more avoid it than a bee could avoid being buzzy, so the manner in
which her sisters-in-law imitated her and laughed at her, none too
secretly, was far from kind.  While she never guessed what was going
on, she realized the antagonism in their attitude and stoutly resented
it.

Adam was his father's favourite son, a stalwart, fine-appearing, big
man, silent, honest, and forceful; the son most after the desires of
the father's heart, yet Adam was the one son of the seven who had
ignored his father's law that all of his boys were to marry strong,
healthy young women, poor women, working women. Each of the others at
coming of age had contracted this prescribed marriage as speedily as
possible, first asking father Bates, the girl afterward.  If father
Bates disapproved, the girl was never asked at all.  And the reason for
this docility on the part of these big, matured men, lay wholly in the
methods of father Bates. He gave those two hundred acres of land to
each of them on coming of age, and the same sum to each for the
building of a house and barn and the purchase of stock; gave it to them
in words, and with the fullest assurance that it was theirs to improve,
to live on, to add to.  Each of them had seen and handled his deed,
each had to admit he never had known his father to tell a lie or
deviate the least from fairness in a deal of any kind, each had been
compelled to go in the way indicated by his father for years; but not a
man of them held his own deed.  These precious bits of paper remained
locked in the big wooden chest beside the father's bed, while the land
stood on the records in his name; the taxes they paid him each year he,
himself, carried to the county clerk; so that he was the largest
landholder in the county and one of the very richest men.  It must have
been extreme unction to his soul to enter the county office and ask for
the assessment on those "little parcels of land of mine."  Men treated
him very deferentially, and so did his sons.  Those documents carefully
locked away had the effect of obtaining ever-ready help to harvest his
hay and wheat whenever he desired, to make his least wish quickly
deferred to, to give him authority and the power for which he lived and
worked earlier, later, and harder than any other man of his day and
locality.

Adam was like him as possible up to the time he married, yet Adam was
the only one of his sons who disobeyed him; but there was a redeeming
feature.  Adam married a slender tall slip of a woman, four years his
senior, who had been teaching in the Hartley schools when he began
courting her.  She was a prim, fussy woman, born of a prim father and a
fussy mother, so what was to be expected?  Her face was narrow and set,
her body and her movements almost rigid, her hair, always parted,
lifted from each side and tied on the crown, fell in stiff little
curls, the back part hanging free.  Her speech, as precise as her
movements, was formed into set habit through long study of the
dictionary.  She was born antagonistic to whatever existed, no matter
what it was.  So surely as every other woman agreed on a dress, a
recipe, a house, anything whatever, so surely Agatha thought out and
followed a different method, the disconcerting thing about her being
that she usually finished any undertaking with less exertion, ahead of
time, and having saved considerable money.

She could have written a fine book of synonyms, for as certainly as any
one said anything in her presence that she had occasion to repeat, she
changed the wording to six-syllabled mouthfuls, delivered with
ponderous circumlocution.  She subscribed to papers and magazines,
which she read and remembered.  And she danced! When other women
thought even a waltz immoral and shocking; perfectly stiff, her curls
exactly in place, Agatha could be seen, and frequently was seen,
waltzing on the front porch in the arms of, and to a tune whistled by
young Adam, whose full name was Adam Alcibiades Bates.  In his younger
days, when discipline had been required, Kate once had heard her say to
the little fellow:  "Adam Alcibiades ascend these steps and proceed
immediately to your maternal ancestor."

Kate thought of this with a dry smile as she plodded on toward Agatha's
home hoping she could see her brother at the barn, but she knew that
most probably she would "ascend the steps and proceed to the maternal
ancestor," of Adam Bates 3d.  Then she would be forced to explain her
visit and combat both Adam and his wife; for Agatha was not a nonentity
like her collection of healthful, hard-working sisters-in-law.  Agatha
worked if she chose, and she did not work if she did not choose.
Mostly she worked and worked harder than any one ever thought.  She had
a habit of keeping her house always immaculate, finishing her cleaning
very early and then reading in a conspicuous spot on the veranda when
other women were busy with their most tiresome tasks. Such was Agatha,
whom Kate dreaded meeting, with every reason, for Agatha, despite
curls, bony structure, language, and dance, was the most powerful
factor in the whole Bates family with her father-in-law; and all
because when he purchased the original two hundred acres for Adam, and
made the first allowance for buildings and stock, Agatha slipped the
money from Adam's fingers in some inexplainable way, and spent it all
for stock; because forsooth! Agatha was an only child, and her prim
father endowed her, she said so herself, with three hundred acres of
land, better in location and more fertile than that given to Adam, land
having on it a roomy and comfortable brick house, completely furnished,
a large barn and also stock; so that her place could be used to live on
and farm, while Adam's could be given over to grazing herds of cattle
which he bought cheaply, fattened and sold at the top of the market.

If each had brought such a farm into the family with her, father Bates
could have endured six more prim, angular, becurled daughters-in-law,
very well indeed, for land was his one and only God.  His respect for
Agatha was markedly very high, for in addition to her farm he secretly
admired her independence of thought and action, and was amazed by the
fact that she was about her work when several of the blooming girls he
had selected for wives for his sons were confined to the sofa with a
pain, while not one of them schemed, planned, connived with her husband
and piled up the money as Agatha did, therefore she stood at the head
of the women of the Bates family; while she was considered to have
worked miracles in the heart of Adam Bates, for with his exception no
man of the family ever had been seen to touch a woman, either publicly
or privately, to offer the slightest form of endearment, assistance or
courtesy.  "Women are to work and to bear children," said the elder
Bates.  "Put them at the first job when they are born, and at the
second at eighteen, and keep them hard at it."

At their rate of progression several of the Bates sons and daughters
would produce families that, with a couple of pairs of twins, would
equal the sixteen of the elder Bates; but not so Agatha.  She had one
son of fifteen and one daughter of ten, and she said that was all she
intended to have, certainly it was all she did have; but she further
aggravated matters by announcing that she had had them because she
wanted them; at such times as she intended to; and that she had the boy
first and five years the older, so that he could look after his sister
when they went into company.  Also she walked up and sat upon Adam's
lap whenever she chose, ruffled his hair, pulled his ears, and kissed
him squarely on the mouth, with every appearance of having help, while
the dance on the front porch with her son or daughter was of daily
occurrence.  And anything funnier than Agatha, prim and angular with
never a hair out of place, stiffly hopping "Money Musk" and "Turkey In
The Straw," or the "Blue Danube" waltz, anything funnier than that,
never happened.  But the two Adams, Jr. and 3d, watched with reverent
and adoring eyes, for she was MOTHER, and no one else on earth rested
so high in their respect as the inflexible woman they lived with.  That
she was different from all the other women of her time and location was
hard on the other women.  Had they been exactly right, they would have
been exactly like her.

So Kate, thinking all these things over, her own problem acutely
"advanced and proceeded."  She advanced past the closed barn, and stock
in the pasture, past the garden flaming June, past the dooryard, up the
steps, down the hall, into the screened back porch dining room and
"proceeded" to take a chair, while the family finished the Sunday night
supper, at which they were seated.  Kate was not hungry and she did not
wish to trouble her sister-in-law to set another place, so she took the
remaining chair, against the wall, behind Agatha, facing Adam, 3d,
across the table, and with Adam Jr., in profile at the head, and little
Susan at the foot.  Then she waited her chance.  Being tired and
aggressive she did not wait long.

"I might as well tell you why I came," she said bluntly.  "Father won't
give me money to go to Normal, as he has all the others.  He says I
have got to stay at home and help Mother."

"Well, Mother is getting so old she needs help," said Adam, Jr., as he
continued his supper.

"Of course she is," said Kate.  "We all know that.  But what is the
matter with Nancy Ellen helping her, while I take my turn at Normal?
There wasn't a thing I could do last summer to help her off that I
didn't do, even to lending her my best dress and staying at home for
six Sundays because I had nothing else fit to wear where I'd be seen."

No one said a word.  Kate continued:  "Then Father secured our home
school for her and I had to spend the winter going to school to her,
when you very well know that I always studied harder, and was ahead of
her, even after she'd been to Normal.  And I got up early and worked
late, and cooked, and washed, and waited on her, while she got her
lessons and reports ready, and fixed up her nice new clothes, and now
she won't touch the work, and she is doing all she can to help Father
keep me from going."

"I never knew Father to need much help on anything he made up his mind
to," said Adam.

Kate sat very tense.  She looked steadily at her brother, but he looked
quite as steadily at his plate.  The back of her sister-in-law was
fully as expressive as her face.  Her head was very erect, her
shoulders stiff and still, not a curl moved as she poured Adam's tea
and Susan's milk.  Only Adam, 3d, looked at Kate with companionable
eyes, as if he might feel a slight degree of interest or sympathy, so
she found herself explaining directly to him.

"Things are blame unfair in our family, anyway!" she said, bitterly.
"You have got to be born a boy to have any chance worth while; if you
are a girl it is mighty small, and if you are the youngest, by any
mischance, you have none at all.  I don't want to harp things over; but
I wish you would explain to me why having been born a few years after
Nancy Ellen makes me her slave, and cuts me out of my chance to teach,
and to have some freedom and clothes. They might as well have told
Hiram he was not to have any land and stay at home and help Father
because he was the youngest boy; it would have been quite as fair; but
nothing like that happens to the boys of this family, it is always the
girls who get left.  I have worked for years, knowing every cent I
saved and earned above barely enough to cover me, would go to help pay
for Hiram's land and house and stock; but he wouldn't turn a hand to
help me, neither will any of the rest of you."

"Then what are you here for?" asked Adam.

"Because I am going to give you, and every other brother and sister I
have, the chance to REFUSE to loan me enough to buy a few clothes and
pay my way to Normal, so I can pass the examinations, and teach this
fall.  And when you have all refused, I am going to the neighbours,
until I find someone who will loan me the money I need.  A hundred
dollars would be plenty.  I could pay it back with two months'
teaching, with any interest you say."

Kate paused, short of breath, her eyes blazing, her cheeks red. Adam
went steadily on with his supper.  Agatha appeared stiffer and more
uncompromising in the back than before, which Kate had not thought
possible.  But the same dull red on the girl's cheeks had begun to burn
on the face of young Adam. Suddenly he broke into a clear laugh.

"Oh, Ma, you're too funny!" he cried.  "I can read your face like a
book.  I bet you ten dollars I can tell you just word for word what you
are going to say.  I dare you let me!  You know I can!" Still laughing,
his eyes dancing, a picture to see, he stretched his arm across the
table toward her, and his mother adored him, however she strove to
conceal the fact from him.

"Ten dollars!" she scoffed.  "When did we become so wealthy?  I'll give
you one dollar if you tell me exactly what I was going to say."

The boy glanced at his father.  "Oh this is too easy!" he cried. "It's
like robbing the baby's bank!"  And then to his mother: "You were just
opening your lips to say:  'Give it to her!  If you don't, I will!'
And you are even a little bit more of a brick than usual to do it.
It's a darned shame the way all of them impose on Kate."

There was a complete change in Agatha's back.  Adam, Jr., laid down his
fork and stared at his wife in deep amazement.  Adam, 3d, stretched his
hand farther toward his mother.  "Give me that dollar!" he cajoled.

"Well, I am not concealing it in the sleeve of my garments," she said.
"If I have one, it is reposing in my purse, in juxtaposition to the
other articles that belong there, and if you receive it, it will be
bestowed upon you when I deem the occasion suitable."

Young Adam's fist came down with a smash.  "I get the dollar!" he
triumphed.  "I TOLD you so!  I KNEW she was going to say it! Ain't I a
dandy mind reader though?  But it is bully for you, Father, because of
course, if Mother wouldn't let Kate have it, you'd HAVE to; but if you
DID it might make trouble with your paternal land-grabber, and endanger
your precious deed that you hope to get in the sweet by-and-by.  But if
Mother loans the money, Grandfather can't say a word, because it is her
very own, and didn't cost him anything, and he always agrees with her
anyway!  Hurrah for hurrah, Kate!  Nancy Ellen may wash her own
petticoat in the morning, while I take you to the train.  You'll let
me, Father?  You did let me go to Hartley alone, once.  I'll be
careful!  I won't let a thing happen.  I'll come straight home. And oh,
my dollar, you and me; I'll put you in the bank and let you grow to
three!"

"You may go," said his father, promptly.

"You shall proceed according to your Aunt Katherine's instructions,"
said his mother, at the same time.

"Katie, get your carpet-sack!  When do we start?" demanded young Adam.

"Morning will be all right with me, you blessed youngun," said Kate,
"but I don't own a telescope or anything to put what little I have in,
and Nancy Ellen never would spare hers; she will want to go to County
Institute before I get back."

"You may have mine," said Agatha.  "You are perfectly welcome to take
it wherever your peregrinations lead you, and return it when you
please.  I shall proceed to my chamber and formulate your check
immediately.  You are also welcome to my best hat and cape, and any of
my clothing or personal adornments you can use to advantage."

"Oh, Agatha, I wish you were as big as a house, like me," said Kate,
joyfully.  "I couldn't possibly crowd into anything you wear, but it
would almost tickle me to death to have Nancy Ellen know you let me
take your things, when she won't even offer me a dud of her old stuff;
I never remotely hoped for any of the new."

"You shall have my cape and hat, anyway.  The cape is new and very
fashionable.  Come upstairs and try the hat," said Agatha.

The cape was new and fashionable as Agatha had said; it would not
fasten at the neck, but there would be no necessity that it should
during July and August, while it would improve any dress it was worn
with on a cool evening.  The hat Kate could not possibly use with her
large, broad face and mass of hair, but she was almost as pleased with
the offer as if the hat had been most becoming.  Then Agatha brought
out her telescope, in which Kate laid the cape while Agatha wrote her a
check for one hundred and twenty dollars, and told her where and how to
cash it.  The extra twenty was to buy a pair of new walking shoes, some
hose, and a hat, before she went to her train.  When they went
downstairs Adam, Jr., had a horse hitched and Adam, 3d, drove her to
her home, where, at the foot of the garden, they took one long survey
of the landscape and hid the telescope behind the privet bush.  Then
Adam drove away quietly, Kate entered the dooryard from the garden, and
soon afterward went to the wash room and hastily ironed her clothing.

Nancy Ellen had gone to visit a neighbour girl, so Kate risked her
remaining until after church in the evening.  She hurried to their room
and mended all her own clothing she had laid out.  Then she
deliberately went over Nancy Ellen's and helped herself to a pair of
pretty nightdresses, such as she had never owned, a white embroidered
petticoat, the second best white dress, and a most becoming sailor hat.
These she made into a parcel and carried to the wash room, brought in
the telescope and packed it, hiding it under a workbench and covering
it with shavings.  After that she went to her room and wrote a note,
and then slept deeply until the morning call.  She arose at once and
went to the wash room but instead of washing the family clothing, she
took a bath in the largest tub, and washed her hair to a state
resembling spun gold. During breakfast she kept sharp watch down the
road.  When she saw Adam, 3d, coming she stuck her note under the hook
on which she had seen her father hang his hat all her life, and
carrying the telescope in the clothes basket covered with a rumpled
sheet, she passed across the yard and handed it over the fence to Adam,
climbed that same fence, and they started toward Hartley.

Kate put the sailor hat on her head, and sat very straight, an anxious
line crossing her forehead.  She was running away, and if discovered,
there was the barest chance that her father might follow, and make a
most disagreeable scene, before the train pulled out.  He had gone to a
far field to plow corn and Kate fervently hoped he would plow until
noon, which he did.  Nancy Ellen washed the dishes, and went into the
front room to study, while Mrs. Bates put on her sunbonnet and began
hoeing the potatoes.  Not one of the family noticed that Monday's wash
was not on the clothes line as usual.  Kate and Adam drove as fast as
they dared, and on reaching town, cashed the check, decided that Nancy
Ellen's hat would serve, thus saving the price of a new one for
emergencies that might arise, bought the shoes, and went to the depot,
where they had an anxious hour to wait.

"I expect Grandpa will be pretty mad," said Adam.

"I am sure there is not the slightest chance but that he will be," said
Kate.

"Dare you go back home when school is over?" he asked.

"Probably not," she answered.

"What will you do?" he questioned.

"When I investigated sister Nancy Ellen's bureau I found a list of the
School Supervisors of the county, so I am going to put in my spare time
writing them about my qualifications to teach their schools this
winter.  All the other girls did well and taught first-class schools, I
shall also.  I am not a bit afraid but that I may take my choice of
several.  When I finish it will be only a few days until school begins,
so I can go hunt my boarding place and stay there."

"Mother would let you stay at our house," said Adam.

"Yes, I think she would, after yesterday; but I don't want to make
trouble that might extend to Father and your father.  I had better keep
away."

"Yes, I guess you had," said Adam. "If Grandfather rows, he raises a
racket.  But maybe he won't!"

"Maybe!  Wouldn't you like to see what happens when Mother come in from
the potatoes and Nancy Ellen comes out from the living room, and Father
comes to dinner, all about the same time?"

Adam laughed appreciatively.

"Wouldn't I just!" he cried.  "Kate, you like my mother, don't you?"

"I certainly do!  She has been splendid.  I never dreamed of such a
thing as getting the money from her."

"I didn't either," said Adam, "until--I became a mind reader."

Kate looked straight into his eyes.

"How about that, Adam?" she asked.

Adam chuckled.  "She didn't intend to say a word.  She was going to let
the Bateses fight it out among themselves.  Her mouth was shut so tight
it didn't look as if she could open it if she wanted to.  I thought it
would be better for you to borrow the money from her, so Father
wouldn't get into a mess, and I knew how fine she was, so I just
SUGGESTED it to her.  That's all!"

"Adam, you're a dandy!" cried Kate.

"I am having a whole buggy load of fun, and you ought to go," said he.
"It's all right!  Don't you worry!  I'll take care of you."

"Why, thank you, Adam!" said Kate.  "That is the first time any one
ever offered to take care of me in my life.  With me it always has been
pretty much of a 'go-it-alone' proposition."

"What of Nancy Ellen's did you take?" he asked.  "Why didn't you get
some gloves?  Your hands are so red and work-worn.  Mother's never look
that way."

"Your mother never has done the rough field work I do, and I haven't
taken time to be careful.  They do look badly.  I wish I had taken a
pair of the lady's gloves; but I doubt if she would have survived that.
I understand that one of the unpardonable sins is putting on gloves
belonging to any one else."

Then the train came and Kate climbed aboard with Adam's parting
injunction in her ears:  "Sit beside an open window on this side!"

So she looked for and found the window and as she seated herself she
saw Adam on the outside and leaned to speak to him again. Just as the
train started he thrust his hand inside, dropped his dollar on her lap,
and in a tense whisper commanded her:  "Get yourself some gloves!"
Then he ran.

Kate picked up the dollar, while her eyes dimmed with tears.

"Why, the fine youngster!" she said.  "The Jim-dandy fine youngster!"

Adam could not remember when he ever had been so happy as he was
driving home.  He found his mother singing, his father in a genial
mood, so he concluded that the greatest thing in the world to make a
whole family happy was to do something kind for someone else. But he
reflected that there would be far from a happy family at his
grandfather's; and he was right.  Grandmother Bates came in from her
hoeing at eleven o'clock tired and hungry, expecting to find the wash
dry and dinner almost ready.  There was no wash and no odour of food.
She went to the wood-shed and stared unbelievingly at the cold stove,
the tubs of soaking clothes.

She turned and went into the kitchen, where she saw no signs of Kate or
of dinner, then she lifted up her voice and shouted: "Nancy Ellen!"

Nancy Ellen came in a hurry.  "Why, Mother, what is the matter?" she
cried.

"Matter, yourself!" exclaimed Mrs. Bates.  "Look in the wash room! Why
aren't the clothes on the line?  Where is that good-for-nothing Kate?"

Nancy Ellen went to the wash room and looked.  She came back pale and
amazed.  "Maybe she is sick," she ventured. "She never has been; but
she might be!  Maybe she has lain down."

"On Monday morning!  And the wash not out!  You simpleton!" cried Mrs.
Bates.

Nancy Ellen hurried upstairs and came back with bulging eyes.

"Every scrap of her clothing is gone, and half of mine!"

"She's gone to that fool Normal-thing!  Where did she get the money?"
cried Mrs. Bates.

"I don't know!" said Nancy Ellen.  "She asked me yesterday, but of
course I told her that so long as you and Father decided she was not to
go, I couldn't possibly lend her the money."

"Did you look if she had taken it?"

Nancy Ellen straightened.  "Mother!  I didn't need do that!"

"You said she took your clothes," said Mrs. Bates.

"I had hers this time last year.  She'll bring back clothes."

"Not here, she won't!  Father will see that she never darkens these
doors again.  This is the first time in his life that a child of his
has disobeyed him."

"Except Adam, when he married Agatha; and he strutted like a fighting
cock about that."

"Well, he won't 'strut' about this, and you won't either, even if you
are showing signs of standing up for her.  Go at that wash, while I get
dinner."

Dinner was on the table when Adam Bates hung his hat on its hook and
saw the note for him.  He took it down and read:


FATHER:  I have gone to Normal.  I borrowed the money of a woman who
was willing to trust me to pay it back as soon as I earned it. Not
Nancy Ellen, of course.  She would not even loan me a pocket
handkerchief, though you remember I stayed at home six weeks last
summer to let her take what she wanted of mine.  Mother:  I think you
can get Sally Whistler to help you as cheaply as any one and that she
will do very well.  Nancy Ellen:  I have taken your second best hat and
a few of your things, but not half so many as I loaned you.  I hope it
makes you mad enough to burst.  I hope you get as mad and stay as mad
as I have been most of this year while you taught me things you didn't
know yourself; and I cooked and washed for you so you could wear fine
clothes and play the lady.  KATE


Adam Bates read that note to himself, stretching every inch of his six
feet six, his face a dull red, his eyes glaring.  Then he turned to his
wife and daughter.

"Is Kate gone?  Without proper clothing and on borrowed money," he
demanded.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Bates.  "I was hoeing potatoes all forenoon."

"Listen to this," he thundered.  Then he slowly read the note aloud.
But someway the spoken words did not have the same effect as when he
read them mentally in the first shock of anger.  When he heard his own
voice read off the line, "I hope it makes you mad enough to burst,"
there was a catch and a queer gurgle in his throat.  Mrs. Bates gazed
at him anxiously.  Was he so surprised and angry he was choking?  Might
it be a stroke?  It was!  It was a master stroke.  He got no farther
than "taught me things you didn't know yourself," when he lowered the
sheet, threw back his head and laughed as none of his family ever had
seen him laugh in his life; laughed and laughed until his frame was
shaken and the tears rolled.  Finally he looked at the dazed Nancy
Ellen.  "Get Sally Whistler, nothing!" he said.  "You hustle your
stumps and do for your mother what Kate did while you were away last
summer. And if you have any common decency send your sister as many of
your best things as you had of hers, at least.  Do you hear me?"



CHAPTER III

PEREGRINATIONS

"PEREGRINATIONS," laughed Kate, turning to the window to hide her face.
"Oh, Agatha, you are a dear, but you are too funny!  Even a Fourth of
July orator would not have used that word.  I never heard it before in
all of my life outside spelling-school."

Then she looked at the dollar she was gripping and ceased to laugh.

"The dear lad," she whispered.  "He did the whole thing.  She was going
to let us 'fight it out'; I could tell by her back, and Adam wouldn't
have helped me a cent, quite as much because he didn't want to as
because Father wouldn't have liked it.  Fancy the little chap knowing
he can wheedle his mother into anything, and exactly how to go about
it!  I won't spend a penny on myself until she is paid, and then I'll
make her a present of something nice, just to let her and Nancy Ellen
see that I appreciate being helped to my chance, for I had reached that
point where I would have walked to school and worked in somebody's
kitchen, before I'd have missed my opportunity.  I could have done it;
but this will be far pleasanter and give me a much better showing."

Then Kate began watching the people in the car with eager curiosity,
for she had been on a train only twice before in her life.  She decided
that she was in a company of young people and some even of middle age,
going to Normal.  She also noticed that most of them were looking at
her with probably the same interest she found in them.  Then at one of
the stations a girl asked to sit with her and explained that she was
going to Normal, so Kate said she was also.  The girl seemed to have
several acquaintances on the car, for she left her seat to speak with
them and when the train stopped at a very pleasant city and the car
began to empty itself, on the platform Kate was introduced by this girl
to several young women and men near her age.  A party of four, going to
board close the school, with a woman they knew about, invited Kate to
go with them and because she was strange and shaken by her experiences
she agreed.  All of them piled their luggage on a wagon to be
delivered, so Kate let hers go also.  Then they walked down a long
shady street, and entered a dainty and comfortable residence, a place
that seemed to Kate to be the home of people of wealth.  She was
assigned a room with another girl, such a pleasant girl; but a vague
uneasiness had begun to make itself felt, so before she unpacked she
went back to the sitting room and learned that the price of board was
eight dollars a week.  Forty-eight dollars for six weeks!  She would
not have enough for books and tuition.   Besides, Nancy Ellen had
boarded with a family on Butler Street whose charge was only
five-fifty.  Kate was eager to stay where these very agreeable young
people did, she imagined herself going to classes with them and having
association that to her would be a great treat, but she never would
dare ask for more money.  She thought swiftly a minute, and then made
her first mistake.

Instead of going to the other girls and frankly confessing that she
could not afford the prices they were paying, she watched her chance,
picked up her telescope and hurried down the street, walking swiftly
until she was out of sight of the house.  Then she began inquiring her
way to Butler Street and after a long, hot walk, found the place.  The
rooms and board were very poor, but Kate felt that she could endure
whatever Nancy Ellen had, so she unpacked, and went to the Normal
School to register and learn what she would need.  On coming from the
building she saw that she would be forced to pass close by the group of
girls she had deserted and this was made doubly difficult because she
could see that they were talking about her.  Then she understood how
foolish she had been and as she was struggling to summon courage to
explain to them she caught these words plainly:

"Who is going to ask her for it?"

"I am," said the girl who had sat beside Kate on the train.  "I don't
propose to pay it myself!"

Then she came directly to Kate and said briefly:  "Fifty cents, please!"

"For what?" stammered Kate.

"Your luggage.  You changed your boarding place in such a hurry you
forgot to settle, and as I made the arrangement, I had to pay it."

"Do please excuse me," said Kate.  "I was so bewildered, I forgot."

"Certainly!" said the girl and Kate dropped the money into the extended
hand and hurried past, her face scorched red with shame, for one of
them had said:  "That's a good one!  I wouldn't have thought it of her."

Kate went back to her hot, stuffy room and tried to study, but she
succeeded only in being miserable, for she realized that she had lost
her second chance to have either companions or friends, by not saying
the few words of explanation that would have righted her in the opinion
of those she would meet each day for six weeks. It was not a good
beginning, while the end was what might have been expected.  A young
man from her neighbourhood spoke to her and the girls seeing, asked him
about Kate, learning thereby that her father was worth more money than
all of theirs put together. Some of them had accepted the explanation
that Kate was "bewildered" and had acted hastily; but when the young
man finished Bates history, they merely thought her mean, and left her
severely to herself, so her only recourse was to study so diligently,
and recite so perfectly that none of them could equal her, and this she
did.

In acute discomfort and with a sore heart, Kate passed her first six
weeks away from home.  She wrote to each man on the list of school
directors she had taken from Nancy Ellen's desk.  Some answered that
they had their teachers already engaged, others made no reply.  One
bright spot was the receipt of a letter from Nancy Ellen saying she was
sending her best dress, to be very careful of it, and if Kate would let
her know the day she would be home she would meet her at the station.
Kate sent her thanks, wore the dress to two lectures, and wrote the
letter telling when she would return.

As the time drew nearer she became sickeningly anxious about a school.
What if she failed in securing one?  What if she could not pay back
Agatha's money?  What if she had taken "the wings of morning," and
fallen in her flight?  In desperation she went to the Superintendent of
the Normal and told him her trouble.  He wrote her a fine letter of
recommendation and she sent it to one of the men from whom she had not
heard, the director of a school in the village of Walden, seven miles
east of Hartley, being seventeen miles from her home, thus seeming to
Kate a desirable location, also she knew the village to be pretty and
the school one that paid well.  Then she finished her work the best she
could, and disappointed and anxious, entered the train for home.

When the engine whistled at the bridge outside Hartley Kate arose,
lifted her telescope from the rack overhead, and made her way to the
door, so that she was the first person to leave the car when it
stopped.  As she stepped to the platform she had a distinct shock, for
her father reached for the telescope, while his greeting and his face
were decidedly friendly, for him.  As they walked down the street Kate
was trying wildly to think of the best thing to say when he asked if
she had a school.  But he did not ask.  Then she saw in the pocket of
his light summer coat a packet of letters folded inside a newspaper,
and there was one long, official-looking envelope that stood above the
others far enough that she could see "Miss K--" of the address.
Instantly she decided that it was her answer from the School Director
of Walden and she was tremblingly eager to see it.  She thought an
instant and then asked:  "Have you been to the post office?"

"Yes, I got the mail," he answered.

"Will you please see if there are any letters for me?" she asked.

"When we get home," he said.  "I am in a hurry now.  Here's a list of
things Ma wants, and don't be all day about getting them."

Kate's lips closed to a thin line and her eyes began to grow steel
coloured and big.  She dragged back a step and looked at the loosely
swaying pocket again.  She thought intently a second.  As they passed
several people on the walk she stepped back of her father and gently
raised the letter enough to see that the address was to her.  Instantly
she lifted it from the others, slipped it up her dress sleeve, and
again took her place beside her father until they reached the store
where her mother did her shopping. Then he waited outside while Kate
hurried in, and ripping open the letter, found a contract ready for her
to sign for the Walden school.  The salary was twenty dollars a month
more than Nancy Ellen had received for their country school the
previous winter and the term four months longer.

Kate was so delighted she could have shouted.  Instead she went with
all speed to the stationery counter and bought an envelope to fit the
contract, which she signed, and writing a hasty note of thanks she
mailed the letter in the store mail box, then began her mother's
purchases.  This took so much time that her father came into the store
before she had finished, demanding that she hurry, so in feverish haste
she bought what was wanted and followed to the buggy.  On the road home
she began to study her father; she could see that he was well pleased
over something but she had no idea what could have happened; she had
expected anything from verbal wrath to the buggy whip, so she was
surprised, but so happy over having secured such a good school, at
higher wages than Nancy Ellen's, that she spent most of her time
thinking of herself and planning as to when she would go to Walden,
where she would stay, how she would teach, and Oh, bliss unspeakable,
what she would do with so much money; for two month's pay would more
than wipe out her indebtedness to Agatha, and by getting the very
cheapest board she could endure, after that she would have over three
fourths of her money to spend each month for books and clothes.  She
was intently engaged with her side of the closet and her end of the
bureau, when she had her first glimpse of home; even preoccupied as she
was, she saw a difference.  Several loose pickets in the fence had been
nailed in place.  The lilac beside the door and the cabbage roses had
been trimmed, so that they did not drag over the walk, while the yard
had been gone over with a lawn-mower.

Kate turned to her father.  "Well, for land's sake!" she said.  "I
wanted a lawn-mower all last summer, and you wouldn't buy it for me.  I
wonder why you got it the minute I was gone."

"I got it because Nancy Ellen especially wanted it, and she has been a
mighty good girl all summer," he said.

"If that is the case, then she should be rewarded with the privilege of
running a lawn-mower," said Kate.

Her father looked at her sharply; but her face was so pleasant he
decided she did not intend to be saucy, so he said:  "No doubt she will
be willing to let you help her all you want to."

"Not the ghost of a doubt about that," laughed Kate, "and I always
wanted to try running one, too.  They look so nice in pictures, and how
one improves a place!  I hardly know this is home.  Now if we only had
a fresh coat of white paint we could line up with the neighbours."

"I have been thinking about that," said Mr. Bates, and Kate glanced at
him, doubting her hearing.

He noticed her surprise and added in explanation:  "Paint every so
often saves a building.  It's good economy."

"Then let's economize immediately," said Kate.  "And on the barn, too.
It is even more weather-beaten than the house."

"I'll see about it the next time I go to town," said Mr. Bates; so Kate
entered the house prepared for anything and wondering what it all meant
for wherever she looked everything was shining the brightest that
scrubbing and scouring could make it shine, the best of everything was
out and in use; not that it was much, but it made a noticeable
difference.  Her mother greeted her pleasantly, with a new tone of
voice, while Nancy Ellen was transformed.  Kate noticed that,
immediately.  She always had been a pretty girl, now she was beautiful,
radiantly beautiful, with a new shining beauty that dazzled Kate as she
looked at her.  No one offered any explanation while Kate could see
none.  At last she asked:  "What on earth has happened?  I don't
understand."

"Of course you don't," laughed Nancy Ellen.  "You thought you ran the
whole place and did everything yourself, so I thought I'd just show you
how things look when I run them."

"You are a top-notcher," said Kate.  "Figuratively and literally, I
offer you the palm.  Let the good work go on!  I highly approve; but I
don't see how you found time to do all this and go to Institute."

"I didn't go to Institute," said Nancy Ellen.

"You didn't!  But you must!" cried Kate.

"Oh must I?  Well, since you have decided to run your affairs as you
please, in spite of all of us, just suppose you let me run mine the
same way.  Only, I rather enjoy having Father and Mother approve of
what I do."

Kate climbed the stairs with this to digest as she went; so while she
put away her clothing she thought things over, but saw no light.  She
would go to Adam's to return the telescope to-morrow, possibly he could
tell her.  As she hung her dresses in the closet and returned Nancy
Ellen's to their places she was still more amazed, for there hung three
pretty new wash dresses, one of a rosy pink that would make Nancy Ellen
appear very lovely.

What was the reason, Kate wondered.  The Bates family never did
anything unless there was some purpose in it, what was the purpose in
this?  And Nancy Ellen had not gone to Institute.  She evidently had
worked constantly and hard, yet she was in much sweeter frame of mind
than usual.  She must have spent almost all she had saved from her
school on new clothes.  Kate could not solve the problem, so she
decided to watch and wait.  She also waited for someone to say
something about her plans, but no one said a word, so after waiting all
evening Kate decided that they would ask before they learned anything
from her.  She took her place as usual, and the work went on as if she
had not been away; but she was happy, even in her bewilderment.

If her father noticed the absence of the letter she had slipped from
his pocket he said nothing about it as he drew the paper and letters
forth and laid them on the table.  Kate had a few bad minutes while
this was going on, she was sure he hesitated an instant and looked
closely at the letters he sorted; but when he said nothing, she
breathed deeply in relief and went on being joyous.  It seemed to her
that never had the family been in such a good-natured state since Adam
had married Agatha and her three hundred acres with house, furniture,
and stock.  She went on in ignorance of what had happened until after
Sunday dinner the following day.  Then she had planned to visit Agatha
and Adam.  It was very probable that it was because she was dressing
for this visit that Nancy Ellen decided on Kate's enlightenment, for
she could not have helped seeing that her sister was almost stunned at
times.

Kate gave her a fine opening.  As she stood brushing her wealth of gold
with full-length sweeps of her arm, she was at an angle that brought
her facing the mirror before which Nancy Ellen sat training waves and
pinning up loose braids.  Her hair was beautiful and she slowly smiled
at her image as she tried different effects of wave, loose curl, braids
high piled or flat. Across her bed lay a dress that was a reproduction
of one that she had worn for three years, but a glorified reproduction.
The original dress had been Nancy Ellen's first departure from the
brown and gray gingham which her mother always had purchased because it
would wear well, and when from constant washing it faded to an exact
dirt colour it had the advantage of providing a background that did not
show the dirt.  Nancy Ellen had earned the money for a new dress by
raising turkeys, so when the turkeys went to town to be sold, for the
first time in her life Nancy Ellen went along to select the dress.  No
one told her what kind of dress to get, because no one imagined that
she would dare buy any startling variation from what always had been
provided for her.

But Nancy Ellen had stood facing a narrow mirror when she reached the
gingham counter and the clerk, taking one look at her fresh, beautiful
face with its sharp contrasts of black eyes and hair, rose-tinted skin
that refused to tan, and red cheeks and lips, began shaking out
delicate blues, pale pinks, golden yellows.  He called them chambray;
insisted that they wore for ever, and were fadeless, which was
practically the truth.  On the day that dress was like to burst its
waist seams, it was the same warm rosy pink that transformed Nancy
Ellen from the disfiguration of dirt-brown to apple and peach bloom,
wild roses and swamp mallow, a girl quite as pretty as a girl ever
grows, and much prettier than any girl ever has any business to be.
The instant Nancy Ellen held the chambray under her chin and in an
oblique glance saw the face of the clerk, the material was hers no
matter what the cost, which does not refer to the price, by any means.
Knowing that the dress would be an innovation that would set her mother
storming and fill Kate with envy, which would probably culminate in the
demand that the goods be returned and exchanged for dirt-brown, when
she reached home Nancy Ellen climbed from the wagon and told her father
that she was going on to Adam's to have Agatha cut out her dress so
that she could begin to sew on it that night.  Such commendable
industry met his hearty approval, so he told her to go and he would see
that Kate did her share of the work.  Wise Nancy Ellen came home and
sat her down to sew on her gorgeous frock, while the storm she had
feared raged in all its fury; but the goods was cut, and could not be
returned.  Yet, through it, a miracle happened:  Nancy Ellen so
appreciated herself in pink that the extreme care she used with that
dress saved it from half the trips of a dirt-brown one to the wash
board and the ironing table; while, marvel of marvels, it did not
shrink, it did not fade, also it wore like buckskin.  The result was
that before the season had passed Kate was allowed to purchase a pale
blue, which improved her appearance quite as much in proportion as pink
had Nancy Ellen's; neither did the blue fade nor shrink nor require so
much washing, for the same reason.  Three years the pink dress had been
Nancy Ellen's PIECE DE RESISTANCE; now she had a new one, much the
same, yet conspicuously different.  This was a daring rose colour, full
and wide, peeping white embroidery trimming, and big pearl buttons,
really a beautiful dress, made in a becoming manner. Kate looked at it
in cheerful envy.  Never mind!  The coming summer she would have a blue
that would make that pink look silly. From the dress she turned to
Nancy Ellen, barely in time to see her bend her head and smirk,
broadly, smilingly, approvingly, at her reflection in the glass.

"For mercy sake, what IS the matter with you?" demanded Kate, ripping a
strand of hair in sudden irritation.

"Oh, something lovely!" answered her sister, knowing that this was her
chance to impart the glad tidings herself; if she lost it, Agatha would
get the thrill of Kate's surprise.  So Nancy Ellen opened her drawer
and slowly produced and set upon her bureau a cabinet photograph of a
remarkably strong-featured, handsome young man.  Then she turned to
Kate and smiled a slow, challenging smile.  Kate walked over and picked
up the picture, studying it intently but in growing amazement.

"Who is he?" she asked finally.

"My man!" answered Nancy Ellen, possessively, triumphantly.

Kate stared at her.  "Honest to God?" she cried in wonderment.

"Honest!" said Nancy Ellen.

"Where on earth did you find him?" demanded Kate.

"Picked him out of the blackberry patch," said Nancy Ellen.

"Those darn blackberries are always late," said Kate, throwing the
picture back on the bureau.  "Ain't that just my luck!  You wouldn't
touch the raspberries.  I had to pick them every one myself.  But the
minute I turn my back, you go pick a man like that, out of the
blackberry patch.  I bet a cow you wore your pink chambray, and carried
grandmother's old blue bowl."

"Certainly," said Nancy Ellen, "and my pink sun-bonnet.  I think maybe
the bonnet started it."

Kate sat down limply on the first chair and studied the toes of her
shoes.  At last she roused and looked at Nancy Ellen, waiting in
smiling complaisance as she returned the picture to her end of the
bureau.

"Well, why don't you go ahead?" cried Kate in a thick, rasping voice.
"Empty yourself!  Who is he?  Where did he come from?  WHY was he IN
our blackberry patch?  Has he really been to see you, and is he
courting you in earnest?--But of COURSE he is! There's the lilac bush,
the lawn-mower, the house to be painted, and a humdinger dress.  Is he
a millionaire?  For Heaven's sake tell me--"

"Give me some chance!  I did meet him in the blackberry patch. He's a
nephew of Henry Lang and his name is Robert Gray.  He has just finished
a medical course and he came here to rest and look at Hartley for a
location, because Lang thinks it would be such a good one.  And since
we met he has decided to take an office in Hartley, and he has money to
furnish it, and to buy and furnish a nice house."

"Great Jehoshaphat!" cried Kate.  "And I bet he's got wings, too! I do
have the rottenest luck!"

"You act for all the world as if it were a foregone conclusion that if
you had been here, you'd have won him!"

Nancy Ellen glanced in the mirror and smiled, while Kate saw the smile.
She picked up her comb and drew herself to full height.

"If anything ever was a 'foregone conclusion,'" she said, "it is a
'foregone conclusion' that if I HAD been here, I'd have picked the
blackberries, and so I'd have had the first chance at him, at least."

"Much good it would have done you!" cried Nancy Ellen.  "Wait until he
comes, and you see him!"

"You may do your mushing in private," said Kate.  "I don't need a
demonstration to convince me.  He looks from the picture like a man who
would be as soft as a frosted pawpaw."

Nancy Ellen's face flamed crimson.  "You hateful spite-cat!" she cried.

Then she picked up the picture and laid it face down in her drawer,
while two big tears ran down her cheeks.  Kate saw those also.
Instantly she relented.

"You big silly goose!" she said.  "Can't you tell when any one is
teasing?  I think I never saw a finer face than the one in that
picture.  I'm jealous because I never left home a day before in all my
life, and the minute I do, here you go and have such luck. Are you
really sure of him, Nancy Ellen?"

"Well, he asked Father and Mother, and I've been to visit his folks,
and he told them; and I've been with him to Hartley hunting a house;
and I'm not to teach this winter, so I can have all my time to make my
clothes and bedding.  Father likes him fine, so he is going to give me
money to get all I need.  He offered to, himself."

Kate finished her braid, pulled the combings from the comb and slowly
wrapped the end of her hair as she digested these convincing facts.
She swung the heavy braid around her head, placed a few pins, then
crossed to her sister and laid a shaking hand on her shoulder.  Her
face was working strongly.

"Nancy Ellen, I didn't mean one ugly word I said.  You gave me an awful
surprise, and that was just my bald, ugly Bates way of taking it.  I
think you are one of the most beautiful women I ever have seen, alive
or pictured.  I have always thought you would make a fine marriage, and
I am sure you will.  I haven't a doubt that Robert Gray is all you
think him, and I am as glad for you as I can be.  You can keep house in
Hartley for two with scarcely any work at all, and you can have all the
pretty clothes you want, and time to wear them.  Doctors always get
rich if they are good ones, and he is sure to be a good one, once he
gets a start.  If only we weren't so beastly healthy there are enough
Bates and Langs to support you for the first year.  And I'll help you
sew, and do all I can for you.  Now wipe up and look your handsomest!"

Nancy Ellen arose and put her arms around Kate's neck, a stunningly
unusual proceeding.  "Thank you," she said.  "That is big and fine of
you.  But I always have shirked and put my work on you; I guess now
I'll quit, and do my sewing myself."

Then she slipped the pink dress over her head and stood slowly
fastening it as Kate started to leave the room.  Seeing her go: "I wish
you would wait and meet Robert," she said. "I have told him about what
a nice sister I have."

"I think I'll go on to Adam's now," said Kate.  "I don't want to wait
until they go some place, and I miss them.  I'll do better to meet your
man after I become more accustomed to bare facts, anyway.  By the way,
is he as tall as you?"

"Yes," said Nancy Ellen, laughing.  "He is an inch and a half taller.
Why?"

"Oh, I hate seeing a woman taller than her husband and I've always
wondered where we'd find men to reach our shoulders.  But if they can
be picked at random from the berry patch--"

So Kate went on her way laughing, lifting her white skirts high from
the late August dust.  She took a short cut through the woods and at a
small stream, with sure foot, crossed the log to within a few steps of
the opposite bank.  There she stopped, for a young man rounded the
bushes and set a foot on the same log; then he and Kate looked straight
into each other's eyes.  Kate saw a clean-shaven, forceful young face,
with strong lines and good colouring, clear gray eyes, sandy brown
hair, even, hard, white teeth, and broad shoulders a little above her
own.  The man saw Kate, dressed in her best and looking her best.
Slowly she extended her hand.

"I bet a picayune you are my new brother, Robert," she said.

The young man gripped her hand firmly, held it, and kept on looking in
rather a stunned manner at Kate.

"Well, aren't you?" she asked, trying to withdraw the hand.

"I never, never would have believed it," he said.

"Believed what?" asked Kate, leaving the hand where it was.

"That there could be two in the same family," said he.

"But I'm as different from Nancy Ellen as night from day," said Kate,
"besides, woe is me, I didn't wear a pink dress and pick you from the
berry patch in a blue bowl."

Then the man released her hand and laughed.  "You wouldn't have had the
slightest trouble, if you had been there," he said.

"Except that I should have inverted my bowl," said Kate, calmly. "I am
looking for a millionaire, riding a milk-white steed, and he must be
much taller than you and have black hair and eyes.  Good-bye, brother!
I will see you this evening."

Then Kate went down the path to deliver the telescope, render her
thanks, make her promise of speedy payment, and for the first time tell
her good news about her school.  She found that she was very happy as
she went and quite convinced that her first flight would prove entirely
successful.



CHAPTER IV

A QUESTION OF CONTRACTS

"HELLO, Folks!" cried Kate, waving her hand to the occupants of the
veranda as she went up the walk.  "Glad to find you at home."

"That is where you will always find me unless I am forced away on
business," said her brother as they shook hands.

Agatha was pleased with this, and stiff as steel, she bent the length
of her body toward Kate and gave her a tight-lipped little peck on the
cheek.

"I came over, as soon as I could," said Kate as she took the chair her
brother offered, "to thank you for the big thing you did for me,
Agatha, when you lent me that money.  If I had known where I was going,
or the help it would be to me, I should have gone if I'd had to walk
and work for my board.  Why, I feel so sure of myself!  I've learned so
much that I'm like the girl fresh from boarding school:  'The only
wonder is that one small head can contain it all.'  Thank you over and
over and I've got a good school, so I can pay you back the very first
month, I think.  If there are things I must have, I can pay part the
first month and the remainder the second.  I am eager for pay-day.  I
can't even picture the bliss of having that much money in my fingers,
all my own, to do with as I please.  Won't it be grand?"

In the same breath said Agatha:  "Procure yourself some clothes!" Said
Adam:  "Start a bank account!"

Said Kate:  "Right you are!  I shall do both."

"Even our little Susan has a bank account," said Adam, Jr., proudly.

"Which is no reflection whatever on me," laughed Kate.  "Susan did not
have the same father and mother I had.  I'd like to see a girl of my
branch of the Bates family start a bank account at ten."

"No, I guess she wouldn't," admitted Adam, dryly.

"But have you heard that Nancy Ellen has started?" cried Kate. "Only
think!  A lawn-mower!  The house and barn to be painted! All the dinge
possible to remove scoured away, inside!  She must have worn her
fingers almost to the bone!  And really, Agatha, have you seen the man?
He's as big as Adam, and just fine looking.  I'm simply consumed with
envy."

"Miss Medira, Dora, Ann, cast her net, and catched a man!" recited
Susan from the top step, at which they all laughed.

"No, I have not had the pleasure of casting my optics upon the
individual of Nancy Ellen's choice," said Agatha primly, "but Miss
Amelia Lang tells me he is a very distinguished person, of quite
superior education in a medical way.  I shall call him if I ever have
the misfortune to fall ill again.  I hope you will tell Nancy Ellen
that we shall be very pleased to have her bring him to see us some
evening, and if she will let me know a short time ahead I shall take
great pleasure in compounding a cake and freezing custard."

"Of course I shall tell her, and she will feel a trifle more stuck up
than she does now, if that is possible," laughed Kate in deep amusement.

She surely was feeling fine.  Everything had come out so splendidly.
That was what came of having a little spirit and standing up for your
rights.  Also she was bubbling inside while Agatha talked.  Kate
wondered how Adam survived it every day.  She glanced at him to see if
she could detect any marks of shattered nerves, then laughed outright.

Adam was the finest physical specimen of a man she knew.  He was good
looking also, and spoke as well as the average, better in fact, for
from the day of their marriage, Agatha sat on his lap each night and
said these words:  "My beloved, to-day I noted an error in your speech.
It would put a former teacher to much embarrassment to have this occur
in public.  In the future will you not try to remember that you should
say, 'have gone,' instead of 'have went?'"  As she talked Agatha
rumpled Adam's hair, pulled off his string tie, upon which she
insisted, even when he was plowing; laid her hard little face against
his, and held him tight with her frail arms, so that Adam being part
human as well as part Bates, held her closely also and said these
words:  "You bet your sweet life I will!"  And what is more he did.  He
followed a furrow the next day, softly muttering over to himself:
"Langs have gone to town.  I have gone to work.  The birds have gone to
building nests."  So Adam seldom said:  "have went," or made any other
error in speech that Agatha had once corrected.

As Kate watched him leaning back in his chair, vital, a study in
well-being, the supremest kind of satisfaction on his face, she noted
the flash that lighted his eye when Agatha offered to "freeze a
custard."  How like Agatha! Any other woman Kate knew would have said,
"make ice cream."  Agatha explained to them that when they beat up
eggs, added milk, sugar, and corn-starch it was custard.  When they
used pure cream, sweetened and frozen, it was iced cream.  Personally,
she preferred the custard, but she did not propose to call it custard
cream.  It was not correct.  Why persist in misstatements and
inaccuracies when one knew better? So Agatha said iced cream when she
meant it, and frozen custard, when custard it was, but every other
woman in the neighbourhood, had she acted as she felt, would have
slapped Agatha's face when she said it:  this both Adam and Kate well
knew, so it made Kate laugh despite the fact that she would not have
offended Agatha purposely.

"I think--I think," said Agatha, "that Nancy Ellen has much upon which
to congratulate herself.  More education would not injure her, but she
has enough that if she will allow her ambition to rule her and study in
private and spend her spare time communing with the best writers, she
can make an exceedingly fair intellectual showing, while she surely is
a handsome woman.  With a good home and such a fine young professional
man as she has had the good fortune to attract, she should immediately
put herself at the head of society in Hartley and become its leader to
a much higher moral and intellectual plane than it now occupies."

"Bet she has a good time," said young Adam.  "He's awful nice."

"Son," said Agatha, "'awful,' means full of awe.  A cyclone, a
cloudburst, a great conflagration are awful things.  By no stretch of
the imagination could they be called nice."

"But, Ma, if a cyclone blew away your worst enemy wouldn't it be nice?"

Adam, Jr., and Kate laughed.  Not the trace of a smile crossed Agatha's
pale face.

"The words do not belong in contiguity," she said.  "They are
diametrically opposite in meaning.  Please do not allow my ears to be
offended by hearing you place them in propinquity again."

"I'll try not to, Ma," said young Adam; then Agatha smiled on him
approvingly.  "When did you meet Mr. Gray, Katherine?" she asked.

"On the foot-log crossing the creek beside Lang's line fence. Near the
spot Nancy Ellen first met him I imagine."

"How did you recognize him?"

"Nancy Ellen had just been showing me his picture and telling me about
him.  Great Day, but she's in love with him!"

"And so he is with her, if Lang's conclusions from his behaviour can be
depended upon.  They inform me that he can be induced to converse on no
other subject.  The whole arrangement appeals to me as distinctly
admirable."

"And you should see the lilac bush and the cabbage roses," said Kate.
"And the strangest thing is Father.  He is peaceable as a lamb.  She is
not to teach, but to spend the winter sewing on her clothes and
bedding, and Father told her he would give her the necessary money.
She said so.  And I suspect he will.  He always favoured her because
she was so pretty, and she can come closer to wheedling him than any of
the rest of us excepting you, Agatha."

"It is an innovation, surely!"

"Mother is nearly as bad.  Father furnishing money for clothes and
painting the barn is no more remarkable than Mother letting her turn
the house inside out.  If it had been I, Father would have told me to
teach my school this winter, buy my own clothes and linen with the
money I had earned, and do my sewing next summer. But I am not jealous.
It is because she is handsome, and the man fine-looking and with such
good prospects."

"There you have it!" said Adam emphatically.  "If it were you, marrying
Jim Lang, to live on Lang's west forty, you WOULD pay your own way.
But if it were you marrying a fine-looking young doctor, who will soon
be a power in Hartley, no doubt, it would tickle Father's vanity until
he would do the same for you."

"I doubt it!" said Kate.  "I can't see the vanity in Father."

"You can't?" said Adam, Jr., bitterly.  "Maybe not!  You have not been
with him in the Treasurer's office when he calls for 'the tax on those
little parcels of land of mine.'  He looks every inch of six feet six
then, and swells like a toad.  To hear him you would think sixteen
hundred and fifty acres of the cream of this county could be tied in a
bandanna and carried on a walking stick, he is so casual about it.  And
those men fly around like buttons on a barn door to wait on him and
it's 'Mister Bates this' and 'Mister Bates that,' until it turns my
stomach.  Vanity!  He rolls in it! He eats it!  He risks losing our
land for us that some of us have slaved over for twenty years, to feed
that especial vein of his vanity.  Where should we be if he let
anything happen to those deeds?"

"How refreshing!" cried Kate.  "I love to hear you grouching!  I hear
nothing else from the women of the Bates family, but I didn't even know
the men had a grouch.  Are Peter, and John, and Hiram, and the other
boys sore, too?"

"I should say they are!  But they are too diplomatic to say so. They
are afraid to cheep.  I just open my head and say right out loud in
meeting that since I've turned in the taxes and insurance for all these
years and improved my land more than fifty per cent., I'd like to own
it, and pay my taxes myself, like a man."

"I'd like to have some land under any conditions," said Kate, "but
probably I never shall.  And I bet you never get a flipper on that deed
until Father has crossed over Jordan, which with his health and
strength won't be for twenty-five years yet at least.  He's performing
a miracle that will make the other girls rave, when he gives Nancy
Ellen money to buy her outfit; but they won't dare let him hear a
whisper of it.  They'll take it all out on Mother, and she'll be afraid
to tell him."

"Afraid?  Mother afraid of him?  Not on your life.  She is hand in
glove with him.  She thinks as he does, and helps him in everything he
undertakes."

"That's so, too.  Come to think of it, she isn't a particle afraid of
him.  She agrees with him perfectly.  It would be interesting to hear
them having a private conversation.  They never talk a word before us.
But they always agree, and they heartily agree on Nancy Ellen's man,
that is plainly to be seen."

"It will make a very difficult winter for you, Katherine," said Agatha.
"When Nancy Ellen becomes interested in dresses and table linen and
bedding she will want to sew all the time, and leave the cooking and
dishes for you as well as your schoolwork."

Kate turned toward Agatha in surprise.  "But I won't be there!  I told
you I had taken a school."

"You taken a school!" shouted Adam.  "Why, didn't they tell you that
Father has signed up for the home school for you?"

"Good Heavens!" said Kate.  "What will be to pay now?"

"Did you contract for another school?" cried Adam.

"I surely did," said Kate slowly.  "I signed an agreement to teach the
village school in Walden.  It's a brick building with a janitor to
sweep and watch fires, only a few blocks to walk, and it pays twenty
dollars a month more than the home school where you can wade snow three
miles, build your own fires, and freeze all day in a little frame
building at that.  I teach the school I have taken."

"And throw our school out of a teacher?  Father could be sued, and
probably will be," said Adam.  "And throw the housework Nancy Ellen
expected you to do on her," said Agatha, at the same time.

"I see," said Kate.  "Well, if he is sued, he will have to settle. He
wouldn't help me a penny to go to school, I am of age, the debt is my
own, and I don't owe it to him.  He's had all my work has been worth
all my life, and I've surely paid my way.  I shall teach the school I
have signed for."

"You will get into a pretty kettle of fish!" said Adam.

"Agatha, will you sell me your telescope for what you paid for it, and
get yourself a new one the next time you go to Hartley?  It is only a
few days until time to go to my school, it opens sooner than in the
country, and closes later.  The term is four months longer, so I earn
that much more.  I haven't gotten a telescope yet.  You can add it to
my first payment."

"You may take it," said Agatha, "but hadn't you better reconsider,
Katherine?  Things are progressing so nicely, and this will upset
everything for Nancy Ellen."

"That taking the home school will upset everything for me, doesn't seem
to count.  It is late, late to find teachers, and I can be held
responsible if I break the contract I have made.  Father can stand the
racket better than I can.  When he wouldn't consent to my going, he had
no business to make plans for me.  I had to make my own plans and go in
spite of him; he might have known I'd do all in my power to get a
school.  Besides, I don't want the home school, or the home work piled
on me.  My hands look like a human being's for the first time in my
life; then I need all my time outside of school to study and map out
lessons.  I am going to try for a room in the Hartley schools next
year, or the next after that, surely.  They sha'n't change my plans and
boss me, I am going to be free to work, and study, and help myself,
like other teachers."

"A grand row this will be," commented young Adam.  "And as usual Kate
will be right, while all of them will be trying to use her to their
advantage.  Ma has done her share.  Now it is your turn, Pa. Ain't you
going to go over and help her?"

"What could I do?" demanded his father.  "The mischief is done now."

"Well, if you can't do anything to help, you can let me have the buggy
to drive her to Walden, if they turn her out."

"'Forcibly invite her to proceed to her destination,' you mean, son,"
said Agatha.

"Yes, Ma, that is exactly what I mean," said young Adam.  "Do I get the
buggy?"

"Yes, you may take my private conveyance.  But do nothing to publish
the fact.  There is no need to incur antagonism if it can be avoided."

"Kate, I'll be driving past the privet bush about nine in the morning.
If you need me, hang a white rag on it, and I'll stop at the corner of
the orchard."

"I shall probably be standing in the road waiting for you," said Kate.

"Oh, I hope not," said Agatha.

"Looks remarkably like it to me," said Kate.

Then she picked up the telescope, said good-bye to each of them, and in
acute misery started back to her home.  This time she followed the
footpath beside the highway.  She was so busy with her indignant
thought that she forgot to protect her skirts from the dust of wayside
weeds, while in her excitement she walked so fast her face was red and
perspiring when she approached the church.

"Oh, dear, I don't know about it," said Kate to the small, silent
building.  "I am trying to follow your advice, but it seems to me that
life is very difficult, any way you go at it.  If it isn't one thing,
it is another.  An hour ago I was the happiest I have ever been in my
life; only look at me now!  Any one who wants 'the wings of morning'
may have them for all of me.  It seems definitely settled that I walk,
carry a load, and fight for the chance to do even that."

A big tear rolled down either side of Kate's nose and her face twisted
in self-pity for an instant.  But when she came in sight of home her
shoulders squared, the blue-gray of her eyes deepened to steel, and her
lips set in a line that was an exact counterpart of her father's when
he had made up his mind and was ready to drive his family, with their
consent or without it.  As she passed the vegetable garden--there was
no time or room for flowers in a Bates garden--Kate, looking ahead,
could see Nancy Ellen and Robert Gray beneath the cherry trees.  She
hoped Nancy Ellen would see that she was tired and dusty, and should
have time to brush and make herself more presentable to meet a
stranger, and so Nancy Ellen did; for which reason she immediately
arose and came to the gate, followed by her suitor whom she at once
introduced.  Kate was in no mood for words; one glance at her proved to
Robert Gray that she was tired and dusty, that there were tear marks
dried on her face.  They hastily shook hands, but neither mentioned the
previous meeting.  Excusing herself Kate went into the house saying she
would soon return.

Nancy Ellen glanced at Robert, and saw the look of concern on his face.

"I believe she has been crying," she said.  "And if she has, it's
something new, for I never saw a tear on her face before in my life."

"Truly?" he questioned in amazement.

"Why, of course!  The Bates family are not weepers."

"So I have heard," said the man, rather dryly.

Nancy Ellen resented his tone.

"Would you like us better if we were?"

"I couldn't like you better than I do, but because of what I have heard
and seen, it naturally makes me wonder what could have happened that
has made her cry."

"We are rather outspoken, and not at all secretive," said Nancy Ellen,
carelessly, "you will soon know."

Kate followed the walk around the house and entered at the side door,
finding her father and mother in the dining room reading the weekly
papers.  Her mother glanced up as she entered.

"What did you bring Agatha's telescope back with you for?" she
instantly demanded.

For a second Kate hesitated.  It had to come, she might as well get it
over.  Possibly it would be easier with them alone than if Nancy Ellen
were present.

"It is mine," she said.  "It represents my first purchase on my own
hook and line."

"You are not very choicy to begin on second-hand stuff.  Nancy Ellen
would have had a new one."

"No doubt!" said Kate.  "But this will do for me."

Her father lowered his paper and asked harshly:  "What did you buy that
thing for?"

Kate gripped the handle and braced herself.

"To pack my clothes in when I go to my school next week," she said
simply.

"What?" he shouted.  "What?" cried her mother.

"I don't know why you seem surprised," said Kate.  "Surely you knew I
went to Normal to prepare myself to teach.  Did you think I couldn't
find a school?"

"Now look here, young woman," shouted Adam Bates, "you are done taking
the bit in your teeth.  Nancy Ellen is not going to teach this winter.
I have taken the home school for you; you will teach it.  That is
settled.  I have signed the contract.  It must be fulfilled."

"Then Nancy Ellen will have to fulfill it," said Kate.  "I also have
signed a contract that must be fulfilled.  I am of age, and you had no
authority from me to sign a contract for me."

For an instant Kate thought there was danger that the purple rush of
blood to her father's head might kill him.  He opened his mouth, but no
distinct words came.  Her face paled with fright, but she was of his
blood, so she faced him quietly.  Her mother was quicker of wit, and
sharper of tongue.

"Where did you get a school?  Why didn't you wait until you got home?"
she demanded.

"I am going to teach the village school in Walden," said Kate. "It is a
brick building, has a janitor, I can board reasonably, near my work,
and I get twenty dollars more a month than our school pays, while the
term is four months longer."

"Well, it is a pity about that; but it makes no difference," said her
mother.  "Our home school has got to be taught as Pa contracted, and
Nancy Ellen has got to have her chance."

"What about my chance?" asked Kate evenly.  "Not one of the girls, even
Exceptional Ability, ever had as good a school or as high wages to
start on.  If I do well there this winter, I am sure I can get in the
Hartley graded schools next fall."

"Don't you dare nickname your sister," cried Mrs. Bates, shrilly. "You
stop your impudence and mind your father."

"Ma, you leave this to me," said Adam Bates, thickly.  Then he glared
at Kate as he arose, stretching himself to full height. "You've signed
a contract for a school?" he demanded.

"I have," said Kate.

"Why didn't you wait until you got home and talked it over with us?" he
questioned.

"I went to you to talk over the subject to going," said Kate. "You
would not even allow me to speak.  How was I to know that you would
have the slightest interest in what school I took, or where."

"When did you sign this contract?" he continued.

"Yesterday afternoon, in Hartley," said Kate.

"Aha!  Then I did miss a letter from my pocket.  When did you get to be
a thief?" he demanded.

"Oh, Father!" cried Kate.  "It was my letter.  I could see my name on
the envelope.  I ASKED you for it, before I took it."

"From behind my back, like the sneak-thief you are.  You are not fit to
teach in a school where half the scholars are the children of your
brothers and sisters, and you are not fit to live with honest people.
Pack your things and be off!"

"Now?  This afternoon?" asked Kate.

"This minute!" he cried.

"All right.  You will be surprised at how quickly I can go," said Kate.

She set down the telescope and gathered a straw sunshade and an apron
from the hooks at the end of the room, opened the dish cupboard, and
took out a mug decorated with the pinkest of wild roses and the reddest
and fattest of robins, bearing the inscription in gold, "For a Good
Girl" on a banner in its beak. Kate smiled at it grimly as she took the
telescope and ran upstairs.  It was the work of only a few minutes to
gather her books and clothing and pack the big telescope, then she went
down the front stairs and left the house by the front door carrying in
her hand everything she possessed on earth.  As she went down the walk
Nancy Ellen sprang up and ran to her while Robert Gray followed.

"You'll have to talk to me on the road," said Kate.  "I am forbidden
the house which also means the grounds, I suppose."

She walked across the road, set the telescope on the grass under a big
elm tree, and sat down beside it.

"I find I am rather tired," she said.  "Will you share the sofa with
me?"

Nancy Ellen lifted her pink skirt and sat beside Kate.  Robert Gray
stood looking down at them.

"What in the world is the matter?" asked Nancy Ellen.

"You know, of course, that Father signed a contract for me to teach the
home school this winter," explained Kate.  "Well, I am of age, and he
had no authority from me, so his contract isn't legal.  None of you
would lift a finger to help me get away to Normal, how was I to know
that you would take any interest in finding me a school while I was
gone?  I thought it was all up to me, so I applied for the school in
Walden, got it, and signed the contract to teach it.  It is a better
school, at higher wages.  I thought you would teach here--I can't break
my contract.  Father is furious and has ordered me out of the house.
So there you are, or rather here I am."

"Well, it isn't much of a joke," said Nancy Ellen, thinking intently.

What she might have said had they been alone, Kate always wondered.
What she did say while her betrothed looked at her with indignant eyes
was possibly another matter.  It proved to be merely:  "Oh, Kate, I am
so sorry!"

"So am I," said Kate.  "If I had known what your plans were, of course
I should gladly have helped you out.  If only you had written me and
told me."

"I wanted to surprise you," said Nancy Ellen.

"You have," said Kate.  "Enough to last a lifetime.  I don't see how
you figured.  You knew how late it was.  You knew it would be nip and
tuck if I got a school at all."

"Of course we did!  We thought you couldn't possibly get one, this
late, so we fixed up the scheme to let you have my school, and let me
sew on my linen this winter.  We thought you would be as pleased as we
were."

"I am too sorry for words," said Kate.  "If I had known your plan, I
would have followed it, even though I gave up a better school at a
higher salary.  But I didn't know.  I thought I had to paddle my own
canoe, so I made my own plans.  Now I must live up to them, because my
contract is legal, while Father's is not.  I would have taught the
school for you, in the circumstances, but since I can't, so far as I am
concerned, the arrangement I have made is much better.  The thing that
really hurts the worst, aside from disappointing you, is that Father
says I was not honest in what I did."

"But what DID you do?" cried Nancy Ellen.

So Kate told them exactly what she had done.

"Of course you had a right to your own letter, when you could see the
address on it, and it was where you could pick it up," said Robert Gray.

Kate lifted dull eyes to his face.

"Thank you for so much grace, at any rate," she said.

"I don't blame you a bit," said Nancy Ellen.  "In the same place I'd
have taken it myself."

"You wouldn't have had to," said Kate.  "I'm too abrupt--too much like
the gentleman himself.  You would have asked him in a way that would
have secured you the letter with no trouble."

Nancy Ellen highly appreciated these words of praise before her lover.
She arose immediately.

"Maybe I could do something with him now," she said.  "I'll go and see."

"You shall do nothing of the kind," said Kate.  "I am as much Bates as
he is.  I won't be taunted afterward that he turned me out and that I
sent you to him to plead for me."

"I'll tell him you didn't want me to come, that I came of my own
accord," offered Nancy Ellen.

"And he won't believe you," said Kate.

"Would you consent for me to go?" asked Robert Gray.

"Certainly not!  I can look out for myself."

"What shall you do?" asked Nancy Ellen anxiously.

"That is getting slightly ahead of me," said Kate.  "If I had been
diplomatic I could have evaded this until morning.  Adam, 3d, is to be
over then, prepared to take me anywhere I want to go.  What I have to
face now is a way to spend the night without letting the neighbours
know that I am turned out.  How can I manage that?"

Nancy Ellen and Robert each began making suggestions, but Kate
preferred to solve her own problems.

"I think," she said, "that I shall hide the telescope under the privet
bush, there isn't going to be rain to-night; and then I will go down to
Hiram's and stay all night and watch for Adam when he passes in the
morning.  Hiram always grumbles because we don't come oftener."

"Then we will go with you," said Nancy Ellen.  "It will be a pleasant
evening walk, and we can keep you company and pacify my twin brother at
the same time."

So they all walked to the adjoining farm on the south and when Nancy
Ellen and Robert were ready to start back, Kate said she was tired and
she believed she would stay until morning, which was agreeable to Hiram
and his wife, a girlhood friend of Kate's.  As Nancy Ellen and Robert
walked back toward home:  "How is this going to come out?" he asked,
anxiously.

"It will come out all right," said Nancy Ellen, serenely.  "Kate hasn't
a particle of tact.  She is Father himself, all over again. It will
come out this way:  he will tell me that Kate has gone back on him and
I shall have to teach the school, and I will say that is the ONLY
solution and the BEST thing to do.  Then I shall talk all evening about
how provoking it is, and how I hate to change my plans, and say I am
afraid I shall lose you if I have to put off our wedding to teach the
school, and things like that," Nancy Ellen turned a flushed sparkling
face to Robert, smiling quizzically, "and to-morrow I shall go early to
see Serena Woodruff, who is a fine scholar and a good teacher, but
missed her school in the spring by being so sick she was afraid to
contract for it.  She is all right now, and she will be delighted to
have the school, and when I know she will take it then I shall just
happen to think of her in a day or two and I'll suggest her, after I've
wailed a lot more; and Father will go to see her of his own accord, and
it will all be settled as easy as falling off a chunk, only I shall not
get on so fast with my sewing, because of having to help Mother; but I
shall do my best, and everything will be all right."

The spot was secluded.  Robert Gray stopped to tell Nancy Ellen what a
wonderful girl she was.  He said he was rather afraid of such
diplomacy.  He foresaw clearly that he was going to be a managed man.
Nancy Ellen told him of course he was, all men were, the thing was not
to let them know it.  Then they laughed and listened to a wood robin
singing out his little heart in an evening song that was almost as
melodious as his spring performances had been.



CHAPTER V

THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER

EARLY in the morning Kate set her young nephew on the gate-post to
watch for his cousin, and he was to have a penny for calling at his
approach.  When his lusty shout came, Kate said good-bye to her
sister-in-law, paid the penny, kissed the baby, and was standing in the
road when Adam stopped.  He looked at her inquiringly.

"Well, it happened," she said.  "He turned me out instanter, with no
remarks about when I might return, if ever, while Mother cordially
seconded the motion.  It's a good thing, Adam, that you offered to take
care of me, because I see clearly that you are going to have it to do."

"Of course I will," said Adam promptly.  "And of course I can.  Do you
want to go to Hartley for anything?  Because if you don't, we can cut
across from the next road and get to Walden in about fifteen miles,
while it's seventeen by Hartley; but if you want to go we can, for I
needn't hurry.  I've got a box of lunch and a feed for my horse in the
back of the buggy.  Mother said I was to stay with you until I saw you
settled in your room, if you had to go; and if you do, she is angry
with Grandpa, and she is going to give him a portion of her mentality
the very first time she comes in contact with him.  She said so."

"Yes, I can almost hear her," said Kate, struggling to choke down a
rising laugh. "She will never know how I appreciate what she has done
for me, but I think talking to Father will not do any good. Home hasn't
been so overly pleasant.  It's been a small, dark, cramped house, dingy
and hot, when it might have been big, airy, and comfortable, well
furnished and pretty as Father's means would allow, and as all the
neighbours always criticize him for not having it; it's meant hard work
and plenty of it ever since I was set to scouring the tinware with
rushes at the mature age of four, but it's been home, all the home I
have had, and it hurts more than I can tell you to be ordered out of it
as I was, but if I do well and make a big success, maybe he will let me
come back for Christmas, or next summer's vacation."

"If he won't, Ma said you could come to our house," said Adam.

"That's kind of her, but I couldn't do it," said Kate.

"She SAID you could," persisted the boy.

"But if I did it, and Father got as mad as he was last night and tore
up your father's deed, then where would I be?" asked Kate.

"You'd be a sixteenth of two hundred acres better off than you are
now," said Adam.

"Possibly," laughed Kate, "but I wouldn't want to become a land shark
that way.  Look down the road."

"Who is it?" asked Adam.

"Nancy Ellen, with my telescope," answered Kate.  "I am to go, all
right."

"All right, then we will go," said the boy, angrily.  "But it is a
blame shame and there is no sense to it, as good a girl as you have
been, and the way you have worked.  Mother said at breakfast there was
neither sense nor justice in the way Grandpa always has acted and she
said she would wager all she was worth that he would live to regret it.
She said it wasn't natural, and when people undertook to
controvert--ain't that a peach?  Bet there isn't a woman in ten miles
using that word except Ma--nature they always hurt themselves worse
than they hurt their victims.  And I bet he does, too, and I, for one,
don't care.  I hope he does get a good jolt, just to pay him up for
being so mean."

"Don't, Adam, don't!" cautioned Kate.

"I mean it!" cried the boy.

"I know you do.  That's the awful thing about it," said Kate.  "I am
afraid every girl he has feels the same way, and from what your father
said yesterday, even the sons he favours don't feel any too good toward
him."

"You just bet they don't!  They are every one as sore as boiled owls.
Pa said so, and he knows, for they all talk it over every time they
meet.  He said they didn't feel like men, they felt like a lot of
'spanked school-boys.'"

"They needn't worry," said Kate.  "Every deed is made out.  Father
reads them over whenever it rains.  They'll all get their land when he
dies.  It is only his way."

"Yes, and THIS is only his way, too, and it's a dern poor way," said
Adam.  "Pa isn't going to do this way at all.  Mother said he could go
and live on his land, and she'd stay home with Susan and me, if he
tried it.  And when I am a man I am going to do just like Pa and Ma
because they are the rightest people I know, only I am not going to
save QUITE so close as Pa, and if I died for it, I never could converse
or dance like Ma."

"I should hope not!" said Kate, and then added hastily, "it's all right
for a lady, but it would seem rather sissy for a man, I believe."

"Yes, I guess it would, but it is language let me tell you, when Ma
cuts loose," said Adam.

"Hello, Nancy Ellen," said Kate as Adam stopped the buggy.  "Put my
telescope in the back with the horse feed.  Since you have it, I don't
need ask whether I am the Prodigal Daughter or not.  I see clearly I
am."

Nancy Ellen was worried, until she was pale.

"Kate," she said, "I never have seen Father so angry in all my life.  I
thought last night that in a day or two I could switch the school over
to Serena Woodruff, and go on with my plans, but Father said at
breakfast if the Bates name was to stand for anything approaching
honour, a Bates would teach that school this winter or he'd know the
reason why.  And you know how easy it is to change him.  Oh, Kate,
won't you see if that Walden trustee can't possibly find another
teacher, and let you off?  I know Robert will be disappointed, for he's
rented his office and bought a house and he said last night to get
ready as soon after Christmas as I could.  Oh, Kate, won't you see if
you can't possibly get that man to hire another teacher?"

"Why, Nancy Ellen--" said Kate.

Nancy Ellen, with a twitching face, looked at Kate.

"If Robert has to wait months, there in Hartley, handsome as he is, and
he has to be nice to everybody to get practice, and you know how those
Hartley girls are--"

"Yes, Nancy Ellen, I know," said Kate.  "I'll see what I can do. Is it
understood that if I give up the school and come back and take ours,
Father will let me come home?"

"Yes, oh, yes!" cried Nancy Ellen.

"Well, nothing goes on guess-work.  I'll hear him say it, myself," said
Kate.

She climbed from the buggy.  Nancy Ellen caught her arm.

"Don't go in there!  Don't you go there," she cried.  "He'll throw the
first thing he can pick up at you.  Mother says he hasn't been asleep
all night."

"Pooh!" said Kate.  "How childish!  I want to hear him say that, and
he'll scarcely kill me."

She walked swiftly to the side door.

"Father," she said, "Nancy Ellen is afraid she will lose Robert Gray if
she has to put off her marriage for months--"

Kate stepped back quickly as a chair crashed against the door facing.
She again came into view and continued--"so she asked me if I would get
out of my school and come back if I could"--Kate dodged another chair;
when she appeared again--"To save the furniture, of which we have none
too much, I'll just step inside," she said.  When her father started
toward her, she started around the dining table, talking as fast as she
could, he lunging after her like a furious bull.  "She asked me to come
back and teach the school--to keep her from putting off her
wedding--because she is afraid to--  If I can break my contract
there--may I come back and help her out here?"

The pace was going more swiftly each round, it was punctuated at that
instant by a heavy meat platter aimed at Kate's head.  She saw it
picked up and swayed so it missed.

"I guess that is answer enough for me," she panted, racing on.  "A
lovely father you are--no wonder your daughters are dishonest through
fear of you--no wonder your wife has no mind of her own--no wonder your
sons hate you and wish you would die--so they could have their deeds
and be like men--instead of 'spanked school-boys' as they feel now--no
wonder the whole posse of us hate you."

Directly opposite the door Kate caught the table and drew it with her
to bar the opening.  As it crashed against the casing half the dishes
flew to the floor in a heap.  When Adam Bates pulled it from his path
he stepped in a dish of fried potatoes and fell heavily.  Kate reached
the road, climbed in the buggy, and said the Nancy Ellen:  "You'd
better hide!  Cut a bundle of stuff and send it to me by Adam and I'll
sew my fingers to the bone for you every night.  Now drive like sin,
Adam!"

As Adam Bates came lurching down the walk in fury the buggy dashed past
and Kate had not even time to turn her head to see what happened.

"Take the first turn," she said to Adam.  "I've done an awful thing."

"What did you do?" cried the boy.

"Asked him as nicely as I could; but he threw a chair at me. Something
funny happened to me, and I wasn't afraid of him at all. I dodged it,
and finished what I was saying, and another chair came, so the two
Bates went at it."

"Oh, Kate, what did you do?" cried Adam.

"Went inside and ran around the dining table while I told him what all
his sons and daughters think of him. 'Spanked school-boys' and all--"

"Did you tell him my father said that?" he demanded.

"No.  I had more sense left than that," said Kate.  "I only said all
his boys FELT like that.  Then I pulled the table after me to block the
door, and smashed half the dishes and he slipped in the fried potatoes
and went down with a crash--"

"Bloody Murder!" cried young Adam, aghast.

"Me, too!" said Kate.  "I'll never step in that house again while he
lives.  I've spilled the beans, now."

"That you have," said Adam, slacking his horse to glance back. "He is
standing in the middle of the road shaking his fist after you."

"Can you see Nancy Ellen?" asked Kate.

"No.  She must have climbed the garden fence and hidden behind the
privet bush."

"Well, she better make it a good long hide, until he has had plenty of
time to cool off.  He'd have killed me if he had caught me, after he
fell--and wasted all those potatoes already cooked----"

Kate laughed a dry hysterical laugh, but the boy sat white-faced and
awed.

"Never mind," said Kate, seeing how frightened he was.  "When he has
had plenty of time he'll cool off; but he'll never get over it.  I hope
he doesn't beat Mother, because I was born."

"Oh, drat such a man!" said young Adam.  "I hope something worse that
this happens to him.  If ever I see Father begin to be the least bit
like him as he grows older I shall----"

"Well, what shall you do?" asked Kate, as he paused.

"Tell Ma!" cried young Adam, emphatically.

Kate leaned her face in her hands and laughed.  When she could speak
she said:  "Do you know, Adam, I think that would be the very best
thing you could do."

"Why, of course!" said Adam.

They drove swiftly and reached Walden before ten o'clock.  There they
inquired their way to the home of the Trustee, but Kate said nothing
about giving up the school.  She merely made a few inquiries, asked for
the key of the schoolhouse, and about boarding places.  She was
directed to four among which she might choose.

"Where would you advise me to go?" she asked the Trustee.

"Well, now, folks differ," said he.  "All those folks is neighbours of
mine and some might like one, and some might like another, best.  I
COULD say this:  I think Means would be the cheapest, Knowls the
dearest, but the last teacher was a good one, an' she seemed well
satisfied with the Widder Holt."

"I see," said Kate, smiling.

Then she and young Adam investigated the schoolhouse and found it far
better than any either of them had ever been inside.  It promised every
comfort and convenience, compared with schools to which they had been
accustomed, so they returned the keys, inquired about the cleaning of
the building, and started out to find a boarding place.  First they
went to the cheapest, but it could be seen at a glance that it was too
cheap, so they eliminated that.  Then they went to the most expensive,
but it was obvious from the house and grounds that board there would be
more than Kate would want to pay.

"I'd like to save my digestion, and have a place in which to study,
where I won't freeze," said Kate, "but I want to board as cheaply as I
can.  This morning changes my plans materially.  I shall want to go to
school next summer part of the time, but the part I do not, I shall
have to pay my way, so I mustn't spend money as I thought I would.  Not
one of you will dare be caught doing a thing for me.  To make you safe
I'll stay away, but it will cost me money that I'd hoped to have for
clothes like other girls."

"It's too bad," said Adam, "but I'll stick to you, and so will Ma."

"Of course you will, you dear boy," said Kate.  "Now let's try our
third place; it is not far from here."

Soon they found the house, but Kate stopped short on sight of it.

"Adam, there has been little in life to make me particular," she said,
"but I draw the line at that house.  I would go crazy in a house
painted bright red with brown and blue decoration.  It should be
prohibited by law.  Let us hunt up the Widder Holt and see how her
taste in colour runs."

"The joke is on you," said Adam, when they had found the house.

It was near the school, on a wide shady street across which big maples
locked branches.  There was a large lot filled with old fruit trees and
long grass, with a garden at the back.  The house was old and low,
having a small porch in front, but if it ever had seen paint, it did
not show it at that time.  It was a warm linty gray, the shingles of
the old roof almost moss-covered.

"The joke IS on me," said Kate.  "I shall have no quarrel with the
paint here, and will you look at that?"

Adam looked where Kate pointed across the street, and nodded.

"That ought to be put in a gold frame," he said.

"I think so, too," said Kate.  "I shouldn't be a bit surprised if I
stay where I can see it."

They were talking of a deep gully facing the house and running to a
levee where the street crossed.  A stream ran down it, dipped under a
culvert, turned sharply, and ran away to a distant river, spanning
which they could see the bridge.  Tall old forest trees lined the
banks, shrubs and bushes grew in a thicket.  There were swaying,
clambering vines and a babel of bird notes over the seed and berry
bearing bushes.

"Let's go inside, and if we agree, then we will get some water and feed
the horse and eat our lunch over there," said Kate.

"Just the thing!" said young Adam.  "Come and we will proceed to the
residence of Mrs. Holt and investigate her possibilities.  How do you
like that?"

"That is fine," said Kate gravely.

"It is," said Adam, promptly, "because it is Ma. And whatever is Ma, is
right."

"Good for you!" cried Kate.  "I am going to break a Bates record and
kiss you good-bye, when you go.  I probably shan't have another in
years.  Come on."

They walked up the grassy wooden walk, stepped on the tiny,
vine-covered porch, and lifted and dropped a rusty old iron knocker.
Almost at once the door opened, to reveal a woman of respectable
appearance, a trifle past middle age.  She made Kate think of dried
sage because she had a dried-out look and her complexion, hair, and
eyes were all that colour.  She was neat and clean while the hall into
which she invited them was clean and had a wholesome odour.  Kate
explained her errand.  Mrs. Holt breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, thank goodness I was before-handed," she said.  "The teacher
stayed here last year and she was satisfied, so I ast the Trustee to
mention me to the new teacher.  Nobody was expecting you until the last
of the week, but I says to myself, 'always take time by the fetlock,
Samantha, always be ready'; so last week I put in scouring my spare
room to beat the nation, and it's all ready so's you can walk right in."

"Thank you," said Kate, rather resenting the assumption that she was to
have no option in the matter.  "I have four places on my list where
they want the teacher, so I thought I would look at each of them and
then decide."

"My, ain't we choicey!" said Mrs. Holt in sneering tones.  Then she
changed instantly, and in suave commendation went on:  "That's exactly
right.  That's the very thing fer you to do.  After you have seen what
Walden has to offer, then a pretty young thing like you can make up
your mind where you will have the most quiet fer your work, the best
room, and be best fed.  One of the greatest advantages here fer a
teacher is that she can be quiet, an' not have her room rummaged.
Every place else that takes boarders there's a lot of children; here
there is only me and my son, and he is grown, and will be off to his
medical work next week fer the year, so all your working time here,
you'd be alone with me.  This is the room."

"That surely would be a great advantage, because I have much studying
to do," said Kate as they entered the room.

With one glance, she liked it.  It was a large room with low ceiling,
quaintly papered in very old creamy paper, scattered with delicately
cut green leaves, but so carefully had the room been kept, that it was
still clean.  There were four large windows to let in light and air,
freshly washed white curtains hanging over the deep green shades.  The
floor was carpeted with a freshly washed rag carpet stretched over
straw, the bed was invitingly clean and looked comfortable, there was a
wash stand with bowl and pitcher, soap and towels, a small table with a
lamp, a straight-backed chair and a rocking chair.  Mrs. Holt opened a
large closet having hooks for dresses at one end and shelves at the
other.  On the top of these there were a comfort and a pair of heavy
blankets.

"Your winter covers," said Mrs. Holt, indicating these, "and there is a
good stove I take out in summer to make more room, and set up as soon
as it gets cold, and that is a wood box."

She pointed out a shoe box covered with paper similar to that on the
walls.

Kate examined the room carefully, the bed, the closet, and tried the
chairs.  Behind the girl, Mrs. Holt, with compressed lips, forgetting
Adam's presence, watched in evident disapproval.

"I want to see the stove," said Kate.

"It is out in the woodhouse.  It hasn't been cleaned up for the winter
yet."

"Then it won't be far away.  Let's look at it."

Almost wholly lacking experience, Kate was proceeding by instinct in
exactly the same way her father would have taken through experience.
Mrs. Holt hesitated, then turned:  "Oh, very well," she said, leading
the way down the hall, through the dining room, which was older in
furnishing and much more worn, but still clean and wholesome, as were
the small kitchen and back porch.  From it there was only a step to the
woodhouse, where on a little platform across one end sat two small
stoves for burning wood, one so small as to be tiny.  Kate walked to
the larger, lifted the top, looked inside, tried the dampers and drafts
and turning said:  "That is very small. It will require more wood than
a larger one."

Mrs. Holt indicated dry wood corded to the roof.

"We git all our wood from the thicket across the way.  That little
strip an' this lot is all we have left of father's farm.  We kept this
to live on, and sold the rest for town lots, all except that gully,
which we couldn't give away.  But I must say I like the trees and birds
better than mebby I'd like people who might live there; we always git
our wood from it, and the shade an' running water make it the coolest
place in town."

"Yes, I suppose they do," said Kate.

She took one long look at everything as they returned to the hall.

"The Trustee told me your terms are four dollars and fifty cents a
week, furnishing food and wood," she said, "and that you allowed the
last teacher to do her own washing on Saturday, for nothing. Is that
right?"

The thin lips drew more tightly.  Mrs. Holt looked at Kate from head to
foot in close scrutiny.

"I couldn't make enough to pay the extra work at that," she said. "I
ought to have a dollar more, to really come out even.  I'll have to say
five-fifty this fall."

"If that is the case, good-bye," said Kate.  "Thank you very much for
showing me.  Five-fifty is what I paid at Normal, it is more than I can
afford in a village like this."

She turned away, followed by Adam.  They crossed the street, watered
the horse at the stream, placed his food conveniently for him, and
taking their lunch box, seated themselves on a grassy place on the bank
and began eating.

"Wasn't that a pretty nice room?" asked Adam.  "Didn't you kind of hate
to give it up?"

"I haven't the slightest intention of giving it up," answered Kate.
"That woman is a skin-flint and I don't propose to let her beat me.  No
doubt she was glad to get four-fifty last fall. She's only trying to
see if she can wring me for a dollar more. If I have to board all next
summer, I shall have to watch every penny, or I'll not come out even,
let alone saving anything.  I'll wager you a nickel that before we
leave, she comes over here and offers me the room at the same price she
got last winter."

"I hope you are right," said Adam.  "How do you like her?"

"Got a grouch, nasty temper, mean disposition; clean house, good room,
good cook--maybe; lives just on the edge of comfort by daily skimping,"
summarized Kate.

"If she comes, are you going to try it?" asked Adam.

"Yes, I think I shall.  It is nearest my purse and requirements and if
the former teacher stayed there, it will seem all right for me; but she
isn't going to put that little stove in my room.  It wouldn't heat the
closet.  How did you like her?"

"Not much!" said Adam, promptly.  "If glaring at your back could have
killed you, you would have fallen dead when you examined the closet,
and bedding, and stove.  She honeyed up when she had to, but she was
mad as hops.  I nearly bursted right out when she talked about 'taking
time by the fetlock.'  I wanted to tell her she looked like she had,
and almost got the life kicked out of her doing it, but I thought I'd
better not."

Kate laughed.  "Yes, I noticed," she said, "but I dared not look at
you.  I was afraid you'd laugh. Isn't this a fine lunch?"

"Bet your life it is," said Adam.  "Ma never puts up any other kind."

"I wish someone admired me as much as you do your mother, Adam," said
Kate.

"Well, you be as nice as Ma, and somebody is sure to," said he.

"But I never could," said Kate.

"Oh, yes, you could," said Adam, "if you would only set yourself to do
it and try with all your might to be like her.  Look, quick! That must
be her 'Medical Course' man!"

Kate glanced across the way and saw a man she thought to be about
thirty years of age.  He did not resemble his mother in any particular,
if he was the son of Mrs. Holt.  He was above the average man in
height, having broad, rather stooping shoulders, dark hair and eyes.
He stopped at the gate and stood a few seconds looking at them, so they
could not very well study him closely, then he went up the walk with
loose, easy stride and entered the house.

"Yes, that is her son," said Kate.  "That is exactly the way a man
enters a house that belongs to him."

"That isn't the way I am going to enter my house," said Adam. "Now what
shall we do?"

"Rest half an hour while they talk it over, and then get ready to go
very deliberately.  If she doesn't come across, literally and
figuratively, we hunt another boarding place."

"I half believe she will come," said Adam.  "She is watching us; I can
see her pull back the blind of her room to peep."

"Keep looking ahead.  Don't let her think you see her.  Let's go up the
creek and investigate this ravine.  Isn't it a lovely place?"

"Yes.  I'm glad you got it," said Adam, "that is, if she come across.
I will think of you as having it to look at in summer; and this
winter--my, what rabbit hunting there will be, and how pretty it will
look!"

So they went wandering up the ravine, sometimes on one bank, sometimes
crossing stepping-stones or logs to the other, looking, talking, until
a full hour had passed when they returned to the buggy.  Adam began
changing the halter for the bridle while Kate shook out the lap robe.

"Nickel, please," whispered Kate.

Adam glanced across the street to see Mrs. Holt coming.  She approached
them and with no preliminaries said:  "I have been telling my son about
you an' he hates so bad to go away and leave me alone for the winter,
that he says to take you at the same as the last teacher, even if I do
lose money on it."

"Oh, you wouldn't do that, Mrs. Holt," said Kate, carelessly.  "Of
course it is for you to decide.  I like the room, and if the board was
right for the other teacher it will be for me.  If you want me to stay,
I'll bring my things over and take the room at once.  If not, I'll look
farther."

"Come right over," said Mrs. Holt, cordially.  "I am anxious to git on
the job of mothering such a sweet young lady.  What will you have for
your supper?"

"Whatever you are having," said Kate.  "I am not accustomed to ordering
my meals.  Adam, come and help me unpack."

In half an hour Kate had her dresses on the hooks, her underclothing on
the shelves, her books on the table, her pencils and pen in the robin
cup, and was saying goodbye to Adam, and telling him what to tell his
father, mother, and Nancy Ellen--if he could get a stolen interview
with her on the way home.  He also promised to write Kate what happened
about the home school and everything in which she would be interested.
Then she went back to her room, sat in the comfortable rocking chair,
and with nothing in the world she was obliged to do immediately, she
stared at the opposite wall and day by day reviewed the summer.  She
sat so long and stared at the wall so intently that gradually it
dissolved and shaped into the deep green ravine across the way, which
sank into soothing darkness and the slowly lightened until a peep of
gold came over the tree tops; and then, a red sun crept up having a big
wonderful widespread wing on each side of it.  Kate's head fell with a
jerk which awakened her, so she arose, removed her dress, washed and
brushed her hair, put on a fresh dress and taking a book, she crossed
the street and sat on the bank of the stream again, which she watched
instead of reading, as she had intended.



CHAPTER VI

KATE'S PRIVATE PUPIL

AT FIRST Kate merely sat in a pleasant place and allowed her nerves to
settle, after the short nap she had enjoyed in the rocking chair.  It
was such a novel experience for her to sit idle, that despite the
attractions of growing things, running water, and singing birds, she
soon veered to thoughts of what she would be doing if she were at home,
and that brought her to the fact that she was forbidden her father's
house; so if she might not go there, she was homeless.  As she had
known her father for nearly nineteen years, for she had a birth
anniversary coming in a few days, she felt positive that he never would
voluntarily see her again, while with his constitution, he would live
for years. She might as well face the fact that she was homeless; and
prepare to pay her way all the year round.  She wondered why she felt
so forlorn and what made the dull ache in her throat.

She remembered telling Nancy Ellen before going away to Normal that she
wished her father would drive her from home.  Now that was
accomplished.  She was away from home, in a place where there was not
one familiar face, object, or plan of life, but she did not wish for it
at all.  She devoutly wished that she were back at home even if she
were preparing supper, in order that Nancy Ellen might hem towels.  She
wondered what they were saying:  her mind was crystal clear as to what
they were doing.  She wondered if Nancy Ellen would send Adam, 3d, with
a parcel of cut-out sewing for her to work on.  She resolved to sew
quickly and with stitches of machine-like evenness, if it came.  She
wondered if Nancy Ellen would be compelled to put off her wedding and
teach the home school in order that it might be taught by a Bates, as
her father had demanded.  She wondered if Nancy Ellen was forced to
this uncongenial task, whether it would sour the wonderful sweetness
developed by her courtship, and make her so provoked that she would not
write or have anything to do with her.  They were nearly the same age;
they had shared rooms, and, until recently, beds, and whatever life
brought them; now Kate lifted her head and ran her hand against her
throat to ease the ache gathering there more intensely every minute.
With eyes that did not see, she sat staring at the sheer walls of the
ravine as it ran toward the east, where the water came tumbling and
leaping down over stones and shale bed.  When at last she arose she had
learned one lesson, not in the History she carried.  No matter what its
disadvantages are, having a home of any kind is vastly preferable to
having none.  And the casualness of people so driven by the demands of
living and money making that they do not take time even to be slightly
courteous and kind, no matter how objectionable it may be, still that,
even that, is better than their active displeasure.  So she sat
brooding and going over and over the summer, arguing her side of the
case, honestly trying to see theirs, until she was mentally exhausted
and still had accomplished nothing further than arriving at the
conclusion that if Nancy Ellen was forced to postpone her wedding she
would turn against her and influence Robert Gray in the same feeling.

Then Kate thought of Him.  She capitalized him in her thought, for
after nineteen years of Bates men Robert Gray would seem a deified
creature to their women.  She reviewed the scene at the crossing log,
while her face flushed with pleasure.  If she had remained at home and
had gone after the blackberries, as it was sure as fate that she would
have done, then she would have met him first, and he would have courted
her instead of Nancy Ellen.  Suddenly Kate shook herself savagely and
sat straight.  "Why, you big fool!" she said.  "Nancy Ellen went to the
berry patch in a pink dress, wearing a sunbonnet to match, and carrying
a blue bowl.  Think of the picture she made!  But if I had gone, I'd
have been in a ragged old dirt-coloured gingham, Father's boots, and
his old straw hat jammed down to my ears; I'd have been hot and in a
surly temper, rebelling because I had the berries to pick.  He would
have taken one look at me, jumped the fence, and run to Lang's for dear
life.  Better cut that idea right out!"

So Kate "cut that idea out" at once, but the operation was painful,
because when one turns mental surgeon and operates on the ugly spots in
one's disposition, there is no anaesthetic, nor is the work done with
skilful hands, so the wounds are numerous and leave ugly scars; but
Kate was ruthless.  She resolved never to think of that brook scene
again.  In life, as she had lived it, she would not have profited by
having been first at the berry patch.  Yet she had a right to think of
Robert Gray's face, grave in concern for her, his offers to help, the
influence he would have in her favour with Nancy Ellen.  Of course if
he was forced to postpone his wedding he would not be pleased; but it
was impossible that the fears which were tormenting Nancy Ellen would
materialize into action on his part.  No sane man loved a woman as
beautiful as her sister and cast her aside because of a few months'
enforced waiting, the cause of which he so very well knew; but it would
make both of them unhappy and change their beautiful plans, after he
even had found and purchased the house.  Still Nancy Ellen said that
her father was making it a point of honour that a Bates should teach
the school, because he had signed the contract for Kate to take the
place Nancy Ellen had intended to fill, and then changed her plans.  He
had sworn that a Bates should teach the school.  Well, Hiram had taken
the county examination, as all pupils of the past ten years had when
they finished the country schools.  It was a test required to prove
whether they had done their work well.  Hiram held a certificate for a
year, given him by the County Superintendent, when he passed the
examinations.  He had never used it.  He could teach; he was Nancy
Ellen's twin.  School did not begin until the first of November.  He
could hire help with his corn if he could not finish alone.  He could
arise earlier than usual and do his feeding and milking; he could clean
the stables, haul wood on Saturday and Sunday, if he must, for the
Bates family looked on Sunday more as a day of rest for the horses and
physical man than as one of religious observances.  They always worked
if there was anything to be gained by it.  Six months being the term,
he would be free by the first of May; surely the money would be an
attraction, while Nancy Ellen could coach him on any new methods she
had learned at Normal.  Kate sprang to her feet, ran across the street,
and entering the hall, hurried to her room.  She found Mrs. Holt there
in the act of closing her closet door.  Kate looked at her with
astonished eyes.

"I was just telling my son," Mrs. Holt said rather breathlessly, "that
I would take a peep and see if I had forgot to put your extra covers on
the shelf."

Kate threw her book on the bed and walked to the table.  She had
experienced her share of battle for the day.  "No children to rummage,"
passed through her brain.  It was the final week of hot, dry August
weather, while a point had been made of calling her attention to the
extra cover when the room had been shown her. She might have said these
things, but why say them?  The shamed face of the woman convicted her
of "rummaging," as she had termed it.  Without a word Kate sat down
beside the table, drew her writing material before her, and began
addressing an envelope to her brother Hiram.  Mrs. Holt left the room,
disliking Kate more than if she had said what the woman knew she
thought.

Kate wrote briefly, convincingly, covering every objection and every
advantage she could conceive, and then she added the strongest plea she
could make.  What Hiram would do, she had no idea.  As with all Bates
men, land was his God, but it required money to improve it.  He would
feel timid about making a first attempt to teach after he was married
and a father of a child, but Nancy Ellen's marriage would furnish
plausible excuse; all of the family had done their school work as
perfectly as all work they undertook; he could teach if he wanted to;
would he want to?  If he did, at least, she would be sure of the
continued friendship of her sister and Robert Gray.  Suddenly Kate
understood what that meant to her as she had not realized before.  She
was making long strides toward understanding herself, which is the most
important feature of any life.

She sent a line of pleading to her sister-in-law, a word of love to the
baby, and finishing her letter, started to post it, as she remembered
the office was only a few steps down the street.  In the hall it
occurred to her that she was the "Teacher" now, and so should be an
example.  Possibly the women of Walden did not run bareheaded down the
street on errands.  She laid the letter on a small shelf of an old
hatrack, and stepped back to her room to put on her hat.  Her return
was so immediate that Mrs. Holt had the letter in her fingers when Kate
came back, and was reading the address so intently, that with extended
hand, the girl said in cold tones:  "My letter, please!" before the
woman realized she was there.  Their eyes met in a level look.  Mrs.
Holt's mouth opened in ready excuse, but this time Kate's temper
overcame her better judgment.

"Can you read it clearly, without your glasses?" she asked politely.
"I wouldn't for the world have you make a mistake as to whom my letter
is addressed.  It goes to my brother Hiram Bates, youngest son of Adam
Bates, Bates Corners, Hartley, Indiana."

"I was going to give it to my son, so that he could take it to the
office," said Mrs. Holt.

"And I am going to take it myself, as I know your son is down town and
I want it to go over on the evening hack, so it will be sure to go out
early in the morning."

Surprise overcame Mrs. Holt's discomfiture.

"Land sakes!" she cried.  "Bates is such a common name it didn't mean a
thing to me.  Be you a daughter of Adam Bates, the Land King, of Bates
Corners?"

"I be," said Kate tersely.

"Well, I never!  All them hundreds of acres of land an' money in the
bank an' mortgages on half his neighbours.  Whut the nation! An' no
more of better clo's an' you got! An' teachin' school! I never heard of
the like in all my days!"

"If you have Bates history down so fine, you should know that every
girl of the entire Bates family has taught from the time she finished
school until she married.  Also we never buy more clothing than we
need, or of the kind not suitable for our work. This may explain why we
own some land and have a few cents in the Bank.  My letter, please."

Kate turned and went down the street, a dull red tingeing her face.  "I
could hate that woman cordially without half trying," she said.

The house was filled with the odour of cooking food when she returned
and soon she was called to supper.  As she went to the chair indicated
for her, a step was heard in the hall.  Kate remained standing and when
a young man entered the room Mrs. Holt at once introduced her son,
George.  He did not take the trouble to step around the table and shake
hands, but muttered a gruff "howdy do?" and seating himself, at once
picked up the nearest dish and began filling his plate.

His mother would have had matters otherwise.  "Why, George," she
chided.  "What's your hurry?  Why don't you brush up and wait on Miss
Bates first?"

"Oh, if she is going to be one of the family," he said, "she will have
to learn to get on without much polly-foxing.  Grub is to eat.  We can
all reach at a table of this size."

Kate looked at George Holt with a searching glance.  Surely he was
almost thirty, of average height, appeared strong, and as if he might
have a forceful brain; but he was loosely jointed and there was a trace
of domineering selfishness on his face that was repulsive to her.  "I
could hate that MAN cordially, without half trying," she thought to
herself, smiling faintly at the thought.

The sharp eyes of Mrs. Holt detected the smile.  She probably would
have noticed it, if Kate had merely thought of smiling.

"Why do you smile, my dear?" she asked in melting tone.

"Oh, I was feeling so at home," answered Kate, suavely. "Father and the
boys hold exactly those opinions and practise them in precisely the
same way; only if I were to think about it at all, I should think that
a man within a year of finishing a medical course would begin
exercising politeness with every woman he meets.  I believe a doctor
depends on women to be most of his patients, and women don't like a
rude doctor."

"Rot!" said George Holt.

"Miss Bates is exactly right," said his mother.  "Ain't I been tellin'
you the whole endurin' time that you'd never get a call unless you
practised manners as well as medicine?  Ain't I, now?"

"Yes, you have," he said, angrily.  "But if you think all of a sudden
that manners are so essential, why didn't you hammer some into me when
you had the whip hand and could do what you pleased? You didn't find
any fault with my manners, then."

"How of all the world was I to know that you'd grow up and go in for
doctorin'?  I s'pos'd then you'd take the farm an' run it like your pa
did, stead of forcin' me to sell it off by inches to live, an' then you
wastin' half the money."

"Go it, Mother," said George Holt, rudely.  "Tell all you know, and
then piece out with anything you can think of that you don't."

Mrs. Holt's face flushed crimson.  She looked at Kate and said
vindictively:  "If you want any comfort in life, never marry and bring
a son inter the world.  You kin humour him, and cook for him, an work
your hands to the bone fur him, and sell your land, and spend all you
can raise educatin' him for half a dozen things, an' him never stickin
to none or payin' back a cent, but sass in your old age--"

"Go it, Mother, you're doing fine!" said George.  "If you keep on Miss
Bates will want to change her boarding place before morning."

"It will not be wholly your mother's fault, if I do," said Kate. "I
would suggest that if we can't speak civilly, we eat our supper in
silence.  This is very good food; I could enjoy it, if I had a chance."

She helped herself to another soda biscuit and a second piece of fried
chicken and calmly began eating them.

"That's a good idy!" said Mrs. Holt.

"Then why don't you practice it?" said her son.

Thereupon began a childish battle for the last word.  Kate calmly
arose, picked up her plate, walked from the room, down the hall, and
entering her own room, closed the door quietly.

"You fool!  You great big dunderheaded fool!" cried Mrs. Holt. "Now you
have done it, for the thousandth time.  She will start out in less than
no time to find some place else to stay, an' who could blame her?
Don't you know who she is?  Ain't you sense in your head?  If there was
ever a girl you ort to go after, and go quick an' hard, there she is!"

"What?  That big beef!  What for?" asked George.

"You idjit!  You idjit!  Don't you sense that she's a daughter of Adam
Bates?  Him they call the Land King.  Ain't you sense ner reason?
Drive her from the house, will you?  An' me relyin' on sendin' you half
her board money to help you out?  You fool!"

"Why under the Heavens didn't you tell me?  How could I know?  No
danger but the bowl is upset, and it's all your fault.  She should be
worth ten thousand, maybe twenty!"

"I never knew till jist before supper.  I got it frum a letter she
wrote to her brother.  I'd no chanct to tell you.  Course I meant to,
first chanct I had; but you go to work an upset everything before I get
a chanct.  You never did amount to anything, an' you never will."

"Oh, well, now stop that.  I didn't know.  I thought she was just
common truck.  I'll fix it up with her right after supper.  Now shut
up."

"You can't do it!  It's gone too far.  She'll leave the house inside
fifteen minutes," said Mrs. Holt.

"Well, I'll just show you," he boasted.

George Holt pushed back his plate, wiped his mouth, brushed his teeth
at the washing place on the back porch, and sauntered around the house
to seat himself on the front porch steps.  Kate saw him there and
remained in her room.  When he had waited an hour he arose and tapped
on her door.  Kate opened it.

"Miss Bates," he said.  "I have been doing penance an hour.  I am very
sorry I was such a boor.  I was in earnest when I said I didn't get the
gad when I needed it.  I had a big disappointment to-day, and I came in
sore and cross.  I am ashamed of myself, but you will never see me that
way again.  I know I will make a failure of my profession if I don't be
more polite than Mother ever taught me to be.  Won't you let me be your
scholar, too? Please do come over to the ravine where it is cool and
give me my first lesson.  I need you dreadfully."

Kate was desperately in need of human companionship in that instant,
herself, someone who could speak, and sin, and suffer, and repent.  As
she looked straight in the face of the man before her she saw, not him
being rude and quarrelling pettily with his mother, but herself racing
around the dining table pursued by her father raving like an insane
man.  Who was she to judge or to refuse help when it was asked?  She
went with him; and Mrs. Holt, listening and peering from the side of
the window blind of her room across the hall, watched them cross the
road and sit beside each other on the bank of the ravine in what seemed
polite and amicable conversation.  So she heaved a deep sigh of relief
and went to wash the dishes and plan breakfast.  "Better feed her up
pretty well 'til she gits the habit of staying here and mebby the rest
who take boarders will be full," she said to herself.  "Time enough to
go at skimpin' when she's settled, and busy, an' I get the whip hand."

But in planning to get the "whip hand" Mrs. Holt reckoned without Kate.
She had been under the whip hand all her life.  Her dash to freedom had
not been accomplished without both mental and physical hurt.  She was
doing nothing but going over her past life minutely, and as she
realized more fully with each review how barren and unlovely it had
been, all the strength and fresh young pride in her arose in imperative
demand for something better in the future.  She listened with interest
to what George Holt said to her.  All her life she had been driven by a
man of inflexible will, his very soul inoculated with greed for
possessions which would give him power; his body endowed with unfailing
strength to meet the demands he made on it, and his heart wholly
lacking in sentiment; but she did not propose to start her new life by
speaking of her family to strangers.  George Holt's experiences had
been those of a son spoiled by a weak woman, one day petted, the next
bribed, the next nagged, again left to his own devices for days, with
strong inherited tendencies to be fought, tendencies to what he did not
say.  Looking at his heavy jaw and swarthy face, Kate supplied "temper"
and "not much inclination to work."  He had asked her to teach him, she
would begin by setting him an example in the dignity of self-control;
then she would make him work.  How she would make that big, strong man
work!  As she sat there on the bank of the ravine, with a background of
delicately leafed bushes and the light of the setting sun on her face
and her hair, George Holt studied her closely, mentally and physically,
and would have given all he possessed if he had not been so hasty.  He
saw that she had a good brain and courage to follow her convictions,
while on closer study he decided that she was moulded on the finest
physical lines of any woman he ever had seen, also his study of
medicine taught him to recognize glowing health, and to set a right
estimate on it.  Truly he was sorry, to the bottom of his soul, but he
did not believe in being too humble.  He said as much in apology as he
felt forced, and then set himself the task of calling out and parading
the level best he could think up concerning himself, or life in
general.  He had tried farming, teaching, merchandise, and law before
he had decided his vocation was medicine.

On account of Robert Gray, Kate was much interested in this, but when
she asked what college he was attending, he said he was going to a
school in Chicago that was preparing to revolutionize the world of
medicine.  Then he started on a hobby that he had ridden for months,
paying for the privilege, so Kate learned with surprise and no small
dismay that in a few months a man could take a course in medicine that
would enable him "to cure any ill to which the human flesh is heir," as
he expressed it, without knowing anything of surgery, or drugs, or
using either.  Kate was amazed and said so at once.  She
disconcertingly inquired what he would do with patients who had
sustained fractured skulls, developed cancers, or been exposed to
smallpox.  But the man before her proposed to deal with none of those
disagreeable things, or their like.  He was going to make fame and
fortune in the world by treating mental and muscular troubles.  He was
going to be a Zonoletic Doctor.  He turned teacher and spelled it for
her, because she never had heard the word.  Kate looked at George Holt
long and with intense interest, while her mind was busy with new
thoughts.  On her pillow that night she decided that if she were a man,
driven by a desire to heal the suffering of the world, she would be the
man who took the long exhaustive course of training that enabled him to
deal with accidents, contagions, and germ developments.

He looked at her with keen appreciation of her physical freshness and
mental strength, and manoeuvred patiently toward the point where he
would dare ask blankly how many there were in her family, and on
exactly how many acres her father paid tax.  He decided it would not do
for at least a week yet; possibly he could raise the subject casually
with someone down town who would know, so that he need never ask her at
all.  Whatever the answer might be, it was definitely settled in his
own mind that Kate was the best chance he had ever had, or probably
ever would have.  He mapped out his campaign.  This week, before he
must go, he would be her pupil and her slave.  The holiday week he
would be her lover.  In the spring he would propose, and in the fall he
would marry her, and live on the income from her land ever afterward.
It was a glowing prospect; so glowing that he seriously considered
stopping school at once so that her could be at the courting part of
his campaign three times a day and every evening.  He was afraid to
leave for fear people of the village would tell the truth about him.
He again studied Kate carefully and decided that during the week that
was coming, by deft and energetic work he could so win her approval
that he could make her think that she knew him better than outsiders
did.  So the siege began.

Kate had decided to try making him work, to see if he would, or was
accustomed to it.  He was sufficiently accustomed to it that he could
do whatever she suggested with facility that indicated practice, and
there was no question of his willingness.  He urged her to make
suggestions as to what else he could do, after he had made all the
needed repairs about the house and premises.  Kate was enjoying herself
immensely, before the week was over.  She had another row of wood
corded to the shed roof, in case the winter should be severe.  She had
the stove she thought would warm her room polished and set up while he
was there to do it.  She had the back porch mended and the loose board
in the front walk replaced. She borrowed buckets and cloths and
impressed George Holt for the cleaning of the school building which she
superintended.  Before the week was over she had every child of school
age who came to the building to see what was going on, scouring out
desks, blacking stoves, raking the yard, even cleaning the street
before the building.

Across the street from his home George sawed the dead wood from the
trees and then, with three days to spare, Kate turned her attention to
the ravine. She thought that probably she could teach better there in
the spring than in the school building.  She and George talked it over.
He raised all the objections he could think of that the townspeople
would, while entirely agreeing with her himself, but it was of no use.
She over-ruled the proxy objections he so kindly offered her, so he was
obliged to drag his tired body up the trees on both banks for several
hundred yards and drop the dead wood.  Kate marshalled a corps of boys
who would be her older pupils and they dragged out the dry branches,
saved all that were suitable for firewood, and made bonfires from the
remainder.  They raked the tin cans and town refuse of years from the
water and banks and induced the village delivery man to haul the stuff
to the river bridge and dump it in the deepest place in the stream.
They cleaned the creek bank to the water's edge and built rustic seats
down the sides.  They even rolled boulders to the bed and set them
where the water would show their markings and beat itself to foam
against them.  Mrs. Holt looked on in breathless amazement and
privately expressed to her son her opinion of him in terse and vigorous
language.  He answered laconically:  "Has a fish got much to say about
what happens to it after you get it out of the water?"

"No!" snapped Mrs. Holt, "and neither have you, if you kill yourself to
get it."

"Do I look killed?" inquired her son.

"No. You look the most like a real man I ever saw you," she conceded.

"And Kate Bates won't need glasses for forty years yet," he said as he
went back to his work in the ravine.

Kate was in the middle of the creek helping plant a big stone.  He
stood a second watching her as she told the boys surrounding her how
best to help her, then he turned away, a dull red burning his cheek.
"I'll have her if I die for it," he muttered, "but I hope to Heaven she
doesn't think I am going to work like this for her every day of my
life."

As the villagers sauntered past and watched the work of the new
teacher, many of them thought of things at home they could do that
would improve their premises greatly, and a few went home and began
work of like nature.  That made their neighbours' places look so
unkempt that they were forced to trim, and rake, and mend in turn, so
by the time the school began, the whole village was busy in a crusade
that extended to streets and alleys, while the new teacher was the most
popular person who had ever been there. Without having heard of such a
thing, Kate had started Civic Improvement.

George Holt leaned against a tree trunk and looked down at her as he
rested.

"Do you suppose there is such a thing as ever making anything out of
this?" he asked.

"A perfectly lovely public park for the village, yes; money, selling it
for anything, no!  It's too narrow a strip, cut too deeply with the
water, the banks too steep.  Commercially, I can't see that it is worth
ten cents."

"Cheering!  It is the only thing on earth that truly and wholly belongs
to me. The road divided the land.  Father willed everything on the
south side to Mother, so she would have the house, and the land on this
side was mine. I sold off all I could to Jasper Linn to add to his
farm, but he would only buy to within about twenty rods of the ravine.
The land was too rocky and poor. So about half a mile of this comprises
my earthly possessions."

"Do you keep up the taxes?" she asked.

"No. I've never paid them," he said carelessly.

"Then don't be too sure it is yours," she said.  "Someone may have paid
them and taken the land.  You had better look it up."

"What for?" he demanded.

"It is beautiful.  It is the shadiest, coolest place in town. Having it
here doubles the value of your mother's house across the street.  In
some way, some day, it might turn out to be worth something."

"I can't see how," he said.

"Some of the trees may become valuable when lumber gets scarcer, as it
will when the land grows older. Maybe a stone quarry could be opened
up, if the stone runs back as far as you say.  A lot of things might
make it valuable.  If I were you I would go to Hartley, quietly,
to-morrow, and examine the records, and if there are back taxes I'd pay
them."

"I'll look it up, anyway," he agreed.  "You surely have made another
place of it.  It will be wonderful by spring."

"I can think of many uses for it," said Kate.  "Here comes your mother
to see how we are getting along."

Instead, she came to hand Kate a letter she had brought from the post
office while doing her marketing.  Kate took the letter, saw at a
glance that it was from Nancy Ellen, and excusing herself, she went to
one of the seats they had made, and turning her face so that it could
not be seen, she read:


DEAR KATE:  You can prepare yourself for the surprise of your life.
Two Bates men have done something for one of their women. I hope you
will survive the shock; it almost finished me and Mother is still
speechless.  I won't try to prepare you. I could not.  Here it is.
Father raged for three days and we got out of his way like scared
rabbits.  I saw I had to teach, so I said I would, but I had not told
Robert, because I couldn't bear to. Then up came Hiram and offered to
take the school for me.  Father said no, I couldn't get out of it that
way.  Hiram said I had not seen him or sent him any word, and I could
prove by mother I hadn't been away from the house, so Father believed
him.  He said he wanted the money to add two acres to his land from the
Simms place; that would let his stock down to water on the far side of
his land where it would be a great convenience and give him a better
arrangement of fields so he could make more money.  You know Father.
He shut up like a clam and only said:  "Do what you please.  If a Bates
teaches the school it makes my word good."  So Hiram is going to teach
for me.  He is brushing up a little nights and I am helping him on
"theory," and I am wild with joy, and so is Robert.  I shall have
plenty of time to do all my sewing and we shall be married at, or
after, Christmas.  Robert says to tell you to come to see him if you
ever come to Hartley.  He is there in his office now and it is
lonesome, but I am busy and the time will soon pass.  I might as well
tell you that Father said right after you left that you should never
enter his house again, and Mother and I should not speak your name
before him.  I do hope he gets over it before the wedding.  Write me
how you like your school, and where you board.  Maybe Robert and I can
slip off and drive over to see you some day. But that would make Father
so mad if he found out that he would not give me the money he promised;
so we had better not, but you come to see us as soon as we get in our
home.  Love from both, NANCY ELLEN.


Kate read the joyful letter slowly.  It contained all she hoped for.
She had not postponed Nancy Ellen's wedding.  That was all she asked.
She had known she would not be forgiven so soon, there was slight hope
she ever would.  Her only chance, thought Kate, lay in marrying a
farmer having about a thousand acres of land. If she could do that, her
father would let her come home again sometime.  She read the letter
slowly over, then tearing it in long strips she cross tore them and
sifted the handful of small bits on the water, where they started a
dashing journey toward the river.  Mrs. Holt, narrowly watching her,
turned with snaky gleaming eyes to her son and whispered:  "A-ha! Miss
Smart Alec has a secret!"



CHAPTER VII

HELPING NANCY ELLEN AND ROBERT TO ESTABLISH A HOME

THE remainder of the time before leaving, George Holt spent in the very
strongest mental and physical effort to show Kate how much of a man he
was. He succeeded in what he hoped he might do.  He so influenced her
in his favour that during the coming year whenever any one showed signs
of criticising him, Kate stopped them by commendation, based upon what
she supposed to be knowledge of him.

With the schoolhouse and grounds cleaned as they never had been before,
the parents and pupils naturally expected new methods. During the week
spent in becoming acquainted with the teacher, the parents heartily
endorsed her, while the pupils liked her cordially.  It could be seen
at a glance that she could pick up the brawniest of them, and drop him
from the window, if she chose. The days at the stream had taught them
her physical strength, while at the same time they had glimpses of her
mental processes. The boys learned many things:  that they must not lie
or take anything which did not belong to them; that they must be
considerate and manly, if they were to be her friends; yet not one word
had been said on any of these subjects.  As she spoke to them, they
answered her, and soon spoke in the same way to each other.  She was
very careful about each statement she made, often adducing convenient
proof, so they saw that she was always right, and never exaggerated.
The first hour of this made the boys think, the second they imitated,
the third they instantly obeyed. She started in to interest and educate
these children; she sent them home to investigate more subjects the
first day than they had ever carried home in any previous month.  Boys
suddenly began asking their fathers about business; girls questioned
their mothers about marketing and housekeeping.

The week of Christmas vacation was going to be the hardest; everyone
expected the teacher to go home for the Holidays.  Many of them knew
that her sister was marrying the new doctor of Hartley.  When Kate was
wondering how she could possibly conceal the rupture with her family,
Robert Gray drove into Walden and found her at the schoolhouse.  She
was so delighted to see him that she made no attempt to conceal her
joy.  He had driven her way for exercise and to pay her a call.  When
he realized from her greeting how she had felt the separation from her
family, he had an idea that he at once propounded:  "Kate, I have come
to ask a favour of you," he said.

"Granted!" laughed Kate.  "Whatever can it be?"

"Just this! I want you to pack a few clothes, drive to Hartley with me
and do what you can to straighten out the house, so there won't be such
confusion when Nancy Ellen gets there."

Kate stared at him in a happy daze.  "Oh, you blessed Robert Gray! What
a Heavenly idea!" she cried.  "Of course it wouldn't be possible for me
to fix Nancy Ellen's house the way she would, but I could put
everything where it belonged, I could arrange well enough, and I could
have a supper ready, so that you could come straight home."

"Then you will do it?" he asked.

"Do it?" cried Kate. "Do it!  Why, I would be willing to pay you for
the chance to do it.  How do you think I'm to explain my not going home
for the Holidays, and to my sister's wedding, and retain my
self-respect before my patrons?"

"I didn't think of it in that way," he said.

"I'm crazy," said Kate.  "Take me quickly!  How far along are you?"

"House cleaned, blinds up, stoves all in, coal and wood, cellar
stocked, carpets down, and furniture all there, but not unwrapped or in
place.  Dishes delivered but not washed; cooking utensils there, but
not cleaned."

"Enough said," laughed Kate.  "You go marry Nancy Ellen.  I shall have
the house warm, arranged so you can live in it, and the first meal
ready when you come.  Does Nancy Ellen know you are here?"

"No.  I have enough country practice that I need a horse; I'm trying
this one. I think of you often so I thought I'd drive out. How are you
making it, Kate?"

"Just fine, so far as the school goes.  I don't particularly like the
woman I board with.  Her son is some better, yes, he is much better.
And Robert, what is a Zonoletic Doctor?"

"A poor fool, too lazy to be a real doctor, with no conscience about
taking people's money for nothing," he said.

"As bad as THAT?" asked Kate.

"Worse! Why?" he said.

"Oh, I only wondered," said Kate.  "Now I am ready, here; but I must
run to the house where I board a minute.  It's only a step. You watch
where I go, and drive down."

She entered the house quietly and going back to the kitchen she said:
"The folks have come for me, Mrs. Holt.  I don't know exactly when I
shall be back, but in plenty of time to start school.  If George goes
before I return, tell him 'Merry Christmas,' for me."

"He'll be most disappointed to death," said Mrs. Holt.

"I don't see why he should," said Kate, calmly.  "You never have had
the teacher here at Christmas."

"We never had a teacher that I wanted before," said Mrs. Holt; while
Kate turned to avoid seeing the woman's face as she perjured herself.
"You're like one of the family, George is crazy about you.  He wrote me
to be sure to keep you.  Couldn't you possibly stay over Sunday?"

"No, I couldn't," said Kate.

"Who came after you?" asked Mrs. Holt.

"Dr. Gray," answered Kate.

"That new doctor at Hartley? Why, be you an' him friends?"

Mrs. Holt had followed down the hall, eagerly waiting in the doorway.
Kate glanced at her and felt sudden pity.  The woman was warped.
Everything in her life had gone wrong.  Possibly she could not avoid
being the disagreeable person she was.  Kate smiled at her.

"Worse than that," she said.  "We be relations in a few days. He's
going to marry my sister Nancy Ellen next Tuesday."

Kate understood the indistinct gurgle she heard to be approving, so she
added:  "He came after me early so I could go to Hartley and help get
their new house ready for them to live in after the ceremony."

"Did your father give them the house?" asked Mrs. Holt eagerly.

"No. Dr. Gray bought his home," said Kate.

"How nice!  What did your father give them?"

Kate's patience was exhausted.  "You'll have to wait until I come
back," she said.  "I haven't the gift of telling about things before
they have happened."

Then she picked up her telescope and saying "good-bye," left the house.

As they drove toward Hartley:  "I'm anxious to see your house," said
Kate.  "Did you find one in a good neighbourhood?"

"The very best, I think," said the doctor.  "That is all one could
offer Nancy Ellen."

"I'm so glad for her!  And I'm glad for you, too!  She'll make you a
beautiful wife in every way.  She's a good cook, she knows how to
economize, and she's too pretty for words, if she IS my sister."

"I heartily agree with you," said the doctor.  "But I notice you put
the cook first and the beauty last."

"You will, too, before you get through with it," answered Kate.

"Here we are!" said he, soon after they entered Hartley. "I'll drive
around the block, so you can form an idea of the location." Kate
admired every house in the block, the streets and trees, the one house
Robert Gray had selected in every particular.  They went inside and
built fires, had lunch together at the hotel, and then Kate rolled up
her sleeves and with a few yards of cheese-cloth for a duster, began
unwrapping furniture and standing it in the room where it belonged.
Robert moved the heavy pieces, then he left to call on a patient and
spend the evening with Nancy Ellen.

So Kate spent several happy days setting Nancy Ellen's new home in
order. From basement to garret she had it immaculate and shining. No
Bates girl, not even Agatha, ever had gone into a home having so many
comforts and conveniences.

Kate felt lonely the day she knew her home was overcrowded with all
their big family; she sat very still thinking of them during the hour
of the ceremony; she began preparing supper almost immediately, because
Robert had promised her that he would not eat any more of the wedding
feast than he could help, and he would bring Nancy Ellen as soon
afterward as possible.  Kate saw them drive to the gate and come up the
walk together.  As they entered the door Nancy Ellen was saying:  "Why,
how does the house come to be all lighted up?  Seems to me I smell
things to eat.  Well, if the table isn't all set!"

There was a pause and then Nancy Ellen's clear voice called: "Kate!
Kate!  Where are you?  Nobody else would be THIS nice to me.  You dear
girl, where are you?"

"I'll get to stay until I go back to school!" was Kate's mental comment
as she ran to clasp Nancy Ellen in her arms, while they laughed and
very nearly cried together, so that the doctor felt it incumbent upon
him to hug both of them.  Shortly afterward he said:  "There is a fine
show in town to-night, and I have three tickets.  Let's all go."

"Let's eat before we go," said Nancy Ellen, "I haven't had time to eat
a square meal for a week and things smell deliciously."

They finished their supper leisurely, stacked the dishes and went to
the theatre, where they saw a fair performance of a good play, which
was to both of the girls a great treat.  When they returned home, Kate
left Nancy Ellen and Robert to gloat over the carpets they had
selected, as they appeared on their floors, to arrange the furniture
and re-examine their wedding gifts; while she slipped into the kitchen
and began washing the dishes and planning what she would have for
breakfast.  But soon they came to her and Nancy Ellen insisted on
wiping the dishes, while Robert carried them to the cupboard.
Afterward, they sat before their fireplace and talked over events since
the sisters' separation.

Nancy Ellen told about getting ready for her wedding, life at home, the
school, the news of the family; the Kate drew a perfect picture of the
Walden school, her boarding place, Mrs. Holt, the ravine, the town and
the people, with the exception of George Holt--him she never mentioned.

After Robert had gone to his office the following morning, Kate said to
Nancy Ellen:  "Now I wish you would be perfectly frank with me--"

"As if I could be anything else!" laughed the bride.

"All right, then," said Kate. "What I want is this:  that these days
shall always come back to you in memory as nearly perfect as possible.
Now if my being here helps ever so little, I like to stay, and I'll be
glad to cook and wash dishes, while you fix your house to suit you.
But if you'd rather be alone, I'll go back to Walden and be satisfied
and happy with the fine treat this has been.  I can look everyone in
the face now, talk about the wedding, and feel all right."

Nancy Ellen said slowly:  "I shan't spare you until barely time to
reach your school Monday morning.  And I'm not keeping you to work for
me, either!  We'll do everything together, and then we'll plan how to
make the house pretty, and go see Robert in his office, and go
shopping.  I'll never forgive you if you go."

"Why, Nancy Ellen--!" said Kate, then fled to the kitchen too happy to
speak further.

None of them ever forgot that week. It was such a happy time that all
of them dreaded its end; but when it came they parted cheerfully, and
each went back to work, the better for the happy reunion.  Kate did not
return to Walden until Monday; then she found Mrs. Holt in an evil
temper.  Kate could not understand it. She had no means of knowing that
for a week George had nagged his mother unceasingly because Kate was
gone on his return, and would not be back until after time for him to
go again.  The only way for him to see her during the week he had
planned to come out openly as her lover, was to try to find her at her
home, or at her sister's.  He did not feel that it would help him to go
where he never had been asked.  His only recourse was to miss a few
days of school and do extra work to make it up; but he detested nothing
in life as he detested work, so the world's happy week had been to them
one of constant sparring and unhappiness, for which Mrs. Holt blamed
Kate.  Her son had returned expecting to court Kate Bates strenuously;
his disappointment was not lightened by his mother's constant nagging.
Monday forenoon she went to market, and came in gasping.

"Land sakes!" she cried as she panted down the hall.  "I've got a good
one on that impident huzzy now!"

"You better keep your mouth shut, and not gossip about her," he said.
"Everyone likes her!"

"No, they don't, for I hate her worse 'n snakes!  If it wa'n't for her
money I'd fix her so's 'at she'd never marry you in kingdom come."

George Holt clenched his big fist.

"Just you try it!" he threatened.  "Just you try that!"

"You'll live to see the day you'd thank me if I did.  She ain't been
home.  Mind you, she ain't been HOME!  She never seen her sister
married at all!  Tilly Nepple has a sister, living near the Bates, who
worked in the kitchen.  She's visitin' at Tilly's now. Miss
High-and-Mighty never seen her sister married at all!  An' it looked
mighty queer, her comin' here a week ahead of time, in the fall.  Looks
like she'd done somepin she don't DARE go home.  No wonder she tears
every scrap of mail she gets to ribbons an' burns it.  I told you she
had a secret!  If ever you'd listen to me."

"Why, you're crazy!" he exclaimed.  "I did listen to you.  What you
told me was that I should go after her with all my might.  So I did it.
Now you come with this.  Shut it up!  Don't let her get wind of it for
the world!"

"And Tilly Nepple's sister says old Land King Bates never give his
daughter a cent, an' he never gives none of his girls a cent. It's up
to the men they marry to take keer of them.  The old skin-flint!  What
you want to do is to go long to your schoolin', if you reely are going
to make somepin of yourself at last, an' let that big strap of a girl
be, do--"

"Now, stop!" shouted George Holt.  "Scenting another scandal, are you?
Don't you dare mar Kate Bates' standing, or her reputation in this
town, or we'll have a time like we never had before.  If old Bates
doesn't give his girls anything when they marry, they'll get more when
he dies.  And so far as money is concerned, this has gone PAST money
with me.  I'm going to marry Kate Bates, as soon as ever I can, and
I've got to the place where I'd marry her if she hadn't a cent.  If I
can't take care of her, she can take care of me.  I am crazy about her,
an' I'm going to have her; so you keep still, an' do all you can to
help me, or you'll regret it."

"It's you that will regret it!" she said.

"Stop your nagging, I tell you, or I'll come at you in a way you won't
like," he cried.

"You do that every day you're here," said Mrs. Holt, starting to the
kitchen to begin dinner.

Kate appeared in half an hour, fresh and rosy, also prepared; for one
of her little pupils had said:  "Tilly Nepple's sister say you wasn't
at your sister's wedding at all.  Did you cry 'cause you couldn't go?"

Instantly Kate comprehended what must be town gossip, so she gave the
child a happy solution of the question bothering her, and went to her
boarding house forewarned.  She greeted both Mrs. Holt and her son
cordially, then sat down to dinner, in the best of spirits.  The
instant her chance came, Mrs. Holt said:  "Now tell us all about the
lovely wedding."

"But I wasn't managing the wedding," said Kate cheerfully.  "I was on
the infare job.  Mother and Nancy Ellen put the wedding through.  You
know our house isn't very large, and close relatives fill it to
bursting.  I've seen the same kind of wedding about every eighteen
months all my life.  I had a NEW job this time, and one I liked better."

She turned to George:  "Of course your mother told you that Dr. Gray
came after me.  He came to ask me as an especial favour to go to his
new house in Hartley, and do what I could to arrange it, and to have a
supper ready.  I was glad.  I'd seen six weddings that I can remember,
all exactly alike--there's nothing to them; but brushing those new
carpets, unwrapping nice furniture and placing it, washing pretty new
dishes, untying the loveliest gifts and arranging them--THAT was
something new in a Bates wedding. Oh, but I had a splendid time!"

George Holt looked at his mother in too great disgust to conceal his
feelings.

"ANOTHER gilt-edged scandal gone sky high," he said.  Then he turned to
Kate.  "One of the women who worked in your mother's kitchen is
visiting here, and she started a great hullabaloo because you were not
at the wedding.  You probably haven't got a leg left to stand on.  I
suspect the old cats of Walden have chewed them both off, and all the
while you were happy, and doing the thing any girl would much rather
have done.  Lord, I hate this eternal picking!  How did you come back,
Kate?"

"Dr. Gray brought me."

"I should think it would have made talk, your staying there with him,"
commented Mrs. Holt.

"Fortunately, the people of Hartley seem reasonably busy attending
their own affairs," said Kate.  "Doctor Gray had been boarding at the
hotel all fall, so he just went on living there until after the
wedding."

George glared at his mother, but she avoided his eyes, and laughing in
a silly, half-confused manner she said:  "How much money did your
father give the bride?"

"I can't tell you, in even dollars and cents," said Kate.  "Nancy Ellen
didn't say."

Kate saw the movement of George's foot under the table, and knew that
he was trying to make his mother stop asking questions; so she began
talking to him about his work.  As soon as the meal was finished he
walked with her to school, visiting until the session began.  He
remained three days, and before he left he told Kate he loved her, and
asked her to be his wife.  She looked at him in surprise and said:
"Why, I never thought of such a thing!  How long have you been thinking
about it?"

"Since the first instant I saw you!" he declared with fervour.

"Hum!  Matter of months," said Kate.  "Well, when I have had that much
time, I will tell you what I think about it."



CHAPTER VIII

THE HISTORY OF A LEGHORN HAT

Kate finished her school in the spring, then went for a visit with
Nancy Ellen and Robert, before George Holt returned.  She was thankful
to leave Walden without having seen him, for she had decided, without
giving the matter much thought, that he was not the man she wanted to
marry.  In her heart she regretted having previously contracted for the
Walden school another winter because she felt certain that with the
influence of Dr. Gray, she could now secure a position in Hartley that
would enable her either to live with, or to be near, her sister.  With
this thought in mind, she tried to make the acquaintance of teachers in
the school who lived in Hartley and she soon became rather intimate
with one of them.

It was while visiting with this teacher that Kate spoke of attending
Normal again in an effort to prepare herself still better for the work
of the coming year.  Her new friend advised against it.  She said the
course would be only the same thing over again, with so little change
or advancement, that the trip was not worth the time and money it would
cost.  She proposed that Kate go to Lake Chautauqua and take the
teachers' course, where all spare time could be put in attending
lectures, and concerts, and studying the recently devised methods of
education.  Kate went from her to Nancy Ellen and Robert, determined at
heart to go.

She was pleased when they strongly advised her to, and offered to help
her get ready.  Aside from having paid Agatha, and for her board, Kate
had spent almost nothing on herself.  She figured the probable expenses
of the trip for a month, what it would cost her to live until school
began again, if she were forced to go to Walden, and then spent all her
remaining funds on the prettiest clothing she had ever owned.  Each of
the sisters knew how to buy carefully; then the added advantage of
being able to cut and make their own clothes, made money go twice as
far as where a dressmaker had to be employed.  When everything they had
planned was purchased, neatly made, and packed in a trunk, into which
Nancy Ellen slipped some of her prettiest belongings, Kate made a trip
to a milliner's shop to purchase her first real hat.

She had decided on a big, wide-brimmed Leghorn, far from cheap. While
she was trying the effect of flowers and ribbon on it, the wily
milliner slipped up and with the hat on Kate's golden crown, looped in
front a bow of wide black velvet ribbon and drooped over the brim a
long, exquisitely curling ostrich plume.  Kate had one good view of
herself, before she turned her back on the temptation.

"You look lovely in that," said the milliner.  "Don't you like it?"

"I certainly do," said Kate.  "I look the best in that hat, with the
black velvet and the plume, I ever did, but there's no use to look
twice, I can't afford it."

"Oh, but it is very reasonable!  We haven't a finer hat in the store,
nor a better plume," said the milliner.

She slowly waved it in all its glory before Kate's beauty-hungry eyes.
Kate turned so she could not see it.

"Please excuse one question.  Are you teaching in Walden this winter?"
asked the milliner.

"Yes," said Kate.  "I have signed the contract for that school."

"Then charge the hat and pay for it in September.  I'd rather wait for
my money than see you fail to spend the summer under that plume.  It
really is lovely against your gold hair."

"'Get thee behind me, Satan,'" quoted Kate.  "No.  I never had anything
charged, and never expect to.  Please have the black velvet put on and
let me try it with the bows set and sewed."

"All right," said the milliner, "but I'm sorry."

She was so sorry that she carried the plume to the work room, and when
she walked up behind Kate, who sat waiting before the mirror, and
carefully set the hat on her head, at exactly the right angle, the long
plume crept down one side and drooped across the girl's shoulder.

"I will reduce it a dollar more," she said, "and send the bill to you
at Walden the last week of September."

Kate moved her head from side to side, lifted and dropped her chin.
Then she turned to the milliner.

"You should be killed!" she said.

The woman reached for a hat box.

"No, I shouldn't!" she said.  "Waiting that long, I'll not make much on
the hat, but I'll make a good friend who will come again, and bring her
friends.  What is your name, please?"

Kate took one look at herself--smooth pink cheeks, gray eyes, gold
hair, the sweeping wide brim, the trailing plume.

"Miss Katherine Eleanor Bates," she said.  "Bates Corners, Hartley,
Indiana.  Please call my carriage?"

The milliner laughed heartily.  "That's the spirit of '76," she
commended.  "I'd be willing to wager something worth while that this
very hat brings you the carriage before fall, if you show yourself in
it in the right place.  It's a perfectly stunning hat. Shall I send it,
or will you wear it?"

Kate looked in the mirror again.  "You may put a fresh blue band on the
sailor I was wearing, and send that to Dr. Gray's when it is finished,"
she said.  "And put in a fancy bow, for my throat, of the same velvet
as the hat, please.  I'll surely pay you the last week of September.
And if you can think up an equally becoming hat for winter----"

"You just bet I can, young lady," said the milliner to herself as Kate
walked down the street.

From afar, Kate saw Nancy Ellen on the veranda, so she walked slowly to
let the effect sink in, but it seemed to make no impression until she
looked up at Nancy Ellen's very feet and said:  "Well, how do you like
it?"

"Good gracious!" cried Nancy Ellen.  "I thought I was having a stylish
caller.  I didn't know you!  Why, I never saw YOU walk that way before."

"You wouldn't expect me to plod along as if I were plowing, with a
thing like this on my head, would you?"

"I wouldn't expect you to have a thing like that on your head; but
since you have, I don't mind telling you that you are stunning in it,"
said Nancy Ellen.

"Better and better!" laughed Kate, sitting down on the step.  "The
milliner said it was a stunning HAT."

"The goose!" said Nancy Ellen.  "You become that hat, Kate, quite as
much as the hat becomes you."

The following day, dressed in a linen suit of natural colour, with the
black bow at her throat, the new hat in a bandbox, and the renewed
sailor on her head, Kate waved her farewells to Nancy Ellen and Robert
on the platform, then walked straight to the dressing room of the car,
and changed the hats.  Nancy Ellen had told her this was NOT the thing
to do.  She should travel in a plain untrimmed hat, and when the dust
and heat of her journey were past, she should bathe, put on fresh
clothing, and wear such a fancy hat only with her best frocks, in the
afternoon.  Kate need not have been told that.  Right instincts and
Bates economy would have taught her the same thing, but she had a
perverse streak in her nature.  She had SEEN herself in the hat.

The milliner, who knew enough of the world and human nature to know how
to sell Kate the hat, when she never intended to buy it, and knew she
should not in the way she did, had said that before fall it would bring
her a carriage, which put into bald terms meant a rich husband.  Now
Kate liked her school and she gave it her full attention; she had done,
and still intended to keep on doing, first-class work in the future;
but her school, or anything pertaining to it, was not worth mentioning
beside Nancy Ellen's HOME, and the deep understanding and strong
feeling that showed so plainly between her and Robert Gray.  Kate
expected to marry by the time she was twenty or soon after; all Bates
girls had, most of them had married very well indeed.  She frankly
envied Nancy Ellen, while it never occurred to her that any one would
criticise her for saying so.  Only one thing could happen to her that
would surpass what had come to her sister.  If only she could have a
man like Robert Gray, and have him on a piece of land of their own.
Kate was a girl, but no man of the Bates tribe ever was more deeply
bitten by the lust for land.  She was the true daughter of her father,
in more than one way.  If that very expensive hat was going to produce
the man why not let it begin to work from the very start?  If her man
was somewhere, only waiting to see her, and the hat would help him to
speedy recognition, why miss a change?

She thought over the year, and while she deplored the estrangement from
home, she knew that if she had to go back to one year ago, giving up
the present and what it had brought and promised to bring, for a
reconciliation with her father, she would not voluntarily return to the
old driving, nagging, overwork, and skimping, missing every real
comfort of life to buy land, in which she never would have any part.

"You get your knocks 'taking the wings of morning,'" thought Kate to
herself, "but after all it is the only thing to do.  Nancy Ellen says
Sally Whistler is pleasing Mother very well, why should I miss my
chance and ruin my temper to stay at home and do the work done by a
woman who can do nothing else?"

Kate moved her head slightly to feel if the big, beautiful hat that sat
her braids so lightly was still there.  "Go to work, you beauty,"
thought Kate.  "Do something better for me than George Holt.  I'll have
him to fall back on if I can't do better; but I think I can.  Yes, I'm
very sure I can!  If you do your part, you lovely plume, I KNOW I can!"

Toward noon the train ran into a violent summer storm.  The sky grew
black, the lightning flashed, the wind raved, the rain fell in gusts.
The storm was at its height when Kate quit watching it and arose,
preoccupied with her first trip to a dining car, thinking about how
little food she could order and yet avoid a hunger headache.  The
twisting whirlwind struck her face as she stepped from the day coach to
go to the dining car.  She threw back her head and sucked her lungs
full of the pure, rain-chilled air.  She was accustomed to being out in
storms, she liked them. One second she paused to watch the gale
sweeping the fields, the next a twitch at her hair caused her to throw
up her hands and clutch wildly at nothing.  She sprang to the step
railing and leaned out in time to see her wonderful hat whirl against
the corner of the car, hold there an instant with the pressure of the
wind, then slide down, draw under, and drop across the rail, where
passing wheels ground it to pulp.

Kate stood very still a second, then she reached up and tried to pat
the disordered strands of hair into place.  She turned and went back
into the day coach, opened the bandbox, and put on the sailor.  She
resumed her old occupation of thinking things over. All the joy had
vanished from the day and the trip.  Looking forward, it had seemed all
right to defy custom and Nancy Ellen's advice, and do as she pleased.
Looking backward, she saw that she had made a fool of herself in the
estimation of everyone in the car by not wearing the sailor, which was
suitable for her journey, and would have made no such mark for a
whirling wind.

She found travelling even easier than any one had told her.  Each
station was announced.  When she alighted, there were conveyances to
take her and her luggage to a hotel, patronized almost exclusively by
teachers, near the schools and lecture halls. Large front suites and
rooms were out of the question for Kate, but luckily a tiny corner room
at the back of the building was empty and when Kate specified how long
she would remain, she secured it at a less figure than she had expected
to pay.  She began by almost starving herself at supper in order to
save enough money to replace her hat with whatever she could find that
would serve passably, and be cheap enough.  That far she proceeded
stoically; but when night settled and she stood in her dressing jacket
brushing her hair, something gave way.  Kate dropped on her bed and
cried into her pillow, as she never had cried before about anything.
It was not ALL about the hat.  While she was at it, she shed a few
tears about every cruel thing that had happened to her since she could
remember that she had borne tearlessly at the time.  It was a deluge
that left her breathless and exhausted. When she finally sat up, she
found the room so close, she gently opened her door and peeped into the
hall.  There was a door opening on an outside veranda, running across
the end of the building and the length of the front.

As she looked from her door and listened intently, she heard the sound
of a woman's voice in choking, stifled sobs, in the room having a door
directly across the narrow hall from hers.

"My Lord!  THERE'S TWO OF US!" said Kate.

She leaned closer, listening again, but when she heard a short groan
mingled with the sobs, she immediately tapped on the door. Instantly
the sobs ceased and the room became still.  Kate put her lips to the
crack and said in her off-hand way:  "It's only a school-marm, rooming
next you.  If you're ill, could I get anything for you?"

"Will you please come in?" asked a muffled voice.

Kate turned the knob, and stepping inside, closed the door after her.
She could dimly see her way to the dresser, where she found matches and
lighted the gas.  On the bed lay in a tumbled heap a tiny, elderly,
Dresden-china doll-woman.  She was fully dressed, even to her wrap,
bonnet, and gloves; one hand clutched her side, the other held a
handkerchief to her lips.  Kate stood an instant under the light,
studying the situation.  The dark eyes in the narrow face looked
appealingly at her.  The woman tried to speak, but gasped for breath.
Kate saw that she had heart trouble.

"The remedy!  Where is it?" she cried.

The woman pointed to a purse on the dresser.  Kate opened it, took out
a small bottle, and read the directions.  In a second, she was holding
a glass to the woman's lips; soon she was better.  She looked at Kate
eagerly.

"Oh, please don't leave me," she gasped.

"Of course not!" said Kate instantly.  "I'll stay as long as you want
me."

She bent over the bed and gently drew the gloves from the frail hands.
She untied and slipped off the bonnet.  She hunted keys in the purse,
opened a travelling bag, and found what she required. Then slowly and
carefully, she undressed the woman, helped her into a night robe, and
stooping she lifted her into a chair until she opened the bed.  After
giving her time to rest, Kate pulled down the white wavy hair and
brushed it for the night.  As she worked, she said a word of
encouragement now and again; when she had done all she could see to do,
she asked if there was more. The woman suddenly clung to her hand and
began to sob wildly. Kate knelt beside the bed, stroked the white hair,
patted the shoulder she could reach, and talked very much as she would
have to a little girl.

"Please don't cry," she begged.  "It must be your heart; you'll surely
make it worse."

"I'm trying," said the woman, "but I've been scared sick.  I most
certainly would have died if you hadn't come to me and found the
medicine.  Oh, that dreadful Susette!  How could she?"

The clothing Kate had removed from the woman had been of finest cloth
and silk.  Her hands wore wonderful rings.  A heavy purse was in her
bag.  Everything she had was the finest that money could buy, while she
seemed as if a rough wind never had touched her.  She appeared so frail
that Kate feared to let her sleep without knowing where to locate her
friends.

"She should be punished for leaving you alone among strangers," said
Kate indignantly.

"If I only could learn to mind John," sighed the little woman. "He
never liked Susette.  But she was the very best maid I ever had.  She
was like a loving daughter, until all at once, on the train, among
strangers, she flared out at me, and simply raved. Oh, it was dreadful!"

"And knowing you were subject to these attacks, she did the thing that
would precipitate one, and then left you alone among strangers.  How
wicked!  How cruel!" said Kate in tense indignation.

"John didn't want me to come.  But I used to be a teacher, and I came
here when this place was mostly woods, with my dear husband. Then after
he died, through the long years of poverty and struggle, I would read
of the place and the wonderful meetings, but I could never afford to
come.  Then when John began to work and made good so fast I was dizzy
half the time with his successes, I didn't think about the place.  But
lately, since I've had everything else I could think of, something
possessed me to come back here, and take a suite among the women and
men who are teaching our young people so wonderfully; and to sail on
the lake, and hear the lectures, and dream my youth over again.  I
think that was it most of all, to dream my youth over again, to try to
relive the past."

"There now, you have told me all about it," said Kate, stroking the
white forehead in an effort to produce drowsiness, "close your eyes and
go to sleep."

"I haven't even BEGUN to tell you," said the woman perversely. "If I
talked all night I couldn't tell you about John.  How big he is, and
how brave he is, and how smart he is, and how he is the equal of any
business man in Chicago, and soon, if he keeps on, he will be worth as
much as some of them--more than any one of his age, who has had a lot
of help instead of having his way to make alone, and a sick old mother
to support besides.  No, I couldn't tell you in a week half about John,
and he didn't want me to come. If I would come, then he wanted me to
wait a few days until he finished a deal so he could bring me, but the
minute I thought of it I was determined to come; you know how you get."

"I know how badly you want to do a thing you have set your heart on,"
admitted Kate.

"I had gone places with Susette in perfect comfort.  I think the
trouble was that she tried from the first to attract John.  About the
time we started, he let her see plainly that all he wanted of her was
to take care of me; she was pretty and smart, so it made her furious.
She was pampered in everything, as no maid I ever had before.  John is
young yet, and I think he is very handsome, and he wouldn't pay any
attention to her.  You see when other boys were going to school and
getting acquainted with girls by association, even when he was a little
bit of a fellow in knee breeches, I had to let him sell papers, and
then he got into a shop, and he invented a little thing, and then a
bigger, and bigger yet, and then he went into stocks and things, and he
doesn't know anything about girls, only about sick old women like me.
He never saw what Susette was up to.  You do believe that I wasn't ugly
to her, don't you?"

"You COULDN'T be ugly if you tried," said Kate.

The woman suddenly began to sob again, this time slowly, as if her
forces were almost spent.  She looked to Kate for the sympathy she
craved and for the first time really saw her closely.

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