 CHAPTER V. THE PRODICAL 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 instantly 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, but as all the neighbors 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 you 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 favors don't feel any too good toward him.' "'You just bet they don't. They are everyone 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 schoolboys.' "'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 darn 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'm 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 to 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 and heartily, handsome as he is, and he has to be nice to everybody to get practice, and you know how those heartly 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 guesswork. 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.' "'Phew!' 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 schoolboys 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 to 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 schoolboys 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 was standing in the middle of the road shaking his fist after you. Can you see Nancy Allen, 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 odd. 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 than 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 school house 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 neighbors of mine, and some might like one and some might like another best. I could say this. I think means would be the cheapest, knolls the dearest, but the last teacher was a good one, and she seemed well satisfied with the witter halt. I see, said Kate, smiling. Then she and young Adam investigated the school house and found it far better than 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 hope 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 Witter Holt and see how her taste in color 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 babble 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 bait's record and kiss you goodbye 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 color. She was neat and clean, while the hall into which she invited them was clean and had a wholesome odor. Kate explained to her errand, Mrs. Holt's breathed a sigh of relief. Well, thank goodness I was beforehanded, she said. The teacher stayed here last year and she was satisfied, so I asked 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 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 choisey, 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 for 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 for your work, the best room, and be best fed. One of the greatest advantages here for a teacher is that she can be quiet and not have her room rummaged. Every place else that takes borders 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 for 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 at 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 and 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 get all our wood from the thicket across the way. That little strip and this lot is all we have left of Father's Farm. We kept this to live on, and sold the rest for townlots, all except that gully which we couldn't give away. But I must say I like the trees and birds better than maybe I'd like people who might live there. We always get our wood from it, and the shade and 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 lunchbox, 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 ring 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. While 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'm 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 have to leave 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 comes 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 leg, 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. Nickle, please, whispered Kate. Adam glanced across the street to see Mrs. Holt's coming. She approached them, and with no preliminary, said, I have been telling my son about you, and 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 fine 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 get 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. 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 Allen, 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 then 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. End of Chapter 5 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 should 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 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 the third, 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 abates, 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 the time to even 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 that same feeling. Then Kate thought of him. She capitalized him in her thought, for after nineteen years of baitsmen, 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 gone after the Blackberries, as it was sure as fate 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 sun bonnet 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-colored 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 Lange's for a 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 anesthetic. Nor is the work done with skillful 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 and concern for her, his offers to help, the influence he would have in her favor 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 in forced waiting, the cause of which he is 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 honor that a Bates woman 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 end of 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, and 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 rather take a peep to 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 a hot, dry August weather. While a point had been made of calling her attention to the extra cover when the room had been shown to 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 Hyrum. 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 police she could make. What Hyrum could 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 a plausible excuse. All of the family had done their schoolwork as perfectly as all work they undertook. If 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 towards 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 post-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 bare-headed down the street on errands. She laid the letter on a small shelf of an old hat-rack, 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 came to realize she was there. Their eyes met in a level look. Mrs. Holt's mouth opened in a ready excuse, but this time Kate's temper overcame her better judgment. Could you read it clearly, without your glasses, she said politely. I wouldn't for the world have you make the 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 downtown, and I want it to go over in the evening-hack, so it will be sure to get out early in the morning. Surprise overcame Mrs. Holt's discomforture. 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 Tursley. Well, I never! All them hundreds of acres of land and money in the bank and mortgages on half his neighbors, what the nation, and no more of better clothes than you got, and teach in school! I never heard of the lack of it in all my life. If you have the 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 tinging her face. I could hate that woman more cordially without half trying, she said. The house was filled with the odor 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, Miss 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, how do you 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 poly-foxing. Grubb 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 a melting tone. Oh, I was feeling so at home, answered Kate suavely. Father and the boys hold exactly those opinions, and practice 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 telling you the whole enduring time that you never get a call unless you practice 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 in to 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 doctoring? I suppose that then you'd take the farm and run it like your paw did, instead of forcing me to sell it off by inches to live, and then you waste in half the money. Got it, mother, said George Holt, rudely. Tell all you know, and then peace 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 into the world. You can humor him, and cook for him, and work your hands to the bone for him, and sell your land, and spend all you can raising and educating him for half a dozen things, and him never sticking to none or paying back ascent, but sassy in your old age. Go it, mother, you're doing fine, said George, if you keep on Miss Bates will want to change her board in 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 the chance. She helped herself to another soda biscuit at a second piece of fried chicken, and calmly began eating them. That's a good idea, said Mrs. Holt. Then why don't you practice it? said her son. Thereupon began a childish battle for the last word. Kate calmly rose, 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, dunder-headed 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. And who could blame her? Don't you know who she is? Ain't your sense in your head? If there was ever a girl you ought to go after, and go quick and hard, there she is. What? That big beef? What for? asked George. You idiot! You idiot! Don't you sense that she's the daughter of Adam Bates? Him they call the land-king? Ain't your sense in her reason? Drive her from the house, will you? And me rely on on sending your half-her-board-money to help you out? You fool! Why 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 just before supper. I got it from a letter she wrote to her brother. I'd no chance to tell you. Corsa meant to. First chance to head. But you go to work and upset everything before I get a chance to. You never did amount to anything, and you never will. Oh, well. Now stop that. I didn't know. I thought she was just some 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 this 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 bore. 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. But 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 quarreling petally 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 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. She heaved a deep sigh of relief, and went to wash the dishes and plan breakfast. Better feed her up pretty well till she gets the habit of staying here, and maybe the rest who takes borders will be full, she said to herself. I am enough to go at skimping when she gets settled and busy, and 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, an 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 his own devices for days, 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 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 back of the ravine, with a background of delicately-leaved bushes in 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 in her convictions. While on closer study, he decided that she was molded on the finest physical lines of any woman he had ever 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 set as much an apology as he felt forced, and then set himself to the task of calling out and parading the level best he could think up concerning himself, or life in general. He 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 which 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 written 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 which the human flesh is air, 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 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 trading mental and muscular troubles. He was going to be a zoonoletic doctor. He turned teacher and spelled it for her, because she never had heard the word. Kate looked at George Holt with 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 maneuvered 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 downtown who would know, so he would never ask her at will. 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. This 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. Kate was a glowing prospect, so glowing that he seriously considered stopping school at once so that he could be at the courting part of his campaign three times a day and every evening. He was afraid to leave for fear of people in 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, he 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 on the front walk replaced. She borrowed buckets and clothes 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 overruled the proxy objections he so kindly offered her. She was so 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 their 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 leconically, 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 looked 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 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 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 every day of my life. As the villagers sauntered past and watched the work of the new teacher, many of them thought of things they could do that would improve their premises greatly. And a few went home and began work of a like nature. They made their neighbor's places look so unkept 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 the 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 a civic improvement. George Holt leaned against a tree-trunk and looked down at her as she rested. Do you suppose there is such a thing as ever making anything out of this? He asked, A perfectly lovely 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's worth ten cents. Cheering, it's 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 of it was mine. I sold off all I could to Jasper Lin to add to his farm, but he would only buy two 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 never paid them. He said carelessly. Then don't be so 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 Allen, 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 that I hadn't been away from the house. So Father believed him. He said that he wanted the money to add two acres to his land from the Sims place. That would let down his stock to water, on the far side of the 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 baits teaches the school, it makes my word good. So Hiram is going to teach for me. He is brushing up a little knights, 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 see him, if you ever come to Hartley. He is there in his new 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 this house again. One 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 and see us as soon as we get our home. Life 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, then tearing it in long strips she crossed toward 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, Ah ha! Miss Smart Alec has a secret. Chapter 7 of A Daughter of the Land. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Veronica Jenkins. A Daughter of the Land by Jean Stratton Porter. Chapter 7 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 favor that during the coming year whenever anyone showed signs of criticizing 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 that 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 favor of you, he said. Granted, left 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 a 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. I've 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 find so far as the school goes, I don't particularly like the woman I board with. Your son is some better, yes, he is much better. And Robert, what is a zonaletic 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. No, I'm 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 and him friends? Mrs. Holt had followed down the hall eagerly waiting in the doorway. Kate glanced at her and felt sudden pity. The poor 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 Allen next Tuesday. Kate understood the indistinct gurgle she heard to be approving, so she added, She 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 goodbye, left the house. As they drove toward Hartley, I'm anxious to see her house, said Kate. Did you find one in a good neighborhood? The very best, I think, said the doctor. That is all one could offer Nancy Allen. 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 cheesecloth 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 Allen. So Kate spent several happy days setting Nancy Allen'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 her 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 Allen as soon afterward as possible. Kate saw them drive to the gate and come up the walk together. As they entered the door, Nancy Allen 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 Allen's clear voice called, Kate, Kate, where are you? Nobody else could 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 Allen 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. Immediately afterward he said, There is a fine show in town tonight and I have three tickets. Let's all go. Let's eat before we go, said Nancy Allen. 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 theater, 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 Allen 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 Allen insisted on wiping the dishes while Robert carried them to the cupboard. They sat before their fireplace and talked over events since the sisters separation. Nancy Allen told about getting ready for her wedding, life at home, the school, the news of the family. Then 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 Allen, 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'd 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 Allen 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 Allen, 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's sake,' she cried as she panted down the hall. I've got a good one on that impotent hussy 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 than snakes. If it won't for her money, I'd fix her so's that she'd never marry you and 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. Tillie Nepple has a sister living near the Bates, who worked in the kitchen. She's visiting at Tillie's now. Miss High and Mighty never seen her sister married at all. And it looked mighty queer her coming here a week ahead of time in the fall. Looks like she'd done something she don't dare go home. No wonder she tears every scrap of mail she gets to ripens and 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. Now you come with this. Shut it up. Don't let her get wind of it for the world.' And Tillie Nepple's sister says old land king Bates never give his daughter a cent, and he never give none of his girls a cent. It's up to the men they marry to take care of them. The old skinflint. What you want to do is go long to your schooling. If you really are going to make something of yourself at last, and let that big strap of a girl be duped, now stop,' shouted George Holt, senting out of the 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 had an assent. If I can't take care of her, she can take care of me. I am crazy about her, and I'm going to have her, so you keep still and 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, Tillie Neppel's sisters say you wasn't at your sister's wedding at all. Did you cry because 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 in-fair 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 18 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 in a special favor, 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 gilded-edge 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. You're staying there with him, commented Mrs. Holt. Fortunately the people of Hartley seem reasonably busy attending their own affairs, said Kate. Dr. 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 an even dollars and cents, said Kate. Nancy Allen 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 fervor. Home, matter of months, said Kate. Well, when I have had that much time I will tell you what I think about it. End of Chapter 7. Recording by Veronica Jenkins, Ottawa, Illinois. Chapter 8 of A Daughter of the Land. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bridget Gage. A Daughter of the Land by Jean Stratt and Porter. Chapter 8. The History of a Likehorn 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 teacher's 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 the 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 a hat on Kate's gold 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's very reasonable. We haven't to find her 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 Weldon 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 workroom, and when she walked up behind Kate, who sat waiting before the mirror, and carefully set the hat on her head, and 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 Weldon 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 Catherine Eleanor Bates, she said, Bates Corners Hartley, Indiana. Please call my carriage. The milliner left Hartley. Bates, the spirit of seventy-six, she commended. I'd be willing to wager something worthwhile 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. Grace 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 color. I didn't know you. Why, I never saw you walk that way before. You wouldn't expect me to plot 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 color, with the black bow at her throat, the new hat in a band box, 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 passed, 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 bathe's 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 anyone would criticize 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 chance? 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 would never have any part. You get your knocks taking the wings of the 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 braid 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 can't 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. In one second she paused to watch the gal sweeping the fields. The next, a twitch at her hair, caused her to throw her her hands and clutch wildly at nothing. She sprang to the step-rallying 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 a 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 band-box, 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 anyone 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 passively 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 day loose that left her breathless and exhausted. When she finally set up, she found the room so close, she gently opened her door and peeped into the hall. There was a door opening on and outside Veranda, burning 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 and 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, listened 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 offhand way, "'It's only a squalemarm rooming next to you. If you're ill, could I get anything for you?' "'Will you please come in?' asked a muffled voice. Kate turned to 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, dressed in 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 and 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 shoulders 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 Suzette! How could she?' The clothing Kate had removed from the woman had been a 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. Well 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 Suzette, 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, intense 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. Even 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 sweet among the women and men who are teaching our young people so wonderfully. Ants 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 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 businessman 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 a loan, and the 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-breaches, 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 sickled 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. Why, you dear girl, she cried, your face is all tear-stained, you've been crying yourself. Roaring in a pillow, admitted Kate. But my dear, forgive me, I was so upset with that dreadful woman. Forgive me for not having seen that you too are in trouble. Won't you please tell me? Of course, said Kate, I lost my new hat. But my dear, crying over a hat, when it is so easy to get another. How foolish! said the woman. Yes, but you didn't see the hat, said Kate, and it will be far from easy to get another, with this one not paid for yet. I'm only one season removed from sun-bonnets, so I never should have bought it at all. The woman moved in bed, and taking one of Kate's long, crinkly braids, she drew the wealth of gold through her fingers repeatedly. Tell me about your hat, she said. So to humor this fragile woman, and keep from thinking of her own trouble, Kate told the story of her leghorn hat and ostrich plume, and many things besides, for she was not her usual terse self with her new friend, who had to be soothed to forgetfulness. Kate ended. I was all wrong to buy such a hat in the first place. I couldn't afford it. It was foolish vanity. I'm not really good-looking. I shouldn't have flattered myself that I was. Losing it before it was paid for was just good for me. For again will I be so foolish. Why, my dear, don't say such things, or think them, chided the little woman. You had as good a right to a becoming hat as any girl. Now let me ask you one question, and then I'll try to sleep. You said you were a teacher. Did you come here to attend the summer school for teachers? Yes, said Kate. Would it make any great difference to you if you missed a few days? She asked. Not in the least, said Kate. Well, then, you won't be offended, will you, if I ask you to remain with me, and take care of me until John comes? I could send him a message to-night that I am alone, and bring him by this time tomorrow, but I know he has business that will cause him to lose money should he leave, and I was so willful about coming. I dread to prove him right so conclusively the very first day. That door opens into a room reserved for Suzette, if only you'd take it, and leave the door unclosed to-night. And if only you would stay with me until John comes, I could well afford to pay you enough to lengthen your stay as long as you'd like, and it makes me so happy to be with such a fresh young creature. Will you stay with me, my dear? I certainly will, said Kate heartily, if you only tell me what I should do. I'm not accustomed to rich ladies, you know. I'm not myself, said the little woman, but I do seem to take to being waited upon with the most remarkable facility. CHAPTER VIII