 CHAPTER IX With the first faint light of morning, Kate slipped to the door to find her charge still sleeping soundly. It was eight o'clock when she heard a movement in the adjoining room, and went again to the door. This time the woman was awake, and smilingly waved to Kate as she called, Good morning, come right in. I was wondering if you were regretting your hasty bargain. Not a bit of it, laughed Kate. I am here waiting to be told what to do first. I forgot to tell you my name last night. It is Kate Bates. I am from Bates Corners, Hartley, Indiana. The woman held out her hand. I am so very glad to meet you, Miss Bates, she said. My name is Mariette Jardine. My home is in Chicago. The chakans smiling at each other, and then Kate said, Now Mrs. Jardine, what shall I do for you first? I will be dressed, I think, and then you may bring up the manager until I have an understanding with him, and give him a message I want sent, and an order for our breakfast. I wonder if it wouldn't be nice to have it served on the corner of the veranda, in front of our rooms, under the shade of that big tree. I think that would be famous, said Kate. They ate together under the spreading branches of a giant maple tree, where they could see into the nest of an oriole that brooded in a long purse of gray lint, and white cotton cord. They could almost reach out and touch it. The breakfast was good, nicely served by a neat maid, evidently doing something so out of the ordinary that she was rather stunned. But she was a young person of some self-possession. For when she removed the tray, Mrs. Jardine thanked her, and gave her a coin, that brought a smiling, Thank you very much. If you want your dinner served here, and we'll ask for Jenny weeks, I'd like to wait on you again. Thank you, said Mrs. Jardine. I shall remember that. I don't like changing waiters each meal. It gives them no chance to learn what I want or how I want it. Then she and Kate slowly walked the length of the veranda several times. While she pointed out parts of the grounds they could see, it remained as she had known them formerly, and what were improvements. When Mrs. Jardine was tired, they returned to the room, and she lay on the bed while they talked of many things, talked of things with which Kate was familiar, and some concerning which she unhesitatingly asked questions until she felt informed. Mrs. Jardine was so dainty, so delicate, yet so full of life, so well informed, so keen mentally. They as she talked she kept Kate chuckling most of the time. She talked of her home life, her travels, her friends, her son. She talked of politics, religion, and education. Then she talked of her son again. She talked of social conditions, civic improvement, and women's rights. Then she came back to her son, until Kate saw that he was the real interest in the world to her. The mental picture she drew of him was peculiar. One minute Mrs. Jardine spoke of him as a man among men, pushing, fighting, forcing matters to work his will. So Kate imagined him tall, broad, and brawny, indefatigable in his undertakings. The next his mother was telling of his thoughtfulness. Such kindness, such loving care that Kate's mental picture shifted to a neat, exacting little man, purely effeminate as men ever can be. But whatever she thought, some right instinct prevented her from making a comment or asking a question. Once she sat looking far across the beautiful lake, with such an expression on her face, that Mrs. Jardine said to her, What are you thinking of, my dear? Kate said smilingly, Oh, I was thinking of what a wonderful school I shall teach this winter. Tell me what you mean, said Mrs. Jardine. Why, with even a month of this, I shall have riches stored for every day of the year. None of my pupils ever saw a lake that I know of. I shall tell them of this with its shining water, its rocky, shady, sandy shorelines, of the rowboats and steamboats, and the people from all over the country. Before I go back, I can tell them of wonderful lectures, concerts, educational demonstrations here. I shall get much from the experiences of other teachers. I shall delight my pupils with just you. In what way, asked Mrs. Jardine, Oh, I shall tell them of a dainty little woman who knows everything. From you I shall teach my girls to be simple, wholesome, tender and kind, to take the gifts of God thankfully, reverently, yet with self-respect. From you I can tell them what really fine fabrics are, and about laces and linens. When the subjects arise, as they always do in teaching, I shall describe each ring you wear, each comb and pin, even the handkerchiefs you carry, and the bags you travel with. To teach means to educate, and it is a big task, but it is almost painfully interesting. Each girl of my school shall go into life a gentler, dainty, or woman, more careful of her person in speech, because of my having met you. Isn't that a fine thought? Why, you darling, cried Mrs. Jardine, Life is always having lovely things in store for me. Yesterday I thought Suzette's leaving me, as she did, was the most cruel thing that ever happened to me. Today I get from it this lovely experience. If you are straight from sunbonnets, as you told me last night, where did you get these advanced ideas? If sunbonnets could speak, many of them would tell of surprising heads they have covered, laughed Kate. Life deals with women much the same as with men. If we go back to where we start, history can prove to you that there are ten sunbonnets to one leg horn hat in the high places of the world. Not to entertain me, but because I am interested, my dear, will you tell me about your particular sunbonnet? asked Mrs. Jardine. Kate sat staring across the Blue Lake with wide eyes, a queer smile twisting her lips. At last she said slowly, Well then, my sunbonnet is in my trunk. I'm not so far away from it, but that it still travels with me. It's blue chambray, made from pieces left from my first pretty dress. It is ruffled, and has white stitching. I made it myself. The head that it fits is another matter. I didn't make that, or its environment, or what was taught it, until it was of age, and had worked out its legal time of service to pay for having been ahead at all. But my head is now free, in my own possession, ready to go as fast and far on the path of life as it develops the brains to carry it. You'd smile if I should tell you what I'd ask of life, if I could have what I want. I scarcely think so. Please tell me. You'll be shocked, warned Kate. Just so it isn't enough to set my heart rocking again, said Mrs. Jardine. We'll stop before that, laughed Kate. Then, if you will have it, I want of life by the time I am twenty, a man of my stature, dark eyes and hair, because I am so light. I want him to be honest, forceful, hard-working, with a few drops of the milk of human kindness in his heart, and the same ambitions I have. And what are your ambitions? asked Mrs. Jardine, to own and to cultivate, and to bring to the highest state of efficiency at least two hundred acres of land, with convenient and attractive buildings and pedigreed stock, and to mother at least twelve perfect physical and mental boys and girls. Oh, my soul! cried Mrs. Jardine, falling back in her chair, her mouth agape. My dear, you don't mean that. You only said that to shock me. But why should I wish to shock you? I sincerely mean it, persisted Kate. You amazing creature! I never heard a girl talk like that before, said Mrs. Jardine. But you can't look straight ahead of you any direction you turn without seeing a girl working for dear life to attract the man she wants. If she can't secure him, some other man, and in lieu of him, any man at all, in preference to none. Life shows us women on the age-old quest every day, everywhere we go. Why be so secretive about it? Why not say honestly what we want, and take it if we can get it? At any rate, that is the most important thing inside my son, Bonnet. I knew you'd be shocked. But I am not shocked at what you say. I agree with you. What I am shocked at is your ideals. I thought you'd want to educate yourself to such superiority over common women that you could take the platform and, backed by your splendid physique, work for suffrage or lecture to educate the masses. I think more could be accomplished with selected specimens by being steadily on the job than by giving an hour to masses. I'm not much interested in masses. They are too abstract for me. I prefer one stern reality. And as for women's rights, if anybody gives this woman the right to do anything more than she already has the right to do, there will surely be a scandal. Mrs. Dardine lay back in her chair, laughing. You are the most refreshing person I have met in all my travels. Then to put it boldly, you want of life a man, a farm, and a family. You comprehend me beautifully, said Kate. All my life I've worked like a tow-head to help earn two hundred acres of land for someone else. I think there's nothing I want so much as two hundred acres of land for myself. I'd undertake to do almost anything with it, if I had it. I know I could, if I had the shoulder-to-shoulder, real man. You notice it will take considerable of a man to touch shoulders with me. I'm a-head taller than most of them. Mrs. Dardine looked at her speculatively. Mmm! she murmured. Kate laughed. For eighteen years I have been under marching orders, said Kate. Over a year ago I was advised by a minister to take the wings of the morning. So I took wing. I started on one grand flight, and fell cur smash, in short order. Life since has been a series of battering my wings, until I have almost decided to buy some especially heavy boots, and walk the remainder of the way. As a concrete example, I started out yesterday morning wearing a hat that several very reliable parties assured me would so assist me to that flight, that I might at least have a carriage. Where? Oh, where are my hat and my carriage now? The carriage, non-est. The hat. I'm humbly hoping, some little country girl, who has lived a life as bare in his mind, will find the remains and retrieve the velvet bow for a hair-ridden. As for the man that like horn hat was supposed to symbolize, he won't even look my way when I appear in my bobby little sailor. He's as badly crushed out of existence as my beautiful hat. You never should have been wearing such a hat to travel in, my dear, murmured Mrs. Jardine. Certainly not, said Kate. I knew it. My sister told me that. Common Sense told me that. But what has that got to do with the fact that I was wearing the hat? I guess I have you there. Far from it, said Mrs. Jardine, if you were going to start out in life, calmly ignoring the advice of those who love you and the dictates of Common Sense, the result will be that soon the wheels of life will be grinding you, instead of a train making bag rags of your hat. Hmm! said Kate. There is food for a reflection there. But wasn't it plain logic that if the hat was to bring the man, it should be worn where any minute he might see it? But my dear, my dear, if such a man as a woman like you should have had seen you wearing that hat in the morning on a railway train, he would merely have thought you prideful and extravagant. You would have been far more attractive to any man I know in your blue sun bonnet. I surely have learned that lesson, said Kate, hereafter, sailors or sun bonnets for me in the morning. Now what may I do to add to your comfort? Leave me for an hour until I take a nap, and then we'll have lunch and go to a lecture. I can go to-day perfectly well after an hour's rest. So Kate went for a very interesting walk around the grounds. When she returned Mrs. Jardine was still sleeping, so she wrote Nancy Ellen, telling all about her adventure, but not a word about losing her hat. Then she had a talk with Jenny Weeks, whom she found lingering in the hall near her door. When at last that nap was over, a new woman seemed to have developed. Mrs. Jardine was so refreshed and interested the remainder of the day, that it was easier than before for Kate to see how shocked and ill she had been. As she helped dress her for lunch, Kate said to Mrs. Jardine, I met the manager as I was going to post a letter to my sister, so I asked him always to send you the same waiter. He said he would, and I'd like you to pay particular attention to her appearance and the way she does her work. Why? asked Mrs. Jardine. I met her in the hall as I came back from posting my letter, so we visited a little, as the country folks say. She has taught one winter of country school, a small school in and out county. She's here waiting table two hours three times a day to pay for her room and board. In the meantime, she attends all the sessions and studies as much as she can. But she's very poor material for a teacher. I pity her pupils. She's a little thing, bright enough in her own way, but she has not much initiative, not strong enough for the work, and she has not got enough spunk. She'll never lead the minds of school children anywhere that will greatly benefit them. And your deduction is? that she would make you a kind, careful, obedient maid, who is capable enough to be taught to wash your hair and manicure you with deftness, and who would serve you for respect as well as hire. I think it would be a fine arrangement for you and good for her. This surely is kind of you, said Mrs. Jardine. I'll keep strict watch of Jenny Weeks. If I could find a really capable maid here and not have to wire John to bring one, I'd be so glad. It does so go against the grain to prove to a man that he has a right to be more conceited than he is naturally. As they ate lunch, Kate said to Mrs. Jardine, I noticed one thing this morning that is going to be bombed to my soul. I passed many teachers and summer resortors going to the lecture halls and coming from them, and half of them were bare-headed, so my state will not be remarkable until I can get another hat. God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform, laughingly quoted Mrs. Jardine. You thought losing that precious hat was a calamity, but if you hadn't lost it, you probably would have slept soundly while I died across the hall. My life is worth the price of a whole millinery shop to me. I think you value the friendship we are developing. I foresee I shall get a maid who will not disgrace me in public. You will have a full summer here. Now truly, isn't all this worth many hats? Of course, it's like a fairytale, said Kate. Still, you didn't see the hat. But you described it in a truly graphic manner, said Mrs. Jardine. When I am the snowiest of great-grandmothers, I shall still be telling small people about the outcome of my first attempt at vanity, laughed Kate. The third morning dawned in great beauty. A misty, moisty morning, Mrs. Jardine called it. The sun tried to shine, but could not quite pierce the intervening clouds. So on every side could be seen exquisite pictures painted in delicate pastel colors. Kate, fresh and rosy, wearing a blue chambray dress, was a picture well worth seeing. Mrs. Jardine kept watching her so closely that Kate asked at last, Have you made up your mind yet? No, and I'm afraid I never shall, answered Mrs. Jardine. You are rather an astonishing creature. You're so big, so vital, you absorb knowledge like a sponge takes water. And for the same purpose, laughed Kate, that it may be used for the benefit of others. Tell me some more about me. I find me such an interesting subject. No doubt, admitted Mrs. Jardine, no doubt about that. We are all more interested in ourselves than in anyone else in this world. Until love comes, then we soon learn to love a man more than life, and when a child comes we learn another love, so clear, so high, so purifying, that we become of no moment at all, and live only for those we love. You speak for yourself, and a class of women like you, answered Kate gravely. I'm very well acquainted with many women who have married and born children, and who are possibly more selfish than before. The great experience never touched them at all. There was a tap at the door. Kate opened it, and delivered to Mrs. Jardine a box so big that it almost blocked the doorway. Mrs. Jardine lifted from the box a big lug-horn hat of weave so white and fine it almost seemed like woven cloth instead of braid. There was a bow in front, but the bow was nested in and tied through a web of flowered gold lace. One velvet end was slightly long, and concealed a wire which lifted one side of the brim of trifle, beneath which was fashioned a smashing big pale pink velvet rose. There was an ostrich plume even longer than the other, broader, blacker, as wonderful a feather as ever dropped from the plumage of a lordly bird. Mrs. Jardine shook the hat in such a way as to set the feather lifting and waving after the confinement of the box. With slender, sure fingers, she set the bow and lace as they should be, and touched the petals of the rose. She inspected the hat closely, shook it again, and held it toward Kate. A very small price to pay for the breath of life, which I was rapidly losing, she said. Do me the favor to accept it as casually as I offer it. Did I understand your description anywhere near right? Is this your hat? Thank you, said Kate. It is just the speaking image of my hat, but it's a glorified, subliminated, celestial image. What I described was merely a hat. This is what I think I have lately heard Nancy Ellen mention as a creation. Woo! She went to the mirror, arranged her hair, set the hat on her head, and turned. Gracious Heaven! said Mrs. Jardine. My dear, I understand now why you wore that hat on your journey. I wore that hat, said Kate, as an ascension stock wears its crown of white lilies, as a bobble-link wears its snowy courting-crest, as a bride wears her veil. But please, take this from me to-night, lest I sleep in it. That night Mrs. Jardine felt tired enough to propose resting in her room, with Jenny weeks where she could be called. So for the first time Kate left her, and downing her best white dress in the hat, attended a concert. At its close she walked back to the hotel, with some of the other teachers stopping there, talked a few minutes in the hall, went to the office desk for mail, and slowly ascended the stairs, thinking intently. What she thought was, if I am not mistaken, my hat did a small bit of execution tonight. She stepped to her room to lock the door, and stopped a few minutes to arrange the clothing she had discarded when she dressed hurriedly before going to the concert. Then the letters in her hand, she opened Mrs. Jardine's door. A few minutes before, there had been a tap on that same door. "'Come in,' said Mrs. Jardine, expecting Kate or Jenny weeks. She slowly lifted her eyes, and faced a tall, slender man standing there. "'John Jardine, what in the world are you doing here?' she demanded, after the manner of mothers. And what in this world has happened to you?' "'Does it show on me like that?' he stammered. "'Was your train in a wreck? Are you in trouble?' she asked. Something shows plainly enough, but I don't understand what it is.' "'Are you all right, mother?' he advanced a step, looking intently at her. "'Of course I'm all right. You can see that for yourself. The question is, what's the matter with you?' "'If you will have it, there is something the matter. Since I saw you last, I have seen a woman I want to marry. That's all, unless I add that I want her so badly that I haven't much sense left. Now you have it.' "'No, I don't have it. And I won't have it. What designing creature has been trying to intrigue you now?' she demanded. "'Not anyone. She didn't see me even. I saw her. I've been following her for nearly two hours, instead of coming straight to you, as I always have. So you see where I am. I expect you won't forgive me. But since I'm here, you must know that I could only come on the evening train.' He crossed the room, note beside the chair, and took it and its contents in his arms. "'Are you going to scold me?' he asked. "'I am,' she said, "'I am going to take you out and push you into the deepest part of the lake. I am so disappointed. Why, John, for the first time in my life I've selected a girl for you, the very most suitable girl I ever saw, and I hoped and hoped for three days that when you came you'd like her. Of course I wasn't so rash as to say a word to her. But I've thought myself into a state where I'm going to be sick with disappointment. But wait, mother, wait until I can manage to meet the girl I've seen. Wait until I have a chance to show her to you,' he begged. "'I suppose I shall be forced,' she said. I've always dreaded it. Now here it comes. Oh, why couldn't it have been Kate? Why did she go to that silly concert? If only I'd kept her here, and we'd walked down to the station. I'd half a mind, too.' Then the door opened, and Kate stepped into the room. She stood still, looking at them. John Jardine stood up, looking at her. His mother sat staring at them in turn. Kate recovered first. "'Please excuse me,' she said. She laid the letters on a small table, and turned to go. John caught his mother's hand closer, when he found himself holding it. "'If you know the young lady, mother,' he said, "'why don't you introduce us?' "'Oh, I was so bewildered by your coming,' she said. "'Kate, dear, let me present my son.' Kate crossed the room, and looking straight into each other's eyes, they shook hands, and found chairs. "'How was your concert, my dear?' asked Mrs. Jardine. "'I don't think it was very good,' said Kate. "'Not at all, up to my expectations.' "'How did you like it, Mr. Jardine?' "'Was that a concert?' he asked. "'It was supposed to be,' said Kate. "'Thank you for the information,' he said. "'I didn't see it. I didn't hear it. I don't know where I was.' "'That is most astonishing,' said Kate. Mrs. Jardine looked at her son. Her eyes two big, imperative question marks. He nodded slightly. My soul, she cried, then lay back in her chair, half laughing, half crying, until Kate feared she might have another attack of heart trouble. End of CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. 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. A Daughter of the Land by Jean Stratton Porter. CHAPTER X. John Jardine's Courtship. The following morning they breakfasted together under the branches of the big maple tree in a beautiful world. Mrs. Jardine was so happy she could only taste a bite now and then when urged to. Kate was trying to keep her head level and be natural. John Jardine wanted to think of everything and succeeded fairly well. It seemed to Kate that he could invent more ways to spend money and spend it with freer hand than any man she ever had heard of, but she had to confess that the men she had heard about were concerned with keeping their money, not scattering it. Did you hear unusual sounds when John came to bid me good night, asked Mrs. Jardine of Kate? Yes, laughed Kate I did, and I'm sure I made a fairly accurate guess as to the cause. What did you think? asked Mrs. Jardine. I thought Mr. Jardine had missed Suzette and you'd had to tell him, said Kate. You're quite right. It's a good thing she went on and lost herself in New York. I'm not at all sure that he doesn't contemplate starting out to find her yet. Let Suzette go, said Kate. We're interested in forgetting her. There's a little country school teacher here who wants to take her place, and it will be the very thing for your mother and for her too. She's the one serving us. Notice her in particular. If she's a teacher, how does she come to be serving us? He asked. I'm a teacher. How do I come to be dining with you? said Kate. This is such a queer world when you go adventuring in it. Jenny had a small school in and out county, a widowed mother, and a big family to help support. So she figured that the only way she could come here to try to prepare herself for a better school was to work for her room and board. She serves the table two hours, three times a day, and studies between times. She tells me that almost every waiter in the dining hall is a teacher. Please watch her movements and manner, and see if you think her suitable. Goodness knows she isn't intended for a teacher. I like her very much, said John Jardine. I'll engage her as soon as we finish. Kate smiled, but when she saw the ease and dexterity with which she ended Jenny Week's work as a waiter and installed her as his mother's maid, making the least detail all right with his mother, with Jenny, with the manager, she realized that there had been nothing for her to smile about. Jenny was delighted and began her new undertaking earnestly, with sincere desire to please. Kate helped her all she could, while Mrs. Jardine developed a fund of patience, commensurate with the need of it. She would have endured more inconvenience than resulted from Jenny's inexperienced hands because of the realization that her son and the girl she had so quickly learned to admire were on the lake, rambling the woods, or hearing lectures together. When she asked him how long he could remain, he said as long as she did. When she explained that she was enjoying herself thoroughly and had no idea how long she would want to stay, he said that was all right. He had only had one vacation in his life. It was time he was having another. When she marveled at this, he said, Now look here, mother, let's get this business straight, right at the start. I told you when I came I'd seen the woman I wanted. If you want me to go back to business, the way to do it is to help me win her. But I don't want you to go back to business. I want you to have a long vacation and learn all you can from the educational advantages here. It's too late for me to learn more than I get every day by knocking around and meeting people. I've tried books two or three times, and I've given them up. I can't do it. I've waited too long. I've no way to get down to it. I can't remember to save my soul. But you can remember anything on earth about a business deal, she urged. Of course I can. I was born with a business head. It was remember or starve, and see you starve. If I'd had the books at the time they would have helped, now it's too late, and I'll never try it again. That's settled. Much as I want to marry Miss Bates, she'll have to take me or leave me as I am. I can't make myself over for her or for you. I would if I could, but that's one of the things I can't do, and I admit it. If I'm not good enough for her as I am, she'll have the chance to tell me so, the very first minute I think it's proper to ask her. John, you are good enough for the best woman on earth. There never was a better lad. It isn't that and you know it. I am so anxious that I can scarcely wait. But you must wait. You must give her time and go slowly. And you must be careful. Oh, so very careful. She's a teacher and a student. She came here to study. I'll fix that. I can rush things, so that there'll be no time to study. You'll make a mistake if you try it. You'd far better let her go her own way, and only appear when she has time for you, she advised. That's a fine idea, he cried. A lot of ice-eyed cut, sitting back waiting for a signal to run after a girl, like a poodle. The way to do is the same as with any business deal. See what you want? Overcome anything in your way, and get it. I'd go crazy hanging around like that. You've always told me I couldn't do the things in business, I said I would. And I've always proved to you that I could, by doing them. Now watch me do this. You know I'll do anything to help you, John. You know how proud I am of you, how I love you. I realize now that I've talked volumes to Kate about you. I've told her everything from the time you were a little boy, and I slaved for you, until now, when you slaved for me." Including how many terms I'd gone to school? Yes, I even told her that, she said. Well, what did she seem to think about it? He asked. I don't know what she thought. She didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. It was a bare-handed fight with the wolf in those days. I'm sure I made her understand that, she said. Well, I'll undertake to make her understand this, he said. Are you sure that Jenny Weeks is taking good care of you? Jenny is well enough, and is growing better each day. Now be off to your courting. But if you love me, remember. And be careful, she said. Remember? One particular thing you mean, he asked. She nodded, her lips closed. You bet I will, he said. All there is of me goes into this. Isn't she a wonder-mother? Mrs. Jardine looked closely at the big man who was all the world to her, so like her in mentality, so like his father with his dark hair and eyes and big well-rounded frame, looked at him with the eyes of love. Then as he left her to seek the girl she had learned to love, she shot her eyes, and frankly and earnestly asked the Lord to help her son to marry Kate Bates. One morning, as Kate helped Mrs. Jardine into her coat and gloves, preparing for one of their delightful morning drives, she said to her, Mrs. Jardine, may I ask you a real question? Of course you may, said Mrs. Jardine, and I shall give you a real answer if it lies in my power. You'll be shocked, warned Kate. Shock away, left Mrs. Jardine. By now I flatter myself that I am so accustomed to you that you will have to try yourself to shock me. It's only this, said Kate. If you were a perfect stranger standing back and looking on, not acquainted with any of the parties, merely seeing things as they happen each day, would it be your honest opinion? Would you say that I am being courted? Mrs. Jardine laughed until she was weak. When she could talk, she said, yes, my dear, under the conditions and in the circumstances you mention, I would cheerfully go on oath and testify that you were being courted more openly, more vigorously. And as tenderly as I ever have seen woman courted in all my life, I always thought that John's father was a master hand at courting, but John has him beaten in many ways. Yes, my dear, you are certainly being courted assiduously. Now, then, on that basis, said Kate, just one more question, and we'll proceed with our drive. From the same standpoint, would you say from your observation and experience that the mother of the man had any insurmountable objection to the proceedings? Mrs. Jardine laughed again. Finally she said, no, my dear, it's my firm conviction that the mother of the man in the case would be so delighted if you should love and marry her son that she would probably have a final attack of heart trouble and pass away from sheer joy. Thank you, said Kate. I wasn't perfectly sure, having had no experience whatever, and I didn't want to make a mistake. That drive was wonderful, over beautiful country roads, through dells, and across streams and hills. They stopped where they pleased, gathering flowers and early apples, visiting with people they met, lunching wherever they happened to be. If it weren't for wishing to hear John A. Logan tonight, said Kate, I'd move that we drive on all day. I certainly am having the grandest time. She sat with her sailor hat filled with early harvest apples, a big bunch of Canadian anemones in her belt, a little stream at her feet, July drowsy fullness all around her, congenial companions, taking the wings of mourning, paid after all. Why do you want to hear him so much? asked John. Kate looked up at him in wonder. Don't you want to see and hear him? she asked. He hesitated, a thoughtful expression on his face. Finally he said, I can't say that I do. Will you tell me why I should? You should, because he was one of the men who did much to preserve our union. He may tell us interesting things about the war. Where were you when it was the proper time for you to be studying the speech of Logan's ancestor in McGuffey's fourth? That must have been the year I figured out the improving coupling pin in the CNW shops. Wouldn't you think, mother? Somewhere near, my dear, she said. So they drove back as happily as they had set out, made themselves fresh, and while awaiting the lecture hour, Kate again wrote to Robert and Nancy Ellen, telling plainly and simply all that had occurred. She even wrote, John Jardine's mother is of the opinion that he is courting me. I am so lacking in experience myself that I scarcely dare venture an opinion, but it has at times appealed to me that if he isn't really, he certainly must be going through the motions. Nancy Ellen wrote, I have read over what you say about John Jardine several times. Then I had Robert write Bread Streets and look him up. He is rated so high that if he hasn't a million right now, he soon will have. You be careful and do your level best. Are your clothes good enough? Shall I send more of my things? You know I'll do anything to help you. Oh yes, that George Holt from your boarding place was here the other day hunting you. He seemed to determine to know where you were and when you would be back and asked for your address. I didn't think you had any time for him and I couldn't endure him or his foolish talk about a new medical theory. So I said you'd no time for writing and we're going about so much. I had no idea if you'd get a letter if he sent one and I didn't give him what he wanted. He'll probably try general delivery, but you can drop it in the lake. I want you to be sure to change your boarding place this winter if you teach, but I haven't an idea you will. Hadn't you better bring matters to a close if you can and let the director know? Love from us both, Nancy Ellen. Kate sat very still, holding this letter in her hand when John Jardine came up and sat beside her. She looked at him closely. He was quite as good looking as his mother thought him in a brawny, masculine way. But Kate was not seeking the last word in mental or physical refinement. She was rather brawny herself and perfectly aware of the fact. She wanted intensely to learn all she could. She disliked the idea that any woman should have more stored in her head than she, but she had no time to study minute social graces and customs. She wanted to be kind, to be polite, but she told Mrs. Jardine flatly she didn't give a flip about being overly nice, which was the exact truth. That required subtleties beyond Kate's depth, for she was at times alarmingly casual. So she held her letter and thought about John Jardine. As she thought, she decided that she did not know whether she was in love with him or not. She thought she was. She liked being with him. She liked all he did for her. She would miss him if he went away. She would be proud to be his wife. But she did wish that he were interested in land instead of inventions and stocks and bonds. Stocks and bonds were almost as evanescent as rainbows to Kate. Land was something she could understand and handle. Maybe she could interest him in land. If she could, that would be ideal. What a place his wealth would buy and fit up. She wondered, as she studied John Jardine, what was in his head? If he truly intended to ask her to be his wife. And since reading Nancy Ellen's letter, when? She should let the trustee know if she were not going to teach the school again. But some way, she rather wanted to teach the school. When she started anything, she did not know how to stop until she finished. She had so much she wanted to teach her pupils the coming winter. Suddenly, John asked, Kate, if you could have anything you wanted, what would you have? 200 acres of land, she said. How easy, laughed John, rising to find a seat for his mother who was approaching them. What do you think of that, mother? A girl who wants 200 acres of land more than anything else in the world. What is better? asked Mrs. Jardine. I never heard you say anything about land before. Certainly not, said his mother. And I'm not saying anything about it now for myself. But I can see why it means so much to Kate, why it's her natural element. While I can't, he said, I meet many men in business who started on land and most of them were mighty glad to get away from it. What's the attraction? Kate waved her hand toward the distance. Oh, merely sky and land and water and trees and birds and flowers and fruit and crops and a few other things scarcely worth mentioning, she said lightly. I'm not in the mood to talk bushels, seed and fertilization just now, but I understand them, they are in my blood. I think possibly the reason I want 200 acres of land for myself is because I've been hard on the job of getting them for other people ever since I began to work at about the age of four. But if you want land personally, why didn't you work to get it for yourself? Asked John Jardine. Because I happened to be the omega of my father's system, answered Kate. Mrs. Jardine looked at her interestingly. She had never mentioned her home or parents before. The older woman did not intend to ask a word, but if Kate was going to talk, she did not want to miss one. Kate evidently was going to talk, for she continued, you see, my father is land mad and son crazy. He thinks a boy of all the importance in the world, a girl of none, whatever. He has the biggest family of anyone we know. From birth, each girl is worked like a man, or a slave, from four in the morning until nine at night. Each boy's worked exactly the same way. The difference lies in the fact that the girls get plain food and plainer clothes out of it. The boys each get 200 acres of land, buildings and stock, that the girls have been worked to the limit to help pay for. They get nothing personally worth mentioning. I think I have 200 acres of land on the brain, and I think this is the explanation of it. It's a prenatal influence at our house, while we nurse, eat, sleep, and above all, work it afterward. She paused and looked toward Jardine calmly. I think, she said, that there's not a task ever performed on a farm that I haven't had my share in. I have plowed, hod, seeded, driven reapers and bound wheat, pitched hay and hulled manure, chopped wood and sheared sheep and boiled sap. If you can mention anything else, go ahead. I bet a dollar I've done it. Well, what do you think of that? He muttered, looking at her wonderingly. If you ask me and want the answer in plain words, I think it's a shame, said Kate. If it were 100 acres of land and the girls had as much and were as willing to work it as the boys are, well and good. But to drive us like cattle and turn all we earn into land for the boys is another matter. I rebelled last summer, borrowed the money and went to normal and taught last winter. I'm going to teach again this winter, but last summer and this are the first of my life that I haven't been in the harvest fields at this time. Woman in the harvest fields of land king baits are common as men and wagons and horses, but not nearly so much considered. The woman always walk on Sunday to save the horses and often on weekdays. Mother hasn't hammered into me that it isn't polite to ask questions, said John, but I'd like to ask one. Go ahead, said Kate, ask 50, what do I care? How many boys are there in your family? There are seven, said Kate, and if you want to use them as a basis for a land estimate, add 250 for the home place. 1650 is what father pays taxes on besides the numerous mortgages and investments. He's the richest man in the county we live in. At least he pays the most taxes. Mother and son looked at each other in silence. They had been thinking her so poor that she would be bewildered by what they had to offer, but if 200 acres of land were her desire, there was a possibility that she was a woman who was not asking either ease or luxury of life and would refuse it if it were proffered. I hope you will take me home with you and let me see all that land and how it is handled, said John Jardine. I don't own an acre. I never even have thought of it, but there is no reason why I, or any member of my family, shouldn't have all the land they want. Mother, do you feel a wild desire for 200 acres of land, same kind of a desire that took you to come here? No, I don't, said Mrs. Jardine. All I know about land is that I know it when I see it and I know if I think it's pretty, but I can see why Kate feels that she would like that amount for herself after having helped earn all those farms for her brothers. If it's land she wants, then I hope she speedily gets all she desires in whatever location she wants it. And then I hope she lets me come to visit her and watch her do as she likes with it. Surely, said Kate, you are invited right now. As soon as I ever get the land, I'll give you another invitation. And of course you may go home with me, Mr. Jardine, and I'll show each of you what father calls those little parcels of land of mine. But the one he lives on, we shall have to gaze at from afar, because I'm a practical daughter. When I would leave home in spite of him for the gay and riotous life of a schoolmarm, he ordered me to take all my possessions with me, which I did in one small telescope. I was not to enter his house again while he lived. I was glad to go, he was glad to have me, while I don't think either of us has changed our mindsets. Teaching school isn't exactly gay, but I'll fill my tummy with quite a lot of symbolical husks before he'll kill the fatted calf for me. They'll be glad to see you at my brother Adams, and my sister Nancy Ellen would greatly enjoy meeting you. Surely you may go home with me if you'd like. I can think of only one thing I'd like better, he said. We've been such good friends here, and had such a good time. It would be the thing I'd like best to take you home with us, and show you where and how we live. Mother, did you ever invite Kate to visit us? I have often, and she has said that she would, replied Mrs. Jardine. I think it would be nice for her to go from here with us, and then you can take her home whenever she fails to find us interesting. How would that suit you for a plan, my dear? I think that would be a perfect ending to a perfect summer, said Kate. I can't see any objection in any way. Thank you very much. Then we'll call that settled, said John Jardine. End of chapter 10. Chapter 11 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 Stratton Porter. Chapter 11. A Business Proposition. Mid-August saw them on their way to Chicago. Kate had taken care of Mrs. Jardine a few days while Jenny Weeks went home to see her mother and arrange for her new work. She had no intention of going back to school teaching. She preferred to brush Mrs. Jardine's hair, button her shoes, write her letters, and read to her. In a month, Jenny had grown so deft at her work and made herself so appreciated that she was practically indispensable to the elderly woman, and therefore the greatest comfort to John. Immediately he saw that his mother was properly cared for, sympathetically, and even lovingly. He made it his business to smooth Jenny's path in every way possible. In turn, she studied him and in many ways made herself useful to him. Often she looked at him with large and speculative eyes as he sat reading letters or papers or smoking. The world was all right with Kate when they crossed the sand dunes as they neared the city. She was sorry about the situation in her home, but she smiled sardonically as she thought how soon her father would forget his anger when he heard about the city home and the kind of farm she could have merely by consenting to take it. She was that sure of John Jardine, yet he had not asked her to marry him. He had seemed on the verge of it a dozen times and then had paused as if better judgment told him it would be wise to wait a little longer. Now Kate had concluded that there was a definite thing he might be waiting for since that talk about land. She thought possibly she understood what it was. He was a businessman. He knew nothing else. He said so frankly. He wanted to show her his home, his business, his city, his friends, and then he required. He had almost put it into words that he be shown her home and her people. Kate not only acquiesced, she approved. She wanted to know as much of a man she married as Nancy Ellen had known and Robert had taken her to his home and told his parents she was his betrothed wife before he married her. Kate's eyes were wide open and her brain busy as they entered a finely appointed carriage and she heard John say, rather sultry, home down the lakeshore, George. She wished their driver had not been named George but after all it made no difference. There could not be a commoner name than John and she knew of but one that she liked better. For the ensuing three days she lived in a lakeshore home of wealth. She watched closely not to trip in the heavy rugs and carpets. She looked at the wonderful paintings and long shelves of books. She never had touched such china or tasted such food or seen so good service. She understood why John had opposed his mother's undertaking the trip without him. For everyone in the house seemed busy serving the little woman. Jenny Weeks was frankly enchanted. My sakes, she said to Kate, if I'm not grateful to you for getting me into a place like this, I wouldn't give it up for all the school teaching in the world. I'm going to snuggle right in here and make myself so useful I won't have to leave until I die. I hope you won't turn me out when you come to take charge. Don't you think you're presuming, said Kate. Jenny drew back with a swift apology, but there was a flash in the little eyes and a spiteful look on the small face as she withdrew. Then Kate was shown each of John's wonderful inventions. To her they seemed almost miracles because they were so obvious, so simple, yet brought such astounding returns. She saw offices and heard the explanation of big business, but did not comprehend. Farther than that when an invention was completed the piling up of money began. Before the week's visit was over, Kate was trying to fit herself and her aims and objects of life into the surroundings with no success whatever. She felt housed in, cribbed, confined, frustrated. When she realized that she was becoming plainly cross, she began a keen self-analysis and soon admitted to herself that she did not belong there. Kate watched with keen eyes. Repeatedly, she tried to imagine herself in such surroundings for a life. A life sentence she expressed it, for soon she understood that it would be to her a prison. The only way she could imagine herself enduring it at all was to think of the promised farm and when she began to think of that on Jardine terms, she saw that it would mean to sit down and tell someone else what she wanted done. There would be no battle to fight. Her mind kept harking back to the day when she had said to John that she hoped there would be a lake on the land she owned and he had answered casually, if there isn't a lake, make one. Kate thought that over repeatedly, make one, make a lake. It would have seemed no more magical to her if he had said, make a cloud, make a star, or make a rainbow. What on earth would I do with myself? With my time, with my life, pondered Kate. She said goodbye to Mrs. Jardine and Jenny Weeks and started home with John, still pondering. When the train pulled into Hartley, Nancy, Ellen, and Robert were on the platform to meet them. From that time, Kate was on solid ground. She was reckoning in terms she could comprehend. All her former assurance and energy came back to her. She almost wished the visit were over and that she were on the way to Walton to clean the schoolhouse. She was eager to roll her sleeves and beat a tub of soapy clothes to foam and boil them snowy white. She had a desire she could scarcely control to sweep and dust and cook. She had been out of the environment she thought she disliked and found when she returned to it after a wider change than she could have imagined that she did not dislike it at all. It was her element, her work, what she knew. She could attempt it with sure foot, capable hand, and certain knowledge. Sunday morning she said to Nancy Ellen as they washed the breakfast dishes while the men smoked on the veranda. Nancy Ellen, I don't believe I was ever cut out for a rich woman. If I have got a chance, I wish you had it and I had this. This just suits my style to a T. Tell me about it, said Nancy Ellen. Kate told all she could remember. You don't mean to say you didn't like it, cried Nancy Ellen. I didn't say anything, said Kate, but if I were saying exactly what I feel, you'd know I despise it all. Why, Kate Barnes, cried the horrified Nancy Ellen, whatever do you mean? I haven't thought enough to put it to you clearly, said Kate, but some way the city repels me. Facilities for manufacturing something start a city. It begins with the men who do the work and the men who profit from that work living in the same coop. It expands and goes on and grows on that basis. It's the laborer living on his hire and the manufacturer living on the laborer's productions coming in daily contact. The contrast is too great, the space is too small. Somebody is going to get the life crowded out of him at every turn and it isn't always the work hand in the factory. The money kings eat each other for breakfast every day. As for work, we always thought we worked. You should take a peep into the shops and factories I've seen this week. Work, why we don't know what work is and we waste enough food every day to keep a workman's family and we're dressed like queens in comparison with them right now. Do you mean to say if he asks you? It was a small explosion. I mean to say if he asks me, buy me that 200 acres of land where I want it, build me the house and barns I want and guarantee that I may live there as I please and I'll marry you tomorrow. If it's Chicago, never. I haven't stolen, murdered or betrayed. Why should I be imprisoned? Why you hopeless anarchist, said Nancy Ellen, I am going to tell John Jardine on you. Do, urged Kate, sound him on the land question. It's our only hope of a common foundation. Have you sent Agatha word that we will be out this afternoon? I have, said Nancy Ellen, and I don't doubt that now, even now, she is in the kitchen. How would she put it? Compounding a cake, said Kate, while Adam is in the cellar, freezing a custard. Adam III will be raking the yard afresh and Susan will be sweeping the walk steadily from now until they sight us coming down the road. What you bet Agatha asked John his intentions. I almost wish she would, she added. He has some, but there is a string to them in some way. And I can't just make out where or why it is. Not even a guess, asked Nancy Ellen. Not even a guess, with any sense to it. I've thought it was coming repeatedly, but I've got a stubborn bait streak and I won't lift a finger to help him. He'll speak up loud and plain or there will be no cannubial bliss for us, as Agatha says. I think he has ideas about other things than freight train gear. According to his program, we must have so much time to become acquainted. I must see his home and people, he must see mine. If there's more after that, I'm not informed. Like is not there is. It may come after we get back tonight, I can't say. Have you told him? He asked Nancy Ellen. Not the details, but the essentials. He knows that I can't go home. It came up one day in talking about land. I guess they had thought before that my people were poor as church mice. I happened to mention how much land I had helped earn for my brothers. And they seemed so interested, I finished the job. Well, after they had heard about the land king, it made a noticeable difference in their treatment of me. Not that they weren't always fine, but it made, I scarcely know how to put it, it was so intangible, but it was a difference and added respect. You bet money is a power. I can see why father hangs on to those deeds when I get out in the world. They are his compensation for his years of hard work, the material evidence that he has succeeded in what he undertook. He'd showed them to John Jardine with the same feeling John showed me improved car couplers, brakes, and air cushions. They stand for successes that win the deference of men. Out in the little bit of world I've seen, I noticed that men fight, bleed, and die for even a tiny fraction of deference. Aren't they funny? What would I care? Well, I'd care a lot, said Nancy Ellen. Kate surveyed her slowly. Yes, I guess you would. They finished the dishes and went to church because Robert was accustomed to going. They made a remarkable group. Then they went to the hotel for dinner so that the girls would not have to prepare it. And then, in a double carriage Robert had secured for the occasion, they drove to Bates Corners and, as Kate said, viewed the landscape oar. Those eight pieces of land, none under 200 acres, some slightly over, all in the very highest state of cultivation with modern houses, barns, outbuildings, and fine stock grazing in the pastures, made an impressive picture. It was probably the first time that any of the Bates girls had seen it all at once and looked on it merely as a spectacle. They stopped at Adam's last and while Robert was busy with the team and John had elided to help him, Nancy Ellen, revealing tight lips and unnaturally red cheeks leaned back to Kate. This is about as mean a trick and as big a shame as I've ever seen, she said hotly. You know I was brought up with this and I never looked at it with the eyes of a stranger before. If ever I get my fingers on those deeds, I'll make short work of them. And a good job too, assented Kate, instantly. Look out, there comes Adam. I just as soon tell him so as not, whispered Nancy Ellen, which would result in the deeds being recorded tomorrow and spoiling our trip today. And what good would it do you, said Kate. None, of course. Nothing ever does a Bates girl any good unless she gets out and does it for herself, retorted Nancy Ellen spitefully. There, there, said Robert, as he came to help Nancy Ellen protect her skirts in a lighting, I was afraid this trip would breed discontent. What's the trouble, asked John, as he performed the same service for Kate. Oh, the girls are grouching a little because they helped earn all this and are to be left out of it, explained Robert in a low voice. Let's get each one of them a farm that will lay any of these completely in the shade, suggested John. All right, for you, if you can do it, said Robert, laughing. But I've gone my limit for the present. Besides, if you gave each of them two hundred acres of the kingdom of heaven, it wouldn't stop them from feeling that they had been defrauded of their birth right here. How would you feel if you was served the same way, asked John. And even as she shook hands with Adam and introduced John Jardine, Kate found herself wishing that he had said, were. As the girls had predicted, the place was immaculate, the yard shady and cool from the shelter of many big trees, the house comfortable, convenient, the best of everything in sight. Agatha and Susan were in new white dresses, while Adam, Jr. and Third were tan and white, striped seersucker coats, and white duck trousers. It was not difficult to feel a glow of pride in the place and people. Adam made them cordially welcome. You undoubtedly are blessed with good fortune, said Agatha. Won't you please enlighten us concerning your travels, Catherine? So Kate told them everything she could think of that she thought would interest and amuse them. Even outlining for Agatha speeches she had heard made by Dr. Vincent, Chaplain McCabe, Jehu DeWitt Miller, a number of famous politicians, teachers, and ministers. Then all of them talked about everything. Adam took John and Robert to look over the farm, whereupon Kate handed over her hat for Agatha to finger and try on. And how long will it be, my dear? said Agatha to Kate, before you enter cannubial bliss. My goodness! I'm glad you asked me that while the men are at the barn, said Kate. Mr. Jardine hasn't said a word about it himself, so please be careful what you say before him. Agatha looked at Kate in wonder. You amaze me, she said, why he regards you as if he would devour you. He hasn't proposed for your hand, you say? Surely you're not giving him proper encouragement. She isn't giving him any, further than allowing him to be around, said Nancy Ellen. Do enlighten me, cried the surprised Agatha. How astonishing! Why, Kate, my dear, there is a just and proper amount of encouragement that must be given any self-respecting youth before he makes his declarations. You surely know that. No, I do not know it, said Kate. I thought it was a man's place to speak up loud and plain and say what he had to propose. Oh, dear, wailed Agatha, wringing her thin hands, her face a mirror of distress. Oh, dear, I very much fear you will lose him. Why, Catherine, after a man has been to see you a certain number of times, and evidenced enough interest in you, my dear, there are a thousand strictly womanly ways in which you can lend his enterprise a little, only a faint amount of encouragement, just enough to allow him to recognize that he is not, not or repulsive to you. But how many times must he come? And how much interest must he evince? Asked Kate. I can scarcely name an exact number, said Agatha. That is personal. You must decide for yourself what is the psychological moment at which he is to be taken. Have you even signified to him that you, that you, that you could be induced even to contemplate marriage? Oh, yes, said Kate heartily. I told his mother that it was the height of my ambition to marry by the time I'm twenty. I told her I wanted a man as tall as I am, two hundred acres of land, and at least twelve babies. Agatha collapsed suddenly. She turned her shocked face toward Nancy Ellen. Great day of rest, she cried. No wonder the man doesn't propose. When the men returned from their stroll, Agatha and Susan served them with delicious frozen custard and angels' food cake. Then they resumed their drive, passing Hiram's place last. At the corner, Robert hesitated and turned to ask, shall we go ahead, Kate? Certainly, said Kate, I want Mr. Jardine to see where I was born and to spend my time of legal servitude. I suppose we dare not stop. I doubt if mother would want to see me, and I haven't the slightest doubt that father would not, but he has no jurisdiction over the road. It's the shortest way, and besides, I want to see the lilac bush and the cabbage roses. As they approached the place, Nancy Ellen turned. Father standing at the gate, what shall we do? There's nothing you can do, but drive straight ahead, and you and Robert speak to him, said Kate. Go fast, Robert. He touched the team, and at a fair speed they whirled past the White House, at the gate of which, stiffly erect, stood a brawny man of six feet six, his face ready and healthy in appearance. He was dressed as he prepared himself to take a trip to pay his taxes or to go to court. He stood squarely erect, with stern, forbidding face, looking directly at them. Robert spoke to him, and Nancy Ellen leaned forward and waved, calling father, that she might be sure he knew her. But he gave not the slightest sign of recognition. They carried away a distinct picture of him, at his best physically and in appearance, at his worst mentally. There you have it, said Kate bitterly. I'd be safe in wagering a thousand dollars if I had it, that Agatha or the children told, at Hyrum's, or to mother's girl, that we were coming. They knew we would pass about this time. Mother was at the side door watching, and father was in his Sunday best, waiting to show us what would happen if we stopped, and that he never changes his mind. It didn't happen by accident that he was standing there dressed that way. What do you think, Nancy Ellen? That he was watching for us, said Nancy Ellen. But why do you suppose that he did it? asked Kate. He thought that if he were not standing guard there, we might stop in the road, and at least call mother out. He wanted to be seen, and seen at his best, but as always, in command, showing his authority. Don't mind, said John Jardine. It's easy to understand the situation. Thank you, said Kate. I hope you'll tell your mother that. I can't bear her to think that the trouble is wholly my fault. No danger of that, he said. Mother thinks there's nobody in all the world like you, and so do I. Nancy Ellen kicked Robert Shin to let him know that she had heard. Kate was very depressed for a time, but she soon recovered, and they spent a final happy evening together. When John had parted from Robert and Nancy Ellen, with the arrangement that he was to come again the following Saturday evening, and spend Sunday with him, he asked Kate to walk a short distance with him. He seemed to be debating some proposition in his mind that he did not know how to approach. Finally, he stopped abruptly, and said, Kate, mother told me that she told you how I grew up. We have been together most of every day for six weeks. I have no idea how a man used to a woman goes at what I want, so I can only do what I think is right and best, and above all, honest and fair. I'd be the happiest I've ever been. To do anything on earth I've got the money to do, for you. There's a question I'm going to ask you the next time I come. You can think over all you know of me, and of mother, and of what we have and are, and be ready to tell me how you feel about everything next Sunday. There's one question I want to ask you before I go. In case we can plan for a life together next Sunday. What about my mother? Whatever pleases her best, of course, said Kate. Any arrangement that you feel will make her happy will be all right with me, in the event we agree on other things. He laughed shortly. This sounds cold-blooded and businesslike, he said, but mother's been all the world to me until I'm at you. I must be sure about her, and one other thing. I'll write you about that this week. If that is all right with you, you can get ready for a day loose. I've held in as long as I can. Kate, will you kiss me good-bye? That's against the rules, said Kate. That's getting the cart before the horse. I know it, he said, but haven't I been an example for six weeks? Only one, please? They were back at Dr. Gray's gate, standing in the deep shelter of a big maple. Kate said, I'll make a bargain with you. I'll kiss you tonight, and if we come to an agreement next Sunday night, you shall kiss me. Is that all right? The reply was so indistinct. Kate was not sure of it, but she took his face between her hands and gave him exactly the same kind of kiss she would have given Adam a third. She hesitated an instant, then gave him a second. You may take that to your mother, she said, and fled up the walk. End of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 of A Daughter of the Land. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Daughter of the Land by Jean Stratton Porter. Chapter 12, Two Letters. Nancy Allen and Robert were sitting on the side porch, not seeming in the least sleepy when Kate entered the house. As she stepped out to them, she found them laughing mysteriously. Take this chair, Kate, said Nancy Allen. Come on, Robert. Let's go stand under the maple tree and let her see whether she can see us. If you are going to rehearse any momentous moment of your existence, said Kate, I shouldn't think of even being on the porch. I shall keep discreetly in the house, even going at once to bed. Good night, pleasant dreams. Now we've made her angry, said Robert. I think there was a little touch of asperity as Agatha would say, in that, said Nancy Allen. But Kate has a good heart. She'll get over it before morning. Would Agatha use such a common word as little, asked Robert. Indeed, no, said Nancy Allen. She would say infinitesimal, but all the same he kissed her. If she didn't step up and kiss him, never again shall I trust my eyes, said the doctor. Hush, cautioned Nancy Allen. She's provoked now. If she hears that, she'll never forgive us. Kate did not need even a hint to start her talking in the morning. The day was fine. A snappy tinge of autumn in the air. Her head and heart were full. Nancy Allen would understand and sympathize. Of course, Kate told her all there was to tell. And even at that, said Nancy Allen. He hasn't just come out right square and said, Kate, will you marry me, as I understand it. Same here, laughed Kate. He said he had to be sure about his mother. And there was one other thing he'd write me about this week. And he'd come again next Sunday. Then if things were all right with me, the deluge. And what is the other thing, asked Nancy Allen. There he has me guessing. We had six long, lovely weeks of daily association at the lake. I've seen his home and his inventions and as much of his business as is visible to the eye of a woman who doesn't know a tinker about business. His mother has told me minutely of his life. Every day since he was born, I think. She insists that he never paid this lightest attention to a girl before. And he says the same. So there can't be any hidden ugly feature to mar my joy. He is thoughtful, quick, kind, a self-made businessman. He looks well enough. He acts like a gentleman. He seldom makes mistake in speech. He doesn't say enough to make any mistakes. I haven't yet heard him talk freely, give an opinion or discuss a question, said Nancy Allen. Neither have I, said Kate. He is very silent, thinking out more inventions maybe. The worst thing about him is a kind of hard-headed self-assurance. He got it fighting for his mother from boyhood. He knew she would freeze and starve if he didn't take care of her. He had to do it. He soon found he could. It took money to do what he had to do. He got the money, then he began performing miracles with it. He lifted his mother out of poverty. He dressed her in purple and fine linen. He housed her in the same kind of home other rich men of the Lakeshore Drive live in and gave her the same kind of service. As most men do, when things begin to come their way, he lived for making money alone. He was so keen on the chase, he wouldn't stop to educate and culture himself. He drove headlong on and on, piling up more, far more than any one man should be allowed to have. So you can see that it isn't strange that he thinks there's nothing on earth that money can't do. You can see that sticking out all over him, at the hotel, on boats, on the trains, anywhere we went. He pushed straight for the most conspicuous place, the most desirable thing, the most expensive. I almost prayed sometimes that in some way he would strike one single thing that he couldn't make come his way with money. But he never did. No, I haven't an idea what he has in his mind yet, but he's going to write me about it this week. And if I agree to whatever it is, he is coming Sunday, then he has threatened me with a deluge, whatever he means by that. He means providing another teacher for Walden, taking you to Chicago, shopping for a wonderful chousseau, marrying you in his Lake Shore Palace, no doubt. Well, if that's what he means by a deluge, said Kate, he'll find the flood coming his way. He'll strike the first thing he can't do with money. I shall teach my school this winter as I agreed to. I shall marry him in the clothes I buy with what I earn. I shall marry him quietly here or at Adams, or before justice of the peace if neither of you wants me. He can't pick me up and carry me away and trust me and marry me as if I were a pauper. You're right about it, said Nancy Allen. I don't know how it came to be so different. I should do it once anyway, he suggested to get such a fine looking man and that much money. That it would be a humiliation to me all my afterlife. I wouldn't think about until the humiliation began. And then I'd have no way to protect myself. You're right. But I'd get out of teaching this winter if I could. I'd love to have you here. But I must teach to the earn money for my outfit. I'll have to go back to school in the same old cellar. Don't you care, laughed Nancy Allen. We know a secret. That we do, agreed Kate. Wednesday, Kate noticed Nancy Allen watching for the boy Robert had promised to send with a mail as soon as it was distributed because she was herself. Twice Thursday, Kate hoped in vain that the suspense would be over. It had to end Friday if John were coming Saturday night. She began to resent the length of time he was waiting. It was like him to wait until the last minute and then depend on money to carry him through. He is giving me a long time to think things over, Kate said to Nancy Allen when there was no letter in the afternoon mail Thursday. It may have been lost or delayed, said Nancy Allen. It will come tomorrow, surely. Both of them saw the boy turn in at the gate Friday morning. Each saw that he carried more than one letter. Nancy Allen was on her feet and nearer to the door. She stepped to it and took the letters, giving them a hasty glance as she handed them to Kate. Two, she said tersely. One, with the address written in the clear, bold hand of a gentleman. And one, the struggle of a country cloth-hopper. Kate smiled as she took the letters. I'll wager my head, which is my most precious possession, she said, that the one with beautifully written address comes from the cloth-hopper and the struggle from the gentleman. She glanced at the stamping and addresses and smiled again. So it proves, she said, while I'm about it, I'll see what the cloth-hopper has to say and then I shall be free to give my whole attention to the gentleman. Oh, Kate, how can you? cried Nancy Allen. Why I'm made, I suspect, said Kate. Anyway, that's the way this is going to be done. She dropped the big square letter in her lap and ran her finger under the flap of the long, thin, beautifully addressed envelope. And drew forth several quite as perfectly written sheets. She read them slowly and deliberately, sometimes turning back a page and going over a part of it again. When she finished, she glanced at Nancy Allen while slowly folding the sheets. Just for half a cent, I'd ask you to read this, she said. I certainly shamed pay anything for the privilege, but I'll read it if you want me to, offered Nancy Allen. All right, go ahead, said Kate. It might possibly teach you that you can't always judge a man by appearance or hastily, though just why George Holt looks more like a cloth-hopper than Adam or her ram or Andrew, it passes me to tell. She handed Nancy Allen the letter and slowly ripped open the flap of the heavy, wide envelope. She drew forth the sheet and sat an instant with it in her fingers, watching the expression of Nancy Allen's face while she read the most restrained yet impatient plea that a man of George Holt's nature and opportunities could devise to make to a woman after having spent several months in the construction of it. It was a masterly letter, perfectly composed, spelled in the written. For among his other fields of endeavor, George Holt had taught several terms of country school and taught them with much success so that he might have become a fine instructor had it been in his blood to stick to anything long enough to make it succeed. After a page as she turned the second sheet, Nancy Allen glanced at Kate and saw that she had not opened the creased page in her hands. She flamed with sudden irritation. You do beat the band, she cried. You've watched for two days and been provoked because that letter didn't come. Now you've got it, there you sit like a mummy and let your mind be so filled with this idiotic drivel that you're not ever reading John Jardin's letter, that is to tell you what both of us are crazy to know. If you are in any mood to be fair and honest, you'd admit that you never read a finer letter than that, said Kate. As for this, I never was so afraid in all my life. Look at that. She threw the envelope in Nancy Allen's lap. That is the very first line of John Jardin's writing I have ever seen, she said. Do you see anything about it to encourage me to go farther? You goose, cried the exasperated Nancy Allen. I suppose he transacts so much business he scarcely ever puts pen to paper. What's the difference how he writes? Look at what he is and what he does. Go on and read his letter. Kate arose and walked to the window, turning her back to Nancy Allen, who said staring at her. While she read John Jardin's letter. Once Nancy Allen saw Kate throw up her head and twist her neck as if she were choking, then she heard a great gulping sob down in her throat. Finally, Kate turned and stared at her with stazed, incredulous eyes. Slowly she dropped the letter, deliberately set her foot on it, and leaving the room climbed the stairs. Nancy Allen threw George Holt's letter aside and snatched up John Jardin's. She read, my dearest Kate, I am a day late with this because I told you I have no schooling and in writing a letter is where I prove it. So I never write them, but it was not fair to you for you not to know what kind of a letter I would write if I did write one. So here it is, very bad, no doubt, but the best I can possibly do, which has got nothing at all to do with my passion for you and the awful time I will have till I hear from you. If you can stand for this, telegraph me and I will come first train and we will forget this and I will never write another letter. With dearest love from mother and from me all the love of my heart, forever yours only, John Jardin. The writing would have been a discredit to a 10 year old schoolboy. Nancy Allen threw the letter back on the floor with a stiffly extended finger. She poked it into the position in which she thought she had found it and slowly stepped back. Great God, she said amazingly, what does the man mean? Where does that dainty and wonderful little mother come in? She must be a regular parasite to take such ease and comfort for herself out of him and not see that he had time and chance to do better than that for himself. Kate will never endure it, never in the world and by the luck of the very devil there comes that school proof thing in the same mail from that abominable George Holt and Kate reads it first. It's too bad, I can't believe it. What did his mother mean? Suddenly Nancy Allen began to cry bitterly. Between sobs she could hear Kate as she walked from closet to bureau to her trunk which she was packing. The lid slammed heavily and a few minutes later Kate entered the room dressed for the street. Why are you weeping? She asked casually. Her eyes were flaming, her cheeks scarlet and her lips twitching. Nancy Allen sat up and looked at her. She pointed to the letter. I read that, she said. Well, what do I care? Said Kate, if he has no more respect for me then to write me such an insult is that. Why should I have the respect for him to protect him in it? Publish it in the paper if you want to. Kate, what are you going to do? Demanded Nancy Allen. Three things said Kate slowly putting on her long silk gloves. First, I'm going to telegraph John Jardin that I never shall see him again if I can possibly avoid it. Second, I'm going to send a drain man to get my trunk and take it to Walden. Third, I'm going to start out and walk miles. I don't know or care where. But in the end, I'm going to Walden to clean the schoolhouse and get ready for my winter term of school. Oh Kate, you are such a fine teacher. Teach him, don't be so hurried. Take more time to think. You will break his heart, pleaded Nancy Allen. Kate threw out both hands, palms down. P-A-S-H-A-U-G-H-H-A-R-T-D-O-U-T-D-E-R-E. She slowly spelled out the letters. What about my heart and my pride? Think I can respect that or ask my children to respect it. But thank you and Robert and come after me as often as you can as a mercy to me. If John persists in coming to try to buy me as he thinks he can buy anything he wants, you needn't let him come to Walden. For probably I won't be there until I have to and I won't see him or his mother so he didn't try to bring her in. Say goodbye to Robert for me. She walked from the house, head erect, shoulder squared and so down the street from sight. In half an hour a truck man came for her trunk so Nancy Allen made everything Kate had missed into a bundle to send with it. When she came to the letters she hesitated. I guess she didn't want them, she said. I'll just keep them awhile and if she doesn't ask about them the next time she comes I'll burn them. Robert must go after her every Friday evening and will keep her until Monday and do all we can to cheer her and this very day he must find out all there is to know about that George Holt that is the finest letter I ever read. She does kind of stand up for him and in the reaction impulsive as she is and self-confident of course she wouldn't but you never can tell what kind of fool a girl will make of herself in some cases. Kate walked swiftly finished two of the rants she set out to do. Then her feet carried her three miles from Hartley on the Walden Road before she knew where she was so she proceeded to the village. Mrs. Holt was not at home but the house was standing open. Kate found her room cleaned, shining and filled with flowers. She paid the drain man, opened her trunk and put away her dresses after laying out all the things which needed washing. Then she bathed, put on heavy shoes and old skirt and waist and crossing the road sat in a secluded place in the ravine and looked stupidly at the water. She noticed that everything was as she had left it in the spring with many fresher improvements made no doubt to please her. She closed her eyes, leaned against a big tree and slow, cold and hot shudders alternated in shaking her frame. She did not open her eyes when she heard a step and her name called. She knew without taking the trouble to look that George had come home, found her luggage in her room and was hunting for her. She heard him come closer and knew when he seated himself that he was watching her but she did not care enough even to move. Finally, she shifted her position to rest herself, opened her eyes and looked at him without a word. He returned her gaze steadily, smiling gravely. She had never seen him looking so well. He had put in the summer grooming himself. He had kept up the house and garden and spent all his spare time on the ravine and farming on the share with his mother's sister who lived three miles east of them. At last, she routed herself and again looked at him. I had your letter this morning, she said. I was wondering about that, he replied. Yes, I got it just before I started, said Kate. Are you surprised to see me? No, he answered. After last year, we figured you might come the last of this week or the first of next. So we got your room ready Monday. Thank you, said Kate. It's very clean and nice. I hope soon to be able to offer you such a room and home as you should have, he said. I haven't opened my office yet. It was late and hot when I got home in June and mother was fussing about this winter that she had no garden and didn't do her share at Ann Oly's. So I have farmed most of the summer and lived on hope. But I'll start in and make things fly this fall and by spring I'll be sailing around with a horse and carriage like the best of them. You bet I'm going to make things hum so I can offer you anything you want. You haven't opened an office yet? She asked for the sake of saying something and because a practical thing would naturally suggest itself to her. I haven't had a breath of time, he said in candid disclaimer. Why don't you ask me what's the matter? Didn't figure that it was any of my business in the first place, he said. And I have a pretty fair idea in the second. But how could you have? She asked in surprise. When your sister wouldn't give me your address, she hinted that you had all the masculine attention you cared for. Then Tilly Naples visited town again last week and she had been sick and called Dr. Gray. She asked him about you and he told what a fine time you had at Chautau Kua in Chicago with the rich new friends you'd made. I was watching for you about this time and I just happened to be at the station in Hartley last Saturday when you got off the train with your fine gentleman. So I stayed over with some friends of mine and I saw you several times Sunday. I saw that I'd practically no chance with you at all, but I made up my mind I'd stick until I saw you marry him. So I wrote just as I would if I hadn't known there was another man in existence. That was a very fine letter, said Kate. It is a very fine, deep, sincere love that I am offering you, said George Holt. Of course, I could see prosperity sticking out all over that city chap, but it didn't bother me much because I knew that you, of all women, should judge a man on his worth. A rising young professional man is not to be sneered at, at least until he makes his start and proves what he can do. I couldn't get an early start because I've always had to work just as you've seen me last summer and this. So I couldn't educate myself so fast, but I've gone as fast in as far as I could. Kate wins. This was getting on places that hurt and to matters she well understood, but she was the soul of candor. You did very well to educate yourself as you have, with no help at all, she said. I've done my best in the past, but I'm going to do marvels in the future and whatever I do, it is all for you and yours for the taking, he said grandiously. Thank you, said Kate, but are you making that offer when you can't help seeing that I am in deep trouble? I am a thousand times over, he said. All I want to know about your trouble is whether there is anything a man of my size and strength can do to help you. Not a thing, said Kate, in the direction of slaying a gay deceiver. If that's what you mean, the extent of my familiarity is with John Jardin, consists involuntarily kissing him twice last Sunday night for the first and last time, once for himself and once for his mother, whom I have seen seized to respect. George Holt was watching her with eyes linked sharp, but Kate never saw it. When she mentioned her farewell of Sunday night, a queer smile swept over his face and instantly disappeared. I should think any girl might be permitted that much in saying a final goodbye to a man who had shown her a fine time for weeks. He commended casually. But I didn't know I was saying goodbye, explained Kate. I expected him back in a week and that I would then arrange to marry him. That was the agreement we made then. As she began to speak, George Holt's face flashed triumph at having let her on. At what she said, it fell perceptibly, but he instantly controlled it and said casually, in any event, it was your own business. It was, said Kate. I had given no man the slightest encouragement. I was perfectly free. John Jardin was courting me openly in the presence of his mother and anyone who happened to be around. I intended to marry him. I liked him as much as any man need to be liked. I don't know whether it was the same feeling Nancy Allen had for Robert Gray or not, but it was a whole lot of feeling of some kind. I was satisfied with it and he would have been. I meant to be a good wife to him and a good daughter to his mother and I could have done much good in the world and extracted untold pleasure from the money he would have put in my power to handle. All was going merry as a marriage bell and then this morning came my waterloo in the same post with your letter. Do you know what you are doing? cried George Holt, roughly, losing self-control with hope. You are proving to me and admitting to yourself that you never loved that man at all. You were flattered and tempted with positions and riches, but your heart was not his or you would be mighty sure of it. Don't you forget that. I am not interested in analyzing exactly what I felt for him, said Kate. It made small difference then. It makes none at all now. I would have married him gladly and I would have been to him all a good wife is to any man. Then in a few seconds I turned scarily against him and lost my respect for him. You couldn't marry me to him if he were the last man and only man on earth. But it hurt terribly, let me tell you that. George Holt suddenly arose and went to Kate. He sat down close beside her and leaned toward her. There isn't the least danger of my trying to marry you to him. He said, because I am going to marry you myself at the very first opportunity. Why not now? Why not have a simple ceremony somewhere at once and go away until school begins and forget him, having a good time by ourselves? Come on, Kate, let's do it. We can go stay with Ann only and if he comes trying to force himself on you, he'll get what he deserves. He'll learn that there isn't something on earth he can't buy with his money. But I don't love you, said Kate. Neither did you love him, retorted George Holt. I can prove it by what you say. Neither did you love him, but you are going to marry him and use all his wonderful power of position and wealth and trust to association to bring love. You can try that with me. As for wealth, who cares? We are young and strong and we have a fine chance in the world. You go on and teach this year and I'll get such a start that by next year you can be riding around in your carriage, proud as Pompey. Of course we could make it all right as to a living, said Kate, big and strong as we are. But then the torrent broke. At the first hint that she would consider his proposal, George Holt drew her to him and talked volumes of impassioned love to her. He gave her no chance to say anything. He said all there was to say himself. He urged that Jardin would come and she should not be there. He begged, he pleaded, he reasoned. Knight found Kate sitting on the back porch at Antolis with a confused memory of having stood beside the little stream with her hand in George Holt's while she assented to the questions of the justice of the peace in the presence of the school director and Mrs. Holt. She knew that immediately thereafter they had walked away along a hut, dusty country road. She had tried to eat something that tasted like salted ashes. She could hear George's ringing laugh of exultation breaking out of fresh every few minutes. In sudden irritation at the latest guffaw, she clearly remembered one thing. In her dazed and bewildered state, she had forgotten to tell him that she was a prodigal daughter. End of Chapter 12, recording by Pingxian. Chapter 13 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. Read by Veronica Jenkins. A Daughter of the Land by Jean Stratton Porter. Chapter 13, The Bride. Only one memory in the ten days that followed before her school began ever stood out clearly and distinctly with Kate. That was the morning of the day after she married George Holt. She saw Nancy Ellen and Robert at the gate so she went out to speak with them. Nancy Ellen was driving. She held the lines and the whip in her hands. Kate and Dahl Apathy wondered why they seemed so deeply agitated. Both of them stared at her as if she might be a maniac. Is this thing in the morning paper true? Cried Nancy Ellen in a high shrill voice that made Kate start in wonder. She did not take the trouble to evade by asking what thing. She merely made a scent with her head. You are married to that, that, Nancy Ellen choked until she could not say what. It's time to stop since I married to him, said Kate gravely. You rushed in and married him without giving Robert time to find out and tell you what everybody knows about him, demanded Nancy Ellen. I married him for what I knew about him myself, said Kate. We shall do very well. Do well, Cried Nancy, do well. You'll be hungry and in rags the rest of your life. Don't Nancy Ellen, don't, pled Robert. This is Kate's affair. Wait until you hear what she has to say before you go further. I don't care what she has to say, Cried Nancy Ellen. I'm saying my say right now. This is a disgrace to the whole Bates family. We may not be much, but there isn't a lazy gamblin' drunken loafer among us and there won't be so far as I'm concerned. She glared at Kate who gazed at her in wonder. You really married this loafer? She demanded. I told you I was married, said Kate patiently, for she saw that Nancy Ellen was irresponsible with anger. You're going to live with him? You're going to stay and walled in to live? She cried. This is my plan at present, said Kate. Well, see that you stay there, said Nancy Ellen. You can't bring that creature to my house and if you're going to be his wife, you needn't come yourself. That's all I've got to say to you. You shameless, crazy Nancy Ellen. You shall not, cried Robert Gray, deftly slipping the lines from her fingers and starting the horse full speed. Kate saw Nancy Ellen's head fall forward and her hands lifted to cover her face. She heard the deep tearing sob that shook her and then they were gone. She did not know what to do, so she stood still in the hot sunshine trying to think, but her brain refused to act at her will. When the heat became oppressive, she turned back to the shade of a tree, sat down and leaned against it. There she got two things clear after a time. She had married George Holt, there was nothing to do but make the best of it, but Nancy Ellen had said that if she lived with him, she should not come to her home. Very well, she had to live with him since she had consented to marry him, so she was cut off from Robert and Nancy Ellen. She was now a prodigal indeed and those things Nancy Ellen had said, she was wild with anger, she had been misinformed, those things could not be true. Shouldn't you be in here helping Aunt Ollie, ask George's voice from the front stop where he seated himself with his pipe? Yes, in a minute, said Kate Rising. Did you see who came? No, I was out doing the morning work. Who was it? he asked. Nancy Ellen and Robert, she answered, he laughed hilariously, brought them in a hurry, didn't we? Why didn't they come in? They came to tell me, said Kate slowly, that if I married you yesterday, as I did, that they felt so disgraced that I wasn't to come to their home again. Disgraced, he cried, his colorizing. Well, what's the matter with me? Not the things they said, I fervently hope. Well, they have some assurance to come out here and talk about me and you've got as much to listen and then come and tell me about it, he cried. It was over in a minute, said Kate, I had no idea what they were going to say. They said it and went. Oh, I can't spare Nancy Ellen, she's all I had. Kate sank down on the step and covered her face. George took one long look at her, arose, and walked out of hearing. He went into the garden and fetched from behind a honeysuckle bush until he saw her finally lift her head and wipe her eyes. Then he sauntered back and sat down on the step beside her. That's right, he said, cry it out and get it over. It was pretty mean of them to come out here and insult you and tell any lie they could think up and then drive away and leave you, but don't mind, they'll soon get over it. Nobody ever keeps up a fuss over a wedding long. Nancy Ellen never told a lie in her life, said Kate. She has too much self-respect. What she said she thought was true. My only chance is that somebody has told her a lie. You know best if they did. Of course they did. He broke in ghibly. Haven't you lived in the same house with me long enough to know me better than anyone else does? You can live in the same house with people and know less about them than anyone else for that matter, said Kate, but that's neither here nor there. We're in this together. We got to get on the job and pull and make a success out of it that will make all of them proud to be our friends. That's the only thing left for me. As I know the baits, once they make up their minds, they never change. With Nancy Ellen and father both down on me, I'm a prodigal for sure. What? he cried loudly. What? is your father in this too? Did he send you word you couldn't come home either? This is a hell of a mess. Speak up. Kate closed her lips, looked at him with deep scorn and walked around the corner of the house. For a second he looked after her threateningly, then he sprang to his feet and ran to her, catching her in his arms. Forgive me, dearest, he cried. That took the wind out of my sails until I was a brute. You'd know business to say a thing like that. Of course we can't have the old land king down on us. We've got to have our share of that land and money to buy us a fine home in Hartley and fix me up the kind of an office I should have. We'll borrow a rig and drive over tomorrow and fix things solid with the old folks. You bet I'm a star-spangled-old persuader. Look what I did with you. You stop, cried Kate, breaking from his hold. You will drive me crazy. You're talking as if you married me expecting land and money from it. I haven't been home in a year and my father would deliberately kill me if I went within his reach. Well, score one for a little old scratchin' pickin' mammy, he cried. She said you had a secret. Kate stood very still, looking at him so intently that a sense of shame must have stirred in his breast. Look here, Kate, he said roughly. Mother did say you had a secret and she hinted at Christmas but the reason you didn't go home was because your folks were at-outs with you and you can ask her if I didn't tell her to shut up and leave you alone, that I was in love with you and I'd marry you and we'd get along all right even if you were barred from home and didn't get a penny. I'd just dare you to ask her. It's no matter, said Kate wearily. I'd rather take your word. All right, you take it, for that's the truth, he said. But what was the rumpus? How did you come to have a racket with your old man? Over my wanting to teach, said Kate. Then she explained in detail. Pother, don't you fret about that, said George. I'm taking care of you now and I'll see that you soon get home and to graze too, that's all bunkum. As for your share of your father's estate, you watch me get it. You are his child and there is law. There's law that allows him to deed his land to his sons before he dies and that is exactly what he has done, said Kate. The devil, you say, shouted George Holt stepping back to stare at her. You tell that at the insane asylum or the feeble-minded home, I've seen the records. I know to the acre how much land stands in your father's name. Don't try to work that on me, my lady. I'm not trying to work anything on you, said Kate Dully, wondering to herself why she listened, why she went on with it. I'm merely telling you and father's big chast at the head of his bed at home lies a deed for 200 acres of land for each of his seven sons, all signed and ready to deliver. He keeps the land in his name on record to bring him distinction and feed his vanity. He makes the boys pay the taxes and kowtow and help with his work. He keeps them under control, but the land is theirs. None of the girls get a penny's worth of it. George Holt cleared his face with an effort. Well, we are no worse off than the rest of them, then, he said, trying to speak naturally and cheerfully. But don't you ever believe it, little old Georgie was sleep with this in his nightcap a while and it's a problem he will solve if he works himself to death on it. But that is father's affair, said Kate. You had best turn your efforts and lie awake nights thinking how to make enough money to buy some land for us yourself. Certainly, certainly, I see myself doing it, left George Holt. And now, knowing how you feel and feeling none too good myself, we are going to take a few days off and go upstream fishing. I'll take a pack of comforts to sleep on and the tackle and some food and we will forget the whole bunch and go have a good time. There's a place, not so far away, where I have camped beside a spring since I was a little shaver and it's quiet and cool. Go get what you can't possibly exist without, nothing more. But we must dig the potatoes, protested Kate. Let them wait until we get back. It's a trifle early anyway, he said. Stop objecting and get ready. I'll tell Ann Olly, we're chums. Whatever I do is always all right with her. Come on, this is our wedding trip. Not much like the one you had planned, no doubt, but one of some kind. So they slipped beneath the tangle of vines and bushes and following the stream of the ravine, they walked until mid-afternoon when they reached a spot that was very lovely, a clear clean spring, grassy bank, a sheltered cave in floored with clean sand, warm and golden. From the depths of the cave, George brought an old frying pan and coffee pot. He spread a comfort on the sand of the cave for a bed, produced coffee, steak, bread, butter and fruit from his load and told Kate to make herself comfortable while he got dinner. They each tried to make allowances for and to be as decent as possible with the other, with the result that before they knew it they were having a good time. At least they were keeping the irritating things they thought to themselves and saying only the pleasant ones. After a week which George enjoyed to the fullest extent while Kate made the best of everything, they put away the coffee pot and frying pan, folded the comforts and went back to Aunt Olly's for dinner, then to Walden in the afternoon. Because Mrs. Holt knew they would be there that day, she had the house clean and the best supper she could prepare ready for them. She was in a quandary as to how to begin with Kate. She heartily hated her. She had been sure the girl had a secret, now she knew it, for if she did not attend the wedding of her sister, if she had not been at home all summer, if her father and mother never mentioned her name or made any answer to anyone who did, there was a reason and a good reason. Of course a man as rich as Adam Bates could do no wrong. Whatever the trouble was, Kate was at fault. She had done some terrible thing. Hiding in the bushes, spat Mrs. Holt, hiding in the bushes, marry a man who didn't know he was going to be married an hour before, unbeknownst to her folks and wouldn't even come in the house and have a few of the neighbors in. Nice doings for the school, ma'am, nice prospect for George. Mrs. Holt hissed like a copperhead, which was a harmless little creature compared with her, as she scraped and slashed and dismembered the chicken she was preparing to fry. She had not been able, even by running into each store in the village and the post office, to find one person who would say a word against Kate. The girl had laid her foundations too well. The one thing people could and did say was, how could she marry George Holt? The worst of them could not very well say it to his mother. They said it frequently to each other and then supplied the true answers. Look how he spruced up after she came. Look how he worked. Look how he ran after and waited on her. Look how nice he has been all summer. Plenty was being said and walled in, but not one word of it was for the itching ears of Mrs. Holt. They had told her how splendid Kate was, how they loved her, how glad they were that she was to have the school again, how fortunate her son was, how proud she should be until she was almost bursting with repressed venom. She met them at the gate after their weeks camping. They were feeling in splendid health, the best spirits possible in the circumstances, but appearing dirty and disreputable. They were both laughing as they approached the gate. Pretty looking bride, you be, Mrs. Holt spat at Kate. Yes, aren't I, laughed Kate, but you just give me a tub of hot soap suds and an hour and you won't know me. How are you? Things look as if you were expecting us. Hump, said Mrs. Holt. Kate laughed and went into the house. George stepped in front of his mother. Now you look here, he said. I know every nasty thing your mind has conjured up that you'd like to say and have other folks say about Kate. And I know as well as if you were honest enough to tell me that you haven't been able to root out one living soul who would say a single word against her. Swallow your secret, swallow your suspicions, swallow your venom and forget all of them. Kate is as fine a woman as God ever made and anybody who has common sense knows it. She can just make me if she wants to and she will. She's coming on fine much faster and better than I hoped for. Now you drop this, stop it, do you hear? He passed her and hurried up the walk. In an hour, both George and Kate had bathed and dressed in their very best. Kate put on her prettiest white dress and George his graduation suit. Then together they walked to the post office for their mail which George had ordered howled before they left. Carrying the bundle, they entered several stores on trifling errands and then went home. They stopped and spoke to everyone. Kate kissed all her little pupils she met and told them to come to see her and to be ready to help clean the schoolhouse in the morning. Word flew over town swiftly. The teacher was back, wearing the loveliest dress and nicer than ever and she had invited folks to come to see her. Kate and George had scarcely finished their supper when the first pair of shy little girls came for their kisses and to bring teacher a bunch of flowers and a pretty pocket handkerchief from each. They came in flocks, each with flowers, most with a towel or some small remembrance. Then the elders began to come, merchants with comforts, blankets and towels, hardware men with frying pans, flat irons and tinware. By ten o'clock almost everyone in Walden had carried Kate some small gift, wished her joy all the more earnestly because they felt the chances of her ever having it were so small and had gone their way, leaving her feeling better than she had thought possible. She slipped into her room alone and read two letters. One a few typewritten lines from John Jardine saying he had been at Hartley also at Walden and having found her married and gone there was nothing for him to do but wish that the man she married had it in his heart to guard her life and happiness as he would have done. He would never cease to love her and if at any time in her life there was anything he could do for her would she please let him know. Kate dropped the letter on her dresser with a purpose and let it lie there. The other was from Robert. He said he was very sorry but he could do nothing with Nancy Allen at present. He hoped she would change later if there was ever anything he could do to let him know. Kate locked that letter in her trunk. She wondered as she did so why both of them seemed to think she would need them in the future. She felt perfectly able to take care of herself. Monday morning George carried Kate's books to school for her saw that she was started on her work in good shape then went home put on his old clothes and began the fall work at Aunt Olly's. Kate wearing her prettiest blue dress forgot even the dull ache in her heart as she threw herself into the business of educating those young people. She worked as she never had before. She seemed to have developed fresh patience, new perception, caner penetration. She made the dullest of them see her points and interested the most inattentive. She went home to dinner feeling better. She decided to keep on teaching a few years until George was well started in his practice if he ever got started. He was very slow in action it seemed to her compared with his enthusiasm when he talked. End of chapter 13.