A Daughter of the Land | Page 5

a man! He founds a family, he runs the Government! It is a
different matter," said Mrs. Bates.
"It surely is; in this family. But I think, even with us, a man would have
rather a difficult proposition on his hands to found a family without a
woman; or to run the Government either."

"All right! Go on to Adam and see what you get."
"I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that Nancy Ellen gets dinner,
anyway," said Kate as she passed through the door and followed the
long path to the gate, from there walking beside the road in the
direction of her brother's home. There were many horses in the pasture
and single and double buggies in the barn; but it never occurred to Kate
that she might ride: it was Sunday and the horses were resting. So she
followed the path beside the fences, rounded the corner of the church
and went on her way with the text from which the pastor was preaching,
hammering in her brain. She became so absorbed in thought that she
scarcely saw the footpath she followed, while June flowered, and
perfumed, and sang all around her.
She was so intent upon the words she had heard that her feet
unconsciously followed a well-defined branch from the main path
leading into the woods, from the bridge, where she sat on a log, and for
the unnumbered time, reviewed her problem. She had worked ever
since she could remember. Never in her life had she gotten to school
before noon on Monday, because of the large washings. After the other
work was finished she had spent nights and mornings ironing, when she
longed to study, seldom finishing before Saturday. Summer brought an
endless round of harvesting, canning, drying; winter brought butchering,
heaps of sewing, and postponed summer work. School began late in the
fall and closed early in spring, with teachers often inefficient; yet
because she was a close student and kept her books where she could
take a peep and memorize and think as she washed dishes and cooked,
she had thoroughly mastered all the country school near her home
could teach her. With six weeks of a summer Normal course she would
be as well prepared to teach as any of her sisters were, with the
exception of Mary, who had been able to convince her parents that she
possessed two college years' worth of "ability."
Kate laid no claim to "ability," herself; but she knew she was as strong
as most men, had an ordinary brain that could be trained, and while she
was far from beautiful she was equally as far from being ugly, for her
skin was smooth and pink, her eyes large and blue-gray, her teeth even

and white. She missed beauty because her cheekbones were high, her
mouth large, her nose barely escaping a pug; but she had a real "crown
of glory" in her hair, which was silken fine, long and heavy, of
sunshine-gold in colour, curling naturally around her face and neck.
Given pure blood to paint such a skin with varying emotions, enough
wind to ravel out a few locks of such hair, the proportions of a Venus
and perfect health, any girl could rest very well assured of being looked
at twice, if not oftener.
Kate sat on a log, a most unusual occurrence for her, for she was
familiar only with bare, hot houses, furnished with meagre necessities;
reeking stables, barnyards and vegetable gardens. She knew less of the
woods than the average city girl; but there was a soothing wind, a sweet
perfume, a calming silence that quieted her tense mood and enabled her
to think clearly; so the review went on over years of work and petty
economies, amounting to one grand aggregate that gave to each of
seven sons house, stock, and land at twenty-one; and to each of nine
daughters a bolt of muslin and a fairly decent dress when she married,
as the seven older ones did speedily, for they were fine, large,
upstanding girls, some having real beauty, all exceptionally
well-trained economists and workers. Because her mother had the
younger daughters to help in the absence of the elder, each girl had
been allowed the time and money to prepare herself to teach a country
school; all of them had taught until they married. Nancy Ellen, the
beauty of the family, the girl next older than Kate, had taken the home
school for the second winter. Going to school to Nancy Ellen had been
the greatest trial of Kate's life, until the possibility of not going to
Normal had confronted her.
Nancy Ellen was almost as large as Kate, quite as pink, her features
assembled in a manner that made all the difference, her jet-black hair as