A Daughter of the Land | Page 6

curly as Kate's, her eyes big and dark, her lips red. As for looking at
Kate twice, no one ever looked at her at all if Nancy Ellen happened to
be walking beside her. Kate bore that without protest; it would have
wounded her pride to rebel openly; she did Nancy Ellen's share of the
work to allow her to study and have her Normal course; she remained
at home plainly clothed to loan Nancy Ellen her best dress when she

attended Normal; but when she found that she was doomed to finish her
last year at school under Nancy Ellen, to work double so that her sister
might go to school early and remain late, coming home tired and with
lessons to prepare for the morrow, some of the spontaneity left Kate's
efforts.
She had a worse grievance when Nancy Ellen hung several new dresses
and a wrapper on her side of the closet after her first pay-day, and
furnished her end of the bureau with a white hair brush and a brass box
filled with pink powder, with a swan's-down puff for its application.
For three months Kate had waited and hoped that at least "thank you"
would be vouchsafed her; when it failed for that length of time she did
two things: she studied so diligently that her father called her into the
barn and told her that if before the school, she asked Nancy Ellen
another question she could not answer, he would use the buggy whip
on her to within an inch of her life. The buggy whip always had been a
familiar implement to Kate, so she stopped asking slippery questions,
worked harder than ever, and spent her spare time planning what she
would hang in the closet and put on her end of the bureau when she had
finished her Normal course, and was teaching her first term of school.
Now she had learned all that Nancy Ellen could teach her, and much
that Nancy Ellen never knew: it was time for Kate to be starting away
to school. Because it was so self-evident that she should have what the
others had had, she said nothing about it until the time came; then she
found her father determined that she should remain at home to do the
housework, for no compensation other than her board and such clothes
as she always had worn, her mother wholly in accord with him, and
marvel of all, Nancy Ellen quite enthusiastic on the subject.
Her father always had driven himself and his family like slaves, while
her mother had ably seconded his efforts. Money from the sale of
chickens, turkeys, butter, eggs, and garden truck that other women of
the neighbourhood used for extra clothing for themselves and their
daughters and to prettify their homes, Mrs. Bates handed to her
husband to increase the amount necessary to purchase the two hundred
acres of land for each son when he came of age. The youngest son had

farmed his land with comfortable profit and started a bank account,
while his parents and two sisters were still saving and working to finish
the last payment. Kate thought with bitterness that if this final payment
had been made possibly there would have been money to spare for her;
but with that thought came the knowledge that her father had numerous
investments on which he could have realized and made the payments
had he not preferred that they should be a burden on his family.
"Take the wings of morning," repeated Kate, with all the emphasis the
old minister had used. "Hummm! I wonder what kind of wings. Those
of a peewee would scarcely do for me; I'd need the wings of an eagle to
get me anywhere, and anyway it wasn't the wings of a bird I was to take,
it was the wings of morning. I wonder what the wings of morning are,
and how I go about taking them. God knows where my wings come in;
by the ache in my feet I seem to have walked, mostly. Oh, what ARE
the wings of morning?"
Kate stared straight before her, sitting absorbed and motionless. Close
in front of her a little white moth fluttered over the twigs and grasses. A
kingbird sailed into view and perched on a brush- heap preparatory to
darting after the moth. While the bird measured the distance and waited
for the moth to rise above the entangling grasses, with a sweep and a
snap a smaller bird, very similar in shape and colouring, flashed down,
catching the moth and flying high among the branches of a big tree.
"Aha! You missed your opportunity!" said Kate to the kingbird.
She sat straighter suddenly. "Opportunity," she repeated. "Here is
where I am threatened with missing mine.