A Daughter of the Land

experience for her to sit idle, that despite the attractions of growing things, running water, and singing birds, she soon veered to thoughts of what she wou

ever would voluntarily see her again, while with his constitution, he would live for years. She might as well face the fact that she was

ch the home school in order that it might be taught by a Bates, as her father had demanded. She wondered if Nancy Ellen was forced to this uncongenial task, whether it would sour the wonderful sweetness developed by her courtship, and make her so provoked that she would not write or have anything to do with her. They were nearly the same age; they had shared rooms, and, until recently, beds, and whatever life brought them; now Kate lifted her head and ran her hand against her throat to ease the ache gathering there more intensely every minute. With eyes that did not see, she sat staring at the sheer walls of the ravine as it ran toward the east, where the water came tumbling and leaping down over stones and shale bed. When at last she arose she had

would have done, then she would have met him first, and he would have courted her instead of Nancy Ellen. Suddenly Kate shook herself savagely and sat straight. "Why, you big fool!" she said. "Nancy Ellen went to the berry patch in a pink dress, wearing a sunbonnet to match, and carrying a blue bowl. Think of the picture she made! Bu

nd cast her aside because of a few months' enforced waiting, the cause of which he so very well knew; but it would make both of them unhappy and change their beautiful plans, after he even had found and purchased the house. Still Nancy Ellen said that her father was making it a point of honour that a Bates should teach the school, because he had signed the contract for Kate to take the place Nancy Ellen had intended to fill, and then changed her plans. He had sworn that a Bates should teach the school. Well, Hiram had taken the county examination, as all pupils of the past ten years had when they finished the country schools. It was a test required to prove whether they had done their work well. Hiram held a certificate for a year, given him by the County Superintendent, when he passed the examinations. He had never used it. He could teach;

breathlessly, "that I would take a peep and see if

been made of calling her attention to the extra cover when the room had been shown her. She might have said these things, but why say them? The shamed face of the woman convicted her of "rummaging," as she had termed it. Without

imid about making a first attempt to teach after he was married and a father of a child, but Nancy Ellen's marriage would furnish plausible excuse; all of the family had done their school work as perfectly as all work they undertook; he could teach if he wanted to; would he want to?

Possibly the women of Walden did not run bareheaded down the street on errands. She laid the letter on a small shelf of an old hatrack, and stepped back to her room to put on her hat. Her return was so immediate that Mrs. Holt had the letter in her fingers when Kate came back, and w

r the world have you make a mistake as to whom my letter is addressed. It goes to m

son, so that he could take it

is down town and I want it to go over on the evening h

ame Mrs. Holt'

ame it didn't mean a thing to me. Be you a daughte

said Kat

mortgages on half his neighbours. Whut the nation! An' no more of better clo'

m the time she finished school until she married. Also we never buy more clothing than we need, or of the kind not

red tingeing her face. "I could hate that w

as heard in the hall. Kate remained standing and when a young man entered the room Mrs. Holt at once introduced her son, George. He did not take the trouble

y, George," she chided. "What's your hurry? Why

he will have to learn to get on without much polly-foxing.

e might have a forceful brain; but he was loosely jointed and there was a trace of domineering selfishness on his face that was

smile. She probably would have noticed

my dear?" she ask

same way; only if I were to think about it at all, I should think that a man within a year of finishing a medical course would begin exercis

aid Geor

ellin' you the whole endurin' time that you'd never get a call

s are so essential, why didn't you hammer some into me when you had the whip han

? I s'pos'd then you'd take the farm an' run it like your pa did, stead of for

"Tell all you know, and then piece out with

son inter the world. You kin humour him, and cook for him, an work your hands to the bone fur him, and sell your land, and spend all

orge. "If you keep on Miss Bates will want

would suggest that if we can't speak civilly, we eat our supper in s

iscuit and a second piece of fried c

od idy!" sai

you practice i

lmly arose, picked up her plate, walked from the room, down

ll start out in less than no time to find some place else to stay, an' who could blame her? Don't you know who she i

beef! What for

ey call the Land King. Ain't you sense ner reason? Drive her from the house, will

know? No danger but the bowl is upset, and it's all you

d no chanct to tell you. Course I meant to, first chanct I had; but you go to work an upse

ought she was just common truck. I'll fix it

ar. She'll leave the house inside

ust show you,

k porch, and sauntered around the house to seat himself on the front porch steps. Kate saw him there

ointment to-day, and I came in sore and cross. I am ashamed of myself, but you will never see me that way again. I know I will make a failure of my profession if I don't be more po

r raving like an insane man. Who was she to judge or to refuse help when it was asked? She went with him; and Mrs. Holt, listening and peering from the side of the window blind of her room across the hall, watched them cross the road and sit beside each other on the bank of the ravine in what seemed polite and amicable conv

ent; but she did not propose to start her new life by speaking of her family to strangers. George Holt's experiences had been those of a son spoiled by a weak woman, one day petted, the next bribed, the next nagged, again left to his own devices for days, with strong inherited tendencies to be fought, tendencies to what he did not say. Looking at his heavy jaw and swarthy face, Kate supplied "temper" and "not much inclination to work." He had asked her to teach him, she would begin by setting him an example in the dignity of self-control; then she would make him work. How she would make that big, strong man work! As she sat there on the bank of the ravine, with a background of delicately leafed bushes and the light of the setting sun on her face and her hair, Georg

is heir," as he expressed it, without knowing anything of surgery, or drugs, or using either. Kate was amazed and said so at once. She disconcertingly inquired what he would do with patients who had sustained fractured skulls, developed cancers, or been exposed to smallpox. But the man before her proposed to deal with none of those disagreeable things, or their like. He was going to make fame and fortune in the world by treating mental and muscular troubles. He was g

ight be, it was definitely settled in his own mind that Kate was the best chance he had ever had, or probably ever would have. He mapped out his campaign. This week, before he must go, he would be her pupil and her slave. The holiday week he would be her lover. In the spring he would propose, and in the fall he would marry her, and live on the income from her land ever afterward. It was a glowing prospect; so glowing that he seriously con

irs about the house and premises. Kate was enjoying herself immensely, before the week was over. She had another row of wood corded to the shed roof, in case the winter should be severe. She had the stove she thought would warm her room polished and set up while he was there to do it. She had the back porch mended and the loose board in the fron

, so he was obliged to drag his tired body up the trees on both banks for several hundred yards and drop the dead wood. Kate marshalled a corps of boys who would be her older pupils and they dragged out the dry branches, saved all that were suitable for firewood, and made bonfires from the remainder. They raked the tin cans and town refuse of years from the water and banks and induced the village delivery man to haul the stuff to the river bridge and dump it in the deepest p

and neither have you, if y

illed?" inqu

like a real man I ever

for forty years yet," he said as he

urrounding her how best to help her, then he turned away, a dull red burning his cheek. "I'll have her if I die for

an work of like nature. That made their neighbours' places look so unkempt that they were forced to trim, and rake, and mend in turn, so by the time the school began, the whole village was busy in

t a tree trunk and looked

h a thing as ever making any

or anything, no! It's too narrow a strip, cut too deeply with the water,

to Mother, so she would have the house, and the land on this side was mine. I sold off all I could to Jasper Linn to add to his farm, but he would

up the taxe

paid them," he

said. "Someone may have paid them and ta

r?" he d

g it here doubles the value of your mother's house across the stre

see how,"

quarry could be opened up, if the stone runs back as far as you say. A lot of things might make it valuable. If I w

"You surely have made another place

said Kate. "Here comes your mothe

ing. Kate took the letter, saw at a glance that it was from Nancy Ellen, and excusing herself, she

believed him. He said he wanted the money to add two acres to his land from the Simms place; that would let his stock down to water on the far side of his land where it would be a great convenience and give him a better arrangement of fields so he could make more money. You know Father. He shut up like a clam and only said: "Do what you please. If a Bates teaches the school it makes my word good." So Hiram is going to teach for me. He is brushing up a little nights and I am helping him on "theory," and I am wild with joy, and so is Robert. I shall have plenty of time to do all my sewing and we shall be married at, or after, Christmas. Robert says to tell you to co

ce, thought Kate, lay in marrying a farmer having about a thousand acres of land. If she could do that, her father would let her come home again sometime. She read the letter slowly over, then tearing it in long strips she cross tore the