A Daughter Of The Land by Gene Stratton-Porter (page 7)

all of us went on there, and she came up here and we sat on the porch, and then I took her home and that left Henry and Polly together. The next night Henry took us to town for a treat, and we were all together, and the next night Milly asked us all there, and so it went. It was all as open and innocent as it could be; only Henry and Polly were in awful earnest and she was bound she wouldn’t be sent to town to school — “

“Why didn’t she tell me so? She never objected a word, to me,” said Kate.

“Well, Mother, you are so big, and Polly was so little, and she was used to minding — “

“Yes, this looks like it,” said Kate. “Well, go on!”

“That’s all,” said Adam. “It was only that instead of staying at home and attending to our own affairs we were somewhere every night, or Milly and Henry were here. That is where I was to blame. I’m afraid you’ll never forgive me, Mother; but I didn’t take good care of Sister. I left her to Henry Peters, while I tried to see how nice I could be to Milly. I didn’t know what Polly and Henry were planning; honest, I didn’t, Mother. I would have told Uncle Robert and sent for you if I had. I thought when I went there it was to be our little crowd like it was at York’s. I was furious when I found they were married. I told Mr. and Mrs. Peters what they were, right before the company, and then I came straight home and all the family, and York’s, and most of the others, came straight away. Only a few stayed to the supper. I was so angry with Polly I just pushed her away, and didn’t even say good-night to her. The little silly fool! Mother, if she had told you, you would have let her stay at home this winter and got her clothing, and let her be married here, when she was old enough, wouldn’t you?”

“Certainly!” said Kate. “All the world knows that. Bates all marry; and they all marry young. Don’t blame yourself, Adam. If Polly had it in her system to do this, and she did, or she wouldn’t have done it, the thing would have happened when I was here, and right under my nose. It was a scheme all planned and ready before I left. I know that now. Let it go! There’s nothing we can do, until things begin to go WRONG, as they always do in this kind of wedding; then we shall get our call. In the meantime, you mustn’t push your sister away. She may need you sooner than you’d think; and will you just please have enough confidence in my common sense and love for you, to come to me, FIRST, when you feel that there’s a girl who is indispensable to your future, Adam?”

“Yes, I will,” said Adam. “And it won’t be long, and the girl will be Milly York.”

“All right,” said Kate, gravely, “whenever the time comes, let me know about it. Now see if you can find me something to eat till I lay off my hat and wash. It was a long, hot ride, and I’m tired. Since there’s nothing I can do, I wish I had stayed where I was. No, I don’t, either! I see joy coming over the hill for Nancy Ellen.”

“Why is joy coming to Nancy Ellen?” asked the boy, pausing an instant before he started to the kitchen.

“Oh, because she’s had such a very tough, uncomfortable time with life,” said Kate, “that in the very nature of things joy SHOULD come her way.”

The boy stood mystified until the expression on his face so amused Kate that she began laughing, then he understood.

“That’s WHY it’s coming,” said Kate; “and, here’s HOW it’s coming. She is going to get rid of a bothersome worry that’s troubling her head — and she’s going to have a very splendid gift, but it’s a deep secret.”

“Then you’ll have to whisper it,” said Adam, going to her and holding a convenient ear. Kate rested her hands on his shoulder a minute, as she leaned on him, her face buried in his crisp black hair. Then she whispered the secret.

“Crickey, isn’t that grand!” cried the boy, backing away to stare at her.

“Yes, it is so grand I’m going to try it ourselves,” said Kate. “We’ve a pretty snug balance in the bank, and I think it would be great fun evenings or when we want to go to town in a hurry and the horses are tired.”

Adam was slowly moving toward the kitchen, his face more of a study than before.

“Mother,” he said as he reached the door, “I be hanged if I know how to take you! I thought you’d just raise Cain over what Polly has done; but you act so sane and sensible; someway it doesn’t seem so bad as it did, and I feel more sorry for Polly than like going back on her. And are you truly in earnest about a car?”

“I’m going to think very seriously about it this winter, and I feel almost sure it will come true by early spring,” said Kate. “But who said anything about ‘going back on Polly?'”

“Oh, Mrs. York and all the neighbours said that you’d never forgive her, and that she’d never darken your door again, and things like that until I was almost crazy,” answered Adam.

Kate smiled grimly. “Adam,” she said, “I had seven years of that ‘darken you door’ business, myself. It’s a mighty cold, hard proposition. It’s a wonder the neighbours didn’t remember that. Maybe they did, and thought I was so much of a Bates leopard that I couldn’t change my spots. If they are watching me, they will find that I am not spotted; I’m sorry and humiliated over what Polly has done; but I’m not going to gnash my teeth, and tear my hair, and wail in public, or in private. I’m trying to keep my real mean spot so deep it can’t be seen. If ever I get my chance, Adam, you watch me pay back Mrs. Peters. THAT is the size and location of my spot; but it’s far deeper than my skin. Now go on and find me food, man, food!”

Adam sat close while Kate ate her supper, then he helped her unpack her trunk and hang away her dresses, and then they sat on the porch talking for a long time.

When at last they arose to go to bed Kate said: “Adam, about Polly: first time you see her, if she asks, tell her she left home of her own free will and accord, and in her own way, which, by the way, happens to be a Holt way; but you needn’t mention that. I think by this time she has learned or soon she will learn that; and whenever she wants to come back and face me, to come right ahead. I can stand it if she can. Can you get that straight?”

Adam said he could. He got that straight and so much else that by the time he finished, Polly realized that both he and her mother had left her in the house to try to SHIELD her; that if she had told what she wanted in a straightforward manner she might have had a wedding outfit prepared and been married from her home at a proper time and in a proper way, and without putting her mother to shame before the community. Polly was very much ashamed of herself by the time Adam finished. She could not find it in her heart to blame Henry; she knew he was no more to blame than she was; but she did store up a grievance against Mr. and Mrs. Peters. They were older and had had experience with the world; they might have told Polly what she should do instead of having done everything in their power to make her do what she had done, bribing, coaxing, urging, all in the direction of her inclinations.

At heart Polly was big enough to admit that she had followed her inclinations without thinking at all what the result would be. Adam never would have done what she had. Adam would have thought of his mother and his name and his honour. Poor little Polly had to admit that honour with her had always been a matter of, “Now remember,” “Be careful,” and like caution on the lips of her mother.

The more Polly thought, the worse she felt. The worse she felt, the more the whole Peters family tried to comfort her. She was violently homesick in a few days; but Adam had said she was to come when she “could face her mother,” and Polly suddenly found that she would rather undertake to run ten miles than to face her mother, so she began a process of hiding from her. If she sat on the porch, and saw her mother coming, she ran in the house. She would go to no public place where she might meet her. For a few weeks she lived a life of working for Mrs. Peters from dawn to dark, under the stimulus of what a sweet girl she was, how splendidly she did things, how fortunate Henry was, interspersed with continual kissing, patting, and petting, all very new and unusual to Polly. By that time she was so very ill, she could not lift her head from the pillow half the day, but it was to the credit of the badly disappointed Peters family that they kept up the petting. When Polly grew better, she had no desire to go anywhere; she worked to make up for the trouble she had been during her illness, to sew every spare moment, and to do her full share of the day’s work in the house of an excessively nice woman, whose work never was done, and most hopeless thing of all, never would be. Mrs. Peters’ head was full of things that she meant to do three years in the future. Every night found Polly so tired she staggered to bed early as possible; every morning found her confronting the same round, which from the nature of her condition every morning was more difficult for her.

Kate and Adam followed their usual routine with only the alterations required by the absence of Polly. Kate now prepared breakfast while Adam did the feeding and milking; washed the dishes and made the beds while he hitched up; then went to the field with him. On rainy days he swept and she dusted; always they talked over and planned everything they did, in the house or afield; always they schemed, contrived, economized, and worked to attain the shortest, easiest end to any result they strove for. They were growing in physical force, they were efficient, they attended their own affairs strictly. Their work was always done on time, their place in order, their deposits at the bank frequent. As the cold days came they missed Polly, but scarcely ever mentioned her. They had more books and read and studied together, while every few evenings Adam picked up his hat and disappeared, but soon he and Milly came in together. Then they all read, popped corn, made taffy, knitted, often Kate was called away by some sewing or upstairs work she wanted to do, so that the youngsters had plenty of time alone to revel in the wonder of life’s greatest secret.

To Kate’s ears came the word that Polly would be a mother in the spring, that the Peters family were delighted and anxious for the child to be a girl, as they found six males sufficient for one family. Polly was looking well, feeling fine, was a famous little worker, and seldom sat on a chair because some member of the Peters family usually held her.

“I should think she would get sick of all that mushing,” said Adam when he repeated these things.

“She’s not like us,” said Kate. “She’ll take all she can get, and call for more. She’s a long time coming; but I’m glad she’s well and happy.”

“Buncombe!” said Adam. “She isn’t so very well. She’s white as putty, and there are great big, dark hollows under her eyes, and she’s always panting for breath like she had been running. Nearly every time I pass there I see her out scrubbing the porches, or feeding the chickens, or washing windows, or something. You bet Mrs. Peters has got a fine hired girl now, and she’s smiling all over about it.”

“She really has something to smile about,” said Kate.

To Polly’s ears went the word that Adam and her mother were having a fine time together, always together; and that they had Milly York up three times a week to spend the evening; and that Milly said that it passed her to see why Polly ran away from Mrs. Holt. She was the grandest woman alive, and if she had any running to do in her neighbourhood, she would run TO her, and not FROM her. Whereupon Polly closed her lips firmly and looked black, but not before she had said: “Well, if Mother had done just one night a week of that entertaining for Henry and me, we wouldn’t have run from her, either.”

Polly said nothing until April, then Kate answered the telephone one day and a few seconds later was ringing for Adam as if she would pull down the bell. He came running and soon was on his way to Peters’ with the single buggy, with instructions to drive slowly and carefully and on no account to let Polly slip getting out. The Peters family had all gone to bury an aunt in the neighbourhood, leaving Polly alone for the day; and Polly at once called up her mother, and said she was dying to see her, and if she couldn’t come home for the day, she would die soon, and be glad of it. Kate knew the visit should not have been made at that time and in that way; but she knew that Polly was under a dangerous nervous strain; she herself would not go to Peters’ in Mrs. Peters’ absence; she did not know what else to do. As she waited for Polly she thought of many things she would say; when she saw her, she took her in her arms and almost carried her into the house, and she said nothing at all, save how glad she was to see her, and she did nothing at all, except to try with all her might to comfort and please her, for to Kate, Polly did no seem like a strong, healthy girl approaching maternity. She appeared like a very sick woman, who sorely needed attention, while a few questions made her so sure of it that she at once called Robert. He gave both of them all the comfort he could, but what he told Nancy Ellen was: “Polly has had no attention whatever. She wants me, and I’ll have to go; but it’s a case I’d like to side-step. I’ll do all I can, but the time is short.”

“Oh, Lord!” said Nancy Ellen. “Is it one more for Kate?”

“Yes,” said Robert, “I am very much afraid it’s ‘one more for Kate.'”

ONE MORE FOR KATE

POLLY and Kate had a long day together, while Adam was about the house much of the time. Both of them said and did everything they could think of to cheer and comfort Polly, whose spirits seemed most variable. One minute she would be laughing and planning for the summer gaily, the next she would be gloomy and depressed, and declaring she never would live through the birth of her baby. If she had appeared well, this would not have worried Kate; but she looked even sicker than she seemed to feel. She was thin while her hands were hot and tremulous. As the afternoon went on and time to go came nearer, she grew more and more despondent, until Kate proposed watching when the Peters family came home, calling them up, and telling them that Polly was there, would remain all night, and that Henry should come down.

Polly flatly vetoed the proposition, but she seemed to feel much better after it had been made. She was like herself again for a short time, and then she turned to Kate and said suddenly: “Mother, if I don’t get over this, will you take my baby?”

Kate looked at Polly intently. What she saw stopped the ready answer that was on her lips. She stood thinking deeply. At last she said gently: “Why, Polly, would you want to trust a tiny baby with a woman you ran away from yourself?”

“Mother, I haven’t asked you to forgive me for the light I put you in before the neighbours,” said Polly, “because I knew you couldn’t honestly do it, and wouldn’t lie to say you did. I don’t know WHAT made me do that. I was TIRED staying alone at the house so much, I was WILD about Henry, I was BOUND I wouldn’t leave him and go away to school. I just thought it would settle everything easily and quickly. I never once thought of how it would make you look and feel. Honestly I didn’t, Mother. You believe me, don’t you?”

“Yes, I believe you,” said Kate.

“It was an awful thing for me to do,” said Polly. “I was foolish and crazy, and I suppose I shouldn’t say it, but I certainly did have a lot of encouragement from the Peters family. They all seemed to think it would be a great joke, that it wouldn’t make any difference, and all that, so I just did it. I knew I shouldn’t have done it; but, Mother, you’ll never know the fight I’ve had all my life to keep from telling stories and sneaking. I hated your everlasting: ‘Now be careful,’ but when I hated it most, I needed it worst; and I knew it, when I grew older. If only you had been here to say, ‘Now be careful,’ just once, I never would have done it; but of course I couldn’t have you to keep me straight all my life. All I can say is that I’d give my life and never whimper, if I could be back home as I was this time last year, and have a chance to do things your way. But that is past, and I can’t change it. What I came for to-day, and what I want to know now is, if I go, will you take my baby?”

“Polly, you KNOW the Peters family wouldn’t let me have it,” said Kate.

“If it’s a boy, they wouldn’t WANT it,” said Polly. “Neither would you, for that matter. If it’s a girl, they’ll fight for it; but it won’t do them any good. All I want to know is, WILL YOU TAKE IT?”

“Of course I would, Polly,” said Kate.

“Since I have your word, I’ll feel better,” said Polly. “And Mother, you needn’t be AFRAID of it. It will be all right. I have thought about it so much I have it all figured out. It’s going to be a girl, and it’s going to be exactly like you, and its name is going to be Katherine Eleanor. I have thought about you every hour I was awake since I have been gone; so the baby will have to be exactly like you. There won’t be the taint of grandmother in it that there is in me. You needn’t be afraid. I quit sneaking forever when Adam told me what I had done to you. I have gone straight as a dart, Mother, every single minute since, Mother; truly I have!”

Kate sat down suddenly, an awful sickness in her heart.

“Why, you poor child you!” she said.

“Oh, I’ve been all right,” said Polly. “I’ve been almost petted and loved to death; but Mother, there never should be the amount of work attached to living that there is in that house. It’s never ending, it’s intolerable. Mrs. Peters just goes until she drops, and then instead of sleeping, she lies awake planning some hard, foolish, unnecessary thing to do next. Maybe she can stand it herself, but I’m tired out. I’m going to sit down, and not budge to do another stroke until after the baby comes, and then I am going to coax Henry to rent a piece of land, and move to ourselves.”

Kate took heart. “That will be fine!” she cried. “That will be the very thing. I’ll ask the boys to keep their eyes open for any chance for you.”

“You needn’t take any bother about it,” said Polly, “because that isn’t what is going to happen. All I want to be sure of now is that you and Adam will take my baby. I’ll see to the rest.”

“How will you see to it, Polly?” asked Kate, gently.

“Well, it’s already seen to, for matter of that,” said Polly conclusively. “I’ve known for quite a while that I was sick; but I couldn’t make them do anything but kiss me, and laugh at me, until I am so ill that I know better how I feel than anybody else. I got tired being laughed at, and put off about everything, so one day in Hartley, while Mother Peters was shopping, I just went in to the lawyer Grandmother always went to, and told him all about what I wanted. He has the papers made out all right and proper; so when I send for Uncle Robert, I am going to send for him, too, and soon as the baby comes I’ll put in its name and sign it, and make Henry, and then if I have to go, you won’t have a bit of trouble.”

Kate gazed at Polly in dumb amazement. She was speechless for a time, then to break the strain she said: “My soul! Did you really, Polly? I guess there is more Bates in you than I had thought!”

“Oh, there’s SOME Bates in me,” said Polly. “There’s enough to make me live until I sign that paper, and make Henry Peters sign it, and send Mr. Thomlins to you with it and the baby. I can do that, because I’m going to!”

Ten days later she did exactly what she had said she would. Then she turned her face to the wall and went into a convulsion out of which she never came. While the Peters family refused Kate’s plea to lay Polly beside her grandmother, and laid her in their family lot, Kate, moaning dumbly, sat clasping a tiny red girl in her arms. Adam drove to Hartley to deposit one more paper, the most precious of all, in the safety deposit box.

Kate and Adam mourned too deeply to talk about it. They went about their daily rounds silently, each busy with regrets and self investigations. They watched each other carefully, were kinder than they ever had been to everyone they came in contact with; the baby they frankly adored. Kate had reared her own children with small misgivings, quite casually, in fact; but her heart was torn to the depths about this baby. Life never would be even what it had been before Polly left them, for into her going there entered an element of self-reproach and continual self-condemnation. Adam felt that if he had been less occupied with Milly York and had taken proper care of his sister, he would not have lost her. Kate had less time for recrimination, because she had the baby.

“Look for a good man to help you this summer, Adam,” she said. “The baby is full of poison which can be eliminated only slowly. If I don’t get it out before teething, I’ll lose her, and then we never shall hear the last from the Peters family.” Adam consigned the Peters family to a location he thought suitable for them on the instant. He spoke with unusual bitterness, because he had heard that the Peters family were telling that Polly had grieved herself to death, while his mother had engineered a scheme whereby she had stolen the baby. Occasionally a word drifted to Kate here and there, until she realized much of what they were saying. At first she grieved too deeply to pay any attention, but as the summer went on and the baby flourished and grew fine and strong, and she had time in the garden, she began to feel better; grief began to wear away, as it always does.

By midsummer the baby was in short clothes, sitting in a high chair, which if Miss Baby only had known it, was a throne before which knelt her two adoring subjects. Polly had said the baby would be like Kate. Its hair and colouring were like hers, but it had the brown eyes of its father, and enough of his facial lines to tone down the too generous Bates features. When the baby was five months old it was too pretty for adequate description. One baby has no business with perfect features, a mop of curly, yellow silk hair, and big brown eyes. One of the questions Kate and Adam discussed most frequently was where they would send her to college, while one they did not discuss was how sick her stomach teeth would make her. They merely lived in mortal dread of that. “Convulsion,” was a word that held a terror for Kate above any other in the medical books.

The baby had a good, formal name, but no one ever used it. Adam, on first lifting the blanket, had fancied the child resembled its mother and had called her “Little Poll.” The name clung to her. Kate could not call such a tiny morsel either Kate or Katherine; she liked “Little Poll,” better. The baby had three regular visitors. One was her father. He was not fond of Kate; Little Poll suited him. He expressed his feeling by bringing gifts of toys, candy, and unsuitable clothes. Kate kept these things in evidence when she saw him coming and swept them from sight when he went; for she had the good sense not to antagonize him. Nancy Ellen came almost every day, proudly driving her new car, and with the light of a new joy on her face. She never said anything to Kate, but Kate knew what had happened. Nancy Ellen came to see the baby. She brought it lovely and delicate little shoes, embroidered dresses and hoods, cloaks and blankets. One day as she sat holding it she said to Kate: “Isn’t the baby a dreadful bother to you? You’re not getting half your usual work done.”

“No, I’m doing UNUSUAL work,” said Kate, lightly. “Adam is hiring a man who does my work very well in the fields; there isn’t money that would hire me to let any one else take my job indoors, right now.”

A slow red crept into Nancy Ellen’s cheeks. She had meant to be diplomatic, but diplomacy never worked well with Kate. As Nancy Ellen often said, Kate understood a sledge-hammer better. Nancy Ellen used the hammer. Her face flushed, her arms closed tightly. “Give me this baby,” she demanded.

Kate looked at her in helpless amazement.

“Give it to me,” repeated Nancy Ellen.

“She’s a gift to me,” said Kate, slowly. “One the Peters family are searching heaven and earth to find an excuse to take from me. I hear they’ve been to a lawyer twice, already. I wouldn’t give her up to save my soul alive, for myself; for you, if I would let you have her, they would not leave you in possession a day.”

“Are they really trying to get her?” asked Nancy Ellen, slowly loosening her grip.

“They are,” said Kate. “They sent a lawyer to get a copy of the papers, to see if they could pick a flaw in them.”

“Can they?” cried Nancy Ellen.

“God knows!” said Kate, slowly. “I HOPE not. Mr. Thomlins is the best lawyer in Hartley; he says not. He says Henry put his neck in the noose when he signed the papers. The only chance I can see for him would be to plead undue influence. When you look at her, you can’t blame him for wanting her. I’ve two hopes. One that his mother will not want the extra work; the other that the next girl he selects will not want the baby. If I can keep them going a few months more with a teething scare, I hope they will get over wanting her.”

“If they do, then may we have her?” asked Nancy Ellen.

Kate threw out her hands. “Take my eyes, or my hands, or my feet,” she said; “but leave me my heart.”

Nancy Ellen went soon after, and did not come again for several days. Then she began coming as usual, so that the baby soon knew her and laughed in high glee when she appeared. Dr. Gray often stopped in passing to see her; if he was in great haste, he hallooed at the gate to ask if she was all right. Kate was thankful for this, more than thankful for the telephone and car that would bring him in fifteen minutes day or night, if he were needed. But he was not needed. Little Poll throve and grew fat and rosy; for she ate measured food, slept by the clock, in a sanitary bed, and was a bathed, splendidly cared for baby. When Kate’s family and friends laughed, she paid not the slightest heed.

“Laugh away,” she said. “I’ve got something to fight with this baby; I don’t propose for the battle to come and find the chances against me, because I’m unprepared.”

With scrupulous care Kate watched over the child, always putting her first, the house and land afterward. One day she looked up the road and saw Henry Peters coming. She had been expecting Nancy Ellen. She had finished bathing the baby and making her especially attractive in a dainty lace ruffled dress with blue ribbons and blue shoes that her sister had brought on her latest trip. Little Poll was a wonderful picture, for her eyes were always growing bigger, her cheeks pinker, her skin fairer, her hair longer and more softly curling. At first thought Kate had been inclined to snatch off the dress and change to one of the cheap, ready-made ginghams Henry brought, but the baby was so lovely as she was, she had not the heart to spoil the picture, while Nancy Ellen might come any minute. So she began putting things in place while Little Poll sat crowing and trying to pick up a sunbeam that fell across her tray. Her father came to the door and stood looking at her. Suddenly he dropped in a chair, covered his face with his hands and began to cry, in deep, shuddering sobs. Kate stood still in wonderment. As last she seated herself before him and said gently: “Won’t you tell me about it, Henry?”

Henry struggled for self-control. He looked at the baby longingly. Finally he said: “It’s pretty tough to give up a baby like that, Mrs. Holt. She’s my little girl. I wish God had struck my right hand with palsy, when I went to sign those papers.”

“Oh, no, you don’t, Henry,” said Kate, suavely. “You wouldn’t like to live the rest of your life a cripple. And is it any worse for me to have your girl in spite of the real desires and dictates of your heart, than it was for you to have mine? And you didn’t take the intelligent care of my girl that I’m taking of yours, either. A doctor and a little right treatment at the proper time would have saved Polly to rear her own baby; but there’s no use to go into that. I was waiting for Polly to come home of her own accord, as she left it; and while I waited, a poison crept into her system that took her. I never shall feel right about it; neither shall you — “

“No, I should say I won’t!” said Henry emphatically. “I never thought of anything being the matter with Polly that wouldn’t be all over when the baby came — “

“I know you didn’t, Henry,” said Kate. “I know how much you would have done, and how gladly, if you had known. There is no use going into that, we are both very much to blame; we must take our punishment. Now what is this I hear about your having been to see lawyers and trying to find a way to set aside the adoption papers you signed? Let’s have a talk, and see what we can arrive at. Tell me all about it.”

So Henry told Kate how he had loved Polly, how he felt guilty of her death, how he longed for and wanted her baby, how he had signed the paper which Polly put before him so unexpectedly, to humour her, because she was very ill; but he had not dreamed that she could die; how he did not feel that he should be bound by that signature now. Kate listened with the deepest sympathy, assenting to most he said until he was silent. Then she sat thinking a long time. At last she said: “Henry, if you and Polly had waited until I came home, and told me what you wanted and how you felt, I should have gotten her ready, and given you a customary wedding, and helped you to start a life that I think would have saved her to you, and to me. That is past, but the fact remains. You are hurt over giving up the baby as you have; I’m hurt over losing my daughter as I did; we are about even on the past, don’t you think?”

“I suppose we are,” he said, heavily.

“That being agreed,” said Kate, “let us look to the future. You want the baby now, I can guess how much, by how much I want her, myself. I know YOUR point of view; there are two others, one is mine, and the other is the baby’s. I feel that it is only right and just that I should have this little girl to replace the one you took from me, in a way far from complimentary to me. I feel that she is mine, because Polly told me the day she came to see me how sick she had been, how she had begged for a doctor, and been kissed and told there was nothing the matter with her, when she knew she was very ill. She gave the baby to me, and at that time she had been to see a lawyer, and had her papers all made out except the signatures and dates. Mr. Thomlins can tell you that; and you know that up to that time I had not seen Polly, or had any communication with her. She simply was unnerved at the thought of trusting her baby to the care she had had.”

Kate was hitting hard and straight from the shoulder. The baby, busy with her sunbeam, jabbered unnoticed.

“When Polly died as she did,” continued Kate, “I knew that her baby would be full of the same poison that killed her; and that it must be eliminated before it came time to cut her worst teeth, so I undertook the work, and sleeping or waking, I have been at it ever since. Now, Henry, is there any one at your house who would have figured this out, and taken the time, pains, and done work that I have? Is there?”

“Mother raised six of us.” he said defensively.

“But she didn’t die of diathesis giving birth to the first of you,” said Kate. “You were all big, strong boys with a perfectly sound birthright. And your mother is now a much older, wearier woman than she was then, and her hands are far too full every day, as it is. If she knew how to handle the baby as I have, and was willing to add the work to her daily round, would you be willing to have her? I have three times her strength, while I consider that I’ve the first right. Then there is the baby’s side of the question. I have had her through the worst, hardest part of babyhood; she is accustomed to a fixed routine that you surely will concede agrees with her; she would miss me, and she would not thrive as she does with me, for her food and her hours would not be regular, while you, and your father, and the boys would tire her to death handling her. That is the start. The finish would be that she would grow up, if she survived, to take the place Polly took at your house, while you would marry some other girl, as you WILL before a year from now. I’m dreadfully sorry to say these things to you, Henry, but you know they are the truth. If you’re going to try to take the baby, I’m going to fight you to the last dollar I can raise, and the last foot of land I own. That’s all. Look at the baby; think it over; and let me know what you’ll do as soon as you can. I’m not asking mercy at your hands, but I do feel that I have suffered about my share.”

“You needn’t suffer any longer,” said Henry, drying his eyes. “All you say is true; just as what I said was true; but I might as well tell you, and let one of us be happy. I saw my third lawyer yesterday, and he said the papers were unbreakable unless I could prove that the child was neglected, and not growing right, or not having proper care. Look at her! I might do some things! I did do a thing as mean as to persuade a girl to marry me without her mother’s knowledge, and ruined her life thereby, but God knows I couldn’t go on the witness stand and swear that that baby is not properly cared for! Mother’s job is big enough; and while it doesn’t seem possible now, very likely I shall marry again, as other men do; and in that event, Little Poll WOULD be happier with you. I give her up. I think I came this morning to say that I was defeated; and to tell you that I’d give up if I saw that you would fight. Keep the baby, and be as happy as you can. You shan’t be worried any more about her. Polly shall have this thing as she desired and planned it. Good-bye.”

When he had gone Kate knelt on the floor, laid her head on the chair tray, and putting her arms around the baby she laughed and cried at the same time, while Miss Baby pulled her hair, patted her face, and plastered it with wet, uncertain kisses. Then Kate tied a little bonnet on the baby’s head and taking her in her arms, she went to the field to tell Adam. It seemed to Kate that she could see responsibility slipping from his shoulders, could see him grow taller as he listened. The breath of relief he drew was long and deep.

“Fine!” he cried. “Fine! I haven’t told you HALF I knew. I’ve been worried until I couldn’t sleep.”

Kate went back to the house so glad she did not realize she was touching earth at all. She fed the baby and laid her down for her morning nap, and then went out in the garden; but she was too restless to work. She walked bareheaded in the sun and was glad as she never before in her life had known how to be glad. The first thing Kate knew she was standing at the gate looking up at the noonday sky and from the depths of her heart she was crying aloud: “Praise ye the Lord, Oh my soul. Let all that is within me praise His holy name!”

For the remainder of the day Kate was unblushingly insane. She started to do a hundred things and abandoned all of them to go out and look up at the sky and to cry repeatedly: “Praise the Lord!”

If she had been asked to explain why she did this, Kate could have answered, and would have answered: “Because I FEEL like it!” She had been taught no religion as a child, she had practised no formal mode of worship as a woman. She had been straight, honest, and virtuous. She had faced life and done with small question the work that she thought fell to her hand. She had accepted joy, sorrow, shame, all in the same stoic way. Always she had felt that there was a mighty force in the universe that could as well be called God as any other name; it mattered not about the name; it was a real force, and it was there.

That day Kate exulted. She carried the baby down to the brook in the afternoon and almost shouted; she sang until she could have been heard a mile. She kept straight on praising the Lord, because expression was imperative, and that was the form of expression that seemed to come naturally to her. Without giving a thought as to how, or why, she followed her impulses and praised the Lord. The happier she grew, the more clearly she saw how uneasy and frightened she had been.

When Nancy Ellen came, she took only one glance at Kate’s glorified face and asked: “What in this world has happened to you?”

Kate answered in all seriousness: “My Lord has ‘shut the lions’ mouths,’ and they are not going to harm me.”

Nancy Ellen regarded her closely. “I hope you aren’t running a temperature,” she said. “I’ll take a shot at random. You have found out that the Peters family can’t take Little Poll.”

Kate laughed joyously. “Better than that, sister mine!” she cried. “I have convinced Henry that he doesn’t want her himself as much as he wants me to have her, and he can speedily convert his family. He will do nothing more! He will leave me in peace with her.”

“Thank God!” said Nancy Ellen.

“There you go, too!” cried Kate. “That’s the very first thought that came to me, only I said, ‘Praise the Lord,’ which is exactly the same thing; and Nancy Ellen, since Robert has been trying to praise the Lord for twenty years, and both of us do praise Him when our time comes, wouldn’t it be a good idea to open up our heads and say so, not only to ourselves and to the Lord, but to the neighbours? I’m afraid she won’t understand much of it, but I think I shall find the place and read to Little Poll about Abraham and Isaac to-night, and probably about Hagar and Ishmael to-morrow night, and it wouldn’t surprise me a mite to hear myself saying ‘Praise the Lord,’ right out loud, any time, any place. Let’s gather a great big bouquet of our loveliest flowers, and go tell Mother and Polly about it.”

Without a word Nancy Ellen turned toward the garden. They gathered the flowers and getting in Nancy Ellen’s car drove the short distance to the church where Nancy Ellen played with the baby in the shade of a big tree while Kate arranged her flowers. Then she sat down and they talked over their lives from childhood.

“Nancy Ellen, won’t you stay to supper with us?” asked Kate.

“Yes,” said Nancy Ellen, rising, “I haven’t had such a good time in years. I’m as glad for you as I’d be if I had such a child assured me, myself.”

“You can’t bring yourself –?” began Kate.

“Yes, I think so,” said Nancy Ellen. “Getting things for Little Poll has broken me up so, I told Robert how I felt, and he’s watching in his practice, and he’s written several letters of inquiry to friends in Chicago. Any day now I may have my work cut out for me.”

“Praise the Lord again!” cried Kate. “I see where you will be happier than you ever have been. Real life is just beginning for you.”

Then they went home and prepared a good supper and had such a fine time they were exalted in heart and spirit. When Nancy Ellen started home, Kate took the baby and climbed in the car with her, explaining that they would go a short way and walk back. She went only as far as the Peters gate; then she bravely walked up to the porch, where Mr. Peters and some of the boys sat, and said casually: “I just thought I’d bring Little Poll up to get acquainted with her folks. Isn’t she a dear?”

An hour later, as she walked back in the moonlight, Henry beside her carrying the baby, he said to her: “This is a mighty big thing, and a kind thing for you to do, Mrs. Holt. Mother has been saying scandalous things about you.”

“I know,” said Kate. “But never mind! She won’t any more.”

The remainder of the week she passed in the same uplifted mental state. She carried the baby in her arms and walked all over the farm, going often to the cemetery with fresh flowers. Sunday morning, when the work was all done, the baby dressed her prettiest, Kate slipped into one of her fresh white dresses and gathering a big bunch of flowers started again to whisper above the graves of her mother and Polly the story of her gladness, and to freshen the flowers, so that the people coming from church would see that her family were remembered. When she had finished she arose, took up the baby, and started to return across the cemetery, going behind the church, taking the path she had travelled the day she followed the minister’s admonition to “take the wings of morning.” She thought of that. She stood very still, thinking deeply.

“I took them,” she said. “I’ve tried flight after flight; and I’ve fallen, and risen, and fallen, and got up and tried again, but never until now have I felt that I could really ‘fly to the uttermost parts of the earth.’ There is a rising power in me that should benefit more than myself. I guess I’ll just join in.”

She walked into the church as the last word of the song the congregation were singing was finished, and the minister was opening his lips to say: “Let us pray.” Straight down the aisle came Kate, her bare, gold head crowned with a flash of light at each window she passed. She paused at the altar, directly facing the minister.

“Baby and I would like the privilege of praising the Lord with you,” she said simply, “and we would like to do our share in keeping up this church and congregation to His honour and glory. There’s some water. Can’t you baptize us now?”

The minister turned to the pitcher, which always stood on his desk, filled his palm, and asked: “What is the baby’s name?”

“Katherine Eleanor Peters,” said Kate.

“Katherine Eleanor, I baptize thee,” said the minister, and he laid his hand on the soft curls of the baby. She scattered the flowers she was holding over the altar as she reached to spat her hands in the water on her head and laughed aloud.

“What is your name?” asked the minister.

“Katherine Eleanor Holt,” said Kate.

Again the minister repeated the formula, and then he raised both hands and said: “Let us pray.”

THE WINGED VICTORY

KATE turned and placing the baby on the front seat, she knelt and put her arms around the little thing, but her lips only repeated the words: “Praise the Lord for this precious baby!” Her heart was filled with high resolve. She would rear the baby with such care. She would be more careful with Adam. She would make heroic effort to help him to clean, unashamed manhood. She would be a better sister to all her family. She would be friendlier, and have more patience with the neighbours. She would join in whatever effort the church was making to hold and increase its membership among the young people, and to raise funds to keep up the organization. All the time her mind was busy thinking out these fine resolves, her lips were thanking the Lord for Little Poll. Kate arose with the benediction, picked up the baby, and started down the aisle among the people she had known all her life. On every side strong hands stretched out to greet and welcome her. A daughter of Adam Bates was something new as a church member. They all knew how she could work, and what she could give if she chose; while that she had stood at the altar and been baptized, meant that something not customary with the Bates family was taking place in her heart. So they welcomed her, and praised the beauty and sweetness of the baby until Kate went out into the sunshine, her face glowing.

Slowly she walked home and as she reached the veranda, Adam took the baby.

“Been to the cemetery?” he asked.

Kate nodded and dropped into a chair.

“That’s too far to walk and carry this great big woman,” he said, snuggling his face in the baby’s neck, while she patted his cheeks and pulled his hair. “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to go, and let me get out the car?”

Kate looked at him speculatively.

“Adam,” she said, “when I started out, I meant only to take some flowers to Mother and Polly. As I came around the corner of the church to take the footpath, they were singing ‘Rejoice in the Lord!’ I went inside and joined. I’m going to church as often as I can after this, and I’m going to help with the work of running it.”

“Well, I like that!” cried Adam, indignantly. “Why didn’t you let me go with you?”

Kate sat staring down the road. She was shocked speechless. Again she had followed an impulse, without thinking of any one besides herself. Usually she could talk, but in that instant she had nothing to say. Then a carriage drew into the line of her vision, stopped at York’s gate, and Mr. York alighted and swung to the ground a slim girlish figure and then helped his wife. Kate had a sudden inspiration. “But you would want to wait a little and join with Milly, wouldn’t you?” she asked. “Uncle Robert always has been a church member. I think it’s a fine stand for a man to take.”

“Maybe that would be better,” he said. “I didn’t think of Milly. I only thought I’d like to have been with you and Little Poll.”

“I’m sure Milly will be joining very soon, and that she’ll want you with her,” said Kate.

She was a very substantial woman, but for the remainder of that day she felt that she was moving with winged feet. She sang, she laughed, she was unspeakably happy. She kept saying over and over: “And a little child shall lead them.” Then she would catch Little Poll, almost crushing her in her strong arms. It never occurred to Kate that she had done an unprecedented thing. She had done as her heart dictated. She did not know that she put the minister into a most uncomfortable position, when he followed her request to baptize her and the child. She had never thought of probations, and examinations, and catechisms. She had read the Bible, as was the custom, every morning before her school. In that book, when a man wanted to follow Jesus, he followed; Jesus accepted him; and that was all there was to it, with Kate.

The middle of the week Nancy Ellen came flying up the walk on winged feet, herself. She carried photographs of several small children, one of them a girl so like Little Poll that she might have been the original of the picture.

“They just came,” said Nancy Ellen rather breathlessly. “I was wild for that little darling at once. I had Robert telegraph them to hold her until we could get there. We’re going to start on the evening train and if her blood seems good, and her ancestors respectable, and she looks like that picture, we’re going to bring her back with us. Oh, Kate, I can scarcely wait to get my fingers on her. I’m hungry for a baby all of my own.”

Kate studied the picture.

“She’s charming!” she said. “Oh, Nancy Ellen, this world is getting entirely too good to be true.”

Nancy Ellen looked at Kate and smiled peculiarly.

“I knew you were crazy,” she said, “but I never dreamed of you going such lengths. Mrs. Whistler told Robert, when she called him in about her side, Tuesday. I can’t imagine a Bates joining church.”

“If that is joining church, it’s the easiest thing in the world,” said Kate. “We just loved doing it, didn’t we, Little Poll? Adam and Milly are going to come in soon, I’m almost sure. At least he is willing. I don’t know what it is that I am to do, but I suppose they will give me my work soon.”

“You bet they’ll give you work soon, and enough,” said Nancy Ellen, laughing. “But you won’t mind. You’ll just put it through, as you do things out here. Kate, you are making this place look fine. I used to say I’d rather die than come back here to live, but lately it has been growing so attractive, I’ve been here about half my time, and wished I were the other half.”

Kate slipped her arm around Nancy Ellen as they walked to the gate.

“You know,” said Nancy Ellen, “the MORE I study you, the LESS I know about you. Usually it’s sickness, and sorrow, and losing their friends that bring people to the consolations of the church. You bore those things like a stoic. When they are all over, and you are comfortable and happy, just the joy of being sure of Little Poll has transformed you. Kate, you make me think of the ‘Winged Victory,’ this afternoon. If I get this darling little girl, will she make me big, and splendid, and fine, like you?”

Kate suddenly drew Nancy Ellen to her and kissed her a long, hard kiss on the lips.

“Nancy Ellen,” she said, “you ARE ‘big, and splendid, and fine,’ or you never would be going to Chicago after this little motherless child. You haven’t said a word, but I know from the joy of you and Robert during the past months that Mrs. Southey isn’t troubling you any more; and I’m sure enough to put it into words that when you get your little child, she will lead you straight where mine as led me. Good-bye and good luck to you, and remember me to Robert.”

Nancy Ellen stood intently studying the picture she held in her hand. Then she looked at Kate, smiling with misty eyes: “I think, Kate, I’m very close, if I am not really where you are this minute,” she said. Then she started her car; but she looked back, waving and smiling until the car swerved so that Kate called after her: “Do drive carefully, Nancy Ellen!”

Kate went slowly up the walk. She stopped several times to examine the shrubs and bushes closely, to wish for rain for the flowers. She sat on the porch a few minutes talking to Little Poll, then she went inside to answer the phone.

“Kate?” cried a sharp voice.

“Yes,” said Kate, recognizing a neighbour, living a few miles down the road.

“Did Nancy Ellen just leave your house?” came a breathless query.

“Yes,” said Kate again.

“I just saw a car that looked like hers slip in the fresh sand at the river levee, and it went down, and two or three times over.”

“O God!” said Kate. Then after an instant: “Ring the dinner bell for your men to get her out. I’ll phone Robert, and come as soon as I can get there.”

Kate called Dr. Gray’s office. She said to the girl: “Tell the doctor that Mrs. Howe thinks she saw Nancy Ellen’s car go down the river levee, and two or three times over. Have him bring what he might need to Howe’s, and hurry. Rush him!”

Then she ran to her bell and rang so frantically that Adam came running. Kate was at the little garage they had built, and had the door open. She told him what she had heard, ran to get the baby, and met him at the gate. On the way she said, “You take the baby when we get there, and if I’m needed, take her back and get Milly and her mother to come stay with you. You know where her things are, and how to feed her. Don’t you dare let them change any way I do. Baby knows Milly; she will be good for her and for you. You’ll be careful?”

“Of course, Mother,” said Adam.

He called her attention to the road.

“Look at those tracks,” he said. “Was she sick? She might have been drunk, from them.”

“No,” said Kate, “she wasn’t sick. She WAS drunk, drunken with joy. She had a picture of the most beautiful little baby girl. They were to start to Chicago after her to-night. I suspect she was driving with the picture in one hand. Oh, my God, have mercy!”

They had come to deep grooves in loose gravel, then the cut in the embankment, then they could see the wrecked car standing on the engine and lying against a big tree, near the water, while two men and a woman were carrying a limp form across the meadow toward the house. As their car stopped, Kate kissed the baby mechanically, handed her to Adam, and ran into the house where she dragged a couch to the middle of the first room she entered, found a pillow, and brought a bucket of water and a towel from the kitchen. They carried Nancy Ellen in and laid her down. Kate began unfastening clothing and trying to get the broken body in shape for the doctor to work upon; but she spread the towel over what had been a face of unusual beauty. Robert came in a few minutes, then all of them worked under his directions until he suddenly sank to the floor, burying his face in Nancy Ellen’s breast; then they knew. Kate gathered her sister’s feet in her arms and hid her face beside them. The neighbours silently began taking away things that had been used, while Mrs. Howe chose her whitest sheet, and laid it on a chair near Robert.

Two days later they laid Nancy Ellen beside her mother. Then they began trying to face the problem of life without her. Robert said nothing. He seemed too stunned to think. Kate wanted to tell him of her final visit with Nancy Ellen, but she could not at that time. Robert’s aged mother came to him, and said she could remain as long as he wanted her, so that was a comfort to Kate, who took time to pity him, even in her blackest hour. She had some very black ones. She could have wailed, and lamented, and relinquished all she had gained, but she did not. She merely went on with life, as she always had lived it, to the best of her ability when she was so numbed with grief she scarcely knew what she was doing. She kept herself driven about the house, and when she could find no more to do, took Little Poll in her arms and went out in the fields to Adam, where she found the baby a safe place, and then cut and husked corn as usual. Every Sabbath, and often during the week, her feet carried her to the cemetery, where she sat in the deep grass and looked at those three long mounds and tried to understand life; deeper still, to fathom death.

She and her mother had agreed that there was “something.” Now Kate tried as never before to understand what, and where, and why, that “something” was. Many days she would sit for an hour at a time, thinking, and at last she arrived at fixed convictions that settled matters forever with her. One day after she had arranged the fall roses she had grown, and some roadside asters she had gathered in passing, she sat in deep thought, when a car stopped on the road. Kate looked up to see Robert coming across the churchyard with his arms full of greenhouse roses. He carried a big bunch of deep red for her mother, white for Polly, and a large sheaf of warm pink for Nancy Ellen. Kate knelt up and taking her flowers, she moved them lower, and silently helped Robert place those he had brought. Then she sat where she had been, and looked at him.

Finally he asked: “Still hunting the ‘why,’ Kate?”

“‘Why’ doesn’t so much matter,” said Kate, “as ‘where.’ I’m enough of a fatalist to believe that Mother is here because she was old and worn out. Polly had a clear case of uric poison, while I’d stake my life Nancy Ellen was gloating over the picture she carried when she ran into that loose sand. In each of their cases I am satisfied as to ‘why,’ as well as about Father. The thing that holds me, and fascinates me, and that I have such a time being sure of, is ‘where.'”

Robert glanced upward and asked: “Isn’t there room enough up there, Kate?”

“Too much!” said Kate. “And what IS the soul, and HOW can it bridge the vortex lying between us and other worlds, that man never can, because of the lack of air to breathe, and support him?”

“I don’t know,” said Robert; “and in spite of the fact that I do know what a man CANNOT do, I still believe in the immortality of the soul.”

“Oh, yes,” said Kate. “If there is any such thing in science as a self-evident fact, that is one. THAT is provable.”

Robert looked at her eager face. “How would you go about proving it, Kate?” he asked.

“Why, this way,” said Kate, leaning to straighten and arrange the delicate velvet petalled roses with her sure, work-abused fingers. “Take the history of the world from as near dawn as we have any record, and trace it from the igloo of the northernmost Esquimo, around the globe, and down to the ice of the southern pole again, and in blackest Africa, farthest, wildest Borneo, you will never discover one single tribe of creatures, upright and belonging to the race of man, who did not come into the world with four primal instincts. They all reproduce themselves, they all make something intended for music, they all express a feeling in their hearts by the exercise we call dance, they all believe in the after life of the soul. This belief is as much a PART of any man, ever born in any location, as his hands and his feet. Whether he believes his soul enters a cat and works back to man again after long transmigration, or goes to a Happy Hunting Ground as our Indians, makes no difference with the fact that he enters this world with belief in after life of some kind. We see material evidence in increase that man is not defeated in his desire to reproduce himself; we have advanced to something better than tom-toms and pow-wows for music and dance; these desires are fulfilled before us, now tell me why the very strongest of all, the most deeply rooted, the belief in after life, should come to nothing. Why should the others be real, and that a dream?”

“I don’t think it is,” said Robert.

“It’s my biggest self-evident fact,” said Kate, conclusively. “I never heard any one else say these things, but I think them, and they are provable. I always believed there was something; but since I saw Mother go, I know there is. She stood in full evening light, I looked straight in her face, and Robert, you know I’m no creature of fancies and delusions, I tell you I SAW HER SOUL PASS. I saw the life go from her and go on, and on. I saw her body stand erect, long enough for me to reach her, and pick her up, after its passing. That I know.”

“I shouldn’t think of questioning it, Kate,” said Robert. “But don’t you think you are rather limiting man, when you narrow him to four primal instincts?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Kate. “Air to breathe and food to sustain are presupposed. Man LEARNS to fight in self-defense, and to acquire what he covets. He learns to covet by seeing stronger men, in better locations, surpass his achievements, so if he is strong enough he goes and robs them by force. He learns the desire for the chase in food hunting; I think four are plenty to start with.”

“Probably you are right,” said the doctor, rising. “I must go now. Shall I take you home?”

Kate glanced at the sun and shook her head. “I can stay half an hour longer. I don’t mind the walk. I need exercise to keep me in condition. Good-bye!”

As he started his car he glanced back. She was leaning over the flowers absorbed in their beauty. Kate sat looking straight before her until time to help with the evening work, and prepare supper, then she arose. She stood looking down a long time; finally she picked up a fine specimen of each of the roses and slowly dropped them on her father’s grave.

“There! You may have that many,” she said. “You look a little too lonely, lying here beside the others with not a single one, but if you could speak, I wonder whether you would say, ‘Thank you!’ or ‘Take the damn weeds off me!'”

BLUE RIBBON CORN

NEVER in her life had Kate worked harder than she did that fall; but she retained her splendid health. Everything was sheltered and housed, their implements under cover, their stock in good condition, their store-room filled, and their fruits and vegetables buried in hills and long rows in the garden. Adam had a first wheat premium at the County Fair and a second on corn, concerning which he felt abused. He thought his corn scored the highest number of points, but that the award was given another man because of Adam’s having had first on wheat. In her heart Kate agreed with him; but she tried to satisfy him with the blue ribbon on wheat and keep him interested sufficiently to try for the first on corn the coming year. She began making suggestions for the possible improvement of his corn. Adam was not easily propitiated.

“Mother,” he said, “you know as well as you know you’re alive, that if I had failed on wheat, or had second, I would have been given FIRST on my corn; my corn was the best in every way, but they thought I would swell up and burst if I had two blue ribbons. That was what ailed the judges. What encouragement is that to try again? I might grow even finer corn in the coming year than I did this, and be given no award at all, because I had two this year. It would amount to exactly the same thing.”

“We’ll get some more books, and see if we can study up any new wrinkles, this winter,” said Kate. “Now cheer up, and go tell Milly about it. Maybe she can console you, if I can’t.”

“Nothing but justice will console me,” said Adam. “I’m not complaining about losing the prize; I’m fighting mad because my corn, my beautiful corn, that grew and grew, and held its head so high, and waved its banners of triumph to me with every breeze, didn’t get its fair show. What encouragement is there for it to try better the coming year? The crows might as well have had it, or the cutworms; while all my work is for nothing.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” said Kate. “If your corn was the finest, it was, and the judges knew it, and you know it, and very likely the man who has the first prize, knows it. You have a clean conscience, and you know what you know. They surely can’t feel right about it, or enjoy what they know. You have had the experience, you have the corn for seed; with these things to back you, clear a small strip of new land beside the woods this winter, and try what that will do for you.”

Adam looked at her with wide eyes. “By jing, Mother, you are a dandy!” he said. “You just bet I’ll try that next year, but don’t you tell a soul; there are more than you who will let a strip be cleared, in an effort to grow blue ribbon corn. How did you come to think of it?”

“Your saying all your work had been for nothing, made me think of it,” she answered. “Let them give another man the prize, when they know your corn is the best. It’s their way of keeping a larger number of people interested and avoiding the appearance of partiality; this contest was too close; next year, you grow such corn, that the CORN will force the decision in spite of the judges. Do you see?”

“I see,” said Adam. “I’ll try again.”

After that life went on as usual. The annual Christmas party was the loveliest of all, because Kate gave it loving thought, and because all of their hearts were especially touched. As spring came on again, Kate and Adam studied over their work, planning many changes for the better, but each time they talked, when everything else was arranged, they came back to corn. More than once, each of them dreamed corn that winter while asleep, they frankly talked of it many times a day. Location, soil, fertilizers, seed, cultivation — they even studied the almanacs for a general forecast of the weather. These things brought them very close together. Also it was admitted between them, that Little Poll “grappled them with hooks of steel.” They never lacked subjects for conversation. Poll always came first, corn next, and during the winter there began to be discussion of plans for Adam and Milly. Should Milly come with them, or should they build a small house on the end of the farm nearest her mother? Adam did not care, so he married Milly speedily. Kate could not make up her mind. Milly had the inclination of a bird for a personal and private nest of her own. So spring came to them.

August brought the anniversary of Nancy Ellen’s death, which again saddened all of them. Then came cooler September weather, and the usual rush of preparation for winter. Kate was everywhere and enjoying her work immensely. On sturdy, tumbly legs Little Poll trotted after her or rode in state on her shoulder, when distances were too far. If Kate took her to the fields, as she did every day, she carried along the half of an old pink and white quilt, which she spread in a shaded place and filled the baby’s lap with acorns, wild flowers, small brightly coloured stones, shells, and whatever she could pick up for playthings. Poll amused herself with these until the heat and air made her sleepy, then she laid herself down and slept for an hour or two. Once she had trouble with stomach teeth that brought Dr. Gray racing, and left Kate white and limp with fear. Everything else had gone finely and among helping Adam, working in her home, caring for the baby, doing whatever she could see that she thought would be of benefit to the community, and what was assigned her by church committees, Kate had a busy life. She had earned, in a degree, the leadership she exercised in her first days in Walden. Everyone liked her; but no one ever ventured to ask her for an opinion unless they truly wanted it.

Adam came from a run to Hartley for groceries one evening in late September, with a look of concern that Kate noticed on his face. He was very silent during supper and when they were on the porch as usual, he still sat as if thinking deeply. Kate knew that he would tell her what he was thinking about when he was ready but she was not in the least prepared for what he said.

“Mother, how do you feel about Uncle Robert marrying again?” he asked suddenly.

Kate was too surprised to answer. She looked at him in amazement. Instead of answering, she asked him a question: “What makes you ask that?”

“You know how that Mrs. Southey pursued him one summer. Well, she’s back in Hartley, staying at the hotel right across from his office; she’s dressed to beat the band, she’s pretty as a picture; her car stands out in front all day, and to get to ride in it, and take meals with her, all the women are running after her. I hear she has even had Robert’s old mother out for a drive. What do you think of that?”

“Think she’s in love with him, of course, and trying to marry him, and that she will very probably succeed. If she has located where she is right under his eye, and lets him know that she wants him very much, he’ll, no doubt, marry her.”

“But what do you THINK about it?” asked Adam.

“I’ve had no TIME to think,” said Kate. “At first blush, I’d say that I shall hate it, as badly as I could possibly hate anything that was none of my immediate business. Nancy Ellen loved him so. I never shall forget that day she first told me about him, and how loving him brought out her beauty, and made her shine and glow as if from an inner light. I was always with her most, and I loved her more than all the other girls put together. I know that Southey woman tried to take him from her one summer not long ago, and that he gave her to understand that she could not, so she went away. If she’s back, it means only one thing, and I think probably she’ll succeed; but you can be sure it will make me squirm properly.”

“I THOUGHT you wouldn’t like it,” he said emphatically.

“Now understand me, Adam,” said Kate. “I’m no fool. I didn’t expect Robert to be more than human. He has no children, and he’d like a child above anything else on earth. I’ve known that for years, ever since it became apparent that none was coming to Nancy Ellen. I hadn’t given the matter a thought, but if I had been thinking, I would have thought that as soon as was proper, he would select a strong, healthy young woman, and make her his wife. I know his mother is homesick, and wants to go back to her daughters and their children, which is natural. I haven’t an objection in the world to him marrying a PROPER woman, at a proper time and place; but Oh, dear Lord, I do dread and despise to see that little Southey cat come back and catch him, because she knows how.”

“Did you ever see her, Mother?”

“No, I never,” said Kate, “and I hope I never shall. I know what Nancy Ellen felt, because she told me all about it that time we were up North. I’m trying with all my might to have a Christian spirit. I swallowed Mrs. Peters, and never blinked, that anybody saw; but I don’t, I truly don’t know from where I could muster grace to treat a woman decently, who tried to do to my sister, what I KNOW Mrs. Southey tried to do to Nancy Ellen. She planned to break up my sister’s home; that I know. Now that Nancy Ellen is gone, I feel to-night as if I just couldn’t endure to see Mrs. Southey marry Robert.”

“Bet she does it!” said Adam.

“Did you see her?” asked Kate.

“See her!” cried Adam. “I saw her half a dozen times in an hour. She’s in the heart of the town, nothing to do but dress and motor. Never saw such a peach of a car. I couldn’t help looking at it. Gee, I wish I could get you one like that!”

“What did you think of her looks?” asked Kate.

“Might pretty!” said Adam, promptly. “Small, but not tiny; plump, but not fat; pink, light curls, big baby blue eyes and a sort of hesitating way about her, as if she were anxious to do the right thing, but feared she might not, and wished somebody would take care of her.”

Kate threw out her hands with a rough exclamation. “I get the picture!” she said. “It’s a dead centre shot. THAT gets a man, every time. No man cares a picayune about a woman who can take care of herself, and help him with his job if he has a ghost of a chance at a little pink and white clinger, who will suck the life and talent out of him, like the parasite she is, while she makes him believe he is on the job, taking care of her. You can rest assured it will be settled before Christmas.”

Kate had been right in her theories concerning the growing of blue ribbon corn. At the County Fair in late September Adam exhibited such heavy ears of evenly grained white and yellow corn that the blue ribbon he carried home was not an award of the judges; it was a concession to the just demands of the exhibit.

Then they began husking their annual crop. It had been one of the country’s best years for corn. The long, even, golden ears they were stripping the husks from and stacking in heaps over the field might profitably have been used for seed by any farmer. They had divided the field in halves and Adam was husking one side, Kate the other. She had a big shock open and kneeling beside it she was busy stripping open the husks, and heaping up the yellow ears. Behind her the shocks stood like rows of stationed sentinels; above, the crisp October sunshine warmed the air to a delightful degree; around the field, the fence rows were filled with purple and rose coloured asters, and everywhere goldenrod, yellower than the corn, was hanging in heavy heads of pollen-spraying bloom.

On her old pink quilt Little Poll, sound asleep, was lifted from the shade of one shock to another, while Kate worked across her share of the field. As she worked she kept looking at the child. She frankly adored her, but she kept her reason and held to rigid rules in feeding, bathing, and dressing. Poll minded even a gesture or a nod.

Above, the flocking larks pierced the air with silver notes, on the fence-rows the gathering robins called to each other; high in the air the old black vulture that homed in a hollow log in Kate’s woods, looked down on the spots of colour made by the pink quilt, the gold corn, the blue of Kate’s dress, and her yellow head. An artist would have paused long, over the rich colour, the grouping and perspective of that picture, while the hazy fall atmosphere softened and blended the whole. Kate, herself, never had appeared or felt better. She worked rapidly, often glancing across the field to see if she was even with, or slightly in advance of Adam. She said it would never do to let the boy get “heady,” so she made a point of keeping even with him, and caring for Little Poll, “for good measure.”

She was smiling as she watched him working like a machine as he ripped open husks, gave the ear a twist, tossed it aside, and reached for the next. Kate was doing the same thing, quite as automatically. She was beginning to find the afternoon sun almost hot on her bare head, so she turned until it fell on her back. Her face was flushed to coral pink, and framed in a loose border of her beautiful hair. She was smiling at the thought of how Adam was working to get ahead of her, smiling because Little Poll looked such a picture of healthy loveliness, smiling because she was so well, she felt super-abundant health rising like a stimulating tide in her body, smiling because the corn was the finest she ever had seen in a commonly cultivated field, smiling because she and Adam were of one accord about everything, smiling because the day was very beautiful, because her heart was at peace, her conscience clear.

She heard a car stop at her gate, saw a man alight and start across the yard toward the field, and knew that her visitor had seen her, and was coming to her. Kate went on husking corn and when the man swung over the fence of the field she saw that he was Robert, and instantly thought of Mrs. Southey, so she ceased to smile. “I’ve got a big notion to tell him what I think of him,” she said to herself, even as she looked up to greet him. Instantly she saw that he had come for something.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Agatha,” he said. “She’s been having some severe heart attacks lately, and she just gave me a real scare.”

Instantly Kate forgot everything, except Agatha, whom she cordially liked, and Robert, who appeared older, more tired, and worried than she ever had seen him. She thought Agatha had “given him a real scare,” and she decided that it scarcely would have been bad enough to put lines in his face she never had noticed before, dark circles under his eyes, a look of weariness in his bearing. She doubted as she looked at him if he were really courting Mrs. Southey. Even as she thought of these things she was asking: “She’s better now?”

“Yes, easier, but she suffered terribly. Adam was upset completely. Adam, 3d, and Susan and their families are away from home and won’t be back for a few days unless I send for them. They went to Ohio to visit some friends. I stopped to ask if it would be possible for you to go down this evening and sleep there, so that if there did happen to be a recurrence, Adam wouldn’t be alone.”

“Of course,” said Kate, glancing at the baby. “I’ll go right away!”

“No need for that,” he said, “if you’ll arrange to stay with Adam to-night, as a precaution. You needn’t go till bed-time. I’m going back after supper to put them in shape for the night. I’m almost sure she’ll be all right now; but you know how frightened we can get about those we love.”

“Yes, I know,” said Kate, quietly, going straight on ripping open ear after ear of corn. Presently she wondered why he did not go. She looked up at him and met his eyes. He was studying her intently. Kate was vividly conscious in an instant of her bare wind-teased head, her husking gloves; she was not at all sure that her face was clean. She smiled at him, and picking up the sunbonnet lying beside her, she wiped her face with the skirt.

“If this sun hits too long on the same spot, it grows warm,” she told him.

“Kate, I do wish you wouldn’t!” he exclaimed abruptly.

Kate was too forthright for sparring.

“Why not?” she asked.

“For one thing, you are doing a man’s work,” he said. “For another, I hate to see you burn the loveliest hair I ever saw on the head of a woman, and coarsen your fine skin.”

Kate looked down at the ear of corn she held in her hands, and considered an instant.

“There hasn’t any man been around asking to relieve me of this work,” she said. “I got my start in life doing a man’s work, and I’m frank to say that I’d far rather do it any day, than what is usually considered a woman’s. As for my looks, I never set a price on them or let them interfere with business, Robert.”

“No, I know you don’t,” he said. “But it’s a pity to spoil you.”

“I don’t know what’s the matter with you,” said Kate, patiently. She bent her head toward him. “Feel,” she said, “and see if my hair isn’t soft and fine. I always cover it in really burning sun; this autumn haze is good for it. My complexion is exactly as smooth and even now, as it was the day I first met you on the footlog over twenty years ago. There’s one good thing about the Bates women. They wear well. None of us yet have ever faded, and frazzled out. Have you got many Hartley women, doing what you call women’s work, to compare with me physically, Robert?”

“You know the answer to that,” he said.

“So I do!” said Kate. “I see some of them occasionally, when business calls me that way. Now, Robert, I’m so well, I feel like running a footrace the first thing when I wake up every morning. I’m making money, I’m starting my boy in a safe, useful life; have you many year and a half babies in your practice that can beat Little Poll? I’m as happy as it’s humanly possible for me to be without Mother, and Polly, and Nancy Ellen. Mother used always to say that when death struck a family it seldom stopped until it took three. That was my experience, and saving Adam and Little Poll, it took my three dearest; but the separation isn’t going to be so very long. If I were you I wouldn’t worry about me, Robert. There are many women in the world willing to pay for your consideration; save it for them.”

“Kate, I’m sorry I said anything,” he said hastily. “I wouldn’t offend you purposely, you know.”

Kate looked at him in surprise. “But I’m not offended,” she said, snapping an ear and reaching for another. “I am merely telling you! Don’t give me a thought! I’m all right! If you’ll save me an hour the next time Little Poll has a tooth coming through, you’ll have completely earned my gratitude. Tell Agatha I’ll come as soon as I finish my evening work.”

That was clearly a dismissal, for Kate glancing across the field toward Adam, saw that he had advanced to a new shock, so she began husking faster than before.

THE ELEVENTH HOUR

ROBERT said good-bye and started back toward his car. Kate looked after him as he reached the fence. A surge of pity for him swept up in her heart. He seemed far from happy, and he surely was very tired. Impulsive as always, she lifted her clear voice and called: “Robert!”

He paused with his foot on a rail of the fence, and turned toward her.

“Have you had any dinner?” she asked.

He seemed to be considering. “Come to think of it, I don’t believe I have,” he said.

“I thought you looked neglected,” said Kate. “Sonny across the field is starting a shock ahead of me; I can’t come, but go to the kitchen — the door is unlocked — you’ll find fried chicken and some preserves and pickles in the pantry; the bread box is right there, and the milk and butter are in the spring house.”

He gave Kate one long look. “Thank you,” he said and leaped the fence. He stopped on the front walk and stood a minute, then he turned and went around the house. She laughed aloud. She was sending him to chicken perfectly cooked, barely cold, melon preserves, pickled cucumbers, and bread like that which had for years taken a County Fair prize each fall; butter yellow as the goldenrod lining the fences, and cream stiff enough to stand alone. Also, he would find neither germ nor mould in her pantry and spring house, while it would be a new experience for him to let him wait on himself. Kate husked away in high good humour, but she quit an hour early to be on time to go to Agatha. She explained this to Adam, when she told him that he would have to milk alone, while she bathed and dressed herself and got supper.

When she began to dress, Kate examined her hair minutely, and combed it with unusual care. If Robert was at Agatha’s when she got there, she would let him see that her hair was not sunburned and ruined. To match the hair dressing, she reached back in her closet and took down her second best white dress. She was hoping that Agatha would be well enough to have a short visit. Kate worked so steadily that she seldom saw any of her brothers and sisters during the summer. In winter she spent a day with each of them, if she could possibly manage. Anyway, Agatha would like to see her appearing well, so she put on the plain snowy linen, and carefully pinning a big apron over it, she went to the kitchen. They always had a full dinner at noon and worked until dusk. Her bath had made her later than she intended to be. Dusk was deepening, evening chill was beginning to creep into the air. She closed the door, fed Little Poll and rolled her into bed; set the potatoes boiling, and began mixing the biscuit. She had them just ready to roll when steam lifted the lid of the potato pot; with the soft dough in her hand she took a step to right it. While it was in her fingers, she peered into the pot.

She did not look up on the instant the door opened, because she thought it would be Adam. When she glanced toward the door, she saw Robert standing looking at her. He had stepped inside, closed the door, and with his hand on the knob was waiting for her to see him.

“Oh! Hello!” said Kate. “I thought it was Adam. Have you been to Agatha’s yet?”

“Yes. She is very much better,” he said. “I only stopped to tell you that her mother happened to come out for the night, and they’ll not need you.”

“I’m surely glad she is better,” said Kate, “but I’m rather disappointed. I’ve been swimming, and I’m all ready to go.”

She set the pot lid in place accurately and gave her left hand a deft turn to save the dough from dripping. She glanced from it to Robert, expecting to see him open the door and disappear. Instead he stood looking at her intently. Suddenly he said: “Kate, will you marry me?”

Kate mechanically saved the dough again, as she looked at the pot an instant, then she said casually: “Sure! It would be splendid to have a doctor right in the house when Little Poll cuts her double teeth.”

“Thank you!” said Robert, tersely. “No doubt that WOULD be a privilege, but I decline to marry you in order to see Little Poll safely through teething. Good-night!”

He stepped outside and closed the door very completely, and somewhat pronouncedly.

Kate stood straight an instant, then realized biscuit dough was slowly creeping down her wrist. With a quick fling, she shot the mass into the scrap bucket and sinking on the chair she sat on to peel vegetables, she lifted her apron, laid her head on her knees, and gave a big gulping sob or two. Then she began to cry silently. A minute later the door opened again. That time it had to be Adam, but Kate did not care what he saw or what he thought. She cried on in perfect abandon.

Then steps crossed the room, someone knelt beside her, put an arm around her and said: “Kate, why are you crying?”

Kate lifted her head suddenly, and applied her apron skirt. “None of your business,” she said to Robert’s face, six inches from hers.

“Are you so anxious as all this about Little Poll’s teeth?” he asked.

“Oh, DRAT Little Poll’s teeth!” cried Kate, the tears rolling uninterruptedly.

“Then WHY did you say that to me?” he demanded.

“Well, you said you ‘only stopped to tell me that I needn’t go to Agatha’s,'” she explained. “I had to say something, to get even with you!”

“Oh,” said Robert, and took possession. Kate put her arms around his neck, drew his head against hers, and knew a minute of complete joy.

When Adam entered the house his mother was very busy. She was mixing more biscuit dough, she was laughing like a girl of sixteen, she snatched out one of their finest tablecloths, and put on many extra dishes for supper, while Uncle Robert, looking like a different man, was helping her. He was actually stirring the gravy, and getting the water, and setting up chairs. And he was under high tension, too. He was saying things of no moment, as if they were profound wisdom, and laughing hilariously at things that were scarcely worth a smile. Adam looked on, and marvelled and all the while his irritation grew. At last he saw a glance of understanding pass between them. He could endure it no longer.

“Oh, you might as well SAY what you think,” he burst forth. “You forgot to pull down the blinds.”

Both the brazen creatures laughed as if that were a fine joke. They immediately threw off all reserve. By the time the meal was finished, Adam was struggling to keep from saying the meanest things he could think of. Also, he had to go to Milly, with nothing very definite to tell. But when he came back, his mother was waiting for him. She said at once: “Adam, I’m very sorry the blind was up to-night. I wanted to talk to you, and tell you myself, that the first real love for a man that I have ever known, is in my heart to-night.”

“Why, Mother!” said Adam.

“It’s true,” said Kate, quietly. “You see Adam, the first time I ever saw Robert Gray, I knew, and he knew, that he had made a mistake in engaging himself to Nancy Ellen; but the thing was done, she was happy, we simply realized that we would have done better together, and let it go at that. But all these years I have known that I could have made him a wife who would have come closer to his ideals than my sister, and SHE should have had the man who wanted to marry me. They would have had a wonderful time together.”

“And where did my father come in?” asked Adam, quietly.

“He took advantage of my blackest hour,” said Kate. “I married him when I positively didn’t care what happened to me. The man I could have LOVED was married to my sister, the man I could have married and lived with in comfort to both of us was out of the question; it was in the Bates blood to marry about the time I did; I had seen only the very best of your father, and he was an attractive lover, not bad looking, not embarrassed with one single scruple — it’s the way of the world. I took it. I paid for it. Only God knows how dearly I paid; but Adam, if you love me, stand by me now. Let me have this eleventh hour happiness, with no alloy. Anything I feel for your Uncle Robert has nothing in the world to do with my being your mother; with you being my son. Kiss me, and tell me you’re glad, Adam.”

Adam rose up and put his arms around his mother. All his resentment was gone. He was happy as he could be for his mother, and happier than he ever before had been for himself.

The following afternoon, Kate took the car and went to see Agatha instead of husking corn. She dressed with care and arrived about three o’clock, leading Poll in whitest white, with cheeks still rosy from her afternoon nap. Agatha was sitting up and delighted to see them. She said they were the first of the family who had come to visit her, and she thought they had come because she was thinking of them. Then she told Kate about her illness. She said it dated from father Bates stroke, and the dreadful days immediately following, when Adam had completely lost self-control, and she had not been able to influence him. “I think it broke my heart,” she said simply. Then they talked the family over, and at last Agatha said: “Kate, what is this I hear about Robert? Have you been informed that Mrs. Southey is back in Hartley, and that she is working every possible chance and using multifarious blandishments on him?”

Kate laughed heartily and suddenly. She never had heard “blandishments” used in common conversation. As she struggled to regain self-possession Agatha spoke again.

“It’s no laughing matter,” she said. “The report has every ear- mark of verisimilitude. The Bates family has a way of feeling deeply. We all loved Nancy Ellen. We all suffered severely and lost something that never could be replaced when she went. Of course all of us realized that Robert would enter the bonds of matrimony again; none of us would have objected, even if he remarried soon; but all of us do object to his marrying a woman who would have broken Nancy Ellen’s heart if she could; and yesterday I took advantage of my illness, and TOLD him so. Then I asked him why a man of his standing and ability in this community didn’t frustrate that unprincipled creature’s vermiculations toward him, by marrying you, at once.”

Slowly Kate sank down in her chair. Her face whitened and then grew greenish. She breathed with difficulty.

“Oh, Agatha!” was all she could say.

“I do not regret it,” said Agatha. “If he is going to ruin himself, he is not going to do it without knowing that the Bates family highly disapprove of his course.”

“But why drag me in?” said Kate, almost too shocked to speak at all. “Maybe he LOVES Mrs. Southey. She has let him see how she feels about him; possibly he feels the same about her.”

“He does, if he weds her,” said Agatha, conclusively. “Anything any one could say or do would have no effect, if he had centred his affections upon her, of that you may be very sure.”

“May I?” asked Kate, dully.

“Indeed, you may!” said Agatha. “The male of the species, when he is a man of Robert’s attainments and calibre, can be swerved from pursuit of the female he covets, by nothing save extinction.”

“You mean,” said Kate with an effort, “that if Robert asked a woman to marry him, it would mean that he loved her.”

“Indubitably!” cried Agatha.

Kate laughed until she felt a little better, but she went home in a mood far different from that in which she started. Then she had been very happy, and she had intended to tell Agatha about her happiness, the very first of all. Now she was far from happy. Possibly — a thousand things, the most possible, that Robert had responded to Agatha’s suggestion, and stopped and asked her that abrupt question, from an impulse as sudden and inexplicable as had possessed her when she married George Holt. Kate fervently wished she had gone to the cornfield as usual that afternoon.

“That’s the way it goes,” she said angrily, as she threw off her better dress and put on her every-day gingham to prepare supper. “That’s the way it goes! Stay in your element, and go on with your work, and you’re all right. Leave your job and go trapesing over the country, wasting your time, and you get a heartache to pay you. I might as well give up the idea that I’m ever to be happy, like anybody else. Every time I think happiness is coming my way, along comes something that knocks it higher than Gilderoy’s kite. Hang the luck!”

She saw Robert pass while she was washing the dishes, and knew he was going to Agatha’s, and would stop when he came back. She finished her work, put Little Poll to bed, and made herself as attractive as she knew how in her prettiest blue dress. All the time she debated whether she would say anything to him about what Agatha had said or not. She decided she would wait awhile, and watch how he acted. She thought she could soon tell. So when Robert came, she was as nearly herself as possible, but when he began to talk about being married soon, the most she would say was that she would begin to think about it at Christmas, and tell him by spring. Robert was bitterly disappointed. He was very lonely; he needed better housekeeping than his aged mother was capable of, to keep him up to a high mark in his work. Neither of them was young any longer; he could see no reason why they should not be married at once. Of the reason in Kate’s mind, he had not a glimmering. But Kate had her way. She would not even talk of a time, or express an opinion as to whether she would remain on the farm, or live in Nancy Ellen’s house, or sell it and build whatever she wanted for herself. Robert went away baffled, and disappointed over some intangible thing he could not understand.

For six weeks Kate tortured herself, and kept Robert from being happy. Then one morning Agatha stopped to visit with her, while Adam drove on to town. After they had exhausted farming, Little Poll’s charms, and the neighbours, Agatha looked at Kate and said: “Katherine, what is this I hear about Robert coming here every day, now? It appeals to me that he must have followed my advice.”

“Of course he never would have thought of coming, if you hadn’t told him so,” said Kate dryly.

“Now THERE you are in error,” said the literal Agatha, as she smoothed down Little Poll’s skirts and twisted her ringlets into formal corkscrews. “Right THERE, you are in error, my dear. The reason I told Robert to marry you was because he said to me, when he suggested going after you to stay the night with me, that he had seen you in the field when he passed, and that you were the most glorious specimen of womanhood that he ever had seen. He said you were the one to stay with me, in case there should be any trouble, because your head was always level, and your heart was big as a barrel.”

“Yes, that’s the reason I can’t always have it with me,” said Kate, looking glorified instead of glorious. “Agatha, it just happens to mean very much to me. Will you just kindly begin at the beginning, and tell me every single word Robert said to you, and you said to him, that day?”

“Why, I have informed you explicitly,” said Agatha, using her handkerchief on the toe of Poll’s blue shoe. “He mentioned going after you, and said what I told you, and I told him to go. He praised you so highly that when I spoke to him about the Southey woman I remembered it, so I suggested to him, as he seemed to think so well of you. It just that minute flashed into my mind; but HE made me think of it, calling you ‘glorious,’ and ‘level headed,’ and ‘big hearted.’ Heavens! Katherine Eleanor, what more could you ask?”

“I guess that should be enough,” said Kate.

“One certainly would presume so,” said Agatha.

Then Adam came, and handed Kate her mail as she stood beside his car talking to him a minute, while Agatha settled herself. As Kate closed the gate behind her, she saw a big, square white envelope among the newspapers, advertisements, and letters. She slipped it out and looked at it intently. Then she ran her finger under the flap and read the contents. She stood studying the few lines it contained, frowning deeply. “Doesn’t it beat the band?” she asked of the surrounding atmosphere. She went up the walk, entered the living room, slipped the letter under the lid of the big family Bible, and walking to the telephone she called Dr. Gray’s office. He answered the call in person.

“Robert, this is Kate,” she said. “Would you have any deeply rooted objections to marrying me at six o’clock this evening?”

“Well, I should say not!” boomed Robert’s voice, the “not” coming so forcibly Kate dodged.

“Have you got the information necessary for a license?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Then bring one, and your minister, and come at six,” she said. “And Oh, yes, Robert, will it be all right with you if I stay here and keep house for Adam until he and Milly can be married and move in? Then I’ll come to your house just as it is. I don’t mind coming to Nancy Ellen’s home, as I would another woman’s.”

“Surely!” he cried. “Any arrangement you make will satisfy me.”

“All right, I’ll expect you with the document and the minister at six, then,” said Kate, and hung up the receiver.

Then she took it down again and calling Milly, asked her to bring her best white dress, and come up right away, and help her get ready to entertain a few people that evening. Then she called her sister Hannah, and asked her if she thought that in the event she, Kate, wished that evening at six o’clock to marry a very fine man, and had no preparations whatever made, her family would help her out to the extent of providing the supper. She wanted all of them, and all the children, but the arrangement had come up suddenly, and she could not possibly prepare a supper herself, for such a big family, in the length of time she had. Hannah said she was perfectly sure everyone of them would drop everything, and be tickled to pieces to bring the supper, and to come, and they would have a grand time. What did Kate want? Oh, she wanted bread, and chicken for meat, maybe some potato chips, and Angel’s Food cake, and a big freezer or two of Agatha’s best ice cream, and she thought possibly more butter, and coffee, than she had on hand. She had plenty of sugar, and cream, and pickles and jelly. She would have the tables all set as she did for Christmas. Then Kate rang for Adam and put a broom in his hand as he entered the back door. She met Milly with a pail of hot water and cloths to wash the glass. She went to her room and got out her best afternoon dress of dull blue with gold lace and a pink velvet rose. She shook it out and studied it. She had worn it twice on the trip North. None of them save Adam ever had seen it. She put it on, and looked at it critically. Then she called Milly and they changed the neck and sleeves a little, took a yard of width from the skirt, and behold! it became a “creation,” in the very height of style. Then Kate opened her trunk, and got out the petticoat, hose, and low shoes to match it, and laid them on her bed.

Then they set the table, laid a fire ready to strike in the cook stove, saw that the gas was all right, set out the big coffee boiler, and skimmed a crock full of cream. By four o’clock, they could think of nothing else to do. Then Kate bathed and went to her room to dress. Adam and Milly were busy making themselves fine. Little Poll sat in her prettiest dress, watching her beloved “Tate,” until Adam came and took her. He had been instructed to send Robert and the minister to his mother’s room as soon as they came. Kate was trying to look her best, yet making haste, so that she would be ready on time. She had made no arrangements except to spread a white goatskin where she and Robert would stand at the end of the big living room near her door. Before she was fully dressed she began to hear young voices and knew that her people were coming. When she was ready Kate looked at herself and muttered: “I’ll give Robert and all of them a good surprise. This is a real dress, thanks to Nancy Ellen. The poor girl! It’s scarcely fair to her to marry her man in a dress she gave me; but I’d stake my life she’d rather I’d have him than any other woman.”

It was an evening of surprises. At six, Adam lighted a big log, festooned with leaves and berries so that the flames roared and crackled up the chimney. The early arrivals were the young people who had hung the mantel, gas fixtures, curtain poles and draped the doors with long sprays of bittersweet, northern holly, and great branches of red spice berries, dogwood with its red leaves and berries, and scarlet and yellow oak leaves. The elders followed and piled the table with heaps of food, then trailed red vines between dishes. In a quandary as to what to wear, without knowing what was expected of him further than saying “I will,” at the proper moment, Robert ended by slipping into Kate’s room, dressed in white flannel. The ceremony was over at ten minutes after six. Kate was lovely, Robert was handsome, everyone was happy, the supper was a banquet. The Bates family went home, Adam disappeared with Milly, while Little Poll went to sleep.

Left to themselves, Robert took Kate in his arms and tried to tell her how much he loved her, but felt he expressed himself poorly. As she stood before him, he said: “And now, dear, tell me what changed you, and why we are married to-night instead of at Christmas, or in the spring.”

“Oh, yes,” said Kate, “I almost forgot! Why, I wanted you to answer a letter for me.”

“Lucid!” said Robert. He seated himself beside the table. “Bring on the ink and stationary, and let me get it over.”

Kate obeyed, and with the writing material, laid down the letter she had that morning received from John Jardine, telling her that his wife had died suddenly, and that as soon as he had laid her away, he was coming to exact a definite promise from her as to the future; and that he would move Heaven and earth before he would again be disappointed. Robert read the letter and laid it down, his face slowing flushing scarlet.

“You called me out here, and married me expressly to answer this?” he demanded.