"Now two things more. At the start, what Pa wanted to do seemed
to me right, and I agreed with him and worked with him. But when
my girls began to grow up and I saw how they felt, and how they
struggled and worked, and how the women you boys married went
ahead of my own girls, and had finer homes, an' carriages, and
easier times, I got pretty sick of it, and I told Pa so more'n
once. He just raved whenever I did, an' he always carried his
keys in his pocket. I never touched his chest key in my life,
till I handed him his deed box Friday afternoon. But I agree with
my girls. It's fair and right, since things have come out as they
have, that they should have their shares. I would, too.
"The other thing is just this: I'm tired to death of the whole
business. I want peace and rest and I want it quick. Friday and
Saturday I was so scared and so knocked out I s'pose I'd 'a' took
it if one of the sucking babies had riz up and commenced to tell
me what I should a-done, and what I shouldn't. I'm THROUGH with
that. You will all keep civil tongues in your heads this morning,
or I'll get up and go upstairs, an' lock myself in a room till
you're gone, an' if I go, it will mean that the law takes its
course; and if it does, there will be three hundred acres less
land to divide. You've had Pa on your hands all your lives, now
you will go civil, and you will go easy, or you will get a taste
of Ma. I take no more talk from anybody. Katie, go ahead with
your figures."
Kate spread her sheet on the table and glanced around the room: "The Milton County records show sixteen hundred and fifty acres
standing in Father's name," she said. "Of these, Mother is heir
to five hundred and fifty acres, leaving one thousand one hundred
acres to be divided among sixteen of us, which give sixty-eight
and three-fourths acres to each. This land is the finest that
proper fertilization and careful handling can make. Even the
poorest is the cream of the country as compared with the
surrounding farms. As a basis of estimate I have taken one
hundred dollars an acre as a fair selling figure. Some is worth
more, some less, but that is a good average. This would make the
share of each of us in cash that could easily be realized, six
thousand eight hundred and seventy-five dollars. Whatever else is
in mortgages, notes, and money can be collected as it is due,
deposited in some bank, and when it is all in, divided equally
among us, after deducting Mother's third. Now this is the law,
and those are the figures, but I shall venture to say that none of
us feel RIGHT about it, or ever will."