She had a worse grievance when Nancy Ellen hung several new
dresses and a wrapper on her side of the closet after her first
pay-day, and furnished her end of the bureau with a white hair
brush and a brass box filled with pink powder, with a swan's-down
puff for its application. For three months Kate had waited and
hoped that at least "thank you" would be vouchsafed her; when it
failed for that length of time she did two things: she studied so
diligently that her father called her into the barn and told her
that if before the school, she asked Nancy Ellen another question
she could not answer, he would use the buggy whip on her to within
an inch of her life. The buggy whip always had been a familiar
implement to Kate, so she stopped asking slippery questions,
worked harder than ever, and spent her spare time planning what
she would hang in the closet and put on her end of the bureau when
she had finished her Normal course, and was teaching her first
term of school.
Now she had learned all that Nancy Ellen could teach her, and much
that Nancy Ellen never knew: it was time for Kate to be starting
away to school. Because it was so self-evident that she should
have what the others had had, she said nothing about it until the
time came; then she found her father determined that she should
remain at home to do the housework, for no compensation other than
her board and such clothes as she always had worn, her mother
wholly in accord with him, and marvel of all, Nancy Ellen quite
enthusiastic on the subject.
Her father always had driven himself and his family like slaves,
while her mother had ably seconded his efforts. Money from the
sale of chickens, turkeys, butter, eggs, and garden truck that
other women of the neighbourhood used for extra clothing for
themselves and their daughters and to prettify their homes, Mrs.
Bates handed to her husband to increase the amount necessary to
purchase the two hundred acres of land for each son when he came
of age. The youngest son had farmed his land with comfortable
profit and started a bank account, while his parents and two
sisters were still saving and working to finish the last payment.
Kate thought with bitterness that if this final payment had been
made possibly there would have been money to spare for her; but
with that thought came the knowledge that her father had numerous
investments on which he could have realized and made the payments
had he not preferred that they should be a burden on his family.
"Take the wings of morning," repeated Kate, with all the emphasis
the old minister had used. "Hummm! I wonder what kind of wings.
Those of a peewee would scarcely do for me; I'd need the wings of
an eagle to get me anywhere, and anyway it wasn't the wings of a
bird I was to take, it was the wings of morning. I wonder what
the wings of morning are, and how I go about taking them. God
knows where my wings come in; by the ache in my feet I seem to
have walked, mostly. Oh, what ARE the wings of morning?"