A Daughter of the Land

For two weeks Kate threw herself into the business of teaching

with all her power. She succeeded in so interesting herself and

her pupils that she was convinced she had done a wise thing.

Marriage did not interfere with her teaching; she felt capable and

independent so long as she had her salary. George was working and

working diligently, to prepare for winter, whenever she was

present or could see results. With her first month's salary she

would buy herself a warm coat, a wool suit, an extra skirt for

school, and some waists. If there was enough left, she would have

another real hat. Then for the remainder of the year she would

spend only for the barest necessities and save to help toward a

home something like Nancy Ellen's. Whenever she thought of Nancy

Ellen and Robert there was a choking sensation in her throat, a

dull ache where she had been taught her heart was located.

For two weeks everything went as well as Kate hoped: then Mrs.

Holt began to show the results of having been partially bottled

up, for the first time in her life. She was careful to keep to

generalities which she could claim meant nothing, if anything she

said was taken up by either George or Kate. George was too lazy

to quarrel unless he was personally angered; Kate thought best to

ignore anything that did not come in the nature of a direct

attack. So long as Mrs. Holt could not understand how some folks

could see their way to live off of other folks, or why a girl who

had a chance to marry a fortune would make herself a burden to a

poor man, Kate made the mistake of ignoring her. Thus emboldened

she soon became personal. It seemed as if she spent her spare

time and mental force thinking up suggestive, sarcastic things to

say, where Kate could not help hearing them. She paid no

attention unless the attack was too mean and premeditated; but to

her surprise she found that every ugly, malicious word the old

woman said lodged in her brain and arose to confront her at the

most inopportune times -- in the middle of a recitation or when

she roused enough to turn over in her bed at night. The more

vigorously she threw herself into her school work, the more she

realized a queer lassitude, creeping over her. She kept squaring

her shoulders, lifting her chin, and brushing imaginary cobwebs

from before her face.

The final Friday evening of the month, she stopped at the post

office and carried away with her the bill for her Leghorn hat,

mailed with nicely conceived estimate as to when her first check

would be due. Kate visited the Trustee, and smiled grimly as she

slipped the amount in an envelope and gave it to the hack driver

to carry to Hartley on his trip the following day. She had

intended all fall to go with him and select a winter headpiece

that would be no discredit to her summer choice, but a sort of

numbness was in her bones; so she decided to wait until the coming

week before going. She declined George's pressing invitation to

go along to Aunt Ollie's and help load and bring home a part of

his share of their summer's crops, on the ground that she had some

work to prepare for the coming week.