A Daughter of the Land

"I might as well tell you why I came," she said bluntly. "Father

won't give me money to go to Normal, as he has all the others. He

says I have got to stay at home and help Mother."

"Well, Mother is getting so old she needs help," said Adam, Jr.,

as he continued his supper.

"Of course she is," said Kate. "We all know that. But what is

the matter with Nancy Ellen helping her, while I take my turn at

Normal? There wasn't a thing I could do last summer to help her

off that I didn't do, even to lending her my best dress and

staying at home for six Sundays because I had nothing else fit to

wear where I'd be seen."

No one said a word. Kate continued: "Then Father secured our

home school for her and I had to spend the winter going to school

to her, when you very well know that I always studied harder, and

was ahead of her, even after she'd been to Normal. And I got up

early and worked late, and cooked, and washed, and waited on her,

while she got her lessons and reports ready, and fixed up her nice

new clothes, and now she won't touch the work, and she is doing

all she can to help Father keep me from going."

"I never knew Father to need much help on anything he made up his

mind to," said Adam.

Kate sat very tense. She looked steadily at her brother, but he

looked quite as steadily at his plate. The back of her sister-in-

law was fully as expressive as her face. Her head was very erect,

her shoulders stiff and still, not a curl moved as she poured

Adam's tea and Susan's milk. Only Adam, 3d, looked at Kate with

companionable eyes, as if he might feel a slight degree of

interest or sympathy, so she found herself explaining directly to

him.

"Things are blame unfair in our family, anyway!" she said,

bitterly. "You have got to be born a boy to have any chance worth

while; if you are a girl it is mighty small, and if you are the

youngest, by any mischance, you have none at all. I don't want to

harp things over; but I wish you would explain to me why having

been born a few years after Nancy Ellen makes me her slave, and

cuts me out of my chance to teach, and to have some freedom and

clothes. They might as well have told Hiram he was not to have any

land and stay at home and help Father because he was the youngest

boy; it would have been quite as fair; but nothing like that

happens to the boys of this family, it is always the girls who get

left. I have worked for years, knowing every cent I saved and

earned above barely enough to cover me, would go to help pay for

Hiram's land and house and stock; but he wouldn't turn a hand to

help me, neither will any of the rest of you."