A Daughter of the Land

"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."