A Daughter of the Land

"Chance for what?" asked Kate tersely.

"Education, travel, leisure, every opportunity in the world,"

enumerated Nancy Ellen.

Kate was handling her gloves, her forehead wrinkled, her eyes

narrowed in concentration.

"That is one side of it," she said. "The other is that neither my

children nor I have in our blood, breeding, or mental cosmos, the

background that it takes to make one happy with money in unlimited

quantities. So far as I'm concerned personally, I'm happier this

minute as I am, than John Jardine's money ever could make me. I

had a fierce struggle with that question long ago; since I have

had nearly eight years of life I love, that is good for my soul,

the struggle to leave it would be greater now. Polly would be

happier and get more from life as the wife of big gangling Henry

Peters, than she would as a millionaire's daughter. She'd be very

suitable in a farmhouse parlour; she'd be a ridiculous little

figure at a ball. As for Adam, he'd turn this down quick and

hard."

"Just you try him!" cried Nancy Ellen.

"For one thing, he won't be here at ten o'clock," said Kate, "and

for another, since it involves my becoming the wife of John

Jardine, it isn't for Adam to decide. This decision is strictly

my own. I merely mention the children, because if I married him,

it would have an inevitable influence on their lives, an influence

that I don't in the least covet either for them or for myself.

Nancy Ellen, can't you remotely conceive of such a thing as one

human being in the world who is SATISFIED THAT HE HAS HIS SHARE,

and who believes to the depths of his soul that no man should be

allowed to amass, and to use for his personal indulgence, the

amount of money that John Jardine does?"

"Yes, I can," cried Nancy Ellen, "when I see you, and the way you

act! You have chance after chance, but you seem to think that

life requires of you a steady job of holding your nose to the

grindstone. It was rather stubby to begin with, go on and grind

it clear off your face, if you like."

"All right," said Kate. "Then I'll tell you definitely that I

have no particular desire to marry anybody; I like my life

immensely as I'm living it. I'm free, independent, and my

children are in the element to which they were born, and where

they can live naturally, and spend their lives helping in the

great work of feeding, clothing, and housing their fellow men.

I've no desire to leave my job or take them from theirs, to start

a lazy, shiftless life of self-indulgence. I don't meddle much

with the Bible, but I have a profound BELIEF in it, and a large

RESPECT for it, as the greatest book in the world, and it says:

'By the sweat of his brow shall man earn his bread,' or words to

that effect. I was born a sweater, I shall just go on sweating

until I die; I refuse to begin perspiring at my time of life."