A Daughter of the Land

Adam sat close while Kate ate her supper, then he helped her

unpack her trunk and hang away her dresses, and then they sat on

the porch talking for a long time.

When at last they arose to go to bed Kate said: "Adam, about

Polly: first time you see her, if she asks, tell her she left

home of her own free will and accord, and in her own way, which,

by the way, happens to be a Holt way; but you needn't mention

that. I think by this time she has learned or soon she will learn

that; and whenever she wants to come back and face me, to come

right ahead. I can stand it if she can. Can you get that

straight?"

Adam said he could. He got that straight and so much else that by

the time he finished, Polly realized that both he and her mother

had left her in the house to try to SHIELD her; that if she had

told what she wanted in a straightforward manner she might have

had a wedding outfit prepared and been married from her home at a

proper time and in a proper way, and without putting her mother to

shame before the community. Polly was very much ashamed of

herself by the time Adam finished. She could not find it in her

heart to blame Henry; she knew he was no more to blame than she

was; but she did store up a grievance against Mr. and Mrs. Peters.

They were older and had had experience with the world; they might

have told Polly what she should do instead of having done

everything in their power to make her do what she had done,

bribing, coaxing, urging, all in the direction of her

inclinations.

At heart Polly was big enough to admit that she had followed her

inclinations without thinking at all what the result would be.

Adam never would have done what she had. Adam would have thought

of his mother and his name and his honour. Poor little Polly had

to admit that honour with her had always been a matter of, "Now

remember," "Be careful," and like caution on the lips of her

mother.

The more Polly thought, the worse she felt. The worse she felt,

the more the whole Peters family tried to comfort her. She was

violently homesick in a few days; but Adam had said she was to

come when she "could face her mother," and Polly suddenly found

that she would rather undertake to run ten miles than to face her

mother, so she began a process of hiding from her. If she sat on

the porch, and saw her mother coming, she ran in the house. She

would go to no public place where she might meet her. For a few

weeks she lived a life of working for Mrs. Peters from dawn to

dark, under the stimulus of what a sweet girl she was, how

splendidly she did things, how fortunate Henry was, interspersed

with continual kissing, patting, and petting, all very new and

unusual to Polly. By that time she was so very ill, she could not

lift her head from the pillow half the day, but it was to the

credit of the badly disappointed Peters family that they kept up

the petting. When Polly grew better, she had no desire to go

anywhere; she worked to make up for the trouble she had been

during her illness, to sew every spare moment, and to do her full

share of the day's work in the house of an excessively nice woman,

whose work never was done, and most hopeless thing of all, never

would be. Mrs. Peters' head was full of things that she meant to

do three years in the future. Every night found Polly so tired

she staggered to bed early as possible; every morning found her

confronting the same round, which from the nature of her condition

every morning was more difficult for her.