A Daughter of the Land

She had a worse grievance when Nancy Ellen hung several new

dresses and a wrapper on her side of the closet after her first

pay-day, and furnished her end of the bureau with a white hair

brush and a brass box filled with pink powder, with a swan's-down

puff for its application. For three months Kate had waited and

hoped that at least "thank you" would be vouchsafed her; when it

failed for that length of time she did two things: she studied so

diligently that her father called her into the barn and told her

that if before the school, she asked Nancy Ellen another question

she could not answer, he would use the buggy whip on her to within

an inch of her life. The buggy whip always had been a familiar

implement to Kate, so she stopped asking slippery questions,

worked harder than ever, and spent her spare time planning what

she would hang in the closet and put on her end of the bureau when

she had finished her Normal course, and was teaching her first

term of school.

Now she had learned all that Nancy Ellen could teach her, and much

that Nancy Ellen never knew: it was time for Kate to be starting

away to school. Because it was so self-evident that she should

have what the others had had, she said nothing about it until the

time came; then she found her father determined that she should

remain at home to do the housework, for no compensation other than

her board and such clothes as she always had worn, her mother

wholly in accord with him, and marvel of all, Nancy Ellen quite

enthusiastic on the subject.

Her father always had driven himself and his family like slaves,

while her mother had ably seconded his efforts. Money from the

sale of chickens, turkeys, butter, eggs, and garden truck that

other women of the neighbourhood used for extra clothing for

themselves and their daughters and to prettify their homes, Mrs.

Bates handed to her husband to increase the amount necessary to

purchase the two hundred acres of land for each son when he came

of age. The youngest son had farmed his land with comfortable

profit and started a bank account, while his parents and two

sisters were still saving and working to finish the last payment.

Kate thought with bitterness that if this final payment had been

made possibly there would have been money to spare for her; but

with that thought came the knowledge that her father had numerous

investments on which he could have realized and made the payments

had he not preferred that they should be a burden on his family.

"Take the wings of morning," repeated Kate, with all the emphasis

the old minister had used. "Hummm! I wonder what kind of wings.

Those of a peewee would scarcely do for me; I'd need the wings of

an eagle to get me anywhere, and anyway it wasn't the wings of a

bird I was to take, it was the wings of morning. I wonder what

the wings of morning are, and how I go about taking them. God

knows where my wings come in; by the ache in my feet I seem to

have walked, mostly. Oh, what ARE the wings of morning?"