A Daughter of the Land

"I certainly do," said Kate. "I look the best in that hat, with

the black velvet and the plume, I ever did, but there's no use to

look twice, I can't afford it."

"Oh, but it is very reasonable! We haven't a finer hat in the

store, nor a better plume," said the milliner.

She slowly waved it in all its glory before Kate's beauty-hungry

eyes. Kate turned so she could not see it.

"Please excuse one question. Are you teaching in Walden this

winter?" asked the milliner.

"Yes," said Kate. "I have signed the contract for that school."

"Then charge the hat and pay for it in September. I'd rather wait

for my money than see you fail to spend the summer under that

plume. It really is lovely against your gold hair."

"'Get thee behind me, Satan,'" quoted Kate. "No. I never had

anything charged, and never expect to. Please have the black

velvet put on and let me try it with the bows set and sewed."

"All right," said the milliner, "but I'm sorry."

She was so sorry that she carried the plume to the work room, and

when she walked up behind Kate, who sat waiting before the mirror,

and carefully set the hat on her head, at exactly the right angle,

the long plume crept down one side and drooped across the girl's

shoulder.

"I will reduce it a dollar more," she said, "and send the bill to

you at Walden the last week of September."

Kate moved her head from side to side, lifted and dropped her

chin. Then she turned to the milliner.

"You should be killed!" she said.

The woman reached for a hat box.

"No, I shouldn't!" she said. "Waiting that long, I'll not make

much on the hat, but I'll make a good friend who will come again,

and bring her friends. What is your name, please?"

Kate took one look at herself -- smooth pink cheeks, gray eyes,

gold hair, the sweeping wide brim, the trailing plume.

"Miss Katherine Eleanor Bates," she said. "Bates Corners,

Hartley, Indiana. Please call my carriage?"

The milliner laughed heartily. "That's the spirit of '76," she

commended. "I'd be willing to wager something worth while that

this very hat brings you the carriage before fall, if you show

yourself in it in the right place. It's a perfectly stunning hat.

Shall I send it, or will you wear it?"

Kate looked in the mirror again. "You may put a fresh blue band

on the sailor I was wearing, and send that to Dr. Gray's when it

is finished," she said. "And put in a fancy bow, for my throat,

of the same velvet as the hat, please. I'll surely pay you the

last week of September. And if you can think up an equally

becoming hat for winter -- --"