A Daughter of the Land

Kate waved her hand toward the distance.

"Oh, merely sky, and land, and water, and trees, and birds, and

flowers, and fruit, and crops, and a few other things scarcely

worth mentioning," she said, lightly. "I'm not in the mood to

talk bushels, seed, and fertilization just now; but I understand

them, they are in my blood. I think possibly the reason I want

two hundred acres of land for myself is because I've been hard on

the job of getting them for other people ever since I began to

work, at about the age of four."

"But if you want land personally, why didn't you work to get it

for yourself?" asked John Jardine.

"Because I happened to be the omega of my father's system,"

answered Kate.

Mrs. Jardine looked at her interestedly. She had never mentioned

her home or parents before. The older woman did not intend to ask

a word, but if Kate was going to talk, she did not want to miss

one. Kate evidently was going to talk, for she continued: "You

see my father is land mad, and son crazy. He thinks a BOY of all

the importance in the world; a GIRL of none whatever. He has the

biggest family of any one we know. From birth each girl is worked

like a man, or a slave, from four in the morning until nine at

night. Each boy is worked exactly the same way; the difference

lies in the fact that the girls get plain food and plainer clothes

out of it; the boys each get two hundred acres of land, buildings

and stock, that the girls have been worked to the limit to help

pay for; they get nothing personally, worth mentioning. I think I

have two hundred acres of land on the brain, and I think this is

the explanation of it. It's a pre-natal influence at our house;

while we nurse, eat, sleep, and above all, WORK it, afterward."

She paused and looked toward John Jardine calmly: "I think," she

said, "that there's not a task ever performed on a farm that I

haven't had my share in. I have plowed, hoed, seeded, driven

reapers and bound wheat, pitched hay and hauled manure, chopped

wood and sheared sheep, and boiled sap; if you can mention

anything else, go ahead, I bet a dollar I've done it."

"Well, what do you think of that?" he muttered, looking at her

wonderingly.

"If you ask me, and want the answer in plain words, I think it's a

shame!" said Kate. "If it were ONE HUNDRED acres of land, and the

girls had as much, and were as willing to work it as the boys are,

well and good. But to drive us like cattle, and turn all we earn

into land for the boys, is another matter. I rebelled last

summer, borrowed the money and went to Normal and taught last

winter. I'm going to teach again this winter; but last summer and

this are the first of my life that I haven't been in the harvest

fields, at this time. Women in the harvest fields of Land King

Bates are common as men, and wagons, and horses, but not nearly so

much considered. The women always walk on Sunday, to save the

horses, and often on week days."