A Daughter of the Land

Jennie Weeks was frankly enchanted.

"My sakes!" she said to Kate. "If I'm not grateful to you for

getting me into a place like this. I wouldn't give it up for all

the school-teaching in the world. I'm going to snuggle right in

here, and make myself so useful I won't have to leave until I die.

I hope you won't turn me out when to come to take charge."

"Don't you think you're presuming?" said Kate.

Jennie drew back with a swift apology, but there was a flash in

the little eyes and a spiteful look on the small face as she

withdrew.

Then Kate was shown each of John's wonderful inventions. To her

they seemed almost miracles, because they were so obvious, so

simple, yet brought such astounding returns. She saw offices and

heard the explanation of big business; but did not comprehend,

farther than that when an invention was completed, the piling up

of money began. Before the week's visit was over, Kate was trying

to fit herself and her aims and objects of life into the

surroundings, with no success whatever. She felt housed in,

cribbed, confined, frustrated. When she realized that she was

becoming plainly cross, she began keen self-analysis and soon

admitted to herself that she did not belong there.

Kate watched with keen eyes. Repeatedly she tried to imagine

herself in such surroundings for life, a life sentence, she

expressed it, for soon she understood that it would be to her, a

prison. The only way she could imagine herself enduring it at all

was to think of the promised farm, and when she began to think of

that on Jardine terms, she saw that it would mean to sit down and

tell someone else what she wanted done. There would be no battle

to fight. Her mind kept harking back to the day when she had said

to John that she hoped there would be a lake on the land she

owned, and he had answered casually: "If there isn't a lake, make

one!" Kate thought that over repeatedly. "Make one!" Make a

lake? It would have seemed no more magical to her if he had said,

"Make a cloud," "Make a star," or "Make a rainbow." "What on

earth would I do with myself, with my time, with my life?"

pondered Kate.

She said "Good-bye" to Mrs. Jardine and Jennie Weeks, and started

home with John, still pondering. When the train pulled into

Hartley, Nancy Ellen and Robert were on the platform to meet them.

From that time, Kate was on solid ground. She was reckoning in

terms she could comprehend. All her former assurance and energy

came back to her. She almost wished the visit were over, and that

she were on the way to Walton to clean the school-house. She was

eager to roll her sleeves and beat a tub of soapy clothes to foam,

and boil them snowy white. She had a desire she could scarcely

control to sweep, and dust, and cook. She had been out of the

environment she thought she disliked and found when she returned

to it after a wider change than she could have imagined, that she

did not dislike it at all. It was her element, her work, what she

knew. She could attempt it with sure foot, capable hand, and

certain knowledge.