A Daughter of the Land

Sunday morning she said to Nancy Ellen as they washed the

breakfast dishes, while the men smoked on the veranda: "Nancy

Ellen, I don't believe I was ever cut out for a rich woman! If I

have got a chance, I wish YOU had it, and I had THIS. This just

suits my style to a T."

"Tell me about it," said Nancy Ellen.

Kate told all she could remember.

"You don't mean to say you didn't LIKE it?" cried Nancy Ellen.

"I didn't say anything," said Kate, "but if I were saying exactly

what I feel, you'd know I despise it all."

"Why, Kate Barnes!" cried the horrified Nancy Ellen, "Whatever do

you mean?"

"I haven't thought enough to put it to you clearly," said Kate,

"but someway the city repels me. Facilities for manufacturing

something start a city. It begins with the men who do the work,

and the men who profit from that work, living in the same coop.

It expands, and goes on, and grows, on that basis. It's the

laborer, living on his hire, and the manufacturer living on the

laborer's productions, coming in daily contact. The contrast is

too great, the space is too small. Somebody is going to get the

life crowded out of him at every turn, and it isn't always the

work hand in the factory. The money kings eat each other for

breakfast every day. As for work, we always thought we worked.

You should take a peep into the shops and factories I've seen this

week. Work? Why, we don't know what work is, and we waste enough

food every day to keep a workman's family, and we're dressed liked

queens, in comparison with them right now."

"Do you mean to say if he asks you --?" It was a small explosion.

"I mean to say if he asks me, 'buy me that two hundred acres of

land where I want it, build me the house and barns I want, and

guarantee that I may live there as I please, and I'll marry you

to-morrow.' If it's Chicago -- Never! I haven't stolen,

murdered, or betrayed, who should I be imprisoned?"

"Why, you hopeless anarchist!" said Nancy Ellen, "I am going to

tell John Jardine on you."

"Do!" urged Kate. "Sound him on the land question. It's our only

hope of a common foundation. Have you send Agatha word that we

will be out this afternoon?"

"I have," said Nancy Ellen. "And I don't doubt that now, even

now, she is in the kitchen -- how would she put it?"

"'Compounding a cake,'" said Kate, "while Adam is in the cellar

'freezing a custard.' Adam, 3d, will be raking the yard afresh

and Susan will be sweeping the walks steadily from now until they

sight us coming down the road. What you bet Agatha asked John his

intentions? I almost wish she would," she added. "He has some,

but there is a string to them in some way, and I can't just make

out where, or why it is."