them schemed, planned, connived with her husband and piled up the money as Agatha did, therefore she stood at the head of the women of the Bates family; while she was considered to have worked miracles in the heart of Adam Bates, for with his exception no man of the family ever had been seen to touch a woman, either publicly or privately, to offer the slightest form of endearment, assistance or courtesy.  “Women are to work and to bear children,” said the elder Bates.  “Put them at the first job when they are born, and at the second at eighteen, and keep them hard at it.”

At their rate of progression several of the Bates sons and daughters would produce families that, with a couple of pairs of twins, would equal the sixteen of the elder Bates; but not so Agatha.  She had one son of fifteen and one daughter of ten, and she said that was all she intended to have, certainly it was all she did have; but she further aggravated matters by announcing that she had had them because she wanted them; at such times as she intended to; and that she had the boy first and five years the older, so that he could look after his sister when they went into company.  Also she walked up and sat upon Adam’s lap whenever she chose, ruffled his hair, pulled his ears, and kissed him squarely on the mouth, with every appearance of having help, while the dance on the front porch with her son or daughter was of daily occurrence.  And anything funnier than Agatha, prim and angular with never a hair out of place, stiffly hopping “Money Musk” and “Turkey In The Straw,” or the “Blue Danube” waltz, anything funnier than that, never happened.  But the two Adams, Jr. and 3d, watched with reverent and adoring eyes, for she was mother, and no one else on earth rested so high in their respect as the inflexible woman they lived with.  That she was different from all the other women of her time and location was hard on the other women.  Had they been exactly right, they would have been exactly like her.

So Kate, thinking all these things over, her own problem acutely “advanced and proceeded.”  She advanced past the closed barn, and stock in the pasture, past the garden flaming June, past the dooryard, up the steps, down the hall, into the screened back porch dining room and “proceeded” to take a chair, while the family finished the Sunday night supper, at which they were seated.  Kate was not hungry and she did not wish to trouble her sister-in-law to set another place, so she took the remaining chair, against the wall, behind Agatha, facing Adam, 3d, across the table, and with Adam Jr., in profile at the head, and little Susan at the foot.  Then she waited her chance.  Being tired and aggressive she did not wait long.

“I might as well tell you why I came,” she said bluntly.  “Father won’t give me money to go to Normal, as he has all the others.  He says I have got to stay at home and help Mother.”

“Well, Mother is getting so old she needs help,” said Adam, Jr., as he continued his supper.