“I doubt it!” said Kate.  “I can’t see the vanity in Father.”

“You can’t?” said Adam, Jr., bitterly.  “Maybe not!  You have not been with him in the Treasurer’s office when he calls for ’the tax on those little parcels of land of mine.’  He looks every inch of six feet six then, and swells like a toad.  To hear him you would think sixteen hundred and fifty acres of the cream of this county could be tied in a bandanna and carried on a walking stick, he is so casual about it.  And those men fly around like buttons on a barn door to wait on him and it’s ‘Mister Bates this’ and ’Mister Bates that,’ until it turns my stomach.  Vanity!  He rolls in it!  He eats it!  He risks losing our land for us that some of us have slaved over for twenty years, to feed that especial vein of his vanity.  Where should we be if he let anything happen to those deeds?”

“How refreshing!” cried Kate.  “I love to hear you grouching!  I hear nothing else from the women of the Bates family, but I didn’t even know the men had a grouch.  Are Peter, and John, and Hiram, and the other boys sore, too?”

“I should say they are!  But they are too diplomatic to say so.  They are afraid to cheep.  I just open my head and say right out loud in meeting that since I’ve turned in the taxes and insurance for all these years and improved my land more than fifty per cent., I’d like to own it, and pay my taxes myself, like a man.”

“I’d like to have some land under any conditions,” said Kate, “but probably I never shall.  And I bet you never get a flipper on that deed until Father has crossed over Jordan, which with his health and strength won’t be for twenty-five years yet at least.  He’s performing a miracle that will make the other girls rave, when he gives Nancy Ellen money to buy her outfit; but they won’t dare let him hear a whisper of it.  They’ll take it all out on Mother, and she’ll be afraid to tell him.”

“Afraid?  Mother afraid of him?  Not on your life.  She is hand in glove with him.  She thinks as he does, and helps him in everything he undertakes.”

“That’s so, too.  Come to think of it, she isn’t a particle afraid of him.  She agrees with him perfectly.  It would be interesting to hear them having a private conversation.  They never talk a word before us.  But they always agree, and they heartily agree on Nancy Ellen’s man, that is plainly to be seen.”

“It will make a very difficult winter for you, Katherine,” said Agatha.  “When Nancy Ellen becomes interested in dresses and table linen and bedding she will want to sew all the time, and leave the cooking and dishes for you as well as your schoolwork.”

Kate turned toward Agatha in surprise.  “But I won’t be there!  I told you I had taken a school.”

“You taken a school!” shouted Adam.  “Why, didn’t they tell you that Father has signed up for the home school for you?”

“Good Heavens!” said Kate.  “What will be to pay now?”