“Did you contract for another school?” cried Adam.

“I surely did,” said Kate slowly.  “I signed an agreement to teach the village school in Walden.  It’s a brick building with a janitor to sweep and watch fires, only a few blocks to walk, and it pays twenty dollars a month more than the home school where you can wade snow three miles, build your own fires, and freeze all day in a little frame building at that.  I teach the school I have taken.”

“And throw our school out of a teacher?  Father could be sued, and probably will be,” said Adam.  “And throw the housework Nancy Ellen expected you to do on her,” said Agatha, at the same time.

“I see,” said Kate.  “Well, if he is sued, he will have to settle.  He wouldn’t help me a penny to go to school, I am of age, the debt is my own, and I don’t owe it to him.  He’s had all my work has been worth all my life, and I’ve surely paid my way.  I shall teach the school I have signed for.”

“You will get into a pretty kettle of fish!” said Adam.

“Agatha, will you sell me your telescope for what you paid for it, and get yourself a new one the next time you go to Hartley?  It is only a few days until time to go to my school, it opens sooner than in the country, and closes later.  The term is four months longer, so I earn that much more.  I haven’t gotten a telescope yet.  You can add it to my first payment.”

“You may take it,” said Agatha, “but hadn’t you better reconsider, Katherine?  Things are progressing so nicely, and this will upset everything for Nancy Ellen.”

“That taking the home school will upset everything for me, doesn’t seem to count.  It is late, late to find teachers, and I can be held responsible if I break the contract I have made.  Father can stand the racket better than I can.  When he wouldn’t consent to my going, he had no business to make plans for me.  I had to make my own plans and go in spite of him; he might have known I’d do all in my power to get a school.  Besides, I don’t want the home school, or the home work piled on me.  My hands look like a human being’s for the first time in my life; then I need all my time outside of school to study and map out lessons.  I am going to try for a room in the Hartley schools next year, or the next after that, surely.  They sha’n’t change my plans and boss me, I am going to be free to work, and study, and help myself, like other teachers.”

“A grand row this will be,” commented young Adam.  “And as usual Kate will be right, while all of them will be trying to use her to their advantage.  Ma has done her share.  Now it is your turn, Pa.  Ain’t you going to go over and help her?”

“What could I do?” demanded his father.  “The mischief is done now.”

“Well, if you can’t do anything to help, you can let me have the buggy to drive her to Walden, if they turn her out.”

“‘Forcibly invite her to proceed to her destination,’ you mean, son,” said Agatha.