AN EMBRYO MIND READER
KATE was far from physical flight as she pounded the indignation of her
soul into the path with her substantial feet. Baffled and angry, she
kept reviewing the situation as she went swiftly on her way, regardless
of dust and heat. She could see no justice in being forced into a
position that promised to end in further humiliation and defeat of her
hopes. If she only could find Adam at the stable, as she passed, and
talk with him alone! Secretly, she well knew that the chief source of
her dread of meeting her sister-in-law was that to her Agatha was so
funny that ridiculing her had been regarded as perfectly legitimate
pastime. For Agatha WAS funny; but she had no idea of it, and could no
more avoid it than a bee could avoid being buzzy, so the manner in
which her sisters-in-law imitated her and laughed at her, none too
secretly, was far from kind. While she never guessed what was going
on, she realized the antagonism in their attitude and stoutly resented
it.
Adam was his father's favourite son, a stalwart, fine-appearing, big
man, silent, honest, and forceful; the son most after the desires of
the father's heart, yet Adam was the one son of the seven who had
ignored his father's law that all of his boys were to marry strong,
healthy young women, poor women, working women. Each of the others at
coming of age had contracted this prescribed marriage as speedily as
possible, first asking father Bates, the girl afterward. If father
Bates disapproved, the girl was never asked at all. And the reason for
this docility on the part of these big, matured men, lay wholly in the
methods of father Bates. He gave those two hundred acres of land to
each of them on coming of age, and the same sum to each for the
building of a house and barn and the purchase of stock; gave it to them
in words, and with the fullest assurance that it was theirs to improve,
to live on, to add to. Each of them had seen and handled his deed,
each had to admit he never had known his father to tell a lie or
deviate the least from fairness in a deal of any kind, each had been
compelled to go in the way indicated by his father for years; but not a
man of them held his own deed. These precious bits of paper remained
locked in the big wooden chest beside the father's bed, while the land
stood on the records in his name; the taxes they paid him each year he,
himself, carried to the county clerk; so that he was the largest
landholder in the county and one of the very richest men. It must have
been extreme unction to his soul to enter the county office and ask for
the assessment on those "little parcels of land of mine." Men treated
him very deferentially, and so did his sons. Those documents carefully
locked away had the effect of obtaining ever-ready help to harvest his
hay and wheat whenever he desired, to make his least wish quickly
deferred to, to give him authority and the power for which he lived and
worked earlier, later, and harder than any other man of his day and
locality.
Adam was like him as possible up to the time he married, yet Adam was
the only one of his sons who disobeyed him; but there was a redeeming
feature. Adam married a slender tall slip of a woman, four years his
senior, who had been teaching in the Hartley schools when he began
courting her. She was a prim, fussy woman, born of a prim father and a
fussy mother, so what was to be expected? Her face was narrow and set,
her body and her movements almost rigid, her hair, always parted,
lifted from each side and tied on the crown, fell in stiff little
curls, the back part hanging free. Her speech, as precise as her
movements, was formed into set habit through long study of the
dictionary. She was born antagonistic to whatever existed, no matter
what it was. So surely as every other woman agreed on a dress, a
recipe, a house, anything whatever, so surely Agatha thought out and
followed a different method, the disconcerting thing about her being
that she usually finished any undertaking with less exertion, ahead of
time, and having saved considerable money.
She could have written a fine book of synonyms, for as certainly as any
one said anything in her presence that she had occasion to repeat, she
changed the wording to six-syllabled mouthfuls, delivered with
ponderous circumlocution. She subscribed to papers and magazines,
which she read and remembered. And she danced! When other women
thought even a waltz immoral and shocking; perfectly stiff, her curls
exactly in place, Agatha could be seen, and frequently was seen,
waltzing on the front porch in the arms of, and to a tune whistled by
young Adam, whose full name was Adam Alcibiades Bates. In his younger
days, when discipline had been required, Kate once had heard her say to
the little fellow: "Adam Alcibiades ascend these steps and proceed
immediately to your maternal ancestor."
Kate thought of this with a dry smile as she plodded on toward Agatha's
home hoping she could see her brother at the barn, but she knew that
most probably she would "ascend the steps and proceed to the maternal
ancestor," of Adam Bates 3d. Then she would be forced to explain her
visit and combat both Adam and his wife; for Agatha was not a nonentity
like her collection of healthful, hard-working sisters-in-law. Agatha
worked if she chose, and she did not work if she did not choose.
Mostly she worked and worked harder than any one ever thought. She had
a habit of keeping her house always immaculate, finishing her cleaning
very early and then reading in a conspicuous spot on the veranda when
other women were busy with their most tiresome tasks. Such was Agatha,
whom Kate dreaded meeting, with every reason, for Agatha, despite
curls, bony structure, language, and dance, was the most powerful
factor in the whole Bates family with her father-in-law; and all
because when he purchased the original two hundred acres for Adam, and
made the first allowance for buildings and stock, Agatha slipped the
money from Adam's fingers in some inexplainable way, and spent it all
for stock; because forsooth! Agatha was an only child, and her prim
father endowed her, she said so herself, with three hundred acres of
land, better in location and more fertile than that given to Adam, land
having on it a roomy and comfortable brick house, completely furnished,
a large barn and also stock; so that her place could be used to live on
and farm, while Adam's could be given over to grazing herds of cattle
which he bought cheaply, fattened and sold at the top of the market.
If each had brought such a farm into the family with her, father Bates
could have endured six more prim, angular, becurled daughters-in-law,
very well indeed, for land was his one and only God. His respect for
Agatha was markedly very high, for in addition to her farm he secretly
admired her independence of thought and action, and was amazed by the
fact that she was about her work when several of the blooming girls he
had selected for wives for his sons were confined to the sofa with a
pain, while not one of 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.
"Of course she is," said Kate. "We all know that. But what is the
matter with Nancy Ellen helping her, while I take my turn at Normal?
There wasn't a thing I could do last summer to help her off that I
didn't do, even to lending her my best dress and staying at home for
six Sundays because I had nothing else fit to wear where I'd be seen."
No one said a word. Kate continued: "Then Father secured our home
school for her and I had to spend the winter going to school to her,
when you very well know that I always studied harder, and was ahead of
her, even after she'd been to Normal. And I got up early and worked
late, and cooked, and washed, and waited on her, while she got her
lessons and reports ready, and fixed up her nice new clothes, and now
she won't touch the work, and she is doing all she can to help Father
keep me from going."
"I never knew Father to need much help on anything he made up his mind
to," said Adam.
Kate sat very tense. She looked steadily at her brother, but he looked
quite as steadily at his plate. The back of her sister-in-law was
fully as expressive as her face. Her head was very erect, her
shoulders stiff and still, not a curl moved as she poured Adam's tea
and Susan's milk. Only Adam, 3d, looked at Kate with companionable
eyes, as if he might feel a slight degree of interest or sympathy, so
she found herself explaining directly to him.
"Things are blame unfair in our family, anyway!" she said, bitterly.
"You have got to be born a boy to have any chance worth while; if you
are a girl it is mighty small, and if you are the youngest, by any
mischance, you have none at all. I don't want to harp things over; but
I wish you would explain to me why having been born a few years after
Nancy Ellen makes me her slave, and cuts me out of my chance to teach,
and to have some freedom and clothes. They might as well have told
Hiram he was not to have any land and stay at home and help Father
because he was the youngest boy; it would have been quite as fair; but
nothing like that happens to the boys of this family, it is always the
girls who get left. I have worked for years, knowing every cent I
saved and earned above barely enough to cover me, would go to help pay
for Hiram's land and house and stock; but he wouldn't turn a hand to
help me, neither will any of the rest of you."
"Then what are you here for?" asked Adam.
"Because I am going to give you, and every other brother and sister I
have, the chance to REFUSE to loan me enough to buy a few clothes and
pay my way to Normal, so I can pass the examinations, and teach this
fall. And when you have all refused, I am going to the neighbours,
until I find someone who will loan me the money I need. A hundred
dollars would be plenty. I could pay it back with two months'
teaching, with any interest you say."
Kate paused, short of breath, her eyes blazing, her cheeks red. Adam
went steadily on with his supper. Agatha appeared stiffer and more
uncompromising in the back than before, which Kate had not thought
possible. But the same dull red on the girl's cheeks had begun to burn
on the face of young Adam. Suddenly he broke into a clear laugh.
"Oh, Ma, you're too funny!" he cried. "I can read your face like a
book. I bet you ten dollars I can tell you just word for word what you
are going to say. I dare you let me! You know I can!" Still laughing,
his eyes dancing, a picture to see, he stretched his arm across the
table toward her, and his mother adored him, however she strove to
conceal the fact from him.
"Ten dollars!" she scoffed. "When did we become so wealthy? I'll give
you one dollar if you tell me exactly what I was going to say."
The boy glanced at his father. "Oh this is too easy!" he cried. "It's
like robbing the baby's bank!" And then to his mother: "You were just
opening your lips to say: 'Give it to her! If you don't, I will!'
And you are even a little bit more of a brick than usual to do it.
It's a darned shame the way all of them impose on Kate."
There was a complete change in Agatha's back. Adam, Jr., laid down his
fork and stared at his wife in deep amazement. Adam, 3d, stretched his
hand farther toward his mother. "Give me that dollar!" he cajoled.
"Well, I am not concealing it in the sleeve of my garments," she said.
"If I have one, it is reposing in my purse, in juxtaposition to the
other articles that belong there, and if you receive it, it will be
bestowed upon you when I deem the occasion suitable."
Young Adam's fist came down with a smash. "I get the dollar!" he
triumphed. "I TOLD you so! I KNEW she was going to say it! Ain't I a
dandy mind reader though? But it is bully for you, Father, because of
course, if Mother wouldn't let Kate have it, you'd HAVE to; but if you
DID it might make trouble with your paternal land-grabber, and endanger
your precious deed that you hope to get in the sweet by-and-by. But if
Mother loans the money, Grandfather can't say a word, because it is her
very own, and didn't cost him anything, and he always agrees with her
anyway! Hurrah for hurrah, Kate! Nancy Ellen may wash her own
petticoat in the morning, while I take you to the train. You'll let
me, Father? You did let me go to Hartley alone, once. I'll be
careful! I won't let a thing happen. I'll come straight home. And oh,
my dollar, you and me; I'll put you in the bank and let you grow to
three!"
"You may go," said his father, promptly.
"You shall proceed according to your Aunt Katherine's instructions,"
said his mother, at the same time.
"Katie, get your carpet-sack! When do we start?" demanded young Adam.
"Morning will be all right with me, you blessed youngun," said Kate,
"but I don't own a telescope or anything to put what little I have in,
and Nancy Ellen never would spare hers; she will want to go to County
Institute before I get back."
"You may have mine," said Agatha. "You are perfectly welcome to take
it wherever your peregrinations lead you, and return it when you
please. I shall proceed to my chamber and formulate your check
immediately. You are also welcome to my best hat and cape, and any of
my clothing or personal adornments you can use to advantage."
"Oh, Agatha, I wish you were as big as a house, like me," said Kate,
joyfully. "I couldn't possibly crowd into anything you wear, but it
would almost tickle me to death to have Nancy Ellen know you let me
take your things, when she won't even offer me a dud of her old stuff;
I never remotely hoped for any of the new."
"You shall have my cape and hat, anyway. The cape is new and very
fashionable. Come upstairs and try the hat," said Agatha.
The cape was new and fashionable as Agatha had said; it would not
fasten at the neck, but there would be no necessity that it should
during July and August, while it would improve any dress it was worn
with on a cool evening. The hat Kate could not possibly use with her
large, broad face and mass of hair, but she was almost as pleased with
the offer as if the hat had been most becoming. Then Agatha brought
out her telescope, in which Kate laid the cape while Agatha wrote her a
check for one hundred and twenty dollars, and told her where and how to
cash it. The extra twenty was to buy a pair of new walking shoes, some
hose, and a hat, before she went to her train. When they went
downstairs Adam, Jr., had a horse hitched and Adam, 3d, drove her to
her home, where, at the foot of the garden, they took one long survey
of the landscape and hid the telescope behind the privet bush. Then
Adam drove away quietly, Kate entered the dooryard from the garden, and
soon afterward went to the wash room and hastily ironed her clothing.
Nancy Ellen had gone to visit a neighbour girl, so Kate risked her
remaining until after church in the evening. She hurried to their room
and mended all her own clothing she had laid out. Then she
deliberately went over Nancy Ellen's and helped herself to a pair of
pretty nightdresses, such as she had never owned, a white embroidered
petticoat, the second best white dress, and a most becoming sailor hat.
These she made into a parcel and carried to the wash room, brought in
the telescope and packed it, hiding it under a workbench and covering
it with shavings. After that she went to her room and wrote a note,
and then slept deeply until the morning call. She arose at once and
went to the wash room but instead of washing the family clothing, she
took a bath in the largest tub, and washed her hair to a state
resembling spun gold. During breakfast she kept sharp watch down the
road. When she saw Adam, 3d, coming she stuck her note under the hook
on which she had seen her father hang his hat all her life, and
carrying the telescope in the clothes basket covered with a rumpled
sheet, she passed across the yard and handed it over the fence to Adam,
climbed that same fence, and they started toward Hartley.
Kate put the sailor hat on her head, and sat very straight, an anxious
line crossing her forehead. She was running away, and if discovered,
there was the barest chance that her father might follow, and make a
most disagreeable scene, before the train pulled out. He had gone to a
far field to plow corn and Kate fervently hoped he would plow until
noon, which he did. Nancy Ellen washed the dishes, and went into the
front room to study, while Mrs. Bates put on her sunbonnet and began
hoeing the potatoes. Not one of the family noticed that Monday's wash
was not on the clothes line as usual. Kate and Adam drove as fast as
they dared, and on reaching town, cashed the check, decided that Nancy
Ellen's hat would serve, thus saving the price of a new one for
emergencies that might arise, bought the shoes, and went to the depot,
where they had an anxious hour to wait.
"I expect Grandpa will be pretty mad," said Adam.
"I am sure there is not the slightest chance but that he will be," said
Kate.
"Dare you go back home when school is over?" he asked.
"Probably not," she answered.
"What will you do?" he questioned.
"When I investigated sister Nancy Ellen's bureau I found a list of the
School Supervisors of the county, so I am going to put in my spare time
writing them about my qualifications to teach their schools this
winter. All the other girls did well and taught first-class schools, I
shall also. I am not a bit afraid but that I may take my choice of
several. When I finish it will be only a few days until school begins,
so I can go hunt my boarding place and stay there."
"Mother would let you stay at our house," said Adam.
"Yes, I think she would, after yesterday; but I don't want to make
trouble that might extend to Father and your father. I had better keep
away."
"Yes, I guess you had," said Adam. "If Grandfather rows, he raises a
racket. But maybe he won't!"
"Maybe! Wouldn't you like to see what happens when Mother come in from
the potatoes and Nancy Ellen comes out from the living room, and Father
comes to dinner, all about the same time?"
Adam laughed appreciatively.
"Wouldn't I just!" he cried. "Kate, you like my mother, don't you?"
"I certainly do! She has been splendid. I never dreamed of such a
thing as getting the money from her."
"I didn't either," said Adam, "until--I became a mind reader."
Kate looked straight into his eyes.
"How about that, Adam?" she asked.
Adam chuckled. "She didn't intend to say a word. She was going to let
the Bateses fight it out among themselves. Her mouth was shut so tight
it didn't look as if she could open it if she wanted to. I thought it
would be better for you to borrow the money from her, so Father
wouldn't get into a mess, and I knew how fine she was, so I just
SUGGESTED it to her. That's all!"
"Adam, you're a dandy!" cried Kate.
"I am having a whole buggy load of fun, and you ought to go," said he.
"It's all right! Don't you worry! I'll take care of you."
"Why, thank you, Adam!" said Kate. "That is the first time any one
ever offered to take care of me in my life. With me it always has been
pretty much of a 'go-it-alone' proposition."
"What of Nancy Ellen's did you take?" he asked. "Why didn't you get
some gloves? Your hands are so red and work-worn. Mother's never look
that way."
"Your mother never has done the rough field work I do, and I haven't
taken time to be careful. They do look badly. I wish I had taken a
pair of the lady's gloves; but I doubt if she would have survived that.
I understand that one of the unpardonable sins is putting on gloves
belonging to any one else."
Then the train came and Kate climbed aboard with Adam's parting
injunction in her ears: "Sit beside an open window on this side!"
So she looked for and found the window and as she seated herself she
saw Adam on the outside and leaned to speak to him again. Just as the
train started he thrust his hand inside, dropped his dollar on her lap,
and in a tense whisper commanded her: "Get yourself some gloves!"
Then he ran.
Kate picked up the dollar, while her eyes dimmed with tears.
"Why, the fine youngster!" she said. "The Jim-dandy fine youngster!"
Adam could not remember when he ever had been so happy as he was
driving home. He found his mother singing, his father in a genial
mood, so he concluded that the greatest thing in the world to make a
whole family happy was to do something kind for someone else. But he
reflected that there would be far from a happy family at his
grandfather's; and he was right. Grandmother Bates came in from her
hoeing at eleven o'clock tired and hungry, expecting to find the wash
dry and dinner almost ready. There was no wash and no odour of food.
She went to the wood-shed and stared unbelievingly at the cold stove,
the tubs of soaking clothes.
She turned and went into the kitchen, where she saw no signs of Kate or
of dinner, then she lifted up her voice and shouted: "Nancy Ellen!"
Nancy Ellen came in a hurry. "Why, Mother, what is the matter?" she
cried.
"Matter, yourself!" exclaimed Mrs. Bates. "Look in the wash room! Why
aren't the clothes on the line? Where is that good-for-nothing Kate?"
Nancy Ellen went to the wash room and looked. She came back pale and
amazed. "Maybe she is sick," she ventured. "She never has been; but
she might be! Maybe she has lain down."
"On Monday morning! And the wash not out! You simpleton!" cried Mrs.
Bates.
Nancy Ellen hurried upstairs and came back with bulging eyes.
"Every scrap of her clothing is gone, and half of mine!"
"She's gone to that fool Normal-thing! Where did she get the money?"
cried Mrs. Bates.
"I don't know!" said Nancy Ellen. "She asked me yesterday, but of
course I told her that so long as you and Father decided she was not to
go, I couldn't possibly lend her the money."
"Did you look if she had taken it?"
Nancy Ellen straightened. "Mother! I didn't need do that!"
"You said she took your clothes," said Mrs. Bates.
"I had hers this time last year. She'll bring back clothes."
"Not here, she won't! Father will see that she never darkens these
doors again. This is the first time in his life that a child of his
has disobeyed him."
"Except Adam, when he married Agatha; and he strutted like a fighting
cock about that."
"Well, he won't 'strut' about this, and you won't either, even if you
are showing signs of standing up for her. Go at that wash, while I get
dinner."
Dinner was on the table when Adam Bates hung his hat on its hook and
saw the note for him. He took it down and read:
FATHER: I have gone to Normal. I borrowed the money of a woman who
was willing to trust me to pay it back as soon as I earned it. Not
Nancy Ellen, of course. She would not even loan me a pocket
handkerchief, though you remember I stayed at home six weeks last
summer to let her take what she wanted of mine. Mother: I think you
can get Sally Whistler to help you as cheaply as any one and that she
will do very well. Nancy Ellen: I have taken your second best hat and
a few of your things, but not half so many as I loaned you. I hope it
makes you mad enough to burst. I hope you get as mad and stay as mad
as I have been most of this year while you taught me things you didn't
know yourself; and I cooked and washed for you so you could wear fine
clothes and play the lady. KATE
Adam Bates read that note to himself, stretching every inch of his six
feet six, his face a dull red, his eyes glaring. Then he turned to his
wife and daughter.
"Is Kate gone? Without proper clothing and on borrowed money," he
demanded.
"I don't know," said Mrs. Bates. "I was hoeing potatoes all forenoon."
"Listen to this," he thundered. Then he slowly read the note aloud.
But someway the spoken words did not have the same effect as when he
read them mentally in the first shock of anger. When he heard his own
voice read off the line, "I hope it makes you mad enough to burst,"
there was a catch and a queer gurgle in his throat. Mrs. Bates gazed
at him anxiously. Was he so surprised and angry he was choking? Might
it be a stroke? It was! It was a master stroke. He got no farther
than "taught me things you didn't know yourself," when he lowered the
sheet, threw back his head and laughed as none of his family ever had
seen him laugh in his life; laughed and laughed until his frame was
shaken and the tears rolled. Finally he looked at the dazed Nancy
Ellen. "Get Sally Whistler, nothing!" he said. "You hustle your
stumps and do for your mother what Kate did while you were away last
summer. And if you have any common decency send your sister as many of
your best things as you had of hers, at least. Do you hear me?"