THE ELEVENTH HOUR
ROBERT said good-bye and started back toward his car. Kate looked
after him as he reached the fence. A surge of pity for him swept up in
her heart. He seemed far from happy, and he surely was very tired.
Impulsive as always, she lifted her clear voice and called: "Robert!"
He paused with his foot on a rail of the fence, and turned toward her.
"Have you had any dinner?" she asked.
He seemed to be considering. "Come to think of it, I don't believe I
have," he said.
"I thought you looked neglected," said Kate. "Sonny across the field
is starting a shock ahead of me; I can't come, but go to the
kitchen--the door is unlocked--you'll find fried chicken and some
preserves and pickles in the pantry; the bread box is right there, and
the milk and butter are in the spring house."
He gave Kate one long look. "Thank you," he said and leaped the fence.
He stopped on the front walk and stood a minute, then he turned and
went around the house. She laughed aloud. She was sending him to
chicken perfectly cooked, barely cold, melon preserves, pickled
cucumbers, and bread like that which had for years taken a County Fair
prize each fall; butter yellow as the goldenrod lining the fences, and
cream stiff enough to stand alone. Also, he would find neither germ
nor mould in her pantry and spring house, while it would be a new
experience for him to let him wait on himself. Kate husked away in
high good humour, but she quit an hour early to be on time to go to
Agatha. She explained this to Adam, when she told him that he would
have to milk alone, while she bathed and dressed herself and got supper.
When she began to dress, Kate examined her hair minutely, and combed it
with unusual care. If Robert was at Agatha's when she got there, she
would let him see that her hair was not sunburned and ruined. To match
the hair dressing, she reached back in her closet and took down her
second best white dress. She was hoping that Agatha would be well
enough to have a short visit. Kate worked so steadily that she seldom
saw any of her brothers and sisters during the summer. In winter she
spent a day with each of them, if she could possibly manage. Anyway,
Agatha would like to see her appearing well, so she put on the plain
snowy linen, and carefully pinning a big apron over it, she went to the
kitchen. They always had a full dinner at noon and worked until dusk.
Her bath had made her later than she intended to be. Dusk was
deepening, evening chill was beginning to creep into the air. She
closed the door, fed Little Poll and rolled her into bed; set the
potatoes boiling, and began mixing the biscuit. She had them just
ready to roll when steam lifted the lid of the potato pot; with the
soft dough in her hand she took a step to right it. While it was in
her fingers, she peered into the pot.
She did not look up on the instant the door opened, because she thought
it would be Adam. When she glanced toward the door, she saw Robert
standing looking at her. He had stepped inside, closed the door, and
with his hand on the knob was waiting for her to see him.
"Oh! Hello!" said Kate. "I thought it was Adam. Have you been to
Agatha's yet?"
"Yes. She is very much better," he said. "I only stopped to tell you
that her mother happened to come out for the night, and they'll not
need you."
"I'm surely glad she is better," said Kate, "but I'm rather
disappointed. I've been swimming, and I'm all ready to go."
She set the pot lid in place accurately and gave her left hand a deft
turn to save the dough from dripping. She glanced from it to Robert,
expecting to see him open the door and disappear. Instead he stood
looking at her intently. Suddenly he said: "Kate, will you marry me?"
Kate mechanically saved the dough again, as she looked at the pot an
instant, then she said casually: "Sure! It would be splendid to have
a doctor right in the house when Little Poll cuts her double teeth."
"Thank you!" said Robert, tersely. "No doubt that WOULD be a
privilege, but I decline to marry you in order to see Little Poll
safely through teething. Good-night!"
He stepped outside and closed the door very completely, and somewhat
pronouncedly.
Kate stood straight an instant, then realized biscuit dough was slowly
creeping down her wrist. With a quick fling, she shot the mass into
the scrap bucket and sinking on the chair she sat on to peel
vegetables, she lifted her apron, laid her head on her knees, and gave
a big gulping sob or two. Then she began to cry silently. A minute
later the door opened again. That time it had to be Adam, but Kate did
not care what he saw or what he thought. She cried on in perfect
abandon.
Then steps crossed the room, someone knelt beside her, put an arm
around her and said: "Kate, why are you crying?"
Kate lifted her head suddenly, and applied her apron skirt. "None of
your business," she said to Robert's face, six inches from hers.
"Are you so anxious as all this about Little Poll's teeth?" he asked.
"Oh, DRAT Little Poll's teeth!" cried Kate, the tears rolling
uninterruptedly.
"Then WHY did you say that to me?" he demanded.
"Well, you said you 'only stopped to tell me that I needn't go to
Agatha's,'" she explained. "I had to say something, to get even with
you!"
"Oh," said Robert, and took possession. Kate put her arms around his
neck, drew his head against hers, and knew a minute of complete joy.
When Adam entered the house his mother was very busy. She was mixing
more biscuit dough, she was laughing like a girl of sixteen, she
snatched out one of their finest tablecloths, and put on many extra
dishes for supper, while Uncle Robert, looking like a different man,
was helping her. He was actually stirring the gravy, and getting the
water, and setting up chairs. And he was under high tension, too. He
was saying things of no moment, as if they were profound wisdom, and
laughing hilariously at things that were scarcely worth a smile. Adam
looked on, and marvelled and all the while his irritation grew. At
last he saw a glance of understanding pass between them. He could
endure it no longer.
"Oh, you might as well SAY what you think," he burst forth. "You
forgot to pull down the blinds."
Both the brazen creatures laughed as if that were a fine joke. They
immediately threw off all reserve. By the time the meal was finished,
Adam was struggling to keep from saying the meanest things he could
think of. Also, he had to go to Milly, with nothing very definite to
tell. But when he came back, his mother was waiting for him. She said
at once: "Adam, I'm very sorry the blind was up to-night. I wanted to
talk to you, and tell you myself, that the first real love for a man
that I have ever known, is in my heart to-night."
"Why, Mother!" said Adam.
"It's true," said Kate, quietly. "You see Adam, the first time I ever
saw Robert Gray, I knew, and he knew, that he had made a mistake in
engaging himself to Nancy Ellen; but the thing was done, she was happy,
we simply realized that we would have done better together, and let it
go at that. But all these years I have known that I could have made
him a wife who would have come closer to his ideals than my sister, and
SHE should have had the man who wanted to marry me. They would have
had a wonderful time together."
"And where did my father come in?" asked Adam, quietly.
"He took advantage of my blackest hour," said Kate. "I married him
when I positively didn't care what happened to me. The man I could
have LOVED was married to my sister, the man I could have married and
lived with in comfort to both of us was out of the question; it was in
the Bates blood to marry about the time I did; I had seen only the very
best of your father, and he was an attractive lover, not bad looking,
not embarrassed with one single scruple--it's the way of the world. I
took it. I paid for it. Only God knows how dearly I paid; but Adam, if
you love me, stand by me now. Let me have this eleventh hour
happiness, with no alloy. Anything I feel for your Uncle Robert has
nothing in the world to do with my being your mother; with you being my
son. Kiss me, and tell me you're glad, Adam."
Adam rose up and put his arms around his mother. All his resentment
was gone. He was happy as he could be for his mother, and happier than
he ever before had been for himself.
The following afternoon, Kate took the car and went to see Agatha
instead of husking corn. She dressed with care and arrived about three
o'clock, leading Poll in whitest white, with cheeks still rosy from her
afternoon nap. Agatha was sitting up and delighted to see them. She
said they were the first of the family who had come to visit her, and
she thought they had come because she was thinking of them. Then she
told Kate about her illness. She said it dated from father Bates
stroke, and the dreadful days immediately following, when Adam had
completely lost self-control, and she had not been able to influence
him. "I think it broke my heart," she said simply. Then they talked
the family over, and at last Agatha said: "Kate, what is this I hear
about Robert? Have you been informed that Mrs. Southey is back in
Hartley, and that she is working every possible chance and using
multifarious blandishments on him?"
Kate laughed heartily and suddenly. She never had heard
"blandishments" used in common conversation. As she struggled to
regain self-possession Agatha spoke again.
"It's no laughing matter," she said. "The report has every ear-mark of
verisimilitude. The Bates family has a way of feeling deeply. We all
loved Nancy Ellen. We all suffered severely and lost something that
never could be replaced when she went. Of course all of us realized
that Robert would enter the bonds of matrimony again; none of us would
have objected, even if he remarried soon; but all of us do object to
his marrying a woman who would have broken Nancy Ellen's heart if she
could; and yesterday I took advantage of my illness, and TOLD him so.
Then I asked him why a man of his standing and ability in this
community didn't frustrate that unprincipled creature's vermiculations
toward him, by marrying you, at once."
Slowly Kate sank down in her chair. Her face whitened and then grew
greenish. She breathed with difficulty.
"Oh, Agatha!" was all she could say.
"I do not regret it," said Agatha. "If he is going to ruin himself, he
is not going to do it without knowing that the Bates family highly
disapprove of his course."
"But why drag me in?" said Kate, almost too shocked to speak at all.
"Maybe he LOVES Mrs. Southey. She has let him see how she feels about
him; possibly he feels the same about her."
"He does, if he weds her," said Agatha, conclusively. "Anything any
one could say or do would have no effect, if he had centred his
affections upon her, of that you may be very sure."
"May I?" asked Kate, dully.
"Indeed, you may!" said Agatha. "The male of the species, when he is a
man of Robert's attainments and calibre, can be swerved from pursuit of
the female he covets, by nothing save extinction."
"You mean," said Kate with an effort, "that if Robert asked a woman to
marry him, it would mean that he loved her."
"Indubitably!" cried Agatha.
Kate laughed until she felt a little better, but she went home in a
mood far different from that in which she started. Then she had been
very happy, and she had intended to tell Agatha about her happiness,
the very first of all. Now she was far from happy. Possibly--a
thousand things, the most possible, that Robert had responded to
Agatha's suggestion, and stopped and asked her that abrupt question,
from an impulse as sudden and inexplicable as had possessed her when
she married George Holt. Kate fervently wished she had gone to the
cornfield as usual that afternoon.
"That's the way it goes," she said angrily, as she threw off her better
dress and put on her every-day gingham to prepare supper. "That's the
way it goes! Stay in your element, and go on with your work, and
you're all right. Leave your job and go trapesing over the country,
wasting your time, and you get a heartache to pay you. I might as well
give up the idea that I'm ever to be happy, like anybody else. Every
time I think happiness is coming my way, along comes something that
knocks it higher than Gilderoy's kite. Hang the luck!"
She saw Robert pass while she was washing the dishes, and knew he was
going to Agatha's, and would stop when he came back. She finished her
work, put Little Poll to bed, and made herself as attractive as she
knew how in her prettiest blue dress. All the time she debated whether
she would say anything to him about what Agatha had said or not. She
decided she would wait awhile, and watch how he acted. She thought she
could soon tell. So when Robert came, she was as nearly herself as
possible, but when he began to talk about being married soon, the most
she would say was that she would begin to think about it at Christmas,
and tell him by spring. Robert was bitterly disappointed. He was very
lonely; he needed better housekeeping than his aged mother was capable
of, to keep him up to a high mark in his work. Neither of them was
young any longer; he could see no reason why they should not be married
at once. Of the reason in Kate's mind, he had not a glimmering. But
Kate had her way. She would not even talk of a time, or express an
opinion as to whether she would remain on the farm, or live in Nancy
Ellen's house, or sell it and build whatever she wanted for herself.
Robert went away baffled, and disappointed over some intangible thing
he could not understand.
For six weeks Kate tortured herself, and kept Robert from being happy.
Then one morning Agatha stopped to visit with her, while Adam drove on
to town. After they had exhausted farming, Little Poll's charms, and
the neighbours, Agatha looked at Kate and said: "Katherine, what is
this I hear about Robert coming here every day, now? It appeals to me
that he must have followed my advice."
"Of course he never would have thought of coming, if you hadn't told
him so," said Kate dryly.
"Now THERE you are in error," said the literal Agatha, as she smoothed
down Little Poll's skirts and twisted her ringlets into formal
corkscrews. "Right THERE, you are in error, my dear. The reason I
told Robert to marry you was because he said to me, when he suggested
going after you to stay the night with me, that he had seen you in the
field when he passed, and that you were the most glorious specimen of
womanhood that he ever had seen. He said you were the one to stay with
me, in case there should be any trouble, because your head was always
level, and your heart was big as a barrel."
"Yes, that's the reason I can't always have it with me," said Kate,
looking glorified instead of glorious. "Agatha, it just happens to
mean very much to me. Will you just kindly begin at the beginning, and
tell me every single word Robert said to you, and you said to him, that
day?"
"Why, I have informed you explicitly," said Agatha, using her
handkerchief on the toe of Poll's blue shoe. "He mentioned going after
you, and said what I told you, and I told him to go. He praised you so
highly that when I spoke to him about the Southey woman I remembered
it, so I suggested to him, as he seemed to think so well of you. It
just that minute flashed into my mind; but HE made me think of it,
calling you 'glorious,' and 'level headed,' and 'big hearted.'
Heavens! Katherine Eleanor, what more could you ask?"
"I guess that should be enough," said Kate.
"One certainly would presume so," said Agatha.
Then Adam came, and handed Kate her mail as she stood beside his car
talking to him a minute, while Agatha settled herself. As Kate closed
the gate behind her, she saw a big, square white envelope among the
newspapers, advertisements, and letters. She slipped it out and looked
at it intently. Then she ran her finger under the flap and read the
contents. She stood studying the few lines it contained, frowning
deeply. "Doesn't it beat the band?" she asked of the surrounding
atmosphere. She went up the walk, entered the living room, slipped the
letter under the lid of the big family Bible, and walking to the
telephone she called Dr. Gray's office. He answered the call in person.
"Robert, this is Kate," she said. "Would you have any deeply rooted
objections to marrying me at six o'clock this evening?"
"Well, I should say not!" boomed Robert's voice, the "not" coming so
forcibly Kate dodged.
"Have you got the information necessary for a license?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered.
"Then bring one, and your minister, and come at six," she said. "And
Oh, yes, Robert, will it be all right with you if I stay here and keep
house for Adam until he and Milly can be married and move in? Then
I'll come to your house just as it is. I don't mind coming to Nancy
Ellen's home, as I would another woman's."
"Surely!" he cried. "Any arrangement you make will satisfy me."
"All right, I'll expect you with the document and the minister at six,
then," said Kate, and hung up the receiver.
Then she took it down again and calling Milly, asked her to bring her
best white dress, and come up right away, and help her get ready to
entertain a few people that evening. Then she called her sister
Hannah, and asked her if she thought that in the event she, Kate,
wished that evening at six o'clock to marry a very fine man, and had no
preparations whatever made, her family would help her out to the extent
of providing the supper. She wanted all of them, and all the children,
but the arrangement had come up suddenly, and she could not possibly
prepare a supper herself, for such a big family, in the length of time
she had. Hannah said she was perfectly sure everyone of them would
drop everything, and be tickled to pieces to bring the supper, and to
come, and they would have a grand time. What did Kate want? Oh, she
wanted bread, and chicken for meat, maybe some potato chips, and
Angel's Food cake, and a big freezer or two of Agatha's best ice cream,
and she thought possibly more butter, and coffee, than she had on hand.
She had plenty of sugar, and cream, and pickles and jelly. She would
have the tables all set as she did for Christmas. Then Kate rang for
Adam and put a broom in his hand as he entered the back door. She met
Milly with a pail of hot water and cloths to wash the glass. She went
to her room and got out her best afternoon dress of dull blue with gold
lace and a pink velvet rose. She shook it out and studied it. She had
worn it twice on the trip North. None of them save Adam ever had seen
it. She put it on, and looked at it critically. Then she called Milly
and they changed the neck and sleeves a little, took a yard of width
from the skirt, and behold! it became a "creation," in the very height
of style. Then Kate opened her trunk, and got out the petticoat, hose,
and low shoes to match it, and laid them on her bed.
Then they set the table, laid a fire ready to strike in the cook stove,
saw that the gas was all right, set out the big coffee boiler, and
skimmed a crock full of cream. By four o'clock, they could think of
nothing else to do. Then Kate bathed and went to her room to dress.
Adam and Milly were busy making themselves fine. Little Poll sat in
her prettiest dress, watching her beloved "Tate," until Adam came and
took her. He had been instructed to send Robert and the minister to
his mother's room as soon as they came. Kate was trying to look her
best, yet making haste, so that she would be ready on time. She had
made no arrangements except to spread a white goatskin where she and
Robert would stand at the end of the big living room near her door.
Before she was fully dressed she began to hear young voices and knew
that her people were coming. When she was ready Kate looked at herself
and muttered: "I'll give Robert and all of them a good surprise. This
is a real dress, thanks to Nancy Ellen. The poor girl! It's scarcely
fair to her to marry her man in a dress she gave me; but I'd stake my
life she'd rather I'd have him than any other woman."
It was an evening of surprises. At six, Adam lighted a big log,
festooned with leaves and berries so that the flames roared and
crackled up the chimney. The early arrivals were the young people who
had hung the mantel, gas fixtures, curtain poles and draped the doors
with long sprays of bittersweet, northern holly, and great branches of
red spice berries, dogwood with its red leaves and berries, and scarlet
and yellow oak leaves. The elders followed and piled the table with
heaps of food, then trailed red vines between dishes. In a quandary as
to what to wear, without knowing what was expected of him further than
saying "I will," at the proper moment, Robert ended by slipping into
Kate's room, dressed in white flannel. The ceremony was over at ten
minutes after six. Kate was lovely, Robert was handsome, everyone was
happy, the supper was a banquet. The Bates family went home, Adam
disappeared with Milly, while Little Poll went to sleep.
Left to themselves, Robert took Kate in his arms and tried to tell her
how much he loved her, but felt he expressed himself poorly. As she
stood before him, he said: "And now, dear, tell me what changed you,
and why we are married to-night instead of at Christmas, or in the
spring."
"Oh, yes," said Kate, "I almost forgot! Why, I wanted you to answer a
letter for me."
"Lucid!" said Robert. He seated himself beside the table. "Bring on
the ink and stationary, and let me get it over."
Kate obeyed, and with the writing material, laid down the letter she
had that morning received from John Jardine, telling her that his wife
had died suddenly, and that as soon as he had laid her away, he was
coming to exact a definite promise from her as to the future; and that
he would move Heaven and earth before he would again be disappointed.
Robert read the letter and laid it down, his face slowing flushing
scarlet.
"You called me out here, and married me expressly to answer this?" he
demanded.
"Of course!" said Kate. "I thought if you could tell him that his
letter came the day I married you, it would stop his coming, and not be
such a disappointment to him."
Robert pushed the letter from him violently, and arose "By----!" he
checked himself and stared at her. "Kate, you don't MEAN that!" he
cried. "Tell me, you don't MEAN that!"
"Why, SURE I do," said Kate. "It gave me a fine excuse. I was so
homesick for you, and tired waiting to begin life with you. Agatha told
me about her telling you the day she was ill, to marry me; and the
reason I wouldn't was because I thought maybe you asked me so
offhandlike, because she TOLD you to, and you didn't really love me.
Then this morning she was here, and we were talking, and she got round
it again, and then she told me ALL you said, and I saw you did love me,
and that you would have asked me if she hadn't said anything, and I
wanted you so badly. Robert, ever since that day we met on the
footlog, I've know that you were the only man I'd every really WANT to
marry. Robert, I've never come anywhere near loving anybody else. The
minute Agatha told me this morning, I began to think how I could take
back what I'd been saying, how I could change, and right then Adam
handed me that letter, and it gave me a fine way out, and so I called
you. Sure, I married you to answer that, Robert; now go and do it."
"All right," he said. "In a minute."
Then he walked to her and took her in his arms again, but Kate could
not understand why he was laughing until he shook when he kissed her.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Daughter of the Land, by Gene Stratton-Porter