d never mentioned her
home or parents before. The older woman did not intend to ask a word,
but if Kate was going to talk, she did not want to miss one. Kate
evidently was going to talk, for she continued: "You see my father is
land mad, and son crazy. He thinks a BOY of all the importance in the
world; a GIRL of none whatever. He has the biggest family of any one
we know. From birth each girl is worked like a man, or a slave, from
four in the morning until nine at night. Each boy is worked exactly
the same way; the difference lies in the fact that the girls get plain
food and plainer clothes out of it; the boys each get two hundred acres
of land, buildings and stock, that the girls have been worked to the
limit to help pay for; they get nothing personally, worth mentioning.
I think I have two hundred acres of land on the brain, and I think this
is the explanation of it. It's a pre-natal influence at our house;
while we nurse, eat, sleep, and above all, WORK it, afterward."

She paused and looked toward John Jardine calmly: "I think," she said,
"that there's not a task ever performed on a farm that I haven't had my
share in. I have plowed, hoed, seeded, driven reapers and bound wheat,
pitched hay and hauled manure, chopped wood and sheared sheep, and
boiled sap; if you can mention anything else, go ahead, I bet a dollar
I've done it."

"Well, what do you think of that?" he muttered, looking at her
wonderingly.

"If you ask me, and want the answer in plain words, I think it's a
shame!" said Kate. "If it were ONE HUNDRED acres of land, and the
girls had as much, and were as willing to work it as the boys are, well
and good. But to drive us like cattle, and turn all we earn into land
for the boys, is another matter. I rebelled last summer, borrowed the
money and went to Normal and taught last winter. I'm going to teach
again this winter; but last summer and this are the first of my life
that I haven't been in the harvest fields, at this time. Women in the
harvest fields of Land King Bates are common as men, and wagons, and
horses, but not nearly so much considered. The women always walk on
Sunday, to save the horses, and often on week days."

"Mother has it hammered into me that it isn't polite to ask questions,"
said John, "but I'd like to ask one."

"Go ahead," said Kate. "Ask fifty! What do I care?"

"How many boys are there in your family?"

"There are seven," said Kate, "and if you want to us