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.