She thought over the year, and while she deplored the estrangement
from home, she knew that if she had to go back to one year ago,
giving up the present and what it had brought and promised to
bring, for a reconciliation with her father, she would not
voluntarily return to the old driving, nagging, overwork, and
skimping, missing every real comfort of life to buy land, in which
she never would have any part.
"You get your knocks 'taking the wings of morning,'" thought Kate
to herself, "but after all it is the only thing to do. Nancy
Ellen says Sally Whistler is pleasing Mother very well, why should
I miss my chance and ruin my temper to stay at home and do the
work done by a woman who can do nothing else?"
Kate moved her head slightly to feel if the big, beautiful hat
that sat her braids so lightly was still there. "Go to work, you
beauty," thought Kate. "Do something better for me than George
Holt. I'll have him to fall back on if I can't do better; but I
think I can. Yes, I'm very sure I can! If you do your part, you
lovely plume, I KNOW I can!"
Toward noon the train ran into a violent summer storm. The sky
grew black, the lightning flashed, the wind raved, the rain fell
in gusts. The storm was at its height when Kate quit watching it
and arose, preoccupied with her first trip to a dining car,
thinking about how little food she could order and yet avoid a
hunger headache. The twisting whirlwind struck her face as she
stepped from the day coach to go to the dining car. She threw
back her head and sucked her lungs full of the pure, rain-chilled
air. She was accustomed to being out in storms, she liked them.
One second she paused to watch the gale sweeping the fields, the
next a twitch at her hair caused her to throw up her hands and
clutch wildly at nothing. She sprang to the step railing and
leaned out in time to see her wonderful hat whirl against the
corner of the car, hold there an instant with the pressure of the
wind, then slide down, draw under, and drop across the rail, where
passing wheels ground it to pulp.
Kate stood very still a second, then she reached up and tried to
pat the disordered strands of hair into place. She turned and
went back into the day coach, opened the bandbox, and put on the
sailor. She resumed her old occupation of thinking things over.
All the joy had vanished from the day and the trip. Looking
forward, it had seemed all right to defy custom and Nancy Ellen's
advice, and do as she pleased. Looking backward, she saw that she
had made a fool of herself in the estimation of everyone in the
car by not wearing the sailor, which was suitable for her journey,
and would have made no such mark for a whirling wind.