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.