Sunday morning she said to Nancy Ellen as they washed the
breakfast dishes, while the men smoked on the veranda: "Nancy
Ellen, I don't believe I was ever cut out for a rich woman! If I
have got a chance, I wish YOU had it, and I had THIS. This just
suits my style to a T."
"Tell me about it," said Nancy Ellen.
Kate told all she could remember.
"You don't mean to say you didn't LIKE it?" cried Nancy Ellen.
"I didn't say anything," said Kate, "but if I were saying exactly
what I feel, you'd know I despise it all."
"Why, Kate Barnes!" cried the horrified Nancy Ellen, "Whatever do
you mean?"
"I haven't thought enough to put it to you clearly," said Kate,
"but someway the city repels me. Facilities for manufacturing
something start a city. It begins with the men who do the work,
and the men who profit from that work, living in the same coop.
It expands, and goes on, and grows, on that basis. It's the
laborer, living on his hire, and the manufacturer living on the
laborer's productions, coming in daily contact. The contrast is
too great, the space is too small. Somebody is going to get the
life crowded out of him at every turn, and it isn't always the
work hand in the factory. The money kings eat each other for
breakfast every day. As for work, we always thought we worked.
You should take a peep into the shops and factories I've seen this
week. Work? Why, we don't know what work is, and we waste enough
food every day to keep a workman's family, and we're dressed liked
queens, in comparison with them right now."
"Do you mean to say if he asks you --?" It was a small explosion.
"I mean to say if he asks me, 'buy me that two hundred acres of
land where I want it, build me the house and barns I want, and
guarantee that I may live there as I please, and I'll marry you
to-morrow.' If it's Chicago -- Never! I haven't stolen,
murdered, or betrayed, who should I be imprisoned?"
"Why, you hopeless anarchist!" said Nancy Ellen, "I am going to
tell John Jardine on you."
"Do!" urged Kate. "Sound him on the land question. It's our only
hope of a common foundation. Have you send Agatha word that we
will be out this afternoon?"
"I have," said Nancy Ellen. "And I don't doubt that now, even
now, she is in the kitchen -- how would she put it?"
"'Compounding a cake,'" said Kate, "while Adam is in the cellar
'freezing a custard.' Adam, 3d, will be raking the yard afresh
and Susan will be sweeping the walks steadily from now until they
sight us coming down the road. What you bet Agatha asked John his
intentions? I almost wish she would," she added. "He has some,
but there is a string to them in some way, and I can't just make
out where, or why it is."