"Not even a guess?" asked Nancy Ellen.
"Not even a guess, with any sense to it. I've thought it was
coming repeatedly; but I've got a stubborn Bates streak, and I
won't lift a finger to help him. He'll speak up, loud and plain,
or there will be no 'connubial bliss' for us, as Agatha says. I
think he has ideas about other things than freight train gear.
According to his programme we must have so much time to become
acquainted, I must see his home and people, he must see mine. If
there's more after that, I'm not informed. Like as not there is.
It may come after we get back to-night, I can't say."
"Have you told him --?" asked Nancy Ellen.
"Not the details, but the essentials. He knows that I can't go
home. It came up one day in talking about land. I guess they had
thought before, that my people were poor as church mice. I
happened to mention how much land I had helped earn for my
brothers, and they seemed so interested I finished the job. Well,
after they had heard about the Land King, it made a noticeable
difference in their treatment of me. Not that they weren't always
fine, but it made, I scarcely know how to put it, it was so
intangible -- but it was a difference, an added respect. You bet
money is a power! I can see why Father hangs on to those deeds,
when I get out in the world. They are his compensation for his
years of hard work, the material evidence that he has succeeded in
what he undertook. He'd show them to John Jardine with the same
feeling John showed me improved car couplers, brakes, and air
cushions. They stand for successes that win the deference of men.
Out in the little bit of world I've seen, I notice that men fight,
bleed, and die for even a tiny fraction of deference. Aren't they
funny? What would I care --?"
"Well, I'D care a lot!" said Nancy Ellen.
Kate surveyed her slowly. "Yes, I guess you would."
They finished the dishes and went to church, because Robert was
accustomed to going. They made a remarkable group. Then they
went to the hotel for dinner, so that the girls would not have to
prepare it, and then in a double carriage Robert had secured for
the occasion, they drove to Bates Corners and as Kate said,
"Viewed the landscape o'er." Those eight pieces of land, none
under two hundred acres, some slightly over, all in the very
highest state of cultivation, with modern houses, barns,
outbuildings, and fine stock grazing in the pastures, made an
impressive picture. It was probably the first time that any of
the Bates girls had seen it all at once, and looked on it merely
as a spectacle. They stopped at Adam's last, and while Robert was
busy with the team and John had alighted to help him, Nancy Ellen,
revealing tight lips and unnaturally red cheeks, leaned back to
Kate.