Farm life -- Indiana -- Fiction; Indiana -- Fiction; Sex role -- Fiction
"I'm sure Milly will be joining very soon, and that she'll want you
with her," said Kate.
She was a very substantial woman, but for the remainder of that day she
felt that she was moving with winged feet. She sang, she laughed, she
was unspeakably happy. She kept saying over and over: "And a little
child shall lead them." Then she would catch Little Poll, almost
crushing her in her strong arms. It never occurred to Kate that she
had done an unprecedented thing. She had done as her heart dictated.
She did not know that she put the minister into a most uncomfortable
position, when he followed her request to baptize her and the child.
She had never thought of probations, and examinations, and catechisms.
She had read the Bible, as was the custom, every morning before her
school. In that book, when a man wanted to follow Jesus, he followed;
Jesus accepted him; and that was all there was to it, with Kate.
The middle of the week Nancy Ellen came flying up the walk on winged
feet, herself. She carried photographs of several small children, one
of them a girl so like Little Poll that she might have been the
original of the picture.
"They just came," said Nancy Ellen rather breathlessly. "I was wild
for that little darling at once. I had Robert telegraph them to hold
her until we could get there. We're going to start on the evening
train and if her blood seems good, and her ancestors respectable, and
she looks like that picture, we're going to bring her back with us.
Oh, Kate, I can scarcely wait to get my fingers on her. I'm hungry for
a baby all of my own."
Kate studied the picture.
"She's charming!" she said. "Oh, Nancy Ellen, this world is getting
entirely too good to be true."
Nancy Ellen looked at Kate and smiled peculiarly.
"I knew you were crazy," she said, "but I never dreamed of you going
such lengths. Mrs. Whistler told Robert, when she called him in about
her side, Tuesday. I can't imagine a Bates joining church."
"If that is joining church, it's the easiest thing in the world," said
Kate. "We just loved doing it, didn't we, Little Poll? Adam and Milly
are going to come in soon, I'm almost sure. At least he is willing. I
don't know what it is that I am to do, but I suppose they will give me
my work soon."
"You bet they'll give you work soon, and enough," said Nancy Ellen,
laughing. "But you won't mind. You'll just put it through, as you do
things out here. Kate, you are making this place look fine. I used to
say I'd rather die than come back here to live, but lately it has been
growing so attractive, I've been here about half my time, and wished I
were the other half."
Kate slipped her arm around Nancy Ellen as they walked to the gate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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