“I hope you will take me home with you, and
let me see all that land, and how it is handled,”
said John Jardine. “I don’t own an
acre. I never even have thought of it, but there
is no reason why I, or any member of my family shouldn’t
have all the land they want. Mother, do you
feel a wild desire for two hundred acres of land?
Same kind of a desire that took you to come here?”
“No, I don’t,” said Mrs. Jardine.
“All I know about land is that I know it when
I see it, and I know if I think it’s pretty;
but I can see why Kate feels that she would like that
amount for herself, after having helped earn all those
farms for her brothers. If it’s land she
wants, I hope she speedily gets all she desires in
whatever location she wants it; and then I hope she
lets me come to visit her and watch her do as she likes
with it.”
“Surely,” said Kate, “you are invited
right now; as soon as I ever get the land, I’ll
give you another invitation. And of course you
may go home with me, Mr. Jardine, and I’ll show
you each of what Father calls ‘those little
parcels of land of mine.’ But the one
he lives on we shall have to gaze at from afar, because
I’m a Prodigal Daughter. When I would
leave home in spite of him for the gay and riotous
life of a school-marm, he ordered me to take all my
possessions with me, which I did in one small telescope.
I was not to enter his house again while he lived.
I was glad to go, he was glad to have me, while I
don’t think either of us has changed our mind
since. Teaching school isn’t exactly gay,
but I’ll fill my tummy with quite a lot of symbolical
husks before he’ll kill the fatted calf for
me. They’ll be glad to see you at my brother
Adam’s, and my sister, Nancy Ellen, would greatly
enjoy meeting you. Surely you may go home with
me, if you’d like.”
“I can think of only one thing I’d like
better,” he said. “We’ve been
such good friends here and had such a good time, it
would be the thing I’d like best to take you
home with us, and show you where and how we live.
Mother, did you ever invite Kate to visit us?”
“I have, often, and she has said that she would,”
replied Mrs. Jardine. “I think it would
be nice for her to go from here with us; and then
you can take her home whenever she fails to find us
interesting. How would that suit you for a plan,
my dear?”
“I think that would be a perfect ending to a
perfect summer,” said Kate. “I can’t
see an objection in any way. Thank you very
much.”
“Then we’ll call that settled,”
said John Jardine.
Mid-August saw them on their way to Chicago.
Kate had taken care of Mrs. Jardine a few days while
Jennie Weeks went home to see her mother and arrange
for her new work. She had no intention of going
back to school teaching. She preferred to brush
Mrs. Jardine’s hair, button her shoes, write
her letters, and read to her.
