nly she could have a
man like Robert Gray, and have him on a piece of land of their own.
Kate was a girl, but no man of the Bates tribe ever was more deeply
bitten by the lust for land. She was the true daughter of her father,
in more than one way. If that very expensive hat was going to produce
the man why not let it begin to work from the very start? If her man
was somewhere, only waiting to see her, and the hat would help him to
speedy recognition, why miss a change?

She thought over the year, and while she deplored the estrangement from
home, she knew that if she had to go back to one year ago, giving up
the present and what it had brought and promised to bring, for a
reconciliation with her father, she would not voluntarily return to the
old driving, nagging, overwork, and skimping, missing every real
comfort of life to buy land, in which she never would have any part.

"You get your knocks 'taking the wings of morning,'" thought Kate to
herself, "but after all it is the only thing to do. Nancy Ellen says
Sally Whistler is pleasing Mother very well, why should I miss my
chance and ruin my temper to stay at home and do the work done by a
woman who can do nothing else?"

Kate moved her head slightly to feel if the big, beautiful hat that sat
her braids so lightly was still there. "Go to work, you beauty,"
thought Kate. "Do something better for me than George Holt. I'll have
him to fall back on if I can't do better; but I think I can. Yes, I'm
very sure I can! If you do your part, you lovely plume, I KNOW I can!"

Toward noon the train ran into a violent summer storm. The sky grew
black, the lightning flashed, the wind raved, the rain fell in gusts.
The storm was at its height when Kate quit watching it and arose,
preoccupied with her first trip to a dining car, thinking about how
little food she could order and yet avoid a hunger headache. The
twisting whirlwind struck her face as she stepped from the day coach to
go to the dining car. She threw back her head and sucked her lungs
full of the pure, rain-chilled air. She was accustomed to being out in
storms, she liked them. One second she paused to watch the gale
sweeping the fields, the next a twitch at her hair caused her to throw
up her hands and clutch wildly at nothing. She sprang to the step
railing and leaned out in time to see her wonderful hat whirl against
the corner of the car, hold there an instant with the pressure of the
wind, then sli