The Prodigal Daughter

"If he won't, Ma said you could come to our house," said Adam.

"That's kind of her, but I couldn't do it," said Kate.

"She SAID you could," persisted the boy.

"But if I did it, and Father got as mad as he was last night and
tore up your father's deed, then where would I be?" asked Kate.

"You'd be a sixteenth of two hundred acres better off than you are
now," said Adam.

"Possibly," laughed Kate, "but I wouldn't want to become a land
shark that way. Look down the road."

"Who is it?" asked Adam.

"Nancy Ellen, with my telescope," answered Kate. "I am to go, all
right."

"All right, then we will go," said the boy, angrily. "But it is a
blame shame and there is no sense to it, as good a girl as you
have been, and the way you have worked. Mother said at breakfast
there was neither sense nor justice in the way Grandpa always has
acted and she said she would wager all she was worth that he would
live to regret it. She said it wasn't natural, and when people
undertook to controvert -- ain't that a peach? Bet there isn't a
woman in ten miles using that word except Ma -- nature they always
hurt themselves worse than they hurt their victims. And I bet he
does, too, and I, for one, don't care. I hope he does get a good
jolt, just to pay him up for being so mean."

"Don't, Adam, don't!" cautioned Kate.