piled up the money as Agatha did, therefore she stood at the head
of the women of the Bates family; while she was considered to have
worked miracles in the heart of Adam Bates, for with his exception
no man of the family ever had been seen to touch a woman, either
publicly or privately, to offer the slightest form of endearment,
assistance or courtesy. "Women are to work and to bear children,"
said the elder Bates. "Put them at the first job when they are
born, and at the second at eighteen, and keep them hard at it."

At their rate of progression several of the Bates sons and
daughters would produce families that, with a couple of pairs of
twins, would equal the sixteen of the elder Bates; but not so
Agatha. She had one son of fifteen and one daughter of ten, and
she said that was all she intended to have, certainly it was all
she did have; but she further aggravated matters by announcing
that she had had them because she wanted them; at such times as
she intended to; and that she had the boy first and five years the
older, so that he could look after his sister when they went into
company. Also she walked up and sat upon Adam's lap whenever she
chose, ruffled his hair, pulled his ears, and kissed him squarely
on the mouth, with every appearance of having help, while the
dance on the front porch with her son or daughter was of daily
occurrence. And anything funnier than Agatha, prim and angular
with never a hair out of place, stiffly hopping "Money Musk" and
"Turkey In The Straw," or the "Blue Danube" waltz, anything
funnier than that, never happened. But the two Adams, Jr. and 3d,
watched with reverent and adoring eyes, for she was MOTHER, and no
one else on earth rested so high in their respect as the
inflexible woman they lived with. That she was different from all
the other women of her time and location was hard on the other