She had no thought of winning a place in his regard by the thing she did when she stepped into the barn to-night, but by chance she had done it. She had seen Dobbin standing in his stall with his harness on, as he had been put there an hour before. There was a rush of work now, for the cows were in the barn, and Tom and the hired man were seated at the milking. She had taken in the situation; then, with a word to Dobbin and a good-natured slap on his flank, stepped in beside him and removed his unnecessary burden.
It was a foolish thing to do, for she had on her pretty lawn, sash and all, but the fact that she had not minded her clothes, together with the surprising fact that she could do the deed at all, had impressed Tom deeply.
"Well," he said, "you're the first girl I ever saw who could do that."
"That!" repeated Kate, "why, I've helped about horses ever since I was big enough to reach up. Father's a doctor, you know, and the horses have to be got out in a hurry sometimes. I can harness and unharness about as quick as any man he ever had on the place. I'm strong in my arms." She made a quick, free movement of her arms, from which the sleeves fell back, showing the firm round muscles, then added lightly: "I like everything about horses, specially driving. Dobbin's too fat to be any good. What makes you feed him so much?"
"You'd better ask grandfather that question," said Tom. "He never comes into the barn without piling his manger full of hay. He thinks the rest of us abuse him."
They exchanged a good-natured laugh. Then Kate said: "I should think you would want more than one horse on this place. I don't see how you can stand it to work behind oxen; they're so slow."
Tom's countenance grew a trifle rigid. "We like them well enough," he said stiffly.
"Oh, but you wouldn't," protested Kate, "if you'd ever worked with horses. Out our way they do all the work with them, and you'll hardly see a farmer driving into town with a one-horse team."
Tom would have scorned to appear at all impressed. "I shouldn't care for such a lot of horses," he said. "I like cows. There's more profit in them."
"Well, when it comes to cows you can make a bigger showing than we can," said Kate, "but that's because you raise milk and we raise crops." And then she added in a tone of candor, "I reckon that makes the difference in the way the work is done. You don't have big fields to plough and reap, and you can afford to spend time crawling round behind oxen when we can't."
