Katy Gaumer

"What is it?" cried Katy. "What ails you, Alvin? He would not dare to touch me now that I am big. Come!"

"No!" Alvin would not move. "Look once at him, Katy! Something is the matter with him!"

"I am not afraid," insisted Katy bravely. "I am—he is sick, Alvin; he is sitting quiet in his buggy." She went close to the wheel. "Mr. Hartman!" She turned and looked at Alvin, then back at the figure in the buggy. "His head hangs down, Alvin, and he will not answer me. I believe he is dead, Alvin!"

Slowly Alvin moved to Katy's side. He laid a hand upon her arm—Katy thought it was to protect her; in reality Alvin sought support in his deadly fear.

"I believe it, too, Katy!"

Speechlessly the two gazed at each other. When Alvin had shouted wildly for his father and Katy had joined her voice to his and there was no answer, the two set off, hand in hand, running recklessly down the mountain road.

CHAPTER VIII
WILLIAM KOEHLER MAKES HIS ACCUSATION FOR THE LAST TIME

The young moon overhead, the scent of spring in the air, the gentle breeze against his cheek, all deepened his misery and loneliness. He said to himself that he had no one in the world. In spite of his vague conclusions about his father, his father was still the same. There are persons whose success depends wholly upon their relations with the human beings nearest to them. Given affection, they expand; denied it, their souls contract, their powers fail. It is a weakness of the human creature, but it is none the less real. Resentment was rapidly becoming a settled attitude of David's mind; his father was postponing dangerously that opening of his heart to his son of which he thought day and night.

David wished now that he need not go home; he wished—poor little David!—that he was dead. He would have his supper and he would go to bed, and to-morrow there would be another bitter day. He would sit in school and be conscious of Katy and Alvin and their knowing glances, and love and hate would tear him asunder once more.

Then David stood still and looked down upon his house. Even though the trees about it were thickly leafed, he could see lights in unaccustomed places. The parlor was lighted; in that room David could not remember an illumination in his lifetime. There were lights also in bedrooms—David forgot his aches of body and soul in his astonishment. He slept over the kitchen in one of the little rooms his father had provided for the day when servants should attend upon the wants of his children; except for his father's and mother's room the front of the house was never opened. Had some great stranger come to visit—but that was unthinkable! Was some one ill—but that would be no reason for the opening of the house! David did not know what to make of the strange sight. He hurried down the road, almost falling as he ran.

Then David stood still, looking stupidly at a dark wagon which stood before the gate. He knew the ownership and the purpose of that vehicle, but he could not connect it with his house. There dwelt only his father and his mother and himself, and all of them were alive and well.

A group of children lingered near by, silent, staring at the dark wagon and the brightly lighted windows. The Hartman house with its illumination was as strange a phenomenon as the Millerstown children had ever seen. To them David, still standing at his gate, put a question.

"What is the matter?"

Instantly a small, excited, feminine voice piped out an answer.

"Your father is dead."

"He was sitting in his buggy in the mountain road," another excited voice went on. "They brought him down here and carried him in."

David went into the yard and along the flag walk, and for the first time in his life entered his father's house by the wide-open front door, through which various Millerstonians were passing in and out. This was a great opportunity for Millerstown. Some one came out of the parlor, leaving the door ajar, and David saw a long dark figure lying on a low couch in the middle of the room. What there was to be known about his father's death he gathered from the conversation of those about him. He heard pitying exclamations, he felt that in a moment he would burst into cries of shock and terror. Bitterness fled, he was soft-hearted, weak, childlike. His father was gone, but there remained another person. He must find her; in her lay his refuge; she must be his stay, as he must henceforth be hers. Stumbling back through the hall toward the kitchen, he sought his mother. He was aware of the kind looks of those about him; his whole being was softened.

"Mother!" he meant to cry. "Oh, mother! mother!"

He felt her grief; he expected to find her prostrate on the old settle, or sitting by the table with her head on her arm, weeping. He would comfort her; he would be a good son to her; he truly loved her.

From the kitchen doorway he heard her voice, clear and toneless, the voice of every day. She was giving orders to the Millerstown women who had hastened in with offers of help,—to Grandmother Gaumer and Sarah Knerr and Susannah Kuhns. She indicated certain jars of canned fruit which were to be used for the funeral dinner, and planned for the setting of raised cake and the baking of "fine cake." In Cassie's plan for her life, she had prepared for this contingency; even now her iron will was not broken, nor her stern composure lost. She moved about as David had always seen her move, quiet, capable, self-centered. She shed no tear; she seemed to David to take actual pleasure in planning and contriving.

The frantic cry, already on David's lips, died silently away, his throat stiffened, he drew a long breath. For an instant he stood still in the doorway; then, with a bent and sullen head, he turned and crept back through the hall to the front stairs, which had scarcely ever been touched by his foot, and thence to his tiny room, where he knelt down by his narrow bed. How terrible was the strange figure under the black covering, with the blazing lights beating upon it, and the staring villagers stealing in to look! It seemed incredible that his father could lie still and suffer their scrutiny. He wished that he might go down and turn them out. But he did not dare to trust his voice, and besides, his mother accepted it all as though it were proper and right. Then David forgot the intruders, forgot his mother. His father was dead, of whom he had often thought unkindly, and his father was all he had in the world. He would never be able to speak to him again, never be able to lay a hand upon his shoulder as he sat reading his paper, never meet again that sudden glance of incomprehensible distress. Death worked its alchemy; now at last the poor father had his way with his son's heart.

"He was my father!" cried David. "I have no father!"

His breath choked, his heart seemed to smother him; he felt himself growing light-headed as he knelt by the low bed. He had had nothing to eat since noon; he had had since that time many things to suffer; he thought suddenly in his exhaustion that perhaps he, too, was about to die.

Presently there was a step in the hall and his heart leaped. Perhaps his mother had come, perhaps she did not wish to show her grief to these curious people. But the person outside knocked at the door and his mother would not have knocked.

"What is it?" asked David.

"It is me," said Bevy. "I brought you a little something to eat."

Bevy waited outside, plate and glass in hand. She had seen David's entrance and exit. Prompted now partly by kindness and sympathy, and partly by an altogether human and natural curiosity to see as much of the house and the bereaved family as she could, Bevy had carried him his supper. But Bevy was not rewarded, as she had hoped.

"Put it down," commanded a voice from within. "Thank you."

Bevy made another effort.

"Do you want anything, David?"

"No, thank you," said the voice again.

"Yes, well," answered Bevy and went down the front steps. If Bevy could have had her wish, her whole body would have been one great eye to take in all this magnificence of thick carpets and fine furniture.

Then, while the mother for whom he hungered made her plans for the great funeral feast, still customary in country sections, where mourners came from a long distance, and while Katy Gaumer recounted to curious Millerstown how she had found John Hartman sitting in his buggy by the roadside, David ate the raised cake and drank the milk which Bevy brought him. Then he sat down by the window and looked out into the dark foliage which on this side touched the house. It had not been John Hartman's plan to have his house grow damp in the shadow of overhanging branches, but John Hartman had long since forgotten his plans for everything.

Sitting here in the darkness, David thought of his father. The puzzle of that strange character he could not solve, but one thing became clear to his mind. He saw again that yearning gaze; he remembered from the dim, almost impenetrable mist which surrounded his childhood, caresses, laughter, the strong grasp of his father's arms. Finally he lay down on the bed and went to sleep, a solemn, comforting conclusion in his heart.

"My father loved me," whispered David. "I am sure my father loved me."

A little later David's mother opened his door softly and entering stood by his bed. She had not seen him in the kitchen; some one had told her that he had come in and had gone to his room. She saw that he was covered and that the night air did not blow upon him, and then she took the empty plate and glass and went back to the kitchen.

Alvin Koehler need not have suspected his father of having had any hand in the death of John Hartman. William Koehler was in the next village, where he had half a day's work. While he worked he plotted and planned and mumbled to himself about his wrongs. It was apoplexy which had killed John Hartman as he drove up the mountain road; Dr. Benner told of his warnings, recalled to the mind of Millerstown the scarlet flush which had for a long time reddened John Hartman's face. If he had taken the path so long avoided by him in order to confess his crime to the man he had wronged and thus begin to make his peace with God, he had set too late upon that journey, for his hour had been appointed. When William, walking heavily, with his eyes on the ground, came home from Zion Church, John Hartman lay already in the best room of his house, his earthly account closed. When he heard the news of John Hartman's death, William seemed stupefied; it was hard to believe that he understood what was said to him.

It was not necessary that any provision should be made beyond the great dinner for the entertainment of guests at the Hartman house. Nevertheless, the house was cleaned and put in order from top to bottom for its master's burying. Fluted pillow and sheet shams and lace-trimmed pillow-cases were brought forth, great feather beds were beaten into smoothness, elaborate quilts were unfolded from protective wrappings and were aired and refolded and laid at the foot of beds covered with thick white counterpanes. There was dusting and sweeping and scrubbing, and, above all, a vast amount of cooking and baking. The funeral was to be held in the morning, and afterwards there would be food at the Hartman house for all those who wished to partake.

Cassie was fitted with a black dress, various bonnets were sent out from the county seat for her to try, and over each was draped the long black veil of widowhood,—this, to Cassie, in the opinion of Millerstown, a crown of independence. Millerstown could form no judgment of Cassie's feelings. If she had, like William Koehler, any moment of stupefaction, or, like David, any wild outburst of grief, that fact was kept from a curious world.

David also was fitted with a suit of black, and together he and his mother rode in a closed carriage, sent from the county seat, down through pleasant Millerstown in the May sunshine and out to the church on the hill.

The service was long, as befitted the dignity of a man of prominence like John Hartman who had always given liberally to charitable objects, though he had become of late years an infrequent attendant at church meetings. The preacher who had heard the accusation of William Koehler was long since gone; the present pastor who lauded the Christian life of the dead man knew nothing of any charge against him. He would scarcely have known William by sight, so entirely had William separated himself from the life of the village. The preacher had a deep, moving voice, he spoke with feeling of the death of the righteous, and of the crown laid up for them in heaven. Many of the congregation wept, some in recollection of their own dead, some in sad anticipation of that which must some day befall themselves, and some in grief for John Hartman. Two men, sitting in opposite corners of the gallery, bowed their heads on the backs of the benches before them so that their tears might drop unseen. Oliver Kuhns, the elder, stayed at home from the funeral and at home from his work, and watched from the window the procession entering the church, and wept also. John Hartman was not without mourners who called him blessed!

David and his mother sat in the front pew, near the body, which had been placed before the pulpit. Upon David had settled a heavy weight of horror. He had not yet accustomed himself to the fact of his father's death. Only a few days before he had seen his father moving about, had sought to read the enigmatic expression in his eyes. But here his father lay, dead. Living he would never have suffered these stares, this weeping. Upon David, also, rested the interested, inquisitive eyes. From the gallery Katy Gaumer looked down upon him; from a seat near her Alvin Koehler stared about. The smothering desire to cry rushed over David once more; he slipped his hand inside his stiff collar as though to choke off the rising sob. Beside him rose the black pillar of his mother's crape; on the other side was the closed door of the old-fashioned pew. He was imprisoned; for him there was no escape. The service would never end; here he would be compelled to sit, forever and ever.

Then, suddenly, to the startled eyes of David and of Millerstown, there rose in the right-hand gallery the short, bent figure of a man. The preacher did not see; Millerstown sat paralyzed. They had never been really afraid of William Koehler, queer as he was, but now there was madness in his face. His eyes blazed, his cheeks were pale, he had scarcely touched food since he had heard of the death of his enemy. He had not gone to work; he had sat in his little house talking to himself, and praying that he might, after all, have some sort of revenge upon the man who had wronged him. Several weeks ago he had consulted a new detective, who, in the hope of getting a fee, or wishing to have an excuse for getting rid of him, had given him fresh encouragement. The sudden ending of his hopes was all the more cruel.

"I have something to say," he announced now in his shrill voice. "This man lying here is not a good man. I have this to say about him. He—he—"

Then poor William paused. Already, to his terror, in spite of his practicing, the words were slipping away from him. He had planned to tell the story carefully, impressing each detail upon the large congregation which would gather at the funeral. They must listen to him. It would be useless to cry out suddenly the whole truth, that John Hartman was a thief—he had tried that once, and had been silenced by the preacher. The detective had said that he must get all his proofs carefully together. He had arranged them in his poor, feeble mind; he meant to speak as convincingly as the preacher himself. His eyes were fixed on the smooth gray wall beside the pulpit cupboard; the sight of it helped to keep his mind clear. There he had been working on the day when the communion set was taken.

He rubbed his damp hands down the sides of his dusty suit, and a flush came into his cheeks. He remembered clearly once more what he had to say.

"I was building up the wall," he said with great precision. "I—"

Stupidly he halted. He began to grow frightened; the unfriendly faces paralyzed his brain; the words he had planned so carefully slipped all at once away from him. He pointed at the still figure lying in front of the pulpit and burst into vehement, frantic speech.

"He stole the communion set!" he cried shrilly. "He stole it! He—"

Poor William got no further. Many persons rose. The two men in opposite corners of the gallery who had wept started toward him; one of them opened his lips, as though, like crazy William, he was about to address the congregation. The paralyzed spectators came to their senses. Hands were laid upon William. The deacons and elders of the church went toward the gallery steps, Grandfather Gaumer among them. Even Alvin in his mortification and shame had still feeling enough to go to his father's side.

"Come away, pop!" he begged. "Ach, be quiet, pop, and come away!"

"He tells me to be quiet!" cried William in the same shrill tone. "My son tells me to be quiet!"

Grandfather Gaumer laid a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Come with me, William."

But William was not to be got so quietly away. In the front pew young David had risen. Was his father not now to have a decent burying? David's face was aflame; he did not see the madness in the shivering figure and the bright eyes of William Koehler. William belonged with his son Alvin, and both were hateful.

But David had no chance to speak. The preacher foolishly held up a forbidding hand to poor William.

"You cannot say such a thing at this time and not confess that it is not true. The accused cannot answer for himself."

Poor William rubbed his hands over his eyes. He still had great respect for the authority of preachers. Besides, he saw John Hartman suddenly as a dead man, and since his trouble he had always been afraid of death. No revenge could be visited upon this deaf, impassible object, that was sure!

"Ach, I forget my mind!" wailed poor William. "I forget my mind!"

Then William could have been led unresisting away. But the preacher, stupidly insistent, held up his hand again.

"Do you confess that your accusation is not true?" said he.

William placed a hand on either side of his forehead. It seemed as though his head were bursting and he must hold it close together. There was now a murmur of speech in the congregation. This terrible scene had gone on long enough; John Hartman did not need defense from so absurd an accusation. Then the murmur ceased.

"No!" cried William. "It is not true. I took the communion set myself!"

William was now led away, a final seal put upon the pit in which his honesty and sanity lay buried. Another unforgivable offense was added to the sum of unforgivable offenses of the son of William Koehler toward young David. The confession did not help the Millerstown church to recover its beautiful silver. William's insanity, the congregation thought, was the only bar to its recovery.

John Hartman was laid in the grave which had been walled up by the mason who had taken William Koehler's place in Millerstown, and which had been lined with evergreens and life everlasting according to Millerstown's tender custom. Over him prayers were said and another hymn was sung, "Aus tiefer Noth shrei ich zu dir" (Out of the depths I cry to thee), familiar to generations of Millerstown's afflicted. Then the procession returned to John Harman's great house, whispering excitedly.

David sat in his room during the funeral dinner. David was queer; he was not expected to do as other people did. His fury with the Koehlers took his thoughts to some extent away from his grief.

That night Cassie did not sleep in the great, comfortable room at the front of the house which she had shared with her husband, but in a room even smaller than David's at the back. It contained, instead of the great walnut four-poster, with its high-piled feather bed to which she was accustomed, a little painted pine bedstead and a chaff bag; it was on the north corner of the house and was cold in winter and deprived of the breeze by the thick foliage in summer. Her husband's fortune was left to her while she lived; afterwards it was to go to David. Cassie was amply able to manage it, the investments were safe, the farmers had been in her husband's employ many years; it was not likely that anything would disturb the smooth, dull current of Cassie's life.

There was much discussion in Millerstown about whether it was safe for the community to allow William Koehler to be at large; there was some comment upon the cooking at the Hartman funeral dinner; then Millerstown turned its attention to other things. Cassie had behaved just as she might have been expected to behave. It was surprising, however, that she had let Millerstown go so thoroughly through her house.

The day after the funeral David went back to the Millerstown school. He did not glance in the direction of Katy and Alvin, though he could not help realizing that Katy's skirts did not flirt so gayly past. Katy was sorry for him, though she did not repent her treatment of him. Her dresses had suddenly dropped several inches, her flying curls were twisted up on her head, her eyes were brighter than ever. She was filled with herself and her own concerns and opinions; she grew daily more dictatorial, more lordly.

"I am going away!" said she, upon rising.

"I am going to be educated!" said she at noon.

"I can take education," said she at night. "I thank God I am not dumb!"

She and Grandmother Gaumer were increasingly busy with dressmakers' patterns and with "Lists of Articles to be provided by Students." Life was at high tide for Katy Gaumer.

Still David kept at the head of his class. In his mind a slow plan was forming. He would think of Katy no more, of that he was determined, and he would, as a means of accomplishing that end, leave Millerstown. His mother was a rich woman; he could do anything in the world he liked. He would first of all go to college. Afterwards he would study law.

In June he started late one Sunday afternoon to walk to the Sheep Stable. Overwhelmed as he had been upon that spot, he loved it too well to stay away. The heavenly prospect was part of his life's fabric and would continue to be all his days.

As he passed the Koehler house, he heard a strange sound, apparently an unending repetition of the same phrase. It was William Koehler at his prayers—Millerstown knew now for what William prayed!

"God will punish him!" said David with a hot, dry throat. "If there is a God"—thus said David in his foolish youth—"if there is a God, he will punish him! Oh, I wish, I wish I could see my father!"

At the Sheep Stable, as one who opens the book of the dim past, David took his pipe and cards from their hiding-place and hurled them far down the mountain-side. He even managed to smile a little sorely at himself.

It was dark when he returned to the village. He did not like to walk about in the early evenings, past the groups of Millerstonians on the doorsteps; they talked about him, and he did not like to be talked about. Now almost all Millerstown had gone to church. The pastor of the Improved New Mennonites was conducting a meeting in a neighboring village, but there was service in all the other churches. A few persons sat on their doorsteps, listening quietly to the music which filled the air,—the sound of the beautiful German hymns of the Lutherans and the Reformed, and the less classic compositions of the New Baptists. Millerstown was like a great common room on summer evenings, with the friendly sky for ceiling.

Again the young moon rode high in the heavens; again David's young blood throbbed in his veins; again the miserable, unmanly desire for the girl who would have nothing to do with him began to devour him. He bit his lips, wondering drearily where he should go and what he should do. The night had just begun; he would not be sleepy for hours. Nothing invited him to the kitchen or to the two little bedrooms to which Cassie had restricted their living. He had no books, and books would have been after all poor companions on such a night as this.

David was not an ill-looking boy; he had indeed the promise of growing handsome as he grew older; he was many times richer than any other young man of Millerstown. There were probably only two girls in the village to whom these pleasant characteristics would make no appeal. The first of these was Katy Gaumer. The second was smooth, pretty, blue-eyed Essie Hill, the daughter of the preacher of the Improved New Mennonites, who sat now demurely on her father's doorstep. Beside her David suddenly sat himself down.

CHAPTER IX
CHANGE

The squire rose from his knees, pale and unsteady, and stood looking at his brother as though the sight were incredible.

"Is there no life?" he asked the doctor in a whisper.

The doctor shook his head. "He was gone before he fell."

Bevy began to cry. "Ach, who will tell her?"

"I will tell her," answered the squire. Then he went round the house and across to the other side of the homestead where Grandmother Gaumer and Katy sat at their sewing.

There was a quantity of white material on Grandmother Gaumer's lap, and her fingers moved the needle swiftly in and out. Katy was talking as she hemmed a scarlet ruffle—Katy was always talking. She had been shocked by the news of the governor's illness, but she believed that he would get well. Besides, she had seen the governor only once in her life, and her grandfather had assured her that her plans for her education need not be changed. She could not be long unhappy over anything when all these beautiful new clothes were being made for her and when she was soon to leave dull Millerstown, and when Alvin Koehler had twice sat on the doorstep with her. She had journeyed to the county seat with her grandmother and there had made wonderful purchases.

"And the ladies in the stores are so fine, and so polite, and they show you everything," said Katy. "When Louisa Kuhns went to Allentown she said, 'the people are me so unpolite, they go always bumping and bumping and they don't even say uh!' That is not true. I do not believe there is anywhere in the world a politer place than Allentown.

"Louisa—" No gap between subjects halted Katy's speech; she leaped it with a bound. "Louisa is very dumb. Now I do not believe myself that a person can learn everything. But you can train your mind so that you can understand everything if it is explained to you. You must keep your mind all the time busy and you must be very humble. Louisa said that poetry was dumb. Louisa cannot even understand, 'Where, oh, where are the visions of morning?' Louisa thinks everything must be real. I said to her I would be ashamed to talk that way. The realer poetry is the harder it is. But Louisa! Ach, my! Gran'mom! The teacher said Louisa should write 'pendulum' in a sentence, and Louisa wrote 'Pendulum Franklin is dead'!"

"Do you like poetry, Katy?" asked Grandmother Gaumer.

"Some," answered Katy. "It is not the fault of the poetry that I cannot understand it all. I want to understand everything. I do not mean, gran'mom, that you cannot be good unless you understand everything. But there is more in this world than being good. Sarah Ann is good, but Sarah Ann has a pretty slow time in this world."

"Sarah Ann does many kind things."

"But the squire and gran'pop do more because they are smarter," said Katy triumphantly. "When the people want advice, do they go to Sarah Ann? They come to the squire or to gran'pop!"

Grandmother Gaumer smiled. Sometimes Katy talked in borrowed phrase about a "larger vision" or "preparation for a larger life."

"Millerstown!" said Katy with a long sigh and a shake of the head. "I could not stay forever in Millerstown, gran'mom. Think of the Sunday School picnics with the red mint candy on the cakes and how Susannah and Sarah Knerr try to have the highest layer cakes, and each wants the preacher to eat. Think of the Copenhagen, gran'mom, and the Bingo and the Jumbo, gran'mom!" In derision Katy began to sing, "A certain farmer."

Grandmother Gaumer leaned forward in her chair. A sense of uneasiness overwhelmed her, though Katy had heard nothing. "Listen, Katy!"

There was nothing to be heard; Grandfather Gaumer had fallen; beside him knelt his brother and the doctor; aghast Bevy flung her arms above her head; all were as yet silent.

"It is nothing, gran'mom," said Katy. Katy began her chattering again; she laughed now because Bevy had said that it brought bad luck to use black pins on white material or to sew when the clock struck twelve. Grandmother Gaumer went on with her stitching. A boy ran down the street; the sound disturbed her.

"I will go and see," offered Katy, putting the scarlet ruffles off her lap. She did not move as swiftly as she would have moved six months ago. Then the sound of rapid steps would have drawn her promptly in their wake. But the affairs of Millerstown had ceased to be of great importance. She did not even hate Millerstown now. "I guess it is just a boy running, gran'mom. I guess—"

The squire had thought that he would go bravely to Grandmother Gaumer and put his arm round her and break to her gently the terrible news. He did not realize that his lips and hands grew each moment more tremulous and his cheeks more ashen. He saw his sister-in-law sitting beside her lovely garden in security and peace, and his heart failed him.

Katy had risen to her feet, and she stood still and regarded him with astonishment. She had forgotten for the instant that he was awaiting news of Governor Gaumer's death. Now she remembered it and was disturbed to the bottom of her soul by the squire's evident grief. Grief was new to Katy.

Grandmother Gaumer laid down her needle and thread. "Ach, the governor is gone, then!" said she. "Did a letter come?"

"Yes," answered the squire. "A message came. He died in the night."

Tears came into Grandmother Gaumer's eyes. "Where is William? I thought he was by you."

The squire sat down in the chair beside Grandmother Gaumer and took her hand. The heap of white stuff slid off her lap to the floor of the porch and lay there unheeded until hours later when Bevy gathered it up, weeping, and laid it away.

"I have bad news for you," said the squire.

"Well," said Grandmother Gaumer, bravely.

"When William heard that Daniel was gone, he dropped to the floor like one shot."

"William!" cried Grandmother Gaumer.

"Yes," answered the squire. "He suffered no pain. The doctor said he knew nothing of it."

"Knew nothing of it!" repeated Grandmother Gaumer. "You mean that he fell dead?"

"Yes."

"Where is he?" asked Grandmother Gaumer in a quieter tone.

"In my office. They will bring him home."

"Then we will make a place ready for him. Come, Katy."

Katy followed into the kitchen. Grandmother Gaumer stood looking about her and frowning, as though she were finding it difficult to decide what should be done. Katy thought of John Hartman and of his strange attitude and his staring eyes. Would Grandfather Gaumer look like that? Katy was about to throw herself into the arms which had thus far opened to all her griefs.

"Ach, gran'mom!" she began, weeping.

Then, slowly, Grandmother Gaumer turned her head and looked at Katy. Her eyes were intolerable to Katy.

"What shall I do?" she asked. "I am old. I cannot think. We have lived together fifty years. I cannot remember where my things are. There are things put away in the bureaus all ready for such a time. What shall I do, Katy?"

With a gasp Katy drove back the tears from her smarting eyelids. Katy was confused, bewildered; she still lacked the education with which she expected to meet the problems of life. But Katy, whose forte was managing, did not fail here.

"You will sit here in this chair, gran'mom. I will get a white pillow to put on the settee and they can lay gran'pop there. Then we will find the things for them." She guided her grandmother to the armchair and helped her to sit down. Even the touch of her body seemed different. "It will take only a minute for me to go upstairs. I will be back right away. You know how quickly I can run."

When Katy returned, the feet of the bearers were at the door. With them Millerstown crowded in, weeping. Grandmother Gaumer had wept with them, Grandfather Gaumer had helped them in their troubles. Grandfather was laid in state in the best room and presently the house settled into quiet. In this house five generations had met grief with dignity and death with hope; thus they should be met once more.

Preparations were begun at once for the laying away of the body in the little graveyard of the church which the soul had loved. At the feet of his mother, beside his little sister, a grave was dug for William Gaumer and was lined with boughs of arbor vitæ and sprays of life everlasting.

In the Gaumer house there was little sweeping and cleaning; the beds were not made up for show, but were prepared for the gathering relatives. Grandfather Gaumer did not lie alone in the best room as John Hartman had lain; his children and his grandchildren went in and sat beside him and talked of him.

When the funeral was over and the house was in order and the relatives had gone, Katy sat on her little stool at her grandmother's knee and cried her fill. Grandmother Gaumer had not given way to grief. She had moved about among her kin, she had given directions, she had wept only a little.

To Katy there was not now a ray of brightness in the world.

"Nothing is certain," she mourned. "My gran'pop brought me up. I was always by him, he was my father. I cannot get along without him."

"You will feel certain again of this world, Katy," her grandmother assured her. "You must not mourn for grandfather. He had a long, long life. You would not have him back where he would get lame and helpless after while. That is worse, Katy."

"But there are many things I would like to say to him. I never told him enough how thankful I was to him."

"He knew you were thankful. Now you are to go to school. Everything is to be just as it was planned."

Katy burst into tears once more.

"Ach, I do not think of school!"

Nevertheless, her heart beat a little faster. There was, after all, something right in the world. Moreover, she still had another person to think of. That day Alvin Koehler's dark eyes had looked down upon her as she sat by her grandmother in church. She had promised to help Alvin; his eyes reminded her consciously or unconsciously of her promise.

"Your Uncle Edwin and I talked this over," went on Grandmother Gaumer. "You have two hundred dollars from the governor in the bank in your name and the squire and Uncle Edwin and I will all help. You are to go right on, Katy."

"I wasn't thinking about school," persisted Katy. "I was thinking about my grandfather."

Grandmother Gaumer laid a trembling hand on Katy's head.

"He was always good and kind, Katy, you must never forget that. He was first of all good; that is the best thing. He did what he could for everybody, and everybody loved him. You see what Millerstown thought of him. See that Millerstown thinks that well of you! You must never forget him, never. He loved you—he loved you—"

Grandmother Gaumer repeated what she had said in a strange way, then she ceased to speak, and Katy, startled, lifted her head. Then she got to her feet. She had become familiar in these last weeks with the gray pallor of a mortal seizure.

"Gran'mom!" shrieked Katy. "Gran'mom!"

Only the gaze of a pair of bright, troubled eyes answered her. Grandmother's face was twisted, her hands fell heavily into her lap.

Katy threw her arms round her and laid her cheek against the white hair.

"I will be back, dear, dear gran'mom," said Katy. "You know how I can run!"

An instant later, Katy had flung open the door of the squire's office where sat the squire and Dr. Benner. Her grandmother had insisted upon her putting on her red dress after the funeral. She paused now on the sill as she had paused in her bird-like attitude to call to Caleb Stemmel in the store at Christmas time. But this was a different Katy.

"Oh, come!" she cried. "Oh, come, come quickly!"

CHAPTER X
KATY MAKES A PROMISE

Young Dr. Benner looked down upon her. He had not given so much thought of late to the development of his protégé. He had met in the county seat an older lady who had taken his fancy, who needed no improvement, and whose mind was already sufficiently developed to suit his ideas. He looked now at Katy through narrowed eyelids. He suddenly remembered the great plans he had had for her and the greater plans she had had for herself. He began to wonder what Katy's life would be like, he who had just a little while ago been planning it so carefully! He heard in that instant's pause a clear whistle from the direction of the garden, and he decided without knowing the identity of the whistler that there would sooner or later be that sort of complication in Katy's life which would end her education, even if her grandmother's need of her did not. He was so busy with his speculations that he did not answer Katy's question until she was faint with apprehension.

Katy was a sensitive creature; she was suddenly aware of the changed, absent way in which he regarded her. She remembered that it was a long time since the doctor had invited her to ride with him, a long time since he had said anything to her about singing.

"My gran'mom is all I have in this world," she reminded him with piteous dignity.

"No, Katy." The doctor came back to reality with a start. "She will not die."

His expression terrified Katy.

"Then, when will she be well again?"

"I cannot say."

The whistle sounded again from beyond the garden wall. This time it penetrated to the consciousness of Katy, who, hearing it, blushed. No one but Alvin Koehler could produce so sweet and clear a note. For the first time he had called her. The night was warm and bright, and the breeze carried the odor of honeysuckle and jasmine into the kitchen. The beauty of the night seemed mocking. Katy's heart cried out angrily against the trouble which had come upon her, against the greater grief which now threatened.

"You mean that she will be sick a long, long time?"

"Possibly."

Katy clasped and unclasped her hands.

"You do not mean that perhaps she will never be well?"

"I do not believe she can ever be well, Katy." The doctor now laid his hand on Katy's shoulder.

Katy moved away, her hand on her side, as if to sustain the weight of a heavy heart.

"What am I to do for her?"

The doctor gave directions about the medicines, and then went across the yard to sit with the squire in his office. When he had gone, Katy stood for a moment perfectly still in the middle of the room. The whistle did not come again; Alvin, approaching the house without knowing anything of Grandmother Gaumer's illness, saw suddenly that the house was more brightly lighted than usual and stole away.

For an instant Katy stood still, then she crossed the room and opened the door which led into the dim front of the house, and went into the parlor. There she sat down on the high, slippery haircloth sofa. Presently she turned her head and laid her cheek against the smooth, cool surface of the arm. Overhead she could hear the sound of Uncle Edwin's soft, heavy tread, the sound of his deep voice as he spoke to Grandmother Gaumer or to Aunt Sally. Uncle Edwin was a good man, Katy said to herself absently, her mind dwelling upon a theme in which it took at that moment no interest; Uncle Edwin was a good man, but he was not a very smart man. He had never gone to school—to school—Katy found herself repeating that magic word. It brought fully into the light of consciousness the dread question which had been lingering just outside. If Grandmother Gaumer were to be a long time sick, who would take care of her? Uncle Edwin and Aunt Sally were kind, but they had their farm on the outskirts of Millerstown; they could not leave it.

"But I must have my education," whispered Katy to the smooth surface of the old sofa. "This is my time in life for education. Afterwards the mind gets dull, and you cannot learn. It is right that I should have a chance to learn."

Then Katy sat up; from the room above Uncle Edwin called her. "Ach, Katy, come once here!"

"I am coming," answered Katy as she flew.

In the sick-room her uncle and aunt welcomed her with relief. To them Katy was always a sort of wonder child. They had wanted to adopt her when she was a little girl; they had always loved her as they loved their own little Adam.

"We cannot make out what she wants, Katy. Perhaps it is you she wants."

Katy looked about the room, at the stout, disturbed uncle and aunt, then at the great bedstead, with its high feather bed, its plump pillows. Grandmother Gaumer's hair had been covered by a close-fitting cap; the sheet was drawn up under her chin; she seemed to have shrunk to a pair of eyes. But they were eyes into which the life of the body was concentrated. Katy almost covered her own as she met them, her throat contracted, all emotions combined into one overwhelming sensation.

"I will stay here now," announced Katy. "Aunt Sally, you can go home, and Uncle Edwin, if he is to stay all night here, can go to bed, and if I need anything I will call him."

Thus Katy, the dictator. When they had obeyed, Katy crossed the room to her grandmother's side. To such an interview as this there could be no witnesses.

"No one else is going to take care of you, gran'mom," promised Katy. "No one can travel so fast and talk so much." She leaned over and laid her hand on her grandmother's cheek. "I am going to stay with you to-night and to-morrow night and always. I am never going to leave you. I care for schooling, but I care more for you. You raised me from little when I had no father and mother to take care of me. I will remember what you said about gran'pop, and I will try to be like him. Do you understand me?" besought Katy in a sudden agony of fright.

The brown eyes answered, or Katy thought they answered.

"Well, then," said Katy. "Now I will read you a chapter and then you will go to sleep."

CHAPTER XI
KATY FINDS A NEW AIM IN LIFE

Bevy stood beside the sink, her arms akimbo.

"Gran'mom isn't sure to lie seven years," said she. Bevy had in her possession the seventh book of Moses, which contained many powerful prescriptions; she meant to see what pow-wowing could do before she despaired of Grandmother Gaumer. "But if she does lay, Edwin won't come home and they won't get anybody from outside. It was never yet a Gaumer what had to be taken care of by one from outside. Katy will take care of her gran'mom."

"Katy will take care of her gran'mom!" repeated Sarah Ann. "But she won't be well till [by] September! How will Katy then be educated? Carpenter has learned her everything he knows in this world. I could easy hear that!"

"Katy does not think of education," answered Bevy. "She thinks of nothing but her gran'mom. She is with her night and day."

Solemnly Sarah Ann and Bevy regarded one another. Then solemnly they nodded.

"That is what I said to Millerstown!" Thus Sarah Ann in triumph. "There are those in Millerstown who will have it that Katy will let her gran'mom stick. There are those in Millerstown who say that when people get education, they get crazy. Did she cry, Bevy?"

"Not that I saw," answered Bevy, proudly. "Or that any one else saw, I guess."

"I will tell Millerstown," Sarah Ann made ready to depart. "It is three places where I will stop already on my way home."

Ponderously, satisfied with her darling, Sarah Ann moved through the door.

Among the numerous visitors was Essie Hill, who had recently experienced the sudden and violent change of heart which admitted her to full membership in the Improved New Mennonite Church. She wore now a little short back sailor like the older women, with an inscription across the front to the effect that she was a worker in the vineyard. Essie was sincere; she was good, but Katy hated her. When she told Essie, not without a few impertinent embroideries, that her grandmother was asleep, Essie departed with a quiet acceptance of the rebuff which no Millerstonian would have endured without resentment. Essie's placid soul, however, was not easily disturbed. She performed her duty in offering to sit by Grandmother Gaumer and to read and pray with her; further she was not obligated.

Katy heard no more Alvin's clear whistle in the garden. She said to herself, in a moment of physical and mental depression, that he might easily have made a way to see her by coming with the rest of Millerstown to inquire for the invalid; then she reminded herself that the Koehlers went nowhere, had no friends.

"He is ashamed of his pop," said Katy to herself. "His pop is a black shame to him."

On Thursday she left her grandmother while she went on an errand to the store and her eyes searched every inch of Main Street and the two shorter streets which ran into it. But Alvin was nowhere to be seen. She answered shortly the questions about her grandmother, put to her by the storekeeper and by all other persons whom she met, and returned to the house in despair.

"If I could only see him," she cried to herself. "If I could only talk to him a little!"

On Sunday evening Bevy drove her out, almost by force, to the front porch. Bevy's preacher was again holding services in the next village, and Bevy was therefore free to care for the invalid. She had sought all the week an opportunity to sit by Grandmother Gaumer and to repeat the pow-wow rhymes which she firmly believed would help her. Now, sitting at the head of the bed in the dusk, she made passes in the air with her hands and motions with her lips. When she was certain that Grandmother Gaumer slept, she slid down to her hands and knees and crept three times round the bed, repeating the while some mystic rhyme. In reality, Grandmother Gaumer did not sleep, but lay amusedly conscious of the administrating of Bevy's therapeutic measures.

Meanwhile Katy was not alone. Had Bevy suspected the company into which she was sending her beloved, it is probable that one spring would have carried her down the steps, and another to the porch.

Katy sat for a long time on the step with her chin in her hands. She was thin, her eyes were unnaturally large, the hard work of nursing had worn her out. Her gaze searched the street, and she shrank into the shadow of the honeysuckle vine when couples paraded slowly by, arm in arm.

"I have nobody," mourned Katy, weakly, to herself. "Nobody in all the world but my gran'mom, and she cannot even speak to me."

After a long time Katy's sharp gaze detected a lurking figure across the street. Her heart throbbed, she leaned forward out of the shadow of the vine. Then she called a soft "Alvin!"

Alvin came promptly across and Katy made room for him beside her. He wore his new red tie, but his face as the light from the street lamp fell upon it was far from happy.

"Is your gran'mom yet sick?" he asked.

"Yes." Katy could answer only in a monosyllable. Alvin was here, he sat beside her, the skirt of her dress rested against him.

"I was here once in the garden, and I whistled for you. I did not know your gran'mom was sick."

"I heard it, but I couldn't come." The two voices had all the tones of deep tragedy. "It was when my gran'mom was first taken sick." Katy felt suddenly tired and weak, but she was very happy. She noticed now the odor of honeysuckle and the sweeter jasmine out on the garden wall. It was a beautiful world.

After a long time Alvin spoke again, still unhappily.

"David Hartman is going away to school."

Katy's heart gave a jealous throb. It was not fair for any one to have an education when she could not.

"He is going right away to the real college."

"He cannot!" said Katy. "He cannot pass the examination. He is no farther than I and I couldn't get in the real college. I guess we have catalogues that tell about it!"

"But there is a young fellow here to teach him this summer, so he can get in. His mother is willing for him to go. Some say that David has already his own money. It costs a lot of money to get such a young man. He gets more than Carpenter got, they say. He is living at the hotel because it is too clean at the Hartmans' for strangers. David goes to him at the hotel. They say he will learn to be a lawyer so that he can take care of his money. And the tailor"—the spaces between Alvin's words grew wider and wider, his voice rose and fell almost as though he were chanting—"the tailor is making new clothes for him, and his mom bought him a trunk in Allentown!"

"So!" said Katy, scornfully, the blood beating in her temples. She did not envy David his clothes, but she envied him his learning. Katy was desperately tired; a noble resolve, though persisted in bravely, does not keep one constantly cheerful and courageous.

"And he sits on the porch in the evenings sometimes with Essie Hill."

"He has good company! It is queer for such an educated one to like such a dumb one! Perhaps Essie will get him to convert himself. She was here to get me to convert myself. She says it is while I am wicked that this trouble comes upon me. She wanted to sit by my gran'mom and talk about my gran'mom's sins, and I told her my gran'mom hadn't as many sins in her whole life as she had already." Katy could not suppress a giggle. "That settled her. I wouldn't even let her go up. I wanted to choke her."

Again Katy sat silently. Alvin was here, she was consuming the time in foolish talk; at any minute Bevy might descend from above or they might be interrupted by a visitor. Alvin moved uneasily. Perhaps he, too, felt this talk to be foolish. The light fell full upon his red tie and the beautiful line of his young throat. A more mature and experienced person than Katy Gaumer would have been certain that there must be good in a creature so beautiful.

"David can go to college," he said mournfully. "But I cannot go anywhere, not even to the normal school where I could learn to be a teacher. I thought I would surely get that much of an education, but there is no hope for me."

Katy turned and looked at him. "Why no hope?"

"Why, they say in Millerstown that you are not going to school. You said that when you went to school you would find a way for me to go. But if you are not going, then there is no one to help me. And pop"—Alvin's lapses into the vernacular were frequent—"pop gets worse and worse. He is going very fast behind. He is getting so he has queer ideas. He was making him shoelaces with the ravelings of the carpet. And he thinks there is now a woman with horns after him. He talks about it all the time. I have nothing in this world. When he was so bad I came to tell you. It was then I whistled."

"You do not need any one at the school to help you," said Katy in a clear voice. "If I am not going, I can all the better help you to go; don't you see that, Alvin? If you are going to teach, you do not have to pay anything except for board and room. I have two hundred dollars in the bank, and I can lend you some to begin with and then you can get something to do. I will give you fifty dollars"—poor Katy planned as though she had thousands. "There is a little hole round the corner of the house in the wall, where Bevy used to put the cakes for me. There I will put the money for you, Alvin."

Alvin's lips parted. He felt not so much gratitude as amazement.

"Aren't you going to school ever?"

Katy did not answer.

"Millerstown will be crazy when it finds I am going away!" cried Alvin with delight.

"They must never know how you go!" said Katy in alarm. "You must not tell them how you go!"

"They think my father has money." Here was a solution. "They do not know he has given it all to detectives. They think he has it hidden away. Millerstown is very dumb."

"You must get a catalogue from the school, Alvin, and you must send in your name. That is the first."

"I will," promised Alvin. "I will do it right away. It is a loan, Katy, and I will pay it back. It will not be hard to earn the money to pay it back!"

The sound of a descending footstep on the stairway frightened them, as though they had been plotting evil. Alvin went swiftly and quietly out the brick walk, and Katy sat still. When Bevy came to the kitchen door, Katy sat on the lowest step, where Bevy had left her, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands.

"You are not to come in yet," said Bevy. "I just came to get a drink. Your gran'mom is sleeping."

"Yes, well," answered Katy, keeping her voice steady by great effort. She did not wish to move. She wished to think and think. If Alvin had omitted an expression of thanks, she held no grudge against him, had not, indeed, even observed the omission. Here was an outlet from prison; here was something to be, to do! She would cheerfully have earned by the labor of her hands enough to send Alvin Koehler to school. After such a foolish, generous pattern was Katy made in her youth; thus, lightly, with a beating, happy heart, did she put herself in bondage.

"I will educate Alvin," said Katy. "If I cannot do one thing, I can do another."

Alvin Koehler climbed the hill. His heart did not throb as rapidly as Katy's, but Alvin, too, was very happy. Alvin was not yet possessed by an overwhelming desire for an education; but he saw a new suit and at least three neckties. Above that delectable goal, his ambition did not rise.

When he reached the little white house on the hillside and lifted the latch of the door, he could not get in. After he had pounded and called, his terror growing each moment greater, he tried the window. From there his father's strong hands pushed him so suddenly that he fell on his back into the soft soil of the garden. Poor William Koehler had come to confuse the woman with horns with his harmless son.

Terrified, Alvin retraced his steps to the village and sought the squire. In the morning, the squire, with gentle persuasion, carried poor William to the county home. There William was kept at first in a cell, with a barred window; then he was allowed to work in the fields under guard. Gradually, the woman with horns vanished; his work with his familiar tools and with the plants which he loved seemed to have a healing effect. He grew more and more quiet; presently he ceased to pray aloud in his frantic way. He said after a while that God had told him to be quiet. He seemed to have forgotten his home, his child, his old life, even his enemy.