Katy Gaumer

CHAPTER XII
KATY BORROWS SO THAT SHE MAY LEND

"But can he take education?" asked the puzzled Sarah Ann. "The Koehlers were always wonderful dumb. There was once a Koehler whose name was Abraham and he wrote it always 'Aprom,' and one made a cupboard and nailed himself in and they had to come and let him out. They are a dumb Freundschaft. They are bricklayers and carpenters; they are not educated men. Now, with Katy it is different. She has a squire and a governor in her Freundschaft."

"I don't believe he got all this money from his pop," protested Bevy. "There are other ways of getting money. It says in the Bible, 'Like father, like son.'"

"He parades up and down like a Fratzhans [dude] in his new clothes," said Susannah.

"Ach, Susannah!" reproved gentle Sarah Ann, in whose judgment criticism had now gone far enough.

Such speculations and accusations Katy had more than once to hear. Then Katy clenched her hands. They would see Alvin come back to Millerstown some day a great man. She hated Susannah and Bevy and all Alvin's detractors. Never was Katy doubtful for an instant of her undertaking; she had succeeded with the Christmas entertainment; she had succeeded in compelling Mr. Carpenter to teach her; she was succeeding now in doing all the work in her grandmother's house; she would succeed in educating Alvin.

"Sarah Ann is a great, fat worm," said Katy with scorn. "When the brains were given out, Sarah Ann was missed. And Bevy is a little grasshopper and she, too, is dumb. It is a great pity for them."

She wished that she might see Alvin oftener, but that was impossible. He was near at hand; she could get occasional glimpses of him, and she could sit by her grandmother's bed and think of him. She had put her precious fifty dollars in the putlock hole and Alvin had removed it. It must be confessed that between the time Katy promised and the time that she deposited the money, Alvin came more than once after night to feel round in the improvised bank. The gift constituted now in Katy's mind an unbreakable bond between them. Such largess would have inspired her to lay down her life for the giver, and Alvin was endowed in her mind with gifts and graces far greater and nobler than her own. At the garments which he bought she looked with tender approval. Certainly he could not go to the normal school without suitable clothes!

Besides Katy's clearly expressed conviction that it was unwise for Alvin to come to see her, there was another reason why Alvin did not turn his steps oftener to Grandmother Gaumer's gate. Alvin's new clothes put him temporarily into a condition bordering upon insanity. He must show himself in his fine apparel. He would have liked to appear in it each evening, but such a performance was unthinkable. Only on Saturday and Sunday did Millerstown wear its best.

On Saturday and Sunday, therefore, Alvin lived. He attended ice-cream festivals and Sunday School picnics; he went diligently to church, selecting each Sunday the one of Millerstown's churches which was likely to have the largest attendance. When the Lutherans had a Children's Day service, Alvin went early to get a good seat. Often he sat in the Amen corner, close to the little cupboard with the space of smooth, gray wall beside it. Upon the smooth, gray wall his profile and curly head cast a beautiful shadow. When there was a revival service at the church of the Improved New Mennonites, Alvin was in the congregation. There he was conscious of the demure eyes of Essie Hill. Essie was always alone. David Hartman, who sat with her on the doorstep, never was seen inside her church. To David revivals, such as enlivened many of the meetings of the Improved New Mennonites, were intolerable; they made him feel as he had felt at his father's funeral with the gaze of all Millerstown searching his soul. Between Essie and her father there had occurred a short conversation about David and his worldly ways.

"You can never marry outside your church, Essie," said grave, sober Mr. Hill.

"No, pop," agreed Essie. "Such a thing I would not do."

Alvin Koehler would have had no objection to a scrutiny of his soul. To Alvin, all of himself was interesting.

Alvin did not think often of his father. By this time William was trusted to work in the almshouse fields, and was allowed to talk from morning till night of his wrongs.

Early in September Alvin went away. He came on the last Saturday evening to say good-bye to Katy and they sat together on the dusky porch. The porch was darker than it had been in the springtime, since the hand which usually pruned the vines was no longer able to hold the shears. There were still a few sprays of bloom on the honeysuckle and the garden was in its greatest glory. There bloomed scarlet sage and crimson cock's-comb and another more brilliant, leafy plant, red from root to tip. Among the stalks of the spring flowers twined now nasturtiums and petunias, and there was sweet alyssum and sweet William and great masses of cosmos and asters. In the moonlight Katy could see a plant move gently; even in her sadness she could not resist a spasm of pleasure as a rabbit darted out from behind it. On the brick wall between the porch and the garden stood Grandmother Gaumer's thorny, twisted night-blooming cactus with great swollen buds ready to open to-morrow evening. The air had changed; it was no longer soft and warm as it had been the night when Katy first planned to educate Alvin.

Sitting by her grandmother's bed Katy had finished her red dress with the ruffles. It had been necessary to make the hem an inch longer than they had planned in the spring. Grandmother Gaumer's patient eyes had seemed to smile when Katy showed her. Grandmother Gaumer was shown everything; to her bedside Bevy bore proudly Katy's first successful baking of bread; thither to-morrow, Uncle Edwin would carry the great cactus in its heavy tub.

Katy sat for a long time on the step before Alvin came. Her body softened and weakened a dozen times as she thought she heard his step, then her muscles stiffened and her hands clenched as the step passed by. Presently it would be time for Bevy to go home and for Katy to go into the house, or presently some one would come, and then her chance to see Alvin would be gone. It seemed to her that Bevy looked at her with suspicion when Alvin's name was mentioned; the later it grew the more likely Bevy was to interrupt their interview.

The grip of Katy's hands, one upon the other, grew tighter, her cheeks hotter, the beating of her heart more rapid. He must come; it was incredible that he could stay away. Her throat tightened; she said over and over to herself, "Oh, come! come! come!"

Presently down the dusky street approached Alvin with his swinging walk. Now Katy knew at last that she was not mistaken. He was here; he was entering the gate which she had opened so that its loud creak might not be heard by Bevy; he was walking softly on the grass as Katy had advised him.

Alvin sat down a little closer to Katy than was his custom. A subtle change had come over him. Though the Millerstown boys looked at him with scorn, the Millerstown girls, smiling upon him, had completed the work which Katy's attentions had begun. Alvin had not attended Sunday School picnics, with their games of Copenhagen and their long walks home in the twilight, for nothing. Alvin had less and less desire for learning; he still thought of education as a path to even finer clothes than he had and greater admiration and entire ease. He had come now from service at the Lutheran church, and from his favorite corner he had been conscious of the notice of the congregation. He had asked Katy for twenty-five dollars more than she had given him; this, Katy told him, lay now in the putlock hole in the house wall. His spirits rose still more gayly as he heard of it.

"I will pay it back in a year or two," he assured Katy lightly. "Then I will tell you how to do when you go to school."

"Yes," said Katy. She would have liked to say, "Oh, Alvin, keep it, keep it forever!" But how then should she attain to an equality with Alvin? She realized now fully that he was going away. The long, long winter was fast approaching, and she would be here alone in this changed house. There would be no more entertainments; there would be no more frantic racing with Whiskey; there would be no more glorifying, sustaining hope.

Slowly the tears rolled down Katy's cheeks. She knew that the minutes were passing rapidly, and that she and Alvin had said nothing. But still she sat with her hands pressed against her eyes.

Almost immediately, alas! there was an alarming sound. The step of Bevy was heard descending the stairway. Poor Katy could cheerfully have slain her. A hundred confused thoughts filled her mind, the tears came faster than ever; she rose, and Alvin rose with her and they looked at each other, and then Alvin was gone. In his excitement he closed the gate noisily behind him. Katy sank down again on the step from which she had risen. When Bevy looked out from the doorway, Katy sat motionless.

"You ought to come in, Katy," advised Bevy. "It is cold."

"I am not cold," said Katy.

"It is damp and cold," insisted Bevy. "I thought I heard the gate slam."

Katy made no answer.

"Did it slam?" asked Bevy.

Katy looked round. Her eyes were bright; her voice, if it trembled, did not tremble with grief. "If you heard it, I guess it slammed," said she.

"The night air is bad." Bevy was losing patience. "Will you come in?"

"No," said Katy.

Bevy snapped the screen door shut.

"Je gelehrter, je verkehrter" (The more learned, the more perverse), she declared.

When Bevy had reached the upper hall, Katy rose from her place on the lowest step, and stretched out her arms as though to embrace the garden and Millerstown and the world. Mist was rising from the little stream below the orchard; it veiled the garden in a lovely garment; it seemed to intensify the odor of the honeysuckle and the late roses. Again Katy sank down on the step and hid her face in her arms.

"He kissed me!" said Katy shamelessly.

Now Katy's winter was guarded against unhappiness.

A little later in September David Hartman went to school also, not to the normal school where tuition cost nothing, but to college as befitted the heir of a rich man. His tutor had prepared him thoroughly for his examinations; he had an ample allowance; there was no reason why the gratification of any legitimate desire should be denied him. His mother had spared no pains with his outfit; she had bought and sewed and laundered and packed a wardrobe such as, it is safe to say, no other student in the college possessed. During the long summer she and David had had little to say to each other. David had been constantly busy with his books; he had had little time even to think of his father, whom he so passionately regretted. Death continued to work its not uncommon miracle for John Hartman; it dimmed more and more for his son the character of his later years, and exaggerated greatly the vaguely remembered tendernesses of David's babyhood. John Hartman had to an increasing degree in his death what he had not had in life, the affection and admiration of his boy. How was it possible for him to be anything else but silent with a wife so cold, so immovable, so strange? David was certain that he had solved his father's problem. Sometimes David could not bear to look at his mother.

But now that he was going away, David's eyes were somewhat sharpened. His mother looked thin and bent and tired; she seemed to have grown old while she sewed for him.

"You ought to get you a girl," he said with the colossal stupidity of youth and of the masculine mind.

Mrs. Hartman looked at him, as though she were suddenly startled. He seemed to have grown tall overnight; his new clothes had made a man of him. Then a film covered her eyes, as though she withdrew from the suggestions of lunacy into some inward sanctuary where burned the lamp of wisdom.

"A girl!" cried Cassie, as though the suggestion were monstrous. "To have her spoil my things! A girl!"

David's trunk was packed in the kitchen, thither his hat and satchel were brought also. When his breakfast was over he went down the street to the preacher's for a letter recommending his character. When he returned, his trunk and satchel had been sent to the station; he had now only to take his hat and say good-bye to his mother who was at this moment in the deep cellar. For her David waited awkwardly. He remembered how he had stood kicking his foot against the door sill on Christmas Day—how many years and years ago it seemed!

Now, as then, David experienced a softening of the heart. He forgot his resentment against his mother's coldness, against her strange passion for material things. She was his mother, she was all he had in the world, and he was going away from her and from his home. He heard her ascending the cellar steps, and he turned and went up to his room as though he had forgotten something, so that he might hide his tears.

At the entrance of the little hall which led to his room, David stood still, the lump hardening in his throat, his breath drawn heavily. His errand to the preacher's had not taken half an hour, but in that half-hour his room had been dismantled. The cheap little bed had been taken apart and had been carried into the hall; the carpet had been dropped out of the window to the grass below; broom and scrubbing-brush and pail waited in the corner. The door of his mother's room opposite his own was closed; a dust cloth was stuffed under it so that no mote could enter. Now, all the rooms in Cassie's house except the kitchen and her own could be immaculate.

For a long moment David stood still. He looked into his room, he looked at his mother's closed door, he looked at the door which shut off the deep front of the great house. He felt the same mysterious impression which Katy Gaumer felt when she looked at the outside of the Hartman house, as though it held within it strange secrets. It seemed now as though it thrust him forth as one who did not belong, as though its walls might presently contract until there should be no space for him to stand. It was a cruel suggestion to a boy about to leave his home! David breathed deeply as though to shake off the oppression, and then went down the steps.

Without apparent emotion he bade Cassie farewell, then strode briskly toward the station. Essie Hill, who let him sit beside her on the doorstep and who argued prettily with him about his soul, was nowhere to be seen; his companions, Ollie Kuhns and Billy Knerr and the Fackenthals, were at work or at school; Bevy Schnepp, whose great favorite he was, was busy with her washing in the squire's yard far up the street. In the door of the store stood Katy Gaumer. Her, with Alvin Koehler, he hated. David had with his own eyes beheld one of Alvin's hasty departures from Grandmother Gaumer's gate. Persons found their levels in this world and Katy had found hers.

But on the corner David hesitated. How tall she had grown! How large her eyes were, and how lacking in their old sparkle! Cheerfully would he have returned in this final moment of madness to the dullness of the Millerstown school to be near her once more, cheerfully would he have continued his abode in Millerstown forever. He determined to go to speak to her, to say, "Let us be friends." Essie Hill was pretty and sweet, and her anxiety about his soul was flattering, but Essie was like a candle to a shining star. He saw the flirt of Katy's red dress as she sailed up the schoolroom aisle; he heard her saucy answers to the teacher; he admired her gayety, her great ambition. She had planned by now to be at school, learning everything; instead, she wore a gingham apron and stood in the Millerstown store buying a broom!

A single step David had already taken, when Katy turned from her bargaining and their eyes met. Katy knew whither David was bound; already his train whistled faintly at the next station. It seemed to her that he looked at her with pity. He was to go, and she was to stay—forever! With bitterness Katy turned her back upon him.

For a year Grandmother Gaumer lay high upon her pillows, her patient eyes looking out from her paralyzed body upon her friends and her quiet room. Presently she was able to lift her hands and to say a few slow and painful words. Her bed had been moved to the parlor; from here she could look up and down the street, and out to the kitchen upon Katy at her work. A trolley line was being built to connect Millerstown with the county seat; she could see the workmen approaching across the flat meadows, and after a while could watch with a thrill a faint, distant gleam of light broaden into the glare of a great headlight as the car whizzed into the village. Her face grew thinner and more delicate; her survival came presently to seem almost a miracle. But still she lay patiently, listening to the storms and rejoicing in the sunshine. To her Katy read the Bible, hour after hour, a dull experience to the mind of Bevy, devout Improved New Mennonite though she was.

"You are an old woman," protested Bevy. "You are older than I in your ways. Run with Whiskey a little like you used to run! I could be much oftener here, and the other people would be glad to sit with gran'mom. I even put cakes for you in the hole and you don't take them out any more!"

Katy was really very happy during the long winter. Housekeeping had become easy; she would accept no help even with washing and cleaning. As for going about in Millerstown, Katy laughed, as neat, aproned in housewifely fashion, she sat by her grandmother's bed.

"Shall I go now to quiltings and surprise parties when I would not go before? I am not interested in those things."

Often there was time in the long afternoons for Katy to sit with her books. She knew what Alvin was studying; it was easy at first to keep up with him. She enjoyed the sense of importance which her position as head of the house gave her. Sarah Ann dissolved in tears as she praised her; Uncle Edwin and Aunt Sally made much of her. And how much more important was she than any of them knew! Alvin was doing well at school, at least so Alvin wrote. When trouble came, she would have Alvin to fly to. When her tasks seemed a burden, or when studying without a teacher became difficult, or when the winter storms shook the house, she remembered how he had kissed her. The complication which Dr. Benner had feared for Katy had arrived. Dr. Benner was by this time married; in the glamour in which he lived, he was unconscious of the existence of Katy except as a person of whom questions must occasionally be asked, to whom directions must sometimes be given. His wife was not pleasant and "common"; she was "proud"; she gave Millerstown to understand that as soon as she could persuade her husband to buy a practice in a more cultivated community, they would leave.

At Christmas time Alvin did not come home, but went instead to visit a schoolmate. If he had come, there would have been no place for him to stay. The little house on the mountain-side was cold and deserted; it would probably never be occupied again. Alvin wrote occasionally to Katy and Katy wrote regularly to him. It was not to be expected that he should neglect his work to write letters. Fortunately the Millerstown post-office was presided over at present by old man Fackenthal, who did not scrutinize addresses with undue closeness. Nevertheless, Katy disguised her own hand and dropped her letters into the slit in the door at night.

David returned at Christmas time with an added inch of height, with straighter shoulders and a sterner glance. David moved swiftly, answered questions directly, walked alone upon the mountain-side, or sat with his books in his mother's kitchen. He seemed to have had some improving, enlightening experience; college had already done a great deal for him. Him Katy did not see.

Nor did Alvin appear in the summer time, except for a few days at the end. He had asked Katy for another fifty dollars in the spring, and she had sent it to him without stopping to consider that now more than half of her money was gone. Alvin meant to work in a drug store this summer, at least so Alvin said, in order to pay part of his debt. But the dispensing of soda water did not appear to have been as profitable as he expected, for in August, when he came to Millerstown, he borrowed another fifty dollars. He promised certainly now that he would come for Christmas. He put his arms boldly round Katy and kissed her many times. It seemed that Alvin, too, had had illuminating experiences.

David spent the summer in his little room and on the mountain-side. David sometimes lay for hours together on the plateau before the Sheep Stable. Sometimes he carried thither the books which he continued to study diligently. Sometimes he walked about, climbing among rocks, tramping along the arched back of the little range of hills,—mountains, to Millerstown. David sighed contentedly and breathed deeply. He noted the dappled shadows, the wreathing clematis, the tall spikes of lobelia, the odor of slippery elm the first reddening branch of the gum trees. He looked down upon the fertile fields, upon the scattered villages, and he was almost happy. Then David returned to his books. It was strange that he should study so earnestly during the long summer. Surely David with his good mind had not fallen behind his fellows!

David's illuminating experiences had not been entirely those which study and knowledge bring. David's arrival in the college town had been at once observed and marked. He towered above his fellows; he had a look of greater maturity than his years would warrant; he had apparently large means at his command. Upper classmen are not so entirely devoted as is supposed to the abuse of the entering novice. Upon the novice depends the continued existence of the college society which is so important a part of the college's social structure. You cannot very well urge a man to join an organization of which you are a member after you have beaten him or held his head under an icy hydrant! David's college made a tacit but no less real distinction between the youth who was likely to prove valuable society material and the youth who would likely prove to be merely a student. David's clothes were of the best, he had many of them, he occupied an expensive room; it was evident that he need not have recourse to the many shifts by which the poor boy in college provides himself with spending money. David was overlooked in the disciplinary measures by which many of his classmates were trained to respect their betters. His discipline was, alas! much harder to endure!

He accepted in his silent way the attentions which were showered upon him, the drives, the treats, the introductions to foolish young ladies whose eyes spoke their admiration. David was bewildered and embarrassed, and David for a time wisely remained silent. There was no reason to think that David had not been brought up in the politest of society. But, finally, alas! David spoke.

It was not often that a student had a party given especially for him. But, as the seven villages struggled for the honor of the birth of Homer, so the college societies longed for the honor of possessing David. Finally all but two dropped out of the race. David had not committed himself to either, but it was understood that in accepting the proffered entertainment he was practically making his decision.

The great evening approached; the great guest in his fine apparel, another new suit, now a dress suit made by the college tailor, appeared at his party. The prettiest girl of all appointed herself his companion, and to him addressed a pretty remark.

"We are glad to have you here at college, Mr. Hartman."

Then David spoke. The prettiness of the girl, the formality of her address, the bright lights, his conspicuous position—all combined in David's downfall. David did not speak naturally as he spoke now; David had no trouble with th, David knew the English idiom; David knew better, oh, much, much better. But poor David reverted to type.

"I sank myself," said David amid a great and growing hush. Then David walked out, away from the pretty girl, away from the bright lights, away, forever, from the organization which had sought him. Overwhelmed with embarrassment, outraged, David sought his room and his books. David could never be persuaded to return to the society in which he had been thus humiliated; he never emerged again from his room or his books except to recite or to walk or to go to his meals or to church. He henceforth lived alone. He discovered that by diligent study he could accomplish in three years what he had expected would require four. The sooner he was out of this place the better. He went weekly to a neighboring city, and there, finding a teacher of elocution, conquered, he was sure forever, that damning trick of speech. He grew handsomer; he filled his room with beautiful furniture and many books; his allowance assumed in the eyes of his college mates the proportions of a fortune in itself. But David could not be induced to forget. David lost much, but David in his sullen hermitage remained decent and unspoiled.

Once or twice in the summer he sat with Essie on her doorstep. Essie was prettier than ever; she still besought him to be "plain." David laughed at her and teased her; she was really the only person in the world with whom he laughed. His mother's strength seemed to have failed; often she lay down on the settle before it was dark, but only when she fell asleep did David find her in this ignominious position. If she heard a step she sprang up, as though she had committed a crime.

Once more Christmas approached and passed. This time again there was no visiting governor, no great feast, no entertainment. Again Alvin did not come home; he did not now write a letter or send a gift. Grandmother Gaumer was worse; the patience in her eyes had changed to a great weariness; she had ceased to be able to move or to speak.

In March there came a great storm. It extinguished all the village lamps; it whirled across the broad breast of the mountain, sending to the ground with a mighty crash, unheard of man, many trees; it beat against the Gaumer house, which seemed to tremble. In spite of the storm, however, Katy put on her scarlet shawl and went to the post-office, as of old. But in those days there had been no such feverish haste as this!

Her grandmother looked at her for a moment as she stood by the bed and tried to smile. Then Katy went out, her skirts flying in the wind, the rain beating in her face. She plodded along as best she could, without the old sensation of a viking breasting an angry sea.

At the post-office she found a letter, and there stopped to read it because she could not wait.

"Dear, dear Katy!" With what a wild thrill Katy beheld the opening words. Then Katy read on. "I am in great trouble, Katy. For some time I have not had enough money to get along, and now I must have fifty dollars. Oh, Katy, try and get it for me! Oh, I don't know what will happen, Katy. Oh, please, Katy!"

Katy read the letter through twice; then she stood gaping. Old man Fackenthal spoke to her and she answered without knowing what she said; then she went out and stood in the rain, trying to think. She had no money; her last cent had been given to Alvin in the fall. But Alvin had appealed to her to help; it was—oh, poor Katy!—an honor to be thus solicited. No one else could help him; he would go to no one else in the world.

Like a shock of cold water upon an exhausted body, fell Alvin's request upon Katy's weary, tired soul. When the necessity for an English entertainment was made clear to Katy, plans were immediate, execution prompt. Katy had known at once what she would do. She forgot now that she had no way of earning money; she did not anticipate that to her honest soul the burden of a debt would be almost as great as the burden of remembered theft. Boldly she presented herself to the squire in his office and there made her request. Nothing was plain to Katy except Alvin's bitter need.

The squire looked at her in astonishment.

"That is a good deal of money, Katy!" But the squire had seen Katy at her books. "You need books, I suppose, and things to wear. I see you studying and sewing, Katy. You are not to slip back in your studies before you go away."

"I will give you a paper and I will pay interest," promised Katy, who did not wish to discuss the spending of the money.

The squire went slowly to his safe. It must be very dismal for the child. His poor sister-in-law was not likely to improve, and she might, alas! be a long time dying. If the situation were not changed by fall, the child must be sent away and Edwin must come home to live. He remembered his own bright little sister; he remembered the plans of all the family for Katy. A sudden remorseful consciousness that they had forgotten Katy, and that they had left a good many burdens on her shoulders, moved him to give her the foolish sum for which she asked.

"This I give you, Katy," said he as he counted the money into her hand. It was not strange that the squire had taken so few journeys.

"No," protested Katy with a scarlet face; "it is a debt."

Recklessly Katy slipped the money into an envelope and mailed it, and Alvin, receiving it, wept for joy and thought with gratitude of the sender. The small part of it which he did not have to use to pay his most pressing debts he spent upon a girl from the county seat, one Bessie Brown, who had visited a friend at the normal school, and for whom he had great admiration.

CHAPTER XIII
EMPTINESS

But spring returned. Sarah Ann beheld with a thankful heart the hyacinths and narcissus in her flower beds pushing their heads through the soil, the rhubarb sprouting in her garden; she breathed in with unspeakable delight the first balmy breeze. Sarah Ann's friends were slipping rapidly away from her; she was one of the last survivors of her generation; but her appetite was still good, her step firm, her eye bright. Sarah Ann was a devout and trustful Christian, but she had never been able to understand why a heaven had not been provided on the beautiful earth for those who were worthy.

The dogwood put out earlier than usual its shelf-like boughs of bloom; before the end of April bluets starred the meadows round the Weygandt dam, and everywhere there was the scent of apple blossoms. Grandmother Gaumer's garden, with its vine-covered wall, its box-bordered paths, its innumerable varieties of flowers, was a place of magic. Though its mistress was away, it had never been so beautiful, so sweet.

In it Katy walked up and down in the May twilight. She moved slowly as though she were very idle or very tired, or as though no duties waited her. Her face was white; in the black dress which she had had made for her grandfather's funeral and which her grandmother had persuaded her to lay away, she seemed taller and more slender than she was.

Each time she turned at the end of the garden walk, she looked at the house and then away quickly. She did not mean to look at all, but involuntarily she raised her eyes. The parlor windows behind which Grandmother Gaumer's lamp had shone so long were blank. In the room above, which had been Grandfather and Grandmother Gaumer's there was now a light. Every few seconds the light was darkened by the shadow cast by the passing to and fro of a large figure. From the same room came the sound of a child's voice, the little voice of "Ehre sei Gott" in the Christmas entertainment long ago. Now it was raised in cheerful laughter. In the kitchen, Edwin Gaumer sat by the table, a page of accounts before him. There were now more persons in the house than there had been since Katy had been taken there as a baby, but the house was, nevertheless, intolerably lonely. Grandmother Gaumer's life was ended; she had been laid beside her husband in the Millerstown cemetery. She had had a long life; she had outlived almost all those whom she had loved, even all her children but one; she needed no mourning.

But Katy sorrowed and would not be comforted.

"She was all I had. I have a few other friends like the squire and Sarah Ann, but these are old, too."

Katy walked more and more slowly along the garden path. Even her grandmother's death had brought from Alvin no letter.

"I cannot understand it," whispered Katy to herself; "I cannot understand it!"

It seemed to Katy that there was no subject in the world upon which her thoughts could rest comfortably, no refuge to which her weary, sorrowful soul could flee. During her grandmother's illness, she had dreamed of Alvin, of his progress at school, of the time when he should come home and they should plan together. He had kissed her again and again; she belonged to him forever. But why, oh, why did he not write? There was for poor Katy only anxiety and humiliation in the world.

"And I am in debt!" she mourned. Her constant reading of the Bible to her grandmother had furnished her with quotations for all the experiences of life. It was a textual knowledge which many preachers would have envied her. It gave her now a vehicle with which to express her woes. "I am like David in the cave," said she. "I am in distress and in debt."

"Fifty dollars!" whispered Katy as she walked up and down the garden paths. "I am fifty dollars in debt!"

It was true that the squire had insisted that the money must be a gift. But the squire had not the least suspicion of the purpose to which his gift had been devoted.

"They have nothing for Alvin," said Katy to herself. "Alvin has had no chance. He will surely pay it back to me. I am certain he will pay it back!"

The dew fell damp about her, but still Katy walked on and on, up and down the garden paths. When, finally, she went into the kitchen, her Uncle Edwin looked up at her blinking. In his rugged face was all the kindness and sober steadfastness of the Gaumers.

"Sit down once, Katy," said he, neither in command nor in request, but with gentle entreaty. "I want to talk to you a little."

Katy sat down on the edge of the old settle. She would listen to no condolences; every fiber in her body bristled at the first sign of sympathy. Sympathy made her cry, and she hated to cry. Katy hated to be anything but cheerful and happy and prosperous and in high hope.

Several minutes passed before Uncle Edwin began upon his subject. Though he loved Katy, he stood in awe of her, gentle and weak though she appeared in her black dress.

His first question was unfortunately worded.

"What are you going to do now, Katy, that gran'mom is gone?"

Katy looked at him sharply. She was not well; she was worried and unhappy; she found it easy to misunderstand.

"For my living, you mean?" said Katy, cruelly.

Uncle Edwin gazed, open-mouthed at his niece. He would have been ludicrous if he had not been so greatly distressed.

"Ach, Katy!" protested he, in bewilderment.

"What do you mean, then?"

Uncle Edwin had at that moment not the faintest idea of what he meant. He hesitated for an instant, then he stammered out an answer.

"I mean, Katy, when are you going to school?"

The room swam round before Katy's dull eyes. School! She was never going to school; she could not go to school. But a more acute anxiety threatened; the moment when she must give an account of her two hundred dollars was probably at hand. Katy's very heart stood still.

"I am not going to school," said she.

Again Uncle Edwin's mouth opened.

"Why, you are, Katy!"

"Do you mean"—wildly Katy seized upon any weapon of defense she could grasp: it was easy to confuse Uncle Edwin's mind—"do you mean when am I going away from here?"

Now Uncle Edwin's blue eyes filled with tears.

"Ach, Katy!" cried he. "We are only too glad to have you. You know how I wanted to take you when you were a little baby, and Aunt Sally wanted you. This is your home forever, Katy. But you always talked so of school and education!"

"I do not care for education."

Uncle Edwin's head shook with the activity of the mental processes within it.

"What!" he exclaimed, incredulously. Then he took a fresh start. Katy's ill-temper was incomprehensible, but when she heard what his plans were, she would be cross no longer.

"You have two hundred dollars in the bank, Katy. The two hundred that the governor sent you a while back, haven't you, Katy?"

He did not ask the question for information, but to establish the points of his simple discourse.

"Well," said Katy, faintly, from her agitation.

"That is a good start. Now the squire will help and I will help. We have this all arranged between us. Then, when you come of age you will get the money your gran'mom left you. But that you are not to touch for your education. That you will leave by me, because I am your guardian in the law. You were faithful to your gran'mom till the end, and you are not to spend your own money for education. The squire and I will look after that."

The muscles of Katy's face had stiffened and utterance was impossible. All the old, dear, eager hope filled her heart. But Alvin was still precious to her; her sacrifice had been made for him; the sacrifice whose extent she was just beginning to understand. This, however, was no time to think of Alvin. She forced herself to say again quietly that she was not going to school.

"Not—going—to—school!" cried Uncle Edwin with long pauses between his words.

"No," repeated Katy. "I am not going to school."

Then Katy sought her room and her bed.

When Uncle Edwin reported his interview with Katy to the squire, the squire laughed.

"Ach, she just talks that way! She is a little contrary, like all the women when they are tired or not so well. Of course she is going! She was in here not long ago talking about it and I gave her some money for books and other things."

The next day the squire himself spoke to Katy.

"Are you getting ready for school, Katy?"

"I am not going to school."

"Since when have you changed your mind?"

"This long time."

The squire turned and looked at Katy over his glasses.

"Why, it is only a little while since I gave you money for books!"

"You didn't give me money," corrected Katy, stammering. "It was a loan; I said it was a loan. Else I wouldn't have taken it."

"Humbug, Katy!"

If the squire had been Katy's guardian, she would have gone promptly to school. But Uncle Edwin held that office and he could not have brought himself to compel Katy to do anything. The squire argued and coaxed and cajoled and Katy looked at him with a white face and stubborn eyes.

"It wasn't right to take the two hundred dollars from Daniel in the beginning if you didn't intend to use it for schooling, Katy. What are you going to do?"

"I am going to earn my living," answered Katy. Her debt to the squire was swelling to tremendous proportions; and there was also the much greater sum for which she could give no account. Katy was sick at heart. But she managed to end the interview lightly. "I'm going to earn money and save it, and be a rich, rich woman."

Once safely out of the squire's office, Katy walked up the mountain road. She must be alone, to think and plan what she must do. School? Her whole body and mind and soul longed for school. But she could never go to school. She must pay the squire his fifty dollars. Suppose he should ask her to show him the books and dresses she had bought! She must also replace the whole two hundred before they found her out. She could see the expression of amazement and disgust on the face of the squire at the mere suspicion of any close friendship between a Gaumer and a Koehler. People despised Alvin.

"But they have no right to," cried Katy. "I want to see Alvin. He will make it right, I am sure he will make it right. He is older than I!" Katy spoke as though this fact were only now known to her. "He has no right—" But Katy went no further: her love had been already sufficiently bruised and cheapened. "I have tied myself up in a knot! I have done it myself!"

Katy looked down upon the Hartman house. Rumor said that Mrs. Hartman was failing; the rare visitors to her kitchen found her on the settle in midday.

"It is nothing but dying in the world," mourned Katy. "We grow up like grass and are cut down."

But Katy had now no time to think of the Hartmans. She went on up the mountain road until she reached the Koehler house. The walls needed a coat of whitewash, the fences were brown, the garden was overgrown. It was a mean little place in its disorder.

"He never had a chance," protested Katy in answer to some inward accusation. Then Katy went drearily home.

By the first of June Alvin had still not written; by the end of June Katy was still looking for a letter. The term of the normal school had closed; it was time for him to be at home. Surely he could not mean to stay away forever!

Day after day Katy's relatives watched her solicitously, expecting her grief to soften, her old spirits to return; day by day Katy grew more silent, more depressed. Uncle Edwin now attacked her boldly.

"Do you forget how smart the governor thought you were, Katy?" Or, "It was bad enough for your gran'mom that you couldn't go to school for two years, Katy, but this would be much worse for her."

In July Uncle Edwin took fresh courage and began to reproach her. If she was going to school, no time must be lost, they must make plans, she must have an outfit.

"David Hartman is at home," said he. "He will be very learned. He is smart. But he is not so smart as you, Katy. Do you forget how you were up to him in school and he is older than you?"

Katy swallowed her coffee with a mighty effort.

"And Alvin Koehler was here to-day," went on Uncle Edwin. "He wants that the directors should give him the Millerstown school, now that Carpenter is no longer here. We think he should have it while he comes from Millerstown. He has made a good deal of himself. You would be surprised to see him. But you are much smarter than he, Katy!"

Katy put up her left hand to steady her cup.

"If he gets the school, he is going to get married," went on Uncle Edwin placidly. "It is a girl from away. I am surprised that Alvin had so much sense as to study good and then settle down and get married. He said he had such an agency in the school for hats and neckties and such things. That was how he got along. There is, I believe, a good deal more in Alvin than we thought. But you, Katy—Why, Katy!"

Katy had risen from the table, her face deathly pale.

"I have burned myself with coffee," said she.

Simultaneously Uncle Edwin and Aunt Sally and little Adam pushed back their chairs.

"Ach, Katy, here; take water, Katy!"

"No," protested Katy, "it is not so bad as that. But I will go and lie down a little. My head hurts me, too. I am tired and it is very hot. I will go to my room."

Stammering, Katy got herself to the stairway. There, having closed the door behind her, she started up the steps on hands and knees. At the top she sat down for a moment to rest before she crept across the room to her bed. Again it was an advantage to be "Bibelfest," she had once more an adequate vehicle for the expression of her woes.

"I am like Job," wept poor Katy. "I am afflicted. I am a brother to jackals and a companion to ostriches."

Once when Katy opened her eyes, she saw opposite her window a single, pink, sunset-tinted cloud floating high in the sky. Somehow the sight made her agony more bitter.

Down in the kitchen Uncle Edwin, alarmed, confused, distressed, found himself confronted by an irate spouse. He could not remember another occasion in all their married life when his Sally had lost patience with him.

"Now, pop," said she, "it is enough. You are to leave poor Katy be."

CHAPTER XIV
KATY PLANS HER LIFE ONCE MORE

Stubbornly she forced herself to face the event which made necessary this fresh planning of her life. Beyond the event itself she did not at this moment proceed. She beheld Alvin with his red tie, Alvin with his dark curls, Alvin with his beautiful olive skin, Alvin with his great, expressive eyes. Sitting by her window with the soft evening air blowing in her face, the odors of the garden rising sweetly about her, Adam's gentle, laughing voice, and all the other pleasant sounds of the Millerstown evening in her ears, Katy wept.

"Oh, Elend (Misery)!" cried she, after the manner of Millerstown in trouble.

After a while the voice of pride made itself heard. It was not Alvin whom she defended, but herself.

"No word of marrying was said between us."

"But he kissed you," reminded the inward voice. "You thought he would marry you."

To this Katy could return only the answer of flaming cheeks and a throbbing heart.

"And there is all the money you gave him!" reminded the voice within her.

"I said he needn't pay it back!"

"But you expected him to pay it back!"

"But he needn't!"

"An honorable person would pay it before he got married."

"He has no money! He has nothing to pay it with!"

"He had an agency for neckties! He has enough to get married!"

It seemed to Katy that a ring of queer faces mocked her. She had eaten only a mouthful of supper, and she was a little light-headed. She seemed to see clearly the "lady from away" of whom her uncle had spoken. Imagination, helped by recollection of the beautiful ladies in the Allentown stores, pictured her clearly. She was brilliant and beautiful and learned, and she dressed marvelously. She was probably an acquaintance whom Alvin had made at school; she was all that Katy longed to be.

Now there rushed upon Katy a new and terrible sensation. She had been envious of David Hartman because he was going away to school, but here was a new kind of envy which affected not only the mind but the whole being. She threw herself down on her bed once more and hid her face in the pillow and wept with deep, sobbing gasps.

Presently, the paroxysm of crying over, Katy rose once more and once more dashed cold water over her burning cheeks.

"I will not cry another tear," said she with stern determination. "I will now plan my life. I must first earn the fifty dollars to pay back the squire; that is certain. Beyond that is nothing—nothing—nothing in this world. My young life is ruined."

For an hour Katy sat by the window, her chin in her hands. Frequently tears dropped to the window sill, but she gave way to sobs no more.

"My heart is broken," declared Katy. "But I must live on. I will probably live to be a thousand years old. I wish I was with my good gran'mom in heaven. I wish"—said Katy presently, with a long sigh—"I wish I had been born into this world with sense."

By the time that the house had quieted for the night and the sounds of Millerstown's going about had ceased, Katy, too, was asleep. She stirred uneasily on her pillow, her hands now clasped under a scarlet cheek, now flung above her head. But she had outlined her working theory.

In the morning she appeared in good time for her breakfast. She had not been refreshed by her restless sleep, but the first sharpness of the blow was past. In the doorway of the kitchen stood Bevy, her bright eyes sparkling with curiosity.

"What is this I hear about Koehler's boy?" she asked Edwin Gaumer. "Is it so that he will have the Millerstown school?"

"It looks that way," answered Uncle Edwin. "He is a normal, and he has good letters from the normal about his work, and he comes from Millerstown and we should help our own; and besides nobody else wants the Millerstown school."

"A Koehler teaching!" Bevy raised her hands in an astonished gesture. "He is the first Koehler that ever knew more than A B C. The school board will get into trouble. This will never go. Where will he live?"

"He will rent a house. He is getting married after school takes in."

"Married!" shrieked Bevy. The suspicion that friendly relations existed between Katy and Alvin had grown to certainty. Now, furious as Bevy had been because Katy had so lowered herself, she resented Alvin's daring to attach himself to any one else. "What cake-not-turned will have him?"

"A lady from away. I think she comes from Allentown."

"You have right to say from away," sniffed Bevy. "No girl from here would look twice at him."

Katy turned her back upon Bevy as she lifted the breakfast from the stove to the table. Sharp stabs of pain pierced her. She would have to hear a dozen times that day that Alvin was to be married. The strain of listening to Bevy's comments was almost more than she could endure. It had been important before that no one should suspect that she was helping Alvin; now it had become absolutely imperative.

When breakfast was over, Katy started down the street to carry out her plan of life. Her dress was longer than was becoming, the spring had gone out of her step. She passed the store and the post-office and turned up Church Street, and there beheld approaching the object of her journey, who started visibly at sight of her. David had grown still taller; he wore still more elegant clothes; he would have found an even more cordial welcome to the societies of his college than would have been extended to him upon entering. He was certain that he could be graduated in June of the next year, and he was pleasantly aware of his position as the most wealthy and the most reserved student in college. David liked the distinction. His speech was now entirely English; he was certain that it would be impossible for him to blunder again. He had determined that when he had graduated he would travel; he would never live for many months at a time in dull Millerstown. David added another adjective to Katy's characterization of that busy, tidy village; he called it bourgeois. David had, indeed, soared high above the low plane of his origin! He had found among the few books in the Hartman house the pictures of Paris and Amiens and Canterbury, and had learned for the first time that his father had been abroad. The mystery of his father was thereby deepened. There was only one portion of David's heart which had not hardened; in that his father was enthroned. His father, he was convinced, had had great powers, but he was held to earth and to Millerstown by a cruel fate which had linked him forever to an unworthy companion. Thus had Cassie's son decided against her.

David was astonished to hear Katy call to him.

"Come here, please, David. I want to talk to you."

He crossed the street at once and stood looking down at her. He could not help seeing, even though he had relegated Katy forever to obscurity in Millerstown, that Katy had not become altogether unattractive. Her eyes no longer sought his brightly, she looked down or past him as he came toward her. He wondered what possible errand she could have with him. He felt his face flushing and he was furious with himself.

"How are you, Katy?" said he, his voice sounding strangely in his ears.

Katy did not hear his question. Her thoughts were fixed upon the plan of life.

"I want to speak to you about something, David. I was going to your house. The doctor said your mother was not well. I heard him say to the squire that she would have to have a girl to live with her when you went back to school. I would like the place, David."

David's eyes nearly popped from his head. It was true that his mother seemed feeble and that he had been making inquiries about a maid for her. But by such an offer as this he was dumbfounded. Had Katy lost her mind? No Gaumer had ever worked out. Her relatives were comfortably fixed; she would doubtless have some money of her own when she came of age. Where was Alvin Koehler, the despicable, to whom Katy had seemed attached? Had he heard her aright? He could only look at her and gasp out a foolish, "You!"

"I can work," said Katy, with a scarlet face. "I did all the work when my grandmother was sick for so long."

"Are you not going to school?" David grew more and more astonished as he became convinced that Katy was in earnest.

"I am not going to school," said Katy. "If I cannot get a place to work at your house, I will get a place somewhere else, that is all."

"Are you in any trouble, Katy?" asked David. "Can I do anything for you?"

Katy's head lifted. David Hartman was pitying her, asking to be allowed to help her. It was intolerable. She realized now how tall he was, how deep his gray eyes, how fair his white skin; she remembered her gingham apron, her debt, her disappointed hopes, every embarrassment and pain that had befallen her.

"There is nothing wrong, of course," said she coldly as she turned away. "That is all I wanted of you."

"Oh, but wait!" David went to her side and kept pace with her. He did not proceed with his speech at once. The old vision dazzled him, Katy in a scarlet dress, Katy laughing, Katy racing down the pike. It was abominable for her to become a servant—upon this subject, also, David's opinions had advanced. What in the world were her relatives about? But if she must live out, it would be better for her to work for his mother than to work at the hotel—the only other establishment in Millerstown which required the services of a maid. He would then have her in his house; the notion set David's cheeks suddenly to burning, his heart to throbbing. He wondered what room his mother would give her, where she would sit at the table, what she would do in the evenings when her time was her own.

"Do you want to engage me?" asked Katy, sharply; "or don't you want to engage me?"

"My mother will be only too glad to have you," said David, eagerly.

"I will come when your school opens," promised Katy, as she turned the corner.

"If I get a dollar and a half a week,"—the standard of wages in Millerstown was not high,—"it will take me thirty-three and a third weeks to save fifty dollars," reckoned Katy. "That will take from September till June. After that I do not think of anything. Perhaps by that time I will die. Then I do not care if they find out that I haven't my two hundred dollars any more."

Katy at home went on with her accustomed tasks. She was silent; she avoided her aunt and uncle, since any sudden, gentle address made her certain that she was going to cry. She put little Adam down whenever he wished to climb up beside her on the settle; she was to every one a trying puzzle. In her nervousness she had often a desire to stand still and scream.

One evening the squire came into the Gaumer kitchen. Edwin lay on the settle asleep, his wife sat by the table sewing, little Adam was long since in bed. Katy, too, had gone upstairs. Forgetting now that she had announced her intention of going to bed immediately, she left her place by the window to go down for a drink, and came face to face with the squire who was entering. The squire looked grave; he seated himself in Grandfather Gaumer's armchair as though he meant to hold court. In a flash Katy knew what he had come to say. Uncle Edwin sat up blinking, Aunt Sally dropped her sewing into her lap. The squire did not often pay calls so late in the evening.

"Katy," began the squire in a stern voice, "what is this I hear about you?"

Katy's hand was still upon the latch of the stairway door; she grasped it for support. She had thought that she was prepared for the coming interview, but she was now badly frightened. Never before had the squire spoken to her with anything but gentleness and affection.

"What do you hear about me?"

"Benner came in just now on his way from Cassie Hartman's. He had been trying to find a girl for her. She said that now she would not need one, that you were going to hire out to her in September."

Uncle Edwin blinked more rapidly. Aunt Sally's lips parted.

"Well?" said Katy.

"Is this thing so?"

"Yes," answered Katy, bravely. "There is nothing wrong in it. It is honest."

"You are going to hire out!" cried Edwin.

Aunt Sally began to cry. These tears were not the first she had shed on Katy's account.

"What for?" demanded Uncle Edwin. "You have a home. I told you we would send you to school. You need not even touch your money. What is this, Katy?"

"I want to earn my living, that is all." Katy's voice was dry and hard. "It is surely my right to earn my living if I want to!"

"Earn your living if you must!" said the squire, gruffly. "Of course you can earn your living if you want to. But go to school and learn to earn it right."

"I do not want to go to school."

The squire looked at her helplessly. Then he crossed the room and took her by the shoulders and seated her on the settle between Edwin and himself. He was a persuasive person; it was hard for any one to deny him what he commanded or what he requested.

"Katy, dear, are you in any trouble?"

Katy actually prayed for help in her prevarication.

"No."

"There is Edwin and here am I," went on the squire. "We are strong enough to do up anybody. Now, what is the matter, Katy?"

"Nothing," insisted Katy.

"You once wanted to sing," Aunt Sally reminded her. "You were wonderful strong for singing."

"Sing!" echoed Katy. "I, sing? I can only caw like a crow."

"You had such plans," said Uncle Edwin. "You were going to be so educated. You were going to bring home your sheaves!"

"I have more sense now," explained Katy.

She looked at them brightly. Her eyes measured their broad shoulders—how she longed to lay her heavy burden upon them! She no longer belonged to her kin, she was an alien; she had allied herself with Koehlers, with William Koehler who was a thief, with Alvin Koehler who scorned her. She would sooner die than tell what she had done. The Gaumers were not niggardly, but they knew the value of money. Even Katy had learned that it took thirty-three and one third weeks to earn fifty dollars!

"You must let me be!" she burst out wildly. "I am not a child. I have no father and mother and my dear grandfather and grandmother are dead. You must let me be! You are persecuting me!"

In an instant the stairway door closed in the faces of her astonished elders. Uncle Edwin got out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

"Millerstown will think we are ugly to her," he said.

"I do not care what Millerstown thinks," declared the squire as he rose to go. "It is what I think. In the name of sense what has come over the girl?"

In her room Katy threw herself once more upon that oft-used refuge, her bed.

"If I could forget him," she moaned. "If I only could forget him. It is not right to think of him. I cannot be learned, but I can be good. It is wrong to think all the time of him." She remembered various women in the village who loved inconstant, unfaithful men. "I am a Mary Wolle! I am Sally Hersh! I am a shame to myself!"

Three times before September the squire reasoned with her. Even the doctor ventured to remonstrate.

"No Gaumer has ever done such a thing before, Katy."

"Well, you," said Katy with spirit, "are not a Gaumer, so you do not need to care."

At her Bevy stormed.

"You surely have one rafter too few or too many, Katy. There is something wrong with your little house! Are you crazy, Katy?"