Katy Gaumer

"Yes," answered Katy, thus nearly paralyzing Bevy Schnepp. "I am."

In September Katy took up her abode at the Hartmans'. Millerstown saw her go with wonder. She carried a little satchel and walked with her chin in the air. Millerstown gazed out doors and windows to see whether the thing it had heard could be true.

"Ach, Katy!" protested Sarah Ann, "are you not going to be high gelernt?" Sarah Ann suspected some difficulty at home; her sympathetic soul was distressed for Katy. "You can come any time and live with me."

"Won't you ever go to your uncle any more?" asked Susannah Kuhns, her frank inquiry voicing the curiosity of Millerstown.

Katy turned and faced them.

"Why, certainly I will. I will go there every day."

Alvin Koehler had opened the Millerstown school and had already rented a house from William Knerr the elder. Katy saw him almost daily; he had even stopped her on the street to tell her that he had not forgotten her. He exuded satisfaction with himself from every pore; he would even have told her about his Bessie if Katy had lingered for an instant.

"She is not so good-looking as she once was, Katy isn't," said Alvin as he looked after her.

David Hartman had gone when she reached his mother's house. Mrs. Hartman lay upon the settle in the kitchen. Her face was pale; she sat up with difficulty when Katy came in. She knew little of the affairs of Millerstown; she did not speculate about the reasons for Katy's presence in her house.

"It is a long time since my house was cleaned right," she complained. "We must begin at the top and clean everything. To-day, though, we will clean David's room. That is where you are to sleep. You can first scrub the cupboards and dust the books and put them away in the cupboard. He has many, many books and they gather dust so. Then stuff a dust-cloth tight under the door while you clean the rest. And take the bed apart so you can dust it well."

Mrs. Hartman lay down, breathless. The Gaumers had the reputation of being fine housekeepers; she hoped that her house would again be restored to cleanliness. Her son, with his untidy, mannish ways, was gone; peace had returned.

By Saturday Katy had become acquainted with the attic of the great house, the house which in her childhood had been to her the abode of Mystery. The attic, with its store of discarded but good furniture, its moth-guarded chests, was clean; it had been swept, whitewashed, aired, scrubbed, made immaculate. Each garment had been carried down to the yard, had there been beaten and sunned, and then had been restored to its proper place. Cassie, making her painful way to the third story, pronounced the work good. The next week the bedrooms were to be similarly treated. Into their magnificence Katy had peered, round-eyed. Here was no mystery, here was only grandeur. Thus Katy would have furnished her house.

On Saturday evening when work was done, Katy went down to sit with Aunt Sally. She was desperately tired; such toil as Cassie Hartman directed had not come within the Gaumer experience. But Katy was happier; that was plain even to the eyes of Aunt Sally, who shook her head over the strange puzzle. Katy had had no time for thinking. And into the putlock hole she had dropped a dollar and a half. The putlock hole was a safe bank; only a small hand like her own could reach into the inner depths into which she thrust her precious earnings.

CHAPTER XV
AN OLD WAY OUT OF A NEW TROUBLE

"It is to be oak in the dining-room," Alvin explained to Sarah Ann Mohr, with whom he took his meals. Alvin had reached that point in his self-satisfaction when he would have bragged to stones and trees if there had been no human creature at hand to listen. In Sarah Ann he had an eager hearer. Sarah Ann sat at close attention with parted lips and shining eyes. Sometimes she cried out, "Du liefer Friede" (Thou dear peace)! or, "Bei meiner Seele" (By my soul)!

"There is to be a sideboard and a serving-table to match," went on Alvin.

Sarah Ann opened her mouth a little wider.

"What is a serving-table, Alvin?"

"A serving-table is a—it is—a—a table," explained Alvin. "You serve on it."

"Oh, of course," said Sarah Ann, without understanding in the least. "I am astonished, Alvin!"

"We are just going to furnish two bedrooms now. When we have a servant, then it will be time enough to furnish the other room."

Sarah Ann's eyelids fluttered up and down.

"A servant! Ach, Alvin, I hope you are not going to marry a sick one!"

"Of course not," protested Alvin. "Of course not, Sarah Ann!" Alvin's chest expanded, he breathed deeply. "Ladies in the city do not do their own work, Sarah Ann!"

"Ladies!" repeated Sarah Ann. Here was the capstone of Alvin's grandeur. A lady was to Millerstown almost a mythical creature. "Are you, then, marrying a lady, Alvin?"

"To be sure," answered Alvin. "She never yet had to work in a kitchen. She is in the store just because she likes it. Her pop is rich."

"Do you mean she cannot cook, Alvin? Or wash? Or bake?"

"She could," said Alvin. "She could if she wanted to. But she doesn't like it."

"Doesn't like it!" As well might one say that Bessie did not like to sleep or eat or breathe! Sarah Ann's own breath was quite taken away. She shook her head ponderously, certain that either she or Alvin was going crazy. Then a question occurred to Sarah Ann. She had really a delicate sense of propriety; if she had stopped to think, she would not have asked the question. But it was out before she could restrain herself. "You will then bring your pop home from the poorhouse, I suppose, Alvin?"

Alvin blushed. He did not like to have any one mention his father.

"Father is not in the poorhouse because he is poor. He is there because he has lost his mind."

"Ach, Alvin, he is better, indeed, he is better! I was at the poorhouse to help with a prayer meeting, and, indeed, he is almost himself, Alvin."

Alvin rose from his seat on Sarah Ann's bench. The conversation had taken a turn he did not like.

"I could not have pop with Bessie," he insisted. "Pop could easily become violent."

When he had left her, Sarah Ann sat paralyzed. Her whole soul longed for the listening ear of Susannah Kuhns, but as yet her body had not gathered strength enough to transport itself to Susannah's house. Mercifully, the fates arranged that Susannah should observe the departing Alvin and should hurry over as fast as her feet could carry her. Susannah liked to hear Sarah Ann tell of the strange events of which she read, of the man whose head was turning into the head of a lion, of the dog who had learned to talk, of the woman who put glass into her husband's pies. But Susannah loved better to hear Sarah Ann tell of Alvin.

Now Susannah stood with arms akimbo, with shakes of head, with astonished clapping of lips together.

"This makes the understanding stand still," declared Susannah as she listened.

"He gave her a ring already," went on Sarah Ann. "He has a wedding present ready for her. He let himself be enlarged from a photograph and he has a big picture. He carries a cane in the picture. He has it hung up already in his house. He said I should come over once and he would show it to me."

In Alvin's course at the normal school he had studied not only pedagogy and psychology, but he had had practical experience in teaching. Connected with the normal school was a model school. There, in a light and airy room whose windows were filled with blooming plants and whose walls were decked with pictures, Alvin had given the "May lesson," a half-hour of instruction in the blossoms and birds of spring. Vases of snowballs and iris and dishes of bluets and violets served as illustrations for his remarks; he had also pictures of flickers and robins. His class was orderly and polite. For a month he had prepared for this half-hour of teaching; he had even reviewed with the superintendent of the model school what he meant to say and had received her advice and approval. Alvin thought so much about himself and so little about any other subject that he had by this time forgotten the ways of the Millerstown school. The Millerstown school and the model school were not much alike.

He received after his lesson was over a commendatory letter from the superintendent, the same letter which he had proudly exhibited to Edwin Gaumer and the other directors. The superintendent said that he was a young man of good presence, that he had thoroughly mastered his subject, that he had held the interest of his pupils throughout his teaching period, and had maintained perfect discipline. The superintendent did not say that she herself was a stern person, whom no child would disobey, and that she had remained in the room while the lesson was in progress. The model school superintendent could, to be sure, have conducted the lesson no differently. It would hardly have been wise to train the model school children to test the disciplinary powers of their teachers by insubordination, in order that the teachers might be trained in the various methods for quelling riots!

On the 1st day of September, Alvin put on his best suit and went to school. He had been carefully instructed in the importance of first impressions, the necessity for brightness and cheerfulness of hue as well as of disposition in the schoolroom. He had quite forgotten that the Millerstown teachers were expected to dust and sweep the room in which they taught.

He looked for his scholars along the road, but could see none of them. He had forgotten also the custom which awarded the best seat, which was always the rear seat, to the first comer. In his own day he had frequently arrived at the schoolhouse at seven o'clock of the opening day to discover that there were half a dozen boys ahead of him.

The children, trained finally by Mr. Carpenter into some respect for the office of teacher, answered politely the good-morning with which Alvin had been instructed to begin the school day. They sang with gusto the familiar,—

a favorite for several generations, since it gave full opportunity for the use of the human voice. Then the children set themselves with gratifying diligence to a study of the lessons which Alvin assigned them. Alvin had notebooks in which were Outlines of Work for Primary Schools, Outlines of Work for Secondary Schools, Outlines of Work for Ungraded Schools, and the like. Here also were plans for Nature Work and Number Work, and various other kinds of Works whose names at least were new in the curriculum of the Millerstown school. The children took kindly enough to them all; they went quietly about their tasks. The discipline of school was pleasant. The older girls smiled at Alvin and blushed when he spoke.

To Sarah Ann, Alvin imparted daily fresh plans made by him and his Bessie for the furnishing of their house.

"We have changed to mahogany for the dining-room. Oak is not fashionable any more. People are getting rid of their oak." In these statements Alvin quoted from the clerk in a furniture store who had showed to him and Bessie a new mahogany set of dining-room furniture. "We have picked out our things already."

Sarah Ann did not know much about the various kinds of wood, but mahogany was a longer word than oak, and the furniture made of that wood was probably the finest that could be had. As a matter of fact, Sarah Ann had in her house without knowing it several fine pieces of mahogany. Sarah Ann told Susannah about Alvin's plans and they spread promptly over Millerstown.

"It is a rich girl, for sure," said Millerstown.

Once the young lady herself appeared to inspect Alvin's house. Millerstown saw the two step from the car and appraised the furs and the feathered hat as well as they could, considering that furs and feathers were not in general use in Millerstown except upon the backs of the creatures who wore them naturally. Millerstown was astonished and Millerstown admired. Katy Gaumer, returning from an hour spent with her Aunt Sally, her feathers a scarlet nubia, her furs a crimson shawl, blushed first scarlet and then crimson as she came upon Alvin and his lady, and went on her way choking back something in her throat. Alvin took his Bessie directly to Sarah Ann's house, and Sarah Ann, embarrassed and silent, accompanied them upon their tour of inspection. Sarah Ann could not explain exactly why she was invited.

"It is something about the fashion," she explained to Susannah. "The young folks are nowadays not to be alone."

Susannah laughed a scornful laugh.

"These must be fine young folks nowadays, if they cannot be trusted fifteen minutes to walk alone through a cold house!"

Upon the strength of Alvin's good position, and of Sarah Ann's account of the riches of the young lady's father, and of a dazzling glimpse of the young lady herself, Billy Knerr trusted Alvin for the second and the third and the fourth month's rent of his house, the school board continued to pay Alvin in advance, and the coal dealer let him have three tons of coal on credit. An Allentown tailor made him a new winter suit on the same terms, and Sarah Ann let him stay on without reminding him of his board bill. Alvin hated to pay for commodities which could be eaten, like potatoes, or which could be burned up, like coal. When the coal was in the cellar, he forgot entirely that presently there would be a bill. Alvin was wholly happy; there were moments when the contemplation of his good fortune made him dizzy.

On Sunday evenings Alvin continued his attendance at the Millerstown churches. He meant to ally himself finally with one of them, the Lutheran, probably, since the Weygandts and Gaumers and Fackenthals were Lutheran. He still visited, however, the church of the Improved New Mennonites where Essie Hill blushed deeply under her plain hat as he approached. There was a new legend upon Essie's hat. Instead of being a worker in the vineyard, she was now a soldier in the kingdom. David Hartman still sat occasionally with her upon her doorstep. Again her father spoke to her about him.

"You can't marry anybody outside the church, Essie."

"No, pop."

Into the Reverend Mr. Hill's somber eyes there came for an instant a hopeful gleam.

"Perhaps we could get him in the church?"

"Perhaps," agreed Essie. "I talk to him sometimes."

It was in December when Fate turned against Alvin. Alvin had now burned his supply of coal and was angrily refused more. Alvin's Allentown tailor, failing to receive replies to his letter, sent a collector to interview Alvin, an insistent person who, failing to find him at home, visited him at the schoolhouse. Even Sarah Ann, who was patience personified, reminded her boarder gently that she had fed him for four months without any return.

"I did it to earn a little extra missionary money, Alvin," explained Sarah Ann. "We have at this time of the year always a Thank Offering. I thought I would earn this to put in my box."

In December, the spirit of evil entered the Millerstown school. The familiar sound of twanging wires, of slamming desk lids, the soft slap of moistened paper balls striking the blackboards, were the first warnings of the rise of rebellion. The Millerstown children had not enough to do. Their teacher had reached the end of his outlines and knew not how to make more. He was desperately tired of teaching; he could not understand how he could ever have supposed that Mr. Carpenter had an easy or a pleasant time.

One morning when he entered the schoolroom, he found the blackboard decorated with a caricature of himself, labeled with the insulting appellation which Susannah Kuhns had once bestowed upon him, "Der Fratzhans." There were only two pupils who were skillful enough to have drawn so lifelike a representation of their teacher; they were two of the four large girls in the upper class, of whose admiration Alvin had been certain. It was a cruel blow for poor Alvin.

Again the collector who represented the tailor visited him. This time he met Alvin on Main Street, in front of the post-office, and at the top of his loud and unfeeling voice, demanded instant payment.

"I will get it," promised Alvin. "Till Monday I will have it for sure."

It must be said in justice to Alvin that he did not think at once of making application to Katy Gaumer for succor in his financial situation. To his Bessie he offered no such slight as that. But succor Alvin must have. He knew so little about the law that he feared he might be cast into prison. When he had got rid of the insulting creature and his demands, he dressed himself in the suit under discussion and at once sought Bessie at her father's house in the county seat.

There, alas! Alvin did not behave in a manner befitting one whose education and manners were so fine. He asked Bessie plainly and frankly for a loan, having been led by Miss Katy Gaumer to expect an immediate and favorable response from any female whom he honored with such a request. To his astonishment Bessie stared at him rudely.

"Why do you want money?"

"To pay a few things."

"Don't you have any money?"

"It isn't time yet for my salary." In reality Alvin had been paid as at first, in advance.

"Don't you have any money in the bank?"

"Why, no!" It had never occurred to Alvin to do anything with money but spend it.

"Have you paid for the furniture?"

"The furniture?" repeated Alvin weakly.

"Yes, the furniture." Bessie was growing redder and redder, her voice sharper. "The furniture that you and I picked out this long while!"

"Why, no," confessed Alvin, "I thought that you—that you would—would—"

"You thought I would pay for it!" Bessie's voice rose so high that her whole family might have heard if they had not considerately left the house to her and her beau. "Well, you were mistaken!"—Bessie was a slangy person, she said that Alvin was "stung." "And here"—Bessie ran upstairs and returned with a letter—"here is this. I thought, of course, this was a mistake. I paid no attention to it. Open it!"

Alvin grew pale. He recognized, before the envelope was in his hand, the business card on the corner. The bill for Bessie's ring had come to him many times. Now upon the bill Bessie laid the ring itself.

"There!" said she.

Alvin remembered suddenly how David Hartman had appeared on the mountain long ago and had hurled himself upon him. He had now much the same sensations.

"Do you mean that it is over?" he faltered in a dazed tone.

"Yes," answered Bessie in a very firm, decided tone; "I mean just that."

After Alvin had carried the ring back to the jeweler, a way suggested itself of paying the tailor. He returned his beautiful best winter suit, worn but a very few times, and received some credit on his bill. The balance, alas! remained, and the tailor seemed but slightly mollified by his humility. The coal bill remained also, but the coal had been burned and could not be restored to the dealer. The landlord had also been deprived of the rent for his house, the food had been eaten. What Alvin should do about the landlord and about Sarah Ann he did not know. Alvin had a sad Christmas.

January and February passed slowly. Alvin was still too proud to confess to Millerstown that Bessie had jilted him; he paid a little on his great rent bill as means of staving off the discovery a little longer. The children in school became entirely ungovernable, their invention more brilliant and demoniacal. The stovepipe fell with a crash to the floor, the flying soot blackening the faces of teacher and pupils alike. Alvin found his overshoes filled with powdered chalk and damp sponges; he met fresh pictures of himself when he opened the door. When he undertook in midwinter to raise a mustache there appeared promptly upon the upper lip of most of his pupils a dark and suggestive line. The children grew more impertinent, the bills more pressing. In despair Alvin climbed the hill and ransacked the little house where he had lived with his father. He thought bitterly of William, who had squandered his money on madness, and who had given his son so unpleasant a life.

He found nothing in the little house. As he shut the door behind him, he remembered how John Hartman had sat dead in his buggy before the gate as he and Katy came down the mountain road.

At once a warm glow flooded the soul of Alvin. How comforting had been the touch of Katy on that frightful day, how brave she had been! How kind Katy had been to him always, how freely she had granted all he asked! And now Katy was rich, she had doubtless inherited a good deal of money from her grandmother, and she was earning dear knows what liberal salary at the rich Hartmans'. She had come to take a sensible view of education; she had decided, Alvin was certain, that it counted for nothing. To Katy his heart warmed. He remembered her with tears.

At once Alvin hastened back to his little house, and there, sitting straightway down at his table, indited a letter. Composition was easy; he had long ago written a model.

"Dear, dear Katy,—I am in great trouble. I need a little money. If you have any, Katy, say about $25, put it in the hole in the wall. Katy, say you will." Then Alvin added a postscript. "I am not going to marry, Katy. I have broken it all off."

But Alvin did not present his letter. Instead, he held it until he should have made trial of another expedient. Perhaps some fragment of Katy's earlier largess still remained in the putlock hole!

That evening Alvin attended service at the church of the Improved New Mennonites. He was so unhappy that he dared not be alone, and in the church of the Improved New Mennonites he would meet none of his creditors, all of whom belonged to the larger, longer established churches. Here, too, Essie smiled at him. Essie was a comfortable person; she was neither ambitious for learning nor scornful of those who had no money. The preacher exhorted his congregation to make a fresh start; this Alvin determined to do.

On the way home he made a détour through the open fields until he reached the back of the Gaumer garden. Through the garden he crept softly. The night was dark, the wind whistled mournfully through the doors of the Gaumer barn. Alvin slipped and fell when his foot sank into the burrow of a mole. But Alvin pressed on.

When he put his hand into the putlock hole and his fingers touched the hard stone, he could have sunk to the ground with disappointment. Again he thrust in his hand and could find nothing. A third time he tried, pushing his cuff back on his arm so as to insert his hand as far as possible. A fourth time he reached in vain. In the old days when Katy had laid there for him the fat bills, they had always been within easy reach. Finally, in the last gasp of hope, he took from his pocket a long lead pencil and felt about with its tip. The broad stone which formed the floor of the putlock hole sloped; there, in the little pit at the back, Alvin's pencil touched an object which he could move about.

After much prying he drew it forth, a round half-dollar, a part of the last wages which Katy had received from Mrs. Hartman.

He held it in his hand and tried desperately to reach its fellows. Surely the Fates would not mock him with a half-dollar when his needs were so great! To-morrow evening he would bring a bent wire and see what he could do with that.

With the blessed coin in his hand, Alvin turned his steps homeward.

CHAPTER XVI
BEVY PUTS A HEX ON ALVIN

Mrs. Hartman superintended the cleaning, though she was able to take no part. She lay day after day on the old settle in the kitchen and was helped night after night to her bed. She did not like to be helped; if she could make the journey herself while Katy was for a moment busy elsewhere, or when Katy had run down to sit for a few minutes with her Aunt Sally, she was well pleased. As the hoard in Katy's bank grew, Katy's heart became lighter, her tongue moved with some of its old gayety. But Cassie made no answer; she said nothing, indeed, from day's beginning to day's end, except to give Katy directions about her work. Dr. Benner came occasionally to see her, rather as one who watches the progress of an incurable disease than as one who hopes to stay its course. The Lutheran preacher visited her and was received with all appropriate ceremony. Then, according to the old German custom, all work ceased and the family waited upon its guest. In nothing outside her house was Cassie interested. It seemed that for Cassie the springs of life had at last run dry.

When her day's work was done, Katy went to her room and read half the night away. David had brought home the sets of standard works in beautiful bindings which he had bought from agents who visited the college; and now into the stories of Scott and Dickens and Thackeray, stored by Cassie's command in David's cupboard, Katy plunged as a diver plunges into a stream. The books had not been packed away in any order of author or subject; upon them Katy seized as they came to hand. When she could not understand what she read—and there were many poems and essays at which Katy blinked without comprehension—she cried, thinking with bitter regret and heartache that now she might have been in school.

"And I am a servant girl!" sighed Katy. "It is no shame to be a servant girl, but it is a black shame for me!"

Daily she made mental reckoning of the silver dollars and half-dollars accumulating in the putlock hole.

"But there are the two hundred dollars!" she cried. "What shall I say to them about the two hundred dollars! Perhaps when I have paid the squire his fifty dollars, I could tell him that the two hundred dollars was gone and he could get uncle to give me some of my money. Perhaps I can sing again!" The pictures of foreign places in a beautiful book of David's made her heart throb. "Once I thought I could see all such places!"

Then Katy hid her face in her hands and David's beautiful book slid from her lap to the floor.

At Christmas time David Hartman came home. He had attained his full height; his gray eyes looked clearly into the eyes of those who spoke to him. He stood at the head of his class; he had gained confidence in himself. He had asked his mother for a larger allowance and had received it promptly. It amused him to flaunt his money in the eyes of the college, to spend large sums as though they were nothing. He brought his mother handsome presents, and his mother had handsome presents for him. It seemed as though he and she finally understood each other. Of resting his head on any one's shoulder, David thought no more; into his throat came no choking sensations as of old. At Millerstown's pronunciations and Millerstown's customs David laughed. When it was necessary for Katy to be with him, she recounted to him the Millerstown news and David listened politely. Presently it seemed to Katy that he was laughing at her; then she said no more. It was not necessary for them to have much speech together; Katy went down to her Aunt Sally's to sleep while David was at home, leaving the Hartman house soon after supper. During the day she did not see him except in his mother's presence.

"I have read some of your books," she told him one afternoon when she sat at the window sewing and he sat on the opposite side of the kitchen with a book, and Cassie lay asleep on the settle between them.

"That is right," said David. "I hope you have enjoyed them."

"I did." Katy laid down her sewing. If she could talk about these books with David! "I read first of all Wanity—" oh, terrible slip of a tongue which knew better! "I mean Vanity Fair!"

A flash came into David's eyes, a flash of bitter reminiscence. To Katy it was a flash of amusement.

"Vanity Fair is a fine book," said David. But David's tongue betrayed him again. David, too, said "Wanity." To Katy the tone was mocking.

Katy said no more. Katy went to visit her Aunt Sally even in the afternoons.

"'I am brutish as the ox and the ass,'" quoted Katy.

When the preacher came to see David she could not slip away, though she tried hard. She had to listen to the two discussing David's work. She was even unfamiliar with the names of some of his studies.

David, to the awe and envy of his college mates, had for some time kept a riding-horse. He rode while he was at home on a young horse of the Weygandts' which Jimmie had trained to the saddle. Millerstown watched him with admiration as he galloped along the village streets in curious riding-clothes; the squire shook his head over him. The squire was Cassie's adviser; he knew the extent of the fortune which David was to inherit; he was well acquainted also with the curious mental inheritance which was David's. He could not get on with David, who was as taciturn as his parents.

David rode about to all his mother's farms and orchards and to the fine woodland on the mountain with its precious soil. Many persons were dependent upon the Hartman estate for their livelihood, more would be dependent when the mines could be opened again. There came into David's mind as he rode homeward a dim vision like the vision his father had seen of a happy community of which he should be the head. But David did not try to make his vision clear to himself. He was passing the poorhouse and his thoughts turned to the Koehler family. Alvin he hated; with Alvin he still owed the settlement of a debt, even though Katy Gaumer seemed to think of him no more. William Koehler himself had been punished; he was praying and gibbering somewhere behind the walls of the poorhouse. David thought of his father, and the rage of his youth against the Koehlers swelled his heart again almost to bursting. Without exception he hated Millerstown.

Nevertheless, David went once or twice to see the little Improved New Mennonite, a proceeding which amazed and disgusted Millerstown. Susannah Kuhns expressed to Katy Millerstown's opinion that that connection would "give a match"; then she recounted to Katy at great length the ambitious plans of Alvin and his bride.

When David returned to school, Katy went back to her room in the Hartman house. Christmas had been dreary with its memories and its contrasts with the past; Katy was not sorry to have again constant occupation for her mind and her hands. She straightened out the slight disorder caused by the presence of David; she got the meals as usual; she exchanged a few words with the invalid; and when the quiet of night had settled upon the house, she lit the lamp in her room and opened the beautiful illustrated book at the page upon which she had closed it. But Katy did not proceed with the account of the Coliseum. Katy closed the book, and drawing her scarlet shawl a little closer about her shoulders, laid her cheek down on the bureau. Katy was again obsessed. She saw David's clear gray eyes, looking at her in astonishment as she applied for a servant's place in his mother's house. She heard his speech, so unlike her own; he seemed to stand close beside her. She saw again that flicker of amusement in his eyes, heard again that unconscious mockery. David was a part of the great world into which she had expected to fare forth. David was English. David was as far above her as the stars.

"He wasn't in the beginning!" cried Katy. "I have made myself what I am. I am mean and low and ignorant."

Then Katy rose from her chair and clasped her hands across her heart.

"Am I to have this again?" cried Katy. "Alvin is only just out of my mind. What am I to do? What am I to do? What am I made of? I am worse than Mary Wolle and Sally Hersh. If I cannot have one in my mind to worry me, then I must have another. Am I to have no peace in this world?"

Katy looked about the little room with its narrow bed, its little bureau, its single chair, its cupboard crowded with books. Katy remembered that this was David's room, that here he slept, had slept only last night. Katy knelt down by the bed and began to pray, not for David, but for herself.

By morning Katy had made a firm resolution.

"I will think only of this money. I have twenty-four dollars saved. In four months I will be free of my debt."

January, February, and March saw poor Cassie growing weaker and more silent, saw Katy's hoard swelling.

"It is thirty dollars!" said she. "Now it is thirty-six dollars!" "Now it is forty-two dollars!" Frequently Katy thanked God. A little lighter grew her heart.

One evening in March a sudden uneasiness overwhelmed her.

"I will go down and count it," said she. "Perhaps I should put it in a safer place. But no one knows that the hole is there but a few people, and no one could get a hand into the bottom but me."

It was not Saturday; Katy had no sum to add to the deposit; but she wrapped her shawl about her and went down to the Gaumer house. There, laughing at herself for her uneasiness, she rolled back her sleeve and thrust her arm deep into her hiding-place. Then she stood perfectly still and with a moan began to feel about. The little pit had no outlet; it was still safe and dry, a capital hiding-place, provided one kept its existence to one's self, but it was empty.

At first Katy could not believe the evidence of her senses. Frantically she thrust in her hand, reluctantly she drew it out and felt of it with the other hand and even laid it along her cheek. It was not until she had repeated this process several times that she was able to appreciate the truth. The putlock hole was empty, her hard-earned hoard was gone, freedom from debt cruelly postponed.

Then Katy, who had so bravely hidden her various troubles from Millerstown and from her kin, began to cry like a crazy person. She struck at the hard stone wall until her hands bled; she ran, crying and sobbing, to her Uncle Edwin's door, and burst it open, frightening him and Aunt Sally nearly out of their wits as they sat by the kitchen table.

"My money is gone!" she cried, seizing Uncle Edwin by the arm. "I tell you my money is gone! It is stolen! It is not there! Somebody has run away with it!"

"Your money!" gasped Uncle Edwin, struggling to his feet. "What money? Where had you money, Katy? Who stole it? In Heaven's name, Katy, what is wrong?"

Katy sank down on the old settle and stared at them wildly.

"I had money in the hole in the wall."

"What hole in the wall, Katy?"

"Right here in this wall, where Bevy put cakes for me when I was little and lived with my gran'pop. I had all my money that I ever earned there—it was forty-two dollars. Cassie would tell you that she gave me forty-two dollars already, or you could count it up by weeks. On Saturday evening it was there, and now it is gone. Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?"

Katy began to wring her hands; Aunt Sally besought her, weeping, to lie down; Uncle Edwin reached to the high mantel-shelf where he had laid his gun out of little Adam's reach.

"There is no one there now!" cried Katy. "It is no use to go now! I can reach to the bottom of the hole and there is not a penny there." She began to repeat what she had said. "My money is gone! My money is gone!" William Koehler when he was accused of stealing the communion service had behaved no more crazily.

"I will go for the squire," said Uncle Edwin, moving toward the door, gun in hand. "That is the first thing to do."

Then Uncle Edwin paused. From without rose a fearful uproar. There were loud cries in a man's voice, there were shrill reproaches and commands in a woman's. There were even squeals. Aunt Sally added her screams to those which proceeded from without. Uncle Edwin advanced boldly, his empty gun lifted to his shoulder.

"It is Bevy!" cried Aunt Sally. "Some one has Bevy!"

Bravely Aunt Sally followed Uncle Edwin; weeping Katy followed Aunt Sally. At the corner of the house they paused in unspeakable amazement.

The squire had opened his door; from it a broad shaft of light shot out across the lawn which separated the two houses. It illuminated brightly the opening of the putlock hole and its vicinity. There an extraordinary tableau presented itself to the eyes of Katy Gaumer and her kin. The center of the stage was occupied by Bevy and a struggling man. Over his head Bevy had thrown her gingham apron; she twisted it now tightly like a tourniquet and screamed for help.

"Thief! Thief!" shouted Bevy.

"My ear! My ear!" cried a muffled voice from beneath the apron, a voice recognized immediately by one at least of the astonished spectators.

"I do not care for your ear," screamed Bevy. "Your ear is nothing to me. You were stealing! What is it that you have stolen?"

Wildly Alvin tried to free himself; frantically Bevy clung to him. Bevy now found an ally in Uncle Edwin, who seized the prisoner in a firm grasp.

"Whoa, there!" cried Uncle Edwin. "I have him, Bevy. I have him by the arm. You can let him go."

There was the sound of approaching footsteps, of opening doors, there were questions and outcries.

"What is it?"

"I heard some one yelling."

"Shall I bring a gun?"

"It was a pig that squealed!"

"What is wrong with everybody?"

The squire came flying across the lawn. He saw as he opened the door the struggling Alvin and the excited Bevy and Edwin Gaumer armed here on this peaceful night with a gun. He saw also his grandniece with her flaming cheeks, her swollen eyes, her disheveled hair. The squire did not know what had happened, but he closed his door behind him so that the scene should be no longer illuminated.

"Nothing is wrong," he declared sternly. "Nobody shall bring a gun."

With a gesture he ordered his kinsfolk and Bevy and her prey into his office; with an arm thrown across her shoulders he protected his niece from further observation. Then, cruelly, upon Millerstown he shut his office door. For a while Millerstown hung about; then having recognized no one but the squire, and neither able to see nor to hear further, departed for their several homes.

Inside the squire locked the door and motioned his excited guests to seats. If Katy had had her way she would have died on the spot, she would have sunk into the earth and would have been swallowed up. But with the squire's arm about her she could do nothing but proceed to his office with the rest.

The squire looked from one to the other, from Edwin with his gun to Aunt Sally with her round and staring eyes; from Bevy to Alvin, who smoothed his hair and laid a protecting hand over his suffering ear.

"What on earth is the matter with you people?" he demanded. "Has war broken out in Millerstown?"

At once began an indescribable clamor.

"I was going over to Sally a little—" this was Bevy. "I saw him." Bevy indicated her prisoner with a contemptuous gesture. "He was digging in the hole, and I—"

"You didn't!" contradicted Alvin. "You didn't!"

"What hole?" asked the squire.

"Do you dare to say I didn't take you by the ear?" cried Bevy with threatening fingers lifted toward that aching member.

"The hole where Katy had her money," explained Edwin.

"It was stolen," cried Aunt Sally.

"I didn't!" protested Alvin again, his face green with fright. He blamed his own greediness for the discovery. On Sunday evening he had taken all Katy's hoard; why had he been so mad as to return to seek more?

"A mule is a mule," proclaimed Bevy Schnepp. "A Koehler is a Koehler. They steal; you cannot better them by education; they are all the time the same, they—"

"Be still, Bevy!" commanded the squire.

But Bevy would not be still. She gave another scream and began to dance up and down in her grasshopper-like fashion.

"Look at him, once! He says he didn't, does he? Look once what he has in his hand!"

At once all eyes turned with closer scrutiny upon Alvin. He still held in his hand the implement with which he had coaxed Katy's dollars and half-dollars from the depths of the putlock hole. It was only a bit of twisted wire, but it had done its work well.

"Like father, like son!" screamed Bevy again. "What did I say? Where did he get the money to get educated? Where—"

"Bevy, be still!" commanded the squire in a sterner tone. "Katy, did you keep your money in the putlock hole?"

"Yes," answered Katy in a low voice. Here, face to face with Alvin, she remembered all the past, her long vigils on the porch when she watched for him, his kiss in the shadow, his later, different kisses, his ingratitude, her shame. Katy's head sank lower and lower on her breast.

"Why did you select such a place for a bank, Katy?"

"I used to keep things there when I was a little girl. Into the deep part nobody could put a hand but me. That is why I thought it was safe."

The squire looked more and more angry. His voice sank deeper and deeper in his throat.

"You didn't count on bent wire, did you? How much money did you have there, Katy?"

Katy answered so faintly that the squire could not hear.

"She said forty-two dollars," answered Uncle Edwin for her. Uncle Edwin had now stationed himself behind Alvin; at Alvin's slightest motion he put forth a hand to seize him. The Gaumers had not been able to defend their kinswoman from her own incomprehensible foolishness, but from such bold assault from without they were amply able to protect her.

"Is this so, Katy?" asked the squire.

Katy's head sank on her breast. "Yes, sir."

"Alvin, look at me!"

Alvin lifted his head slowly. He saw jail yawning before him. If they searched his house, they could still find a few of Katy's silver coins. Then under the pressure of fear—Alvin as yet felt no shame—his mind worked to some purpose. There was one possible defense to make; this he offered.

"Katy often gave me money and put it in that place for me," he said, boldly. "There I got it many times. Ain't—" Alvin's normal school training suddenly forsook him—"ain't it so, Katy?"

"You must be wandering in your mind, Alvin," said the squire, scornfully.

"There he will not wander far," cried Bevy with a shrill laugh.

Alvin rose from his chair and approached Katy. Color returned to his cheek, his eyes brightened.

"Ain't it so, Katy, that you often put money in that hole for me?"

"Humbug!" cried the squire.

But Alvin persisted. He went nearer to Katy, and with single united motion Katy's relatives sprang toward him. Aunt Sally put her arm round her niece, Bevy made a threatening motion toward Alvin's ear, Uncle Edwin seized him by the arm. But Alvin grew ever bolder. Despite the threats of Bevy and the hand of Edwin, he took another step toward Katy.

"Say you gave money to me often, Katy?"

Katy answered in a low voice. She was too confused to think of any expedient; she answered with the truth. Perhaps that would put an end to this intolerable scene. It would be bad enough to have them know, but it was worse to stand here in misery with them all staring at her.

"Yes," she answered Alvin, "I did give you sometimes money."

"What!" cried the squire.

Uncle Edwin and Bevy each gave a kind of groan.

Katy lifted her head.

"I said 'yes.'"

Now Bevy began to cry aloud.

"Next time I will not take you to the squire, you lump! Next time I will twist your ear quite off. I will settle you right!"

"Bevy, you had better go," suggested the squire; and meekly Bevy departed.

"Edwin, suppose you and Sally leave these young people here."

Together Uncle Edwin and Aunt Sally approached the door. Aunt Sally was wiping her eyes on her apron; Uncle Edwin walked with bent head as though the name of Gaumer was disgraced forever. Them the squire followed to the door, and outside, wishing to be certain that no curious Millerstonians lingered. With his hand on the outer knob, he closed the door while he promised to see Edwin later in the evening. Edwin stopped to express his horror at this strange situation; their conversation consumed a few seconds at least.

Behind the closed door Alvin approached Katy as she stood by the squire's desk, numb, smitten, unable to raise her head.

"Katy," said he, softly, "I do not care if you have worked out, Katy. That is less than nothing to me. I am never going to marry that other one. She is no good. I will marry you, Katy. I did not know"—Alvin's voice shook—"I did not know till this time how I love you, Katy."

At this point Alvin laid his hand upon Katy's arm and applied a tender pressure.

Then, suddenly, furiously, Alvin was flung aside, back against the sharp point of the squire's desk. Young women do not keep house in the Pennsylvania German fashion, with sweeping and scrubbing and beating of carpets, without developing considerable muscular power. Terrified, bruised by contact with the sharp corner of the desk, Alvin lifted hands to defend himself from Katy, whose worth he had learned so suddenly to value.

Katy, however, stayed to punish him no further. Instead, she rushed across the room and threw herself into the arms of the squire. She spoke shrilly, she sobbed and cried.

"Send him away and let me talk to you alone! I must talk to you! Oh, please send him away!"

Alvin needed no orders. He read in the squire's expression permission to depart, and he slipped sidewise out the door, making himself as small as possible for the passage.

When the door had closed behind him, the squire put Katy into a corner of the sofa in his back office and sat down beside her.

"Now, Katy, begin."

With tears and hysterical laughter, Katy began her story.

"I thought I was so fine and powerful when I helped him. I thought I was rich with my two hundred dollars and that I could do anything. I thought he had no chance and I would help him. I pitied him because he had a bad name from his father. The worst thing was I liked him. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

The squire's frown grew blacker and blacker.

"He took the money and never paid any of it back, and then stole this from you yet! Money you were saving to pay me! Money you had borrowed for him! Oh, Katy, Katy!" Then, suddenly, the squire laughed. "Katy, dear, I bought a gold brick like this once. It wasn't just like this, but it cost me much more. We've got to learn, all of us! Oh, you poor soul! And my gold brick was not bought for the sake of charity, Katy!" The squire laughed and laughed and Katy cried and cried as her head rested upon the broad shoulder which had been offered to her earlier. "Now, Katy, it is late and I will take you home."

The squire put Katy's scarlet shawl about her and took her by the arm, and together they went up the misty street. At the Hartmans' gate the squire left his companion. Then, with a quicker stride he sought the house of Alvin Koehler.

CHAPTER XVII
ALVIN DOES PENANCE AND IS SHRIVEN

It was on Friday that Alvin was caught, wire in hand, investigating the contents of Katy's putlock bank. That night he did not sleep. He sat by his table, pencil in hand, contemplating the problem which confronted him and trying to work out a sum in proportion. If he owed Katy two hundred and fifty dollars, and Sarah Ann Mohr twenty dollars, and the landlord fifty-eight dollars, and the coal dealer fifteen dollars, and the tailor thirty dollars, how much of his next month's salary should justly go to each—provided, of course, that he were not summarily dismissed from his position and thus deprived of his salary? Over the difficult problem he fell asleep toward morning.

He did not go to Sarah Ann's for breakfast, a fact which caused Sarah Ann no uneasiness, as he usually took advantage of the Saturday holiday to sleep late and thus make a good recovery from the exhaustion following his arduous association with the Millerstown children. Besides, another subject had this morning the whole of Sarah Ann's attention and the attention of Millerstown. Cassie Hartman had died suddenly in the night.

Nor did Alvin go to Sarah Ann's for dinner, but supported life with some crackers and apples which were in his house. It seemed to him that the passers-by looked curiously at his dwelling; he was certain that the story of his difficulties had spread over Millerstown. Who could ever have dreamed that Katy would treat him so shabbily?

Late in the afternoon there came a ponderous step along his board walk and a knock at the door. Terrified, Alvin sat still until the rap was repeated, then he opened the door a tiny crack. Without stood a no more terrifying person than Sarah Ann.

At sight of Sarah Ann, however, Alvin trembled. Sarah Ann had again reminded him, gently but with firmness, that her Thank Offering was long overdue.

"I made it up out of the money I keep for regular collections, Alvin," Sarah Ann had explained. "I keep that money in a little can. But now that little can is empty. I have nothing for General Fund."

"I cannot pay you." Thus Alvin greeted her miserably through an inch-wide crack. "I will try to pay you sometime, Sarah Ann, but I cannot pay you now."

"I am not here for pay," protested Sarah Ann, weeping. "It is not a day for collecting money in Millerstown. Poor Cassie is gone."

"Cassie?" repeated Alvin, vacantly. So engrossed was Alvin with his own joys in time of joy, and with his own sorrows in time of sorrow, that persons not immediately associated with him disappeared entirely from the circle of his consciousness.

"Why, yes, Cassie Hartman, David's mom. David is now an orphan."

Alvin shook his head solemnly at this intelligence, remembering that he was practically an orphan, too. Beyond that he did not consider the situation. He felt no satisfaction at the Hartmans' misfortunes; he had never cherished any animosity toward them, but only a vague envy of their worldly possessions.

"I am here now to see why you do not come to your dinner," went on Sarah Ann. "The folks say you are not going to get married, after all, Alvin. Is it so, Alvin? I thought you were sick. I had Sauerkraut for dinner, but still you did not come. I can heat it for supper. Ach, there is nothing but trouble in this world!"

Alvin desired to tell Sarah Ann all his woes. Like the Ancient Mariner, he would find relief in recounting the story of his griefs. But he was now too weak to do anything but select a hat from the row hanging behind the door. So low was he in his mind that he chose the shabbiest one of all. Then he followed Sarah Ann down the street. It seemed to him that there were many inches between the front of his body and his vest. He was certain that he had lost many pounds, and he thought that perhaps he would waste away. That, he decided gloomily, would be one solution of his troubles.

Once fed, Alvin felt his spirits rise. There was that in Sarah Ann's substantial victuals which was calculated to put heart into a man, there was tonic in her urging, tearful though it was.

"Ach, a little pie, Alvin, if it is you good enough! It is not to-day's pie, but yesterday's pie, but it is not yet soft. Some pies get softer than others quicker. Ach, a little rusk, too, Alvin! It stood round long enough already. Take jelly for on it, Alvin. Rusk is not good without a spread. It is too dry."

When Alvin had finished the first course, he no longer felt physically shrunken; when he had finished the second, he had ceased entirely to be conscious of the deadly twist of Bevy's grasp upon his ear. Of Katy and the squire no amount of food could hearten him to think.

But when he had finished his supper and had thanked Sarah Ann and had shut himself out of her pleasant kitchen into a cold damp night, he remembered that he had no place to go. On other Saturdays he had sought the home of Bessie in the county seat, but he could not go there now.

"I have no father and no mother and no friends," mourned Alvin to himself. "I am an outcast. I must go back to my cold house."

The wind made the limbs of the trees creak above his head; loose bricks sank sloppily under his feet, splashing his ankles; his heart sank lower and lower. The street lamps burned dimly; as most of the citizens of Millerstown sat in the kitchens, the fronts of their houses were dark and inhospitable. For his own lamp at home he had no oil and no money to buy oil. But home he must go. He saw ahead of him two men, one tall and young, the other broader of shoulder, and not so tall. He recognized them as the squire and David Hartman; he realized dully that David had just come home to his empty house, but his thought accompanied the two men no farther than the next street lamp.

There, mental as well as physical light flashed into Alvin's gloom. The Improved New Mennonites were in the midst of a series of meetings; into the misty darkness of the street their light shone pleasantly, into the lonely quiet their song poured cheerfully. Here was an invitation.

At once Alvin turned his steps toward their little church. He remembered with a thrill, a weak thrill it is true, but none the less a thrill, Essie's pretty face, her curly hair, her friendly glance. To a church every one was welcome. He went in and sat down humbly in the last pew,—no high seat for Alvin in his present state of mind! He saw in the front row no little, round head of Bevy Schnepp with its tight knot of hair at the back. Involuntarily and with great relief Alvin lifted a hand to his own head.

The preacher either directed his sermon toward Alvin, or else happened accidentally upon a text applicable to that young gentleman's condition. He reproved those whose hearts were set on worldly possessions, and Alvin groaned within himself. Doorknobs were a sign of pride—Alvin had himself set a glittering knob upon the jamb of his front door. Organs in the parlor were a snare—Alvin had long since discussed the purchase of a piano with a piano dealer. Fine clothes spelled perdition.

Poor Alvin began to wish himself out upon the dark street. If what the preacher said were true, then he was lost. It is hard to say what Alvin's views of the preacher's discourse would have been if he could have continued to call his own his dear belongings. Now that they were to be taken from him, he felt that it was wrong ever to have had them.

Then, in the depths to which he sank, Alvin longed again more desperately than ever to make confession and to be absolved. He could not endure another listener so hard-hearted as the squire; he craved a sympathetic ear, a tender eye,—a feminine eye and ear, in short.

The sermon ended, pretty Essie went to the organ. Facing the audience she looked at each one, sighing a little at the dullness of life. Then Essie's lovely eyes brightened. Alvin Koehler was here! Alvin's gaze was upon her; Alvin, in spite of the unusual disarray of his clothes, was still handsome; his eyes responded to her glance before she looked down at her music. During the course of the hymn Essie looked at him again; gradually her eyes narrowed; into them came a startled expression. She could see the change in his appearance; his jauntiness was gone; he was no longer the accepted lover. Into Essie's eyes came an intent expression like that which brightens the eyes of a hunter as he sees the approach of his game. Alvin was not himself; he was in trouble. Unconsciously Essie quickened the time of her hymn so that it changed from a dirge, intended to soften the hearts of the impenitent, to a gay, triumphant measure. Fortunately, the hymn was already near its end; there was no chance for the preacher to observe the quickening of the tune.

Waiting outside the door, Alvin joined Essie as she came from the church. Her father lingered within to talk to some of his members; there was opportunity for long and earnest discourse as Alvin walked by the side of Essie.

"You see how it was," said Alvin from time to time. Or, "That was why I did it!"

"She made me get everything ready," complained Alvin, bitterly. "Then, when I had gone to all this expense and was in debt to it yet, she wouldn't have me, and I had used my salary ahead, and I—I took a little money to help myself out. It was money I might have had if I had asked. But I didn't like to ask. It was in a way, you might say, mine. But I meant to put it back, Essie!"

Wisely Alvin entered into no further particulars, nor did he tell the name of the person from whom he had taken the money. Somehow Essie got the impression that it was the squire. That impression Essie was allowed to keep.

"Then you have sin on your mind." Thus with glowing cheeks Essie diagnosed Alvin's case. In reality Alvin had no sin, but the fear of punishment on his mind.

"Yes," he said.

Essie's cheeks glowed more brightly; she clasped her hands. She was not only curing the invalid, she was binding him to his physician forever.

"You must make everything right," she declared. "Everything down to the last penny. Then you will have peace, Alvin, and not before. You must go back to your childhood. Can you remember anything else you did?"

"I took cherries from trees already," confessed Alvin. "I put once five cents in the church collection and took six cents change out. I took often the cakes that Bevy Schnepp baked and put in a hole for—for"—here Alvin had the grace to gulp mightily—"for other children. Ach, Essie!" Alvin was terrified by the stern gaze bent upon him. He had expected to take her hand, to lay his head on her shoulder, to touch her soft cheek. It was a long time, or it seemed a long time, since Alvin had touched a soft cheek. But instead of soothing him, Essie grew each moment colder and more distant. "Don't turn away from me! I will do everything you say. What shall I do?"

"You must make all these things right," commanded the young judge. "That is the only way."

"Dare I, then, come to see you, Essie? You will not turn me off?"

"You must make it right with all these people," insisted Essie again. She had taken Alvin into the little sitting-room of her father's house. She rose now and moved to the back of her chair as though to put a barrier between herself and Alvin.

Alvin went home and sat him down at his table. The March wind had begun to blow again; Alvin's fire was pitifully small; he anticipated the dreary Sunday with horror.

"Oh, my soul!" wailed poor Alvin. "Oh, my soul!"