THE KOEHLERS' CHRISTMAS DAY
AT Grandfather Gaumer's house, where the governor dined; at the Weygandt
farm where there was another great family dinner; at the Kuhnses, where
Ollie still swelled proudly over yesterday's oratorical triumph; at
Sarah Ann Mohr's, where ten indigent guests filled themselves full of
fat duck,--indeed, one might say at every house in Millerstown, there
was feasting. The very air smelled of roasting and boiling and frying,
and the birds passing overhead stopped and settled hopefully on trees
and roofs.
But in the house of William Koehler, just above Millerstown on the
mountain road, there was no turkey or goose done to a turn, there were
no pies, there was no fine-cake. Here was no mother or grandmother to
make preserves or to compound mincemeat in preparation for this day of
days. What mother there had been was seldom thought of in the little
house.
Here the day passed like any other day, except that it was duller and
less tolerable. There was no school for Alvin and no work for his
father, and they had to spend the long hours together. Alvin did not
like school, but to-day he would cheerfully have gone before daylight
and have remained until dark. His father did not like holidays; they
removed the goal, for which he worked and of which he thought night and
day, a little farther away from him. He would have preferred to work
every day, even on Sundays.
William was a mason by trade, but when there was no mason work for him,
he was willing to turn his hand to anything which would bring him a
little money. Another mason had recently established himself in the
village, urged, it was supposed, by those who were unwilling to admit
Koehler to their houses for the occasional bits of plastering which had
to be done. There was no question that Koehler was very queer. Not only
was he likely to kneel down at any moment and begin to pray, but he did
other singular things. He had once worked until two o'clock in the
afternoon without his dinner, because his watch had stopped and he had
not sense enough to know it. It was not strange that thrifty Millerstown
agreed that he was not a safe person to have about.
Between him and his son there was little sympathy; there was, indeed,
seldom speech. Alvin was bitterly ashamed of his father, of his miserly
ways, of his shabby clothes, and above all, of his insane habit of
praying. William prayed incoherently about the communion service which
he was supposed to have stolen--at least, that was what seemed to be the
burden of his petition. Whether he prayed for grace to return it, or for
forgiveness for having taken it, Millerstown did not know, so confused
was his speech. Alvin's position was a hard one. He was humiliated by
the taunts of the Millerstown boys; he hated the poverty of his life; he
was certain that never had human being been so miserable.
Early on Christmas morning the two had had their breakfast together in
the kitchen of the little white house where they lived, and there Alvin
had made an astonishing request. Alvin was fond of fine clothes; there
was a certain red tie in the village store at which he had looked
longingly for days. Alvin was given to picturing himself, as Katy Gaumer
pictured herself, in conspicuous and important positions in the eyes of
men. Alvin's coveted distinction, however, was of fine apparel, and not
of superior education. He liked to be clean and tidy; he disliked rough
play and rough work which disarranged his clothes and soiled his hands.
"Ach, pop," he begged, "give me a Christmas present!" His eyes filled
with tears, he had been cruelly disappointed because he had found no way
to get the tie in time for the Christmas entertainment. "Everybody has a
Christmas present!"
"A Christmas present!" repeated William Koehler, his quick, darting eyes
shining with amazement. His were not mean features; he had the mouth of
a generous man, and his eyes were full and round. But between his brows
lay a deep depression, as though experience had moulded his forehead
into a shape for which nature had not intended it. If it had not been
for that deep wrinkle, one would have said that he was a gentle, kindly,
humorous soul. "A Christmas present!" said he again.
Without making any further answer, he rose and went out the kitchen door
and down the board walk toward the chicken house. He repeated the
monstrous request again and again, like a person of simple mind.
"A Christmas present! He asks me for a Christmas present!"
When he reached the chicken house, he stood still, leaning against the
fence. The chickens clustered about him with crowings and squawkings,
some flying to his shoulders. Birds and beasts and insects loved and
trusted poor William if human beings did not. It was possible for him to
go about among his bees and handle them as he would without fear of
stings.
Now he paid no heed to the flapping, eager fowl, except to thrust them
away from him. He stood leaning against the fence and looking down upon
the gray landscape. It was not yet quite daylight and the morning was
cloudy. The depression in his forehead deepened; he was looking fixedly
at one spot, John Hartman's house, as though he had never seen it
before, or as though he meant to fix it in his mind forever.
The Hartman house was always there. He had seen it a thousand times,
would see it a thousand times more. On moonlight nights, its wide roofs
glittered, on dark nights a gleaming lamp set on a post before the door
fixed it in place. In winter its light and its great bulk, in summer its
girdle of trees, distinguished it from all the other houses in
Millerstown. William Koehler could see it from every foot of his little
house and garden. It was before his eyes when he worked among his
plants, which seemed to love him also, and when he sat for a few minutes
on his porch, and when he tended his bees or fed his chickens.
Beyond the Hartman house he did not look. There the country spread out
in a wide, cultivated, varicolored plain, with the mountains bounding it
far away. To the right of the village was the little cemetery where his
wife lay buried, and near it the Lutheran church to which they had both
belonged, but he glanced at neither. Sometimes he could see John Hartman
helping his wife from the carriage when they returned from church, or
stamping the snow from his feet before he stepped into his buggy in the
stable yard. Often, at this sight, when there was no one within hearing,
William waved his arms and shouted, as though nothing but a wild sound
could express his emotion. He was not entirely free from the
superstitions in which Bevy and many other Millerstonians believed,
superstitions long since seared upon the souls of a persecuted
generation in the fatherland. He recited the strange verse, supposed to
ward away evil,--
"Dulix, ix, ux,
Thou comest not over Pontio,
Pontio is over Pilato!"--
and he carried about with him a little spray of five-finger grass as a
charm.
When John Hartman drove along the mountain road, his broad shoulders
almost filling his buggy, William had more than once shouted an insane
accusation at him. This Millerstown did not know. Koehler never spoke
thus unless they were alone, and Hartman told no one of the encounter.
One is not likely to tell the world that he has been accused of
stealing, even though the accuser is himself known to be a madman and a
thief. But John Hartman came presently to avoid the mountain road.
After a while William roused himself and fed his chickens and looked
once more at the house of John Hartman. There was smoke rising from the
chimney, and tears came into William's eyes, as though the smoke had
drifted across the fields and had blinded him. Suddenly he struck the
sharp paling a blow with his hard hand and spoke aloud, not with his
usual faltering and mumbling tongue, but clearly and straightforwardly.
William had found a help and a defense.
"I will tell him!" cried he. "This day I will tell my son, Alvin!"
All the long, snowy Christmas morning, Alvin sat about the house. He did
not read because he had no books, and besides, he did not care much for
books. Alvin was a very handsome boy, but he did not have much mind. He
did not sing or whistle on this Christmas morning because he was not
cheerful; he did not whittle because whittling would have wasted both
knife and stick, and his father would have reproved him. He did not walk
out because he was not an active boy like David Hartman, and he did not
visit because he was not liked in Millerstown. He did not take a boy's
part in the games; he was afraid to swim and dive; he whined when he was
hurt.
He looked out the window toward the Hartman house with a vague envy of
David, who had so much while he had so little. He watched his father's
parsimonious preparation of the simple meal--how Grandmother Gaumer and
Bevy Schnepp would have exclaimed at a Christmas dinner of butcher's
ham!
"Oh, the poor souls!" Grandmother Gaumer would have cried. "I might
easily have invited them to us to eat!"
"Where does the money go, then?" Bevy would have demanded. "He surely
earns enough to have anyhow a chicken on Christmas! Where does he put
his money? No sugar in the coffee! Just potatoes fried in ham fat for
vegetables!"
All the long afternoon, also, Alvin sat about the house. He did not
think again of the Hartmans; he did not think of Katy Gaumer, who
thought so frequently of him; he thought of the red tie and wished that
he had money to buy it.
All the long afternoon his father huddled close to the other side of the
stove and muttered to himself as though he were preparing whatever he
meant to tell Alvin. It must be either a very puzzling or a very long
story, or one which required careful rehearsing. When the sun, setting
in a clear sky, had touched the top of a mountain far across the plain,
he began to speak suddenly, as though he had given to himself the
departure of day for a signal. He did not make an elaborate account of
the strange events he had to relate; on the contrary, he could hardly
have omitted a word and have had his meaning clear. He said little of
Alvin's mother; he drew no deductions; he simply told the story.
"Alvin!" cried he, sharply.
Alvin looked up. His head had sunk on his breast; he was at this moment
half asleep. He was startled not alone by the tone of his father's
voice, but by his father's straightened shoulders, by his piercing
glance.
"I am going to tell you something!"
Alvin looked at his father a little eagerly. Perhaps his father was
going to give him a present, after all. It would take only a quarter to
buy the red tie. But it was a very different announcement which William
had to make. He began with an alarming statement.
"After school closes you are to work at the furnace. I let you do
nothing too long already, Alvin!"
"At the furnace!" Alvin's astonishment and alarm made him cry out. He
hated the sight of Oliver Kuhns and Billy Knerr when they came home all
grimy and black.
"I will tell you something," said his father again. "Listen good,
Alvin!"
Alvin needed no such command to make him hearken. Alvin had not much
will, but he was determining with all his power that he would never,
never work in the furnace. He did not observe how his father's cheeks
had paled above his black beard, and how steadily he kept his eyes upon
his son. The story William had to tell was not that of a man whose mind
was gone.
"You know the church?" said William.
"Of course."
"I mean the Lutheran church where I used to go, where my pop went."
"Yes."
"You go in at the front of the church, but the pulpit is at the other
end. There were once long ago two windows, one on each side of the
pulpit. They went almost down to the floor. From there the sun shone in
the people's eyes. You can't remember that, Alvin. That was before your
time."
Alvin sat still, sullenly. This conversation was, after all, only of a
piece with his father's strange mutterings; it had to do with no red
necktie.
"But now the Sunday School is there and those windows are gone this long
time. One is a door into the Sunday School, the other is a wall. I built
that wall, Alvin."
William paused as though for some comment, but Alvin said nothing.
"I was sitting where I am sitting now one evening and she [his wife] was
sitting where you are sitting and you were running round, and the
preacher climbed the hill to us and he came in and he said to me,
'William,' he said, 'it is decided that the big window is to be walled
up. When can you do it?' That was the way he said it, Alvin. I said to
him, 'I can do it to-morrow. I had other work for the afternoon at Zion
Church, but I can put it off.' She could have told you that that was
just what he said and what I said. I was in the congregation and there
was at that time no other mason but me in Millerstown. It was to be made
all smooth, so that nobody could ever tell there was a window there.
Then the preacher, he said to me,--she could tell you that, too, if she
were here,--he said, 'Come in the morning and I will give you the key of
the communion cupboard,' the little cupboard in the wall, Alvin. There
the communion set was kept. It was silver, real silver, all shiny."
William's hands began to tremble and he moistened his dry lips. William
spoke of objects which were to him manifestly holy. His son bent his
head now, not idly and indifferently, but stubbornly. He remembered the
names which the boys had shouted at his father; with all his soul he
recoiled from hearing his father's confession. "There was a silver
pitcher, so high, and a silver plate and a silver cup on a stem like a
goblet. The preacher put it away there and he locked the door always.
"But he gave me the key and I went to my work. I thought once I would
have to open the door and I stuck the key in the lock. It was a funny
key.
"But I didn't need to open the door. I took my dinner along--she could
tell you that. But I didn't need to open the door, and I took the key
out again and put it in my pocket, and when I finished I swept
everything up nice and locked the church door and came down the pike. It
was night already and I went to the preacher and gave him the two keys,
the church key and the other, and got my money. That quick he paid me,
Alvin. He said to me, 'Well, I guess you had a quiet day, William,' and
I said, 'Yes, nobody looked in at me but a little one.' That is what I
said to the preacher _then_, Alvin, exactly that, but it was not true.
But I thought it was true.
"Then I came home and I told her how nice and smooth I had made it--to
this day, you cannot see it was a window there. Now, listen, Alvin!"
The sunset sky was darkening, a rising wind rattled the door in its
latch. The little house was lonely on a winter night, even a bright
night like this. The boy began to be frightened, his father looked at
him with such dagger-like keenness.
"So it went for three weeks, Alvin, and then it was Sunday morning and
here I sat and there she sat and you were running round, and it came a
knock at the door and there was the preacher. I was studying my lesson
for the Sunday School. It was about Ananias. I had learned the answers
and the Golden Text, but it was not yet time to go. I always went to
church; I liked to go to church. Then there came this knocking, Alvin,
and it was the preacher. I thought perhaps he had come to give her the
communion while she wasn't very well and couldn't go down through the
snow. The preacher came in and he looked at me.
"'William,' said the preacher to me, 'do you remember how I gave you the
key to the cupboard when you fixed the wall?'
"'Why, yes,' I said. 'Of course!'
"'William,' said he to me, 'did you open the cupboard?'
"'Why, no,' I said. 'I didn't have to, Para [Pastor].'
"'Were you away from the church?'
"'No,' I said. 'I took my dinner. She can tell you that.'
"'Why, William,' said he to me, 'the communion set is gone! The
communion set is gone,' he said, 'gone!'
"I went with him to the church, Alvin, and I looked into the cupboard.
Everything was gone, Alvin, bag and all. Then I came home and after a
while they came. They wanted to talk, they wanted me to tell them
everything that had happened all day. But I couldn't tell them anything.
I had built the wall and a little one had talked to me, that was all.
There she sat and here I sat and it was dark. Then, Alvin, it came to
me! When I got halfway up the window, it was too high to go farther, and
I went out of the church to get boards and build a platform across
chairs so that I could reach. I was gone some little time, and when I
came back Hartman was going down the pike. It was Hartman that took the
communion set."
Alvin moved toward the side of his chair, and away from his father.
"Then I got up and went down the hill, and into Hartman's house I
walked. He was sitting by the table with his best clothes on to go to
church and she was there, too. They were always rich; they had
everything grand. I made tracks on her clean floor, and she looked sharp
at me, but I did not care. I spoke right up to him.
"'When I was building the wall in the church,' I said, 'I went out for a
few boards. In that time you were in the church and took the communion
set.'
"He did not look at me, Alvin; he just sat there.
"'What would I do with a communion set?' he said after a while to me.
"'I do not know what you would do with it,' I said back to him, 'but you
have it. You took it. God will punish you like Ananias.'
"Then, Alvin--" William laid a hand on his son's shrinking arm. "He went
to the preacher, and the preacher came to me and said I must be quiet.
That the preacher said to me! Then I went to church and prayed out loud
before all the people that God would punish the wicked. I did not
mention any names, Alvin; I obeyed the preacher in that! But God did not
punish him. Everything gets better and better for him all the time. Now,
I will punish him, Alvin, and you will help me. I have paid a lot to
detectives, but I have not yet enough. He must be watched; we must have
proof. I cannot save so much any more because I have not so much work.
Now, if you work at the furnace you will make a dollar a day. It will
take all we can earn, Alvin, _all_. I did without things that I need; I
have saved all I can, but I cannot save enough."
William broke off suddenly. The room was quite dark; where no light was
needed, none was made in William Koehler's house. William rose and went
stumbling about and lit the lamp, the lamp which Katy saw gleaming
against the dark side of the mountain. In its light poor William gazed
at his son with yearning. He seemed now perfectly sane.
Then William spoke in a hollow, astonished voice, the lamp rattling in
his hand.
"Don't you believe he took it, Alvin?"
"Why, no," stammered Alvin. "What would he want with it?"