CHANGE
IT sometimes happens that death gathers from a single spot a large
harvest in a year. We seem to have been forgotten; we learn to draw once
more the long, secure breath of youth; we almost believe that sorrow
will no more visit us.
For many months Millerstown had had scarcely a funeral. In security
Millerstown went about its daily tasks. Then, in May, John Hartman was
found dead along the mountain road.
In June there came a letter from the Western home of Great-Uncle Gaumer,
telling of a serious illness and the rapid approach of the end of his
life. A few days later, when a telegram announced his death, Grandfather
Gaumer himself dropped to the floor in the office of his brother the
squire and breathed no more. Dr. Benner, who was passing, heard from the
street the crash of his fall and the squire's loud outcry, and Bevy
rushed in from the kitchen. The doctor and the squire knelt beside him,
and still kneeling there, regarded each other with amazement.
Bevy Schnepp lifted her hands above her head and cried out, "Lieber
Himmel!" and stood as if rooted to the floor. "Who will tell her?"
The squire rose from his knees, pale and unsteady, and stood looking at
his brother as though the sight were incredible.
"Is there no life?" he asked the doctor in a whisper.
The doctor shook his head. "He was gone before he fell."
Bevy began to cry. "Ach, who will tell her?"
"I will tell her," answered the squire. Then he went round the house and
across to the other side of the homestead where Grandmother Gaumer and
Katy sat at their sewing.
There was a quantity of white material on Grandmother Gaumer's lap, and
her fingers moved the needle swiftly in and out. Katy was talking as she
hemmed a scarlet ruffle--Katy was always talking. She had been shocked
by the news of the governor's illness, but she believed that he would
get well. Besides, she had seen the governor only once in her life, and
her grandfather had assured her that her plans for her education need
not be changed. She could not be long unhappy over anything when all
these beautiful new clothes were being made for her and when she was
soon to leave dull Millerstown, and when Alvin Koehler had twice sat on
the doorstep with her. She had journeyed to the county seat with her
grandmother and there had made wonderful purchases.
"And the ladies in the stores are so fine, and so polite, and they show
you everything," said Katy. "When Louisa Kuhns went to Allentown she
said, 'the people are me so unpolite, they go always bumping and bumping
and they don't even say _uh_!' That is not true. I do not believe there
is anywhere in the world a politer place than Allentown.
"Louisa--" No gap between subjects halted Katy's speech; she leaped it
with a bound. "Louisa is very dumb. Now I do not believe myself that a
person can learn everything. But you can train your mind so that you can
understand everything if it is explained to you. You must keep your mind
all the time busy and you must be very humble. Louisa said that poetry
was dumb. Louisa cannot even understand, 'Where, oh, where are the
visions of morning?' Louisa thinks everything must be real. I said to
her I would be ashamed to talk that way. The realer poetry is the harder
it is. But Louisa! Ach, my! Gran'mom! The teacher said Louisa should
write 'pendulum' in a sentence, and Louisa wrote 'Pendulum Franklin is
dead'!"
"Do you like poetry, Katy?" asked Grandmother Gaumer.
"Some," answered Katy. "It is not the fault of the poetry that I cannot
understand it all. I want to understand everything. I do not mean,
gran'mom, that you cannot be good unless you understand everything. But
there is more in this world than being good. Sarah Ann is good, but
Sarah Ann has a pretty slow time in this world."
"Sarah Ann does many kind things."
"But the squire and gran'pop do more because they are smarter," said
Katy triumphantly. "When the people want advice, do they go to Sarah
Ann? They come to the squire or to gran'pop!"
Grandmother Gaumer smiled. Sometimes Katy talked in borrowed phrase
about a "larger vision" or "preparation for a larger life."
"Millerstown!" said Katy with a long sigh and a shake of the head. "I
could not stay forever in Millerstown, gran'mom. Think of the Sunday
School picnics with the red mint candy on the cakes and how Susannah and
Sarah Knerr try to have the highest layer cakes, and each wants the
preacher to eat. Think of the Copenhagen, gran'mom, and the Bingo and
the Jumbo, gran'mom!" In derision Katy began to sing, "A certain
farmer."
Grandmother Gaumer leaned forward in her chair. A sense of uneasiness
overwhelmed her, though Katy had heard nothing. "Listen, Katy!"
There was nothing to be heard; Grandfather Gaumer had fallen; beside him
knelt his brother and the doctor; aghast Bevy flung her arms above her
head; all were as yet silent.
"It is nothing, gran'mom," said Katy. Katy began her chattering again;
she laughed now because Bevy had said that it brought bad luck to use
black pins on white material or to sew when the clock struck twelve.
Grandmother Gaumer went on with her stitching. A boy ran down the
street; the sound disturbed her.
"I will go and see," offered Katy, putting the scarlet ruffles off her
lap. She did not move as swiftly as she would have moved six months ago.
Then the sound of rapid steps would have drawn her promptly in their
wake. But the affairs of Millerstown had ceased to be of great
importance. She did not even hate Millerstown now. "I guess it is just a
boy running, gran'mom. I guess--"
The squire had thought that he would go bravely to Grandmother Gaumer
and put his arm round her and break to her gently the terrible news. He
did not realize that his lips and hands grew each moment more tremulous
and his cheeks more ashen. He saw his sister-in-law sitting beside her
lovely garden in security and peace, and his heart failed him.
Katy had risen to her feet, and she stood still and regarded him with
astonishment. She had forgotten for the instant that he was awaiting
news of Governor Gaumer's death. Now she remembered it and was disturbed
to the bottom of her soul by the squire's evident grief. Grief was new
to Katy.
Grandmother Gaumer laid down her needle and thread. "Ach, the governor
is gone, then!" said she. "Did a letter come?"
"Yes," answered the squire. "A message came. He died in the night."
Tears came into Grandmother Gaumer's eyes. "Where is William? I thought
he was by you."
The squire sat down in the chair beside Grandmother Gaumer and took her
hand. The heap of white stuff slid off her lap to the floor of the porch
and lay there unheeded until hours later when Bevy gathered it up,
weeping, and laid it away.
"I have bad news for you," said the squire.
"Well," said Grandmother Gaumer, bravely.
"When William heard that Daniel was gone, he dropped to the floor like
one shot."
"William!" cried Grandmother Gaumer.
"Yes," answered the squire. "He suffered no pain. The doctor said he
knew nothing of it."
"Knew nothing of it!" repeated Grandmother Gaumer. "You mean that he
fell _dead_?"
"Yes."
"Where is he?" asked Grandmother Gaumer in a quieter tone.
"In my office. They will bring him home."
"Then we will make a place ready for him. Come, Katy."
Katy followed into the kitchen. Grandmother Gaumer stood looking about
her and frowning, as though she were finding it difficult to decide what
should be done. Katy thought of John Hartman and of his strange attitude
and his staring eyes. Would Grandfather Gaumer look like that? Katy was
about to throw herself into the arms which had thus far opened to all
her griefs.
"Ach, gran'mom!" she began, weeping.
Then, slowly, Grandmother Gaumer turned her head and looked at Katy. Her
eyes were intolerable to Katy.
"What shall I do?" she asked. "I am old. I cannot think. We have lived
together fifty years. I cannot remember where my things are. There are
things put away in the bureaus all ready for such a time. What shall I
do, Katy?"
With a gasp Katy drove back the tears from her smarting eyelids. Katy
was confused, bewildered; she still lacked the education with which she
expected to meet the problems of life. But Katy, whose forte was
managing, did not fail here.
"You will sit here in this chair, gran'mom. I will get a white pillow to
put on the settee and they can lay gran'pop there. Then we will find the
things for them." She guided her grandmother to the armchair and helped
her to sit down. Even the touch of her body seemed different. "It will
take only a minute for me to go upstairs. I will be back right away. You
know how quickly I can run."
When Katy returned, the feet of the bearers were at the door. With them
Millerstown crowded in, weeping. Grandmother Gaumer had wept with them,
Grandfather Gaumer had helped them in their troubles. Grandfather was
laid in state in the best room and presently the house settled into
quiet. In this house five generations had met grief with dignity and
death with hope; thus they should be met once more.
Preparations were begun at once for the laying away of the body in the
little graveyard of the church which the soul had loved. At the feet of
his mother, beside his little sister, a grave was dug for William Gaumer
and was lined with boughs of arbor vitæ and sprays of life everlasting.
In the Gaumer house there was little sweeping and cleaning; the beds
were not made up for show, but were prepared for the gathering
relatives. Grandfather Gaumer did not lie alone in the best room as John
Hartman had lain; his children and his grandchildren went in and sat
beside him and talked of him.
When the funeral was over and the house was in order and the relatives
had gone, Katy sat on her little stool at her grandmother's knee and
cried her fill. Grandmother Gaumer had not given way to grief. She had
moved about among her kin, she had given directions, she had wept only a
little.
To Katy there was not now a ray of brightness in the world.
"Nothing is certain," she mourned. "My gran'pop brought me up. I was
always by him, he was my father. I cannot get along without him."
"You will feel certain again of this world, Katy," her grandmother
assured her. "You must not mourn for grandfather. He had a long, long
life. You would not have him back where he would get lame and helpless
after while. That is worse, Katy."
"But there are many things I would like to say to him. I never told him
enough how thankful I was to him."
"He knew you were thankful. Now you are to go to school. Everything is
to be just as it was planned."
Katy burst into tears once more.
"Ach, I do not think of school!"
Nevertheless, her heart beat a little faster. There was, after all,
something right in the world. Moreover, she still had another person to
think of. That day Alvin Koehler's dark eyes had looked down upon her as
she sat by her grandmother in church. She had promised to help Alvin;
his eyes reminded her consciously or unconsciously of her promise.
"Your Uncle Edwin and I talked this over," went on Grandmother Gaumer.
"You have two hundred dollars from the governor in the bank in your name
and the squire and Uncle Edwin and I will all help. You are to go right
on, Katy."
"I wasn't thinking about school," persisted Katy. "I was thinking about
my grandfather."
Grandmother Gaumer laid a trembling hand on Katy's head.
"He was always good and kind, Katy, you must never forget that. He was
first of all good; that is the best thing. He did what he could for
everybody, and everybody loved him. You see what Millerstown thought of
him. See that Millerstown thinks that well of you! You must never forget
him, never. He loved you--he loved you--"
Grandmother Gaumer repeated what she had said in a strange way, then she
ceased to speak, and Katy, startled, lifted her head. Then she got to
her feet. She had become familiar in these last weeks with the gray
pallor of a mortal seizure.
"Gran'mom!" shrieked Katy. "Gran'mom!"
Only the gaze of a pair of bright, troubled eyes answered her.
Grandmother's face was twisted, her hands fell heavily into her lap.
Katy threw her arms round her and laid her cheek against the white hair.
"I will be back, dear, dear gran'mom," said Katy. "You know how I can
run!"
An instant later, Katy had flung open the door of the squire's office
where sat the squire and Dr. Benner. Her grandmother had insisted upon
her putting on her red dress after the funeral. She paused now on the
sill as she had paused in her bird-like attitude to call to Caleb
Stemmel in the store at Christmas time. But this was a different Katy.
"Oh, come!" she cried. "Oh, come, come quickly!"