EMPTINESS
THE great March storm seemed to clear the way for an early spring. The
winter had been unusually cold and long; even honeysuckle and ivy vines
were winter-killed. The great old honeysuckle vine on the Gaumer porch
died down to the ground and hung a mass of brown stems, through which
the wind blew with a crackling sound. Day after day Millerstown had had
to thaw out its pumps. To Sarah Ann Mohr, who had once read an account
on the inside pages of the Millerstown "Star" of the delicate balance of
meteorological conditions, the signs were ominous.
"It means something," insisted Sarah Ann. "Once when my mom was little
they had such a winter and then the snow fell in June on the wheat. The
wheat was already in the head when the snow fell on it. If it gets only
a little colder than that, the people die."
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."