BEVY PUTS A HEX ON ALVIN
AFTER Katy had cleaned the Hartman attic, she cleaned one by one the
Hartman bedrooms. Cupboards and closets were emptied of their contents;
clothes, blankets, great, thick comforts were carried to the yard and
there were beaten and aired and restored to their places. Carpets were
taken up to be put through the same process and then were nailed down
once more to the floor, with mighty stretching of arms and pulling of
fingers. Floors were scrubbed, paint was wiped, windows were polished;
even the outside of the house was washed, the walls being approached by
a leaning down from the upper windows, long-handled brush well in hand,
and a stretching up from the lower windows. Any well-trained
Pennsylvania German housewife is amply able to superintend the putting
in order of an operating-room in a hospital.
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.