KATY IS TO BE EDUCATED AT LAST
TWO months passed before Millerstown settled down, from the excited
speculation which followed Katy Gaumer's flash of memory and its
remarkable effects, into its usual level of excitement. Millerstown was
usually excited over something. By the end of two months Sarah Ann and
Bevy and Susannah Kuhns had ceased to gather on one another's porches or
in one another's houses to discuss the strange Hartmans. By the end of
three months all possible explanations had been offered, all possible
questions answered, or proved unanswerable. Had Cassie known of the
hiding-place of the silver service? Had Cassie died of a broken heart?
Did persons ever die of broken hearts? Why, and again why, why, why, did
John Hartman push the silver service into the hole? And why, having
pushed it in, did John Hartman not take it out? Why had not Katy
remembered the strange incident long before this?
"My belief is it _was_ to be so," said Susannah Kuhns, a vague
conclusion which Millerstown applied to all inexplicable affairs.
In all their speculations, no one ever thought of John Hartman or
alluded to John Hartman as a thief. For once, Millerstown accepted the
incomprehensible. Of the sad causes of John Hartman's behavior
Millerstown knew nothing, could never know anything.
Sarah Ann, being more tender-hearted than the rest, and seeing a little
more deeply into the lives of her fellow men and women, thought longest
about the Hartmans. Sarah Ann's husband had been a disagreeable and
parsimonious man and Sarah Ann knew something of the misery of a divided
hearthstone. She often laid down the Millerstown "Star," fascinating as
it was with its new stories, of a man driven by house cleaning to
suicide in a deep well, of a dog which spoke seven words, or of a snake
creeping up a church aisle, and took off her spectacles and thought of
the Hartmans and of the Koehlers and of Katy Gaumer's strange part in
their affairs.
Millerstown was not entirely deprived of subject-matter by its
exhaustion of the Hartman mystery. David Hartman had employed a
housekeeper and had opened his great mansion from top to bottom. All
Millerstown walked past during the first few days of his occupancy to
see whether it was true that there were lights in the parlor and that
the squire and the preacher went in and out the front door to visit
David. David had been carefully inspecting his orchards and farms, had
visited again the land on the mountain-side with its double treasure.
David had brought his riding-horse to Millerstown and Millerstown flew
once more to doors and windows to see him pass. David consulted with his
farmers; David asked a thousand questions of the squire; David was busy
from morning till night.
"And David is nice and common," boasted Bevy Schnepp, who behaved as
though she were David's mother and grandmother and maiden aunt in one.
"He is never proud; you would never know he was so rich and educated."
David had gone himself in midsummer to bring William Koehler home to his
house on the mountain-side. William seemed to understand now the
startling information brought him by the squire and David. At last he
realized who David was, and all the kindliness of his intentions. As he
drove up the street, his old neighbors came out with pitying looks to
speak to him and at his home his daughter-in-law received him with her
placid kindness.
An addition had been built to the little house, but otherwise all was as
it had been. The garden had been restored, onions and peas and tomatoes
had been planted, though July was at hand, so that William might find
immediate occupation. Back in the chicken house were cheerful duckings
and crowings, and about the hives the bees buzzed as of old.
At first William tended his garden and sat on the porch in the sunshine
and was satisfied and happy. Then he grew restless; the line deepened
again in his forehead. It was plainly to be seen that all was not right
with William.
But all was made right. One afternoon Sarah Ann Mohr put on her
sunbonnet and donned a white apron over her immaculate gingham one and
took a basket on her arm and an umbrella in her hand, to be used now for
sunshade, now for staff, and climbed the mountain road. She talked with
William and gave Essie a little housewifely advice about the making of
soap, in which occupation Essie was engaged; she emptied her basket,
then she rose to go.
"William," said Sarah Ann, "I have a little plastering that should have
been done this long time. I wonder if you would have the time to do it
for me?"
It was not every one, Bevy Schnepp said proudly afterwards, who would
ride on horseback to Allentown to fetch a mason's white suit and the
best kind of trowel, but David had them ready for William in the
morning. William accepted them eagerly and began to work at once.
Presently he went all about Millerstown. Sometimes he even ventured to
the Hartman house to speak to David. David learned after a long while to
see him and talk to him without heartache. One day William made in a
whisper an astonishing confidence.
"People talk too much about themselves," said William. "I was queer
once, out of my head, but I never let on and the people never found it
out."
Thus mercifully was the past dulled.
By September Alvin was settled in his store in what had once been a
little shoemaker's shop next the post-office. Like the good housewife
she was, Essie made the place all clean and tidy and banished all odor
of leather. Then the little shop was painted and Alvin's glass cases for
ties and collars and the low chairs for the trying on of shoes were put
in place. Millerstown was curious, and went to see and remained to buy,
and upon them waited Alvin in immaculate if sober clothes. Sometimes,
alas! when there was no danger of Essie's coming into the shop, he wore
a red necktie!
Alvin had paid his debt to Katy, and in the paying had achieved a moral
victory worthy of a braver man. When the little store was planned and
the fittings all but bought, he had gone to David Hartman and had
confessed his debt.
"She helped me, she was the only one who ever helped me. She thought
perhaps something could be made of me. And I could never pay her back."
"She helped you," repeated David. "You could never pay her back."
"That was it," explained Alvin. "When she could not go to school and had
all this money, she thought somebody should use it and she helped me."
David blinked rapidly. Then he went to the safe and counted a roll of
money into Alvin's hand.
"Go pay your debts, Alvin. The store will be all right."
Alvin started briskly down the street, but his step grew slower and
slower. He was, to tell the truth, desperately afraid of Katy Gaumer.
Instead of going on to Grandfather Gaumer's he stopped in at the
squire's, awful though the squire always seemed.
"Here is Katy's money," said he.
The squire put out a prompt hand and took the money, counted it, and put
the roll into his pocket. It was just as well for the development of
Alvin's soul that it had not been offered to Katy, who might not have
accepted it.
"Thank you," said the squire. "I'll give you a receipt, Alvin. I am
coming to your shop to get me a pair of shoes," added the squire with
twinkling eyes.
July changed to August and August to September. The cock's-comb in
Grandmother Gaumer's garden--it is, to this day, Grandmother Gaumer's
garden--thrust its orange and crimson spikes up through the low borders
of sweet alyssum, the late roses bloomed, the honeysuckle put out its
last and intensely fragrant sprays. In Millerstown busy life went on.
Apple-butter boiling impended; already Sarah Ann and Bevy Schnepp saw in
their minds' eyes a great kettle suspended from a tripod at the foot of
Sarah Ann's yard, from which should presently rise into Sarah Ann's
apple tree odors fit to propitiate the angry gods, odors compounded of
apples and grape juice and spices. Round this pleasant caldron, with
kilted skirts and loud chatterings, the women would move like energetic
priestesses, guarding a sacred flame.
There came presently occasional evenings when it was not pleasant to be
out of doors, when mothers called their children earlier into the warm
kitchens and when men gathered in the store. Fall was at hand;
Millerstown became quieter--if, an unobservant, unappreciative stranger
would have said, Millerstown could have become any quieter than it was!
But Millerstown was still talking. Millerstown was now interested in
another amazing event. Katy Gaumer was going away! The Millerstonians
imparted it, the one to the other, with great astonishment.
"She will have her education now," said Sarah Ann with satisfaction.
Then Sarah Ann's eyes filled with tears. Katy seemed to her to belong to
the past; sometimes, indeed, to Sarah Ann's own generation. "I will miss
Katy."
"Going to _school_!" cried little Mary Kuhns, who was now Mrs. Weimer.
"Going to school when we are of an age and I have two children!"
"But I am not so fortunate as you, Mary," answered Katy.
Katy spoke with the ease of the preacher or the doctor; she seemed older
than all her contemporaries.
"Going to school!" cried Susannah Kuhns. "You will surely be an old
maid, Katy!"
"There are worse things to be," said Katy.
"Going to school!" Bevy's outcry was the loudest of all. "_Now! Are_
you crazy, Katy?"
"Yes," laughed Katy as of old.
"Do you remember what learning you had?"
"Yes, indeed!"
"Pooh! I forget this long time everything I learned in school. It was
mostly A, B, C, I guess. But there are better things than learning. I
can cook. Was that why you went so often to the preacher this summer?
Were you studying again?"
"Exactly," said Katy.
Bevy looked at her half in admiration, half in disapproval. Katy had
reached her full height; her dresses almost touched the floor; her curly
braid was coiled on the top of her head; her eyes had darkened. But
Katy's mouth smiled as it had smiled when she was a little girl. Bevy
felt dimly that here was a different person from Mary Weimer with her
babies and Louisa Kuhns, who, married a month, came to the store without
having curled her hair.
"But you ought to get married sometime, Katy!" exploded Bevy. The wild
dream which Bevy had cherished for her darling had faded. "What will you
do in this world all alone?"
Presently Katy's new dresses were finished, her work with the preacher
was concluded, and her new trunk was sent out from the county seat.
Edwin's Sally and little Adam wept daily. Edwin shook his head solemnly
over the impending separation.
In the few days which remained before her departure, the affairs of
David Hartman and the Koehlers and the prospective apple-butter boilings
were entirely forgotten. The gifts of friends who came to say good-bye
would have filled two trunks, if Aunt Sally had not wisely discriminated
between them.
"What will you do with three woolen quilts, Katy, when I gave you
already nice blankets? These we will put in a chest in the garret. It
will go for your Haus Steir [wedding outfit]."
Susannah Kuhns brought two jars of peaches and a glass or two of jelly,
being firmly of the conviction that boarding-schools and colleges were
especially constructed for the starving of the young.
"The English people do not eat anyhow like we do. I was once to some
English people in Allentown and they had no spread at all for on their
bread. Now you will have spreads, Katy."
Finally even Alvin Koehler caught the spirit and brought a present for
Katy, a tie from his store. Alvin allowed no cloudy recollections of the
past to darken his sunshine.
Sarah Ann came, too, with a silk quilt and a silk sofa pillow of the
"Log Cabin" pattern, the product of long saving of brightly colored
scraps.
"You are to have these things, Katy," said she. "You would 'a' had them
anyhow when I was gone, and--"
"Now, Sarah Ann!" laughed Katy. "That will be years to come, Sarah Ann!"
Thus cheered, Sarah Ann dried her tears.
"Everybody in Millerstown is sorry you are going away," said she. "You
are like the church or the schoolhouse, you are ours."
"I love Millerstown," said Katy: "I love Millerstown dearly."
Presently the trunk was packed, the last day was at hand. The squire
came to a dinner such as Grandmother Gaumer used to prepare on holidays.
He was as excited as a child over the prospect of his journey with Katy
in the morning. He would see her established; it was almost as though he
were going to school himself!
Aunt Sally refused any help with the dishes. Katy must not work; she
might read, she might sew, she might go to see Sarah Ann, she might walk
with little Adam to the schoolhouse, but she should not lay hand to
dish-towel on her last day in Millerstown!
Katy chose the taking of little Adam to school. With his hand held tight
in hers, she went out the gate, past the garden, and along the open
fields toward the church and the schoolhouse set on the hill together.
She glanced into the schoolroom, a dull place now, no longer the scene
of the prancings of a Belsnickel or the triumphs of a studious Katy;
then, leaving Adam, she set off toward the mountain road. From the first
ascent she looked down at the house of David Hartman. The foliage about
it was thinning; she was near enough to see the golden and scarlet
flowers in the garden and a cat sleeping comfortably on the wide porch.
She saw David almost daily, taking the two steps into the squire's
office at a bound, sitting in his father's pew at church, riding about
on his tall gray horse. She could not help hearing Millerstown's
discussions of his doings, of his generosity to the Koehlers, of his
subscriptions to the church, of his free-and-easy ways.
Presently there was a sudden motion on the Hartman porch; a tall figure
appeared, the cat rose and went with arched back to meet her master, a
clear whistle lifted to the ears of Katy. She started and went on her
way, angry with herself for watching. She meant to climb to the Sheep
Stable and sit there upon the great rock and look down upon the valley.
There she could be alone, there she could look her fill upon
Millerstown, there she could fortify herself for the future.
Before the Koehler house, William was puttering about in the yard. He
called to her and gave her some flowers. He had been told of Katy's part
in his deliverance, and though he seemed to have forgotten the specific
reason for his kindly feeling toward her, he was more friendly only with
David Hartman. He seemed not so much to have lost his mind and found it
as to have harked back to his childhood.
Walking more rapidly after this delay, Katy went up the mountain road.
The afternoon would pass all too quickly.
"I cannot make many plans," said Katy, soberly, as she went along. "If I
make plans there is a hex on them. I must educate myself for whatever
comes. It would be easier to educate myself if I were sure that
something would come!" cried Katy, with sudden passion. "But there is
nothing any more before me!"
The woods thickened; there was the chatter of an angry squirrel, a flash
of gold as a flicker floated downward through the sunshine, showing the
bright lining of his wings; there was the rich odor of ripening nuts, of
slippery elm. On each side of the road and arching above rose the
flaming trees, the golden brown beeches, the yellow hickories and
maples, the crimson oaks. It was a beautiful, beautiful world, though
one's heart was sad.
At the Sheep Stable Katy climbed out on the rocky parapet and sat with
half-closed, half-blinded eyes. There was not a cloud in the sky; all
was clear and bright. Far to the right lay the county seat; in the
middle distance stood the blast furnace, the smoke rising lazily from
its chimney; far away against the horizon rose the Blue Ridge with its
three gaps where the Lehigh and the Schuylkill and the Delaware Rivers
made their way through its barrier to the sea.
Directly below lay Millerstown, thickly shaded, still. Looking upon it,
Katy felt her eyes fill with tears. She could see the golden light which
the maples cast now upon its streets; she could see also the blanket of
snow which would presently cover it, the moonlight which would light it
enchantingly.
"But I will not be here!" mourned Katy. "Everything will go on in the
same way, but I will not be here. I will be far away with those who do
not know me. But I will not forget!" cried Katy. "I will not forget
anything. I will have Millerstown graven on my heart!"
Then Katy bent her head. She was still cruelly obsessed. She thought of
David Hartman, of his steady, gray eyes; she thought of his great house,
of his fine mind, of his great prospects. Katy had grown up; remembering
now the affection of her youth, she set her teeth and wept. Life and
love were not devotion to a pair of dark eyes; life and love meant
growth of one's heart and soul and mind, they meant possessions and
power and great experiences which she could not now define. David was
them all. Katy was not worldly or calculating, she had only learned to
understand herself aright.
"I would like to talk to him," said Katy. "I would like him to know that
I have some sense at last. Then I could be more satisfied to go away."
Then Katy turned her head and looked round at the little path which led
through the woodland to the parapeted rock. The winding mountain road
was out of sight from the Sheep Stable; a person could approach close to
the little plateau without being seen. A rustle of the leaves betrayed a
visitor. He walked briskly, leaping over rocks, thrusting aside branches
like one whose mind is not upon the way but upon the goal. From the
porch of his house he had seen Katy climbing the hill.
He lifted himself to a seat on the great rock beside Katy and raised his
hand to shelter his eyes while he looked over the wide prospect.
"It's beautiful up here, isn't it, Katy?"
Katy caught her breath. Her chance to talk had come; she seemed to be
filling her lungs to make the best of it. "Yes," said she.
"I'm sorry I frightened you." David did not speak very earnestly; his
apology was perfunctory, as though he would just as soon have frightened
her as not.
"It's all right," said Katy.
David looked about the little plateau. There was the little cairn; he
wondered, with amusement whether he had taken all evidences of his early
wickedness away. Then he looked smilingly down upon his companion, who
seemed unable to make use of the air which she had taken into her lungs,
but sat silently with scarlet cheeks. The cheeks flushed now a still
more brilliant color.
"We've met here before," said David, still smiling.
Katy filled her lungs with air again.
"I was _abominable_," she confessed, trembling. She began to be a little
frightened. Here she had laid hands on David, had taken sides with his
enemy, had thrust him violently down upon the ground, had screamed
insulting things at him. She had a cold fear that he might be going to
punish her for that miserable, compromising episode.
But David's tone was fairly pleasant.
"Yes," he agreed, "you were."
Katy's head bent a little lower. She said to herself that all the
education in the world would not remove the hateful stain of her
association with poor Alvin. There was nothing she could say, though she
had now ample opportunity; all she could do would be to remove herself
as soon as possible from close proximity to this tall, gray figure, to
the amused smile of these gray eyes. A moth on a pin could flutter no
more feebly than Katy fluttered inwardly.
"I wish you would forgive me," said she, by way of preparation for a
humble departure.
"But I won't," replied David. "I won't forgive you ever."
Katy's heart beat more and more rapidly. Was he really going to punish
her in some strange way? Was he--she glanced rapidly about, then
remembered how firmly that hand beside her controlled the great horse.
There was no escape unless he let her go.
Then, in spite of herself, Katy looked up, to find David looking down
upon her. An incredible notion came into her mind, an astounding
premonition of what he meant to say. If she had waited an instant David
would have spoken, would have mastered the overwhelming fear that, after
all, the hunger of his heart was not to be satisfied. But being still
Katy, she could not wait, would not wait, but rushed once more into
speech, broken, tearful.
"I was crazy in my youth," gasped Katy. "I was _wild_. I cannot
understand myself. Perhaps there are years when we are crazy. But I got
over it. I got some sense. I was made to have sense. Trouble came upon
me. I was tamed. Then I went to live at your house and I read your
books, and you used to come home, and you were so wise and--and--so--so
different from _everybody_--" Did any one think for an instant that
Katy's day of romance was past?--"I thought it would kill me because I
had been such a fool and you knew it. I thought you must do worse than
hate me, I thought you must despise me. I thought--"
David put out his arm. With shaking voice he laughed.
"Oh, foolishness!" said David. He bent his cheek upon her forehead. "I
have loved you as long as I can remember, Katy."
Katy clasped her hands across her beating heart, and closed her eyes.
"I am not prepared," said she in a whisper. "I am not educated! I am
nothing! But, oh!" cried Katy Gaumer in the language of the
Sunday-School book, "If you will give me a little time, I will bring
home my sheaves!"
THE END
The Riverside Press
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Transcriber Notes:
Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.
Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.
Throughout the document, the oe ligature was replaced with "oe".
Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of
the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
unless otherwise noted.
On page 115, "pippette" was replaced with "pipette".
On page 135, "puplit" was replaced with "pulpit".
On page 145, "gran'mon" was replaced with "gran'mom".
On page 190, a quotation mark was added before "it is a debt".
On page 261, "did n't" was replaced with "didn't".
On page 298, a quotation mark was added before "There can't be."