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!"