January and March and April passed, and still Mr. Carpenter and his pupils studied diligently. David Hartman did not carry out his threat to expose Katy; such a course would have been impossible. Day after day it seemed more certain that his father was about to say to him some extraordinary thing. He saw his father helping himself out of his buggy with a hand on the dashboard; he saw that hand tremble. But his father still said nothing. That May day when John Hartman would at last begin to right the wrong he had done had not yet arrived.

In spite of all Katy's efforts she could not pass above David in school. Alvin Koehler needed less and less help, now that he was convinced that through learning lay the way to ease and comfort, to the luxurious possession of several suits of clothes, to a seat upon a platform. Mr. Carpenter would never have to do hard work; Alvin determined to model his life after that of his teacher. He scarcely spoke to his father now, and he grew more and more afraid of him.

In May the Millerstown school broke its fine record for diligence and steady attendance. The trees were in leaf, the air was sweet, the sky was dimmed by a soft haze, as though the creating earth smoked visibly. Locust blooms filled the air with their wine-like perfume, flowers starred the meadows. Grandmother Gaumer's garden inside its stone wall was so thickly set with hyacinths and tulips and narcissus that one wondered where summer flowers would find a place. Daily Katy gathered armfuls of purple flags and long sprays of flowering currant and stiff branches of japonica and bestowed them upon all who asked. Katy learned her lessons in the garden and planned for the future in the garden and thought of Alvin in the garden.

One day, unrest came suddenly upon the Millerstown boys; imprisonment within four walls was intolerable. Even Katy, yearning for an education, was affected by the warmth of the first real summer day, and Alvin Koehler wished for once that he had learned to swim, so that he could go with the other boys to bathe in Weygandt's dam. Alvin had not yet bought the red necktie; money was more scarce than ever this spring. Alvin's whole soul demanded clothes. He reflected upon the impression he had made upon Katy Gaumer; he observed the blush which reddened the smooth cheek of Essie Hill at his approach; he was increasingly certain that his was an unusual and attractive personality.

All through the long May afternoon, Katy studied with great effort, wishing that she, too, had played truant, and had climbed to the Sheep Stable as she had long planned, there to discover the full volume of her voice. She looked across at Alvin, but Alvin did not look back.

All the long afternoon Alvin gazed idly at his algebra, and all the long afternoon David Hartman and Jimmie Weygandt and Ollie Kuhns and the two Fackenthals and Billy Knerr and Coonie Schnable braved the wrath of Mr. Carpenter and played truant. First they traveled to the top of the mountain, then raced each other down over rock and fallen tree; and then, hot and tired, plunged into Weygandt's dam, which was fed by a cold stream from the mountain. When the water grew unendurable, they came out to the bank, rubbed themselves to a glow with their shirts, and hanging the shirts on bushes to dry, plunged back with shouts and splashing.

Mr. Carpenter did not greatly regret their absence. Upon him, too, spring fever had descended; he was too lazy to hear thoroughly the lessons of the pupils who remained. When the lowest class droned its "ten times ten iss a hundred," Mr. Carpenter was nodding; when they sang out in drowsy mischief, "'laven times 'laven iss a hundred and 'laven," Mr. Carpenter was asleep.

Mr. Carpenter planned no immediate punishment for his insubordinate pupils. The threat that he would tell their parents would be a powerful and valuable weapon in his hands for the rest of the term. The Millerstown parents had fixed theories about the heinousness of truancy.

But though Mr. Carpenter planned no punishment, punishment was meted out.

The stroke of the gods was curiously manifested. The next morning the disobedient seven ate their breakfasts in their several homes, in apparently normal health, unless a sudden frown or twist of lip or an outburst of bad temper might be said to constitute symptoms of disorder. One or two clung closely to the kitchen stove, though the day was even warmer than yesterday, and David Hartman visited surreptitiously the cupboard in which his mother kept the cough medicine with which he was occasionally dosed. With a wry face he took a long swallow from the bottle. Ollie Kuhns hung round his neck the little bag filled with asafoedita, which had been used in a similar manner for the baby's whooping-cough, and Jimmie Weygandt applied to himself the contents of a flask from the barn window, labeled "Dr. Whitcraft's Embrocation, Good for Man and Beast."

All left their homes and walked down the street with the stiff uprightness of carriage which had prevented their families from realizing how grievously they were afflicted. But one and all, they forgot their household chores. Billy Knerr's mother commanded him loudly to return and to fill the coal bucket, but Billy walked on as calmly as though he were deaf, and turned the corner into the alley with a thankful sigh.

There his erectness vanished. He stood and rubbed his knee with a mournful "By Hedes!" an exclamation of unknown origin and supposed profanity much affected by him and his friends, and henceforth walked with a limp. A little ahead was Ollie Kuhns, who, when shouted at, turned round bodily and stood waiting as stiff and straight as a wooden soldier. It was difficult to believe that this was the supple "Bosco, the Wild Man, Eats 'em Alive," who rattled his chains and raised his voice in terrifying howls in the schoolhouse cellar.

"Where have you got it?" demanded Billy.

"In my neck. I cannot move my head an inch."

"I have it in my knee. Indeed, I thought I would never get out of bed. My mom is hollering after me yet to fetch coal, but I could not fetch coal if they would chop off my head for it."

"Do you suppose any one else has it like this?"

Billy did not need to answer. The alley through which they walked led out to the pike, where moved before them a strange procession. The vanquished after a battle could have worn no more agonized aspect, could not have been much more strangely contorted.

"Both my arms are stiff," wailed Coonie Schnable. "It is one side as bad as the other."

"I can't bend over," announced the older Fackenthal, woefully. "I gave my little sister a penny to tie my shoes and not say anything."

"Did any of you tell your folks?" demanded Ollie. "Because if you did we will all get thrashed."

A spirited "No!" answered the insulting question.

"I got one licking from my pop last week," mourned Billy Knerr. "That will last, anyhow a while." The pain in Billy's knee was so sharp that sometimes, in spite of all his efforts, tears rolled down his cheeks. "You'll never catch me in that dam again, so you know it!"

"It wasn't the dam," said David Hartman, irritably. David could not indicate a spot on his body which did not ache. "We were too hot and we stayed too long. Ach! Ouch! I'll—" The other pupils of the Millerstown school had crowded about the sufferers and had jostled against them and David turned stiffly upon them with murder in his heart. But it was impossible to pursue even the nearest offender, Alvin Koehler. Instead David cried babyishly, "Just you wait once till I catch you!"

Not for the world would unsuspecting Alvin have jostled him intentionally. He knew better than to offer to any schoolmate a gage to physical conflict. They were too strong and there were too many of them. He saw the jostled David speak to Billy Knerr; he saw Billy Knerr approach him and he turned, ready for flight.

Then Alvin's eyes opened, his cheeks flushed. Billy called to him in a tone which was almost beseeching, "Wait once, Alvin! Do you want to make some money, Alvin?"

At once the red tie, still coveted and sighed for, danced before Alvin's longing eyes. Money! he would do anything to make money! He stood still and let Billy approach, not quite daring to trust him.

"What money?" he asked, hopefully, yet suspiciously.

"Come over here once," said Billy.

With great hope and at the same time with deadly fear, Alvin ventured toward the afflicted crew.

"We have the rheumatism," explained Billy.

"Where?" asked Alvin stupidly.

"Where!" stormed Ollie, with a violence which almost ended the negotiations. "Where! In our legs and our backs and our arms and our eyelids." Ollie was not one to wait with patience. "We will give you a penny each for a bee in a bottle. Will you sell us a bee in a bottle, or won't you?"

Alvin's eyes glittered; fright gave place to joy. There has always been a tradition in Millerstown that the sting of a bee will cure rheumatism. The theory has nothing to do with witchcraft or pow-wowing; it seems more like the brilliant invention of a practical joker. Perhaps improvement was coincident with the original experiment, or perhaps the powerful counter-irritant makes the sufferer forget the lesser woe. Bee stings are not popular, it must be confessed; they are used as a last resort, like the saline infusion, or like a powerful injection of strychnia for a failing heart.

Strangers had often come to be stung by William Koehler's bees, but Alvin had never heard that any of them were cured. Alvin himself had tried the remedy once for a bruise with no good result. One patient had used violent language and had demanded the return of the nickel which he had given William, and William was weak enough to pass it over. But now the red tie fluttered more and more enticingly before Alvin's eyes. If he could earn seven cents by putting seven of his father's bees in bottles, well and good. It made no difference if the patients were deceived about the salutary effects of bee stings.

Then into the quickened mind of Alvin flashed a brilliant plan.

"I will do it for three cents apiece," he announced with craft. "I cannot bann [charm] them so good as pop. They will perhaps sting me."

Alvin's daring coup was successful.

"Well, three cents, then. But you must get them here by recess." Ollie Kuhns groaned. He was not used to pain, and it seemed to him that his agony was spreading to fresh fields. "Clear out or the teacher will get you and he won't let you go. He's coming!"

With a great spring, Alvin dropped down on the other side of the stone fence, and lay still until the teacher had shepherded his flock into the schoolroom. By this time not only the red tie, but a whole new suit dazzled the eyes of Alvin. Old man Fackenthal bottled his cough cure and sold it all about the county. Why should not bees be bottled and labeled and sold? If their sting was supposed to be so valuable a cure, they would be a desired commodity. Alvin had told a lie when he had said he could not "bann" bees as well as his father, for he had over them the same hypnotic influence. He saw himself spending the rest of his life raising them and catching them and bottling them and selling them. There would have to be air holes through the corks of the bottles so that they could breathe, and a few drops of honey within to nourish them, but with these provisions they could be shipped far and wide.

"They would be powerful mad when they were let out," said Alvin to himself, as he lay in the lee of the schoolhouse fence. "The people would get their money's worth."

Alvin saw suddenly all the old people in the world stiff and sore and all the young people afflicted like Ollie and his friends. He did not wish for any of them such a fate. He had various weaknesses, but a vindictive spirit was not one of them. He saw only the possibilities of a great business. Hearing the schoolhouse bell, and knowing that all were safely within doors, he started across the fields and up the mountain-side.

The bargain was consummated in the woodshed, a little frame building leaning against the blank wall of the schoolhouse. Alvin, hurrying back from his house, scrambling over fences, weary from his long run, thought that he was too early with the wares in the basket on his arm. Or could it be, alas! that he was late and recess was over? That would be too cruel! With relief he heard the sound of voices in the woodshed where his patients awaited him.

The truants had endured an hour and a half of torture. They anticipated punishment for yesterday's misdemeanor, and they had a deadly fear that that punishment would be physical. Anxiously now from the woodshed, where they could lie at their ease, they listened for Alvin.

"Perhaps he won't come back," suggested Billy Knerr. "Perhaps he cannot catch the bees."

Recess was all over but five minutes, and the disheartened sufferers were expecting the bell, when Alvin appeared. David Hartman had collected the money against such necessity for haste, and, indeed, had advanced most of it from his well-lined pocket. Only in such dire trouble would he have treated with Alvin Koehler; only in this agony would he have bought from any one such a pig in a poke. If he had been himself, he would have made Alvin open the basket and would have examined the contents to be sure that Alvin was playing fair. But now, with only two minutes to cure himself and his friends of their agony, there was no time for the ordinary inspection of the articles of trade.

The commodities exchanged hands; twenty-one pennies into Alvin's outstretched palm, the basket into David's. It took David not much more than one of his hundred and twenty seconds to open the basket lid, even though it fitted closely and needed prying. A low, angry murmur, which the boys had not heard in their pain, changed at once to a loud buzz, and suddenly the hearts of the most suffering failed them. But the basket lid was off, and with it came the lid of a fruit jar which stood within. The bees were not in separate bottles—Alvin maintained stoutly that separate bottles had not been stipulated—so that one sting could be applied at a time, like a drop of medicine from a pipette; they were, or, rather, they had been, in a broad-mouthed jar, whose lid, as I have said, came off with the basket lid.

Moreover, at this instant the door of the woodshed, impelled by a gentle May breeze, blew shut and the latch dropped on the outside. There were seven boys penned into the woodshed and there were at least a hundred bees. Alvin had been in too much of a hurry to count the precious things he sold. He had held the jar before the outlet of the hive and the bees had rushed into it. Granted that honey bees sting but once, and granted that thirty of these bees did not sting at all, there were still ten for each patient.

Wildly the frantic prisoners batted the bees about with their bare hands. There were no hats, there was nothing in the empty woodshed which could be used as a weapon. Piteously they yelled, from great David Hartman to the eldest of the Fackenthals.

The uproar reached the ears of Alvin, who was just entering the schoolhouse door and Alvin fled incontinently to the gate and down the road. It penetrated to the schoolroom and brought Mr. Carpenter rushing angrily out. He had rung the school bell; his pupils did not respond; he thought now that their yells were yells of defiance. Emboldened by yesterday's success they had arranged some new anarchy. Whatever may have been the faults of Mr. Carpenter, he was physically equal to such a situation, short and slender though he was. He tore open the woodshed door; he caught Ollie Kuhns and shook him before any one could explain. Then, as he reached for the collar of David Hartman, one of the bees, which had not already committed suicide by stinging, lit on his hand. The pain did little to pacify the teacher. The boys, seized one after the other, had no shame strong enough to keep them from crying. Herded into the schoolroom, David at the tail end with the teacher's grasp on his ear, they forgot their rheumatism, they forgot the girls, they forgot even Alvin himself, who was by this time flying down the road. They laid their heads upon their desks, and Mr. Carpenter, dancing about, demanded first of one, then of the other, an explanation of this madness. Mr. Carpenter forgot his objections to Pennsylvania German; in this moment of deep anguish he was compelled to have recourse to his native tongue.

"What do you mean?" roared Mr. Carpenter. "What is this fuss? Are you crazy? You will catch it! Be quiet! Go to your seats! It will give an investigation of this! Ruhig!!"

In reality Mr. Carpenter himself was producing most of the confusion. The grief of those at whom he stormed was silent; they still sat with heads bent upon their desks. At them their schoolmates gaped, for them the tender-hearted wept.

As Alvin flew down the pike he began to be frightened. He was not repentant, not with twenty-one coppers in his pocket! He had a nickel already and now the beautiful tie was his. He could not go at once to purchase it for fear that the smitten army behind him might rally and pursue, nor did he wish to hide his money about the house for fear that his father might find it. He decided that he would get himself some dinner and then go walking upon the mountain. It would be well to be away from home until the time for his father's return. To his house the lame legs of his schoolmates might follow him, there their lame arms seize him, but to the Sheep Stable they could not climb. He did not realize that, as he crossed the fields above his father's house, he was for a moment plainly exposed to the view of the Millerstown school.

Tired, certain that he was out of reach of the enemy, Alvin lay down on the great rock which formed the back of the little cave. His heart throbbed; he was not accustomed to such strenuous exertion of body or to such rapid and determined operations of mind. He was even a little frightened by his own bravery and acuteness. He thought for a long time of himself and for a little time of Katy Gaumer and Essie Hill; then, deliciously comfortable in the spring sunshine, he fell asleep.

For three hours Alvin lay still on the great rock. Occasionally a chestnut blossom drifted down on his cheek, and was brushed drowsily away; occasionally the chatter of a squirrel, impatient of this human intrusion, made him open his eyes heavily. But each time he dropped into deeper sleep. The rock was hard, but Alvin was young and, besides, was not accustomed to a soft bed.

At the end of three hours he woke suddenly. It seemed to him that a dark cloud had covered the sun or that night had fallen. But a worse danger than storm or darkness was at hand.

Above him, almost touching his own, bent an angry face.

"Get up!" commanded a stern voice, and Alvin slid off the rock and stood up.

"Now, fight," David ordered. "I was stiff but I am not so much stiff any more. But the stiffness you may have for advantage. One, two, three!"

Even with the handicap of stiffness, the advantage was upon the side of David. He was strong; he was furiously and righteously angry; he had been shamed in the eyes of Millerstown. Katy Gaumer had seen his ignominy; she had whispered about him to Sarah Knerr. Alvin was a coward; he had long been cheating; he had accepted the help of a girl. Besides, Katy Gaumer was kind to him. For that crime his punishment had long been gathering.

Automatically Alvin raised his fist. Below them was the steep, rock-piled hillside; back of them was the rock wall of the Sheep Stable; and there was no help nearer than Millerstown, far below in its girdle of tender green. Even through the still air Alvin's cries could not be heard in the valley. He cried out when David struck him; he begged for mercy when David laid him on his back on the stony ground. He thought that there was now no hope for him; he was certain that his last hour had come. He expected that David would hurl him down over the edge of the precipice to the sharp rocks far below. He closed his eyes and moaned.

David had already determined to let his victim go. He was suddenly deeply interested in certain sensations within himself; he was distracted from his intention of administering to Alvin all the punishment he deserved. He felt a strange, uplifted sensation, a consciousness of strength; he was excited, thrilled. Never before in his life had he acted so swiftly, so entirely upon impulse. The yielding body beneath him, Alvin's fright, made him seem powerful to himself. The world was suddenly a different place; he wanted now to be alone and to think.

But David had no time to think. As unexpectedly as though sent from heaven itself arrived the avenger. Katy Gaumer had found time dull and heavy on her hands. Alvin had vanished; there would be the same lessons for the next day since one third of the class was absent and one third incapacitated. Katy was amused at the tears of David and his friends. A bee sting was nothing, nor yet a little stiffness! Katy had been once stung by a hornet and she had had a sprained ankle. Katy's heart was light; she had had recently new compliments from the doctor about her voice, and she had determined that this afternoon she would ascend to the Sheep Stable and startle the wide valley with song.

Katy was not lame or afflicted; she climbed gayly the mountain road. Nor was Katy afraid. She would not have believed that any evil could befall one so manifestly singled out by Providence for good fortune. She sang as she went; therefore she did not hear the wails of Alvin. Alvin cried loudly as he lay upon the ground; therefore he did not hear the song of Katy.

But Alvin felt suddenly the weight shoved from his body; he saw the conqueror taken unawares, thrust in his turn upon the ground; and he had wit and strength enough to scramble to his feet when the incubus was removed.

"Shame on you!" cried the figure in the red dress to the figure prone upon the ground. "Shame on you! You big, ugly boy, lie there!" Katy almost wept in her wrath. It was unfortunate for Katy that she should have been called upon to behold one toward whom her heart was already unwisely inclined thus in need of pity and help.

To Alvin's amazement the conqueror, a moment ago mighty in his rage, obeyed. The arrival of Katy, sudden as it was to him, was even more sudden to David. David was overwhelmed, outraged. He had not wit to move; he heard Katy's taunts, saw her stamp her foot; he heard her command Alvin to come with her, saw her for an instant even take Alvin by the hand, and saw Alvin follow her. His eyes were blinded; he rubbed them cruelly, then he turned over on his face and dug his hands into the ground. From poor David's hot throat there came again that childish wail. Conquered thus, David was also spiritless; he began to cry, "I want her! I want her! I want her!"

Aching, motionless, he lay upon the ground. With twitching tail the squirrel watched from his bough, chattering again his disgust at this queer human use of his abiding-place. The air grew cool, the blazing sun sank lower, and David lay still.

Meanwhile, down the mountain road together went Katy Gaumer and Alvin Koehler.

"He came on me that quick," gasped Alvin. He had brushed the clinging twigs from his clothes and had smoothed his hair. His curls lay damp upon his forehead, and his cheeks were scarlet, his chin uplifted.

Katy breathed hard.

"Well, I came on him quick, too!"

Alvin began to gasp nervously. Self-pity overwhelmed him.

"I have nothing in this world," mourned he. "This summer I will have to work at the furnace. I will have a hard life."

"But I thought you were going to have an education!" cried Katy.

"I cannot," mourned Alvin. "It is no use to try. I am alone in the world."

Katy turned upon him a glowing face.

"That is nonsense, Alvin! Everybody can have an education. There are schools where you can study and work, too. It is so at the normal school where they learn you to teach. I thought you were going to be a teacher, Alvin!"

"I was," said Alvin. "I would like to be a teacher."

"I will find out about those schools," promised Katy, forever eager to help, to plan. "I am going away; nothing would keep me in Millerstown. You must surely go, Alvin!"

"David Hartman can have everything," wailed Alvin, his aching bones making themselves felt. "He had no business to come after me. He has a rich pop. He—"

"He has a horrible pop," answered Katy. "He chased me once when I was little, and I never did him anything. Why, Alvin!" Katy stopped in the dusty road. "There is David's pop in his buggy at your gate!"

Alvin grew deathly pale, he remembered his father's madness, his threats, the crime which he had committed and which he blamed upon John Hartman.

"What is it?" cried Katy. "What ails you, Alvin? He would not dare to touch me now that I am big. Come!"

"No!" Alvin would not move. "Look once at him, Katy! Something is the matter with him!"

"I am not afraid," insisted Katy bravely. "I am—he is sick, Alvin; he is sitting quiet in his buggy." She went close to the wheel. "Mr. Hartman!" She turned and looked at Alvin, then back at the figure in the buggy. "His head hangs down, Alvin, and he will not answer me. I believe he is dead, Alvin!"

Slowly Alvin moved to Katy's side. He laid a hand upon her arm—Katy thought it was to protect her; in reality Alvin sought support in his deadly fear.

"I believe it, too, Katy!"

Speechlessly the two gazed at each other. When Alvin had shouted wildly for his father and Katy had joined her voice to his and there was no answer, the two set off, hand in hand, running recklessly down the mountain road.