In June Grandmother Gaumer was smitten; in September Alvin was to go away; the months between were not unhappy for Katy. Occasionally Alvin came and sat with her on the porch in the darkness. It was tacitly agreed that they should not be seen together. Public opinion in Millerstown was less favorable than ever to Alvin since his father's removal to the poorhouse was coincident with Alvin's elaborate preparations for school. Alvin could not wait for the slow operations of a tailor; he went at once to Allentown and purchased a suit; the fifty dollars which he found at the time appointed in the putlock hole remained intact no longer than the time consumed in making the journey. Millerstown was certain that Alvin had found his father's hoarded wealth, and speculated wildly about its possible size.

"Koehler was working all these many years," said Susannah Kuhns. "He had all the time his place free on the hill. Alvin will have enough money for education, of that you may be sure."

"But can he take education?" asked the puzzled Sarah Ann. "The Koehlers were always wonderful dumb. There was once a Koehler whose name was Abraham and he wrote it always 'Aprom,' and one made a cupboard and nailed himself in and they had to come and let him out. They are a dumb Freundschaft. They are bricklayers and carpenters; they are not educated men. Now, with Katy it is different. She has a squire and a governor in her Freundschaft."

"I don't believe he got all this money from his pop," protested Bevy. "There are other ways of getting money. It says in the Bible, 'Like father, like son.'"

"He parades up and down like a Fratzhans [dude] in his new clothes," said Susannah.

"Ach, Susannah!" reproved gentle Sarah Ann, in whose judgment criticism had now gone far enough.

Such speculations and accusations Katy had more than once to hear. Then Katy clenched her hands. They would see Alvin come back to Millerstown some day a great man. She hated Susannah and Bevy and all Alvin's detractors. Never was Katy doubtful for an instant of her undertaking; she had succeeded with the Christmas entertainment; she had succeeded in compelling Mr. Carpenter to teach her; she was succeeding now in doing all the work in her grandmother's house; she would succeed in educating Alvin.

"Sarah Ann is a great, fat worm," said Katy with scorn. "When the brains were given out, Sarah Ann was missed. And Bevy is a little grasshopper and she, too, is dumb. It is a great pity for them."

She wished that she might see Alvin oftener, but that was impossible. He was near at hand; she could get occasional glimpses of him, and she could sit by her grandmother's bed and think of him. She had put her precious fifty dollars in the putlock hole and Alvin had removed it. It must be confessed that between the time Katy promised and the time that she deposited the money, Alvin came more than once after night to feel round in the improvised bank. The gift constituted now in Katy's mind an unbreakable bond between them. Such largess would have inspired her to lay down her life for the giver, and Alvin was endowed in her mind with gifts and graces far greater and nobler than her own. At the garments which he bought she looked with tender approval. Certainly he could not go to the normal school without suitable clothes!

Besides Katy's clearly expressed conviction that it was unwise for Alvin to come to see her, there was another reason why Alvin did not turn his steps oftener to Grandmother Gaumer's gate. Alvin's new clothes put him temporarily into a condition bordering upon insanity. He must show himself in his fine apparel. He would have liked to appear in it each evening, but such a performance was unthinkable. Only on Saturday and Sunday did Millerstown wear its best.

On Saturday and Sunday, therefore, Alvin lived. He attended ice-cream festivals and Sunday School picnics; he went diligently to church, selecting each Sunday the one of Millerstown's churches which was likely to have the largest attendance. When the Lutherans had a Children's Day service, Alvin went early to get a good seat. Often he sat in the Amen corner, close to the little cupboard with the space of smooth, gray wall beside it. Upon the smooth, gray wall his profile and curly head cast a beautiful shadow. When there was a revival service at the church of the Improved New Mennonites, Alvin was in the congregation. There he was conscious of the demure eyes of Essie Hill. Essie was always alone. David Hartman, who sat with her on the doorstep, never was seen inside her church. To David revivals, such as enlivened many of the meetings of the Improved New Mennonites, were intolerable; they made him feel as he had felt at his father's funeral with the gaze of all Millerstown searching his soul. Between Essie and her father there had occurred a short conversation about David and his worldly ways.

"You can never marry outside your church, Essie," said grave, sober Mr. Hill.

"No, pop," agreed Essie. "Such a thing I would not do."

Alvin Koehler would have had no objection to a scrutiny of his soul. To Alvin, all of himself was interesting.

Alvin did not think often of his father. By this time William was trusted to work in the almshouse fields, and was allowed to talk from morning till night of his wrongs.

Early in September Alvin went away. He came on the last Saturday evening to say good-bye to Katy and they sat together on the dusky porch. The porch was darker than it had been in the springtime, since the hand which usually pruned the vines was no longer able to hold the shears. There were still a few sprays of bloom on the honeysuckle and the garden was in its greatest glory. There bloomed scarlet sage and crimson cock's-comb and another more brilliant, leafy plant, red from root to tip. Among the stalks of the spring flowers twined now nasturtiums and petunias, and there was sweet alyssum and sweet William and great masses of cosmos and asters. In the moonlight Katy could see a plant move gently; even in her sadness she could not resist a spasm of pleasure as a rabbit darted out from behind it. On the brick wall between the porch and the garden stood Grandmother Gaumer's thorny, twisted night-blooming cactus with great swollen buds ready to open to-morrow evening. The air had changed; it was no longer soft and warm as it had been the night when Katy first planned to educate Alvin.

Sitting by her grandmother's bed Katy had finished her red dress with the ruffles. It had been necessary to make the hem an inch longer than they had planned in the spring. Grandmother Gaumer's patient eyes had seemed to smile when Katy showed her. Grandmother Gaumer was shown everything; to her bedside Bevy bore proudly Katy's first successful baking of bread; thither to-morrow, Uncle Edwin would carry the great cactus in its heavy tub.

Katy sat for a long time on the step before Alvin came. Her body softened and weakened a dozen times as she thought she heard his step, then her muscles stiffened and her hands clenched as the step passed by. Presently it would be time for Bevy to go home and for Katy to go into the house, or presently some one would come, and then her chance to see Alvin would be gone. It seemed to her that Bevy looked at her with suspicion when Alvin's name was mentioned; the later it grew the more likely Bevy was to interrupt their interview.

The grip of Katy's hands, one upon the other, grew tighter, her cheeks hotter, the beating of her heart more rapid. He must come; it was incredible that he could stay away. Her throat tightened; she said over and over to herself, "Oh, come! come! come!"

Presently down the dusky street approached Alvin with his swinging walk. Now Katy knew at last that she was not mistaken. He was here; he was entering the gate which she had opened so that its loud creak might not be heard by Bevy; he was walking softly on the grass as Katy had advised him.

Alvin sat down a little closer to Katy than was his custom. A subtle change had come over him. Though the Millerstown boys looked at him with scorn, the Millerstown girls, smiling upon him, had completed the work which Katy's attentions had begun. Alvin had not attended Sunday School picnics, with their games of Copenhagen and their long walks home in the twilight, for nothing. Alvin had less and less desire for learning; he still thought of education as a path to even finer clothes than he had and greater admiration and entire ease. He had come now from service at the Lutheran church, and from his favorite corner he had been conscious of the notice of the congregation. He had asked Katy for twenty-five dollars more than she had given him; this, Katy told him, lay now in the putlock hole in the house wall. His spirits rose still more gayly as he heard of it.

"I will pay it back in a year or two," he assured Katy lightly. "Then I will tell you how to do when you go to school."

"Yes," said Katy. She would have liked to say, "Oh, Alvin, keep it, keep it forever!" But how then should she attain to an equality with Alvin? She realized now fully that he was going away. The long, long winter was fast approaching, and she would be here alone in this changed house. There would be no more entertainments; there would be no more frantic racing with Whiskey; there would be no more glorifying, sustaining hope.

Slowly the tears rolled down Katy's cheeks. She knew that the minutes were passing rapidly, and that she and Alvin had said nothing. But still she sat with her hands pressed against her eyes.

Almost immediately, alas! there was an alarming sound. The step of Bevy was heard descending the stairway. Poor Katy could cheerfully have slain her. A hundred confused thoughts filled her mind, the tears came faster than ever; she rose, and Alvin rose with her and they looked at each other, and then Alvin was gone. In his excitement he closed the gate noisily behind him. Katy sank down again on the step from which she had risen. When Bevy looked out from the doorway, Katy sat motionless.

"You ought to come in, Katy," advised Bevy. "It is cold."

"I am not cold," said Katy.

"It is damp and cold," insisted Bevy. "I thought I heard the gate slam."

Katy made no answer.

"Did it slam?" asked Bevy.

Katy looked round. Her eyes were bright; her voice, if it trembled, did not tremble with grief. "If you heard it, I guess it slammed," said she.

"The night air is bad." Bevy was losing patience. "Will you come in?"

"No," said Katy.

Bevy snapped the screen door shut.

"Je gelehrter, je verkehrter" (The more learned, the more perverse), she declared.

When Bevy had reached the upper hall, Katy rose from her place on the lowest step, and stretched out her arms as though to embrace the garden and Millerstown and the world. Mist was rising from the little stream below the orchard; it veiled the garden in a lovely garment; it seemed to intensify the odor of the honeysuckle and the late roses. Again Katy sank down on the step and hid her face in her arms.

"He kissed me!" said Katy shamelessly.

Now Katy's winter was guarded against unhappiness.

A little later in September David Hartman went to school also, not to the normal school where tuition cost nothing, but to college as befitted the heir of a rich man. His tutor had prepared him thoroughly for his examinations; he had an ample allowance; there was no reason why the gratification of any legitimate desire should be denied him. His mother had spared no pains with his outfit; she had bought and sewed and laundered and packed a wardrobe such as, it is safe to say, no other student in the college possessed. During the long summer she and David had had little to say to each other. David had been constantly busy with his books; he had had little time even to think of his father, whom he so passionately regretted. Death continued to work its not uncommon miracle for John Hartman; it dimmed more and more for his son the character of his later years, and exaggerated greatly the vaguely remembered tendernesses of David's babyhood. John Hartman had to an increasing degree in his death what he had not had in life, the affection and admiration of his boy. How was it possible for him to be anything else but silent with a wife so cold, so immovable, so strange? David was certain that he had solved his father's problem. Sometimes David could not bear to look at his mother.

But now that he was going away, David's eyes were somewhat sharpened. His mother looked thin and bent and tired; she seemed to have grown old while she sewed for him.

"You ought to get you a girl," he said with the colossal stupidity of youth and of the masculine mind.

Mrs. Hartman looked at him, as though she were suddenly startled. He seemed to have grown tall overnight; his new clothes had made a man of him. Then a film covered her eyes, as though she withdrew from the suggestions of lunacy into some inward sanctuary where burned the lamp of wisdom.

"A girl!" cried Cassie, as though the suggestion were monstrous. "To have her spoil my things! A girl!"

David's trunk was packed in the kitchen, thither his hat and satchel were brought also. When his breakfast was over he went down the street to the preacher's for a letter recommending his character. When he returned, his trunk and satchel had been sent to the station; he had now only to take his hat and say good-bye to his mother who was at this moment in the deep cellar. For her David waited awkwardly. He remembered how he had stood kicking his foot against the door sill on Christmas Day—how many years and years ago it seemed!

Now, as then, David experienced a softening of the heart. He forgot his resentment against his mother's coldness, against her strange passion for material things. She was his mother, she was all he had in the world, and he was going away from her and from his home. He heard her ascending the cellar steps, and he turned and went up to his room as though he had forgotten something, so that he might hide his tears.

At the entrance of the little hall which led to his room, David stood still, the lump hardening in his throat, his breath drawn heavily. His errand to the preacher's had not taken half an hour, but in that half-hour his room had been dismantled. The cheap little bed had been taken apart and had been carried into the hall; the carpet had been dropped out of the window to the grass below; broom and scrubbing-brush and pail waited in the corner. The door of his mother's room opposite his own was closed; a dust cloth was stuffed under it so that no mote could enter. Now, all the rooms in Cassie's house except the kitchen and her own could be immaculate.

For a long moment David stood still. He looked into his room, he looked at his mother's closed door, he looked at the door which shut off the deep front of the great house. He felt the same mysterious impression which Katy Gaumer felt when she looked at the outside of the Hartman house, as though it held within it strange secrets. It seemed now as though it thrust him forth as one who did not belong, as though its walls might presently contract until there should be no space for him to stand. It was a cruel suggestion to a boy about to leave his home! David breathed deeply as though to shake off the oppression, and then went down the steps.

Without apparent emotion he bade Cassie farewell, then strode briskly toward the station. Essie Hill, who let him sit beside her on the doorstep and who argued prettily with him about his soul, was nowhere to be seen; his companions, Ollie Kuhns and Billy Knerr and the Fackenthals, were at work or at school; Bevy Schnepp, whose great favorite he was, was busy with her washing in the squire's yard far up the street. In the door of the store stood Katy Gaumer. Her, with Alvin Koehler, he hated. David had with his own eyes beheld one of Alvin's hasty departures from Grandmother Gaumer's gate. Persons found their levels in this world and Katy had found hers.

But on the corner David hesitated. How tall she had grown! How large her eyes were, and how lacking in their old sparkle! Cheerfully would he have returned in this final moment of madness to the dullness of the Millerstown school to be near her once more, cheerfully would he have continued his abode in Millerstown forever. He determined to go to speak to her, to say, "Let us be friends." Essie Hill was pretty and sweet, and her anxiety about his soul was flattering, but Essie was like a candle to a shining star. He saw the flirt of Katy's red dress as she sailed up the schoolroom aisle; he heard her saucy answers to the teacher; he admired her gayety, her great ambition. She had planned by now to be at school, learning everything; instead, she wore a gingham apron and stood in the Millerstown store buying a broom!

A single step David had already taken, when Katy turned from her bargaining and their eyes met. Katy knew whither David was bound; already his train whistled faintly at the next station. It seemed to her that he looked at her with pity. He was to go, and she was to stay—forever! With bitterness Katy turned her back upon him.

For a year Grandmother Gaumer lay high upon her pillows, her patient eyes looking out from her paralyzed body upon her friends and her quiet room. Presently she was able to lift her hands and to say a few slow and painful words. Her bed had been moved to the parlor; from here she could look up and down the street, and out to the kitchen upon Katy at her work. A trolley line was being built to connect Millerstown with the county seat; she could see the workmen approaching across the flat meadows, and after a while could watch with a thrill a faint, distant gleam of light broaden into the glare of a great headlight as the car whizzed into the village. Her face grew thinner and more delicate; her survival came presently to seem almost a miracle. But still she lay patiently, listening to the storms and rejoicing in the sunshine. To her Katy read the Bible, hour after hour, a dull experience to the mind of Bevy, devout Improved New Mennonite though she was.

"You are an old woman," protested Bevy. "You are older than I in your ways. Run with Whiskey a little like you used to run! I could be much oftener here, and the other people would be glad to sit with gran'mom. I even put cakes for you in the hole and you don't take them out any more!"

Katy was really very happy during the long winter. Housekeeping had become easy; she would accept no help even with washing and cleaning. As for going about in Millerstown, Katy laughed, as neat, aproned in housewifely fashion, she sat by her grandmother's bed.

"Shall I go now to quiltings and surprise parties when I would not go before? I am not interested in those things."

Often there was time in the long afternoons for Katy to sit with her books. She knew what Alvin was studying; it was easy at first to keep up with him. She enjoyed the sense of importance which her position as head of the house gave her. Sarah Ann dissolved in tears as she praised her; Uncle Edwin and Aunt Sally made much of her. And how much more important was she than any of them knew! Alvin was doing well at school, at least so Alvin wrote. When trouble came, she would have Alvin to fly to. When her tasks seemed a burden, or when studying without a teacher became difficult, or when the winter storms shook the house, she remembered how he had kissed her. The complication which Dr. Benner had feared for Katy had arrived. Dr. Benner was by this time married; in the glamour in which he lived, he was unconscious of the existence of Katy except as a person of whom questions must occasionally be asked, to whom directions must sometimes be given. His wife was not pleasant and "common"; she was "proud"; she gave Millerstown to understand that as soon as she could persuade her husband to buy a practice in a more cultivated community, they would leave.

At Christmas time Alvin did not come home, but went instead to visit a schoolmate. If he had come, there would have been no place for him to stay. The little house on the mountain-side was cold and deserted; it would probably never be occupied again. Alvin wrote occasionally to Katy and Katy wrote regularly to him. It was not to be expected that he should neglect his work to write letters. Fortunately the Millerstown post-office was presided over at present by old man Fackenthal, who did not scrutinize addresses with undue closeness. Nevertheless, Katy disguised her own hand and dropped her letters into the slit in the door at night.

David returned at Christmas time with an added inch of height, with straighter shoulders and a sterner glance. David moved swiftly, answered questions directly, walked alone upon the mountain-side, or sat with his books in his mother's kitchen. He seemed to have had some improving, enlightening experience; college had already done a great deal for him. Him Katy did not see.

Nor did Alvin appear in the summer time, except for a few days at the end. He had asked Katy for another fifty dollars in the spring, and she had sent it to him without stopping to consider that now more than half of her money was gone. Alvin meant to work in a drug store this summer, at least so Alvin said, in order to pay part of his debt. But the dispensing of soda water did not appear to have been as profitable as he expected, for in August, when he came to Millerstown, he borrowed another fifty dollars. He promised certainly now that he would come for Christmas. He put his arms boldly round Katy and kissed her many times. It seemed that Alvin, too, had had illuminating experiences.

David spent the summer in his little room and on the mountain-side. David sometimes lay for hours together on the plateau before the Sheep Stable. Sometimes he carried thither the books which he continued to study diligently. Sometimes he walked about, climbing among rocks, tramping along the arched back of the little range of hills,—mountains, to Millerstown. David sighed contentedly and breathed deeply. He noted the dappled shadows, the wreathing clematis, the tall spikes of lobelia, the odor of slippery elm the first reddening branch of the gum trees. He looked down upon the fertile fields, upon the scattered villages, and he was almost happy. Then David returned to his books. It was strange that he should study so earnestly during the long summer. Surely David with his good mind had not fallen behind his fellows!

David's illuminating experiences had not been entirely those which study and knowledge bring. David's arrival in the college town had been at once observed and marked. He towered above his fellows; he had a look of greater maturity than his years would warrant; he had apparently large means at his command. Upper classmen are not so entirely devoted as is supposed to the abuse of the entering novice. Upon the novice depends the continued existence of the college society which is so important a part of the college's social structure. You cannot very well urge a man to join an organization of which you are a member after you have beaten him or held his head under an icy hydrant! David's college made a tacit but no less real distinction between the youth who was likely to prove valuable society material and the youth who would likely prove to be merely a student. David's clothes were of the best, he had many of them, he occupied an expensive room; it was evident that he need not have recourse to the many shifts by which the poor boy in college provides himself with spending money. David was overlooked in the disciplinary measures by which many of his classmates were trained to respect their betters. His discipline was, alas! much harder to endure!

He accepted in his silent way the attentions which were showered upon him, the drives, the treats, the introductions to foolish young ladies whose eyes spoke their admiration. David was bewildered and embarrassed, and David for a time wisely remained silent. There was no reason to think that David had not been brought up in the politest of society. But, finally, alas! David spoke.

It was not often that a student had a party given especially for him. But, as the seven villages struggled for the honor of the birth of Homer, so the college societies longed for the honor of possessing David. Finally all but two dropped out of the race. David had not committed himself to either, but it was understood that in accepting the proffered entertainment he was practically making his decision.

The great evening approached; the great guest in his fine apparel, another new suit, now a dress suit made by the college tailor, appeared at his party. The prettiest girl of all appointed herself his companion, and to him addressed a pretty remark.

"We are glad to have you here at college, Mr. Hartman."

Then David spoke. The prettiness of the girl, the formality of her address, the bright lights, his conspicuous position—all combined in David's downfall. David did not speak naturally as he spoke now; David had no trouble with th, David knew the English idiom; David knew better, oh, much, much better. But poor David reverted to type.

"I sank myself," said David amid a great and growing hush. Then David walked out, away from the pretty girl, away from the bright lights, away, forever, from the organization which had sought him. Overwhelmed with embarrassment, outraged, David sought his room and his books. David could never be persuaded to return to the society in which he had been thus humiliated; he never emerged again from his room or his books except to recite or to walk or to go to his meals or to church. He henceforth lived alone. He discovered that by diligent study he could accomplish in three years what he had expected would require four. The sooner he was out of this place the better. He went weekly to a neighboring city, and there, finding a teacher of elocution, conquered, he was sure forever, that damning trick of speech. He grew handsomer; he filled his room with beautiful furniture and many books; his allowance assumed in the eyes of his college mates the proportions of a fortune in itself. But David could not be induced to forget. David lost much, but David in his sullen hermitage remained decent and unspoiled.

Once or twice in the summer he sat with Essie on her doorstep. Essie was prettier than ever; she still besought him to be "plain." David laughed at her and teased her; she was really the only person in the world with whom he laughed. His mother's strength seemed to have failed; often she lay down on the settle before it was dark, but only when she fell asleep did David find her in this ignominious position. If she heard a step she sprang up, as though she had committed a crime.

Once more Christmas approached and passed. This time again there was no visiting governor, no great feast, no entertainment. Again Alvin did not come home; he did not now write a letter or send a gift. Grandmother Gaumer was worse; the patience in her eyes had changed to a great weariness; she had ceased to be able to move or to speak.

In March there came a great storm. It extinguished all the village lamps; it whirled across the broad breast of the mountain, sending to the ground with a mighty crash, unheard of man, many trees; it beat against the Gaumer house, which seemed to tremble. In spite of the storm, however, Katy put on her scarlet shawl and went to the post-office, as of old. But in those days there had been no such feverish haste as this!

Her grandmother looked at her for a moment as she stood by the bed and tried to smile. Then Katy went out, her skirts flying in the wind, the rain beating in her face. She plodded along as best she could, without the old sensation of a viking breasting an angry sea.

At the post-office she found a letter, and there stopped to read it because she could not wait.

"Dear, dear Katy!" With what a wild thrill Katy beheld the opening words. Then Katy read on. "I am in great trouble, Katy. For some time I have not had enough money to get along, and now I must have fifty dollars. Oh, Katy, try and get it for me! Oh, I don't know what will happen, Katy. Oh, please, Katy!"

Katy read the letter through twice; then she stood gaping. Old man Fackenthal spoke to her and she answered without knowing what she said; then she went out and stood in the rain, trying to think. She had no money; her last cent had been given to Alvin in the fall. But Alvin had appealed to her to help; it was—oh, poor Katy!—an honor to be thus solicited. No one else could help him; he would go to no one else in the world.

Like a shock of cold water upon an exhausted body, fell Alvin's request upon Katy's weary, tired soul. When the necessity for an English entertainment was made clear to Katy, plans were immediate, execution prompt. Katy had known at once what she would do. She forgot now that she had no way of earning money; she did not anticipate that to her honest soul the burden of a debt would be almost as great as the burden of remembered theft. Boldly she presented herself to the squire in his office and there made her request. Nothing was plain to Katy except Alvin's bitter need.

The squire looked at her in astonishment.

"That is a good deal of money, Katy!" But the squire had seen Katy at her books. "You need books, I suppose, and things to wear. I see you studying and sewing, Katy. You are not to slip back in your studies before you go away."

"I will give you a paper and I will pay interest," promised Katy, who did not wish to discuss the spending of the money.

The squire went slowly to his safe. It must be very dismal for the child. His poor sister-in-law was not likely to improve, and she might, alas! be a long time dying. If the situation were not changed by fall, the child must be sent away and Edwin must come home to live. He remembered his own bright little sister; he remembered the plans of all the family for Katy. A sudden remorseful consciousness that they had forgotten Katy, and that they had left a good many burdens on her shoulders, moved him to give her the foolish sum for which she asked.

"This I give you, Katy," said he as he counted the money into her hand. It was not strange that the squire had taken so few journeys.

"No," protested Katy with a scarlet face; "it is a debt."

Recklessly Katy slipped the money into an envelope and mailed it, and Alvin, receiving it, wept for joy and thought with gratitude of the sender. The small part of it which he did not have to use to pay his most pressing debts he spent upon a girl from the county seat, one Bessie Brown, who had visited a friend at the normal school, and for whom he had great admiration.