Elsie Singmaster

“ 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. ”

“ In winter its light and its great bulk, in summer its girdle of trees, distinguished it from all the other houses in Millerstown. William Koehler could see it from every foot of his little house and garden. It was before his eyes when he worked among his plants, which seemed to love him also, and when he sat for a few minutes on his porch, and when he tended his bees or fed his chickens.
Beyond the Hartman house he did not look. There the country spread out in a wide, cultivated, varicolored plain, with the mountains bounding it far away. ”

“ THE BELSNICKEL On the afternoon of the entertainment there was an air of excitement, both within and without the schoolroom. Outside the clouds hung low; the winter wheat in the Weygandt fields seemed to have yielded up some of its brilliant green; there was no color on the mountain-side which had been warm brown and purple in the morning sunshine. A snowstorm was brewing, the first of the season, and Millerstown rejoiced, believing that a green Christmas makes a fat graveyard. But in spite of the threatening storm nearly all Millerstown moved toward the schoolhouse. ”

“ But the human heart must have some object for its care or it will cease to beat. Upon her possessions, her house, her carpets, her furniture, Cassie set now her affection. These inanimate things had no power to deceive, to betray, to torture. Gradually they became so precious that her great rooms were like shrines, into which she went but seldom, but to which her heart turned as she sat alone by her kitchen window with her sewing or lay awake by her husband's side in the great wonderfully bedecked walnut bed which, to her thinking, human use profaned. ”

“ It is a weakness of the human creature, but it is none the less real. Resentment was rapidly becoming a settled attitude of David's mind; his father was postponing dangerously that opening of his heart to his son of which he thought day and night.
David wished now that he need not go home; he wished—poor little David!—that he was dead. He would have his supper and he would go to bed, and to-morrow there would be another bitter day. He would sit in school and be conscious of Katy and Alvin and their knowing glances, and love and hate would tear him asunder once more. ”

“ The Millerstown children quivered with excitement; on the last seat Ollie Kuhns pretended to fall headlong into the aisle. Alvin Koehler looked up with mild interest from his desk which he had been idly contemplating, and David Hartman blushed scarlet. Poor David's pipe had not yet cured him of love. "I will do better from now on," promised Katy. "And you"—again this ominous refrain—"you are to learn me!"
"You cannot study those things!" cried Mr. Carpenter in triumph. "You are not even in the first class!" ”

“ Had Katy lost her mind? No Gaumer had ever worked out. Her relatives were comfortably fixed; she would doubtless have some money of her own when she came of age. Where was Alvin Koehler, the despicable, to whom Katy had seemed attached? Had he heard her aright? He could only look at her and gasp out a foolish, "You!"
"I can work," said Katy, with a scarlet face. "I did all the work when my grandmother was sick for so long."
"Are you not going to school?" David grew more and more astonished as he became convinced that Katy was in earnest. ”

“ She had a habit of forecasting her own actions; already she could see herself pounding at the teacher's door, then racing home to her grandfather's, her heart throbbing, throbbing, her whole being in the glow of excitement which she loved, and of which she never had enough.
Suddenly she stopped, her hand on the latch. She had a secret, the whole Millerstown school had a secret, but now it must be told. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Millerstown lay still and lovely under its leafless trees; not in the quiet of perpetual drowsiness,—Millerstown was stirring enough by day!—but in repose after the day's labor and excitement. To the east of the [pg 4] village the mountain rose somberly; to the south the pike climbed a hill toward the church and the school-house; to the west and north lay the wide fields. To the north might be seen the dim bulk of the blast furnace with the great starlike light of the bleeder flame.
"I wonder what it looks like now from the top of the mountain," soliloquized Katy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The day after the funeral David went back to the Millerstown school. He did not glance in the direction of Katy and Alvin, though he could not help realizing that Katy's skirts did not flirt so gayly past. Katy was sorry for him, though she did not repent her treatment of him. Her dresses had suddenly dropped several inches, her flying curls were twisted up on her head, her eyes were brighter than ever. She was filled with herself and her own concerns and opinions; she grew daily more dictatorial, more lordly. ”

“ He began to wonder what Katy's life would be like, he who had just a little while ago been planning it so carefully! He heard in that instant's pause a clear whistle from the direction of the garden, and he decided without knowing the identity of the whistler that there would sooner or later be that sort of complication in Katy's life which would end her education, even if her grandmother's need of her did not. He was so busy with his speculations that he did not answer Katy's question until she was faint with apprehension. ”

“ The old vision dazzled him, Katy in a scarlet dress, Katy laughing, Katy racing down the pike. It was abominable for her to become a servant—upon this subject, also, David's opinions had advanced. What in the world were her relatives about? But if she must live out, it would be better for her to work for his mother than to work at the hotel—the only other establishment in Millerstown which required the services of a maid. He would then have her in his house; the notion set David's cheeks suddenly to burning, his heart to throbbing. ”

“ Overhead she could hear the sound of Uncle Edwin's soft, heavy tread, the sound of his deep voice as he spoke to Grandmother Gaumer or to Aunt Sally. Uncle Edwin was a good man, Katy said to herself absently, her mind dwelling upon a theme in which it took at that moment no interest; Uncle Edwin was a good man, but he was not a very smart man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Katy's Uncle Edwin and her Aunt Sally had brought their little Adam, a beautiful, blond little boy, who had his piece to say on this great occasion. Uncle Edwin was a Gaumer without the Gaumer brains, but he had all the Gaumer kindness of heart. Of these two kinsfolk, Uncle Edwin and fat, placid Aunt Sally, Katy did not have a very high opinion. Smooth, pretty little Essie Hill had not come; her pious soul considered entertainments wicked.
But Katy gave no thought to Essie or to her absence; her mind was full of herself and of the great visitor and of Alvin Koehler. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the teacher would only let her begin the entertainment, she would not fail!
But the teacher did not call on Katy. No such simple way out of his difficulty occurred to his paralyzed brain. The Millerstonians expected the fine English entertainment to begin; the stillness in the room grew deathlike; the moments passed, and Mr. Carpenter sat helpless.
Then, suddenly, Mr. Carpenter jumped to his feet, gasping with relief. He knew what he would do! He would say nothing at all himself; he would call upon the stranger. ”

“ The grip of his hand was so strong that the cup slipped from his fingers and striking the top of William's wall, bounded into the dark aperture which the building of the wall had made. He reached frantically after it, and the gray bag, containing the pitcher and paten, struck by his elbow, followed the silver cup.
For an instant the accident drove the more serious trouble from John Hartman's mind. He had great reverence for the sacred vessels and he was afraid that the fall had bruised their beautiful surfaces. ”

“ If Grandmother Gaumer were to be a long time sick, who would take care of her? Uncle Edwin and Aunt Sally were kind, but they had their farm on the outskirts of Millerstown; they could not leave it.
"But I must have my education," whispered Katy to the smooth surface of the old sofa. "This is my time in life for education. Afterwards the mind gets dull, and you cannot learn. It is right that I should have a chance to learn." ”