Read Ebook: Katy Gaumer by Singmaster Elsie

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1406 lines and 67992 words, and 29 pages

uch planning now; she saw the dishes neatly piled, the hot suds in the pan, her sleeves rolled above her elbows. She did not answer David, did not even hear him.

At the second call, Cassie looked at her son. Cassie recognized dirt and disorder, but she did not recognize any need of the human soul. The needs of her own soul had been, Cassie thought, cruelly denied. At any rate, its power of perception had failed.

"You stamp on that sill again and I'll have to scrub it, David! To spoil things on Christmas!"

Cassie's voice contained no threat of punishment; it was merely mildly exclamatory. The tone of it was not vibrant but wooden. It might have been rich and beautiful in youth; now it expressed no emotion; it was flat, empty. She did not ask David what he wanted, or why he addressed her; she did not even wonder why he stopped in the doorway and stared at her. She only frowned at him, until he closed the door, himself outside. David had all the clothes he could wear, all the food he could eat; he had the finest house, the richest father and the most capable mother in Millerstown; what more could he wish to make him happy? His mother did not speculate as to whether he was happy or not.

David crossed the yard in the freshly fallen snow and slammed the gate behind him. Then he went toward the mountain road, and started to climb, passing the house of the Koehlers, where William sat on one side of the stove and Alvin on the other, the one muttering to himself, the other half asleep. David kicked the snow as he walked, his head bent lower and lower on his breast. He could see Katy Gaumer like a sprite in her red dress with her flashing eyes and her pointing finger; he could see her smiling at Alvin Koehler, whom he hated without dreaming that in that son of a demented and dishonest father Katy Gaumer could have any possible interest.

As he started up the steepest part of the hill, he began to talk aloud.

"I want her!" said poor little David. "I want Katy! I want Katy!"

Presently David left the road, and climbing over the worm fence into the woodland, struck off diagonally among the trees. Still far above him, at the summit of the little mountain, there was a rough pile of rocks which formed a tiny cairn or cave. Before it was a small platform, parapeted by a great boulder. Generations past had named the spot, without any apparent reason, the "Sheep Stable." It was a favorite resort of David Hartman. Here, in secret, far above Millerstown, he carried on the wicked practices which he had meant to confess to his mother. From the little plateau one could look for miles and miles over a wide, rich, beautiful plain, could see the church spires of a dozen villages, the smoke curling upward from three or four great blast furnaces, set in the midst of wide fields, and could look far beyond the range of hills which bounded the view of William Koehler on his lower level, to another range. The Pennsylvania German made his home only in fertile spots. When other settlers passed the thickly forested lands because of the great labor of felling the trees and preparing the soil, he selected the sections bearing the tallest trees and had as his own the fertile land forever.

David did not look out over the wide, pure expanse upon which a few flakes were still falling and beyond which the sun would soon sink gorgeously, nor did he see the purple shadows under the pine trees, nor observe the glancing motions of a squirrel, watching him from a bough near by. He determined, desperately, firmly, that he would repent no more; he would now return to his evil ways and get from them what satisfaction he could.

He crept on hands and knees into the little cave and felt round under a mass of dried leaves until his hands encountered the instruments of his evil practices. Then David drew them forth, a stubby pipe, which he had smoked once and which had made him deathly ill, and a pack of cards, about whose mysterious and delightful use he knew nothing. He sat with them in his hands on the sloping rock, wishing, poor little David, that he knew how to be wickeder than he was!

Having fed his stock, John Hartman tramped for a little while round his fields in the snow, then he returned to the kitchen and sat down by the window with a newspaper. Cassie lay asleep on the settle. Custom forbade her working on Christmas Day, and she never read, even the almanac. At her, her husband looked once or twice inscrutably, then he laid his head on the back of his tall chair and slept also. It was a scene at which Katy Gaumer would have pointed as proof of the unutterable stupidity of Millerstown.

When her husband slept, Cassie opened her eyes and looked at him with as steady a gaze as that which he had bent upon her. Her mouth set itself in a firm, straight line, her eyes deepened and darkened, her hands, folded upon her breast, grasped her flesh. Surely between these two was some great barrier of offense, given or suffered, of strange, wounded pride, or insufferable humiliation! Presently Cassie's lids fell; she turned her cheek against the hard back of the old settle and so fell asleep also.

John Hartman owned four farms and a great stretch of woodland and a granite quarry on the far side of the mountain and two farms and two peach orchards and an apple orchard on this. A generation ago a large deposit of fine iron ore had been discovered upon a tract of land owned by his father. The deposit was not confined to his fields, but extended to the lands of his neighbors. But while they sold ore and spent their money, John Hartman's father, as shrewd a business man as his son, sold and saved, and laid the foundation of his fortune. In a few years the discovery of richer, more easily mined deposits in the West and the cheap importation of foreign ores made the Millerstown ore for the time not worth the mining. Hartman the elder then covered his mine breaches and planted timber, and the growth set above the treasure underground was now thick and valuable. John Hartman was also a director in a county bank; he owned the finest, largest house in Millerstown; he had a handsome and a capable wife, and a son who was strong in body and who had a good mind. Apparently his position in life was secure, his comfort certain.

John Hartman, however, was neither comfortable nor secure. The long-past accusations of a poor, half-crazed workingman filled his waking hours with apprehension and his nights with remorse. Of William Koehler and his accusation John Hartman was afraid, for William's accusation was, at least in part, true.

John Hartman had been walking away from the church on that bright November day years ago, when his own David and Alvin Koehler were little children and Katy Gaumer not much more than a baby. He had upon him, as William had said, an air of guilt; he had refused to reply to William's shouted greeting; he was at that moment rapidly becoming, if he was not already, what William called him, a thief.

On that November day, a little while before William had shouted at him, he had come down the pike and had seen William leave the church to get the boards for his platform, and had thereupon entered the church with no other impulse than the vague motions of a man sick at heart. A sin of his earlier youth had risen suddenly from the grave where he thought it buried, and now confronted him. In his pocket lay an accusing, threatening letter, written with pale ink upon poor paper in an ignorant way. The amount of money which it demanded, large as it was, did not trouble him, since he was already possessor of his inheritance and growing daily richer; it was the horror of the discovery of his sin. Once cured of his obsession he had become a devout man, had taken pleasure in the services of the church of his fathers, attending all her meetings and contributing to all her causes. He had married a good woman from a neighboring village, who knew nothing of the year he had spent away from Millerstown; he had had a son; he was wholly happy.

He had gone during the latter part of the year which he spent away from home, as a way of escaping from himself, to Europe. He had been only a few weeks ashore, but he had seen during that time civilizations different from anything he had dreamed of. He was most moved by great churches--he saw Notre Dame of Amiens and Notre Dame of Paris--and by the few great English estates of which he caught glimpses in his rapid journey to Liverpool. That was the way a man should live, planted in one place, like a great oak tree, the center of a wide group--a wife, children, dependents. He should have his garden, his woodland, his great house, his stables, his beautiful horses; he should pass the home place on to a son who would perpetuate his name. With such a home and with a worthy church to worship in, a man could ask for nothing else in the world.

Repentant, healed, John Hartman had returned to Millerstown. There he had married and had built his house, with great rooms at the front and smaller rooms at the back for the servants who should make his wife's life easy and dignified and should help to care for the little brothers and sisters whom David was to have. Cassie had had a hard youth; her father had been a disgrace to his children; she was quiet and stern and not hopeful, even though John Hartman had lifted her to so high a place, of very great happiness in this life. But Cassie's nature had seemed to change in the glow of John Hartman's affection and in the enjoyment of the luxuries with which he surrounded her. She became less silent; she met her husband at times with a voluntary caress, which opened in his heart new springs of happiness.

But here, into this blessed peace and security, into this great planning, fell, like a dangerous explosive, the threatening letter. Almost beside himself with fright, worn with three nights' sleepless vigil, confused with the numerous plans for ridding himself of his persecutor which he made only to reject, and aware that an immediate answer must be sent, John Hartman approached the church where William Koehler had been working.

The open door seemed to invite him to take refuge within. He kept constantly touching the letter in his pocket. He meant to destroy it, but it bore an address which he dared not lose. He had been sitting by the roadside on a fallen log, holding the letter in his hand and writing absent-mindedly upon it.

In the church he saw William's half-finished work and the curious key in the little cupboard. As an elder, he had a right to open the door and to take out the beautiful silver vessels, the extravagance of one generation which had become the pride of the next. It seemed for an instant as though a touch of the holy things might give him peace. Untying the cord of the heavy bag as he laid it on top of William's half-finished wall, he lifted out the silver chalice.

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. He tried to reach the bag, which lay uppermost, but it was just beyond the tips of his fingers at the longest reach of his arm. He would have to get William Koehler to help him, much as he disliked to confess to such carelessness. William would be shocked and horrified.

Then, suddenly, John Hartman gave a sharp cry. In his struggle to reach the gray bag, the letter had dropped from his pocket. He had not put it back into its envelope after his last anguished reading; he could see it now as it lay spread out below him in the darkness. His frantic eyes seemed to read each word on the dim page. "Your wife will know about it, and your little boy and all the country." If he called William to help him, William might read the letter. Even if William made no actual effort to decipher it, a single glance might reveal that some one was threatening John Hartman.

He thought that he heard William coming through the new Sunday School room and in panic, and without stopping to reason beyond the swift conclusion that if William's attention were not called to them, he would not see the bag and the letter far down in the narrow pit, he turned and locked the cupboard door and went out the door of the church and down the road. He did not reflect that William might easily discover that the communion set was gone, that he might accidentally drop his trowel into the deep hole and in reaching it find the dreadful letter, and that he might give an alarm, and all be lost; his only thought was to get away.

He remembered dimly that he had brushed aside a little child in his rush to the church door. When he reached the door, he held himself back from running by a mighty effort and walked slowly down the pike, little Katy Gaumer toddling fearfully behind him. It was easy to pretend that he did not hear William call. Already he had planned how he would restore the silver to its place. He knew that William was engaged that afternoon to work at Zion Church; therefore the wall would not be closed that day.

At night he would go to the church with a hoe or rake and lift out the sacred vessels and the dreadful letter, whose very proximity to them was sacrilege. If the pitcher and the chalice and the plate had suffered harm, he would explain that he had taken them to the jeweler to be polished, and he would then have them repaired.

But William postponed his work at Zion Church, and that night, when John Hartman stole back to replace the silver, the wall was finished and the mortar set.

That night, also, John Hartman learned with absolute certainty that his persecutor was dead, and his persecution at an end.

"They do not know that the communion set is gone," thought he. "To-morrow I will find a way."

But in a sort of stupor, from which he roused himself now and then to make wild and fruitless plans, John Hartman let the days go by. The blow he had received had affected him not only mentally, but physically, and he was slow to recover from it, past though the danger was. He went about his farms, he looked earnestly upon his wife, he clasped his little boy in his arms to assure himself that his two treasures were real.

But the more certain he became that the ghost of the past was laid, the more terribly did the present specter rise to harass him. Communion Sunday was approaching, the loss of the communion service would be discovered. There were moments when the distracted man prayed for a miracle. He had been delivered from that other terror by an act of Providence which was almost a miracle; would he not be similarly saved in a situation in which he was innocent?

He thought of going at night and tearing the wall down and restoring the service to its place, leaving the strange vandalism a mystery to horrified Millerstown. How happy he should be to pay for the rebuilding of the wall! But the task was too difficult, discovery too probable.

As the days passed, another way out of his trouble occurred to him. He would go to William Koehler and tell him all his misery. William was a good-natured, quiet soul, who could be persuaded to silence, or who might set a price upon silence, if silence were a salable commodity. William could easily find an excuse for doing his work over; it was well known that he was foolishly particular. It never occurred to John that suspicion of theft would probably fall upon honest, simple William, who had had the key of the cupboard and who had been the whole day alone in the church. He got no farther than his own terrible problem. He had dropped the silver into the wall; both letter and silver were there convicting him; he must find a way to get them both out and to put the silver in its place.

But he allowed day after day to pass and did not visit William. William was, after all, only a day laborer of the stupid family of Koehlers and John was a property owner and an elder in the church; it would be intolerably humiliating to make such a confession. Communion Sunday was still two weeks away; there would be time for him to make some other plan.

When Communion Sunday morning came, John had still no plan. Moving as in a trance, he went with his wife to church, to find the congregation gathered into wondering, distressed groups. The door of the little cupboard was open, and beside it was the smooth, newly painted wall. It was too late for John to ask William Koehler for help in his difficulty.

He did not realize that all about him his fellow church members were whispering about William; he did not hear that William was accused, he was so dazed by the fortunate complications of his own situation. They did not dream of his agency! He would replace the set with a much more beautiful one. This generation would pass away long before the wall would be taken down and then the letter would be utterly destroyed by age or dampness. He said to himself that God had been very good to him; he even dared to thank Him during the confused, uneasy service which the pastor conducted upon his return from the house of William Koehler.

And if William were accused, William had only to deny that he had seen the communion service or that he had even opened the door! He might, if worse came to worst, let them search his house. John wished patronizingly that he could give William a little advice. He pitied William.

"You took it!" insisted William. "You stole the communion set!"

Here was ruin, indeed! But Cassie thought the man mad; she paid no attention to his frantic words; she was concerned only about the state of her snow-tracked floor. Hope leaped in the breast of John Hartman. No living soul would believe such an accusation against him!

When William had gone, John put on his coat and went to the house of the preacher. He even forced himself to use one of Millerstown's interesting idioms, one of the last humorous expressions of John Hartman's life.

"William Koehler came to me and accused me of stealing the communion service," said he. "There is one rafter too few or too many in his little house."

The preacher shook his head.

"There is something very wrong with poor William," said he sorrowfully.

With a firm step John Hartman returned to his house. When it was time for the evening service he went to church as was his custom.

John Hartman's bank account increased steadily; he added field to field and orchard to orchard. His great safe in the dining-room held papers of greater and greater value; his great Swiss barns with their deep forebays and their mammoth haylofts were enlarged; his orchards bent under their weight of fruit. But John Hartman did not say to his soul, "Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." With his soul poor John held a different sort of converse.

Desperately he tried to fix his mind upon his many affairs, so that he might shut out the recollection of William Koehler and the sound of his mad voice. He was afraid for a long time that he, John Hartman, might rise suddenly in church and make rash confession, or that he might point out to his fellow directors in the bank the black-bearded, sharp-eyed face, which he saw looking at him over their shoulders, or that he might shout out upon the street his secret.

Gradually he succeeded in thinking only of his work. The sudden appearance of William Koehler gave him a strange trembling of the limbs and an oppression about the heart, that was all. William made no further accusation for a long time, and encounters could be avoided. Long before William had begun to pray aloud, dropping down in front of the post-office or at a street corner, Millerstown had become certain that he was crazy. His unintelligible prayers betrayed nothing.

But, slowly, as his mind turned itself a little from its own wretchedness, poor Hartman became aware of an enemy in his own household. To his caresses his wife ceased to respond; she had become once more the silent, cold woman of their earliest married life, whom he had chosen because she and the woman who had victimized him were as far apart as the poles in character and disposition. At first poor Hartman thought that she felt his neglect of her during the weeks of his misery; he tried now to be all the more tender and affectionate. If he could only find here a refuge, if he could only lay before her his wretched state! But confession to Cassie was impossible; one had only to look upon her to see that!

Presently Hartman decided that she believed William's accusation, and he became enraged with her because she would believe that to which no one else in Millerstown would give an instant's credence. "Let her believe!" said he then in his despair. She became in his mind a partner of William against him. Let each do his worst; they could convict him of nothing.

In reality it was Hartman's earlier sin which was no more his secret. He had delayed too long in answering the demand for money and a letter had been written to Cassie also, and Cassie had hardened her heart against him, hardened her heart even against her child. Cassie had had a sad life; her heart was only a little softened as yet by her happiness.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet