"The Hartmans are not lawyers," said the squire. "The Hartmans are
farmers. You would have plenty to keep you busy, David."
If old habit caused David to look for Katy Gaumer, David's eyes were not
gratified by what they sought. Neither before his mother's funeral nor
afterward did she appear. Bevy had removed her few belongings from
David's room before he returned; there remained in the Hartman house no
evidence of her presence. Bevy said that Katy was tired, that she lay
all day on the settle in her uncle's kitchen. Bevy longed to pour out to
David an account of Katy's treatment at the hands of Alvin Koehler,
prospective church member though he was. But she had been forbidden by
the squire to open her lips on the subject; and, besides, David Hartman,
the heir to all this magnificence, could hardly be expected to take an
interest in one who had demeaned herself to become his mother's servant.
Nevertheless, a wild scheme formed itself in Bevy's mind.
"Sometimes Katy cries," reported Bevy sentimentally to David. "It seems
as though this brought back everything about her gran'mom and
everything. Yesterday she was real sick, but to-day she complains better
again. Katy has had a good deal of trouble in this world."
David frowned. He was going back to college in the morning; his bag was
already packed. Katy had been in the house until the time of his
mother's death; she should have asked him to come to see her. Old habit
tempted him to play once more with fire.
"I would like to see Katy," he said now to Bevy.
"Well!" Bevy faced him with arms akimbo, her little eyes sparkling. "I
will tell Katy that she shall come here once this evening."
"No," answered David, who had got beyond the simple ways of Millerstown.
"Ask her whether I may come to see her this evening."
"Of course, you can come to see her!" cried Bevy. "I will just tell her
you are coming."
But Bevy returned with an astonishing message. Bevy was amazed at Katy's
temerity. She had planned that she would suggest to Edwin's Sally that
she and Edwin go to bed and leave the kitchen to David and Katy.
"She only cried and said you should not come. Sally said I must leave
her alone. She said the squire said and Edwin said that Katy must be
left alone. Katy is not herself."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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