"Oh, how I would like to have a store!" he cried. "If I could borrow the money from you to have a store, a store to sell clothes and shoes and such things! I do not like teaching. I am not a teacher. The children are naughty all the time for me. I--" Suddenly Alvin halted. No more in this world could he go his own sweet way; liberty now offered was already curtailed. A fixed star controlled now the steady orbit of his life. His bright color faded. "We would better talk to her about it," said he. David Hartman forgot for an instant the Pennsylvania German idiom. It is an evidence of the monogamous nature of the true Pennsylvania German that the personal pronoun of the third person, used alone, applies but to one human being. "To her?" repeated David, puzzled. "Yes, to Essie Hill. I am going to be married to Essie Hill." Alvin rose. "Perhaps we could go down there," he proposed hesitatingly. Together the trio went down the mountain road. The squire drove the buggy, Alvin and David walked. The squire kept ahead, so that the curtains on the back of the buggy sheltered him from the view of his companions. Thus hidden, he laughed until the buggy shook. To the squire Alvin could never be a tragic figure; he belonged on the stage of comedy or broad farce. When the squire reached the house of the preacher of the Improved New Mennonites, he dismounted, tied his horse, and awaited the arrival of the young men. Then the three went in on the board walk to the kitchen, where Essie was singing, "They ask us why we're happy." Again the squire's face quivered. Essie received her three guests in her calm, composed way. She put the interesting scallops on the edge of her cherry pie with a turn of her thumb, and invited the three gentlemen to have seats. Essie was neither an imaginative nor an inquisitive person. Her life was ordered, her thoughts did not circle far beyond herself. The tragedy suggested by the juxtaposition of these three persons did not occur to her. She sat primly with her hands folded and heard her visitors for their cause. Her eyes narrowed as she listened to David's statement of Alvin's desire for a store. It was true that Alvin did not like teaching, was not a success as a teacher. Essie had intended to think out some other way for him to earn the family living. Selling fine clothes would not be a sin like wearing them; indeed, one could preach a sermon by refraining from what was so near at hand and so tempting. That such a policy might be damaging to the family pocketbook, Essie did not realize for the moment. Essie was always most anxious that the sermon should be preached. Millerstown, however, fortunately for Alvin's success as a haberdasher, was set in its iniquity as far as the wearing of good clothes was concerned. "I think it would be a very good thing for Alvin to have a store," said she. "I want to do everything I can to make up for the past," explained David. "I can't make it right entirely. I wish I could."