Alvin had paid his debt to Katy, and in the paying had achieved a moral victory worthy of a braver man. When the little store was planned and the fittings all but bought, he had gone to David Hartman and had confessed his debt. "She helped me, she was the only one who ever helped me. She thought perhaps something could be made of me. And I could never pay her back." "She helped you," repeated David. "You could never pay her back." "That was it," explained Alvin. "When she could not go to school and had all this money, she thought somebody should use it and she helped me." David blinked rapidly. Then he went to the safe and counted a roll of money into Alvin's hand. "Go pay your debts, Alvin. The store will be all right." Alvin started briskly down the street, but his step grew slower and slower. He was, to tell the truth, desperately afraid of Katy Gaumer. Instead of going on to Grandfather Gaumer's he stopped in at the squire's, awful though the squire always seemed. "Here is Katy's money," said he. The squire put out a prompt hand and took the money, counted it, and put the roll into his pocket. It was just as well for the development of Alvin's soul that it had not been offered to Katy, who might not have accepted it. "Thank you," said the squire. "I'll give you a receipt, Alvin. I am coming to your shop to get me a pair of shoes," added the squire with twinkling eyes. July changed to August and August to September. The cock's-comb in Grandmother Gaumer's garden--it is, to this day, Grandmother Gaumer's garden--thrust its orange and crimson spikes up through the low borders of sweet alyssum, the late roses bloomed, the honeysuckle put out its last and intensely fragrant sprays. In Millerstown busy life went on. Apple-butter boiling impended; already Sarah Ann and Bevy Schnepp saw in their minds' eyes a great kettle suspended from a tripod at the foot of Sarah Ann's yard, from which should presently rise into Sarah Ann's apple tree odors fit to propitiate the angry gods, odors compounded of apples and grape juice and spices. Round this pleasant caldron, with kilted skirts and loud chatterings, the women would move like energetic priestesses, guarding a sacred flame. There came presently occasional evenings when it was not pleasant to be out of doors, when mothers called their children earlier into the warm kitchens and when men gathered in the store. Fall was at hand; Millerstown became quieter--if, an unobservant, unappreciative stranger would have said, Millerstown could have become any quieter than it was! But Millerstown was still talking. Millerstown was now interested in another amazing event. Katy Gaumer was going away! The Millerstonians imparted it, the one to the other, with great astonishment. "She will have her education now," said Sarah Ann with satisfaction. Then Sarah Ann's eyes filled with tears. Katy seemed to her to belong to the past; sometimes, indeed, to Sarah Ann's own generation. "I will miss Katy."