"You will sit here in this chair, gran'mom. I will get a white pillow to
put on the settee and they can lay gran'pop there. Then we will find the
things for them." She guided her grandmother to the armchair and helped
her to sit down. Even the touch of her body seemed different. "It will
take only a minute for me to go upstairs. I will be back right away. You
know how quickly I can run."
When Katy returned, the feet of the bearers were at the door. With them
Millerstown crowded in, weeping. Grandmother Gaumer had wept with them,
Grandfather Gaumer had helped them in their troubles. Grandfather was
laid in state in the best room and presently the house settled into
quiet. In this house five generations had met grief with dignity and
death with hope; thus they should be met once more.
Preparations were begun at once for the laying away of the body in the
little graveyard of the church which the soul had loved. At the feet of
his mother, beside his little sister, a grave was dug for William Gaumer
and was lined with boughs of arbor vitæ and sprays of life everlasting.
In the Gaumer house there was little sweeping and cleaning; the beds
were not made up for show, but were prepared for the gathering
relatives. Grandfather Gaumer did not lie alone in the best room as John
Hartman had lain; his children and his grandchildren went in and sat
beside him and talked of him.
When the funeral was over and the house was in order and the relatives
had gone, Katy sat on her little stool at her grandmother's knee and
cried her fill. 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."
"But there are many things I would like to say to him. I never told him
enough how thankful I was to him."
"He knew you were thankful. Now you are to go to school. Everything is
to be just as it was planned."
Katy burst into tears once more.
"Ach, I do not think of school!"
Nevertheless, her heart beat a little faster. There was, after all,
something right in the world. Moreover, she still had another person to
think of. That day Alvin Koehler's dark eyes had looked down upon her as
she sat by her grandmother in church. She had promised to help Alvin;
his eyes reminded her consciously or unconsciously of her promise.
"Your Uncle Edwin and I talked this over," went on Grandmother Gaumer.
"You have two hundred dollars from the governor in the bank in your name
and the squire and Uncle Edwin and I will all help. You are to go right
on, Katy."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account