Sarah Ann was large and ponderous and good-natured. She was now reading
the paper and hemming a gingham apron by turns. Sarah Ann loved to read.
Her favorite matter was the inside page of the Millerstown "Star," which
always offered varied and interesting items of general news. Sarah Ann
was far less interested in the accounts of Millerstown's births and
deaths and marriages than she was in the startling events of the world
outside. Sarah Ann's taste inclined to the shocking and morbid. This
evening she had read many times about a man who had committed suicide by
sitting on a box of dynamite and lighting the fuse, and about a man
whose head was gradually becoming like that of a lion. When she observed
that the next item dealt with the remarkable invention of a young woman
who baked glass in her husband's pies, Sarah Ann laid down the paper to
compose her mind with a little sewing.
The teacher, who was small and slender and somewhat near-sighted, was
going painstakingly over a bundle of civil service examination
questions. He was only in Millerstown for a little while, acting as a
substitute and waiting for something to turn up. He was a Pennsylvania
German, but he would as soon have been called a Turk. He had changed his
name from Schreiner to Carpenter and the very sound of his native tongue
was hateful to him. He did not like Katy Gaumer; he did not like any
young, active, springing things.
Now he listened to Katy in astonishment. Katy flung herself upon Sarah
Ann.
"Booh! Don't look so scared. I will not eat you, Sarah Ann! And I am no
spook! I am only in a hurry. Teacher, I have told the people about the
English entertainment. It is out. I had to tell, because the children
must know their pieces better. Ollie Kuhns, he won't learn his until his
pop thrashes him a couple of times, and Jimmie Weygandt's mom will have
to make him learn with a stick, and then he will not know it anyhow,
perhaps, and they won't leave us have the Sunday School organ to
practice beforehand for the singing unless they know why it is, and
everybody must practice all the time from now on. You see, I _had_ to
tell."
The teacher looked at her dumbly. So did Sarah Ann.
"But _why_?" asked they together.
"Why?" repeated Katy, impatiently, as though they might have divined the
wonderful reason. "Why, because my Uncle Daniel is coming. Isn't that
enough?"
Sarah Ann laid down her apron.
"Bei meiner Seel'!" said she solemnly.
The teacher laid down his papers.
"The governor?" said he. He had heard of Governor Gaumer. He thought of
the appointments in a governor's power; he foresaw at once escape from
the teaching which he hated; he blessed Katy because she had proposed an
English entertainment. He blessed her inspired suggestion of parental
whippings for Ollie and Jimmie. "Sit down once, Katy, sit down."
It gave Katy another thrill of joy to be thus solicited by her enemy.
But now she could not stop.
"I must go first home and see my folks. Then I will come back."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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