"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."