"No," protested Katy, "it is not so bad as that. But I will go and lie down a little. My head hurts me, too. I am tired and it is very hot. I will go to my room."
Stammering, Katy got herself to the stairway. There, having closed the door behind her, she started up the steps on hands and knees. At the top she sat down for a moment to rest before she crept across the room to her bed. Again it was an advantage to be "Bibelfest," she had once more an adequate vehicle for the expression of her woes.
"I am like Job," wept poor Katy. "I am afflicted. I am a brother to jackals and a companion to ostriches."
Once when Katy opened her eyes, she saw opposite her window a single, pink, sunset-tinted cloud floating high in the sky. Somehow the sight made her agony more bitter.
Down in the kitchen Uncle Edwin, alarmed, confused, distressed, found himself confronted by an irate spouse. He could not remember another occasion in all their married life when his Sally had lost patience with him.
"Now, pop," said she, "it is enough. You are to leave poor Katy be."
CHAPTER XIV
KATY PLANS HER LIFE ONCE MORE
For a long time Katy lay motionless upon her bed. The shock of Uncle Edwin's announcement was overwhelming; it robbed her of power to move or think. When an hour later Aunt Sally tiptoed into the room, she found her still upon her bed, her face buried in the pillow, relaxed in what seemed to be a heavy sleep. Aunt Sally gathered her clothes from the untidy heap into which they had been tossed, and laid them on the back of a chair and drew down the shade so that the sun should not shine directly into the sleeper's eyes; then she closed the door softly and went down the steps.