"No, pop."
Into the Reverend Mr. Hill's somber eyes there came for an instant a hopeful gleam.
"Perhaps we could get him in the church?"
"Perhaps," agreed Essie. "I talk to him sometimes."
It was in December when Fate turned against Alvin. Alvin had now burned his supply of coal and was angrily refused more. Alvin's Allentown tailor, failing to receive replies to his letter, sent a collector to interview Alvin, an insistent person who, failing to find him at home, visited him at the schoolhouse. Even Sarah Ann, who was patience personified, reminded her boarder gently that she had fed him for four months without any return.
"I did it to earn a little extra missionary money, Alvin," explained Sarah Ann. "We have at this time of the year always a Thank Offering. I thought I would earn this to put in my box."
In December, the spirit of evil entered the Millerstown school. The familiar sound of twanging wires, of slamming desk lids, the soft slap of moistened paper balls striking the blackboards, were the first warnings of the rise of rebellion. The Millerstown children had not enough to do. Their teacher had reached the end of his outlines and knew not how to make more. He was desperately tired of teaching; he could not understand how he could ever have supposed that Mr. Carpenter had an easy or a pleasant time.
One morning when he entered the schoolroom, he found the blackboard decorated with a caricature of himself, labeled with the insulting appellation which Susannah Kuhns had once bestowed upon him, "Der Fratzhans." There were only two pupils who were skillful enough to have drawn so lifelike a representation of their teacher; they were two of the four large girls in the upper class, of whose admiration Alvin had been certain. It was a cruel blow for poor Alvin.
Again the collector who represented the tailor visited him. This time he met Alvin on Main Street, in front of the post-office, and at the top of his loud and unfeeling voice, demanded instant payment.
"I will get it," promised Alvin. "Till Monday I will have it for sure."