CONTENTS

Note.—The first two chapters were published as a short story under the title of "The Belsnickel" in the Century Magazine for January, 1911.

KATY GAUMER

CHAPTER I
THE GREAT NEWS

Every Wednesday evening in winter Katy Gaumer went to the Millerstown post-office for her grandfather's "Welt Bote," the German paper which circulated among the Pennsylvania Germans of Millerstown. By six o'clock she and Grandfather Gaumer and Grandmother Gaumer had had supper; by half past six she had finished drying the dishes; by half past seven she had learned her lessons for the next day; and then, a scarlet shawl wrapped about her, a scarlet "nubia" on her head, scarlet mittens on her hands, Katy set forth into Millerstown's safe darkness.

Sometimes—oh, the thrill that closed her throat and ran up and down her spine and set her heart to throbbing and her eyes to dancing at sound of that closed door!—sometimes it rained and she pushed her way out into the storm as a viking might have pushed his boat from the shore into an unfriendly sea; sometimes it snowed and she lifted her hot face so that she might feel the light, cold flakes against her cheek; sometimes deep drifts lay already on the ground and she flung herself upon them or into them; sometimes she danced back to say a second good-bye so that she might enjoy her freedom once more; sometimes she stole round under the tall pine trees and knocked ponderously at the door, knowing perfectly well that her grandmother and grandfather would only smile at each other and not stir.

Sometimes she crossed the yard in snow to her knees to rap against the kitchen window of Bevy Schnepp, who kept house for Great-Uncle Gaumer, the squire. Bevy's real name was Maria Snyder, but Katy had renamed her for one of the mythical characters of whom Millerstown held foolish discourse, and the village had adopted the title. Bevy was little and thin and a powerful worker. She was cross with almost every one in the world, even with Katy whom she adored and spoiled. There was a tradition in Millerstown that she was once about to be married, but that at the ceremony her spirit rebelled. When the preacher asked her whether she would obey, she cried out aloud, "By my soul, no!" and the match was thereupon broken off. Bevy adorned her speech with many proverbs, and she had an abiding faith in pow-wowing, and also in spooks, hexahemeron cats, and similar mysterious creatures. She had named the squire's dog "Whiskey" so that he could not be bewitched. She would as soon have thrown her cabbage plants away as to have planted them in any other planetary sign than that of the Virgin. She belonged, strangely enough, to a newly established religious sect in Millerstown, that of the Improved New Mennonites, who had no relation to the long-established worthy followers of Menno Simons in other parts of the Pennsylvania German section. It is difficult to understand how Bevy reconciled her belief in the orthodox if sensational preaching of the Reverend Mr. Hill with her use of such superstitious rhymes as