"'Gelt regiert die Welt, und Dummheit Millerstown'" (Gold rules the world and stupidity Millerstown)! Thus Mr. Carpenter adapted a familiar proverb in comment upon mistakes which he himself would have made a month ago.
Mr. Carpenter's pupils followed him steadily. David Hartman was more mature than the others and kept without difficulty at their head. As for Katy, with the help which Katy had out of school hours, even a dull child might have done well. It was help which was not unsuspected by David, but David held his tongue. David felt a fierce, unwilling pride in Katy's spirit.
But there was another sort of help being given and received which David resented jealously and indignantly, hardly believing the evidence of his own ears and eyes. David had taken some pleasure in the winter's work. He sat daily beside Katy in class; it was not possible for her to be always rude and curt. David was also puzzled and moved by a change in his father. He often met his father's glance when he lifted his own eyes suddenly, and it seemed to him that his father had come to realize his existence. His heart softened; he was pathetically quick to respond to signs of affection. It seemed to him that each day brought with it the possibility of some new, extraordinary happening. Several times he was on the point of putting his arm about his father's shoulders as he sat with his paper. Without being conscious of it, John Hartman showed outwardly the signs of the inward struggle. Never had his yearning, repressed love for the boy so tortured him, never had it demanded so insistently an outward expression. But he repressed himself a little longer. When he should have made all right with William Koehler, then would he yield to the impulses of fatherhood. That bound poor Hartman had set himself.
Katy remembered all her life, even if Alvin Koehler did not, the day on which Alvin set to work with diligence. He often looked at her curiously, as if he could not understand her. But Alvin gave earnest thought only to himself, to his hopeless situation with a half-mad and dishonest father and the dismal prospect of working in the furnace. His father seemed to be becoming more wild. There were times when Alvin feared violence at his hands. He talked to himself all day long, making frequent mention of John Hartman. Sometimes Alvin thought vaguely of warning the squire or John Hartman himself about his father. He believed less and less his father's crazy story.
Sometimes Alvin stared at Katy and blinked like an owl in his effort to account for her alternate shyness and kindness. Alvin was not accustomed to being treated kindly.
"And what will you do when you are educated?" he inquired.
"What will I do?" repeated Katy, her heart thumping as it always did when Alvin spoke to her. "I will teach and I will earn a great deal of money and travel over the whole world and buy me souvenirs. And I will sing."
It was very pleasant to tell Alvin of her prospects. Perhaps he would walk home with her from church on Sunday. Then how Essie Hill, in spite of all her outward piety, would hate her! The secret of mild Essie's soul was not a secret from Katy.
"Will you teach in a school like Millerstown?" asked Alvin.
"Millerstown! Never! It would have to be a bigger school than Millerstown."