"Aren't you going to school ever?"
Katy did not answer.
"Millerstown will be crazy when it finds I am going away!" cried Alvin with delight.
"They must never know how you go!" said Katy in alarm. "You must not tell them how you go!"
"They think my father has money." Here was a solution. "They do not know he has given it all to detectives. They think he has it hidden away. Millerstown is very dumb."
"You must get a catalogue from the school, Alvin, and you must send in your name. That is the first."
"I will," promised Alvin. "I will do it right away. It is a loan, Katy, and I will pay it back. It will not be hard to earn the money to pay it back!"
The sound of a descending footstep on the stairway frightened them, as though they had been plotting evil. Alvin went swiftly and quietly out the brick walk, and Katy sat still. When Bevy came to the kitchen door, Katy sat on the lowest step, where Bevy had left her, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands.
"You are not to come in yet," said Bevy. "I just came to get a drink. Your gran'mom is sleeping."
"Yes, well," answered Katy, keeping her voice steady by great effort. She did not wish to move. She wished to think and think. If Alvin had omitted an expression of thanks, she held no grudge against him, had not, indeed, even observed the omission. Here was an outlet from prison; here was something to be, to do! She would cheerfully have earned by the labor of her hands enough to send Alvin Koehler to school. After such a foolish, generous pattern was Katy made in her youth; thus, lightly, with a beating, happy heart, did she put herself in bondage.