David's trunk was packed in the kitchen, thither his hat and satchel were brought also. When his breakfast was over he went down the street to the preacher's for a letter recommending his character. When he returned, his trunk and satchel had been sent to the station; he had now only to take his hat and say good-bye to his mother who was at this moment in the deep cellar. For her David waited awkwardly. He remembered how he had stood kicking his foot against the door sill on Christmas Day—how many years and years ago it seemed!
Now, as then, David experienced a softening of the heart. He forgot his resentment against his mother's coldness, against her strange passion for material things. She was his mother, she was all he had in the world, and he was going away from her and from his home. He heard her ascending the cellar steps, and he turned and went up to his room as though he had forgotten something, so that he might hide his tears.
At the entrance of the little hall which led to his room, David stood still, the lump hardening in his throat, his breath drawn heavily. His errand to the preacher's had not taken half an hour, but in that half-hour his room had been dismantled. The cheap little bed had been taken apart and had been carried into the hall; the carpet had been dropped out of the window to the grass below; broom and scrubbing-brush and pail waited in the corner. The door of his mother's room opposite his own was closed; a dust cloth was stuffed under it so that no mote could enter. Now, all the rooms in Cassie's house except the kitchen and her own could be immaculate.
For a long moment David stood still. He looked into his room, he looked at his mother's closed door, he looked at the door which shut off the deep front of the great house. He felt the same mysterious impression which Katy Gaumer felt when she looked at the outside of the Hartman house, as though it held within it strange secrets. It seemed now as though it thrust him forth as one who did not belong, as though its walls might presently contract until there should be no space for him to stand. It was a cruel suggestion to a boy about to leave his home! David breathed deeply as though to shake off the oppression, and then went down the steps.
Without apparent emotion he bade Cassie farewell, then strode briskly toward the station. Essie Hill, who let him sit beside her on the doorstep and who argued prettily with him about his soul, was nowhere to be seen; his companions, Ollie Kuhns and Billy Knerr and the Fackenthals, were at work or at school; Bevy Schnepp, whose great favorite he was, was busy with her washing in the squire's yard far up the street. In the door of the store stood Katy Gaumer. Her, with Alvin Koehler, he hated. David had with his own eyes beheld one of Alvin's hasty departures from Grandmother Gaumer's gate. Persons found their levels in this world and Katy had found hers.
But on the corner David hesitated. How tall she had grown! How large her eyes were, and how lacking in their old sparkle! Cheerfully would he have returned in this final moment of madness to the dullness of the Millerstown school to be near her once more, cheerfully would he have continued his abode in Millerstown forever. He determined to go to speak to her, to say, "Let us be friends." Essie Hill was pretty and sweet, and her anxiety about his soul was flattering, but Essie was like a candle to a shining star. He saw the flirt of Katy's red dress as she sailed up the schoolroom aisle; he heard her saucy answers to the teacher; he admired her gayety, her great ambition. She had planned by now to be at school, learning everything; instead, she wore a gingham apron and stood in the Millerstown store buying a broom!
A single step David had already taken, when Katy turned from her bargaining and their eyes met. Katy knew whither David was bound; already his train whistled faintly at the next station. It seemed to her that he looked at her with pity. He was to go, and she was to stay—forever! With bitterness Katy turned her back upon him.
For a year Grandmother Gaumer lay high upon her pillows, her patient eyes looking out from her paralyzed body upon her friends and her quiet room. Presently she was able to lift her hands and to say a few slow and painful words. Her bed had been moved to the parlor; from here she could look up and down the street, and out to the kitchen upon Katy at her work. A trolley line was being built to connect Millerstown with the county seat; she could see the workmen approaching across the flat meadows, and after a while could watch with a thrill a faint, distant gleam of light broaden into the glare of a great headlight as the car whizzed into the village. Her face grew thinner and more delicate; her survival came presently to seem almost a miracle. But still she lay patiently, listening to the storms and rejoicing in the sunshine. To her Katy read the Bible, hour after hour, a dull experience to the mind of Bevy, devout Improved New Mennonite though she was.
"You are an old woman," protested Bevy. "You are older than I in your ways. Run with Whiskey a little like you used to run! I could be much oftener here, and the other people would be glad to sit with gran'mom. I even put cakes for you in the hole and you don't take them out any more!"
Katy was really very happy during the long winter. Housekeeping had become easy; she would accept no help even with washing and cleaning. As for going about in Millerstown, Katy laughed, as neat, aproned in housewifely fashion, she sat by her grandmother's bed.