One day, unrest came suddenly upon the Millerstown boys; imprisonment within four walls was intolerable. Even Katy, yearning for an education, was affected by the warmth of the first real summer day, and Alvin Koehler wished for once that he had learned to swim, so that he could go with the other boys to bathe in Weygandt's dam. Alvin had not yet bought the red necktie; money was more scarce than ever this spring. Alvin's whole soul demanded clothes. He reflected upon the impression he had made upon Katy Gaumer; he observed the blush which reddened the smooth cheek of Essie Hill at his approach; he was increasingly certain that his was an unusual and attractive personality.
All through the long May afternoon, Katy studied with great effort, wishing that she, too, had played truant, and had climbed to the Sheep Stable as she had long planned, there to discover the full volume of her voice. She looked across at Alvin, but Alvin did not look back.
All the long afternoon Alvin gazed idly at his algebra, and all the long afternoon David Hartman and Jimmie Weygandt and Ollie Kuhns and the two Fackenthals and Billy Knerr and Coonie Schnable braved the wrath of Mr. Carpenter and played truant. First they traveled to the top of the mountain, then raced each other down over rock and fallen tree; and then, hot and tired, plunged into Weygandt's dam, which was fed by a cold stream from the mountain. When the water grew unendurable, they came out to the bank, rubbed themselves to a glow with their shirts, and hanging the shirts on bushes to dry, plunged back with shouts and splashing.
Mr. Carpenter did not greatly regret their absence. Upon him, too, spring fever had descended; he was too lazy to hear thoroughly the lessons of the pupils who remained. When the lowest class droned its "ten times ten iss a hundred," Mr. Carpenter was nodding; when they sang out in drowsy mischief, "'laven times 'laven iss a hundred and 'laven," Mr. Carpenter was asleep.
Mr. Carpenter planned no immediate punishment for his insubordinate pupils. The threat that he would tell their parents would be a powerful and valuable weapon in his hands for the rest of the term. The Millerstown parents had fixed theories about the heinousness of truancy.