Alvin moved toward the side of his chair, and away from his father.
"Then I got up and went down the hill, and into Hartman's house I walked. He was sitting by the table with his best clothes on to go to church and she was there, too. They were always rich; they had everything grand. I made tracks on her clean floor, and she looked sharp at me, but I did not care. I spoke right up to him.
"'When I was building the wall in the church,' I said, 'I went out for a few boards. In that time you were in the church and took the communion set.'
"He did not look at me, Alvin; he just sat there.
"'What would I do with a communion set?' he said after a while to me.
"'I do not know what you would do with it,' I said back to him, 'but you have it. You took it. God will punish you like Ananias.'
"Then, Alvin--" William laid a hand on his son's shrinking arm. "He went to the preacher, and the preacher came to me and said I must be quiet. That the preacher said to me! Then I went to church and prayed out loud before all the people that God would punish the wicked. I did not mention any names, Alvin; I obeyed the preacher in that! But God did not punish him. Everything gets better and better for him all the time. Now, I will punish him, Alvin, and you will help me. I have paid a lot to detectives, but I have not yet enough. He must be watched; we must have proof. I cannot save so much any more because I have not so much work. Now, if you work at the furnace you will make a dollar a day. It will take all we can earn, Alvin, _all_. I did without things that I need; I have saved all I can, but I cannot save enough."
William broke off suddenly. The room was quite dark; where no light was needed, none was made in William Koehler's house. William rose and went stumbling about and lit the lamp, the lamp which Katy saw gleaming against the dark side of the mountain. In its light poor William gazed at his son with yearning. He seemed now perfectly sane.
Then William spoke in a hollow, astonished voice, the lamp rattling in his hand.
"Why, no," stammered Alvin. "What would he want with it?"
IN the Hartman house on Christmas Day there was feasting, but no rejoicing. Cassie Hartman was fully as able a cook as Grandmother Gaumer, and she roasted as large a turkey and prepared almost as many delicacies as Grandmother Gaumer and Bevy Schnepp prepared for their great party. On the kitchen settle were gifts, a gold breastpin set with a handsome diamond, a heavy gold watch-chain, a boy's suit, a gun, and a five-dollar gold-piece. There were on them no affectionate inscriptions, no good wishes. The breastpin was for Cassie, the watch-chain for John Hartman, the other articles for David. There were no gifts from outsiders--few Millerstonians would have ventured to offer gifts to the rich Hartmans. In the parlor windows hung holly wreaths, the only bought wreaths in Millerstown.