Sometimes she crossed the yard in snow to her knees to rap against the kitchen window of Bevy Schnepp, who kept house for Great-Uncle Gaumer, the squire. Bevy's real name was Maria Snyder, but Katy had renamed her for one of the mythical characters of whom Millerstown held foolish discourse, and the village had adopted the title. Bevy was little and thin and a powerful worker. She was cross with almost every one in the world, even with Katy whom she adored and spoiled. There was a tradition in Millerstown that she was once about to be married, but that at the ceremony her spirit rebelled. When the preacher asked her whether she would obey, she cried out aloud, "By my soul, no!" and the match was thereupon broken off. Bevy adorned her speech with many proverbs, and she had an abiding faith in pow-wowing, and also in spooks, hexahemeron cats, and similar mysterious creatures. She had named the squire's dog "Whiskey" so that he could not be bewitched. She would as soon have thrown her cabbage plants away as to have planted them in any other planetary sign than that of the Virgin. She belonged, strangely enough, to a newly established religious sect in Millerstown, that of the Improved New Mennonites, who had no relation to the long-established worthy followers of Menno Simons in other parts of the Pennsylvania German section. It is difficult to understand how Bevy reconciled her belief in the orthodox if sensational preaching of the Reverend Mr. Hill with her use of such superstitious rhymes as
"Dulix, ix, ux, Thou comest not over Pontio, Pontio is over Pilato"--
to which she had recourse when trouble threatened.
Sometimes Katy untied "Whiskey" and they scampered wildly, crazily away together. Katy did everything in the same unthinking, impetuous way. Both she and Whiskey were young, both were irresponsible, both were petted, indulged, and entirely care-free. Katy was the orphan child of her grandparents' Benjamin; it was not strange that they could deny her nothing. Of her mother and father she had no recollection; to her grandparents she owed anything she might now be or might become.
To-night there was no snow upon the ground. The stars shone crisply; in the west the young moon was declining; though it was December, the season seemed more like autumn than like winter. Millerstown lay still and lovely under its leafless trees; not in the quiet of perpetual drowsiness,--Millerstown was stirring enough by day!--but in repose after the day's labor and excitement. To the east of the village the mountain rose somberly; to the south the pike climbed a hill toward the church and the school-house; to the west and north lay the wide fields. To the north might be seen the dim bulk of the blast furnace with the great starlike light of the bleeder flame.
