Katy Gaumer

Front matter

J KATY GAUMER |

ELSIE SINGMASTER

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Contents

Note. — The first two chapters were published as a short story under the title of ‘ The Belsnickel’’ in the Century Magazine for January, I9QII.

MIEBMOR ENEWS el ele ee) eo ad POMEL ANICH ELS ie) fel ig) So ele eeu en TF . THE GREAT MAN : 32 . THE KOEHLERS’ CHRISTMAS Day 49 . ANOTHER CHRISTMAS DAy .. . 63 eee VIILLERSTOWN SCHOOL «9°. 6 se 88 . THE BEE CURE 2, Reh caaeenie 6s LOS . WILLIAM KOEHLER MAKES HIS ACCUSATION FOR THE Last TIME S24 . CHANGE « 143 . KATY MAKES A PROMISE . cae 655} . Katy FINDS A NEw AIM IN LIFE . 159 . KATY BORROWS SO THAT SHE MAY LEND . . 169 . EMPTINESS {yO arr ne ee « 192 . KATY PLANS HER LIFE ONCE MORE . - 204 . An O_p Way ovuT oF A NEw TROUBLE . . 219 . BEvy puts A HEx on ALVIN (225 . ALVIN DOES PENANCE AND IS SHRIVEN . 254 . A SILVER CHALICE : 28207 . THE SQUIRE AND DAVID TAKE A JOURNEY BY NIGHT 281 PeeRIVIVSTERY DEEPENS: 400y)) oe foes fs) bel) 38300 . THE SQUIRE AND DAVID TAKE A JOURNEY BY Day. 306 . KATY IS TO BE EDUCATED AT LAST , aot

Chapter I The Great News

Every Wednesday evening in winter Katy Gaumer went to the Millerstown post-office for her grandfather’s ‘‘Welt Bote,’ the German paper which circulated among the Pennsylvania Germans of Millerstown. By six o’clock she and Grandfather Gaumer and Grandmother Gaumer had had supper; by half past six she had finished drying the dishes; by half past seven she had learned her lessons for the next day; and then, a scarlet shawl wrapped about her, a scarlet ‘‘nubia’’ on her head, scarlet mittens on her hands, Katy set forth into Millerstown’s safe darkness.

Sometimes — oh, the thrill that closed her throat and ran up and down her spine and set her heart to throbbing and her eyes to dancing at sound of that closed door! — sometimes it rained and she pushed her way out into the storm as a viking might have pushed his boat from the shore into an unfriendly sea; sometimes it snowed and she lifted her hot face so that she might feel the light, cold flakes against her cheek; sometimes deep drifts lay already on the ground and she flung herself upon them or into them;

sometimes she danced back to say a second good-bye so that she might enjoy her freedom once more; sometimes she stole round under the tall pine trees and knocked ponderously at the door, knowing perfectly well that her grandmother and grandfather would only smile at each other and not stir. 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,sboth 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 schoolhouse; 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.

“IT wonder what it looks like now from the top of the mountain,’’ soliloquized Katy. ‘I would like to climb once in the dark night to the Sheep Stable. I wonder if it is any one in all Millerstown brave enough to go along in the dark. I wonder what the church looks like inside without any light. I wonder —”’

Awed by the quiet, Katy stood still under the pine trees at the gate. She heard Whiskey whine to be let loose; she heard Bevy open the door of the squire’s kitchen.

“Katy, Katy Gaumer! Come here once, Katy Gaumer!”’

Katy did not answer. Bevy had probably a cake for her or some molasses candy; she could just as well put it in the putlock hole in the wall of grandfather’s house. A putlock hole is an aperture left by the removal of a scaffolding. It is supposed to be filled in, but either the builder of the old stone house had overlooked one of the openings, or the stone placed there had fallen out. It now made a fine hiding-place for Katy’s treasures.

Katy had at this moment no time to give to Bevy. Her heart throbbed, her hands clutched the gate.

She did not know why she was always so thrilled and excited when she was out alone at night.

“It is like Bethlehem,’’ she whispered to herself, as she looked down the street, then up at the sky. ‘““The shepherds might be watching or the kings might come.”

Katy opened the gate.

“T love Millerstown,”’ she declared. ‘‘I love Millerstown. I love everybody and everything in Millerstown.”’

The post-office was next to the store and on the same street as Grandfather Gaumer’s. There are only three streets in the village, Main Street and Locust and Church, and all the houses are built out to the pavement in the Pennsylvania German fashion, so that the little settlement does not cover much ground. Perhaps that was why Katy, leaving Main Street and starting forth on Locust, came so soon to the end of her spasm of affection. There did not seem to be enough of the village to warrant any such fervent outpouring. At any rate, Katy’s mood changed.

““T am tired of Millerstown,’’ she declared with equal fervor. “It is dumb. It is quiet. Nothing ever happens in this place.”’

The residents of Locust Street were especially dull to Katy’s thinking. Dumb Coonie Schnable lived here and dumb Ellie Schindler, and Essie Hill, whom she hated. Essie was the daughter of the pastor of the Improved New Mennonites; of whom Bevy

Schnepp was one. The preacher himself was tall and angular and rather blank of countenance, but Essie was small and pretty and pink and smooth of speech and by no means ‘‘dumb.’’ Once, being a follower of her father’s religious practices, Essie had risen in school and had prayed for forgiveness for Katy’s outrageous impudence to the teacher, and had thereupon become his favorite forever. That Essie could really be what she seemed, that she could like to hear her father shout about the Millerstown sinners, that she could admire the silly, short-back sailor hat adorned with a Bible verse, which was the head-covering of the older female members of the Improved New Mennonite Church — this Katy could not, would not believe. Essie was a hypocrite. Sometimes the Improved New Mennonites might be heard singing or praying hysterically. Katy had often watched them through the window, in company with Ollie Kuhns and Billy Knerr and one or two other naughty boys and girls, and had sometimes helped a little with the hysterical shrieking. To-night the little frame building was dark, and here, as down on Main Street, there was not a sound. At the end of Locust Street, Katy went through a lane to Church Street, and there again she stood perfectly still, her eyes gleaming, her ears listening, listening, listening. On the mountain road above her, she could see dimly a little white house, which seemed to hug the hillside and to hold itself aloof from Millerstown. Here lived old Koehler, who was not really very old, but who was crazy and who was supposed to have stolen the beautiful silver communion service of Katy’s church. The children used to shout wildly at him, “Bring it back! Bring it back!’’ and sometimes he ran after them. One sign of his lunacy was his constant praying in all sorts of queer places and at queer times that the communion service might be returned, when all he needed for the answering of his prayer was to seek the service where he had hidden it and to put it back in its place. The Millerstown children never carried their mocking to his house, since they believed that he was able to set upon them the swarms of bees that lived in hives in his little garden, among which he went without fear. They said among themselves — at least the romantic girls said — that he did not give his son, poor, handsome Alvin, enough to eat.

Suddenly Katy’s heart beat with a new thrill. There was no instinct within her which was not awake or wakening. Her cheeks flushed, her scarlet mittens clasped each other. She liked handsome Alvin because she liked him — no better reason was given or required in Katy’s feminine soul.

“T think Alvin is grand,’ exclaimed Katy to herself. ‘“‘I am sorry for him. I think he is grand.”

There was a sound, and Katy started. Suppose Alvin should come upon her suddenly! She went on a few steps, then once more she stopped to listen. Once more Millerstown was quiet, again she looked and listened.

Back in the shadows across the street stood a large, fine house, the home of John Hartman, Millerstown’s richest man. There were in that house fine carpets and beautiful furniture. Butin spite of their possessions the Hartmans were not a happy family. Mrs. Hartman was handsome and she had beautiful clothes and a sealskin coat to wear to church, but she was disturbed if leaves drifted down on the grass in her yard or if the coming of visitors made it necessary to let the sunlight in on her thick carpets. Her only child, David, was sullen and stupid and cross. Remembering the delightful bass singing of one Wenner in the church choir, Katy had run away from home when a mere baby to visit the church on a week day and from there John Hartman had driven her home. Her grandmother to whom she had fled had insisted that he had not been angry, but that he had only sent her back sternly and properly where she belonged. But the impression was not quite persuaded away. Katy used to pretend insome of her wild races that she was fleeing from John Hartman.

Suddenly there was another sound. Some Millerstonian had opened a window or had closed a shutter and Katy took to her heels. It amused her to pretend once more that she was running away from John Hartman. In a moment she had opened the door of the village store and had flashed in.

Round the stove sat four men, old and middleaged; to the other three, Caleb Stemmel was holding forth dismally, his voice low, dreary as his mind, his mind dull as the dim room. Upon them Katy flashed in her scarlet attire, her thin legs in their black stockings completing her resemblance to a very gorgeous tanager or grosbeak. Katy had recovered from all her thrills; she was now pure mischief and impertinence.

*‘Nothing,’’ complained Caleb Stemmel, ‘‘ nothing is any more like it was when I was young.”

““No, it is much better,’’ commented the scarlet tanager.

“We took always trouble.’”’ Caleb paid no heed to the impertinent interruption. ‘‘We had Christmas entertainments that were entertainments — speeches and cakes and apples and a Belsnickel. But these children and these teachers, they are too lazy and too good-for-nothing.”’

Katy had no love for her teacher; she, too, considered him good-for-nothing; but she had less love for Caleb Stemmel.

‘‘We are going to have a Christmas entertainment that will flax [beat] any of yours, Caleb Stemmel,” she boasted.

“Yes, you will get up and say a few Dutch pieces and then you will go home.”

“Well, everything was Dutch when you were young. You ought to like that!”

“Things should now be English,”’ insisted Caleb. ‘But you are too lazy, all of you, from the teacher down. You will be pretty much ashamed of yourselves this year, that I can tell you.”

Katy was already halfway to the door, her black legs flying. She would waste no words on Caleb Stemmel. But now she turned and went back. Katy was curious.

‘‘Why this year?”’

‘‘Because,’’ teased Caleb.

“That is a dumb answer! Why because?”

‘‘ Because it is some one coming.”

éé Who? 19

‘fA visitor.”” Caleb pronounced it ‘‘ wisitor.”’

‘‘Pooh! What do I care for a ‘wisitor’?’’ mocked Katy.

‘This is one that you care for!”

‘Who is it?”

‘Don’t you wish you knew?”

Katy stamped her foot.

‘“‘If you don’t tell, I’ll throw you with snow when the snow comes,’’ she threatened. Katy had respect for age in general, but not for Caleb Stemmel.

Caleb did not answer until he saw that Danny Koser was about to tell.

“It is a governor coming,” he announced impressively.

Katy drew a step closer, her face aglow. No eyes of tanager or grosbeak could have shone blacker against brilliant plumage.

‘“‘Do you mean” — faltered Katy — ‘‘do you mean that my Uncle Daniel is coming home once, my Uncle Daniel Gaumer?”’

‘The squire was here and he told us.’”’ Danny

KATY GAUMER II

Koser was no longer to be restrained. ‘‘Then he went to your gran’pop. He got a letter, the squire did. What do you think of that now?”’

‘‘And what,” jeered Caleb Stemmel, — ‘‘ what will the governor think of Dutch Millerstown and the Dutch entertainment and Dutch Katy; what—’”’ ~ Once more had Katy reached the door at the other end of the long room. She had a habit of forecasting her own actions; already she could see herself pounding at the teacher’s door, then racing home to her grandfather’s, her heart throbbing, throbbing, her whole being in the glow of excitement which she loved, and of which she never had enough.

Suddenly she stopped, her hand on the latch. She had a secret, the whole Millerstown school had a secret, but now it must be told. Every father and mother in Millerstown would have to know if the great project, really her great project, were to succeed. Since the news would have to come out, it might as well be announced at once.

‘We are going to have an English entertainment, Caleb Stemmel,”’ she cried. ‘‘It is planned this long time already; we have been practicing for a month, Caleb Stemmel. We will have you in it; we will have you say, ‘A wery wenimous wiper jumped out of a winegar wat’; that will be fine for you, Caleb. Aha! Caleb!’

Outside Katy paused and stretched forth her arms. There was still not a soul in sight, there was still not a sound; she looked up the street and down and could see the last house at each end. Then Katy started to run. Ten minutes ago she had been only little Katy Gaumer, with lessons learned for the morrow and bedtime near, hating the quiet village, a good deal bored with life; now she was Katy Gaumer, the grandniece of one of the great men of the world.

“‘T wonder what he will look like,’ said Katy. ‘I want todo something. I want to be something. I want to make speeches. I want to be rich and learned. I want to do everything. If he would only ' help me, I might be something.”

There was no one at hand to tell her that she was a vain child; no one to remind her that she was only one of twenty-odd grandnieces and nephews and that the governor of a Western State was after all not such an important person, since there were many still higher offices in the land. No Millerstonian would have so discounted Daniel Gaumer, who had made his own way and had achieved greater success than any of his Millerstown contemporaries. To Katy he was far more wonderful than the President of the United States. If she could do well at the entertainment — she, of course, had the longest and most important piece, and she had also drilled the other children — if it only turned out well, and if some one only said to the governor that success was due to her efforts, he might persuade her grandfather to send her away to school; he might —

But this was not the time to dream. With a fresh gasp for breath, Katy ran on and hurled herself against the teacher’s door, or rather against the door of Sarah Ann Mohr, in whose house the teacher boarded. In an instant she was in the kitchen where Sarah Ann and the teacher sat together.

Sarah Ann was large and ponderous and goodnatured. She was now reading the paper and hemming a gingham apron by turns. Sarah Ann loved to read. Her favorite matter was the inside page of the Millerstown ‘‘Star,’’ which always offered varied and interesting items of general news. Sarah Ann was far less interested in the accounts of Millerstown’s births and deaths and marriages than she was in the startling events of the world outside. Sarah Ann’s taste inclined to the shocking and morbid. This evening she had read many times about a man who had committed suicide by sitting on a box of dynamite and lighting the fuse, and about a man whose head was gradually becoming like that of a lion. When she observed that the next item dealt with the remarkable invention of a young woman who baked glass in her husband’s pies, Sarah Ann laid down the paper to compose her mind with a little sewing.

The teacher, who was small and slender and somewhat near-sighted, was going painstakingly over a bundle of civil service examination questions. He was only in Millerstown for a little while, acting as a substitute and waiting for something to turn up. He was a Pennsylvania German, but he would as soon have been called a Turk. He had changed his name from Schreiner to Carpenter and the very sound of his native tongue was hateful to him. He did not like Katy Gaumer; he did not like any young, active, springing things.

Now he listened to Katy in astonishment. Katy flung herself upon Sarah Ann.

‘‘Booh! Don’t look so scared. I will not eat you, Sarah Ann! And I am no spook! I am only ina hurry. Teacher, I have told the people about the English entertainment. It is out. I had to tell, be- | cause the children must know their pieces better. Ollie Kuhns, he won’t learn his until his pop thrashes him a couple of times, and Jimmie Weygandt’s mom will have to make him learn with a stick, and then he will not know it anyhow, perhaps, and they won’t leave us have the Sunday School organ to practice beforehand for the singing unless they know why it is, and everybody must practice all the time from now on. You see, I had to tell.”

The teacher looked at her dumbly. So did Sarah Ann.

“But why?” asked they together.

‘‘Why?” repeated Katy, impatiently, as though they might have divined the wonderful reason. ‘Why, because my Uncle Daniel is coming. Is n’t that enough?”’

Sarah Ann laid down her apron.

‘‘Bei meiner Seel’!’’ said she solemnly.

The teacher laid down his papers.

‘“The governor?’’ said he. He had heard of Governor Gaumer. He thought of the appointments ina governor’s power; he foresaw at once escape from the teaching which he hated; he blessed Katy because she had proposed an English entertainment. He blessed her inspired suggestion of parental whippings for Ollie and Jimmie. ‘‘Sit down once, Katy, sit down.”

It gave Katy another thrill of joy to be thus solicited by her enemy. But now she could not stop.

“I must go first home and see my folks. Then I will come back.”

At the squire’s gate, Bevy Schnepp awaited her.

“Ach, come once in a little, Katy!”

“IT cannot!”

“Just a little! I have something for you.’”’ Bevy put out a futile arm. People were forever trying to catch Katy.

“No,” laughed Katy. “I’ll put a hex on you, Bevy! I’ll bewitch you, Bevy!”’

Katy was gone, through her grandfather’s gate, down the brick walk under the pine trees to the kitchen where sat grandfather and grandmother and the squire. Seeing them together, the two old men with their broad shoulders and their handsome heads and the old woman with her kindly face, a stranger would have known at once where Katy got her active, erect figure and her curly hair and her dark eyes. All three were handsome; all three cultivated as far as their opportunities would allow;

all three would have been distinguished in a broader circle than Millerstown could offer. But here circumstances had placed them and had kept them. Even the squire, whose desk was frequently littered with time-tables, and who planned constantly journeys to the uttermost parts of the earth, had scarcely ever been away from Millerstown.

Upon these three Katy rushed like a whirlwind. ‘Is it true?’’ she demanded breathlessly in the Pennsylvania German which the older folk loved, but which was falling into disuse among the young. ‘“‘Is what true?’’ asked grandfather and the squire together. They liked to tease Katy, everybody liked to tease Katy.

“That my uncle the governor is coming?”’ ““Yes,’’ said Grandfather Gaumer. ‘‘ Your uncle the governor is coming.”’

Chapter II The Belsnickel

On the afternoon of the entertainment there was an air of excitement, both within and without the schoolroom. Outside the clouds hung low; the winter wheat in the Weygandt fields seemed to have yielded up some of its brilliant green; there was no color on the mountain-side which had been warm brown and purple in the morning sunshine. A snowstorm was brewing, the first of the season, and Millerstown rejoiced, believing that a green Christmas makes a fat graveyard. But in spite of the threatening storm nearly all Millerstown moved toward the schoolhouse.

The schoolroom was almost unrecognizable. The walls were naturally a dingy brown, except where the blackboards made them still duller; the desks were far apart; the distance from the last row, where the ill-behaved liked to sit, to the teacher’s desk, to which they made frequent trips for punishment, seemed on ordinary days interminable.

This afternoon, however, there was neither dullness nor extra space. The walls were hidden by masses of crowfoot and pine, brought from the mountain; the blackboards had vanished behind festoons of red flags and bunting. Into one quarter of the room the children were so closely crowded that one would have said they could never extricate themselves; into the other three quarters had squeezed and pressed their admiring relatives and friends. Grandfather and Grandmother Gaumer were here, the latter with a large and mysterious basket, which she helped Katy to hide in the attic, the former laughing with his famous brother. The governor had come on the afternoon train, and Katy had scarcely dared to look at him. He was tall, — she could see that without looking, — and he had a deep, rich voice and a laugh which made one smile to hear it. ‘‘Mommy Bets”’ Eckert was here, a generation older than the Gaumer men, and dear, fat Sarah Ann Mohr, who would not have missed a Christmas entertainment for anything you could offer her. There were half a dozen babies who cooed and crowed by turns, and at them cross Caleb Stémmel frowned — Caleb was forever frowning; and there was Bevy Schnepp, moving about like a restless grasshopper, her bright, bead-like eyes on her beloved Katy. ‘‘She is a fine platform speaker, Katy is,’’ boasted Bevy to those nearest her. ‘‘She will beat them all.” Alvin Koehler, tall, slender, good-looking even to the eyes of older persons than Katy Gaumer, was an usher; his presence was made clear to Katy rather by a delicious thrill than by visual evidence. It went without saying that his crazy father had not come to the entertainment, though none of his small businesses of bricklaying, gardening, or bee culture need have kept him away. When Koehler was not at work, he spent no time attending entertainments; he sat at his door or window, watching the mountain road, and scolding and praying by turns.

Upon the last seat crouched David Hartman, sullen, frowning, as ever. The school entertainment was not worth the attention of so important a person as his father, and his mother could not have been persuaded to leave the constant toil with which she kept spotless her great, beautiful house.

Millerstown’s young bachelor doctor had come, and he, too, watched Katy as she flew about in her scarlet dress. The doctor was a Gaumer on his mother’s side, and from her had inherited the Gaumer good looks and the Gaumer brains. Katy’s Uncle Edwin and her Aunt Sally had brought their little Adam, a beautiful, blond little boy, who had his piece to say on this great occasion. Uncle Edwin was a Gaumer without the Gaumer brains, but he had all the Gaumer kindness of heart. Of these two kinsfolk, Uncle Edwin and fat, placid Aunt Sally, Katy did not have a very high opinion. Smooth, pretty little Essie Hill had not come; her pious soul considered entertainments wicked.

But Katy gave no thought to Essie or to her absence; her mind was full of herself and of the great visitor and of Alvin Koehler. For Katy the play had begun. The governor was here; he looked kind and friendly; perhaps he would help her to carry out some of her great plans for the future. Since his coming had been announced, Katy had seen herself in ascore of réles. She would be a great teacher, she would be a fine lady, she would be a missionary to a place which she called ‘‘Africay.”’ No position seemed beyond Katy’s attainment in her present mood.

Katy knew her part as well as she knew her own name. It was called ‘‘Annie and Willie’s Prayer.” It was long and hard for a tongue, which, for all its making fun of other people, could not itself say th and v with ease. But Katy would not fail, nor would her little cousin Adam, still sitting close between his father and mother, whom she had taught to lisp through ‘‘Hang up the Baby’s Stocking.’ If only Ollie Kuhns knew the ‘‘ Psalm of Life,” and Jimmie Weygandt, ‘“‘There is a Reaper whose Name is Death,’’ as well! When they began to practice, Ollie always said, ‘“‘Wives of great men,” and Jimmie always talked about ‘‘deas”’ for ‘‘death.”’ But those faults had been diligently trained out of them. All the children had known their parts this morning; they had known them so well that Katy’s elaborate test could not produce a single blunder, but would they know them now? Their faces grew whiter and whiter; the very pine branches seemed to quiver with nervousness; the teacher — Mr. Carpenter, indeed! — tried in vain to recall the English speech which he had written out and memorized. As he sat waiting for the time to open the entertainment, he frantically reminded himself that the prospect of examinations had always terrified him, but that he invariably recovered his wits with the first question.

Once he caught Katy Gaumer’s eye and tried to smile. But Katy did not respond. Katy looked at him sternly, as though she were the teacher and he the pupil. She saw plainly enough what ailed him, and prickles of fright went up and down her backbone. His speech was to open the entertainment; if he failed, everybody would fail. Katy had seen panic sweep along the ranks of would-be orators in the Millerstown school before this. She had seen Jimmie Weygandt turn green and tremble like a leaf; she had heard Ellie Schindler cry. If the teacher would only let her begin the entertainment, she would not fail!