The stranger stood and looked at Katy. He did not yet realize how large a part she had had in the entertainment, though about that a proud grandfather would soon inform him; he saw the Gaumer eyes and the Gaumer bright face, and he remembered with sharp pain the eyes of a little sister gone fifty years ago.
Katy's grandfather called her to him, and she came slowly, slipping like a crimson butterfly from the old coat, which the other children seized upon with joy. She heard the governor's question and her grandfather's answer.
Then Katy's eyes met the stranger's bright gaze. She halted in the middle of the room, as though she did not know exactly what she was doing. Their praise embarrassed her, her foolish anger at David Hartman hurt her, her head swam. Even her joy seemed to smother her. This great man had hated Millerstown, as she hated Millerstown, sometimes, or he would not have gone away; he had loved it as she did, or he would not have come back to laugh and weep with his old friends. Perhaps he, too, had wanted everything and had not known how to get it; perhaps he, too, had wanted to fly and had not known where to find wings! A consciousness of his friendliness, of his kinship, seized upon her. He would understand her, help her! And like the child she was, Katy ran to him. Indeed, he understood even now, for stooping to kiss her, he hid her foolish tears from Millerstown.
ON ordinary Christmas days, when only the squire and the doctor and Uncle Edwin and Aunt Sally and little Adam and Bevy Schnepp dined at Grandfather Gaumer's, Grandmother Gaumer and Bevy prepared a fairly elaborate feast. There was always a turkey, a twenty-five pounder with potato filling, there were all procurable vegetables, there were always cakes and pies and preserves and jellies without number. One gave one's self up with cheerful helplessness to indigestion, one resigned one's self to next day's headache--that is, if one were not a Gaumer. No Gaumer ever had headache.
It cannot be claimed for Katy that she was of much assistance to her elders on this Christmas Day, tall girl though she was. Grandfather Gaumer and the governor started soon after breakfast to pay calls in the village and her thoughts were with them. How glad every one would be to see the governor; how they would press cakes and candy upon him; how he would joke with them; how they would treasure what he said! What a wonderful thing it was to be famous and to have every one admire you!