Walda | Page 7

out. The crowd had crossed the rustic bridge.
"They are coming here," Gerson Brandt exclaimed. "Can it be that
aught hath happened to Wilhelm Kellar?"
He hastened down the street, and Schneider stepped out on the
sidewalk.
"Wilhelm Kellar hath charge of our flannel-mill. He liveth with Brother
Brandt," explained the Herr Doktor. "I trust that no accident hath
befallen him."
It was plain that Adolph Schneider's anxiety was twofold, and that he

thought of the loss which might be unavoidable in case the mill
superintendent be came incapacitated.
When Everett and the Herr Doktor met the villagers, Gerson Brandt
had stopped the crowd and was bending over the rude stretcher upon
which lay the unconscious form of an old man.
"Wilhelm Kellar hath been stricken with a sudden illness," said the
school-master. "The apothecary hath worked over him and cannot
restore him. Will not the Herr Doktor send for a physician?"
"The nearest chirurgeon is eight miles away," re plied Adolph
Schneider. "Let the apothecary bleed Brother Kellar as soon as he is
taken to his bed."
Seeing that the man was emaciated and had no blood to lose, Everett
stepped forward.
"I am a physician," he said. "I will do what I can."
He directed the crowd to fall back so that the sick man could have more
air, and helped to carry the stretcher into an upper room of the
school-house.

III

IN an upper room of the school-house Wilhelm Kellar lay upon a
high-post bedstead that was screened by chintz curtains drawn back so
that the air could reach him. His thin, wan face looked old and drawn as
it rested on a feather pillow. He was comfortable, he let Everett know,
when the physician went to visit him early in the morning after the
seizure. His tongue refused to frame the words he tried to utter, but his
eyes showed his gratitude. Everett took a seat in the heavy wooden
chair at the foot of the bed, which stood in a little alcove. Beyond the
alcove the main room stretched out beneath the roof, which gave it

many queer corners. Rows of books partially hid one wall. In one
corner a high chest of drawers held a pair of massive silver candlesticks.
An old desk with a sloping top occupied a little nook lighted by a
diamond window; here were quill-pens and bottles of colored ink. This
upper room, occupied jointly by Wilhelm Kellar and Gerson Brandt,
bore the impress of the school-master, who waited now, leaning on the
back of an old wooden arm-chair polished with much use.
"He will be much better," said Everett. "He may recover from the
paralysis, but it will be a long time before he leaves his room."
Behind the curtains there was something like a groan. The sick man
tried to say something, but neither Everett nor Brandt could understand
him. Suddenly his eyes looked past them, and there was a smile on his
face. Walda entered the outer room and came to her father, kneeling
down beside him, apparently unaware that there was any one except
them selves present.
"Art thou better, father?" she asked, in the softest tone, and then,
burying her white-capped head in the pillow beside him, she murmured
something in a low voice. Everett and Gerson Brandt left the two to
gether and went into the larger room, where the physician began to
prepare some medicine. Presently Walda's voice was heard in prayer.
The two men waited reverently until the last petition, uttered with the
fervency of great faith, had died away.
"The daughter loveth her father; she hath a true heart," said the
school-master. He turned to the little window and looked out. Everett,
who was distributing powders among a lot of little papers, went on with
his work without making reply. The old hour-glass on the high chest of
drawers had measured several minutes before any word was spoken.
Then it was Mother Kaufmann who broke the silence, She entered the
room with a heavy step, and with a "Good-day, Brother Brandt," stood
for a few moments studying Everett.
"Where is Walda?" she asked. Gerson Brandt made a little gesture
towards the alcove.

"She hath no right to come here alone," the woman replied, with a
frown. "She is my care, and she hath done a foolish act. I shall forbid
her to leave the House of the Women without me."
"Walda was drawn hither by anxiety concerning her father," said
Gerson Brandt. "Thou wilt not wound her by a reprimand, Sister
Kaufmann?"
The woman went near to him and spoke in guttural German some
words that Everett could not catch, but from her furtive looks and
glances he knew she was talking of him.
Walda passed through the room. Everett raised