Katherine's Story

by Thomas Kinkade

  She bit her lip as she helped Ma snap the beans.

  Later, the dinner conversation flowed around and past her, and she didn’t say a word. Papa said there might be more damage than broken shingles. Ma hoped not. Papa had to check the roof more carefully. Todd wanted to enter the spelling bee this year. James said his real best friend was Francis…. Everyone was acting normal, as if her dreams hadn’t just been crushed!

  It would be too terrible for this opportunity to come, just to be snatched away! She glanced at her father. All right, fifty dollars was more than he could afford….

  “Kat!”

  “What, James?”

  “I said, ‘Please pass the bread.’ Twice.”

  Kat passed the basket. She nibbled at her food without tasting it. If only there was less tuition for Papa to pay…. If only…Maybe she could earn some of it herself!

  Papa was starting on the bread pudding, his favorite dessert. He looked relaxed now. He was never angry for long. Did she dare?

  “Papa?” Kat said.

  He turned toward her.

  “If it was less than fifty dollars—”

  “But it’s not,” he interrupted. “Stop it, Kat. I want to eat my dinner in peace.”

  “Please, just listen,” Kat pleaded. “What if I earn half of it by myself? If you only had to pay twenty-five dollars? Then could I go to the Bartholomew School?”

  “How can you possibly earn twenty-five dollars? And by December fifteenth?” Papa said.

  “But if I do,” Kat said. “If.”

  “If pigs had wings, they’d all fly.” Papa poured fresh cream on his pudding.

  “Kat, I think you need to give up on this,” Ma said.

  “Papa, if I have twenty-five dollars by December fifteenth, would you pay the rest?”

  He sighed. “I suppose. But I don’t see how you—”

  Kat caught her breath. “Do you promise?”

  “You certainly know how to wear a man down, Kat.” Papa passed his hand across his forehead. “All right, I promise. If you can come up with twenty-five dollars, I guess I can, too.”

  Kat jumped up out of her seat and hugged him. “Thank you, Papa! Thank you!”

  “I hope you’re not planning to rob your uncle’s bank.” Joking, Kat knew, was her father’s way of making up for yelling at her.

  “No.” Kat giggled.

  She ran upstairs to write a letter to the Carstairses.

  She wrote slowly, concentrating on good penmanship. She was very careful to avoid splotches when she dipped her pen in the ink bottle.

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs,

  Thank you very much for the delicious chocolates. I love chocolate and these are the best I’ve ever had. And thank you for the wonderful opportunity to go to the Bartholomew School. I’m very happy to accept the offer and I’ll send the application and the tuition to the school by December 15th.

  Kat chewed on the pen as she thought about what to write next. She reread her last sentence and suddenly a prickly feeling came over her. How was she ever going to earn twenty-five dollars? It was already November seventh and she had no plan at all!

  nine

  The next morning, Kat walked to school with Todd. For a long stretch of Lighthouse Lane, they were quiet, deep in their own thoughts. James ran ahead with his friend Francis.

  “I can give you five dollars,” Todd suddenly said.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “For that school. I have the five dollars I saved up from yard work last summer. And from my paper route.”

  “Oh, Todd! I can’t take your money,” Kat said. “You worked so hard for it.”

  “I want to give it to you,” he said. “You’d help me out, wouldn’t you? If I needed it? For something really important?”

  “You know I would.” Kat looked at him and smiled. “You really understand, don’t you? I think you’re the only one in the whole family who does. Todd…thank you.”

  Todd nodded. “You’re welcome. Now you only need twenty.”

  “It sounds like a lot less that way, doesn’t it? Thank you! I promise I’ll pay you back someday.”

  “See, I have a dream, too, but I never say anything to anyone. All my friends want to be captains of their own boats or own their own farms. I want something different.”

  Her brother was the quiet, thoughtful one in the family. “What’s your dream?” Kat often wondered what was going on in his mind. “Come on, Todd, what is it?”

  “I want to be an inventor! Like Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson. Well, they’ve already invented the telephone…” Todd grinned. “Beat me to it! But I want to be an inventor like them and I’d think up my own ideas.”

  They left Lighthouse Lane and turned south onto William McKinley Road. Kat checked on James. He was still in sight, running toward the school with his friend.

  “See, everything’s changing so fast now,” Todd said. “Electricity, flying machines…Something new every single day! I bet there’ll be things no one can even imagine yet. So I want to invent some of them. Well, what do you think? You think it sounds impossible or conceited or—?”

  “It sounds just right. I think you can do just about anything you put your mind to.” Kat took Todd’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you for telling me about your dream.”

  Lizabeth and Amanda were standing on the front steps of the school. Miss Cotter hadn’t rung the big brass bell yet.

  “Twenty dollars?” Amanda’s eyes opened wide when Kat told them her news. “That’s a lot!”

  Kat’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “We’ll help you,” Amanda said.

  “Here’s how my father says you make money,” Lizabeth said. “You make a product that everyone wants and sell it a fair price.”

  Miss Cotter was in the doorway, swinging the bell in her hand.

  “I don’t have a product.” Kat slowly started up the steps.

  “Girls, come along!” Miss Cotter called.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll find a way,” Amanda said.

  Miss Cotter kept them busy all morning. She drilled them on the multiplication tables. Then the older boys did woodwork while the girls sewed. Miss Cotter asked Kat to help the second graders draw with crayons. Crayons were new to Cape Light. Kat didn’t like them that much. They were too waxy and didn’t blend well. At least they didn’t drip all over the second graders the way paint did.

  Amanda, across the room at the sewing table, mouthed, “I have an idea.”

  “What?” Kat mouthed back.

  There was no chance to talk. Everyone, except for the very youngest, was asked to line up in front of the room to practice for the spelling bee.

  “Children, this year the spelling bee will be held in the courthouse! It’s going to be a big event.”

  A buzz of excitement filled the room. Everyone in town would come out to be entertained by the spelling bee.

  “The Cranberry schools will be taking part, too,” Miss Cotter continued. “And Mrs. Cornell will be donating a prize from the Pelican Street Bookshop.”

  She’d probably be gone by then, Kat thought, but it didn’t matter. There had to be a lot more going on in Boston than a spelling bee! She wasn’t a great speller anyway.

  Finally, it was recess. Kat and Lizabeth ran to Amanda in the schoolyard. “What’s your idea? What is it?”

  “Everyone loves ice cream,” Amanda said. “It’s the perfect product!”

  “But how can we—?” Lizabeth started.

  “There’s a lady named Nancy Johnson—I read about her in the Saturday Evening Post,” Amanda continued. “She invented a hand-cranked freezer that allows ice cream to be made at home—very easily, the article said.”

  “That’s brilliant!” Kat said.

  Lizabeth frowned. “But who has a hand-cranked freezer?”

  “Cranking just means turning it, doesn’t it?” Kat said. “Stir it, that’s all it means.”

  Lizabeth
brightened. “And freezing—ice from the icebox.”

  “All we need is cream, ice, and flavoring, and we’ll keep mixing until it turns into ice cream,” Amanda said. “Delicious!”

  “And profitable,” Lizabeth added. “Everyone loves ice cream.”

  “Exactly.” Amanda smiled.

  “If we sell it on the village green and charge fifteen cents, and suppose that thirty people come by…I bet we get lots of repeat customers,” Kat said. “Thirty times fifteen is—”

  “We can’t charge that much,” Amanda said. “At the restaurant in Cranberry, ice cream costs ten cents a dish.”

  “All right. Ten cents,” Kat agreed.

  “Thirty times ten…three dollars in one afternoon,” Lizabeth said.

  “It’s November eighth—I have plenty of afternoons left before December fifteenth!” Kat felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  “I bet you’ll have a lot extra left over,” Lizabeth said. “You could buy beautiful elbow-length kid gloves or…”

  “We should get started right away,” Kat said.

  “My house tomorrow after school,” Lizabeth said. “Mother is taking Christopher and Tracy to the dentist and it’s the cook’s day off, so the kitchen will be ours. I’ll ask Ada to get lots of cream for us before she leaves.”

  “I’ll arrange for Hannah to play at Mary Margaret’s tomorrow,” Amanda said.

  “Wonderful!” Kat beamed. Anything was possible when good friends put their heads together.

  “First, the bowl.” Lizabeth reached to the top of the cupboard for a large, deep bowl.

  “Next, the cream,” Kat said. There were three big pitchers. Ada had actually followed Lizabeth’s instructions and had all that cream ready and waiting for them. The girls poured it into the yellow ceramic bowl. “Well, that’s easy!”

  “Now for the ice,” Amanda said.

  They looked at the large blocks of ice in the icebox. “We’ve got to chip some off,” Lizabeth said.

  That wasn’t so easy. They tried chipping it with kitchen knives but it was too rock-hard. Lizabeth found a hammer in a drawer and they took turns swinging it. Shards of ice flew wildly onto the floor. The girls slipped and slid.

  “We can’t use it off the floor,” Amanda said.

  “But there’s so much of it, all our effort is wasted….” Kat moaned.

  “We can’t.”

  “All right. I know what, put clean towels down to catch it.” Kat banged the hammer and loosened some big chunks. They were collected and added to the bowl.

  Lizabeth took some big swings at the ice and massaged her arm. “I think that’s enough.”

  “No, we need more to make it freeze.” Kat landed the hammer again and again. She switched from her right hand to her left. Pieces of ice of all sizes swam in the cream. “Now that looks like enough.”

  “What flavor do we want?” Lizabeth rummaged in the cupboard. “There’s strawberry jam and apple jelly and…squash preserves, no! Wait, here’s some baker’s chocolate! The package says it’s from San Francisco.”

  “Oh, good, everybody likes chocolate,” Amanda said.

  They stared at the dark thick bars on the wooden counter.

  “I guess we ought to chop it up,” Lizabeth said.

  “Some,” Kat agreed, “but we don’t have to do that much. It’ll all blend in with the cream when we mix it.”

  Lizabeth found two large serving spoons and a soup ladle. First they took turns mixing. Then they all crowded around the bowl and stirred in unison. They mixed until their arms ached, with big sweeps of the bowl and little ones. Kat tried using her spoon as a beater. So then they beat and mixed. Strangely enough, the contents of the bowl didn’t look much like ice cream. Big chunks of ice floated next to chunks of chocolate. The cream took on a brownish hue. It became more liquid as narrow ice shards melted.

  Amanda stopped. “Something’s wrong.”

  “I know!” Kat snapped her fingers. “It needs salt! I’m sure I’ve heard something about salt and freezing.”

  “Well, let’s see.” Lizabeth emptied a big salt shaker into the bowl.

  They stirred it around and around. The strange brownish color of the cream became somewhat darker.

  Kat’s face fell. “It’s not setting. It’s definitely still liquid.”

  “So it’s not ice cream,” Lizabeth admitted. “We’ll call it an ice cream drink!”

  Kat brightened. “Chocolate ice cream drink. Doesn’t that sound good?”

  “And then we won’t even need to hand out spoons. Only cups,” Lizabeth said.

  “I think we’d better taste it first,” Amanda said.

  “Go ahead.”

  Amanda dipped a spoon into the mix and sipped. She swallowed hard.

  “Well, what? What?” the others prompted.

  “It’s, um, salty.”

  “Oh. Well, yes. I guess it needs sugar,” Kat said.

  “Lots of sugar,” Amanda added. “The chocolate is bitter!”

  Lizabeth poured a one-pound bag of sugar into the bowl. They stirred some more.

  “We’d better get it out to the green now,” Kat said. “I have to be home in time for my lighthouse watch.”

  At the village green, the girls set up a card table. They lined up paper cups around the big bowl and chanted, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! A brand-new chocolate ice drink! Come one, come all. Only ten cents a cup!”

  A lot of people scurried past through the blustery wind. Mr. Thomas paused for a moment on his way across the lawn.

  “Now if you were selling hot chocolate on a day like this, I’d be a customer,” he said.

  “I never thought of that,” Amanda mumbled. “It is kind of cold for ice cream.”

  “Especially ice cream that isn’t…quite ice cream,” Lizabeth added.

  “Don’t give up, we’re just getting started!” Kat insisted. “Come one, come all! A new chocolate ice cream drink! Chocolate all the way from San Francisco! Only ten cents a cup!”

  A few people stopped, peered into the bowl, and hastily went on.

  “A brand-new chocolate ice cream drink! Only eight cents a cup!” the girls chanted.

  And after a while, “Step right up and try our chocolate ice cream drink! Only five cents a cup!”

  Mr. Alveira, from the Alveira & Sons Boatyard, stopped. He smiled at them sympathetically. “Well, if you girls are working so hard, I’ll have to try a cup. Here you go.” He handed a nickel to Kat. Then, as Lizabeth poured for him, he took a closer look into the bowl. “It looks like, um, exactly what’s in that?”

  “Only the freshest ingredients, Mr. Alveira,” Kat told him. “Fresh dairy cream and chocolate from San Francisco and—”

  He hesitated. Three pairs of hopeful eyes were glued to him. Bravely, he raised the paper cup to his lips and took a sip. He sputtered and coughed. Kat was alarmed. Was one of the chocolate chunks stuck in his throat? Or even worse, a shard of ice piercing it?

  “Are you all right, Mr. Alveira? Nod if you want me to pat your back!”

  He caught his breath. “No, thank you,” he managed to cough out. He handed the half-full cup back to Kat and cleared his throat. “I’m not…very thirsty.” He walked away as fast as he could without actually running.

  Kat followed him. “Mr. Alveira? Do you want your nickel back?”

  “No, that’s quite all right, Katherine…. Good luck with your, er, concoction.”

  Kat went back to Amanda and Lizabeth. “I think…I think we’d better stop.”

  “I vote for pouring the whole thing down the sewer,” Lizabeth said.

  “Oh, no!” Amanda said. “It’s wrong to waste food. I mean, all that cream and chocolate! My father teaches us to respect good food, especially when there are so many needy people.”

  Kat agreed. “It’s sinful to throw it away. Just the cream alone—It should be put to use.”

  “Well, what do you plan to do with it?” Lizabe
th asked. “If you give it to charity, I don’t think they’ll be grateful.”

  “We have to drink it ourselves,” Kat said.

  Amanda nodded.

  “Count me out,” Lizabeth said. She watched as they drank their first cup. “What does it taste like?”

  “Very rich,” Kat said.

  “And very sweet,” Amanda said.

  “With a kind of salty thing around the edges,” Kat added.

  “And very, very rich,” Amanda repeated. “With lumps.”

  They each forced down a second cup. It seemed as though they hadn’t even made a dent in the brimming bowl.

  “You’re not going to finish all of it, are you?” Lizabeth asked.

  “I’ll try.” Kat’s voice had become very small. “Waste not, want not.” She glanced at Amanda. Amanda downed her third cup. Her face looked drawn; her skin had taken on a greenish pallor. Kat suspected she looked the same way.

  Kat started another cup. The excess sweetness made her mouth pucker. A lump of bitter chocolate sat in her mouth. “I can’t do this,” she whispered.

  “Me either,” Amanda moaned. “I’m…I’m sick to my stomach.”

  Kat and Amanda reeled along Lighthouse Lane to their homes. Kat continued on alone, taking deep shuddery breaths all the way. She skipped dinner that evening. At the sight of the remaining chocolates from the Carstairses, she clapped her hand over her mouth.

  It was November ninth and she was exactly one nickel closer to her goal—at the cost of feeling horribly guilty about nice Mr. Alveira. On the bright side, she thought, she was forever cured of her sweet tooth.

  ten

  After school the next day, the girls walked along Lighthouse Lane.

  “Were you sick last night?” Amanda asked Kat.

  “Well…not seriously,” Kat said.

  “Father was upset that I didn’t eat dinner,” Amanda said.

  “Let’s please forget about ice cream drinks,” Kat said.

  “Are we really going to do yard work all afternoon?” Lizabeth asked.

  “I can’t think of anything else right now,” Kat said. “You don’t have to.”