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diff --git a/4760-h/4760-h.htm b/4760-h/4760-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..431e43b --- /dev/null +++ b/4760-h/4760-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,13929 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of Tillie: A Mennonite Maid, +by Helen Reimensnyder Mardin +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.intro {font-size: medium ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Tillie: A Mennonite Maid, by Helen Reimensnyder Martin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Tillie: A Mennonite Maid + A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch + +Author: Helen Reimensnyder Martin + +Posting Date: September 11, 2009 [EBook #4760] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 13, 2002 +Last Updated: February 9, 2008 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TILLIE: A MENNONITE MAID *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +TILLIE: A MENNONITE MAID +</H1> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +A STORY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +HELEN REIMENSNYDER MARTIN +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">"OH, I LOVE HER! I LOVE HER!"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">"I'M GOING TO LEARN YOU ONCE!"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">"WHAT'S HURTIN' YOU, TILLIE?"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">"THE DOC" COMBINES BUSINESS AND PLEASURE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">"NOVELS AIN'T MORAL, DOC!"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">JAKE GETZ IN A QUANDARY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">"THE LAST DAYS OF PUMP-EYE"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">MISS MARGARET'S ERRAND</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">"I'LL DO MY DARN BEST, TEACHER!"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">ADAM SCHUNK'S FUNERAL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">"POP! I FEEL TO BE PLAIN"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">ABSALOM KEEPS COMPANY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">EZRA HERR, PEDAGOGUE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">THE HARVARD GRADUATE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">THE WACKERNAGELS AT HOME</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">THE WACKERNAGELS "CONWERSE"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">THE TEACHER MEETS ABSALOM</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap18">TILLIE REVEALS HERSELF</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap19">TILLIE TELLS A LIE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap20">TILLIE IS "SET BACK"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap21">"I'LL MARRY HIM TO-MORROW!"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap22">THE DOC CONCOCTS A PLOT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap23">SUNSHINE AND SHADOW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap24">THE REVOLT OF TILLIE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap25">GETZ "LEARNS" TILLIE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap26">TILLIE'S LAST FIGHT</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +TILLIE: A MENNONITE MAID +<BR> +A STORY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"OH, I LOVE HER! I LOVE HER!" +</H3> + +<P> +Tillie's slender little body thrilled with a peculiar ecstasy as she +stepped upon the platform and felt her close proximity to the +teacher—so close that she could catch the sweet, wonderful fragrance +of her clothes and see the heave and fall of her bosom. Once Tillie's +head had rested against that motherly bosom. She had fainted in school +one morning after a day and evening of hard, hard work in her father's +celery-beds, followed by a chastisement for being caught with a +"story-book"; and she had come out of her faint to find herself in the +heaven of sitting on Miss Margaret's lap, her head against her breast +and Miss Margaret's soft hand smoothing her cheek and hair. And it was +in that blissful moment that Tillie had discovered, for the first time +in her young existence, that life could be worth while. Not within her +memory had any one ever caressed her before, or spoken to her tenderly, +and in that fascinating tone of anxious concern. +</P> + +<P> +Afterward, Tillie often tried to faint again in school; but, such is +Nature's perversity, she never could succeed. +</P> + +<P> +School had just been called after the noon recess, and Miss Margaret +was standing before her desk with a watchful eye on the troops of +children crowding in from the playground to their seats, when the +little girl stepped to her side on the platform. +</P> + +<P> +This country school-house was a dingy little building in the heart of +Lancaster County, the home of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Miss Margaret had +been the teacher only a few months, and having come from Kentucky and +not being "a Millersville Normal," she differed quite radically from +any teacher they had ever had in New Canaan. Indeed, she was so wholly +different from any one Tillie had ever seen in her life, that to the +child's adoring heart she was nothing less than a miracle. Surely no +one but Cinderella had ever been so beautiful! And how different, too, +were her clothes from those of the other young ladies of New Canaan, +and, oh, so much prettier—though not nearly so fancy; and she didn't +"speak her words" as other people of Tillie's acquaintance spoke. To +Tillie it was celestial music to hear Miss Margaret say, for instance, +"buttah" when she meant butter-r-r, and "windo" for windah. "It gives +her such a nice sound when she talks," thought Tillie. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes Miss Margaret's ignorance of the dialect of the neighborhood +led to complications, as in her conversation just now with Tillie. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" she inquired, lifting the little girl's chin with her +forefinger as Tillie stood at her side and thereby causing that small +worshiper to blush with radiant pleasure. "What is it, honey?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret always made Tillie feel that she LIKED her. Tillie +wondered how Miss Margaret could like HER! What was there to like? No +one had ever liked her before. +</P> + +<P> +"It wonders me!" Tillie often whispered to herself with throbbing heart. +</P> + +<P> +"Please, Miss Margaret," said the child, "pop says to ast you will you +give me the darst to go home till half-past three this after?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you go home till half-past three, you need not come back, honey—it +wouldn't be worth while, when school closes at four." +</P> + +<P> +"But I don't mean," said Tillie, in puzzled surprise, "that I want to +go home and come back. I sayed whether I have the darst to go home till +half-past three. Pop he's went to Lancaster, and he'll be back till +half-past three a'ready, and he says then I got to be home to help him +in the celery-beds." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret held her pretty head on one side, considering, as she +looked down into the little girl's upturned face. "Is this a conundrum, +Tillie? How your father be in Lancaster now and yet be home until +half-past three? It's uncanny. Unless," she added, a ray of light +coming to her,—"unless 'till' means BY. Your father will be home BY +half-past three and wants you then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am. I can't talk just so right," said Tillie apologetically, +"like what you can. Yes, sometimes I say my we's like my w's, yet!" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret laughed. "Bless your little heart!" she said, running her +fingers through Tillie's hair. "But you would rather stay in school +until four, wouldn't you, than go home to help your father in the +celery-beds?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, ma'am," said Tillie wistfully, "but pop he has to get them +beds through till Saturday market a'ready, and so we got to get 'em +done behind Thursday or Friday yet." +</P> + +<P> +"If I say you can't go home?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie colored all over her sensitive little face as, instead of +answering, she nervously worked her toe into a crack in the platform. +</P> + +<P> +"But your father can't blame YOU, honey, if I won't let you go home." +</P> + +<P> +"He wouldn't stop to ast me was it my fault, Miss Margaret. If I wasn't +there on time, he'd just—" +</P> + +<P> +"All right, dear, you may go at half-past three, then," Miss Margaret +gently said, patting the child's shoulder. "As soon as you have written +your composition." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am, Miss Margaret." +</P> + +<P> +It was hard for Tillie, as she sat at her desk that afternoon, to fix +her wandering attention upon the writing of her composition, so +fascinating was it just to revel idly in the sense of the touch of that +loved hand that had stroked her hair, and the tone of that caressing +voice that had called her "honey." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret always said to the composition classes, "Just try to +write simply of what you see or feel, and then you will be sure to +write a good 'composition.'" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie was moved this afternoon to pour out on paper all that she +"felt" about her divinity. But she had some misgivings as to the +fitness of this. +</P> + +<P> +She dwelt upon the thought of it, however, dreamily gazing out of the +window near which she sat, into the blue sky of the October +afternoon—until presently her ear was caught by the sound of Miss +Margaret's voice speaking to Absalom Puntz, who stood at the foot of +the composition class, now before her on the platform. +</P> + +<P> +"You may read your composition, Absalom." +</P> + +<P> +Absalom was one of "the big boys," but though he was sixteen years old +and large for his age, his slowness in learning classed him with the +children of twelve or thirteen. However, as learning was considered in +New Canaan a superfluous and wholly unnecessary adjunct to the means of +living, Absalom's want of agility in imbibing erudition never troubled +him, nor did it in the least call forth the pity or contempt of his +schoolmates. +</P> + +<P> +Three times during the morning session he had raised his hand to +announce stolidly to his long-suffering teacher, "I can't think of no +subjeck"; and at last Miss Margaret had relaxed her Spartan resolution +to make him do his own thinking and had helped him out. +</P> + +<P> +"Write of something that is interesting you just at present. Isn't +there some one thing you care more about than other things?" she had +asked. +</P> + +<P> +Absalom had stared at her blankly without replying. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Absalom," she had said desperately, "I think I know one thing you +have been interested in lately—write me a composition on Girls." +</P> + +<P> +Of course the school had greeted the advice with a laugh, and Miss +Margaret had smiled with them, though she had not meant to be facetious. +</P> + +<P> +Absalom, however, had taken her suggestion seriously. +</P> + +<P> +"Is your composition written, Absalom?" she was asking as Tillie turned +from the window, her contemplation of her own composition arrested by +the sound of the voice which to her was the sweetest music in the world. +</P> + +<P> +"No'm," sullenly answered Absalom. "I didn't get it through till it was +time a'ready." +</P> + +<P> +"But, Absalom, you've been at it this whole blessed day! You've not +done another thing!" +</P> + +<P> +"I wrote off some of it." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," sighed Miss Margaret, "let us hear what you have done." +</P> + +<P> +Absalom unfolded a sheet of paper and laboriously read: +</P> + +<P> +"GIRLS +</P> + +<P> +"The only thing I took particular notice to, about Girls, is that they +are always picking lint off each other, still." +</P> + +<P> +He stopped and slowly folded his paper. +</P> + +<P> +"But go on," said Miss Margaret. "Read it all.' +</P> + +<P> +"That's all the fu'ther I got." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret looked at him for an instant, then suddenly lifted the +lid of her desk, evidently to search for something. When she closed it +her face was quite grave. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll have the reading-lesson now," she announced. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie tried to withdraw her attention from the teacher and fix it on +her own work, but the gay, glad tone in which Lizzie Harnish was +reading the lines, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "When thoughts<BR> + Of the last bitter hour come like a blight<BR> + Over thy spirit—"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +hopelessly checked the flow of her ideas. +</P> + +<P> +This class was large, and by the time Absalom's turn to read was +reached, "Thanatopsis" had been finished, and so the first stanza of +"The Bells" fell to him. It had transpired in the reading of +"Thanatopsis" that a grave and solemn tone best suited that poem, and +the value of this intelligence was made manifest when, in a voice of +preternatural solemnity, he read: +</P> + +<P> +"What a world of merriment their melody foretells!" +</P> + +<P> +Instantly, when he had finished his "stanza," Lizzie raised her hand to +offer a criticism. "Absalom, he didn't put in no gestures." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret's predecessor had painstakingly trained his +reading-classes in the Art of Gesticulation in Public Speaking, and +Miss Margaret found the results of his labors so entertaining that she +had never been able to bring herself to suppress the monstrosity. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't like them gestures," sulkily retorted Absalom. +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind the gestures," Miss Margaret consoled him—which +indifference on her part seemed high treason to the well-trained class. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll hear you read, now, the list of synonyms you found in these two +poems," she added. "Lizzie may read first." +</P> + +<P> +While the class rapidly leafed their readers to find their lists of +synonyms, Miss Margaret looked up and spoke to Tillie, reminding her +gently that that composition would not be written by half-past three if +she did not hasten her work. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie blushed with embarrassment at being caught in an idleness that +had to be reproved, and resolutely bent all her powers to her task. +</P> + +<P> +She looked about the room for a subject. The walls were adorned with +the print portraits of "great men,"—former State superintendents of +public instruction in Pennsylvania,—and with highly colored chromo +portraits of Washington, Lincoln, Grant, and Garfield. Then there were +a number of framed mottos: "Education rules in America," "Rely on +yourself," "God is our hope," "Dare to say No," "Knowledge is power," +"Education is the chief defense of nations." +</P> + +<P> +But none of these things made Tillie's genius to burn, and again her +eyes wandered to the window and gazed out into the blue sky; and after +a few moments she suddenly turned to her desk and rapidly wrote down +her "subject"—"Evening." +</P> + +<P> +The mountain of the opening sentence being crossed, the rest went +smoothly enough, for Tillie wrote it from her heart. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +"EVENING. +</H4> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I love to take my little sisters and brothers and go out, still, on a +hill-top when the sun is setting so red in the West, and the birds are +singing around us, and the cows are coming home to be milked, and the +men are returning from their day's work. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I would love to play in the evening if I had the dare, when the +children are gay and everything around me is happy. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I love to see the flowers closing their buds when the shades of +evening are come. The thought has come to me, still, that I hope the +closing of my life may come as quiet and peaceful as the closing of the +flowers in the evening. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"MATILDA MARIA GETZ." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Miss Margaret was just calling for Absalom's synonyms when Tillie +carried her composition to the desk, and Absalom was replying with his +customary half-defiant sullenness. +</P> + +<P> +"My pop he sayed I ain't got need to waste my time gettin' learnt them +cinnamons. Pop he says what's the use learnin' TWO words where [which] +means the selfsame thing—one's enough." +</P> + +<P> +Absalom's father was a school director and Absalom had grown +accustomed, under the rule of Miss Margaret's predecessors, to feel the +force of the fact in their care not to offend him. +</P> + +<P> +"But your father is not the teacher here—I am," she cheerfully told +him. "So you may stay after school and do what I require." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie felt a pang of uneasiness as she went back to her seat. +Absalom's father was very influential and, as all the township knew, +very spiteful. He could send Miss Margaret away, and he would do it, if +she offended his only child, Absalom. Tillie thought she could not bear +it at all if Miss Margaret were sent away. Poor Miss Margaret did not +seem to realize her own danger. Tillie felt tempted to warn her. It was +only this morning that the teacher had laughed at Absalom when he said +that the Declaration of Independence was "a treaty between the United +States and England,"—and had asked him, "Which country, do you think, +hurrahed the loudest, Absalom, when that treaty was signed?" And now +this afternoon she "as much as said Absalom's father should mind to his +own business!" It was growing serious. There had never been before a +teacher at William Penn school-house who had not judiciously "showed +partiality" to Absalom. +</P> + +<P> +"And he used to be dummer yet [stupider even] than what he is now," +thought Tillie, remembering vividly a school entertainment that had +been given during her own first year at school, when Absalom, nine +years old, had spoken his first piece. His pious Methodist grandmother +had endeavored to teach him a little hymn to speak on the great +occasion, while his frivolous aunt from the city of Lancaster had tried +at the same time to teach him "Bobby Shafto." New Canaan audiences were +neither discriminating nor critical, but the assembly before which +little Absalom had risen to "speak his piece off," had found themselves +confused when he told them that +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "On Jordan's bank the Baptist stands,<BR> + Silver buckles on his knee."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Tillie would never forget her own infantine agony of suspense as she +sat, a tiny girl of five, in the audience, listening to Absalom's +mistakes. But Eli Darmstetter, the teacher, had not scolded him. +</P> + +<P> +Then there was the time that Absalom had forced a fight at recess and +had made little Adam Oberholzer's nose bleed—it was little Adam (whose +father was not at that time a school director) that had to stay after +school; and though every one knew it wasn't fair, it had been accepted +without criticism, because even the young rising generation of New +Canaan understood the impossibility and folly of quarreling with one's +means of earning money. +</P> + +<P> +But Miss Margaret appeared to be perfectly blind to the perils of her +position. Tillie was deeply troubled about it. +</P> + +<P> +At half-past three, when, at a nod from Miss Margaret the little girl +left her desk to go home, a wonderful thing happened—Miss Margaret +gave her a story-book. +</P> + +<P> +"You are so fond of reading, Tillie, I brought you this. You may take +it home, and when you have read it, bring it back to me, and I'll give +you something else to read." +</P> + +<P> +Delighted as Tillie was to have the book for its own sake, it was yet +greater happiness to handle something belonging to Miss Margaret and to +realize that Miss Margaret had thought so much about her as to bring it +to her. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a novel, Tillie. Have you ever read a novel?" +</P> + +<P> +"No'm. Only li-bries." +</P> + +<P> +"What?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sunday-school li-bries. Us we're Evangelicals, and us children we go +to the Sunday-school, and I still bring home li-bry books. Pop he don't +uphold to novel-readin'. I have never saw a novel yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, this book won't injure you, Tillie. You must tell me all about +it when you have read it. You will find it so interesting, I'm afraid +you won't be able to study your lessons while you are reading it." +</P> + +<P> +Outside the school-room, Tillie looked at the title,—Ivanhoe,"—and +turned over the pages in an ecstasy of anticipation. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! I love her! I love her!" throbbed her little hungry heart. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"I'M GOING TO LEARN YOU ONCE!" +</H3> + +<P> +Tillie was obliged, when about a half-mile from her father's farm, to +hide her precious book. This she did by pinning her petticoat into a +bag and concealing the book in it. It was in this way that she always +carried home her "li-bries" from Sunday-school, for all story-book +reading was prohibited by her father. It was uncomfortable walking +along the highroad with the book knocking against her legs at every +step, but that was not so painful as her father's punishment would be +did he discover her bringing home a "novel"! She was not permitted to +bring home even a school-book, and she had greatly astonished Miss +Margaret, one day at the beginning of the term, by asking, "Please, +will you leave me let my books in school? Pop says I darsen't bring 'em +home." +</P> + +<P> +"What you can't learn in school, you can do without," Tillie's father +had said. "When you're home you'll work fur your wittles." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's father was a frugal, honest, hard-working, and very prosperous +Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, who thought he religiously performed his +parental duty in bringing up his many children in the fear of his heavy +hand, in unceasing labor, and in almost total abstinence from all +amusement and self-indulgence. Far from thinking himself cruel, he was +convinced that the oftener and the more vigorously he applied "the +strap," the more conscientious a parent was he. +</P> + +<P> +His wife, Tillie's stepmother, was as submissive to his authority as +were her five children and Tillie. Apathetic, anemic, overworked, she +yet never dreamed of considering herself or her children abused, +accepting her lot as the natural one of woman, who was created to be a +child-bearer, and to keep man well fed and comfortable. The only +variation from the deadly monotony of her mechanical and unceasing +labor was found in her habit of irritability with her stepchild. She +considered Tillie "a dopple" (a stupid, awkward person); for though +usually a wonderful little household worker, Tillie, when very much +tired out, was apt to drop dishes; and absent-mindedly she would put +her sunbonnet instead of the bread into the oven, or pour molasses +instead of batter on the griddle. Such misdemeanors were always +plaintively reported by Mrs. Getz to Tillie's father, who, without +fail, conscientiously applied what he considered the undoubted cure. +</P> + +<P> +In practising the strenuous economy prescribed by her husband, Mrs. +Getz had to manoeuver very skilfully to keep her children decently +clothed, and Tillie in this matter was a great help to her; for the +little girl possessed a precocious skill in combining a pile of patches +into a passably decent dress or coat for one of her little brothers or +sisters. Nevertheless, it was invariably Tillie who was slighted in the +small expenditures that were made each year for the family clothing. +The child had always really preferred that the others should have "new +things" rather than herself—until Miss Margaret came; and now, before +Miss Margaret's daintiness, she felt ashamed of her own shabby +appearance and longed unspeakably for fresh, pretty clothes. Tillie +knew perfectly well that her father had plenty of money to buy them for +her if he would. But she never thought of asking him or her stepmother +for anything more than what they saw fit to give her. +</P> + +<P> +The Getz family was a perfectly familiar type among the German farming +class of southeastern Pennsylvania. Jacob Getz, though spoken of in the +neighborhood as being "wonderful near," which means very penurious, and +considered by the more gentle-minded Amish and Mennonites of the +township to be "overly strict" with his family and "too ready with the +strap still," was nevertheless highly respected as one who worked hard +and was prosperous, lived economically, honestly, and in the fear of +the Lord, and was "laying by." +</P> + +<P> +The Getz farm was typical of the better sort to be found in that +county. A neat walk, bordered by clam shells, led from a wooden gate to +the porch of a rather large, and severely plain frame house, facing the +road. Every shutter on the front and sides of the building was tightly +closed, and there was no sign of life about the place. A stranger, +ignorant of the Pennsylvania Dutch custom of living in the kitchen and +shutting off the "best rooms,"—to be used in their mustiness and stiff +unhomelikeness on Sunday only,—would have thought the house +temporarily empty. It was forbiddingly and uncompromisingly +spick-and-span. +</P> + +<P> +A grass-plot, ornamented with a circular flower-bed, extended a short +distance on either side of the house. But not too much land was put to +such unproductive use; and the small lawn was closely bordered by a +corn-field on the one side and on the other by an apple orchard. Beyond +stretched the tobacco—and wheat-fields, and behind the house were the +vegetable garden and the barn-yard. +</P> + +<P> +Arrived at home by half-past three, Tillie hid her "Ivanhoe" under the +pillow of her bed when she went up-stairs to change her faded calico +school dress for the yet older garment she wore at her work. +</P> + +<P> +If she had not been obliged to change her dress, she would have been +puzzled to know how to hide her book, for she could not, without +creating suspicion, have gone up-stairs in the daytime. In New Canaan +one never went up-stairs during the day, except at the rare times when +obliged to change one's clothes. Every one washed at the pump and used +the one family roller-towel hanging on the porch. Miss Margaret, ever +since her arrival in the neighborhood, had been the subject of +wide-spread remark and even suspicion, because she "washed up-stairs" +and even sat up-stairs!—in her bedroom! It was an unheard-of +proceeding in New Canaan. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie helped her father in the celery-beds until dark; then, weary, +but excited at the prospect of her book, she went in from the fields +and up-stairs to the little low-roofed bed-chamber which she shared +with her two half-sisters. They were already in bed and asleep, as was +their mother in the room across the hall, for every one went to bed at +sundown in Canaan Township, and got up at sunrise. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie was in bed in a few minutes, rejoicing in the feeling of the +book under her pillow. Not yet dared she venture to light a candle and +read it—not until she should hear her father's heavy snoring in the +room across the hall. +</P> + +<P> +The candles which she used for this surreptitious reading of +Sunday-school "li-bries" and any other chance literature which fell in +her way, were procured with money paid to her by Miss Margaret for +helping her to clean the school-room on Friday afternoons after school. +Tillie would have been happy to help her for the mere joy of being with +her, but Miss Margaret insisted upon paying her ten cents for each such +service. +</P> + +<P> +The little girl was obliged to resort to a deep-laid plot in order to +do this work for the teacher. It had been her father's custom—ever +since, at the age of five, she had begun to go to school—to "time" her +in coming home at noon and afternoon, and whenever she was not there on +the minute, to mete out to her a dose of his ever-present strap. +</P> + +<P> +"I ain't havin' no playin' on the way home, still! When school is done, +you come right away home then, to help me or your mom, or I 'll learn +you once!" +</P> + +<P> +But it happened that Miss Margaret, in her reign at "William Perm" +school-house, had introduced the innovation of closing school on Friday +afternoons at half-past three instead of four, and Tillie, with bribes +of candy bought with part of her weekly wage of ten cents, secured +secrecy as to this innovation from her little sister and brother who +went to school with her—making them play in the school-grounds until +she was ready to go home with them. +</P> + +<P> +Before Miss Margaret had come to New Canaan, Tillie had done her +midnight reading by the light of the kerosene lamp which, after every +one was asleep, she would bring up from the kitchen to her bedside. But +this was dangerous, as it often led to awkward inquiries as to the +speedy consumption of the oil. Candles were safer. Tillie kept them and +a box of matches hidden under the mattress. +</P> + +<P> +It was eleven o'clock when at last the child, trembling with mingled +delight and apprehension, rose from her bed, softly closed her bedroom +door, and with extremely judicious carefulness lighted her candle, +propped up her pillow, and settled down to read as long as she should +be able to hold her eyes open. The little sister at her side and the +one in the bed at the other side of the room slept too soundly to be +disturbed by the faint flickering light of that one candle. +</P> + +<P> +To-night her stolen pleasure proved more than usually engrossing. At +first the book was interesting principally because of the fact, so +vividly present with her, that Miss Margaret's eyes and mind had moved +over every word and thought which, she was now absorbing. But soon her +intense interest in the story excluded every other idea—even the fear +of discovery. Her young spirit was "out of the body" and following, as +in a trance, this tale, the like of which she had never before read. +</P> + +<P> +The clock down-stairs in the kitchen struck twelve—one—two, but +Tillie never heard it. At half-past two o'clock in the morning, when +the tallow candle was beginning to sputter to its end, she still was +reading, her eyes bright as stars, her usually pale face flushed with +excitement, her sensitive lips parted in breathless interest—when, +suddenly, a stinging blow of "the strap" on her shoulders brought from +her a cry of pain and fright. +</P> + +<P> +"What you mean, doin' somepin like, this yet!" sternly demanded her +father. "What fur book's that there?" +</P> + +<P> +He took the book from her hands and Tillie cowered beneath the covers, +the wish flashing through her mind that the book could change into a +Bible as he looked at it!—which miracle would surely temper the +punishment that in a moment she knew would be meted out to her. +</P> + +<P> +"'Iwanhoe'—a novel! A NOVEL!" he said in genuine horror. "Tillie, +where d'you get this here!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie knew that if she told lies she would go to hell, but she +preferred to burn in torment forever rather than betray Miss Margaret; +for her father, like Absalom's, was a school director, and if he knew +Miss Margaret read novels and lent them to the children, he would +surely force her out of "William Penn." +</P> + +<P> +"I lent it off of Elviny Dinkleberger!" she sobbed. +</P> + +<P> +"You know I tole you a'ready you darsen't bring books home! And you +know I don't uphold to novel-readin'! I 'll have to learn you to mind +better 'n this! Where d' you get that there candle?" +</P> + +<P> +"I—bought it, pop." +</P> + +<P> +"Bought? Where d'you get the money!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie did not like the lies she had to tell, but she knew she had +already perjured her soul beyond redemption and one lie more or less +could not make matters worse. +</P> + +<P> +"I found it in the road." +</P> + +<P> +"How much did you find?" +</P> + +<P> +"Fi' cents." +</P> + +<P> +"You hadn't ought to spent it without astin' me dare you. Now I'm goin' +to learn you once! Set up." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie obeyed, and the strap fell across her shoulders. Her outcries +awakened the household and started the youngest little sister, in her +fright and sympathy with Tillie, to a high-pitched wailing. The rest of +them took the incident phlegmatically, the only novelty about it being +the strange hour of its happening. +</P> + +<P> +But the hardest part of her punishment was to follow. +</P> + +<P> +"Now this here book goes in the fire!" her father announced when at +last his hand was stayed. "And any more that comes home goes after it +in the stove, I'll see if you 'll mind your pop or not!" +</P> + +<P> +Left alone in her bed, her body quivering, her little soul hot with +shame and hatred, the child stifled her sobs in her pillow, her whole +heart one bleeding wound. +</P> + +<P> +How could she ever tell Miss Margaret? Surely she would never like her +any more!—never again lay her hand on her hair, or praise her +compositions, or call her "honey," or, even, perhaps, allow her to help +her on Fridays!—and what, then, would be the use of living? If only +she could die and be dead like a cat or a bird and not go to hell, she +would take the carving-knife and kill herself! But there was hell to be +taken into consideration. And yet, could hell hold anything worse than +the loss of Miss Margaret's kindness? HOW could she tell her of that +burned-up book and endure to see her look at her with cold disapproval? +Oh, to make such return for her kindness, when she so longed with all +her soul to show her how much she loved her! +</P> + +<P> +For the first time in all her school-days, Tillie went next morning +with reluctance to school. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"WHAT'S HURTIN' YOU, TILLIE?" +</H3> + +<P> +She meant to make her confession as soon as she reached the +school-house—and have it over—but Miss Margaret was busy writing on +the blackboard, and Tillie felt an immense relief at the necessary +postponement of her ordeal to recess time. +</P> + +<P> +The hours of that morning were very long to her heavy heart, and the +minutes dragged to the time of her doom—for nothing but blackness lay +beyond the point of the acknowledgment which must turn her teacher's +fondness to dislike. +</P> + +<P> +She saw Miss Margaret's eyes upon her several times during the morning, +with that look of anxious concern which had so often fed her starved +affections. Yes, Miss Margaret evidently could see that she was in +trouble and she was feeling sorry for her. But, alas, when she should +learn the cause of her misery, how surely would that look turn to +coldness and displeasure! +</P> + +<P> +Tillie felt that she was ill preparing the way for her dread confession +in the very bad recitations she made all morning. She failed in +geography—every question that came to her; she failed to understand +Miss Margaret's explanation of compound interest, though the +explanation was gone over a third time for her especial benefit; she +missed five words in spelling and two questions in United States +history! +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie, Tillie!" Miss Margaret solemnly shook her head, as she closed +her book at the end of the last recitation before recess. "Too much +'Ivanhoe,' I'm afraid! Well, it's my fault, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +The little girl's blue eyes gazed up at her with a look of such +anguish, that impulsively Miss Margaret drew her to her side, as the +rest of the class moved away to their seats. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter, dear?" she asked. "Aren't you well? You look pale +and ill! What is it, Tillie?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's overwrought heart could bear no more. Her head fell on Miss +Margaret's shoulder as she broke into wildest crying. Her body quivered +with her gasping sobs and her little hands clutched convulsively at +Miss Margaret's gown. +</P> + +<P> +"You poor little thing!" whispered Miss Margaret, her arms about the +child; "WHAT'S the matter with you, honey? There, there, don't cry +so—tell me what's the matter." +</P> + +<P> +It was such bliss to be petted like this—to feel Miss Margaret's arms +about her and hear that loved voice so close to her!—for the last +time! Never again after this moment would she be liked and caressed! +Her heart was breaking and she could not answer for her sobbing. +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie, dear, sit down here in my chair until I send the other +children out to recess—and then you and I can have a talk by +ourselves," Miss Margaret said, leading the child a step to her +arm-chair on the platform. She stood beside the chair, holding Tillie's +throbbing head to her side, while she tapped the bell which dismissed +the children. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," she said, when the door had closed on the last of them and she +had seated herself and drawn Tillie to her again, "tell me what you are +crying for, little girlie." +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Margaret!" Tillie's words came in hysterical, choking gasps; "you +won't never like me no more when I tell you what's happened, Miss +Margaret!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, dear me, Tillie, what on earth is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't mean to do it, Miss Margaret! And I'll redd up for you, +Fridays, still, till it's paid for a'ready, Miss Margaret, if you'll +leave me, won't you, please? Oh, won't you never like me no more?" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear little goosie, what IS the matter with you? Come," she said, +taking the little girl's hand reassuringly in both her own, "tell me, +child." +</P> + +<P> +A certain note of firmness in her usually drawling Southern voice +checked a little the child's hysterical emotion. She gulped the choking +lump in her throat and answered. +</P> + +<P> +"I was readin' 'Ivanhoe' in bed last night, and pop woke up, and seen +my candle-light, and he conceited he'd look once and see what it was, +and then he seen me, and he don't uphold to novel-readin', and he—he—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" Miss Margaret gently urged her faltering speech. +</P> + +<P> +"He whipped me and—and burnt up your Book!" +</P> + +<P> +"Whipped you again!" Miss Margaret's soft voice indignantly exclaimed. +"The br—" she checked herself and virtuously closed her lips. "I'm so +sorry, Tillie, that I got you into such a scrape!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie thought Miss Margaret could not have heard her clearly. +</P> + +<P> +"He—burnt up your book yet, Miss Margaret!" she found voice to whisper +again. +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed! I ought to make him pay for it!" +</P> + +<P> +"He didn't know it was yourn, Miss Margaret—he don't uphold to +novel-readin', and if he'd know it was yourn he'd have you put out of +William Penn, so I tole him I lent it off of Elviny Dinkleberger—and +I'll help you Fridays till it's paid for a'ready, if you'll leave me, +Miss Margaret!" +</P> + +<P> +She lifted pleading eyes to the teacher's face, to see therein a look +of anger such as she had never before beheld in that gentle +countenance—for Miss Margaret had caught sight of the marks of the +strap on Tillie's bare neck, and she was flushed with indignation at +the outrage. But Tillie, interpreting the anger to be against herself, +turned as white as death, and a look of such hopeless woe came into her +face that Miss Margaret suddenly realized the dread apprehension +torturing the child. +</P> + +<P> +"Come here to me, you poor little thing!" she tenderly exclaimed, +drawing the little girl into her lap and folding her to her heart. "I +don't care anything about the BOOK, honey! Did you think I would? +There, there—don't cry so, Tillie, don't cry. <I>I</I> love you, don't you +know I do!"—and Miss Margaret kissed the child's quivering lips, and +with her own fragrant handkerchief wiped the tears from her cheeks, and +with her soft, cool fingers smoothed back the hair from her hot +forehead. +</P> + +<P> +And this child, who had never known the touch of a mother's hand and +lips, was transported in that moment from the suffering of the past +night and morning, to a happiness that made this hour stand out to her, +in all the years that followed, as the one supreme experience of her +childhood. +</P> + +<P> +Ineffable tenderness of the mother heart of woman! +</P> + +<P> +That afternoon, when Tillie got home from school,—ten minutes late +according to the time allowed her by her father,—she was quite unable +to go out to help him in the field. Every step of the road home had +been a dragging burden to her aching limbs, and the moment she reached +the farm-house, she tumbled in a little heap upon the kitchen settee +and lay there, exhausted and white, her eyes shining with fever, her +mouth parched with thirst, her head throbbing with pain—feeling +utterly indifferent to the consequences of her tardiness and her +failure to meet her father in the field. +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't you feelin' good?" her stepmother phlegmatically inquired from +across the room, where she sat with a dish-pan in her lap, paring +potatoes for supper. +</P> + +<P> +"No, ma'am," weakly answered Tillie. +</P> + +<P> +"Pop 'll be looking fur you out in the field." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie wearily closed her eyes and did not answer. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Getz looked up from her pan and let her glance rest for an instant +upon the child's white, pained face. "Are you feelin' too mean to go +help pop?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am. I—can't!" gasped Tillie, with a little sob. +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't lookin' good," the woman reluctantly conceded. "Well, I'll +leave you lay a while. Mebbe pop used the strap too hard last night. He +sayed this dinner that he was some uneasy that he used the strap so +hard—but he was that wonderful spited to think you'd set up readin' a +novel-book in the night-time yet! You might of knew you'd ketch an +awful lickin' fur doin' such a dumm thing like what that was. Sammy!" +she called to her little eight-year-old son, who was playing on the +kitchen porch, "you go out and tell pop Tillie she's got sick fur me, +and I'm leavin' her lay a while. Now hurry on, or he'll come in here to +see, once, ain't she home yet, or what. Go on now!" +</P> + +<P> +Sammy departed on his errand, and Mrs. Getz diligently resumed her +potato-paring. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what pop'll say to you not comin' out to help," she +presently remarked. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's head moved restlessly, but she did not speak. She was past +caring what her father might say or do. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Getz thoughtfully considered a doubtful potato, and, concluding at +length to discard it, "I guess," she said, throwing it back into the +pan, "I'll let that one; it's some poor. Do you feel fur eatin' any +supper?" she asked. "I'm havin' fried smashed-potatoes and wieners +[Frankfort sausages]. Some days I just don't know what to cook all." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's lips moved, but gave no sound. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you're right down sick fur all; ain't? I wonder if pop'll have +Doc in. He won't want to spend any fur that. But you do look wonderful +bad. It's awful onhandy comin' just to-day. I did feel fur sayin' to +pop I'd go to the rewiwal to-night, of he didn't mind. It's a while +back a'ready since I was to a meetin'—not even on a funeral. And they +say they do now make awful funny up at Bethel rewiwal this week. I was +thinkin' I'd go once. But if you can't redd up after supper and help +milk and put the childern to bed, I can't go fur all." +</P> + +<P> +No response from Tillie. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Getz sighed her disappointment as she went on with her work. +Presently she spoke again. "This after, a lady agent come along. She +had such a complexion lotion. She talked near a half-hour. She was, +now, a beautiful conversationist! I just set and listened. Then she was +some spited that I wouldn't buy a box of complexion lotion off of her. +But she certainly was, now, a beautiful conversationist!" +</P> + +<P> +The advent of an agent in the neighborhood was always a noteworthy +event, and Tillie's utterly indifferent reception of the news that +to-day one had "been along" made Mrs. Getz look at her wonderingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you too sick to take interest?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +The child made no answer. The woman rose to put her potatoes on the +stove. +</P> + +<P> +It was an hour later when, as Tillie still lay motionless on the +settee, and Mrs. Getz was dishing up the supper and putting it on the +table, which stood near the wall at one end of the kitchen, Mr. Getz +came in, tired, dirty, and hungry, from the celery-beds. +</P> + +<P> +The child opened her eyes at the familiar and often dreaded step, and +looked up at him as he came and stood over her. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter? What's hurtin' you, Tillie?" he asked, an unwonted +kindness in his voice as he saw how ill the little girl looked. +</P> + +<P> +"I don'—know," Tillie whispered, her heavy eyelids falling again. +</P> + +<P> +"You don' know! You can't be so worse if you don' know what's hurtin' +you! Have you fever, or the headache, or whatever?" +</P> + +<P> +He laid his rough hand on her forehead and passed it over her cheek. +</P> + +<P> +"She's some feverish," he said, turning to his wife, who was busy at +the stove. "Full much so!" +</P> + +<P> +"She had the cold a little, and I guess she's took more to it," Mrs. +Getz returned, bearing the fried potatoes across the kitchen to the +table. +</P> + +<P> +"I heard the Doc talkin' there's smallpox handy to us, only a mile away +at New Canaan," said Getz, a note of anxiety in his voice that made the +sick child wearily marvel. Why was he anxious about her? she wondered. +It wasn't because he liked her, as Miss Margaret did. He was afraid of +catching smallpox himself, perhaps. Or he was afraid she would be +unable to help him to-morrow, and maybe for many days, out in the +celery-beds. That was why he spoke anxiously—not because he liked her +and was sorry. +</P> + +<P> +No bitterness was mingled with Tillie's quite matter-of-fact acceptance +of these conclusions. +</P> + +<P> +"It would be a good much trouble to us if she was took down with the +smallpox," Mrs. Getz's tired voice replied. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess not as much as it would be to HER," the father said, a rough +tenderness in his voice, and something else which Tillie vaguely felt +to be a note of pain. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you havin' the Doc in fur her, then?" his wife asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess I better, mebbe," the man hesitated. His thrifty mind shrank +at the thought of the expense. +</P> + +<P> +He turned again to Tillie and bent over her. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't you tell pop what's hurtin' you, Tillie?" +</P> + +<P> +"No—sir." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz looked doubtfully and rather helplessly at his wife. "It's a +bad sign, ain't, when they can't tell what's hurtin' 'em?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what fur sign that is when they don't feel nothin'," she +stoically answered, as she dished up her Frankfort sausages. +</P> + +<P> +"If a person would just know oncet!" he exclaimed anxiously. "Anyhow, +she's pretty much sick—she looks it so! I guess I better mebbe not +take no risks. I'll send fur Doc over. Sammy can go, then." +</P> + +<P> +"All right. Supper's ready now. You can come eat." +</P> + +<P> +She went to the door to call the children in front the porch and the +lawn; and Mr. Getz again bent over the child. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you eat along, Tillie?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie weakly shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you feel fur your wittles?" +</P> + +<P> +"No—sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well. I'll send fur the Doc, then, and he can mebbe give you +some pills, or what, to make you feel some better; ain't?" he said, +again passing his rough hand over her forehead and cheek, with a touch +as nearly like a caress as anything Tillie had ever known from him. The +tears welled up in her eyes and slowly rolled over her white face, as +she felt this unwonted expression of affection. +</P> + +<P> +Her father turned away quickly and went to the table, about which the +children were gathering. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's Sammy?" he asked his wife. "I'm sendin' him fur the Doc after +supper." +</P> + +<P> +"Where? I guess over," she motioned with her head as she lifted the +youngest, a one-year-old boy, into his high chair. "Over" was the +family designation for the pump, at which every child of a suitable age +was required to wash his face and hands before coming to the table. +</P> + +<P> +While waiting for the arrival of the doctor, after supper, Getz +ineffectually tried to force Tillie to eat something. In his genuine +anxiety about her and his eagerness for "the Doc's" arrival, he quite +forgot about the fee which would have to be paid for the visit. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"THE DOC" COMBINES BUSINESS AND PLEASURE +</H3> + +<P> +Miss Margaret boarded at the "hotel" of New Canaan. As the only other +regular boarder was the middle-aged, rugged, unkempt little man known +as "the Doc," and as the transient guests were very few and far +between, Miss Margaret shared the life of the hotel-keeper's family on +an intimate and familiar footing. +</P> + +<P> +The invincible custom of New Canaan of using a bedroom only at night +made her unheard-of inclination to sit in her room during the day or +before bedtime the subject of so much comment and wonder that, feeling +it best to yield to the prejudice, she usually read, sewed, or wrote +letters in the kitchen, or, when a fire was lighted, in the combination +dining-room and sitting-room. +</P> + +<P> +It was the evening of the day of Tillie's confession about "Ivanhoe," +and Miss Margaret, after the early supper-hour of the country hotel, +had gone to the sitting-room, removed the chenille cover from the +centre-table, uncorked the bottle of fluid sold at the village store as +ink, but looking more like raspberryade, and settled herself to write, +to one deeply interested in everything which interested her, an account +of her day and its episode with the little daughter of Jacob Getz. +</P> + +<P> +This room in which she sat, like all other rooms of the district, was +too primly neat to be cozy or comfortable. It contained a bright new +rag carpet, a luridly painted wooden settee, a sewing-machine, and +several uninviting wooden chairs. Margaret often yearned to pull the +pieces of furniture out from their stiff, sentinel-like stations +against the wall and give to the room that divine touch of homeyness +which it lacked. But she did not dare venture upon such a liberty. +</P> + +<P> +Very quickly absorbed in her letter-writing, she did not notice the +heavy footsteps which presently sounded across the floor and paused at +her chair. +</P> + +<P> +"Now that there writin'—" said a gruff voice at her shoulder; and, +startled, she quickly turned in her chair, to find the other boarder, +"the Doc," leaning on the back of it, his shaggy head almost on a level +with her fair one. +</P> + +<P> +"That there writin'," pursued the doctor, continuing to hold his fat +head in unabashed proximity to her own and to her letter, "is wonderful +easy to read. Wonderful easy." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret promptly covered her letter with a blotter, corked the +raspberry-ade, and rose. +</P> + +<P> +"Done a'ready?" asked the doctor. +</P> + +<P> +"For the present, yes." +</P> + +<P> +"See here oncet, Teacher!" +</P> + +<P> +He suddenly fixed her with his small, keen eyes as he drew from the +pocket of his shabby, dusty coat a long, legal-looking paper. +</P> + +<P> +"I have here," he said impressively, "an important dokiment, Teacher, +concerning of which I desire to consult you perfessionally." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +"You just stay settin'; I'll fetch a chair and set aside of you and +show it to you oncet." +</P> + +<P> +He drew a chair up to the table and Margaret reluctantly sat down, +feeling annoyed and disappointed at this interruption of her letter, +yet unwilling, in the goodness of her heart, to snub the little man. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor bent near to her and spoke confidentially. +</P> + +<P> +"You see, them swanged fools in the legislature has went to work and +passed a act—ag'in' my protest, mind you—compellin' doctors to fill +out blanks answerin' to a lot of darn-fool questions 'bout one thing +and 'nother, like this here." +</P> + +<P> +He had spread open on the table the paper he had drawn from his pocket. +It was soiled from contact with his coat and his hands, and Margaret, +instead of touching the sheet, pressed it down with the handle of her +pen. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor noticed the act and laughed. "You're wonderful easy +kreistled [disgusted]; ain't? I took notice a'ready how when things is +some dirty they kreistle you, still. But indeed, Teacher," he gravely +added, "it ain't healthy to wash so much and keep so clean as what you +do. It's weakenin'. That's why city folks ain't so hearty—they get +right into them big, long tubs they have built in their houses +up-stairs! I seen one oncet in at Doc Hess's in Lancaster. I says to +him when I seen it, 'You wouldn't get me into THAT—it's too much like +a coffin!' I says. 'It would make a body creepy to get in there.' And +he says, 'I'd feel creepy if I DIDN'T get in.' 'Yes,' I says,'that's +why you're so thin. You wash yourself away,' I says." +</P> + +<P> +"What's it all about?" Miss Margaret abruptly asked, examining the +paper. +</P> + +<P> +"These here's the questions," answered the doctor, tracing them with +his thick, dirty forefinger; "and these here's the blank spaces fur to +write the answers into. Now you can write better 'n me, Teacher; and if +you'll just take and write in the answers fur me, why, I'll do a favor +fur you some time if ever you ast it off of me. And if ever you need a +doctor, just you call on me, and I'm swanged if I charge you a cent!" +</P> + +<P> +Among the simple population of New Canaan the Doc was considered the +most blasphemous man in America, but there seemed to be a sort of +general impression in the village that his profanity was, in some way, +an eccentricity of genius. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," Miss Margaret responded to his offer of free medical +services. "I'll fill out the paper for you with pleasure." +</P> + +<P> +She read aloud the first question of the list. '"Where did you attend +lectures?'" +</P> + +<P> +Her pen suspended over the paper, she looked at him inquiringly. +"Well?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Lekshures be blowed!" he exclaimed. "I ain't never 'tended no +lekshures!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" said Miss Margaret, nodding conclusively. "Well, then, let us +pass on to the next question. 'To what School of Medicine do you +belong?'" +</P> + +<P> +"School?" repeated the doctor; "I went to school right here in this +here town—it's better 'n thirty years ago, a'ready." +</P> + +<P> +"No," Miss Margaret explained, "that's not the question. 'To what +School of MEDICINE do you belong?' Medicine, you know," she repeated, +as though talking to a deaf person. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said the doctor, "medicine, is it? I never have went to none," he +announced defiantly. "I studied medicine in old Doctor Johnson's office +and learnt it by practisin' it. That there's the only way to learn any +business. Do you suppose you could learn a boy carpenterin' by settin' +him down to read books on sawin' boards and a-lekshurin' him on drivin' +nails? No more can you make a doctor in no such swanged-fool way like +that there!" +</P> + +<P> +"But," said Margaret, "the question means do you practise allopathy, +homeopathy, hydropathy, osteopathy,—or, for instance, eclecticism? Are +you, for example, a homeopathist?" +</P> + +<P> +"Gosh!" said the doctor, looking at her admiringly, "I'm blamed if you +don't know more big words than I ever seen in a spellin'-book or heard +at a spellin'-bee! Home-o-pathy? No, sir! When I give a dose to a +patient, still, he 'most always generally finds it out, and pretty +gosh-hang quick too! When he gits a dose of my herb bitters he knows it +good enough. Be sure, I don't give babies, and so forth, doses like +them. All such I treat, still, according to home-o-pathy, and not like +that swanged fool, Doc Hess, which only last week he give a baby a dose +fitten only fur a field-hand—and HE went to college!—Oh, yes!—and +heerd lekshures too! Natural consequence, the baby up't and died fur +'em. But growed folks they need allopathy." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said Margaret, "you might be called an eclectic?" +</P> + +<P> +"A eclectic?" the doctor inquiringly repeated, rubbing his nose. "To be +sure, I know in a general way what a eclectic IS, and so forth. But +what would YOU mean, anyhow, by a eclectic doctor, so to speak, heh?" +</P> + +<P> +"An eclectic," Margaret explained, "is one who claims to adopt whatever +is good and reject whatever is bad in every system or school of +medicine." +</P> + +<P> +"If that ain't a description of me yet!" exclaimed the doctor, +delighted. "Write 'em down, Teacher! I'm a—now what d'you call 'em?" +</P> + +<P> +"You certainly are a what-do-you-call-'em!" thought Margaret—but she +gravely repeated, "An eclectic," and wrote the name in the blank space. +</P> + +<P> +"And here I've been practisin' that there style of medicine fur fifteen +years without oncet suspicioning it! That is," he quickly corrected +himself, in some confusion, "I haven't, so to speak, called it pretty +often a eclectic, you see, gosh hang it! and—YOU understand, don't +you, Teacher?" +</P> + +<P> +Margaret understood very well indeed, but she put the question by. +</P> + +<P> +The rest of the blank was filled with less difficulty, and in a few +minutes the paper was folded and returned to the doctor's pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm much obliged to you, Teacher," he said heartily. "And mind, now," +he added, leaning far back in his chair, crossing his legs, thrusting +his thumbs into his vest pockets, and letting his eyes rest upon her, +"if ever you want a doctor, I ain't chargin' you nothin'; and leave me +tell you somethin'," he said, emphasizing each word by a shake of his +forefinger, "Jake Getz and Nathaniel Puntz they're the two school +directors that 'most always makes trouble fur the teacher. And I pass +you my word that if they get down on you any, and want to chase you off +your job, I'm standin' by you—I pass you my word!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you. But what would they get down on me for?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if Jake Getz saw you standin' up for his childern against his +lickin' 'em or makin' 'em work hard; or if you wanted to make 'em take +time to learn their books at home when he wants 'em to work—or some +such—he'd get awful down on you. And Nathaniel Puntz he 's just the +conTRARY—he wants his n' spoiled—he's got but the one." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret recalled with a little thrill the loyalty with which +Tillie had tried to save her from her father's anger by telling him +that Elviny Dinkleberger had lent her "Ivanhoe." "I suppose I had a +narrow escape there," she thought. "Poor little Tillie! She is so +conscientious—I can fancy what that lie cost her!" +</P> + +<P> +Gathering up her stationery, she made a movement to rise—but the +doctor checked her with a question. +</P> + +<P> +"Say! Not that I want to ast questions too close—but what was you +writin', now, in that letter of yourn, about Jake Getz?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret was scarcely prepared for the question. She stared at the +man for an instant, then helplessly laughed at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said apologetically, "I don't mean to be inquisitive that +way—but sometimes I speak unpolite too—fur all I've saw high society +a'ready!" he added, on the defensive. "Why, here one time I went in to +Lancaster City to see Doc Hess, and he wouldn't have it no other way +but I should stay and eat along. 'Och,' I says, 'I don't want to, I'm +so common that way, and I know yous are tony and it don't do. I'll just +pick a piece [have luncheon] at the tavern,' I says. But no, he says I +was to come eat along. So then I did. And his missus she was wonderful +fashionable, but she acted just that nice and common with me as my own +mother or my wife yet. And that was the first time I have eat what the +noos-papers calls a course dinner. They was three courses. First they +was soup and nothin' else settin' on the table, and then a colored +young lady come in with such a silver pan and such a flat, wide knife, +and she scraped the crumbs off between every one of them three courses. +I felt awful funny. I tell you they was tony. I sayed to the missus, 'I +hadn't ought to of came here. I'm not grand enough like yous'; but she +sayed, 'It's nothing of the kind, and you're always welcome.' Yes, she +made herself that nice and common!" concluded the doctor. "So you see I +have saw high society." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Miss Margaret assented. +</P> + +<P> +"Say!" he suddenly put another question to her. "Why don't you get +married?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she parried, "why don't YOU?" +</P> + +<P> +"I was married a'ready. My wife she died fur me. She was layin' three +months. She got so sore layin'. It was when we was stoppin' over in +Chicago yet. That's out in Illinois. Then, when she died,—och," he +said despondently, "there fur a while I didn't take no interest in +nothin' no more. When your wife dies, you don't feel fur nothin'. Yes, +yes," he sighed, "people have often troubles! Oh," he granted, "I went +to see other women since. But," shaking his head in discouragement, "it +didn't go. I think I'm better off if I stay single. Yes, I stay single +yet. Well," he reconsidered the question, his head on one side as he +examined the fair lady before him, "if I could get one to suit me +oncet." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret grew alarmed. But the doctor complacently continued, +"When my wife died fur me I moved fu'ther west, and I got out as fur as +Utah yet. That's where they have more 'n one wife. I thought, now, that +there was a poor practice! One woman would do ME. Say!" he again fixed +her with his eye. +</P> + +<P> +"What?" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you like your job?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she tentatively answered, "it's not uninteresting." +</P> + +<P> +"Would you ruther keep your job than quit and get married?" +</P> + +<P> +"That depends—" +</P> + +<P> +"Or," quickly added the doctor, "you might jus keep on teachin' the +school after you was married, if you married some one livin' right +here. Ain't? And if you kep' on the right side of the School Board. +Unlest you'd ruther marry a town fellah and give up your job out here. +Some thinks the women out here has to work too hard; but if they +married a man where [who] was well fixed," he said, insinuatingly, "he +could hire fur 'em [keep a servant]. Now, there's me. I'm well fixed. I +got money plenty." +</P> + +<P> +"You are very fortunate," said Miss Margaret, sympathetically. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ain't? And I ain't got no one dependent on me, neither. No +brothers, no sisters, no—wife—" he looked at her with an ingratiating +smile. "Some says I'm better off that way, but sometimes I think +different. Sometimes I think I'd like a wife oncet." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" said Miss Margaret. +</P> + +<P> +"Um—m," nodded the doctor. "Yes, and I'm pretty well fixed. I wasn't +always so comfortable off. It went a long while till I got to doin' +pretty good, and sometimes I got tired waitin' fur my luck to come. It +made me ugly dispositioned, my bad luck did. That's how I got in the +way of addicting to profane language. I sayed, still, I wisht, now, the +good Lord would try posperity on me fur a while—fur adwersity +certainly ain't makin' me a child of Gawd, I sayed. But now," he added, +rubbing his knees with satisfaction, "I'm fixed nice. Besides my +doctor's fees, I got ten acres, and three good hommies that'll be cows +till a little while yet. And that there organ in the front room is my +property. Bought it fifteen years ago on the instalment plan. I leave +missus keep it settin' in her parlor fur style that way. Do you play +the organ?" +</P> + +<P> +"I CAN," was Miss Margaret's qualified answer. +</P> + +<P> +"I always liked music—high-class music—like 'Pinnyfore.' That's a +nopery I heard in Lancaster there one time at the rooft-garden. That +was high-toned music, you bet. No trash about that. Gimme somepin nice +and ketchy. That's what I like. If it ain't ketchy, I don't take to it. +And so," he added admiringly, "you can play the organ too!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's one of my distinguished accomplishments," said Miss Margaret. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, say!" The doctor leaned forward and took her into his +confidence. "I don't mind if my wife is smart, so long as she don't +bother ME any!" +</P> + +<P> +With this telling climax, the significance of which Miss Margaret could +hardly mistake, the doctor fell back again in his chair, and regarded +with complacency the comely young woman before him. +</P> + +<P> +But before she could collect her shocked wits to reply, the entrance of +Jake Getz's son, Sammy, interrupted them. He had come into the house at +the kitchen door, and, having announced the object of his errand to the +landlady, who, by the way, was his father's sister, he was followed +into the sitting-room by a procession, consisting of his aunt, her +husband, and their two little daughters. +</P> + +<P> +Sammy was able to satisfy but meagerly the eager curiosity or interest +of the household as to Tillie's illness, and his aunt, cousins, and +uncle presently returned to their work in the kitchen or out of doors, +while the doctor rose reluctantly to go to the stables to hitch up. +</P> + +<P> +"Pop says to say you should hurry," said Sammy. +</P> + +<P> +"There's time plenty," petulantly answered the doctor. "I conceited I'd +stay settin' with you this evening," he said regretfully to Miss +Margaret. "But a doctor can't never make no plans to stay no-wheres! +Well!" he sighed, "I'll go round back now and hitch a while." +</P> + +<P> +"Sammy," said Miss Margaret, when she found herself alone with the +child, "wasn't your mother afraid YOU would get ill, coming over here, +on such a cool evening, barefooted?" "Och, no; she leaves me let my +shoes off near till it snows already. The teacher we had last year he +used to do worse 'n that yet!—HE'D WASH HIS FEET IN THE WINTER-TIME!" +said Sammy, in the tone of one relating a deed of valor. "I heard Aunty +Em speak how he washed 'em as much as oncet a week, still, IN WINTER! +The Doc he sayed no wonder that feller took cold!" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret gazed at the child with a feeling of fascination. "But, +Sammy," she said wonderingly, "your front porches get a weekly bath in +winter—do the people of New Canaan wash their porches oftener than +they wash themselves?" +</P> + +<P> +"Porches gets dirty," reasoned Sammy. "Folks don't get dirty in +winter-time. Summer's the time they get dirty, and then they mebbe wash +in the run." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" said Miss Margaret. +</P> + +<P> +During the six weeks of her life in Canaan, she had never once seen in +this or any other household the least sign of any toilet appointments, +except a tin basin at the pump, a roller-towel on the porch, and a +small mirror in the kitchen. Tooth-brushes, she had learned, were +almost unknown in the neighborhood, nearly every one of more than +seventeen years wearing "store-teeth." It was a matter of much +speculation to her that these people, who thought it so essential to +keep their houses, especially their front porches, immaculately +scrubbed, should never feel an equal necessity as to their own persons. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor came to the door and told Sammy he was ready. "I wouldn't do +it to go such a muddy night like what this is," he ruefully declared to +Miss Margaret, "if I didn't feel it was serious; Jake Getz wouldn't +spend any hirin' a doctor, without it was some serious. I'm sorry I got +to go." +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night, Sammy," said Miss Margaret. "Give Tillie my love; and if +she is not able to come to school to-morrow, I shall go to see her." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"NOVELS AIN'T MORAL, DOC!" +</H3> + +<P> +Tillie still lay on the kitchen settee, her father sitting at her side, +when the doctor and Sammy arrived. The other children had all been put +to bed, and Mrs. Getz, seated at the kitchen table, was working on a +pile of mending by the light of a small lamp. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor's verdict, when he had examined his patient's tongue, felt +her pulse, and taken her temperature, was not clear. +</P> + +<P> +"She's got a high fever. That's 'a all the fu'ther I can go now. What +it may turn to till morning, I can't tell TILL morning. Give her these +powders every hour, without she's sleeping. That's the most that she +needs just now." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, if she can keep them powders down," said Mr. Getz, doubtfully. +"She can't keep nothin' with her." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, keep on giving them, anyhow. She's a pretty sick child." +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't no fears of smallpox, are you?" Mrs. Getz inquired. "Mister +was afraid it might mebbe be smallpox," she said, indicating her +husband by the epithet. +</P> + +<P> +"Not that you say that I sayed it was!" Mr. Getz warned the doctor. "We +don't want no report put out! But is they any symptoms?" +</P> + +<P> +"Och, no," the doctor reassured them. "It ain't smallpox. What did you +give her that she couldn't keep with her?" +</P> + +<P> +"I fed some boiled milk to her." +</P> + +<P> +"Did she drink tea?" he inquired, looking profound. +</P> + +<P> +"We don't drink no store tea," Mrs. Getz answered him. "We drink +peppermint tea fur supper, still. Tillie she didn't drink none this +evening. Some says store tea's bad fur the nerves. I ain't got no +nerves," she went on placidly. "Leastways, I ain't never felt none, so +fur. Mister he likes the peppermint." +</P> + +<P> +"And it comes cheaper," said Mister. +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe you've been leavin' Tillie work too much in the hot sun out in +the fields with you?" the doctor shot a keen glance at the father; for +Jake Getz was known to all Canaan Township as a man that got more work +out of his wife and children than any other farmer in the district. +</P> + +<P> +"After school, some," Mr. Getz replied. "But not fur long at a time, +fur it gets late a'ready till she gets home. Anyhow, it's healthy fur +her workin' in the fields. I guess," he speculated, "it was her settin' +up in bed readin' last night done it. I don't know right how long it +went that she was readin' before I seen the light, but it was near +morning a'ready, and she'd burned near a whole candle out." +</P> + +<P> +"And mebbe you punished her?" the doctor inquired, holding his hand to +Tillie's temples. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," nodded Mr. Getz, "I guess she won't be doin' somepin like that +soon again. I think, still, I mebbe used the strap too hard, her bein' +a girl that way. But a body's got to learn 'em when they're young, you +know. And here it was a NOVEL-book! She borrowed the loan of it off of +Elviny Dinkleberger! I chucked it in the fire! I don't uphold to +novel-readin'!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now," argued the doctor, settling back in his chair, crossing +his legs, and thrusting his thumbs into the arm-holes of his vest, +"some chance times I read in such a 'Home Companion' paper, and here +this winter I read a piece in nine chapters. I make no doubt that was a +novel. Leastways, I guess you'd call it a novel. And that piece," he +said impressively, "wouldn't hurt nobody! It learns you. That piece," +he insisted, "was got up by a moral person." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I guess it wasn't no novel, Doc," Mr. Getz firmly maintained. +"Anybody knows novels ain't moral. Anyhow, I ain't havin' none in my +house. If I see any, they get burnt up." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a pity you burnt it up, Jake. I like to come by somepin like +that, still, to pass the time when there ain't much doin'. How did +Elviny Dinkleberger come by such a novel?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. If I see her pop, I 'll tell him he better put a stop to +such behaviors." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie stirred restlessly on her pillow. +</P> + +<P> +"What was the subjeck of that there novel, Tillie?" the doctor asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Its subjeck was 'Iwanhoe,'" Mr. Getz answered. "Yes, I chucked it +right in the stove." +</P> + +<P> +"'Iwanhoe'!" exclaimed the doctor. "Why, Elviny must of borrowed the +loan of that off of Teacher—I seen Teacher have it." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie turned pleading eyes upon his face, but he did not see her. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean to say," demanded Mr. Getz, "that Teacher lends NOVELS to +the scholars!" +</P> + +<P> +"Och!" said the doctor, suddenly catching the frantic appeal of +Tillie's eyes, and answering it with ready invention, "what am I +talkin' about! It was Elviny lent it to Aunty Em's little Rebecca at +the HOtel, and Teacher was tellin' Rebecca she mustn't read it, but +give it back right aways to Elviny." +</P> + +<P> +"Well!" said Mr. Getz, "a teacher that would lend novels to the +scholars wouldn't stay long at William Penn if MY wote could put her +out! And there 's them on the Board that thinks just like what I think!" +</P> + +<P> +"To be sure!" the doctor soothed him. "TO be sure! Yes," he romanced, +"Rebecca she lent that book off of Elviny Dinkleberger, and Teacher she +tole Rebecca to give it back." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll speak somepin to Elviny's pop, first time I see him, how Elviny's +lendin' a novel to the scholars!" affirmed Mr. Getz. +</P> + +<P> +"You needn't trouble," said the doctor, coolly. "Elviny's pop he GIVE +Elviny that there book last Christmas. I don't know what he'll think, +Jake, at your burnin' it up." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie was gazing at the doctor, now, half in bewilderment, half in +passionate gratitude. +</P> + +<P> +"If Tillie did get smallpox," Mrs. Getz here broke in, "would she mebbe +have to be took to the pest-house?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie started, and her feverish eyes sought in the face of the doctor +to know what dreadful place a "pest-house" might be. +</P> + +<P> +"Whether she'd have to be took to the pest-house?" the doctor +inquiringly repeated. "Yes, if she took the smallpox. But she ain't +takin' it. You needn't worry." +</P> + +<P> +"Doctors don't know near as much now as what they used to, still," Mr. +Getz affirmed. "They didn't HAVE to have no such pest-houses when I was +a boy. Leastways, they didn't have 'em. And they didn't never ketch +such diseases like 'pendycitis and grip and them." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean to say, Jake Getz, that you pass it as your opinion us +doctors don't know more now than what they used to know thirty years +ago, when you was a boy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course they don't," was the dogmatic rejoinder. "Nor nobody knows +as much now as they did in ancient times a'ready. I mean back in Bible +times." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean to say," hotly argued the doctor, "that they had +automobiles in them days?" +</P> + +<P> +"To be sure I do! Automobiles and all the other lost sciences!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said the doctor, restraining his scorn with a mighty effort, +"I'd like to see you prove it oncet!" +</P> + +<P> +"I can prove it right out of the Bible! Do you want better proof than +that, Doc? The Bible says in so many words, 'There's nothing new under +the sun.' There! You can't come over that there, can you? You don't +consider into them things enough, Doc. You ain't a religious man, that +'s the trouble!" +</P> + +<P> +"I got religion a plenty, but I don't hold to no SICH dumm thoughts!" +</P> + +<P> +"Did you get your religion at Bethel rewiwal?" Mrs. Getz quickly asked, +glancing up from the little stocking she was darning, to look with some +interest at the doctor. "I wanted to go over oncet before the rewiwal's +done. But now Tillie's sick, mebbe I won't get to go fur all. When they +have rewiwals at Bethel they always make so! And," she added, resuming +her darning, "I like to see 'em jump that way. My, but they jump, now, +when they get happy! But I didn't get to go this year yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, and don't you get affected too?" the doctor asked, "and go out +to the mourners' bench?" +</P> + +<P> +"If I do? No, I go just to see 'em jump," she monotonously repeated. "I +wasn't never conwerted. Mister he's a hard Evangelical, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"And what does he think of your unconwerted state?" the doctor +jocularly inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"What he thinks? There's nothing to think," was the stolid answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Up there to Bethel rewiwal," said Mr. Getz, "they don't stay +conwerted. Till rewiwal's over, they're off church again." +</P> + +<P> +"It made awful funny down there this two weeks back," repeated Mrs. +Getz. "They jumped so. Now there's the Lutherans, they don't make +nothin' when they conwert themselves. They don't jump nor nothin'. I +don't like their meetin's. It's onhandy Tillie got sick fur me just +now. I did want to go oncet. Here 's all this mendin' she could have +did, too. She 's handier at sewin' than what I am, still. I always had +so much other work, I never come at sewin', and I 'm some dopplig at +it." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?—yes," said the doctor, rising to go. "Well, Tillie, good-by, and +don't set up nights any more readin' novels," he laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"She ain't likely to," said her father. "My childern don't generally do +somepin like that again after I once ketch 'em at it. Ain't so, Tillie? +Well, then, Doc, you think she ain't serious?" +</P> + +<P> +"I said I can't tell till I've saw her again a'ready." +</P> + +<P> +"How long will it go till you come again?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," the doctor considered, "it looks some fur fallin' +weather—ain't? If it rains and the roads are muddy till morning, so 's +I can't drive fast, I won't mebbe be here till ten o'clock." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, doctor," whispered Tillie, in a tone of distress, "can't I go to +school? Can't I? I'll be well enough, won't I? It's Friday to-morrow, +and I—I want to go!" she sobbed. "I want to go to Miss Margaret!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, you can't go to school to-morrow, Tillie," her father said, "even +if you're some better; I'm keepin' you home to lay still one day +anyhow." +</P> + +<P> +"But I don't want to stay home!" the child exclaimed, casting off the +shawl with which her father had covered her and throwing out her arms. +"I want to go to school! I want to, pop!" she sobbed, almost screaming. +"I want to go to Miss Margaret! I will, I will!" +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie—Tillie!" her father soothed her in that unwonted tone of +gentleness that sounded so strange to her. His face had turned pale at +her outcries, delirious they seemed to him, coming from his usually +meek and submissive child. "There now," he said, drawing the cover over +her again; "now lay still and be a good girl, ain't you will?" +</P> + +<P> +"Will you leave me go to school to-morrow?" she pleaded piteously. +"DARE I go to school to-morrow?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, you dassent, Tillie. But if you're a good girl, mebbe I 'll leave +Sammy ast Teacher to come to see you after school." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, pop!" breathed the child ecstatically, as in supreme contentment +she sank back again on her pillow. "I wonder will she come? Do you +think she will come to see me, mebbe?" +</P> + +<P> +"To be sure will she." +</P> + +<P> +"Now think," said the doctor, "how much she sets store by Teacher! And +a lot of 'em's the same way—girls AND boys." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know she was so much fur Teacher," said Mr. Getz. "She never +spoke nothin'." +</P> + +<P> +"She never spoke nothin' to me about it neither," said Mrs. Getz. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I 'll give you all good-by, then," said the doctor; and he went +away. +</P> + +<P> +On his slow journey home through the mud he mused on the inevitable +clash which he foresaw must some day come between the warm-hearted +teacher (whom little Tillie so loved, and who so injudiciously lent her +"novel-books") and the stern and influential school director, Jacob +Getz. +</P> + +<P> +"There MY chanct comes in," thought the doctor; "there's where I mebbe +put in my jaw and pop the question—just when Jake Getz is makin' her +trouble and she's gettin' chased off her job. I passed my word I'd +stand by her, and, by gum, I 'll do it! When she's out of a job—that's +the time she 'll be dead easy! Ain't? She's the most allurin' female I +seen since my wife up't and died fur me!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +JAKE GETZ IN A QUANDARY +</H3> + +<P> +Tillie's illness, though severe while it lasted, proved to be a matter +of only a few days' confinement to bed; and fortunately for her, it was +while she was still too weak and ill to be called to account for her +misdeed that her father discovered her deception as to the owner of +"Ivanhoe." At least he found out, in talking with Elviny Dinkleberger +and her father at the Lancaster market, that the girl was innocent of +ever having owned or even seen the book, and that, consequently, she +had of course never lent it either to Rebecca Wackernagel at the hotel +or to Tillie. +</P> + +<P> +Despite his rigorous dealings with his family (which, being the outcome +of the Pennsylvania Dutch faith in the Divine right of the head of the +house, were entirely conscientious), Jacob Getz was strongly and deeply +attached to his wife and children; and his alarm at Tillie's illness, +coming directly upon his severe punishment of her, had softened him +sufficiently to temper his wrath at finding that she had told him what +was not true. +</P> + +<P> +What her object could have been in shielding the real owner of the book +he could not guess. His suspicions did not turn upon the teacher, +because, in the first place, he would have seen no reason why Tillie +should wish to shield her, and, in the second, it was inconceivable +that a teacher at William Penn should set out so to pervert the young +whom trusting parents placed under her care. There never had been a +novel-reading teacher at William Penn. The Board would as soon have +elected an opium-eater. +</P> + +<P> +WHERE HAD TILLIE OBTAINED THAT BOOK? And why had she put the blame on +Elviny, who was her little friend? The Doc, evidently, was in league +with Tillie! What could it mean? Jake Getz was not used to dealing with +complications and mysteries. He pondered the case heavily. +</P> + +<P> +When he went home from market, he did not tell Tillie of his discovery, +for the doctor had ordered that she be kept quiet. +</P> + +<P> +Not until a week later, when she was well enough to be out of bed, did +he venture to tell her he had caught her telling a falsehood. +</P> + +<P> +He could not know that the white face of terror which she turned to him +was fear for Miss Margaret and not, for once, apprehension of the strap. +</P> + +<P> +"I ain't whippin' you this time," he gruffly said, "if you tell me the +truth whose that there book was." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie did not speak. She was resting in the wooden rocking-chair by +the kitchen window, a pillow at her head and a shawl over her knees. +Her stepmother was busy at the table with her Saturday baking; Sammy +was giving the porch its Saturday cleaning, and the other children, too +little to work, were playing outdoors; even the baby, bundled up in its +cart, was out on the grass-plot. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you hear me, Tillie? Whose book was that there?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's head hung low and her very lips were white. She did not answer. +</P> + +<P> +"You 're goin' to act stubborn to ME!" her father incredulously +exclaimed, and the woman at the table turned and stared in dull +amazement at this unheard-of defiance of the head of the family. +"Tillie!" he grasped her roughly by the arm and shook her. "Answer to +me!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's chest rose and fell tumultuously. Bat she kept her eyes +downcast and her lips closed. +</P> + +<P> +"Fur why don't you want to tell, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I—can't, pop!" +</P> + +<P> +"Can't! If you wasn't sick I 'd soon learn you if you can't! Now you +might as well tell me right aways, fur I'll make you tell me SOME time!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's lips quivered and the tears rolled slowly over her white +cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"Fur why did you say it was Elviny?" +</P> + +<P> +"She was the only person I thought to say." +</P> + +<P> +"But fur why didn't you say the person it WAS? Answer to me!" he +commanded. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie curved her arm over her face and sobbed. She was still too weak +from her fever to bear the strain of this unequal contest of wills. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," concluded her father, his anger baffled and impotent before the +child's weakness, "I won't bother you with it no more NOW. But you just +wait till you 're well oncet! We'll see then if you'll tell me what I +ast you or no!" +</P> + +<P> +"Here's the Doc," announced Mrs. Getz, as the sound of wheels was heard +outside the gate. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," her husband said indignantly as he rose and went to the door, +"I just wonder what he's got to say fur hisself, lyin' to me like what +he done!" +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, Jake!" was the doctor's breezy greeting as he walked into the +kitchen, followed by a brood of curious little Getzes, to whom the +doctor's daily visits were an exciting episode. "Howdy-do, missus," he +briskly addressed the mother of the brood, pushing his hat to the back +of his head in lieu of raising it. "And how's the patient?" he inquired +with a suddenly professional air and tone. "Some better, heh? HEH? Been +cryin'! What fur?" he demanded, turning to Mr. Getz. "Say, Jake, you +ain't been badgerin' this kid again fur somepin? She'll be havin' a +RElapse if you don't leave her be!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's YOU I'm wantin' to badger, Doc Weaver!" retorted Mr. Getz. "What +fur did you lie to me about that there piece entitled 'Iwanhoe'?" +</P> + +<P> +"You and your 'Iwanhoe' be blowed! Are you tormentin' this here kid +about THAT yet? A body'd think you'd want to change that subjec', Jake +Getz!" +</P> + +<P> +"Not till I find from you, Doc, whose that there novel-book was, and +why you tole me it was Elviny Dinkleberger's!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's easy tole," responded the doctor. "That there book belonged +to—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, Doc, no, no!" came a pleading cry from Tillie. "Don't tell, Doc, +please don't tell!" +</P> + +<P> +"Never you mind, Tillie, THAT'S all right. Look here, Jake Getz!" The +doctor turned his sharp little eyes upon the face of the father grown +dark with anger at his child's undutiful interference. "You're got this +here little girl worked up to the werge of a RElapse! I tole you she +must be kep' quiet and not worked up still!" +</P> + +<P> +"All right. I'm leavin' HER alone—till she's well oncet! You just +answer fur YOURself and tell why you lied to me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Jake, it was this here way. That there book belonged to ME and +Tillie lent it off of me. That's how! Ain't Tillie?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz stared in stupefied wonder, while Mrs. Getz, too, looked on +with a dull interest, as she leaned her back against the sink and dried +her hands upon her apron. +</P> + +<P> +As for Tillie, a great throb of relief thrilled through her as she +heard the doctor utter this Napoleonic lie—only to be followed the +next instant by an overwhelming sense of her own wickedness in thus +conniving with fraud. Abysses of iniquity seemed to yawn at her feet, +and she gazed with horror into their black depths. How could she ever +again hold up her head. +</P> + +<P> +But—Miss Margaret, at least, was safe from the School Board's wrath +and indignation, and how unimportant, compared with that, was her own +soul's salvation! +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't Tillie say it was yourn?" Mr. Getz presently found voice to +ask. +</P> + +<P> +"I tole her if she left it get put out I am addicted to novel readin'," +said the doctor glibly, and with evident relish, "it might spoil my +practice some. And Tillie she's that kind-hearted she was sorry far me!" +</P> + +<P> +"And so you put her up to say it was Elviny's! You put her up to tell +lies to her pop!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I never thought you 'd foller it up any, Jake, and try to get +ELVINY into trouble." +</P> + +<P> +"Doc, I always knowed you was a blasPHEmer and that you didn't have no +religion. But I thought you had anyhow morals. And I didn't think, now, +you was a coward that way, to get behind a child and lie out of your +own evil deeds!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm that much a coward and a blasPHEmer, Jake, that I 'm goin' to add +the cost of that there book of mine where you burnt up, to your +doctor's bill, unlest you pass me your promise you 'll drop this here +subjec' and not bother Tillie with it no more." +</P> + +<P> +The doctor had driven his victim into a corner. To yield a point in +family discipline or to pay the price of the property he had +destroyed—one of the two he must do. It was a most untoward +predicament for Jacob Getz. +</P> + +<P> +"You had no right to lend that there Book to Tillie, Doc, and I ain't +payin' you a cent fur it!" he maintained. +</P> + +<P> +"I jus' mean, Jake, I 'll make out my bill easy or stiff accordin' to +the way you pass your promise." +</P> + +<P> +"If my word was no more better 'n yours, Doe, my passin' my promise +wouldn't help much!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right, Jake. I don't set up to be religious and moral. I +ain't sayed my prayers since I am old enough a'ready to know how likely +I was, still, to kneel on a tack!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's no wonder you was put off of church!" was the biting retort. +</P> + +<P> +"Hold up there, Jake. I wasn't put off. I WENT off. I took myself off +of church before the brethren had a chanct to PUT me off." +</P> + +<P> +"Sammy!" Mr. Getz suddenly and sharply admonished his little son, who +was sharpening his slate-pencil on the window-sill with a table-knife, +"you stop right aways sharpenin' that pencil! You dassent sharpen your +slate-pencils, do you hear? It wastes 'em so!" +</P> + +<P> +Sammy hastily laid down the knife and thrust the pencil into his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz turned again to the doctor and inquired irritably, "What is it +to YOU if I teach my own child to mind me or not, I'd like to know?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because she's been bothered into a sickness with this here thing +a'ready, and it 's time it stopped now!" +</P> + +<P> +"It was you started it, leavin' her lend the book off of you!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's why I feel fur sparin' her some more trouble, seein' I was the +instrument in the hands of Providence fur gettin' her into all this +here mess. See?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't be sure when TO know if you're lyin' or not," said Mr. Getz +helplessly. +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe you can't, Jake. Sometimes I'm swangfid if I'm sure, still, +myself. But there's one thing you KIN be cocksure of—and that's a big +doctor-bill unlest you do what I sayed." +</P> + +<P> +"Now that I know who she lent the book off of there ain't nothin' to +bother her about," sullenly granted Mr. Getz. "And as fur +punishment—she's had punishment a-plenty, I guess, in her bein' so +sick." +</P> + +<P> +"All right," the doctor said magnanimously. "There's one thing I 'll +give you, Jake: you're a man of your word, if you ARE a Dutch hog!" +</P> + +<P> +"A—WHATEVER?" Mr. Getz angrily demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"And I don't see," the doctor complacently continued, rising and +pulling his hat down to his eyebrows, preparatory to leaving, "where +Tillie gets her fibbin' from. Certainly not from her pop." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't mind her ever tellin' me no lie before." +</P> + +<P> +"Och, Jake, you drive your children to lie to you, the way you bring +'em up to be afraid of you. They GOT to lie, now and again, to a feller +like you! Well, well," he soothingly added as he saw the black look in +the father's face at the airing of such views in the presence of his +children, "never mind, Jake, it 's all in the day's work!" +</P> + +<P> +He turned for a parting glance at Tillie. "She 's better. She 'll be +well till a day or two, now, and back to school—IF she's kep' quiet, +and her mind ain't bothered any. Now, GOOD-by to yous." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"THE LAST DAY OF PUMP-EYE" +</H3> + +<P> +For a long time after her unhappy experiences with "Ivanhoe" Tillie did +not again venture to transgress against her father's prohibition of +novels. But her fear of the family strap, although great, did not equal +the keenness of her mental hunger, and was not sufficient, therefore, +to put a permanent check upon her secret midnight reading, though it +did lead her to take every precaution against detection. Miss Margaret +continued to lend her books and magazines from time to time, and in +spite of the child's reluctance to risk involving the teacher in +trouble with the School Board through her father, she accepted them. +And so during all this winter, through her love for books and her +passionate devotion to her teacher, the little girl reveled in feasts +of fancy and emotion and this term at school was the first season of +real happiness her young life had ever known. +</P> + +<P> +Once on her return from school the weight of a heavy volume had proved +too great a strain on her worn and thin undergarment during the long +walk home; the skirt had torn away from the band, and as she entered +the kitchen, her stepmother discovered the book. Tillie pleaded with +her not to tell her father, and perhaps she might have succeeded in +gaining a promise of secrecy had it not happened that just at the +critical moment her father walked into the kitchen. +</P> + +<P> +Of course, then the book was handed over to him, and Tillie with it. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you lend this off the Doc again?" her father sternly demanded, the +fated book in one hand and Tillie's shoulder grasped in the other. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie hated to utter the lie. She hoped she had modified her +wickedness a bit by answering with a nod of her head. +</P> + +<P> +"What's he mean, throwin' away so much money on books?" Mr. Getz took +time in his anger to wonder. He read the title, "'Last Days of +Pump-eye.' Well!" he exclaimed, "this here's the last HOUR of this here +'Pump-eye'! In the stove she goes! I don't owe the Doc no doctor's bill +NOW, and I'd like to see him make me pay him fur these here novels he +leaves you lend off of him!" +</P> + +<P> +"Please, please, pop!" Tillie gasped, "don't burn it. Give it back +to—him! I won't read it—I won't bring home no more books of—hisn! +Only, please, pop, don't burn it—please!" +</P> + +<P> +For answer, he drew her with him as he strode to the fireplace. "I'm +burnin' every book you bring home, do you hear?" he exclaimed; but +before he could make good his words, the kitchen door was suddenly +opened, and Sammy's head was poked in, with the announcement, "The +Doc's buggy's comin' up the road!" The door banged shut again, but +instantly Tillie wrenched her shoulder free from her father's hand, +flew out of doors and dashed across the "yard" to the front gate. Her +father's voice followed her, calling to her from the porch to "come +right aways back here!" Unheeding, she frantically waved to the doctor +in his approaching buggy. Sammy, with a bevy of small brothers and +sisters, to whom, no less than to their parents, the passing of a +"team" was an event not to be missed, were all crowded close to the +fence. +</P> + +<P> +"Some one sick again?" inquired the doctor as he drew up at Tillie's +side. +</P> + +<P> +"No, Doc—but," Tillie could hardly get her breath to speak, "pop's +goin' to burn up 'Last Days of Pompeii'; it's Miss Margaret's, and he +thinks it's yourn; come in and take it, Doc—PLEASE—and give it back +to Miss Margaret, won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure!" The doctor was out of his buggy at her side in an instant. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" breathed Tillie, "here's pop comin' with the book!" +</P> + +<P> +"See me fix him!" chuckled the doctor. "He's so dumm he'll b'lee' most +anything. If I have much more dealin's with your pop, Tillie, I'll be +ketchin' on to how them novels is got up myself. And then mebbe I'll +LET doctorin', and go to novel-writin'!" +</P> + +<P> +The doctor laughed with relish of his own joke, as Mr. Getz, grim with +anger, stalked up to the buggy. +</P> + +<P> +"Look-ahere!" His voice was menacing as he held out the open book for +Tillie's inspection, and the child turned cold as she read on the +fly-leaf, +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"Margaret Lind. +<BR> +"From A. C. L. +<BR> +Christmas, 18—" +</P> + +<P> +"You sayed the Doc give it to you! Did you lend that other 'n' off of +Teacher too? Answer to me! I'll have her chased off of William Penn! +I'll bring it up at next Board meetin'!" +</P> + +<P> +"Hold your whiskers, Jake, or they'll blow off! You're talkin' through +your hat! Don't be so dumm! Teacher she gev me that there book because +she passed me her opinion she don't stand by novel-readin'. She was +goin' to throw out that there book and I says I'd take it if she didn't +want it. So then I left Tillie borrow the loan of it." +</P> + +<P> +"So that's how you come by it, is it?" Mr. Getz eyed the doctor with +suspicion. "How did you come by that there 'Iwanhoe'?" +</P> + +<P> +"That there I bought at the second-hand book-store in there at +Lancaster one time. I ain't just so much fur books, but now and again I +like to buy one too, when I see 'em cheap." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, here!" Mr. Getz tossed the book into tie buggy. "Take your old +'Pump-eye.' And clear out. If I can't make you stop tryin' to spoil my +child fur me, I can anyways learn her what she'll get oncet, if she +don't mind!" +</P> + +<P> +Again his hand grasped Tillie's shoulder as he turned her about to take +her into the house. +</P> + +<P> +"You better watch out, Jake Getz, or you 'll have another doctor's bill +to pay!" the doctor warningly called after him. "That girl of yourn +ain't strong enough to stand your rough handlin', and you'll find it +out some day—to your regret! You'd better go round back and let off +your feelin's choppin' wood fur missus, stead of hittin' that little +girl, you big dopple!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz stalked on without deigning to reply, thrusting Tillie ahead +of him. The doctor jumped into his buggy and drove off. +</P> + +<P> +His warning, however, was not wholly lost upon the father. Tillie's +recent illness had awakened remorse for the severe punishment he had +given her on the eve of it; and it had also touched his purse; and so, +though she did not escape punishment for this second and, therefore, +aggravated offense, it was meted out in stinted measure. And indeed, in +her relief and thankfulness at again saving Miss Margaret, the child +scarcely felt the few light blows which, in order that parental +authority be maintained, her father forced himself to inflict upon her. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of these mishaps, however, Tillie continued to devour all the +books she could lay hold of and to run perilous risks for the sake of +the delight she found in them. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret stood to her for an image of every heroine of whom she +read in prose or verse, and for the realization of all the romantic +day-dreams in which, as an escape from the joyless and sordid life of +her home, she was learning to live and move and have her being. +</P> + +<P> +Therefore it came to her as a heavy blow indeed when, just after the +Christmas holidays, her father announced to her on the first morning of +the reopening of school, "You best make good use of your time from now +on, Tillie, fur next spring I'm takin' you out of school." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's face turned white, and her heart thumped in her breast so that +she could not speak. +</P> + +<P> +"You're comin' twelve year old," her father continued, "and you're +enough educated, now, to do you. Me and mom needs you at home." +</P> + +<P> +It never occurred to Tillie to question or discuss a decision of her +father's. When he spoke it was a finality and one might as well rebel +at the falling of the snow or rain. Tillie's woe was utterly hopeless. +</P> + +<P> +Her dreary, drooping aspect in the next few days was noticed by Miss +Margaret. +</P> + +<P> +"Pop's takin' me out of school next spring," she heart-brokenly said +when questioned. "And when I can't see you every day, Miss Margaret, I +won't feel for nothin' no more. And I thought to get more educated than +what I am yet. I thought to go to school till I was anyways fourteen." +</P> + +<P> +So keenly did Miss Margaret feel the outrage and wrong of Tillie's +arrested education, when her father could well afford to keep her in +school until she was grown, if he would; so stirred was her warm +Southern blood at the thought of the fate to which poor Tillie seemed +doomed—the fate of a household drudge with not a moment's leisure from +sunrise to night for a thought above the grubbing existence of a +domestic beast of burden (thus it all looked to this woman from +Kentucky), that she determined, cost what it might, to go herself to +appeal to Mr. Getz. +</P> + +<P> +"He will have me 'chased off of William Penn,'" she ruefully told +herself. "And the loss just now of my munificent salary of thirty-five +dollars a month would be inconvenient. 'The Doc' said he would 'stand +by' me. But that might be more inconvenient still!" she thought, with a +little shudder. "I suppose this is an impolitic step for me to take. +But policy 'be blowed,' as the doctor would say! What are we in this +world for but to help one another? I MUST try to help little +Tillie—bless her!" +</P> + +<P> +So the following Monday afternoon after school, found Miss Margaret, in +a not very complacent or confident frame of mind, walking with Tillie +and her younger brother and sister out over the snow-covered road to +the Getz farm to face the redoubtable head of the family. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MISS MARGARET'S ERRAND +</H3> + +<P> +It was half-past four o'clock when they reached the farm-house, and +they found the weary, dreary mother of the family cleaning fish at the +kitchen sink, one baby pulling at her skirts, another sprawling on the +floor at her feet. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret inquired whether she might see Mr. Getz. +</P> + +<P> +"If you kin? Yes, I guess," Mrs. Getz dully responded. "Sammy, you go +to the barn and tell pop Teacher's here and wants to speak somepin to +him. Mister's out back," she explained to Miss Margaret, "choppin' +wood." +</P> + +<P> +Sammy departed, and Miss Margaret sat down in the chair which Tillie +brought to her. Mrs. Getz went on with her work at the sink, while +Tillie set to work at once on a crock of potatoes waiting to be pared. +</P> + +<P> +"You are getting supper very early, aren't you?' Miss Margaret asked, +with a friendly attempt to make conversation. +</P> + +<P> +"No, we're some late. And I don't get it ready yet, I just start it. +We're getting strangers fur supper." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Some of Mister's folks from East Bethel." +</P> + +<P> +"And are they strangers to you?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Getz paused in her scraping of the fish to consider the question. +</P> + +<P> +"If they're strangers to us? Och, no. We knowed them this long time +a'ready. Us we're well acquainted. But to be sure they don't live with +us, so we say strangers is comin'. You don't talk like us; ain't?" +</P> + +<P> +"N—not exactly." +</P> + +<P> +"I do think now (you must excuse me sayin' so) but you do talk awful +funny," Mrs. Getz smiled feebly. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose I do," Miss Margaret sympathetically replied. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz now came into the room, and Miss Margaret rose to greet him. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm much obliged to meet you," he said awkwardly as he shook hands +with her. +</P> + +<P> +He glanced at the clock on the mantel, then turned to speak to Tillie. +</P> + +<P> +"Are yous home long a'ready?" he inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Not so very long," Tillie answered with an apprehensive glance at the +clock. +</P> + +<P> +"You're some late," he said, with a threatening little nod as he drew +up a chair in front of the teacher. +</P> + +<P> +"It's my fault," Miss Margaret hastened to say, "I made the children +wait to bring me out here." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," conceded Mr. Getz, "then we'll leave it go this time." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret now bent her mind to the difficult task of persuading +this stubborn Pennsylvania Dutchman to accept her views as to what was +for the highest and best good of his daughter. Eloquently she pointed +out to him that Tillie being a child of unusual ability, it would be +much better for her to have an education than to be forced to spend her +days in farm-house drudgery. +</P> + +<P> +But her point of view, being entirely novel, did not at all appeal to +him. +</P> + +<P> +"I never thought to leave her go to school after she was twelve. That's +long enough fur a girl; a female don't need much book-knowledge. It +don't help her none to keep house fur her mister." +</P> + +<P> +"But she could become a teacher and then she could earn money," Miss +Margaret argued, knowing the force of this point with Mr. Getz. +</P> + +<P> +"But look at all them years she'd have to spend learnin' herself to be +intelligent enough fur to be a teacher, when she might be helpin' me +and mom." +</P> + +<P> +"But she could help you by paying board here when she becomes the New +Canaan teacher." +</P> + +<P> +"That's so too," granted Mr. Getz; and Margaret grew faintly hopeful. +</P> + +<P> +"But," he added, after a moment's heavy weighing of the matter, "it +would take too long to get her enough educated fur to be a teacher, and +I'm one of them," he maintained, "that holds a child is born to help +the parent, and not contrarywise—that the parent must do everything +fur the child that way." +</P> + +<P> +"If you love your children, you must wish for their highest good," she +suggested, "and not trample on their best interests." +</P> + +<P> +"But they have the right to work for their parents," he insisted. "You +needn't plague me to leave Tillie stay in school, Teacher. I ain't +leavin' her!" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think you have a right to bring children into the world only to +crush everything in them that is worth while?" Margaret dared to say to +him, her face flushed, her eyes bright with the intensity of her +feelings. +</P> + +<P> +"That's all blamed foolishness!" Jake Getz affirmed. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think that your daughter, when she is grown and realizes all +that she has lost, will 'rise up and call you blessed'?" she persisted. +</P> + +<P> +"Do I think? Well, what I think is that it's a good bit more particular +that till she's growed she's been learnt to work and serve them that +raised her. And what I think is that a person ain't fit to be a teacher +of the young that sides along with the childern ag'in' their parents." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret felt that it was time she took her leave. +</P> + +<P> +"Look-ahere oncet, Teacher!" Mr. Getz suddenly said, fixing on her a +suspicious and searching look, "do you uphold to novel-readin'?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret hesitated perceptibly. She must shield Tillie even more +than herself. "What a question to ask of the teacher at William Penn!" +she gravely answered. +</P> + +<P> +"I know it ain't such a wery polite question," returned Mr. Getz, half +apologetically. "But the way you side along with childern ag'in' their +parents suspicions me that the Doc was lyin' when he sayed them +novel-books was hisn. Now was they hisn or was they yourn?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret rose with a look and air of injury. "'Mr. Getz, no one +ever before asked me such questions. Indeed," she said, in a tone of +virtuous primness, "I can't answer such questions." +</P> + +<P> +"All the same," sullenly asserted Mr. Getz, "I wouldn't put it a-past +you after the way you passed your opinion to me this after!" +</P> + +<P> +"I must be going," returned Miss Margaret with dignity. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Getz came forward from the stove with a look and manner of apology +for her husband's rudeness to the visitor. +</P> + +<P> +"What's your hurry? Can't you stay and eat along? We're not anyways +tired of you." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you. But they will be waiting for me at the hotel," said Miss +Margaret gently. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie, a bit frightened, also hovered near, her wistful little face +pale. Miss Margaret drew her to her and held her at her side, as she +looked up into the face of Mr. Getz. +</P> + +<P> +"I am very, very sorry, Mr. Getz, that my visit has proved so +fruitless. You don't realize what a mistake you are making." +</P> + +<P> +"That ain't the way a teacher had ought to talk before a scholar to its +parent!" indignantly retorted Mr. Getz. "And I'm pretty near sure it +was all the time YOU where lent them Books to Tillie—corruptin' the +young! I can tell you right now, I ain't votin' fur you at next +election! And the way I wote is the way two other members always wotes +still—and so you'll lose your job at William Penn! That's what you get +fur tryin' to interfere between a parent and a scholar! I hope it'll +learn you!" +</P> + +<P> +"And when is the next election?" imperturbably asked Miss Margaret. +</P> + +<P> +"Next month on the twenty-fifth of February. Then you'll see oncet!" +</P> + +<P> +"According to the terms of my agreement with the Board I hold my +position until the first of April unless the Board can show reasons why +it should be taken from me. What reasons can you show?" +</P> + +<P> +"That you side along with the—" +</P> + +<P> +"That I try to persuade you not to take your child out of school when +you can well afford to keep her there. That's what you have to tell the +Board." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz stared at her, rather baffled. The children also stared in +wide-eyed curiosity, realizing with wonder that Teacher was "talkin' up +to pop!" It was a novel and interesting spectacle. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, anyways," continued Mr. Getz, rallying, "I'll bring it up in +Board meeting that you mebbe leave the scholars borry the loan of +novels off of you." +</P> + +<P> +"But you can't prove it. I shall hold the Board to their contract. They +can't break it." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret was taking very high ground, of which, in fact, she was +not at all sure. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz gazed at her with mingled anger and fascination. Here was +certainly a new species of woman! Never before had any teacher at +William Penn failed to cringe to his authority as a director. +</P> + +<P> +"This much I KIN say," he finally declared. "Mebbe you kin hold us to +that there contract, but you won't, anyways, be elected to come back +here next term! That's sure! You'll have to look out fur another place +till September a'ready. And we won't give you no recommend, neither, to +get yourself another school with!" +</P> + +<P> +Just here it was that Miss Margaret had her triumph, which she was +quite human enough to thoroughly enjoy. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't have a chance to reelect me, for I am going to resign at the +end of the term. I am going to be married the week after school closes." +</P> + +<P> +Never had Mr. Getz felt himself so foiled. Never before had any one +subject in any degree to his authority so neatly eluded a reckoning at +his hands. A tingling sensation ran along his arm and he had to +restrain his impulse to lift it, grasp this slender creature standing +so fearlessly before him, and thoroughly shake her. +</P> + +<P> +"Who's the party?" asked Mrs. Getz, curiously. "It never got put out +that you was promised. I ain't heard you had any steady comp'ny. To be +sure, some says the Doc likes you pretty good. Is it now, mebbe, the +Doc? But no," she shook her head; "Mister's sister Em at the hotel +would have tole me. Is it some one where lives around here?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't mind telling you," Miss Margaret graciously answered, +realizing that her reply would greatly increase Mr. Getz's sense of +defeat. "It is Mr. Lansing, a nephew of the State Superintendent of +schools and a professor at the Millersville Normal School." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now just look!" Mrs. Getz exclaimed wonderingly. "Such a tony +party! The State Superintendent's nephew! That's even a more way-up +person than what the county superintendent is! Ain't? Well, who'd 'a' +thought!" +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Margaret!" Tillie breathed, gazing up at her, her eyes wide and +strained with distress, "if you go away and get married, won't I NEVER +see you no more?" +</P> + +<P> +"But, dear, I shall live so near—at the Normal School only a few miles +away. You can come to see me often." +</P> + +<P> +"But pop won't leave me, Miss Margaret—it costs too expensive to go +wisiting, and I got to help with the work, still. O Miss Margaret!" +Tillie sobbed, as Margaret sat down and held the clinging child to her, +"I'll never see you no more after you go away!" +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie, dear!" Margaret tried to soothe her. "I 'll come to see YOU, +then, if you can't come to see me. Listen, Tillie,—I've just thought +of something." +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she put the little girl from her and stood up. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me take Tillie to live with me next fall at the Normal School. +Won't you do that, Mr. Getz!" she urged him. "She could go to the +preparatory school, and if we stay at Millersville, Dr. Lansing and I +would try to have her go through the Normal School and graduate. Will +you consent to it, Mr. Getz?" +</P> + +<P> +"And who'd be payin' fur all this here?" Mr. Getz ironically inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie could earn her own way as my little maid—helping me keep my +few rooms in the Normal School building and doing my mending and +darning for me. And you know after she was graduated she could earn her +living as a teacher." +</P> + +<P> +Margaret saw the look of feverish eagerness with which Tillie heard +this proposal and awaited the outcome. +</P> + +<P> +Before her husband could answer, Mrs. Getz offered a weak protest. +</P> + +<P> +"I hear the girls hired in town have to set away back in the kitchen +and never dare set front—always away back, still. Tillie wouldn't like +that. Nobody would." +</P> + +<P> +"But I shall live in a small suite of rooms at the school—a library, a +bedroom, a bath-room, and a small room next to mine that can be +Tillie's bedroom. We shall take our meals in the school dining-room." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that mebbe she wouldn't mind. But 'way back she wouldn't be +satisfied to set. That's why the country girls don't like to hire in +town, because they dassent set front with the missus. Here last +market-day Sophy Haberbush she conceited she'd like oncet to hire out +in town, and she ast me would I go with her after market to see a lady +that advertised in the newspaper fur a girl, and I sayed no, I wouldn't +mind. So I went along. But Sophy she wouldn't take the place fur all. +She ast the lady could she have her country company, Sundays—he was +her company fur four years now and she wouldn't like to give him up +neither. She tole the lady her company goes, still, as early as eleven. +But the lady sayed her house must be darkened and locked at half-past +ten a'ready. She ast me was I Sophy's mother and I sayed no, I'm +nothin' to her but a neighbor woman. And she tole Sophy, when they eat, +still, Sophy she couldn't eat along. I guess she thought Sophy +Haberbush wasn't good enough. But she's as good as any person. Her +mother's name is Smith before she was married, and them Smiths was well +fixed. She sayed Sophy'd have to go in and out the back way and never +out the front. Why, they say some of the town people's that proud, if +the front door-bell rings and the missus is standin' right there by it, +she won't open that there front door but wants her hired girl to come +clear from the kitchen to open it. Yes, you mightn't b'lee me, but I +heerd that a'ready. And Mary Hertzog she tole me when she hired out +there fur a while one winter in town, why, one day she went to the +missus and she says, 'There's two ladies in the parlor and I tole 'em +you was helpin' in the kitchen,' and the missus she ast her, 'What fur +did you tell 'em that? Why, I'm that ashamed I don't know how to walk +in the parlor!' And Mary she ast the colored gentleman that worked +there, what, now, did the missus mean?—and he sayed, 'Well, Mary, +you've a heap to learn about the laws of society. Don't you know you +must always leave on the ladies ain't doin' nothin'?' Mary sayed that +colored gentleman was so wonderful intelligent that way. He'd been a +restaurant waiter there fur a while and so was throwed in with the best +people, and he was, now, that tony and high-minded! Och, I wouldn't +hire in town! To be sure, Mister can do what he wants. Well," she +added, "it's a quarter till five—I guess I'll put the peppermint on a +while. Mister's folks'll be here till five." +</P> + +<P> +She moved away to the stove, and Margaret resumed her assault upon the +stubborn ignorance of the father. +</P> + +<P> +"Think, Mr. Getz, what a difference all this would make in Tillie's +life," she urged. +</P> + +<P> +"And you'd be learnin' her all them years to up and sass her pop when +she was growed and earnin' her own livin'!" he objected. +</P> + +<P> +"I certainly would not." +</P> + +<P> +"And all them years till she graduated she'd be no use to us where owns +her," he said, as though his child were an item of live stock on the +farm. +</P> + +<P> +"She could come home to you in the summer vacations," Margaret +suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and she'd come that spoilt we couldn't get no work out of her. +No, if I hire her out winters, it'll be where I kin draw her wages +myself—where's my right as her parent. What does a body have childern +fur? To get no use out of 'em? It ain't no good you're plaguin' me. I +ain't leavin' her go. Tillie!" he commanded the child with a twirl of +his thumb and a motion of his head; "go set the supper-table!" +</P> + +<P> +Margaret laid her arm about Tillie's shoulder. "Well, dear," she said +sorrowfully, "we must give it all up, I suppose. But don't lose heart, +Tillie. I shall not go out of your life. At least we can write to each +other. Now," she concluded, bending and kissing her, "I must go, but +you and I shall have some talks before you stop school, and before I go +away from New Canaan." +</P> + +<P> +She pressed her lips to Tillie's in a long kiss, while the child clung +to her in passionate devotion. Mr. Getz looked on with dull +bewilderment. He knew, in a vague way, that every word the teacher +spoke to the child, no less than those useless caresses, was "siding +along with the scholar ag'in' the parent," and yet he could not +definitely have stated just how. He was quite sure that she would not +dare so to defy him did she not know that she had the whip-handle in +the fact that she did not want her "job" next year, and that the Board +could not, except for definite offenses, break their contract with her. +It was only in view of these considerations that she played her game of +"plaguing" him by championing Tillie. Jacob Getz was incapable of +recognizing in the teacher's attitude toward his child an unselfish +interest and love. +</P> + +<P> +So, in dogged, sullen silence, he saw this extraordinary young woman +take her leave and pass out of his house. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"I'LL DO MY DARN BEST, TEACHER!" +</H3> + +<P> +It soon "got put out" in New Canaan that Miss Margaret was "promised," +and the doctor was surprised to find how much the news depressed him. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know, now, how much I was stuck on her! To think I can't have +her even if I do want her" (up to this time he had had moments now and +then of not feeling absolutely sure of his inclination), "and that +she's promised to one of them tony Millersville Normal professors! If +it don't beat all! Well," he drew a long, deep sigh as, lounging back +in his buggy, he let his horse jog at his own gait along the muddy +country road, "I jus' don't feel fur NOTHIN' to-day. She was now +certainly a sweet lady," he thought pensively, as though alluding to +one who had died. "If there's one sek I do now like, it's the +female—and she was certainly a nice party!" +</P> + +<P> +In the course of her career at William Penn, Miss Margaret had +developed such a genuine fondness for the shaggy, good-natured, +generous, and unscrupulous little doctor, that before she abandoned her +post at the end of the term, and shook the dust of New Canaan from her +feet, she took him into her confidence and begged him to take care of +Tillie. +</P> + +<P> +"She is an uncommon child, doctor, and she must—I am determined that +she must—be rescued from the life to which that father of hers would +condemn her. You must help me to bring it about." +</P> + +<P> +"Nothin' I like better, Teacher, than gettin' ahead of Jake Getz," the +doctor readily agreed. "Or obligin' YOU. To tell you the truth,—and it +don't do no harm to say it now,—if you hadn't been promised, I was +a-goin' to ast you myself! You took notice I gave you an inwitation +there last week to go buggy-ridin' with me. That was leadin' up to it. +After that Sunday night you left me set up with you, I never conceited +you was promised a'ready to somebody else—and you even left me set +with my feet on your chair-rounds!" The doctor's tone was a bit injured. +</P> + +<P> +"Am I to understand," inquired Miss Margaret, wonderingly, "that the +permission to sit with one's feet on the rounds of a lady's chair is +taken in New Canaan as an indication of her favor—and even of her +inclination to matrimony?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's looked to as meanin' gettin' down to BIZ!" the doctor affirmed. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," meekly, "I humbly apologize." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right," generously granted the doctor, "if you didn't know +no better. But to be sure, I'm some disappointed." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry for that!" +</P> + +<P> +"Would you of mebbe said yes, if you hadn't of been promised a'ready to +one of them tony Millersville Normal professors," the doctor inquired +curiously—"me bein' a professional gentleman that way?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure," replied this daughter of Eve, who wished to use the doctor +in her plans for Tillie, "I should have been highly honored." +</P> + +<P> +The rueful, injured look on the doctor's face cleared to flattered +complacency. "Well," he said, "I'd like wery well to do what you ast +off of me fur little Tillie Getz. But, Teacher, what can a body do +against a feller like Jake Getz? A body can't come between a man and +his own offspring." +</P> + +<P> +"I know it," replied Margaret, sadly. "But just keep a little watch +over Tillie and help her whenever you see that you can. Won't you? +Promise me that you will. You have several times helped her out of +trouble this winter. There may be other similar opportunities. Between +us, doctor, we may be able to make something of Tillie." +</P> + +<P> +The doctor shook his head. "I'll do my darn best, Teacher, but Jake +Getz he's that wonderful set. A little girl like Tillie couldn't never +make no headway with Jake Getz standin' in her road. But anyways, +Teacher, I pass you my promise I'll do what I can." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret's parting advice and promises to Tillie so fired the +girl's ambition and determination that some of the sting and anguish of +parting from her who stood to the child for all the mother-love that +her life had missed, was taken away in the burning purpose with which +she found herself imbued, to bend her every thought and act in all the +years to come to the reaching of that glorious goal which her idolized +teacher set before her. +</P> + +<P> +"As soon as you are old enough," Miss Margaret admonished her, "you +must assert yourself. Take your rights—your right to an education, to +some girlish pleasures, to a little liberty. No matter what you have to +suffer in the struggle, FIGHT IT OUT, for you will suffer more in the +end if you let yourself be defrauded of everything which makes it worth +while to have been born. Don't let yourself be sacrificed for those who +not only will never appreciate it, but who will never be worth it. I +think I do you no harm by telling you that you are worth all the rest +of your family put together. The self-sacrifice which pampers the +selfishness of others is NOT creditable. It is weak. It is unworthy. +Remember what I say to you—make a fight for your rights, just as soon +as you are old enough—your right to be a woman instead of a chattel +and a drudge. And meantime, make up for your rebellion by being as +obedient and helpful and affectionate to your parents as you can be, +without destroying yourself." +</P> + +<P> +Such sentiments and ideas were almost a foreign language to Tillie, and +yet, intuitively, she understood the import of them. In her loneliness, +after Miss Margaret's departure, she treasured and brooded over them +day and night; and very much as the primitive Christian courted +martyrdom, her mind dwelt, with ever-growing resolution, upon the +thought of the heroic courage with which, in the years to come, she +would surely obey them. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Margaret had promised Tillie that she would write to her, and the +child, overlooking the serious difficulties in the way, had eagerly +promised in return, to answer her letters. +</P> + +<P> +Once a week Mr. Getz called for mail at the village store, and Miss +Margaret's first letter was laboriously read by him on his way out to +the farm. +</P> + +<P> +He found it, on the whole, uninteresting, but he vaguely gathered from +one or two sentences that the teacher, even at the distance of five +miles, was still trying to "plague" him by "siding along with his child +ag'in' her parent." +</P> + +<P> +"See here oncet," he said to Tillie, striding to the kitchen stove on +his return home, the letter in his hand: "this here goes after them +novel-books, in the fire! I ain't leavin' that there woman spoil you +with no such letters like this here. Now you know!" +</P> + +<P> +The gleam of actual wickedness in Tillie's usually soft eyes, as she +saw that longed-for letter tossed into the flames, would have startled +her father had he seen it. The girl trembled from head to foot and +turned a deathly white. +</P> + +<P> +"I hate you, hate you, hate you!" her hot heart was saying as she +literally glared at her tormentor. "I'll never forget this—never, +never; I'll make you suffer for it—I will, I will!" +</P> + +<P> +But her white lips were dumb, and her impotent passion, having no other +outlet, could only tear and bruise her own heart as all the long +morning she worked in a blind fury at her household tasks. +</P> + +<P> +But after dinner she did an unheard-of thing. Without asking +permission, or giving any explanation to either her father or her +stepmother, she deliberately abandoned her usual Saturday afternoon +work of cleaning up (she said to herself that she did not care if the +house rotted), and dressing herself, she walked straight through the +kitchen before her stepmother's very eyes, and out of the house. +</P> + +<P> +Her father was out in the fields when she undertook this high-handed +step; and her mother was so dumb with amazement at such unusual +behavior that she offered but a weak protest. +</P> + +<P> +"What'll pop say to your doin' somepin like this here!" she called +querulously after Tillie as she followed her across the kitchen to the +door. "He'll whip you, Tillie; and here's all the sweepin' to be did—" +</P> + +<P> +There was a strange gleam in Tillie's eyes before which the woman +shrank and held her peace. The girl swept past her, almost walked over +several of the children sprawling on the porch, and went out of the +gate and up the road toward the village. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter of her anyways?" the woman wonderingly said to +herself as she went back to her work. "Is it that she's so spited about +that letter pop burnt up? But what's a letter to get spited about? +There was enough worse things'n that that she took off her pop without +actin' like this. Och, but he'll whip her if he gets in here before she +comes back. Where's she goin' to, I wonder! Well, I never did! I would +not be HER if her pop finds how she went off and let her work! I wonder +shall I mebbe tell him on her or not, if he don't get in till she's +home a'ready?" +</P> + +<P> +She meditated upon this problem of domestic economy as she mechanically +did her chores, her reflections on Tillie taking an unfriendly color as +she felt the weight of her stepdaughter's abandoned tasks added to the +already heavy burden of her own. +</P> + +<P> +It was to see the doctor that Tillie had set out for the village hotel. +He was the only person in all her little world to whom she felt she +could turn for help in her suffering. Her "Aunty Em," the landlady at +the hotel, was, she knew, very fond of her; but Tillie never thought of +appealing to her in her trouble. +</P> + +<P> +"I never thought when I promised Miss Margaret I'd write to her still +where I'd get the stamps from, and the paper and envelops," Tillie +explained to the doctor as they sat in confidential consultation in the +hotel parlor, the child's white face of distress a challenge to his +faithful remembrance of his promise to the teacher. "And now I got to +find some way to let her know I didn't see her letter to me. Doc, will +you write and tell her for me?" she pleaded. +</P> + +<P> +"My hand-writin' ain't just so plain that way, Tillie. But I'll give +you all the paper and envelops and stamps you want to write on yourself +to her." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Doc!" Tillie gazed at him in fervent gratitude. "But mebbe I +hadn't ought to take 'em when I can't pay you." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right. If it'll make you feel some easier, you kin pay me +when you're growed up and teachin'. Your Miss Margaret she's bound to +make a teacher out of you—or anyways a educated person. And then you +kin pay me when you're got your nice education to make your livin' +with." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what we'll do then!" Tillie joyfully accepted this proposal. +"I'll keep account and pay you back every cent, Doc, when I'm earnin' +my own livin'." +</P> + +<P> +"All right. That's settled then. Now, fur your gettin' your letters, +still, from Teacher. How are we goin' to work that there? I'll tell +you, Tillie!" he slapped the table as an idea came to him. "You write +her off a letter and tell her she must write her letters to you in a +envelop directed to ME. And I'll see as you get 'em all right, you bet! +Ain't?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Doc!" Tillie was affectionately grateful. "You are so kind to me! +What would I do without you?" Tears choked her voice, filled her eyes, +and rolled down her face. +</P> + +<P> +"Och, that's all right," he patted her shoulder. "Ain't no better fun +goin' fur me than gettin' ahead of that mean old Jake Getz!" Tillie +drew back a bit shocked; but she did not protest. +</P> + +<P> +Carrying in her bosom a stamped envelop, a sheet of paper and a pencil, +the child walked home in a very different frame of mind from that in +which she had started out. She shuddered as she remembered how wickedly +rebellious had been her mood that morning. Never before had such hot +and dreadful feelings and thoughts burned in her heart and brain. In an +undefined way, the growing girl realized that such a state of mind and +heart was unworthy her sacred friendship with Miss Margaret. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to be like her—and she was never ugly in her feelings like +what I was all morning!" +</P> + +<P> +When she reached home, she so effectually made up for lost time in the +vigor with which she attacked the Saturday cleaning that Mrs. Getz, +with unusual forbearance, decided not to tell her father of her +insubordination. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie wrote her first letter to Miss Margaret, ty stealth, at midnight. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ADAM SCHUNK'S FUNERAL +</H3> + +<P> +A crucial struggle with her father, to which both Tillie and Miss +Margaret had fearfully looked forward, came about much sooner than +Tillie had anticipated. The occasion of it, too, was not at all what +she had expected and even planned it to be. +</P> + +<P> +It was her conversion, just a year after she had been taken out of +school, to the ascetic faith of the New Mennonites that precipitated +the crisis, this conversion being wrought by a sermon which she heard +at the funeral of a neighboring farmer. +</P> + +<P> +A funeral among the farmers of Lancaster County is a festive occasion, +the most popular form of dissipation known, bringing the whole +population forth as in some regions they turn out to a circus. +</P> + +<P> +Adam Schank's death, having been caused by his own hand in a fit of +despair over the loss of some money he had unsuccessfully invested, was +so sudden and shocking that the effect produced on Canaan Township was +profound, not to say awful. +</P> + +<P> +As for Tillie, it was the first event of the kind that had ever come +within her experience, and the religious sentiments in which she had +been reared aroused in her, in common with the rest of the community, a +superstitious fear before this sudden and solemn calling to judgment of +one whom they had all known so familiarly, and who had so wickedly +taken his own life. +</P> + +<P> +During the funeral at the farm-house, she sat in the crowded parlor +where the coffin stood, and though surrounded by people, she felt +strangely alone with this weird mystery of Death which for the first +time she was realizing. +</P> + +<P> +Her mother was in the kitchen with the other farmers' wives of the +neighborhood who were helping to prepare the immense quantity of food +necessary to feed the large crowd that always attended a funeral, every +one of whom, by the etiquette of the county, remained to supper after +the services. +</P> + +<P> +Her father, being among the hired hostlers of the occasion, was outside +in the barn. Mr. Getz was head hostler at every funeral of the +district, being detailed to assist and superintend the work of the +other half dozen men employed to take charge of the "teams" that +belonged to the funeral guests, who came in families, companies, and +crowds. That so well-to-do a farmer as Jake Getz, one who owned his +farm "clear," should make a practice of hiring out as a funeral +hostler, with the humbler farmers who only rented the land they tilled, +was one of the facts which gave him his reputation for being "keen on +the penny." +</P> + +<P> +Adam Schunk, deceased, had been an "Evangelical," but his wife being a +New Mennonite, a sect largely prevailing in southeastern Pennsylvania, +the funeral services were conducted by two ministers, one of them a New +Mennonite and the other an Evangelical. It was the sermon of the New +Mennonite that led to Tillie's conversion. +</P> + +<P> +The New Mennonites being the most puritanic and exclusive of all sects, +earnestly regarding themselves as the custodians of the only absolutely +true light, their ministers insist on certain prerogatives as the +condition of giving their services at a funeral. A New Mennonite +preacher will not consent to preach after a "World's preacher"—he must +have first voice. It was therefore the somber doctrine of fear preached +by the Reverend Brother Abram Underwocht which did its work upon +Tillie's conscience so completely that the gentler Gospel set forth +afterward by the Evangelical brother was scarcely heeded. +</P> + +<P> +The Reverend Brother Abram Underwocht, in the "plain" garb of the +Mennonite sect, took his place at the foot of the stairway opening out +of the sitting-room, and gave expression to his own profound sense of +the solemnity of the occasion by a question introductory to his sermon, +and asked in a tone of heavy import: "If this ain't a blow, what is it?" +</P> + +<P> +Handkerchiefs were promptly produced and agitated faces hidden therein. +</P> + +<P> +Why this was a "blow" of more than usual force, Brother Underwocht +proceeded to explain in a blood-curdling talk of more than an hour's +length, in which he set forth the New Mennonite doctrine that none +outside of the only true faith of Christ, as held and taught by the New +Mennonites, could be saved from the fire which cannot be quenched. With +the heroism born of deep conviction, he stoically disregarded the +feelings of the bereaved family, and affirmed that the deceased having +belonged to one of "the World's churches," no hope could be entertained +for him, nor could his grieving widow look forward to meeting him again +in the heavenly home to which she, a saved New Mennonite, was destined. +</P> + +<P> +Taking advantage of the fact that at least one third of those present +were non-Mennonites, Brother Underwoeht followed the usual course of +the preachers of his sect on such an occasion, and made of his funeral +sermon an exposition of the whole field of New Mennonite faith and +practice. Beginning in the Garden of Eden, he graphically described +that renowned locality as a type of the Paradise from which Adam Schunk +and others who did not "give themselves up" were excluded. +</P> + +<P> +"It must have been a magnificent scenery to Almighty Gawd," he said, +referring to the beauties of man's first Paradise. "But how soon to be +snatched by sin from man's mortal vision, when Eve started that +conversation with the enemy of her soul! Beloved, that was an +unfortunate circumstance! And you that are still out of Christ and in +the world, have need to pray fur Gawd's help, his aid, and his +assistance, to enable you to overcome the enemy who that day was turned +loose upon the world—that Gawd may see fit to have you when you're +done here a'ready. Heed the solemn warning of this poor soul now laying +before you cold in death! +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "'Know that you're a transient creature,<BR> + Soon to fade and pass away."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Even Lazarus, where [who] was raised to life, was not raised fur never +to die no more!" +</P> + +<P> +The only comfort he could offer to this stricken household was that HE +knew how bad they felt, having had a brother who had died with equal +suddenness and also without hope, as he "had suosode hisself with a +gun." +</P> + +<P> +This lengthy sermon was followed by a hymn, sung a line at a time at +the preacher's dictation: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "The body we now to the grave will commit,<BR> + To there see corruption till Jesus sees fit<BR> + A spirit'al body for it to prepare,<BR> + Which henceforth then shall immortality wear."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +The New Mennonites being forbidden by the "Rules of the Meeting" ever +to hear a prayer or sermon by one who is not "a member," it was +necessary, at the end of the Reverend Abram Underwocht's sermon, for +all the Mennonites present to retire to a room apart and sit behind +closed doors, while the Evangelical brother put forth his false +doctrine. +</P> + +<P> +So religiously stirred was Tillie by the occasion that she was strongly +tempted to rise and follow into the kitchen those who were thus +retiring from the sound of the false teacher's voice. But her +conversion not yet being complete, she kept her place. +</P> + +<P> +No doubt it was not so much the character of Brother Underwocht's New +Mennonite sermon which effected this state in Tillie as that the +spiritual condition of the young girl, just awakening to her womanhood, +with all its mysterious craving, its religious brooding, its emotional +susceptibility, led her to respond with her whole soul to the first +appeal to her feelings. +</P> + +<P> +Absorbed in her mournful contemplation of her own deep "conviction of +sin," she did not heed the singing, led by the Evangelical brother, of +the hymn, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Rock of Ages, clept for me,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +nor did she hear a word of his discourse. +</P> + +<P> +At the conclusion of the house services, and before the journey to the +graveyard, the supper was served, first to the mourners, and then to +all those who expected to follow the body to the grave. The third +table, for those who had prepared the meal, and the fourth, for the +hostlers, were set after the departure of the funeral procession. +</P> + +<P> +Convention has prescribed that the funeral meal shall consist +invariably of cold meat, cheese, all sorts of stewed dried fruits, +pickles, "lemon rice" (a dish never omitted), and coffee. +</P> + +<P> +As no one household possesses enough dishes for such an occasion, two +chests of dishes owned by the Mennonite church are sent to the house of +mourning whenever needed by a member of the Meeting. +</P> + +<P> +The Mennonites present suffered a shock to their feelings upon the +appearance of the widow of the deceased Adam Schunk, for—unprecedented +circumstance!—she wore over her black Mennonite hood a crape veil! +This was an innovation nothing short of revolutionary, and the brethren +and sisters, to whom their prescribed form of dress was sacred, were +bewildered to know how they ought to regard such a digression from +their rigid customs. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess Mandy's proud of herself with her weil," Tillie's stepmother +whispered to her as she gave the girl a tray of coffee-cups to deliver +about the table. +</P> + +<P> +But Tillie's thoughts were inward bent, and she heeded not what went on +about her. Fear of death and the judgment, a longing to find the peace +which could come only with an assured sense of her salvation, darkness +as to how that peace might be found, a sense of the weakness of her +flesh and spirit before her father's undoubted opposition to her +"turning plain," as well as his certain refusal to supply the +wherewithal for her Mennonite garb, should she indeed be led of the +Spirit to "give herself up,"—all these warring thoughts and emotions +stamped their lines upon the girl's sweet, troubled countenance, as, +blind and deaf to her surroundings, she lent her helping hand almost as +one acting in a trance. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"POP! I FEEL TO BE PLAIN" +</H3> + +<P> +The psychical and, considering the critical age of the young girl, the +physiological processes by which Tillie was finally led to her +conversion it is not necessary to analyze; for the experience is too +universal, and differs too slightly in individual cases, to require +comment. Perhaps in Tillie's case it was a more intense and permanent +emotion than with the average convert. Otherwise, deep and earnest +though it was with her, it was not unique. +</P> + +<P> +The New Mennonite sermon which had been the instrument to determine the +channel in which should flow the emotional tide of her awakening +womanhood, had convinced her that if she would be saved, she dare not +compromise with the world by joining one of those churches as, for +instance, the Methodist or the Evangelical, which permitted every sort +of worldly indulgence,—fashionable dress, attendance at the circus, +voting at the polls, musical instruments, "pleasure-seeking," and many +other things which the Word of God forbade. She must give herself up to +the Lord absolutely and entirely, forswearing all the world's +allurements. The New Mennonites alone, of all the Christian sects, +lived up to this scriptural ideal, and with them Tillie would cast her +lot. +</P> + +<P> +This austere body of Christians could not so easily have won her heart +had it forbidden her cherished ambition, constantly encouraged and +stimulated by Miss Margaret, to educate herself. Fortunately for her +peace of mind, the New Mennonites were not, like the Amish, "enemies to +education," though to be sure, as the preacher, Brother Abram +Underwocht, reminded her in her private talk with him, "To be dressy, +or TOO well educated, or stylish, didn't belong to Christ and the +apostles; they were plain folks." +</P> + +<P> +It was in the lull of work that came, even in the Getz family, on +Sunday afternoon, that Tillie, summoning to her aid all the fervor of +her new-found faith, ventured to face the ordeal of opening up with her +father the subject of her conversion. +</P> + +<P> +He was sitting on the kitchen porch, dozing over a big Bible spread +open on his knee. The children were playing on the lawn, and Mrs. Getz +was taking her Sunday afternoon nap on the kitchen settee. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie seated herself on the porch step at her father's feet. Her eyes +were clear and bright, but her face burned, and her heart beat heavily +in her heaving bosom. +</P> + +<P> +"Pop!" she timidly roused him from his dozing. +</P> + +<P> +"Heh?" he muttered gruffly, opening his eyes and lifting his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Pop, I got to speak somepin to you." +</P> + +<P> +An unusual note in her voice arrested him, and, wide awake now, he +looked down at her inquiringly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well? What, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Pop! I feel to be plain." +</P> + +<P> +"YOU! Feel fur turnin' plain! Why, you ain't old enough to know the +meanin' of it! What d' you want about that there theology?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm fourteen, pop. And the Spirit has led me to see the light. I have +gave myself up," she affirmed quietly, but with a quiver in her voice. +</P> + +<P> +"You have gave yourself up!" her father incredulously repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir. And I'm loosed of all things that belong to the world. And +now I feel fur wearin' the plain dress, fur that's according to +Scripture, which says, 'all is wanity!'" +</P> + +<P> +Never before in her life had Tillie spoken so many words to her father +at one time, and he stared at her in astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you're growin' up, that's so. I ain't noticed how fast you was +growin'. It don't seem no time since you was born. But it's fourteen +years back a'ready—yes, that's so. Well, Tillie, if you feel fur +joinin' church, you're got to join on to the Evangelicals. I ain't +leavin' you follow no such nonsense as to turn plain. That don't belong +to us Getzes. We're Evangelicals this long time a'ready." +</P> + +<P> +"Aunty Em was a Getz, and SHE's gave herself up long ago." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she's the only one by the name Getz that I ever knowed to be so +foolish! I'm an Evangelical, and what's good enough fur your pop will +do YOU, I guess!" +</P> + +<P> +"The Evangelicals ain't according to Scripture, pop. They have wine at +the Communion, and the Bible says, 'Taste not, handle not,' and 'Look +not upon the wine when it is red.'" +</P> + +<P> +That she should criticize the Evangelicals and pronounce them +unscriptural was disintegrating to all his ideas of the subjection, of +children. His sun-burned face grew darker. +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe you don't twist that there Book! Gawd he wouldn't of created +wine to be made if it would be wrong fur to look at it! You can't come +over that, can you? Them Scripture you spoke, just mean not to drink to +drunkenness, nor eat to gluttonness. But," he sternly added, "it ain't +fur you to answer up to your pop! I ain't leavin' you dress plain—and +that's all that's to say!" +</P> + +<P> +"I got to do it, pop," Tillie's low voice answered, "I must obey to +Christ." +</P> + +<P> +"What you sayin' to me? That you got to do somepin I tole you you +haven't the dare to do? Are you sayin' that to ME, Tillie? Heh?" +</P> + +<P> +"I got to obey to Christ," she repeated, her face paling. +</P> + +<P> +"You think! Well, we'll see about that oncet! You leave me see you +obeyin' to any one before your pop, and you'll soon get learnt better! +How do you bring it out that the Scripture says, 'Childern, obey your +parents'?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Obey your parents in the Lord,'" Tillie amended. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you'll be obeyin' to the Scripture AND your parent by joinin' +the Evangelicals. D' you understand?" +</P> + +<P> +"The Evangelicals don't hold to Scripture, pop. They enlist. And we +don't read of Christ takin' any interest in war." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but in the Old Dispensation them old kings did it, and certainly +they was good men! They're in the Bible!" +</P> + +<P> +"But we're livin' under the New Dispensation. And a many things is +changed to what they were under the Old. Pop, I can't dress fashionable +any more." +</P> + +<P> +"Now, look here, Tillie, I oughtn't argy no words with you, fur you're +my child and you're got the right to mind me just because I say it. But +can't you see the inconsistentness of the plain people? Now a New +Mennonite he says his conscience won't leave him wear grand [wear +worldly dress] but he'll make his livin' in Lancaster city by keepin' a +jew'lry-store. And yet them Mennonites won't leave a sister keep a +millinery-shop!" +</P> + +<P> +"But," Tillie tried to hold her ground, "there's watches, pop, and +clocks that jew'lers sells. They're useful. We got to have watches and +clocks. Millinery is only pleasing to the eye." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, the women couldn't go bare-headed neither, could they? And is +ear-rings and such things like them useful? And all them fancy things +they keep in their dry-goods stores? Och, they're awful inconsistent +that way! I ain't got no use fur New Mennonites! Why, here one day, +when your mom was livin' yet, I owed a New Mennonite six cents, and I +handed him a dime and he couldn't change it out, but he sayed he'd send +me the four cents. Well, I waited and waited, and he never sent it. +Then I bought such a postal-card and wrote it in town to him yet. And +that didn't fetch the four cents neither. I wrote to him backward and +forward till I had wrote three cards a'ready, and then I seen I +wouldn't gain nothin' by writin' one more if he did pay me, and if he +didn't pay I'd lose that other cent yet. So I let it. Now that's a New +Mennonite fur you! Do you call that consistentness?" +</P> + +<P> +"But it's the Word of Gawd I go by, pop, not by the weak brethren." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you'll go by your pop's word and not join to them New +Mennonites! Now I don't want to hear no more!" +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you buy me the plain garb, pop?" +</P> + +<P> +"Buy you the plain garb! Now look here, Tillie. If ever you ast me +again to leave you join to anything but the Evangelicals, or speak +somepin to me about buyin' you the plain garb, I'm usin' the strap. Do +you hear me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Pop," said Tillie, solemnly, her face very white, "I'll always obey to +you where I can—where I think it's right to. But if you won't buy me +the plain dress and cap, Aunty Em Wackernagel's going to. She says she +never knew what happiness it was to be had in this life till she gave +herself up and dressed plain and loosed herself from all worldly +things. And I feel just like her." +</P> + +<P> +"All right—just you come wearin' them Mennonite costumes 'round me +oncet! I'll burn 'em up like what I burned up them novels where you +lent off of your teacher! And I'll punish you so's you won't try it a +second time to do what I tell you you haven't the dare to do!" +</P> + +<P> +The color flowed back into Tillie's white face as he spoke. She was +crimson now as she rose from the porch step and turned away from him to +go into the house. +</P> + +<P> +Jake Getz realized, as with a sort of dull wonder his eyes followed +her, that there was a something in his daughter's face this day, and in +the bearing of her young frame as she walked before him, which he was +not wont to see, which he did not understand, and with which he felt he +could not cope. The vague sense of uneasiness which it gave him +strengthened his resolve to crush, with a strong hand, this budding +insubordination. +</P> + +<P> +Two uneventful weeks passed by, during which Tillie's quiet and dutiful +demeanor almost disarmed her father's threatening watchfulness of her; +so that when, one Sunday afternoon, at four o'clock, she returned from +a walk to her Aunty Em Wackernagel's, clad in the meek garb of the New +Mennonites, his amazement at her intrepidity was even greater than his +anger. +</P> + +<P> +The younger children, in high glee at what to them was a most comical +transformation in their elder sister, danced around her with shrieks of +laughter, crying out at the funny white cap which she wore, and the +prim little three-cornered cape falling over her bosom, designed +modestly to cover the vanity of woman's alluring form. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Getz, mechanically moving about the kitchen to get the supper, +paused in her work only long enough to remark with stupid astonishment, +"Did you, now, get religion, Tillie?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am. I've gave myself up." +</P> + +<P> +"Where did you come by the plain dress?" +</P> + +<P> +"Aunty Em bought it for me and helped me make it." +</P> + +<P> +Her father had followed her in from the porch and now came up to her as +she stood in the middle of the kitchen. The children scattered at his +approach. +</P> + +<P> +"You go up-stairs and take them clo'es off!" he commanded. "I ain't +leavin' you wear 'em one hour in this house!" +</P> + +<P> +"I have no others to put on, pop," Tillie gently answered, her soft +eyes meeting his with an absence of fear which puzzled and baffled him. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's your others, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've let 'em at Aunty Em's. She took 'em in exchange for my plain +dress. She says she can use 'em on 'Manda and Rebecca." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you walk yourself right back over to the hotel and get 'em back +of? of her, and let them clo'es you got on. Go!" he roughly pointed to +the door. +</P> + +<P> +"She wouldn't give 'em back to me. She'd know I hadn't ought to yield +up to temptation, and she'd help me to resist by refusing me my +fashionable clo'es." +</P> + +<P> +"You tell her if you come back home without 'em, I'm whippin' you! +She'll give 'em to you then." +</P> + +<P> +"She'd say my love to Christ ought not to be so weak but I can bear +anything you want to do to me, pop. She had to take an awful lot off of +gran'pop when she turned plain. Pop," she added earnestly, "no matter +what you do to me, I ain't givin' 'way; I'm standin' firm to serve +Christ!" +</P> + +<P> +"We'll see oncet!" her father grimly answered, striding across the room +and taking his strap from its corner in the kitchen cupboard he grasped +Tillie's slender shoulder and lifted his heavy arm. +</P> + +<P> +And now for the first time in her life his wife interposed a word +against his brutality. +</P> + +<P> +"Jake!" +</P> + +<P> +In astonishment he turned to her. She was as pale as her stepdaughter. +</P> + +<P> +"Jake! If she HAS got religion, you'll have awful bad luck if you try +to get her away from it!" +</P> + +<P> +"I ain't sayin' she can't get RELIGION if she wants! To be sure, I +brung her up to be a Christian. But I don't hold to this here nonsense +of turnin' plain, and I tole her so, and she's got to obey to me or +I'll learn her!" +</P> + +<P> +"You'll have bad luck if you whip her fur somepin like this here," his +wife repeated. "Don't you mind how when Aunty Em turned plain and +gran'pop he acted to her so ugly that way, it didn't rain fur two weeks +and his crops was spoilt, and he got that boil yet on his neck! Yes, +you'll see oncet," she warned him "if you use the strap fur somepin +like what this is, what you'll mebbe come by yet!" +</P> + +<P> +"Och, you're foolish!" he answered, but his tone was not confident. His +raised arm dropped to his side and he looked uneasily into Tillie's +face, while he still kept his painful grasp of her shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +The soft bright eyes of the young girl met his, not with defiance, but +with a light in them that somehow brought before his mind the look her +mother had worn the night she died. Superstition was in his blood, and +he shuddered inwardly at his uncanny sense of mystery before this +unfamiliar, illumined countenance of his daughter. The exalted soul of +the girl cast a spell which even HIS unsensitive spirit could keenly +feel, and something stirred in his breast—the latent sense of +affectionate, protecting fatherhood. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie saw and felt this sudden change in him. She lifted her free hand +and laid it on his arm, her lips quivering. "Father!" she half +whispered. +</P> + +<P> +She had never called him that before, and it seemed strangely to bring +home to him what, in this crisis of his child's life, was due to her +from him, her only living parent. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly he released her shoulder and tossed away the strap. "I see I +wouldn't be doin' right to oppose you in this here, Tillie. Well, I'm +glad, fur all, that I ain't whippin' you. It goes ag'in' me to hit you +since you was sick that time. You're gettin' full big, too, to be +punished that there way, fur all I always sayed still I'd never leave a +child of mine get ahead of me, no matter how big they was, so long as +they lived off of me. But this here's different. You're feelin' +conscientious about this here matter, and I ain't hinderin' you." +</P> + +<P> +To Tillie's unspeakable amazement, he laid his hand on her head and +held it there for an instant. "Gawd bless you, my daughter, and help +you to serve the Lord acceptable!" +</P> + +<P> +So that crisis was past. +</P> + +<P> +But Tillie knew, that night, as she rubbed witch-hazel on her sore +shoulder, that a far worse struggle was before her. In seeking to carry +out the determination that burned in her heart to get an education, no +aid could come to her as it had to-day, from her father's sense of +religious awe. Would she be able, she wondered, to stand firm against +his opposition when, a second time, it came to an issue between them? +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ABSALOM KEEPS COMPANY +</H3> + +<P> +Tillie wrote to Miss Margaret (she could not learn to call her Mrs. +Lansing) how that she had "given herself up and turned plain," and Miss +Margaret, seeing how sacred this experience was to the young girl, +treated the subject with all respect and even reverence. +</P> + +<P> +The correspondence between these two, together with the books which +from time to time came to the girl from her faithful friend, did more +toward Tillie's growth and development along lines of which her parents +had no suspicion, than all the schooling at William Penn, under the +instruction of the average "Millersville Normal," could ever have +accomplished. +</P> + +<P> +And her tongue, though still very provincial, soon lost much of its +native dialect, through her constant reading and study. +</P> + +<P> +Of course whenever her father discovered her with her books he made her +suffer. +</P> + +<P> +"You're got education enough a'ready," he would insist. "And too much +fur your own good. Look at me—I was only educated with a Testament and +a spelling-book and a slate. We had no such a blackboards even, to +recite on. And do <I>I</I> look as if I need to know any more 'n what I know +a'ready?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie bore her punishments like a martyr—and continued +surreptitiously to read and to study whenever and whatever she could; +and not even the extreme conscientiousness of a New Mennonite faltered +at this filial disobedience. She obeyed her father implicitly, however +tyrannical he was, to the point where he bade her suppress and kill all +the best that God had given her of mind and heart. Then she revolted; +and she never for an instant doubted her entire justification in +eluding or defying his authority. +</P> + +<P> +There was another influence besides her books and Miss Margaret's +letters which, unconsciously to herself, was educating Tillie at this +time. Her growing fondness for stealing off to the woods not far from +the farm, of climbing to the hill-top beyond the creek, or walking over +the fields under the wide sky—not only in the spring and summer, but +at all times of the year—was yielding her a richness, a depth and +breadth, of experience that nothing else could have given her. +</P> + +<P> +A nature deeply sensitive to the mysterious appeal of sky and green +earth, of deep, shady forest and glistening water, when unfolding in +daily touch with these things, will learn to see life with a broader, +saner mind and catch glimpses and vistas of truth with a clearer vision +than can ever come to one whose most susceptible years are spent walled +in and overtopped by the houses of the city that shut out and stifle +"the larger thought of God." And Tillie, in spite of her narrowing New +Mennonite "convictions," did reach through her growing love for and +intimacy with Nature a plane of thought and feeling which was +immeasurably above her perfunctory creed. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes the emotions excited by her solitary walks gave the young +girl greater pain than happiness—yet it was a pain she would not have +been spared, for she knew, though the knowledge was never formulated in +her thought, that in some precious, intimate way her suffering set her +apart and above the villagers and farming people about her—those whose +placid, contented eyes never strayed from the potato-patch to the +distant hills, or lifted themselves from the goodly tobacco-fields to +the wide blue heavens. +</P> + +<P> +Thus, cramped and crushing as much of her life was, it had—as all +conditions must have—its compensations; and many of the very +circumstances which at the time seemed most unbearable brought forth in +later years rich fruit. +</P> + +<P> +And so, living under her father's watchful eye and relentless +rule,—with long days of drudgery and outward acquiescence in his +scheme of life that she devote herself, mind, body, and soul, to the +service of himself, his wife, and their children, and in return to be +poorly fed and scantily clad,—Tillie nevertheless grew up in a world +apart, hidden to the sealed vision of those about her; as unknown to +them in her real life as though they had never looked upon her face; +and while her father never for an instant doubted the girl's entire +submission to him, she was day by day waxing stronger in her resolve to +heed Miss Margaret's constant advice and make a fight for her right to +the education her father had denied her, and for a life other than that +to which his will would consign her. +</P> + +<P> +There were dark times when her steadfast purpose seemed impossible of +fulfilment. But Tillie felt she would rather die in the struggle than +become the sort of apathetic household drudge she beheld in her +stepmother—a condition into which it would be so easy to sink, once +she loosed her wagon from its star. +</P> + +<P> +It was when Tillie was seventeen years old—a slight, frail girl, with +a look in her eyes as of one who lives in two worlds—that Absalom +Puntz, one Sunday evening in the fall of the year, saw her safe home +from meeting and asked permission to "keep comp'ny" with her. +</P> + +<P> +Now that morning Tillie had received a letter from Miss Margaret (sent +to her, as always, under cover to the doctor), and Absalom's company on +the way from church was a most unwelcome interruption to her happy +brooding over the precious messages of love and helpfulness which those +letters always brought her. +</P> + +<P> +A request for permission to "keep comp'ny" with a young lady meant a +very definite thing in Canaan Township. "Let's try each other," was +what it signified; and acceptance of the proposition involved on each +side an exclusion of all association with others of the opposite sex. +Tillie of course understood this. +</P> + +<P> +"But you're of the World's people, Absalom," her soft, sweet voice +answered him. They were walking along in the dim evening on the high +dusty pike toward the Getz farm. "And I'm a member of meeting. I can't +marry out of the meeting." +</P> + +<P> +"This long time a'ready, Tillie, I was thinkin' about givin' myself up +and turnin' plain," he assured her. "To be sure, I know I'd have to, to +git you. You've took notice, ain't you, how reg'lar I 'tend meeting? +Well, oncet me and you kin settle this here question of gittin' +married, I'm turnin' plain as soon as I otherwise [possibly] kin." +</P> + +<P> +"I have never thought about keeping company, Absalom." +</P> + +<P> +"Nearly all the girls around here as old as you has their friend +a'ready." +</P> + +<P> +Absalom was twenty years old, stoutly built and coarse-featured, a +deeply ingrained obstinacy being the only characteristic his heavy +countenance suggested. He still attended the district school for a few +months of the winter term. His father was one of the richest farmers of +the neighborhood, and Absalom, being his only child, was considered a +matrimonial prize. +</P> + +<P> +"Is there nobody left for you but me?" Tillie inquired in a +matter-of-fact tone. The conjugal relation, as she saw it in her +father's home and in the neighborhood, with its entirely practical +basis and utter absence of sentiment, had no attraction or interest for +her, and she had long since made up her mind that she would none of it. +</P> + +<P> +"There ain't much choice," granted Absalom. "But I anyways would pick +out you, Tillie." +</P> + +<P> +"Why me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I dunno. I take to you. And I seen a'ready how handy you was at the +work still. Mom says, too, you'd make me a good housekeeper." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie never dreamed of resenting this practical approval of her +qualifications for the post with which Absalom designed to honor her. +It was because of her familiarity with such matrimonial standards as +these that from her childhood up she had determined never to marry. +From what she gathered of Miss Margaret's married life, through her +letters, and from what she learned from the books and magazines which +she read, she knew that out in the great unknown world there existed +another basis of marriage. But she did not understand it and she never +thought about it. The strongly emotional tide of her girlhood, up to +this time, had been absorbed by her remarkable love for Miss Margaret +and by her earnest religiousness. +</P> + +<P> +"There's no use in your wasting your time keeping company with me, +Absalom. I never intend to marry. I've made up my mind." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it that your pop won't leave you, or whatever?" +</P> + +<P> +"I never asked him. I don't know what he would say." +</P> + +<P> +"Mom spoke somepin about mebbe your pop he'd want to keep you at home, +you bein' so useful to him and your mom. But I sayed when you come +eighteen, you're your own boss. Ain't, Tillie?" +</P> + +<P> +"Father probably would object to my marrying because I'm needed at +home," Tillie agreed. "That's why they wouldn't leave me go to school +after I was eleven. But I don't want to marry." +</P> + +<P> +"You leave me be your steady friend, Tillie, and I'll soon get you over +them views," urged Absalom, confidently. +</P> + +<P> +But Tillie shook her head. "It would just waste your time, Absalom." +</P> + +<P> +In Canaan Township it would have been considered highly dishonorable +for a girl to allow a young man to "sit up with her Sundays" if she +definitely knew she would never marry him. Time meant money, and even +the time spent in courting must be judiciously used. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't mind if I do waste my time settin' up with you Sundays, +Tillie. I take to you that much, it's something surprising, now! Will +you give me the dare to come next Sunday?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you don't mind wasting your time—" Tillie reluctantly granted. +</P> + +<P> +"It won't be wasted. I'll soon get you to think different to what you +think now. You just leave me set up with you a couple Sundays and see!" +</P> + +<P> +"I know I'll never think any different, Absalom. You must not suppose +that I will." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it somepin you're got ag'in' me?" he asked incredulously, for he +knew he was considered a prize. "I'm well-fixed enough, ain't I? I'd +make you a good purvider, Tillie. And I don't addict to no bad habits. +I don't chew. Nor I don't drink. Nor I don't swear any. The most I ever +sayed when I was spited was 'confound it.'" +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't that I have anything against you, Absalom, especially. +But—look here, Absalom, if you were a woman, would YOU marry? What +does a woman gain?" +</P> + +<P> +Absalom stared at her in the dusky evening light of the high road. To +ask of his slow-moving brain that it question the foundations of the +universe and wrestle with a social and psychological problem like this +made the poor youth dumb with bewilderment. +</P> + +<P> +"Why SHOULD a woman get married?" Tillie repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what a woman's FUR," Absalom found his tongue to say. +</P> + +<P> +"She loses everything and gains nothing." +</P> + +<P> +"She gets kep'," Absalom argued. +</P> + +<P> +"Like the horses. Only not so carefully. No, thank you, Absalom. I can +keep myself." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd keep you better 'n your pop keeps you, anyways, Tillie. I'd make +you a good purvider." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't ever marry," Tillie repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know you was so funny," Absalom sullenly answered. "You might +be glad I want to be your reg'lar friend." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Tillie, "I don't care about it." +</P> + +<P> +They walked on in silence for a few minutes. Tillie looked away into +the starlit night and thought of Miss Margaret and wished she were +alone, that her thoughts might be uninterrupted. Absalom, at her side, +kicked up the dust with his heavy shoes, as he sulkily hung his head. +</P> + +<P> +Presently he spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you leave me come to see you Sundays, still, if I take my chancet +that I'm wastin' my time?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you'll leave it that way," Tillie acquiesced, "and not hold me to +anything." +</P> + +<P> +"All right. Only you won't leave no one else set up with you, ain't +not?" +</P> + +<P> +"There isn't any one else." +</P> + +<P> +"But some chance time another feller might turn up oncet that wants to +keep comp'ny with you too." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't promise anything, Absalom. If you want to come Sundays to see +me and the folks, you can. That's all I'll say." +</P> + +<P> +"I never seen such a funny girl as what you are!" growled Absalom. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie made no reply, and again they went on in silence. +</P> + +<P> +"Say!" It was Absalom who finally spoke. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's absent, dreamy gaze came down from the stars and rested upon +his heavy, dull face. +</P> + +<P> +"Ezra Herr he's resigned William Penn. He's gettin' more pay at Abra'm +Lincoln in Janewille. It comes unhandy, his leavin', now the term's +just started and most all the applicants took a'ready. Pop he got a +letter from in there at Lancaster off of Superintendent Reingruber and +he's sendin' us a applicant out till next Saturday three weeks—fur the +directors to see oncet if he'll do." +</P> + +<P> +Absalom's father was secretary of the Board, and Mr. Getz was the +treasurer. +</P> + +<P> +"Pop he's goin' over to see your pop about it till to-morrow evenin' +a'ready if he can make it suit." +</P> + +<P> +"When does Ezra go?" Tillie inquired. The New Mennonite rule which +forbade the use of all titles had led to the custom in this +neighborhood, so populated with Mennonites, of calling each one by his +Christian name. +</P> + +<P> +"Till next Friday three weeks," Absalom replied. "Pop says he don't +know what to think about this here man Superintendent Reingruber's +sendin' out. He ain't no Millersville Normal. The superintendent says +he's a 'Harvard gradyate'—whatever that is, pop says! Pop he sayed it +ain't familiar with him what that there is. And I guess the other +directors don't know neither. Pop he sayed when we're payin' as much as +forty dollars a month we had ought, now, to have a Millersville Normal, +and nothin' less. Who wants to pay forty dollars a month fur such a +Harvard gradyate that we don't know right what it is." +</P> + +<P> +"What pay will Ezra get at Janeville?" Tillie asked. Her heart beat +fast as she thought how SHE might, perhaps, in another year be the +applicant for a vacancy at William Penn. +</P> + +<P> +"Around forty-five dollars," Absalom answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" Tillie said; "it seems so much, don't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Fur settin' and doin' nothin' but hearin' off spellin' and readin' and +whatever, it's too much! Pop says he's goin' to ast your pop and the +rest of the Board if they hadn't ought to ast this here Harvard +gradyate to take a couple dollars less, seein' he ain't no Millersville +Normal." +</P> + +<P> +They had by this time reached the farm, and Tillie, not very warmly, +asked Absalom whether he would "come in and sit awhile." She almost +sighed audibly as he eagerly consented. +</P> + +<P> +When he had left at twelve o'clock that night, she softly climbed the +stairs to her room, careful not to disturb the sleeping household. +Tillie wondered why it was that every girl of her acquaintance exulted +in being asked to keep company with a gentleman friend. She had found +"sitting up" a more fatiguing task than even the dreaded Monday's +washing which would confront her on the morrow. +</P> + +<P> +"Seein' it's the first time me and you set up together, I mebbe better +not stay just so late," Absalom had explained when, after three hours' +courting, he had reluctantly risen to take his leave, under the firm +conviction, as Tillie plainly saw, that she felt as sorry to have him +go as evidently he was to part from her! +</P> + +<P> +"How late," thought Tillie, "will he stay the SECOND time he sits up +with me? And what," she wondered, "do other girls see in it?" +</P> + +<P> +The following Sunday night, Absalom came again, and this time he stayed +until one o'clock, with the result that on the following Monday morning +Tillie overslept herself and was one hour late in starting the washing. +</P> + +<P> +It was that evening, after supper, while Mrs. Getz was helping her +husband make his toilet for a meeting of the School Board—at which the +application of that suspicious character, the Harvard graduate, was to +be considered—that the husband and wife discussed these significant +Sunday night visits. Mrs. Getz opened up the subject while she +performed the wifely office of washing her husband's neck, his +increasing bulk making that duty a rather difficult one for him. +Standing over him as he sat in a chair in the kitchen, holding on his +knees a tin basin full of soapy water, she scrubbed his fat, sunburned +neck with all the vigor and enthusiasm that she would have applied to +the cleaning of the kitchen porch or the scouring of an iron skillet. +</P> + +<P> +A custom prevailed in the county of leaving one's parlor plainly +furnished, or entirely empty, until the eldest daughter should come of +age; it was then fitted up in style, as a place to which she and her +"regular friend" could retire from the eyes of the girl's folks of a +Sunday night to do their "setting up." The occasion of a girl's +"furnishing" was a notable one, usually celebrated by a party; and it +was this fact that led her stepmother to remark presently: +</P> + +<P> +"Say, pop, are you furnishin' fur Tillie, now she's comin' eighteen +years old?" +</P> + +<P> +"I ain't thought about it," Mr. Getz answered shortly. "That front +room's furnished good enough a'ready. No—I ain't spendin' any!" +</P> + +<P> +"Seein' she's a member and wears plain, it wouldn't cost wery expensive +to furnish fur her, fur she hasn't the dare to have nothin' stylish +like a organ or gilt-framed landscapes or sich stuffed furniture that +way." +</P> + +<P> +"The room's good enough the way it is," repeated Mr. Getz. "I don't see +no use spendin' on it." +</P> + +<P> +"It needs new paper and carpet. Pop, it'll get put out if you don't +furnish fur her. The neighbors'll talk how you're so close with your +own child after she worked fur you so good still. I don't like it so +well, pop, havin' the neighbors talk." +</P> + +<P> +"Leave 'em talk. Their talkin' don't cost ME nothin'. I AIN'T +furnishin'!" His tone was obstinate and angry. +</P> + +<P> +His wife rubbed him down with a crash towel as vigorously as she had +washed him, then fastened his shirt, dipped the family comb in the +soapy water and began with artistic care to part and comb his hair. +</P> + +<P> +"Absalom Puntz he's a nice party, pop. He'll be well-fixed till his +pop's passed away a'ready." +</P> + +<P> +"You think! Well, now look here, mom!" Mr. Getz spoke with stern +decision. "Tillie ain't got the dare to keep comp'ny Sundays! It made +her a whole hour late with the washin' this mornin'. I'm tellin' her +she's got to tell Absalom Puntz he can't come no more." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Getz paused with comb poised in air, and her feeble jaw dropped in +astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, pop!" she said. "Ain't you leavin' Tillie keep comp'ny?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," affirmed Mr. Getz. "I ain't. What does a body go to the bother of +raisin' childern FUR? Just to lose 'em as soon as they are growed +enough to help earn a little? I ain't LEAVIN' Tillie get married! She's +stayin' at home to help her pop and mom—except in winter when they +ain't so much work, and mebbe then I'm hirin' her out to Aunty Em at +the hotel where she can earn a little, too, to help along. She can easy +earn enough to buy the children's winter clo'es and gums and +school-books." +</P> + +<P> +"When she comes eighteen, pop, she'll have the right to get married +whether or no you'd conceited you wouldn't give her the dare." +</P> + +<P> +"If I say I ain't buyin' her her aus styer, Absalom Puntz nor no other +feller would take her." +</P> + +<P> +An "aus styer" is the household outfit always given to a bride by her +father. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, to be sure," granted Mrs. Getz, "I'd like keepin' Tillie home to +help me out with the work still. I didn't see how I was ever goin' to +get through without her. But I thought when Absalom Puntz begin to come +Sundays, certainly you'd be fur her havin' him. I was sayin' to her +only this mornin' that if she didn't want to dishearten Absalom from +comin' to set up with her, she'd have to take more notice to him and +not act so dopplig with him—like as if she didn't care whether or no +he made up to her. I tole her I'd think, now, she'd be wonderful +pleased at his wantin' her, and him so well-fixed. Certainly I never +conceited you'd be ag'in' it. Tillie she didn't answer nothin'. +Sometimes I do now think Tillie's some different to what other girls +is." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd be glad," said Jacob Getz in a milder tone, "if she ain't set on +havin' him. I was some oneasy she might take it a little hard when I +tole her she darsent get married." +</P> + +<P> +"Och, Tillie she never takes nothin' hard," Mrs. Getz answered easily. +"She ain't never ast me you goin' to furnish fur her. She don't take no +interest. She's so funny that way. I think to myself, still, Tillie is, +now, a little dumm!" +</P> + +<P> +It happened that while this dialogue was taking place, Tillie was in +the room above the kitchen, putting the two most recently arrived Getz +babies to bed; and as she sat near the open register with a baby on her +lap, every word that passed between her father and stepmother was +perfectly audible to her. +</P> + +<P> +With growing bitterness she listened to her father's frank avowal of +his selfish designs. At the same time she felt a thrill of exultation, +as she thought of the cherished secret locked in her breast—hidden the +more securely from those with whom she seemed to live nearest. How +amazed they would be, her stolid, unsuspicious parents, when they +discovered that she had been secretly studying and, with Miss +Margaret's help, preparing herself for the high calling of a teacher! +One more year, now, and she would be ready, Miss Margaret assured her, +to take the county superintendent's examination for a certificate to +teach. Then good-by to household drudgery and the perpetual +self-sacrifice that robbed her of all that was worth while in life. +</P> + +<P> +With a serene mind, Tillie rose, with the youngest baby in her arms, +and tenderly tucked it in its little bed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +EZRA HERR, PEDAGOGUE +</H3> + +<P> +It was a few days later, at the supper-table, that Tillie's father made +an announcement for which she was not wholly unprepared. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm hirin' you out this winter, Tillie, at the hotel. Aunty Em says +she's leavin' both the girls go to school again this winter and she'll +need hired help. She'll pay me two dollars a week fur you. She'll pay +it to me and I'll buy you what you need, still, out of it. You're goin' +till next Monday." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's heart leaped high with pleasure at this news. She was fond of +her Aunty Em; she knew that life at the country hotel would be varied +and interesting in comparison with the dull, grubbing existence of her +own home; she would have to work very hard, of course, but not so hard, +so unceasingly, as under her father's eye; and she would have absolute +freedom to devote her spare time to her books. The thought of escaping +from her father's watchfulness, and the prospect of hours of safe and +uninterrupted study, filled her with secret joy. +</P> + +<P> +"I tole Aunty Em she's not to leave you waste no time readin'; when she +don't need you, you're to come home and help mom still. Mom she says +she can't get through the winter sewin' without you. Well, Aunty Em she +says you can sew evenin's over there at the HOtel, on the childern's +clo'es. Mom she can easy get through the other work without you, now +Sallie's goin' on thirteen. Till December a'ready Sally'll be thirteen. +And the winter work's easy to what the summer is. In summer, to be +sure, you'll have to come home and help me and mom. But in winter I'm +hirin' you out." +</P> + +<P> +"But Sally ain't as handy as what Tillie is," said Mrs. Getz, +plaintively. "And I don't see how I'm goin' to get through oncet +without Tillie." +</P> + +<P> +"Sally's got to LEARN to be handier, that's all. She's got to get +learnt like what I always learnt Tillie fur you." +</P> + +<P> +Fire flashed in Tillie's soft eyes—a momentary flame of shame and +aversion; if her blinded father had seen and understood, he would have +realized how little, after all, he had ever succeeded in "learning" her +the subservience he demanded of his children. +</P> + +<P> +As for the warning to her aunt, she knew that it would be ignored; that +Aunty Em would never interfere with the use she made of the free time +allowed her, no matter what her father's orders were to the contrary. +</P> + +<P> +"And you ain't to have Absalom Puntz comin' over there Sundays +neither," her father added. "I tole Aunty Em like I tole you the other +day, I ain't leavin' you keep comp'ny. I raised you, now you have the +right to work and help along a little. It's little enough a girl can +earn anyways." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie made no comment. Her silence was of course understood by her +father to mean submission; while her stepmother felt in her heart a +contempt for a meekness that would bear, without a word of protest, the +loss of a steady friend so well-fixed and so altogether desirable as +Absalom Puntz. +</P> + +<P> +In Absalom's two visits Tillie had been sufficiently impressed with the +steadiness of purpose and obstinacy of the young man's character to +feel appalled at the fearful task of resisting his dogged determination +to marry her. So confident he evidently was of ultimately winning her +that at times Tillie found herself quite sharing his confidence in the +success of his courting, which her father's interdict she knew would +not interfere with in the least. She always shuddered at the thought of +being Absalom's wife; and a feeling she could not always fling off, as +of some impending doom, at times buried all the high hopes which for +the past seven years had been the very breath of her life. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie had one especially strong reason for rejoicing in the prospect +of going to the village for the winter. The Harvard graduate, if +elected, would no doubt board at the hotel, or necessarily near by, and +she could get him to lend her books and perhaps to give her some help +with her studies. +</P> + +<P> +The village of New Canaan and all the township were curious to see this +stranger. The school directors had felt that they were conceding a good +deal in consenting to consider the application of sueh an unknown +quantity, when they could, at forty dollars a month, easily secure the +services of a Millersville Normal. But the stress that had been brought +to bear upon them by the county superintendent, whose son had been a +classmate of the candidate, had been rather too strong to be resisted; +and so the "Harvard gradyate man" was coming. +</P> + +<P> +That afternoon Tillie had walked over in a pouring rain to William Penn +to carry "gums" and umbrellas to her four younger brothers and sisters, +and she had realized, with deep exultation, while listening to Ezra +Herr's teaching, that she was already far better equipped than was Ezra +to do the work he was doing,—and HE was a Millersville Normal! +</P> + +<P> +It happened that Ezra was receiving a visit from a committee of +Janeville school directors, and he had departed from his every-day +mechanical style of teaching in favor of some fancy methods which he +had imbibed at the Normal School during his attendance at the spring +term, and which he reserved for use on occasions like the present. +Tillie watched him with profound attention, but hardly with profound +respect. +</P> + +<P> +"Childern," Ezra said, with a look of deep thought, as he impressively +paced up and down before the class of small boys and girls ranged on +the platform, "now, childern, what's this reading lesson ABOUT?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Bout a apple-tree!" answered several eager little voices. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Ezra. "About an apple-tree. Correct. Now, +childern—er—what grows on apple-trees, heh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Apples!" answered the intelligent class. +</P> + +<P> +"Correct. Apples. And—now—what was it that came to the apple-tree?" +</P> + +<P> +"A little bird." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. A bird came to the apple tree. Well—er," he floundered for a +moment, then, by a sudden inspiration, "what can a bird do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Fly! and sing!" +</P> + +<P> +"A bird can fly and sing," Ezra nodded. "Very good. Now, Sadie, you +dare begin. I 'll leave each one read a werse." +</P> + +<P> +The next recitation was a Fourth Reader lesson consisting of a speech +of Daniel Webster's, the import of which not one of the children, if +indeed the teacher himself, had the faintest suspicion. And so the +class was permitted to proceed, without interruption, in its labored +conning of the massive eloquence of that great statesman; and the +directors presently took their departure in the firm conviction that in +Ezra Herr they had made a good investment of the forty-five dollars a +month appropriated to their town out of the State treasury, and they +agreed, on their way back to Janeville, that New Canaan was to be +pitied for having to put up with anything so unheard-of as "a Harvard +gradyate or whatever," after having had the advantages of an educator +like Ezra Herr. +</P> + +<P> +And Tillie, as she walked home with her four brothers and sisters, +hoped, for the sake of her own advancement, that a Harvard graduate was +at least not LESS intelligent than a Millersville Normal. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE HARVARD GRADUATE +</H3> + +<P> +That a man holding a Harvard degree should consider so humble an +educational post as that of New Canaan needs a word of explanation. +</P> + +<P> +Walter Fairchilds was the protege of his uncle, the High Church bishop +of a New England State, who had practically, though not legally, +adopted him, upon the death of his father, when the boy was fourteen +years old, his mother having died at his birth. +</P> + +<P> +It was tacitly understood by Walter that his uncle was educating him +for the priesthood. His life, from the time the bishop took charge of +him until he was ready for college, was spent in Church +boarding-schools. +</P> + +<P> +A spiritually minded, thoughtful boy, of an emotional temperament which +responded to every appeal of beauty, whether of form, color, sound, or +ethics, Walter easily fell in with his uncle's designs for him, and +rivaled him in the fervor of his devotion to the esthetic ritual of his +Church. +</P> + +<P> +His summer vacations were spent at Bar Harbor with the bishop's family, +which consisted of his wife and two anemic daughters. They were people +of limited interests, who built up barriers about their lives on all +sides; social hedges which excluded all humanity but a select and very +dull, uninteresting circle; intellectual walls which never admitted a +stray unconventional idea; moral demarcations which nourished within +them the Mammon of self-righteousness, and theological harriers which +shut out the sunlight of a broad charity. +</P> + +<P> +Therefore, when in the course of his career at Harvard, Walter +Fairchilds discovered that intellectually he had outgrown not only the +social creed of the divine right of the well-born, in which these +people had educated him, but their theological creed as well, the +necessity of breaking the fact to them, of wounding their affection for +him, of disappointing the fond and cherished hope with which for years +his uncle had spent money upon his education—the ordeal which he had +to face was a fiery one. +</P> + +<P> +When, in deepest sorrow, and with all the delicacy of his sensitive +nature, he told the bishop of his changed mental attitude toward the +problem of religion, it seemed to him that in his uncle's reception of +it the spirit of the Spanish Inquisitors was revived, so mad appeared +to him his horror of this heresy and his conviction that he, Walter, +was a poison in the moral atmosphere, which must be exterminated at any +cost. +</P> + +<P> +In this interview between them, the bishop stood revealed to him in a +new character, and yet Walter seemed to realize that in his deeper +consciousness he had always known him for what he really was, though +all the circumstances of his conventional life had conduced to hide his +real self. He saw, now, how the submissiveness of his own dreamy +boyhood had never called into active force his guardian's native love +of domineering; his intolerance of opposition; the pride of his +exacting will. But on the first provocation of circumstances, these +traits stood boldly forth. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it for this that I have spent my time and money upon you—to bring +up an INFIDEL?" Bishop Fairchilds demanded, when he had in part +recovered from the first shock of amazement the news had given him. +</P> + +<P> +"I am not an infidel even if I have outgrown High Church dogmas. I have +a Faith—I have a Religion; and I assure you that I never so fully +realized the vital truth of my religion as I do now—now that I see +things, not in the dim cathedral light, but out under the broad +heavens!" +</P> + +<P> +"How can you dare to question the authority of our Holy Mother, the +Church, whose teachings have come down to us through all these +centuries, bearing the sacred sanction of the most ancient authority?" +</P> + +<P> +"Old things can rot!" Walter answered. +</P> + +<P> +"And you fancy," the bishop indignantly demanded, "that I will give one +dollar for your support while you are adhering to this blasphemy? That +I will ever again even so much as break bread with you, until, in +humble contrition, you return to your allegiance to the Church?" +</P> + +<P> +Walter lifted his earnest eyes and met squarely his uncle's frowning +stare. Then the boy rose. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing, then, is left for me," he said steadily, "but to leave your +home, give up the course of study I had hoped to continue at Harvard, +and get to work." +</P> + +<P> +"You fully realize all that this step must mean?" his uncle coldly +asked him. "You are absolutely penniless." +</P> + +<P> +"In a matter of this kind, uncle, you must realize that such a +consideration could not possibly enter in." +</P> + +<P> +"You have not a penny of your own. The few thousands that your father +left were long ago used up in your school-bills." +</P> + +<P> +"And I am much in your debt; I know it all." +</P> + +<P> +"So you choose poverty and hardship for the sake of this perversity?" +</P> + +<P> +"Others have suffered harder things for principle." +</P> + +<P> +Thus they parted. +</P> + +<P> +And thus it was, through the suddenness and unexpectedness of the loss +of his home and livelihood, that Walter Fairchilds came to apply for +the position at William Penn. +</P> + +<P> +"HERE, Tillie, you take and go up to Sister Jennie Hershey's and get +some mush. I'm makin' fried mush fur supper," said Aunty Em, bustling +into the hotel kitchen where her niece was paring potatoes, one +Saturday afternoon. "Here's a quarter. Get two pound." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Tillie," called her cousin Rebecca from the adjoining dining-room, +which served also as the family sitting-room, "hurry on and you'll +mebbe be in time to see the stage come in with the new teacher in. +Mebbe you'll see him to speak to yet up at Hershey's." +</P> + +<P> +"Lizzie Hershey's that wonderful tickled that the teacher's going to +board at their place!" said Amanda, the second daughter, a girl of +Tillie's age, as she stood in the kitchen doorway and watched Tillie +put on her black hood over the white Mennonite cap. Stout Aunty Em also +wore the Mennonite dress, which lent a certain dignity to her round +face with its alert but kindly eyes; but her two daughters were still +"of the world's people." +</P> + +<P> +"When Lizzie she tole me about it, comin' out from Lancaster after +market this morning," continued Amanda, "she was now that tickled! She +sayed he's such a good-looker! Och, I wisht he was stoppin' here; +ain't, Tillie? Lizzie'll think herself much, havin' a town fellah +stoppin' at their place." +</P> + +<P> +"If he's stoppin' at Hershey's," said Rebecca, appearing suddenly, +"that ain't sayin' he has to get in with Lizzie so wonderful thick! I +hope he's a JOLLY fellah." +</P> + +<P> +Amanda and Rebecca were now girls of seventeen and eighteen +years—buxom, rosy, absolutely unideal country lasses. Beside them, +frail little Tillie seemed a creature of another clay. +</P> + +<P> +"Lizzie tole me: she sayed how he come up to their market-stall in +there at Lancaster this morning," Amanda related, "and tole her he'd +heard Jonas Hershey's pork-stall at market was where he could mebbe +find out a place he could board at in New Canaan with a private +family—he'd sooner live with a private family that way than at the +HOtel. Well, Lizzie she coaxed her pop right there in front of the +teacher to say THEY'd take him, and Jonas Hershey he sayed HE didn't +care any. So Lizzie she tole him then he could come to their place, and +he sayed he'd be out this after in the four-o'clock stage." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, and I wonder what her mother has to say to her and Jonas fixin' +it up between 'em to take a boarder and not waitin' to ast HER!" Aunty +Em said. "I guess mebbe Sister Jennie's spited!" +</P> + +<P> +The appellation of "sister" indicated no other relation than that of +the Mennonite church membership, Mrs. Jonas Hershey being also a New +Mennonite. +</P> + +<P> +"Now don't think you have to run all the way there and back, Tillie," +was her aunt's parting injunction. "<I>I</I> don't time you like what your +pop does! Well, I guess not! I take notice you're always out of breath +when you come back from an urrand. It's early yet—you dare stop awhile +and talk to Lizzie." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie gave her aunt a look of grateful affection as she left the +house. Often when she longed to thank her for her many little acts of +kindness, the words would not come. It was the habit of her life to +repress every emotion of her mind, whether of bitterness or pleasure, +and an unconquerable shyness seized upon her in any least attempt to +reveal herself to those who were good to her. +</P> + +<P> +It was four o'clock on a beautiful October afternoon as she walked up +the village street, and while she enjoyed, through all her sensitive +maiden soul, the sweet sunshine and soft autumn coloring, her thought +dwelt with a pleasant expectancy on her almost inevitable meeting with +"the Teacher," if he did indeed arrive in the stage now due at New +Canaan. +</P> + +<P> +Unlike her cousins Amanda and Rebecca, and their neighbor Lizzie +Hershey, Tillie's eagerness to meet the young man was not born of a +feminine hunger for romance. Life as yet had not revealed those +emotions to her except as she had known them in her love for Miss +Margaret—which love was indeed full of a sacred sentiment. It was only +because the teacher meant an aid to the realization of her ambition to +become "educated" that she was interested in his coming. +</P> + +<P> +It was but a few minutes' walk to the home of Jonas Hershey, the +country pork butcher. As Tillie turned in at the gate, she heard, with +a leap of her heart, the distant rumble of the approaching stagecoach. +</P> + +<P> +Jonas Hershey's home was probably the cleanest, neatest-looking red +brick house in all the county. The board-walk from the gate to the door +fairly glistened from the effects of soap and water. The flower-beds, +almost painfully neat and free from weeds, were laid out on a strictly +mathematical plan. A border of whitewashed clam-shells, laid side by +side with military precision, set off the brilliant reds and yellows of +the flowers, and a glance at them was like gazing into the face of the +midday sun. Tillie shaded her dazzled eyes as she walked across the +garden to the side door which opened into the kitchen. It stood open +and she stepped in without ceremony. For a moment she could see nothing +but red and yellow flowers and whitewashed clam-shells. But as her +vision cleared, she perceived her neighbor, Lizzie Hershey, a +well-built, healthy-looking country lass of eighteen years, cutting +bread at a table, and her mother, a large fat woman wearing the +Mennonite dress, standing before a huge kitchen range, stirring +"ponhaus" in a caldron. +</P> + +<P> +The immaculate neatness of the large kitchen gave evidence, as did +garden, board-walk, and front porch, of that morbid passion for +"cleaning up" characteristic of the Dutch housewife. +</P> + +<P> +Jonas Hershey did a very large and lucrative business, and the work of +his establishment was heavy. But he hired no "help" and his wife and +daughter worked early and late to aid him in earning the dollars which +he hoarded. +</P> + +<P> +"Sister Jennie!" Tillie accosted Mrs. Hershey with the New Mennonite +formal greeting, "I wish you the grace and peace of the Lord." +</P> + +<P> +"The same to you, sister," Mrs. Hershey replied, bending to receive +Tillie's kiss as the girl came up to her at the stove—the Mennonite +interpretation of the command, "Salute the brethren with a holy kiss." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Lizzie," was Tillie's only greeting to the girl at the table. +Lizzie was not a member of meeting and the rules forbade the members to +kiss those who were still in the world. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Tillie," answered Lizzie, not looking up from the bread she was +cutting. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie instantly perceived a lack of cordiality. Something was wrong. +Lizzie's face was sullen and her mother's countenance looked grim and +determined. Tillie wondered whether their evident ill-humor were in any +way connected with herself, or whether her Aunty Em's surmise were +correct, and Sister Jennie was really "spited." +</P> + +<P> +"I've come to get two pound of mush," she said, remembering her errand. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all," Mrs. Hershey returned. "We solt every cake at market, and +no more's made yet. It was all a'ready till market was only half over." +</P> + +<P> +"Aunty Em'll be disappointed. She thought she'd make fried mush for +supper," said Tillie. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you strangers?" inquired Mrs. Hershey. +</P> + +<P> +"No, we haven't anybody for supper, unless some come on the stage this +after. We had four for dinner." +</P> + +<P> +"Were they such agents, or what?" asked Lizzie. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie turned to her. "Whether they were agents? No, they were just +pleasure-seekers. They were out for a drive and stopped off to eat." +</P> + +<P> +At this instant the rattling old stage-coach drew up at the gate. +</P> + +<P> +The mother and daughter, paying no heed whatever to the sound, went on +with their work, Mrs. Hershey looking a shade more grimly determined as +she stirred her ponhaus and Lizzie more sulky. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie had just time to wonder whether she had better slip out before +the stranger came in, when a knock on the open kitchen door checked her. +</P> + +<P> +Neither mother nor daughter glanced up in answer to the knock. Mrs. +Hershey resolutely kept her eyes on her caldron as she turned her big +spoon about in it, and Lizzie, with sullen, averted face, industriously +cut her loaf. +</P> + +<P> +A second knock, followed by the appearance of a good-looking, +well-dressed young man on the threshold, met with the same reception. +Tillie, in the background, and hidden by the stove, looked on +wonderingly. +</P> + +<P> +The young man glanced, in evident mystification, at the woman by the +stove and at the girl at the table, and a third time rapped loudly. +</P> + +<P> +"Good afternoon!" he said pleasantly, an inquiring note in his voice. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hershey and Lizzie went on with their work as though they had not +heard him. +</P> + +<P> +He took a step into the room, removing his hat. "You were expecting me +this afternoon, weren't you?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"This is the place," Lizzie remarked at last. +</P> + +<P> +"You were looking for me?" he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hershey suddenly turned upon Lizzie. "Why don't you speak?" she +inquired half-tauntingly. "You spoke BEFORE." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie realized that Sister Jennie must be referring to Lizzie's +readiness at market that morning to "speak," in making her agreement +with the young man for board. +</P> + +<P> +"You spoke this morning," the mother repeated. "Why can't you speak +now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Och, why don't you speak yourself?" retorted Lizzie. "It ain't fur ME +to speak!" +</P> + +<P> +The stranger appeared to recognize that he was the subject of a +domestic unpleasantness. +</P> + +<P> +"You find it inconvenient to take me to board?" he hesitatingly +inquired of Mrs. Hershey. "I shouldn't think of wishing to intrude. +There is a hotel in the place, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. There IS a HOtel in New Canaan." +</P> + +<P> +"I can get board there, no doubt?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," Mrs. Hershey replied argumentatively, "that's a public house +and this ain't. We never made no practice of takin' boarders. To be +sure, Jonas he always was FUR boarders. But I AIN'T fur!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," gravely nodded the young man. "Yes. I see." +</P> + +<P> +He picked up the dress-suit case which he had set on the sill. "Where +is the hotel, may I ask?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just up the road a piece. You can see the sign out," said Mrs. +Hershey, while Lizzie banged the bread-box shut with an energy forcibly +expressive of her feelings. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," responded the gentleman, a pair of keen, bright eyes +sweeping Lizzie's gloomy face. +</P> + +<P> +He bowed, put his hat on his head and stepped out of the house. +</P> + +<P> +There was a back door at the other side of the kitchen. Not stopping +for the ceremony of leave-taking, Tillie slipped out of it to hurry +home before the stranger should reach the hotel. +</P> + +<P> +Her heart beat fast as she hurried across fields by a short-cut, and +there was a sparkle of excitement in her eyes. Her ears were tingling +with sounds to which they were unaccustomed, and which thrilled them +exquisitely—the speech, accent, and tones of one who belonged to that +world unknown to her except through books—out of which Miss Margaret +had come and to which this new teacher, she at once recognized, +belonged. Undoubtedly he was what was called, by magazine-writers and +novel-writers, a "gentleman." And it was suddenly revealed to Tillie +that in real life the phenomenon thus named was even more interesting +than in literature. The clean cut of the young man's thin face, his +pale forehead, the fineness of the white hand he had lifted to his hat, +his modulated voice and speech, all these things had, in her few +minutes' observation of him, impressed themselves instantly and deeply +upon the girl's fresh imagination. +</P> + +<P> +Out of breath from her hurried walk, she reached the back door of the +hotel several minutes before the teacher's arrival. She had just time +to report to her aunt that Sister Jennie's mush was "all," and to reply +in the affirmative to the eager questions of Amanda and Rebecca as to +whether she had seen the teacher, when the sound of the knocker on the +front door arrested their further catechism. +</P> + +<P> +"The stage didn't leave out whoever it is—it drove right apast," said +Aunty Em. "You go, Tillie, and see oncet who is it." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie was sure that she had not been seen by the evicted applicant for +board, as she had been hidden behind the stove. This impression was +confirmed when she now opened the door to him, for there was no +recognition in his eyes as he lifted his hat. It was the first time in +Tillie's life that a man had taken off his hat to her, and it almost +palsied her tongue as she tried to ask him to come in. +</P> + +<P> +In reply to his inquiry as to whether he could get board here, she led +him into the darkened parlor at the right of a long hall. Groping her +way across the floor to the window she drew up the blind. +</P> + +<P> +"Just sit down," she said timidly. "I'll call Aunty Em." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," he bowed with a little air of ceremony that for an instant +held her spellbound. She stood staring at him—only recalled to herself +and to a sense of shame for her rudeness by the sudden entrance of her +aunt. +</P> + +<P> +"How d' do?" said Mrs. Wackernagel in her brisk, businesslike tone. +"D'you want supper?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am the applicant for the New Canaan school. I want to get board for +the winter here, if I can—and in case I'm elected." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I say! Tillie! D'you hear that? Why us we all heard you was +goin' to Jonas Hershey's." +</P> + +<P> +"They decided it wasn't convenient to take me and sent me here." +</P> + +<P> +"Now think! If that wasn't like Sister Jennie yet! All right!" she +announced conclusively. "We can accommodate you to satisfaction, I +guess." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you any other boarders?" the young man inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"No reg'lar boarders—except, to be sure, the Doc; and he's lived with +us it's comin' fifteen years, I think, or how long, till November +a'ready. It's just our own fam'ly here and my niece where helps with +the work, and the Doc. We have a many to meals though, just passing +through that way, you know. We don't often have more 'n one reg'lar +boarder at oncet, so we just make 'em at home still, like as if they +was one of us. Now YOU," she hospitably concluded, "we'll lay in our +best bed. We don't lay 'em in the best bed unless they're some +clean-lookin'." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie noticed as her aunt talked that while the young man listened +with evident interest, his eyes moved about the room, taking in every +detail of it. To Tillie's mind, this hotel parlor was so "pleasing to +the eye" as to constitute one of those Temptations of the Enemy against +which her New Mennonite faith prescribed most rigid discipline. She +wondered whether the stranger did not think it very handsome. +</P> + +<P> +The arrangement of the room was evidently, like Jonas Hershey's +flower-beds, the work of a mathematical genius. The chairs all stood +with their stiff backs squarely against the wall, the same number +facing each other from the four sides of the apartment. Photographs in +narrow oval frames, six or eight, formed another oval, all equidistant +from the largest, which occupied the dead center, not only of this +group, but of the wall from which it depended. The books on the square +oak table, which stood in the exact middle of the floor, were arranged +in cubical piles in the same rigid order. Tillie saw the new teacher's +glance sweep their titles: "Touching Incidents, and Remarkable Answers +to Prayer"; "From Tannery to White House"; "Gems of Religious Thought," +by Talmage; "History of the Galveston Horror; Illustrated"; "Platform +Echoes, or Living Truths for Heart and Head," by John B. Gough. +</P> + +<P> +"Lemme see—your name's Fairchilds, ain't?" the landlady abruptly asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," bowed the young man. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you, now, take it all right if I call you by your Christian name? +Us Mennonites daresent call folks Mr. and Mrs. because us we don't +favor titles. What's your first name now?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Fairchilds considered the question with the appearance of trying to +remember. "You'd better call me Pestalozzi," he answered, with a look +and tone of solemnity. +</P> + +<P> +"Pesky Louzy!" Mrs. Waekernagel exclaimed. "Well, now think! That's a +name where ain't familiar 'round here. Is it after some of your folks?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was a name I think I bore in a previous incarnation as a teacher of +youth," Fairchilds gravely replied. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Waekernagel looked blank. "Tillie!" she appealed to her niece, who +had shyly stepped half behind her, "do you know right what he means?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie dumbly shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"Pesky Louzy!" Mrs. Waekernagel experimented with the unfamiliar name. +"Don't it, now, beat all! It'll take me awhile till I'm used to that +a'ready. Mebbe I'll just call you Teacher; ain't?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him inquiringly, expecting an answer. "Ain't!" she +repeated in her vigorous, whole-souled way. +</P> + +<P> +"Eh—ain't WHAT?" Fairchilds asked, puzzled. +</P> + +<P> +"Och, I just mean, SAY NOT? Can't you mebbe talk English wery good? We +had such a foreigners at this HOtel a'ready. We had oncet one, he was +from Phil'delphy and he didn't know what we meant right when we sayed, +'The butter's all any more.' He'd ast like you, 'All what?' Yes, he was +that dumm! Och, well," she added consolingly, "people can't help fur +their dispositions, that way!" +</P> + +<P> +"And what must I call you?" the young man inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"My name's Wackernagel." +</P> + +<P> +"Miss or Mrs.?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I guess not MISS anyhow! I'm the mother of four!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, excuse me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's all right!" responded Mrs. Wackernagel, amiably. "Well, I +must go make supper now. You just make yourself at home that way." +</P> + +<P> +"May I go to my room?" +</P> + +<P> +"Now?" asked Mrs. Wackernagel, incredulously. "Before night?" +</P> + +<P> +"To unpack my dress-suit case," the young man explained. "My trunk will +be brought out to-morrow on the stage." +</P> + +<P> +"All right. If you want. But we ain't used to goin' up-stairs in the +daytime. Tillie, you take his satchel and show him up. This is my +niece, Tillie Getz." +</P> + +<P> +Again Mr. Fairchilds bowed to the girl as his eyes rested on the fair +face looking out from her white cap. Tillie bent her head in response, +then stooped to pick up the suit case. But he interposed and took it +from her hands—and the touch of chivalry in the act went to her head +like wine. +</P> + +<P> +She led the way up-stairs to the close, musty, best spare bedroom. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE WACKERNAGELS AT HOME +</H3> + +<P> +At the supper-table, the apparently inexhaustible topic of talk was the +refusal of the Hersheys to receive the new teacher into the bosom of +their family. A return to this theme again and again, on the part of +the various members of the Wackernagel household, did not seem to +lessen its interest for them, though the teacher himself did not take a +very animated part in its discussion. Tillie realized, as with an +absorbing interest she watched his fine face, that all he saw and heard +here was as novel to him as the world whence he had come would be to +her and her kindred and neighbors, could they be suddenly transplanted +into it. Tillie had never looked upon any human countenance which +seemed to express so much of that ideal world in which she lived her +real life. +</P> + +<P> +"To turn him off after he got there!" Mrs. Wackernagel exclaimed, +reverting for the third time to the episode which had so excited the +family. "And after Lizzie and Jonas they'd sayed he could come yet!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I say!" Mr. Wackernagel shook his head, as though the story, +even at its third recital, were full of surprises. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Wackernagel was a tall, raw-boned man with conspicuously large feet +and hands. He wore his hair plastered back from his face in a unique, +not to say distinguished style, which he privately considered highly +becoming his position as the proprietor of the New Canaan Hotel. Mr. +Wackernagel's self-satisfaction did indeed cover every detail of his +life—from the elegant fashion of his hair to the quality of the whisky +which he sold over the bar, and of which he never tired of boasting. +Not only was he entirely pleased with himself, but his good-natured +satisfaction included all his possessions—his horse first, then his +wife, his two daughters, his permanent boarder, "the Doc," and his +wife's niece Tillie. For people outside his own horizon, he had a +tolerant but contemptuous pity. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Wackernagel and the doctor both sat at table in their +shirt-sleeves, the proprietor wearing a clean white shirt (his +extravagance and vanity in using two white shirts a week being one of +the chief historical facts of the village), while the doctor was wont +to appear in a brown cotton shirt, the appearance of which suggested +the hostler rather than the physician. +</P> + +<P> +That Fairchilds should "eat in his coat" placed him, in the eyes of the +Wackernagels, on the high social plane of the drummers from the city, +many of whom yearly visited the town with their wares. +</P> + +<P> +"And Teacher he didn't press 'em none, up at Jonas Hershey's, to take +him in, neither, he says," Mrs. Wackernagel pursued. +</P> + +<P> +"He says?" repeated Mr. Wackernagel, inquiringly. "Well, that's like +what I was, too, when I was a young man," he boasted. "If I thought I +ain't wanted when I went to see a young lady—if she passed any +insinyations—she never wasn't worried with ME ag'in!" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess Lizzie's spited that Teacher's stoppin' at our place," giggled +Rebecca, her pretty face rosy with pleasurable excitement in the turn +affairs had taken. She sat directly opposite Mr. Fairchilds, while +Amanda had the chair at his side. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie could see that the young man's eyes rested occasionally upon the +handsome, womanly form of her very good-looking cousin Amanda. Men +always looked at Amanda a great deal, Tillie had often observed. The +fact had never before had any special significance for her. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you from Lancaster, or wherever?" the doctor inquired of Mr. +Fairchilds. +</P> + +<P> +"From Connecticut," he replied in a tone that indefinably, but +unmistakably checked further questioning. +</P> + +<P> +"Now think! So fur off as that!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ain't!" exclaimed Mrs. Wackernagel. "It's a wonder a body'd ever +be contented to live that fur off." +</P> + +<P> +"We're had strangers here in this HOtel," Mr. Wackernagel began to +brag, while he industriously ate of his fried sausage and fried +potatoes, "from as fur away as Illinois yet! And from as fur south as +down in Maine! Yes, indeed! Ain't, mom?" he demanded of his wife. +</P> + +<P> +"Och, yes, many's the strange meals I cooked a'ready in this house. One +week I cooked forty strange meals; say not, Abe?" she returned. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I mind of that week. It was Mrs. Johnson and her daughter we had +from Illinois and Mrs. Snyder from Maine," Abe explained to Mr. +Fairchilds. "And them Johnsons stayed the whole week." +</P> + +<P> +"They stopped here while Mr. Johnson went over the county sellin' +milk-separators," added Mrs. Wackernagel. "And Abe he was in Lancaster +that week, and the Doc he was over to East Donegal, and there was no +man here except only us ladies! Do you mind, Rebecca?" +</P> + +<P> +Eebecca nodded, her mouth too full for utterance. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Johnson she looked younger than her own daughter yet," Mrs. +Wackernagel related, with animation, innocent of any suspicion that the +teacher might not find the subject of Mrs. Johnson as absorbing as she +found it. +</P> + +<P> +"There is nothing like good health as a preserver of youth," responded +Fairchilds. +</P> + +<P> +"HOtel-keepin' didn't pay till we got the license," Mr. Wackernagel +chatted confidentially to the stranger. "Mom, to be sure, she didn't +favor my havin' a bar, because she belonged to meetin'. But I seen I +couldn't make nothin' if I didn't. It was never no temptation to me—I +was always among the whisky and I never got tight oncet. And it ain't +the hard work farmin' was. I had to give up followin' farmin'. I got it +so in my leg. Why, sometimes I can't hardly walk no more." +</P> + +<P> +"And can't your doctor cure you?" Fairchilds asked, with a curious +glance at the unkempt little man across the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Och, yes, he's helped me a heap a'ready. Him he's as good a doctor as +any they're got in Lancaster even!" was the loyal response. "Here a +couple months back, a lady over in East Donegal Township she had wrote +him a letter over here, how the five different kinds of doses where he +give her daughter done her so much good, and she was that grateful, she +sayed she just felt indebted fur a letter to him! Ain't, Doc? She sayed +now her daughter's engaged to be married and her mind's more +settled—and to be sure, that made somepin too. Yes, she sayed her +gettin' engaged done her near as much good as the five different kind +of doses done her." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you an Allopath?" Fairchilds asked the doctor. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm a Eclectic," he responded glibly. "And do you know, Teacher, I'd +been practisin' that there style of medicine fur near twelve years +before I knowed it was just to say the Eclectic School, you understand." +</P> + +<P> +"Like Moliere's prose-writer!" remarked the teacher, then smiled at +himself for making such an allusion in such a place. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you have some more sliced radishes, Teacher?" urged the hostess. +"I made a-plenty." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I thank you," Fairchilds replied, with his little air of courtesy +that so impressed the whole family. "I can't eat radishes in the +evening with impunity." +</P> + +<P> +"But these is with WINEGAR," Mrs. Wackernagel corrected him. +</P> + +<P> +Before Mr. Fairchilds could explain, Mr. Wackernagel broke in, +confirming the doctor's proud claim. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Doc he's a Eclectic," he repeated, evidently feeling that the +fact reflected credit on the hotel. "You can see his sign on the side +door." +</P> + +<P> +"I was always interested in science," explained the doctor, under the +manifest impression that he was continuing the subject. "Phe-non-e-ma. +That's what I like. Odd things. I'm stuck on 'em! Now this here +wireless teleGRAPHY. I'm stuck on that, you bet! To me that there's a +phe-non-e-ma." +</P> + +<P> +"Teacher," interrupted Mrs. Wackernagel, "you ain't eatin' hearty. +Leave me give you some more sausage." +</P> + +<P> +"If you please," Mr. Fairchilds bowed as he handed his plate to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you leave him help hisself," protested Mr. Wackernagel. "He +won't feel to make hisself at home if he can't help hisself like as if +he was one of us that way." +</P> + +<P> +"Och, well," confessed Mrs. Wackernagel, "I just keep astin' him will +he have more, so I can hear him speak his manners so nice." She laughed +aloud at her own vanity. "You took notice of it too, Tillie, ain't? You +can't eat fur lookin' at him!" +</P> + +<P> +A tide of color swept Tillie's face as the teacher, with a look of +amusement, turned his eyes toward her end of the table. Her glance fell +upon her plate, and she applied herself to cutting up her untouched +sausage. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, there's Doc," remarked Amanda, critically, "he's GOT good +manners, but he don't use 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"Och," said the doctor, "it ain't worth while to trouble." +</P> + +<P> +"I think it would be wonderful nice, Teacher," said Mrs. Wackernagel, +"if you learnt them manners you got to your scholars this winter. I +wisht 'Manda and Rebecca knowed such manners. THEY're to be your +scholars this winter." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed?" said Fairchilds; "are they?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Manda there," said her father, "she's so much fur actin' up you'll +have to keep her right by you to keep her straight, still." +</P> + +<P> +"That's where I shall be delighted to keep her," returned Fairchilds, +gallantly, and Amanda laughed boisterously and grew several shades +rosier as she looked boldly up into the young man's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't you fresh though!" she exclaimed coquettishly. +</P> + +<P> +How dared they all make so free with this wonderful young man, marveled +Tillie. Why didn't they realize, as she did, how far above them he was? +She felt almost glad that in his little attentions to Amanda and +Rebecca he had scarcely noticed her at all; for the bare thought of +talking to him overwhelmed her with shyness. +</P> + +<P> +"Mind Tillie!" laughed Mr. Wackernagel, suddenly, "lookin' scared at +the way yous are all talkin' up to Teacher! Tillie she's afraid of +you," he explained to Mr. Fairchilds. "She ain't never got her tongue +with her when there's strangers. Ain't, Tillie?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's burning face was bent over her plate, and she did not attempt +to answer. Mr. Fairchilds' eyes rested for an instant on the delicate, +sensitive countenance of the girl. But his attention was diverted by an +abrupt exclamation from Mrs. Wackernagel. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Abe!" she suddenly cried, "you ain't tole Teacher yet about the +Albright sisters astin' you, on market, what might your name be!" +</P> + +<P> +The tone in which this serious omission was mentioned indicated that it +was an anecdote treasured among the family archives. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, I would mebbe of forgot that!" almost in consternation said Mr. +Wackernagel. "Well," he began, concentrating his attention upon the +teacher, "it was this here way. The two Miss Albrights they had bought +butter off of us, on market, for twenty years back a'ready, and all +that time we didn't know what was their name, and they didn't know +ourn; fur all, I often says to mom, 'Now I wonder what's the name of +them two thin little women.' Well, you see, I was always a wonderful +man fur my jokes. Yes, I was wery fond of makin' a joke, still. So here +one day the two sisters come along and bought their butter, and then +one of 'em she says, 'Excuse me, but here I've been buyin' butter off +of yous fur this twenty years back a'ready and I ain't never heard your +name. What might your name BE?' Now I was such a man fur my jokes, +still, so I says to her"—Mr. Wackernagel's whole face twinkled with +amusement, and his shoulders shook with laughter as he contemplated the +joke he had perpetrated—"I says, 'Well, it MIGHT be Gener'l +Jackson'"—laughter again choked his utterance, and the stout form of +Mrs. Wackernagel also was convulsed with amusement, while Amanda and +Rebecca giggled appreciatively. Tillie and the doctor alone remained +unaffected. "'It might be Gener'l Jackson,' I says. 'But it ain't. It's +Abe Wackernagel,' I says. You see," he explained, "she ast me what +MIGHT my name be.—See?—and I says 'It might be Jackson'—MIGHT be, +you know, because she put it that way, what might it be. 'But it +ain't,' I says. 'It's Wackernagel.'" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. and Mrs. Wackernagel and their daughters leaned back in their +chairs and gave themselves up to prolonged and exuberant laughter, in +which the teacher obligingly joined as well as he was able. +</P> + +<P> +When this hilarity had subsided, Mr. Wackernagel turned to Mr. +Fairchilds with a question. "Are you mebbe feelin' oneasy, Teacher, +about meetin' the school directors to-night? You know they meet here in +the HOtel parlor at seven o'clock to take a look at you; and if you +suit, then you and them signs the agreement." +</P> + +<P> +"And if I don't suit?" +</P> + +<P> +"They'll turn you down and send you back home!" promptly answered the +doctor. "That there Board ain't conferrin' William Penn on no one where +don't suit 'em pretty good! They're a wonderful partic'lar Board!" +</P> + +<P> +After supper the comely Amanda agreed eagerly to the teacher's +suggestion that she go with him for a walk, before the convening of the +School Board at seven o'clock, and show him the school-house, as he +would like to behold, he said, "the seat of learning" which, if the +Board elected him, was to be the scene of his winter's campaign. +</P> + +<P> +Amanda improved this opportunity to add her word of warning to that of +the doctor. +</P> + +<P> +"That there Board's awful hard to suit, still. Oncet they got a +Millersville Normal out here, and when she come to sign they seen she +was near-sighted that way, and Nathaniel Puntz—he's a director—he up +and says that wouldn't suit just so well, and they sent her back home. +And here oncet a lady come out to apply and she should have sayed [she +is reported to have said] she was afraid New Canaan hadn't no +accommodations good enough fur her, and the directors ast her, 'Didn't +most of our Presidents come out of log cabins?' So they wouldn't elect +her. Now," concluded Amanda, "you see!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks for your warning. Can you give me some pointers?" +</P> + +<P> +"What's them again?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I must not be near-sighted, for one thing, and I must not demand +'all the modern improvements.' Tell me what manner of man this School +Board loves and admires. To be in the dark as to their tastes, you +know—" +</P> + +<P> +"You must make yourself nice and common," Amanda instructed him. "You +haven't dare to put on no city airs. To be sure, I guess they come a +good bit natural to you, and, as mom says still, a body can't help fur +their dispositions; but our directors is all plain that way and they +don't like tony people that wants to come out here and think they're +much!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes? I see. Anything else?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, they'll be partic'lar about your bein' a perfessor." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +Amanda looked at him in astonishment. "If you're a perfessor or no. +They'll be sure to ast you." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Fairchilds thoughtfully considered it. +</P> + +<P> +"You mean," he said, light coming to him, "they will ask me whether I +am a professor of religion, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, to be sure!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" +</P> + +<P> +"And you better have your answer ready." +</P> + +<P> +"What, in your judgment, may I ask, would be a suitable answer to that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, ARE you a perfessor?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'm anything at all that will get me this 'job.' I've got to have +it as a makeshift until I can get hold of something better. Let me +see—will a Baptist do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Are you a Baptist?" the girl stolidly asked. +</P> + +<P> +"When circumstances are pressing. Will they be satisfied with a +Baptist?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's one of the fashionable churches of the world," Amanda replied +gravely. "And the directors is most all Mennonites and Amish and +Dunkards. All them is PLAIN churches and loosed of the world, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, well, I'll wriggle out somehow! Trust to luck!" Fairchilds +dismissed the subject, realizing the injudiciousness of being too +confidential with this girl on so short an acquaintance. +</P> + +<P> +At the momentous hour of seven, the directors promptly assembled. When +Tillie, at her aunt's request, carried two kerosene lamps into the +parlor, a sudden determination came to the girl to remain and witness +the reception of the new teacher by the School Board. +</P> + +<P> +She was almost sick with apprehension lest the Board should realize, as +she did, that this Harvard graduate was too fine for such as they. It +was an austere Board, hard to satisfy, and there was nothing they would +so quickly resent and reject as evident superiority in an applicant. +The Normal School students, their usual candidates, were for the most +part, though not always, what was called in the neighborhood "nice and +common." The New Canaan Board was certainly not accustomed to sitting +in judgment upon an applicant such as this Pestalozzi Fairchilds. +(Tillie's religion forbade her to call him by the vain and worldly form +of Mr.) +</P> + +<P> +No one noticed the pale-faced girl as, after placing one lamp on the +marble-topped table about which the directors sat and another on the +mantelpiece, she moved quietly away to the farthest corner of the long, +narrow parlor and seated herself back of the stove. +</P> + +<P> +The applicant, too, when he came into the room, was too much taken up +with what he realized to be the perils of his case to observe the +little watcher in the corner, though he walked past her so close that +his coat brushed her shoulder, sending along her nerves, like a faint +electric shock, a sensation so novel and so exquisite that it made her +suddenly close her eyes to steady her throbbing head. +</P> + +<P> +There were present six members of the Board—two Amishmen, one Old +Mennonite, one patriarchal-looking Dunkard, one New Mennonite, and one +Evangelical, the difference in their religious creeds being attested by +their various costumes and the various cuts of beard and hair. The +Evangelical, the New Mennonite, and the Amishmen were farmers, the +Dunkard kept the store and the post-office, and the Old Mennonite was +the stage-driver. Jacob Getz was the Evangelical; and Nathaniel Puntz, +Absalom's father, the New Mennonite. +</P> + +<P> +The investigation of the applicant was opened up by the president of +the Board, a long-haired Amishman, whose clothes were fastened by hooks +and eyes instead of buttons and buttonholes, these latter being +considered by his sect as a worldly vanity. +</P> + +<P> +"What was your experience a'ready as a teacher?" +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds replied that he had never had any. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's heart sank as, from her post in the corner, she heard this +answer. Would the members think for one moment of paying forty dollars +a month to a teacher without experience? She was sure they had never +before done so. They were shaking their heads gravely over it, she +could see. +</P> + +<P> +But the investigation proceeded. +</P> + +<P> +"What was your Persuasion then?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie saw, in the teacher's hesitation, that he did not understand the +question. +</P> + +<P> +"My 'Persuasion'? Oh! I see. You mean my Church?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, what's your conwictions?" +</P> + +<P> +He considered a moment. Tillie hung breathlessly upon his answer. She +knew how much depended upon it with this Board of "plain" people. Could +he assure them that he was "a Bible Christian"? Otherwise, they would +never elect him to the New Canaan school. He gave his reply, presently, +in a tone suggesting his having at that moment recalled to memory just +what his "Persuasion" was. "Let me see—yes—I'm a Truth-Seeker." +</P> + +<P> +"What's that again?" inquired the president, with interest. "I have not +heard yet of that Persuasion." +</P> + +<P> +"A Truth-Seeker," he gravely explained, "is one who believes in—eh—in +a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, +coherent heterogeneity." +</P> + +<P> +The members looked at each other cautiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that the English you're speakin', or whatever?" asked the Dunkard +member. "Some of them words ain't familiar with me till now, and I +don't know right what they mean." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I'm talking English," nodded the applicant. "We also believe," he +added, growing bolder, "in the fundamental, biogenetic law that +ontogenesis is an abridged repetition of philogenesis." +</P> + +<P> +"He says they believe in Genesis," remarked the Old Mennonite, +appealing for aid, with bewildered eyes, to the other members. +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe he's a Jew yet!" put in Nathaniel Puntz. "We also believe," Mr. +Fairchilds continued, beginning to enjoy himself, "in the revelations +of science." +</P> + +<P> +"He believes in Genesis and in Revelations," explained the president to +the others. +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe he's a Cat'lic!" suggested the suspicious Mr. Puntz. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Fairchilds, "I am, as I said, a Truth-Seeker. A Truth-Seeker +can no more be a Catholic or a Jew in faith than an Amishman can, or a +Mennonite, or a Brennivinarian." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie knew he was trying to say "Winebrennarian," the name of one of +the many religious sects of the county, and she wondered at his not +knowing better. +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't a gradyate, neither, are you?" was the president's next +question, the inscrutable mystery of the applicant's creed being for +the moment dropped. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes, I thought you knew that. Of Harvard." +</P> + +<P> +"Och, that!" contemptuously; "I mean you ain't a gradyate of +Millersville Normal?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," humbly acknowledged Fairchilds. +</P> + +<P> +"When I was young," Mr. Getz irrelevantly remarked, "we didn't have no +gradyate teachers like what they have now, still. But we anyhow learnt +more ACCORDING." +</P> + +<P> +"How long does it take you to get 'em from a, b, c's to the Testament?" +inquired the patriarchal Dunkard. +</P> + +<P> +"That depends upon the capacity of the pupil," was Mr. Fairchilds's +profound reply. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you learn 'em 'rithmetic good?" asked Nathaniel Puntz. "I got a +son his last teacher couldn't learn 'rithmetic to. He's wonderful dumm +in 'rithmetic, that there boy is. Absalom by name. After the +grandfather. His teacher tried every way to learn him to count and +figger good. He even took and spread toothpicks out yet—but that +didn't learn him neither. I just says, he ain't appointed to learn +'rithmetic. Then the teacher he tried him with such a Algebry. But +Absalom he'd get so mixed up!—he couldn't keep them x's spotted." +</P> + +<P> +"I have a method," Mr. Fairchilds began, "which I trust—" +</P> + +<P> +To Tillie's distress, her aunt's voice, at this instant calling her to +"come stir the sots [yeast] in," summoned her to the kitchen. +</P> + +<P> +It was very hard to have to obey. She longed so to stay till Fairchilds +should come safely through his fiery ordeal. For a moment she was +tempted to ignore the summons, but her conscience, no less than her +grateful affection for her aunt, made such behavior impossible. Softly +she stole out of the room and noiselessly closed the door behind her. +</P> + +<P> +A half-hour later, when her aunt and cousins had gone to bed, and while +the august School Board still occupied the parlor, Tillie sat sewing in +the sitting-room, while the doctor, at the other side of the table, +nodded over his newspaper. +</P> + +<P> +Since Tillie had come to live at the hotel, she and the doctor were +often together in the evening; the Doc was fond of a chat over his pipe +with the child whom he so helped and befriended in her secret struggles +to educate herself. There was, of course, a strong bond of sympathy and +friendship between them in their common conspiracy with Miss Margaret, +whom the doctor had never ceased to hold in tender memory. +</P> + +<P> +Just now Tillie's ears were strained to catch the sounds of the +adjourning of the Board. When at last she heard their shuffling +footsteps in the hall, her heart beat fast with suspense. A moment more +and the door leading from the parlor opened and Fairchilds came out +into the sitting-room. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie did not lift her eyes from her sewing, but the room seemed +suddenly filled with his presence. +</P> + +<P> +"Well!" the doctor roused himself to greet the young man; "were you +'lected?" +</P> + +<P> +Breathlessly, Tillie waited to hear his answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes; I've escaped alive!" Fairchilds leaned against the table in +an attitude of utter relaxation. "They roasted me brown, though! +Galileo at Rome, and Martin Luther at Worms, had a dead easy time +compared to what I've been through!" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess!" the doctor laughed. "Ain't!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to bed," the teacher announced in a tone of collapse. "Good +night!" +</P> + +<P> +"Good night!" answered the doctor, cordially. +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds drew himself up from the table and took a step toward the +stairway; this brought him to Tillie's side of the table, and he paused +a moment and looked down upon her as she sewed. +</P> + +<P> +Her fingers trembled, and the pulse in her throat beat suffocatingly, +but she did not look up. +</P> + +<P> +"Good night, Miss—Tillie, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Matilda Maria," Tillie's soft, shy voice replied as her eyes, full of +light, were raised, for an instant, to the face above her. +</P> + +<P> +The man smiled and bowed his acknowledgment; then, after an instant's +hesitation, he said, "Pardon me: the uniform you and Mrs. Wackernagel +wear—may I ask what it is?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Uniform'?" breathed Tillie, wonderingly. "Oh, you mean the garb? We +are members of meeting. The world calls us New Mennonites." +</P> + +<P> +"And this is the uni—the garb of the New Mennonites?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"It is a very becoming garb, certainly," Fairchilds smiled, gazing down +upon the fair young girl with a puzzled look in his own face, for he +recognized, not only in her delicate features, and in the light of her +beautiful eyes, but also in her speech, a something that set her apart +from the rest of this household. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie colored deeply at his words, and the doctor laughed outright. +</P> + +<P> +"By gum! They wear the garb to make 'em look UNbecomin'! And he ups and +tells her it's becomin' yet! That's a choke, Teacher! One on you, +ain't? That there cap's to hide the hair which is a pride to the sek! +And that cape over the bust is to hide woman's allurin' figger. See? +And you ups and tells her it's a becomin' UNYFORM! Unyforms is what New +Mennonites don't uphold to! Them's fur Cat'lics and 'Piscopals—and fur +warriors—and the Mennonites don't favor war! Unyforms yet!" he +laughed. "I'm swanged if that don't tickle me!" +</P> + +<P> +"I stand corrected. I beg pardon if I've offended," Fairchilds said +hastily. "Miss—Matilda—I hope I've not hurt your feelings? Believe +me, I did not mean to." +</P> + +<P> +"Och!" the doctor answered for her, "Tillie she ain't so easy hurt to +her feelin's, are you, Tillie? Gosh, Teacher, them manners you got must +keep you busy! Well, sometimes I think I'm better off if I stay common. +Then I don't have to bother." +</P> + +<P> +The door leading from the bar-room opened suddenly and Jacob Getz stood +on the threshold. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Tillie," he said by way of greeting. "Uncle Abe sayed you wasn't +went to bed yet, so I stopped to see you a minute." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, father," Tillie answered as she put down her sewing and came up +to him. +</P> + +<P> +Awkwardly he bent to kiss her, and Tillie, even in her emotional +excitement, realized, with a passing wonder, that he appeared glad to +see her after a week of separation. +</P> + +<P> +"It's been some lonesome, havin' you away," he told her. +</P> + +<P> +"Is everybody well?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, middlin'. You was sewin', was you?" he inquired, glancing at the +work on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"All right. Don't waste your time. Next Saturday I 'll stop off after +market on my way out from Lancaster and see you oncet, and get your +wages off of Aunty Em." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." +</P> + +<P> +A vague idea of something unusual in the light of Tillie's eyes +arrested him. He glanced suspiciously at the doctor, who was speaking +in a low tone to the teacher. +</P> + +<P> +"Look-ahere, Tillie. If Teacher there wants to keep comp'ny with one of +yous girls, it ain't to be you, mind. He ain't to be makin' up to you! +I don't want you to waste your time that there way." +</P> + +<P> +Apprehensively, Tillie darted a sidelong glance at the teacher to see +if he had heard—for though no tender sentiment was associated in her +mind with the idea of "keeping company," yet intuitively she felt the +unseemliness of her father's warning and its absurdity in the eyes of +such as this stranger. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Fairchilds was leaning against the table, his arms folded, his lips +compressed and his face flushed. She was sure that he had overheard her +father. Was he angry, or—almost worse—did that compressed mouth mean +concealed amusement? +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now, I must be goin'," said Mr. Getz. "Be a good girl, mind. +Och, I 'most forgot to tell you. Me and your mom's conceited we'd drive +up to Puntz's Sunday afternoon after the dinner work's through a'ready. +And if Aunty Em don't want you partic'lar, you're to come home and mind +the childern, do you hear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Now, don't forget. Well, good-by, then." +</P> + +<P> +Again he bent to kiss her, and Tillie felt Fairchilds's eyes upon her, +as unresponsively she submitted to the caress. +</P> + +<P> +"Good night to you, Teacher." Mr. Getz gruffly raised his voice to +speak to the pair by the table. "And to you, Doc." +</P> + +<P> +They answered him and he went away. When Tillie slowly turned back to +the table, the teacher hastily took his leave and moved away to the +stairway at the other end of the room. As she took up her sewing, she +heard him mount the steps and presently close and lock the door of his +room at the head of the stairs. +</P> + +<P> +"He was, now, wonderful surprised, Tillie," the doctor confided to her, +"when I tole him Jake Getz was your pop. He don't think your pop takes +after you any. I says to him, 'Tillie's pop, there, bein' one of your +bosses, you better make up to Tillie,' I says, and he sayed, 'You don't +mean to tell me that that Mr. Getz of the School Board is the father of +this girl?' 'That's what,' I says. 'He's that much her father,' I says, +'that you'd better keep on the right side of him by makin' up to +Tillie,' I says, just to plague him. And just then your pop up and +sayed if Teacher wanted to keep comp'ny he must pick out 'Manda or +Rebecca—and I seen Teacher wanted to laugh, but his manners wouldn't +leave him. He certainly has, now, a lot of manners, ain't, Tillie?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's head was bent over her sewing and she did not answer. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor yawned, stretched himself, and guessed he would step into +the bar-room. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie bent over her sewing for a long time after she was left alone. +The music of the young man's grave voice as he had spoken her name and +called her "Miss Matilda" sang in her brain. The fascination of his +smile as he had looked down into her eyes, and the charm of his +chivalrous courtesy, so novel to her experience, haunted and +intoxicated her. And tonight, Tillie felt her soul flooded with a life +and light so new and strange that she trembled as before a miracle. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile, Walter Fairchilds, alone in his room, his mind too full of +the events and characters to which the past day had introduced him to +admit of sleep, was picturing, with mingled amusement and regret, the +genuine horror of his fastidious relatives could they know of his +present environment, among people for whom their vocabulary had but one +word—a word which would have consigned them all, even that +sweet-voiced, clear-eyed little Puritan, Matilda Maria, to outer +darkness; and that he, their adopted son and brother, should be +breaking bread and living on a footing of perfect equality with these +villagers he knew would have been, in their eyes, an offense only +second in heinousness to that of his apostasy. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE WACKERNAGELS "CONWERSE" +</H3> + +<P> +The next day, being the Sabbath, brought to Tillie two of the keenest +temptations she had ever known. In the first place, she did not want to +obey her father and go home after dinner to take care of the children. +All in a day the hotel had become to her the one haven where she would +be, outside of which the sun did not shine. +</P> + +<P> +True, by going home she might hope to escape the objectionable Sunday +evening sitting-up with Absalom; for in spite of the note she had sent +him, telling him of her father's wish that he must not come to see her +at the hotel, she was unhappily sure that he would appear as usual. +Indeed, with his characteristic dogged persistency, he was pretty +certain to follow her, whithersoever she went. And even if he did not, +it would be easier to endure the slow torture of his endless visit +under this roof, which sheltered also that other presence, than to lose +one hour away from its wonderful and mysterious charm. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, look here, Tillie," said Aunty Em, at the breakfast-table, "you +worked hard this week, and this after you're restin'—leastways, unless +you WANT to go home and take care of all them litter of childern. If +you don't want to go, you just stay—and <I>I'll</I> take the blame! I'll +say I needed you." +</P> + +<P> +"Let Jake Getz come 'round HERE tryin' to bully you, Tillie," exclaimed +Mr. Wackernagel, "and it won't take me a week to tell him what I think +of HIM! I don't owe HIM nothin'!" +</P> + +<P> +"No," agreed Jake Getz's sister, "we don't live off of him!" +</P> + +<P> +"And I don't care who fetches him neither!" added Mr. +Wackernagel—which expression of contempt was one of the most scathing +known to the tongue of a Pennsylvania Dutchman. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you goin' to do, Tillie?" Amanda asked. "Are you goin' or +stayin'?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie wavered a moment between duty and inclination; between the habit +of servility to her father and the magic power that held her in its +fascinating spell here under her uncle's roof. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm staying," she faltered. +</P> + +<P> +"Good fur you, Tillie!" laughed her uncle. "You're gettin' learnt here +to take your own head a little fur things. Well, I'd like to get you +spoilt good fur your pop—that's what I'd like to do!" +</P> + +<P> +"We darsent go too fur," warned Aunty Em, "or he won't leave her stay +with us at all." +</P> + +<P> +"Now there's you, Abe," remarked the doctor, dryly; "from the time your +childern could walk and talk a'ready all you had to say was 'Go'—and +they stayed. Ain't?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Wackernagel joined in the loud laughter of his wife and daughters. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie realized that the teacher, as he sipped his coffee, was +listening to the dialogue with astonishment and curiosity, and she +hungered to know all that was passing through his mind. +</P> + +<P> +Her second temptation came to her upon hearing Fairchilds, as they rose +from the breakfast-table, suggest a walk in the woods with Amanda and +Rebecca. "And won't Miss Tillie go too?" he inquired. +</P> + +<P> +Her aunt answered for her. "Och, she wouldn't have dare, her bein' a +member, you know. It would be breakin' the Sabbath. And anyways, even +if it wasn't Sunday, us New Mennonites don't take walks or do anything +just fur pleasure when they ain't nothin' useful in it. If Tillie went, +I'd have to report her to the meetin', even if it did go ag'in' me to +do it." +</P> + +<P> +"And then what would happen?" Mr. Fairchilds inquired curiously. +</P> + +<P> +"She'd be set back." +</P> + +<P> +"'Set back'?" +</P> + +<P> +"She wouldn't have dare to greet the sisters with a kiss, and she +couldn't speak with me or eat with me or any of the brothers and +sisters till she gave herself up ag'in and obeyed to the rules." +</P> + +<P> +"This is very interesting," commented Fairchilds, his contemplative +gaze moving from the face of Mrs. Wackernagel to Tillie. "But," he +questioned, "Mrs. Wackernagel, why are your daughters allowed to do +what you think wrong and would not do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," began Aunty Em, entering with relish into the discussion, for +she was strong in theology, "we don't hold to forcin' our childern or +interferin' with the free work of the Holy Spirit in bringin' souls to +the truth. We don't do like them fashionable churches of the world +where teaches their childern to say their prayers and makes 'em read +the Bible and go to Sunday-school. We don't uphold to Sunday-schools. +You can't read nothin' in the Scripture about Sunday-schools. We hold +everybody must come by their free will, and learnt only of the Holy +Spirit, into the light of the One True Way." +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds gravely thanked her for her explanation and pursued the +subject no further. +</P> + +<P> +When Tillie presently saw him start out with her cousins, an +unregenerate longing filled her soul to stay away from meeting and go +with them, to spend this holy Sabbath day in worshiping, not her God, +but this most god-like being who had come like the opening up of heaven +into her simple, uneventful life. In her struggle with her conscience +to crush such sinful desires, Tillie felt that now, for the first time, +she understood how Jacob of old had wrestled with the Angel. +</P> + +<P> +Her spiritual struggle was not ended by her going dutifully to meeting +with her aunt. During all the long services of the morning she fought +with her wandering attention to keep it upon the sacred words that were +spoken and sung. But her thoughts would not be controlled. Straying +like a wicked imp into forbidden paths, her fancy followed the envied +ones into the soft, cool shadows of the autumn woods and along the +banks of the beautiful Conestoga, and mingling with the gentle +murmuring of the leaves and the rippling of the water, she heard that +resonant voice, so unlike any voice she had ever heard before, and that +little abrupt laugh with its odd falsetto note, which haunted her like +a strain of music; and she saw, in the sunlight of the lovely October +morning, against a background of gold and brown leaves and silver +water, the finely chiseled face, the thoughtful, pale forehead, the +kind eyes, the capable white hands, of this most wonderful young man. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie well understood that could the brethren and sisters know in what +a worldly frame of mind she sat in the house of God this day, +undoubtedly they would present her case for "discipline," and even, +perhaps, "set her back." But all the while that she tried to fight back +the enemy of her soul, who thus subtly beset her with temptation to +sin, she felt the utter uselessness of her struggle with herself. For +even when she did succeed in forcing her attention upon some of the +hymns, it was in whimsical and persistent terms of the teacher that she +considered them. How was it possible, she wondered, for him, or any +unconverted soul, to hear, without being moved to "give himself up," +such lines as these: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "He washed them all to make them clean,<BR> + But Judas still was full of sin.<BR> + May none of us, like Judas, sell<BR> + Our Lord for gold, and go to hell!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +And these: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "O man, remember, thou must die;<BR> + The sentence is for you and I.<BR> + Where shall we be, or will we go,<BR> + When we must leave this world below?"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +In the same moment that Tillie was wondering how a "Truth-Seeker" would +feel under these searching words, she felt herself condemned by them +for her wandering attention. +</P> + +<P> +The young girl's feelings toward the stranger at this present stage of +their evolution were not, like those of Amanda and Rebecca, the mere +instinctive feminine craving for masculine admiration. She did not +think of herself in relation to him at all. A great hunger possessed +her to know him—all his thoughts, his emotions, the depths and the +heights of him; she did not long, or even wish, that he might know and +admire HER. +</P> + +<P> +The three-mile drive home from church seemed to Tillie, sitting in the +high, old-fashioned buggy at her aunt's side, an endless journey. Never +had old Dolly traveled so deliberately or with more frequent dead stops +in the road to meditate upon her long-past youth. Mrs. Wackernagel's +ineffectual slaps of the reins upon the back of the decrepit animal +inspired in Tillie an inhuman longing to seize the whip and lash the +feeble beast into a swift pace. The girl felt appalled at her own +feelings, so novel and inexplicable they seemed to her. Whether there +was more of ecstasy or torture in them, she hardly knew. +</P> + +<P> +Immediately after dinner the teacher went out and did not turn up again +until evening, when he retired immediately to the seclusion of his own +room. +</P> + +<P> +The mystification of the family at this unaccountably unsocial +behavior, their curiosity as to where he had been, their suspense as to +what he did when alone so long in his bedroom, reached a tension that +was painful. +</P> + +<P> +Promptly at half-past six, Absalom, clad in his Sunday suit, appeared +at the hotel, to perform his weekly stint of sitting-up. +</P> + +<P> +As Rebecca always occupied the parlor on Sunday evening with her +gentleman friend, there was only left to Absalom and Tillie to sit +either in the kitchen or with the assembled family in the sitting-room. +Tillie preferred the latter. Of course she knew that such respite as +the presence of the family gave her was only temporary, for in friendly +consideration of what were supposed to be her feelings in the matter, +they would all retire early. Absalom also knowing this, accepted the +brief inconvenience of their presence without any marked restiveness. +</P> + +<P> +"Say, Absalom," inquired the doctor, as the young man took up his post +on the settee beside Tillie, sitting as close to her as he could +without pushing her off, "how did your pop pass his opinion about the +new teacher after the Board meeting Saturday, heh?" +</P> + +<P> +The doctor was lounging in his own special chair by the table, his fat +legs crossed and his thumbs thrust into his vest arms. Amanda idly +rocked back and forth in a large luridly painted rocking-chair by the +window, and Mrs. Wackernagel sat by the table before an open Bible in +which she was not too much absorbed to join occasionally in the general +conversation. +</P> + +<P> +"He sayed he was afraid he was some tony," answered Absalom. "And," he +added, a reflection in his tone of his father's suspicious attitude on +Saturday night toward Fairchilds, "pop sayed HE couldn't make out what +was his conwictions. He couldn't even tell right was he a Bible +Christian or no." +</P> + +<P> +"He certainly does, now, have pecooliar views," agreed the doctor. "I +was talkin' to him this after—" +</P> + +<P> +"You WAS!" exclaimed Amanda, a note of chagrin in her voice. "Well, I'd +like to know where at? Where had he took himself to?" +</P> + +<P> +"Up to the woods there by the old mill. I come on him there at five +o'clock—layin' readin' and musin'—when I was takin' a short cut home +through the woods comin' from Adam Oberholzer's." +</P> + +<P> +"Well I never!" cried Amanda. "And was he out there all by hisself the +whole afternoon?" she asked incredulously. +</P> + +<P> +"So much as I know. AIN'T he, now, a queer feller not to want a girl +along when one was so handy?" teased the doctor. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," retorted Amanda, "I think he's hard up—to be spendin' a whole +afternoon READIN'!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Doc!" Tillie leaned forward and whispered, "he's up in his room +and perhaps he can hear us through the register!" +</P> + +<P> +"I wisht he KIN," declared Amanda, "if it would learn him how dumm us +folks thinks a feller where spends a whole Sunday afternoon by hisself +READIN'!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes," put in Mrs. Wackernagel; "what would a body be wantin' to +waste time like that fur?—when he could of spent his nice afternoon +settin' there on the porch with us all, conwersin'." +</P> + +<P> +"And he's at it ag'in this evenin', up there in his room," the doctor +informed them. "I went up to give him my lamp, and I'm swanged if he +ain't got a many books and such pamp'lets in his room! As many as ten, +I guess! I tole him: I says, 'It does, now, beat all the way you take +to them books and pamp'lets and things!'" +</P> + +<P> +"It's a pity of him!" said motherly Mrs. Wackernagel. +</P> + +<P> +"And I says to him," added the doctor, "I says, 'You ain't much fur +sociability, are you?' I says." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I did think, too, Amanda," sympathized her mother, "he'd set up +with you mebbe to-night, seein' Rebecca and Tillie's each got their +gent'man comp'ny—even if he didn't mean it fur really, but only to +pass the time." +</P> + +<P> +"Och, he needn't think I'm dyin' to set up with HIM! There's a plenty +others would be glad to set up with me, if I was one of them that was +fur keepin' comp'ny with just ANYbody! But I did think when I heard he +was goin' to stop here that mebbe he'd be a JOLLY feller that way. +Well," Amanda concluded scathingly, "I'm goin' to tell Lizzie Hershey +she ain't missin' much!" +</P> + +<P> +"What's them pecooliar views of hisn you was goin' to speak to us, +Doc?" said Absalom. +</P> + +<P> +"Och, yes, I was goin' to tell you them. Well, here this after we got +to talkin' about the subjeck of prayer, and I ast him his opinion. And +if I understood right what he meant, why, prayin' is no different to +him than musin'. Leastways, that's the thought I got out of his words." +</P> + +<P> +"Musin'," repeated Absalom. "What's musin'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, what's that ag'in?" asked Mrs. Wackernagel, alert with curiosity, +theological discussions being always of deep interest to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Musin' is settin' by yourself and thinkin' of your learnin'," +explained the doctor. "I've took notice, this long time back, educated +persons they like to set by theirselves, still, and muse." +</P> + +<P> +"And do you say," demanded Absalom, indignantly, "that Teacher he says +it's the same to him as prayin'—this here musin'?" +</P> + +<P> +"So much as I know, that's what he sayed." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," declared Absalom, "that there ain't in the Bible! He'd better +watch out! If he ain't a Bible Christian, pop and Jake Getz and the +other directors'll soon put him off William Penn!" +</P> + +<P> +"Och, Absalom, go sass your gran'mom!" was the doctor's elegant retort. +"What's ailin' YOU, anyways, that you want to be so spunky about +Teacher? I guess you're mebbe thinkin' he'll cut you out with Tillie, +ain't?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like to see him try it oncet!" growled Absalom. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie grew cold with fear that the teacher might hear them; but she +knew there was no use in protesting. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you goin' to keep on at William Penn all winter, Absalom?" Mrs. +Wackernagel asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Just long enough to see if he kin learn 'rithmetic to me. Ezra Herr, +he was too dumm to learn me." +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe," said the doctor, astutely, "you was too dumm to GET learnt!" +</P> + +<P> +"I AM wonderful dumm in 'rithmetic," Absalom acknowledged shamelessly. +"But pop says this here teacher is smart and kin mebbe learn me. I've +not saw him yet myself." +</P> + +<P> +Much as Tillie disliked being alone with her suitor, she was rather +relieved this evening when the family, en masse, significantly took its +departure to the second floor; for she hoped that with no one but +Absalom to deal with, she could induce him to lower his voice so their +talk would not be audible to the teacher in the room above. +</P> + +<P> +Had she been able but faintly to guess what was to ensue on her being +left alone with him, she would have fled up-stairs with the rest of the +family and left Absalom to keep company with the chairs. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE TEACHER MEETS ABSALOM +</H3> + +<P> +Only a short time had the sitting-room been abandoned to them when +Tillie was forced to put a check upon her lover's ardor. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Absalom," she firmly said, moving away from his encircling arm, +"unless you leave me be, I'm not sitting on the settee alongside you at +all. You MUST NOT kiss me or hold my hand—or even touch me. Never +again. I told you so last Sunday night." +</P> + +<P> +"But why?" Absalom asked, genuinely puzzled. "Is it that I kreistle +you, Tillie?" +</P> + +<P> +"N—no," she hesitated. An affirmative reply, she knew, would be +regarded as a cold-blooded insult. In fact, Tillie herself did not +understand her own repugnance to Absalom's caresses. +</P> + +<P> +"You act like as if I made you feel repulsive to me, Tillie," he +complained. +</P> + +<P> +"N—no. I don't want to be touched. That's all." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'd like to know what fun you think there is in settin' up with +a girl that won't leave a feller kiss her or hug her!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure I don't know what you do see in it, Absalom. I told you not +to come." +</P> + +<P> +"If I ain't to hold your hand or kiss yon, what are we to do to pass +the time?" he reasoned. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell you, Absalom. Let me read to you. Then we wouldn't be +wasting the evening." +</P> + +<P> +"I ain't much fur readin'. I ain't like Teacher." He frowned and looked +at her darkly. "I've took notice how much fur books you are that way. +Last Sunday night, too, you sayed, 'Let me read somepin to you.' Mebbe +you and Teacher will be settin' up readin' together. And mebbe the Doc +wasn't just jokin' when he sayed Teacher might cut me out!" +</P> + +<P> +"Please, Absalom," Tillie implored him, "don't talk so loud!" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care! I hope he hears me sayin' that if he ever comes tryin' +to get my girl off me, I 'll get pop to have him put off his job!" +</P> + +<P> +"None of you know what you are talking about," Tillie indignantly +whispered. "You can't understand. The teacher is a man that wouldn't +any more keep company with one of us country girls than you would keep +company, Absalom, with a gipsy. He's ABOVE us!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I guess if you're good enough fur me, Tillie Getz, you're good +enough fur anybody else—leastways fur a man that gets his job off the +wotes of your pop and mine!" +</P> + +<P> +"The teacher is a—a gentleman, Absalom." +</P> + +<P> +Absalom did not understand. "Well, I guess I know he ain't a lady. I +guess I know what his sek is!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie sighed in despair, and sank back on the settee. For a few +minutes they sat in strained silence. +</P> + +<P> +"I never seen a girl like what you are! You're wonderful different to +the other girls I've knew a'ready." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie did not reply. +</P> + +<P> +"Where d'you come by them books you read?" +</P> + +<P> +"The Doc gets them for me." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Tillie, look-ahere. I spoke somepin to the Doc how I wanted to +fetch you somepin along when I come over sometime, and I ast him what, +now, he thought you would mebbe like. And he sayed a book. So I got +Cousin Sally Puntz to fetch one along fur me from the Methodist +Sunday-school li-bry, and here I brung it over to you." +</P> + +<P> +He produced a small volume from his coat pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"I was 'most ashamed to bring it, it's so wonderful little. I tole +Cousin Sally, 'Why didn't you bring me a bigger book?' And she sayed +she did try to get a bigger one, but they was all. There's one in that +li-bry with four hunderd pages. I tole her, now, she's to try to get me +that there one next Sunday before it's took by somebody. This one's +'most too little." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie smiled as she took it from him. "Thank you, Absalom. I don't +care if it's LITTLE, so long as it's interesting—and instructive," she +spoke primly. +</P> + +<P> +"The Bible's such a big book, I thought the bigger the book was, the +nearer it was like the Bible," said Absalom. +</P> + +<P> +"But there's the dictionary, Absalom. It's as big as the Bible." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't the size make nothin'?" Absalom asked. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie shook her head, still smiling. She glanced down and read aloud +the title of the book she held: "'What a Young Husband Ought to Know.'" +</P> + +<P> +"But, Absalom!" she faltered. +</P> + +<P> +"Well? What?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked up into his heavy, blank face, and suddenly a faint sense of +humor seemed born in her—and she laughed. +</P> + +<P> +The laugh illumined her face, and it was too much for Absalom. He +seized her and kissed her, with resounding emphasis, squarely on the +mouth. +</P> + +<P> +Instantly Tillie wrenched herself away from him and stood up. Her face +was flushed and her eyes sparkled. And yet, she was not indignant with +him in the sense that a less unsophisticated girl would have been. +Absalom, according to New Canaan standards, was not exceeding his +rights under the circumstances. But an instinct, subtle, undefined, +incomprehensible to herself, contradicted, indeed, by every convention +of the neighborhood in which she had been reared, made Tillie feel that +in yielding her lips to this man for whom she did not care, and whom, +if she could hold out against him, she did not intend to marry, she was +desecrating her womanhood. Vague and obscure as her feeling was, it was +strong enough to control her. +</P> + +<P> +"I meant what I said, Absalom. If you won't leave me be, I won't stay +here with you. You'll have to go home, for now I'm going right +up-stairs." +</P> + +<P> +She spoke with a firmness that made the dull youth suddenly realize a +thing of which he had never dreamed, that however slightly Tillie +resembled her father in other respects, she did have a bit of his +determination. +</P> + +<P> +She took a step toward the stairs, but Absalom seized her skirts and +pulled her back. "You needn't think I'm leavin' you act like that to +me, Tillie!" he muttered, his ardor whetted by the difficulties of his +courting. "Now I'll learn you!" and holding her slight form in his +burly grasp he kissed her again and again. +</P> + +<P> +"Leave me go!" she cried. "I'll call out if you don't! Stop it, +Absalom!" +</P> + +<P> +Absalom laughed aloud, his eyes glittering as he felt her womanly +helplessness in his strong clasp. +</P> + +<P> +"What you goin' to do about it, Tillie? You can't help yourself—you +got to get kissed if you want to or no!" And again his articulate +caresses sounded upon her shrinking lips, and he roared with laughter +in his own satisfaction and in his enjoyment of her predicament. "You +can't help yourself," he said, crushing her against him in a bearish +hug. +</P> + +<P> +"Absalom!" the girl's voice rang out sharply in pain and fear. +</P> + +<P> +Then of a sudden Absalom's wrists were seized in a strong grip, and the +young giant found his arms pinned behind him. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, then, Absalom, you let this little girl alone. Do you +understand?" said Fairchilds, coolly, as he let go his hold on the +youth and stepped round to his side. +</P> + +<P> +Absalom's face turned white with fury as he realized who had dared to +interfere. He opened his lips, but speech would not come to him. +Clenching his fingers, he drew back his arm, but his heavy fist, coming +swiftly forward, was caught easily in Fairchilds's palm—and held there. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, come," he said soothingly, "it isn't worth while to row, you +know. And in the presence of the lady!" +</P> + +<P> +"You mind to your OWN business!" spluttered Absalom, struggling to free +his hand, and, to his own surprise, failing. Quickly he drew back his +left fist and again tried to strike, only to find it too caught and +held, with no apparent effort on the part of the teacher. Tillie, at +first pale with fright at what had promised to be so unequal a contest +in view of the teacher's slight frame and the brawny, muscular strength +of Absalom, felt her pulses bound with a thrill of admiration for this +cool, quiet force which could render the other's fury so helpless; +while at the same time she felt sick with shame. +</P> + +<P> +"Blame you!" cried Absalom, wildly. "Le' me be! It don't make nothin' +to you if I kiss my girl! I don't owe YOU nothin'! You le' me be!" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly," returned Fairchilds, cheerfully. "Just stop annoying Miss +Tillie, that's all I want."' +</P> + +<P> +He dropped the fellow's hands and deliberately drew out his +handkerchief to wipe his own. +</P> + +<P> +A third time Absalom made a furious dash at him, to find his two wrists +caught in the vise-like grip of his antagonist. +</P> + +<P> +"Tut, tut, Absalom, this is quite enough. Behave yourself, or I shall +be obliged to hurt you." +</P> + +<P> +"YOU—you white-faced, woman-faced mackerel! YOU think you kin hurt me! +You—" +</P> + +<P> +"Now then," Fairchilds again dropped Absalom's hands and picked up from +the settee the book which the youth had presented to Tillie. "Here, +Absalom, take your 'What a Young Husband Ought to Know' and go home." +</P> + +<P> +Something in the teacher's quiet, confident tone cowed Absalom +completely—for the time being, at least. He was conquered. It was very +bewildering. The man before him was not half his weight and was not in +the least ruffled. How had he so easily "licked" him? Absalom, by +reason of his stalwart physique and the fact that his father was a +director, had, during most of his school life, found pleasing diversion +in keeping the various teachers of William Penn cowed before him. He +now saw his supremacy in that quarter at an end—physically speaking at +least. There might be a moral point of attack. +</P> + +<P> +"Look-ahere!" he blustered. "Do you know my pop's Nathaniel Puntz, the +director?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are a credit to him, Absalom. By the way, will you take a message +to him from me? Tell him, please, that the lock on the school-room door +is broken, and I'd be greatly obliged if he would send up a lock-smith +to mend it." +</P> + +<P> +Absalom looked discouraged. A Harvard graduate was, manifestly, a freak +of nature—invulnerable at all points. +</P> + +<P> +"If pop gets down on you, you won't be long at William Penn!" he +bullied. "You'll soon get chased off your job!" +</P> + +<P> +"My job at breaking you in? Well, well, I might be spending my time +more profitably, that's so." +</P> + +<P> +"You go on out of here and le' me alone with my girl!" quavered +Absalom, blinking away tears of rage. +</P> + +<P> +"That will be as she says. How is it, Miss Tillie? Do you want him to +go?" +</P> + +<P> +Now Tillie knew that if she allowed Absalom Puntz to leave her in his +present state of baffled anger, Fairchilds would not remain in New +Canaan a month. Absalom was his father's only child, and Nathaniel +Puntz was known to be both suspicious and vindictive. "Clothed in a +little brief authority," as school director, he never missed an +opportunity to wield his precious power. +</P> + +<P> +With quick insight, Tillie realized that the teacher would think meanly +of her if, after her outcry at Absalom's amorous behavior, she now +inconsistently ask that he remain with her for the rest of the evening. +But what the teacher might think about HER did not matter so much as +that he should be saved from the wrath of Absalom. +</P> + +<P> +"Please leave him stay," she answered in a low voice. +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds gazed in surprise upon the girl's sweet, troubled face. "Let +him stay?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Then perhaps my interference was unwelcome?" +</P> + +<P> +"I thank you, but—I want him to stay." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes? I beg pardon for my intrusion. Good night." +</P> + +<P> +He turned away somewhat abruptly and left the room. +</P> + +<P> +And Tillie was again alone with Absalom. +</P> + +<P> +IN his chamber, getting ready for bed, Fairchilds's thoughts idly dwelt +upon the strange contradictions he seemed to see in the character of +the little Mennonite maiden. He had thought that he recognized in her a +difference from the rest of this household—a difference in speech, in +feature, in countenance, in her whole personality. And yet she could +allow the amorous attentions of that coarse, stupid cub; and her +protestations against the fellow's liberties with her had been mere +coquetry. Well, he would be careful, another time, how he played the +part of a Don Quixote. +</P> + +<P> +Meantime Tillie, with suddenly developed histrionic skill, was, by a +Spartan self-sacrifice in submitting to Absalom's love-making, +overcoming his wrath against the teacher. Absalom never suspected how +he was being played upon, or what a mere tool he was in the hands of +this gentle little girl, when, somewhat to his own surprise, he found +himself half promising that the teacher should not be complained of to +his father. The infinite tact and scheming it required on Tillie's part +to elicit this assurance without further arousing his jealousy left +her, at the end of his prolonged sitting-up, utterly exhausted. +</P> + +<P> +Yet when at last her weary head found her pillow, it was not to rest or +sleep. A haunting, fearful certainty possessed her. "Dumm" as he was, +Absalom, in his invulnerable persistency, had become to the tired, +tortured girl simply an irresistible force of Nature. And Tillie felt +that, struggle as she might against him, there would come a day when +she could fight no longer, and so at last she must fall a victim to +this incarnation of Dutch determination. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TILLIE REVEALS HERSELF +</H3> + +<P> +In the next few days, Tillie tried in vain to summon courage to appeal +to the teacher for assistance in her winter's study. Day after day she +resolved to speak to him, and as often postponed it, unable to conquer +her shyness. Meantime, however, under the stimulus of his constant +presence, she applied herself in every spare moment to the school-books +used by her two cousins, and in this unaided work she succeeded, as +usual, in making headway. +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds's attention was arrested by the frequent picture of the +little Mennonite maiden conning school-books by lamp-light. +</P> + +<P> +One evening he happened to be alone with her for a few minutes in the +sitting-room. It was Hallowe'en, and he was waiting for Amanda to come +down from her room, where she was arraying herself for conquest at a +party in the village, to which he had been invited to escort her. +</P> + +<P> +"Studying all alone?" he inquired sociably, coming to the table where +Tillie sat, and looking down upon her. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Tillie, raising her eyes for an instant. +</P> + +<P> +"May I see!" +</P> + +<P> +He bent to look at her book, pressing it open with his palm, and the +movement brought his hand in contact with hers. Tillie felt for an +instant as if she were going to swoon, so strangely delicious was the +shock. +</P> + +<P> +"'Hiawatha,'" he said, all unconscious of the tempest in the little +soul apparently so close to him, yet in reality so immeasurably far +away. "Do you enjoy it?" he inquired curiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes"; then quickly she added, "I am parsing it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" There was a faint disappointment in his tone. +</P> + +<P> +"But," she confessed, "I read it all through the first day I began to +parse it, and—and I wish I was parsing something else, because I keep +reading this instead of parsing it, and—" +</P> + +<P> +"You enjoy the story and the poetry?" he questioned. +</P> + +<P> +"But a body mustn't read just for pleasure," she said timidly; "but for +instruction; and this 'Hiawatha' is a temptation to me." +</P> + +<P> +"What makes you think you ought not to read 'just for pleasure'?" +</P> + +<P> +"That would be a vanity. And we Mennonites are loosed from the things +of the world." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you never do anything just for the pleasure of it?" +</P> + +<P> +"When pleasure and duty go hand in hand, then pleasure is not +displeasing to God. But Christ, you know, did not go about seeking +pleasure. And we try to follow him in all things." +</P> + +<P> +"But, child, has not God made the world beautiful for our pleasure? Has +he not given us appetites and passions for our pleasure?—minds and +hearts and bodies constructed for pleasure?" +</P> + +<P> +"Has he made anything for pleasure apart from usefulness?" Tillie asked +earnestly, suddenly forgetting her shyness. +</P> + +<P> +"But when a thing gives pleasure it is serving the highest possible +use," he insisted. "It is blasphemous to close your nature to the +pleasures God has created for you. Blasphemous!" +</P> + +<P> +"Those thoughts have come to me still," said Tillie. "But I know they +were sent to me by the Enemy." +</P> + +<P> +"'The Enemy'?" +</P> + +<P> +"The Enemy of our souls." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" he nodded; then abruptly added, "Now do you know, little girl, I +wouldn't let HIM bother me at this stage of the game, if I were you! +He's a back number, really!" He checked himself, remembering how +dangerous such heresies were in New Canaan. "Don't you find it dull +working alone?" he asked hastily, "and rather uphill?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is often very hard." +</P> + +<P> +"Often? Then you have been doing it for some time?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Tillie answered hesitatingly. No one except the doctor shared +her secret with Miss Margaret. Self-concealment had come to be the +habit of her life—her instinct for self-preservation. And yet, the +teacher's evident interest, his presence so close to her, brought all +her soul to her lips. She had a feeling that if she could overcome her +shyness, she would be able to speak to him as unrestrainedly, as truly, +as she talked in her letters to Miss Margaret. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you have no help at all?" he pursued. +</P> + +<P> +Could she trust him with the secret of Miss Margaret's letters? The +habit of secretiveness was too strong upon her. "There is no one here +to help me—unless YOU would sometimes," she timidly answered. +</P> + +<P> +"I am at your service always. Nothing could give me greater pleasure." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you." Her face flushed with delight. +</P> + +<P> +"You have, of course, been a pupil at William Penn?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but father took me out of school when I was twelve. Ever since +then I've been trying to educate myself, but—" she lifted troubled +eyes to his face, "no one here knows it but the doctor. No one must +know it." +</P> + +<P> +"Trust me," he nodded. "But why must they not know it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Father would stop it if he found it out." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"He wouldn't leave me waste the time." +</P> + +<P> +"You have had courage—to have struggled against such odds." +</P> + +<P> +"It has not been easy. But—it seems to me the things that are worth +having are never easy to get." +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds looked at her keenly. +</P> + +<P> +"'The things that are worth having'? What do you count as such things?" +</P> + +<P> +"Knowledge and truth; and personal freedom to be true to one's self." +</P> + +<P> +He concealed the shock of surprise he felt at her words. "What have we +here?" he wondered, his pulse quickening as he looked into the shining +upraised eyes of the girl and saw the tumultuous heaving of her bosom. +He had been right after all, then, in feeling that she was different +from the rest of them! He could see that it was under the stress of +unusual emotion that she gave expression to thoughts which of necessity +she must seldom or never utter to those about her. +</P> + +<P> +"'Personal freedom to be true to one's self'?" he repeated. "What would +it mean to you if you had it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Life!" she answered. "I am only a dead machine, except when I am +living out my true self." +</P> + +<P> +He deliberately placed his hand on hers as it lay on the table. "You +make me want to clasp hands with you. Do you realize what a big truth +you have gotten hold of—and all that it involves?" +</P> + +<P> +"I only know what it means to me." +</P> + +<P> +"You are not free to be yourself?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have never drawn a natural breath except in secret." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's face was glowing. Scarcely did she know herself in this +wonderful experience of speaking freely, face to face, with one who +understood. +</P> + +<P> +"My own recent experiences of life," he said gravely, "have brought me, +too, to realize that it is death in life not to be true to one's self. +But if you wait for the FREEDOM to be so—" he shrugged his shoulders. +"One always has that freedom if he will take it—at its fearful cost. +To be uncompromisingly and always true to one's self simply means +martyrdom in one form or another." +</P> + +<P> +He, too, marveled that he should have found any one in this household +to whom he could speak in such a vein as this. +</P> + +<P> +"I always thought," Tillie said, "that when I was enough educated to be +a teacher and be independent of father, I would be free to live truly. +But I see that YOU cannot. You, too, have to hide your real self. Else +you could not stay here in New Canaan." +</P> + +<P> +"Or anywhere else, child," he smiled. "It is only with the rare few +whom one finds on one's own line of march that one can be absolutely +one's self. Your secret life, Miss Tillie, is not unique." +</P> + +<P> +A fascinating little brown curl had escaped from Tillie's cap and lay +on her cheek, and she raised her hand to push it back where it +belonged, under its snowy Mennonite covering. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't!" said Fairchilds. "Let it be. It's pretty!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie stared up at him, a new wonder in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"In that Mennonite cap, you look like—like a Madonna!" Almost +unwittingly the words had leaped from his lips; he could not hold them +back. And in uttering them, it came to him that in the freedom +permissible to him with an unsophisticated but interesting and gifted +girl like this—freedom from the conventional restraints which had +always limited his intercourse with the girls of his own social +world—there might be possible a friendship such as he had never known +except with those of his own sex—and with them but rarely. The thought +cheered him mightily; for his life in New Canaan was heavy with +loneliness. +</P> + +<P> +With the selfishness natural to man, he did not stop to consider what +such companionship might come to mean to this inexperienced girl +steeped in a life of sordid labor and unbroken monotony. +</P> + +<P> +There came the rustle of Amanda's skirts on the stairs. +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds clasped Tillie's passive hand. "I feel that I have found a +friend to-night." +</P> + +<P> +Amanda, brilliant in a scarlet frock and pink ribbons, appeared in the +doorway. The vague, almost unseeing look with which the teacher turned +to her was interpreted by the vanity of this buxom damsel to be the +dazzled vision of eyes half blinded by her radiance. +</P> + +<P> +For a long time after they had gone away together, Tillie sat with her +face bowed upon her book, happiness surging through her with every +great throb of her heart. +</P> + +<P> +At last she rose, picked up the lamp and carried it into the kitchen to +the little mirror before which the family combed their hair. Holding +the lamp high, she surveyed her features. As long as her arm would bear +the weight of the uplifted lamp, she gazed at her reflected image. +</P> + +<P> +When presently with trembling arm she set it on the dresser, Tillie, +like Mother Eve of old, had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge. Tillie +knew that she was very fair. +</P> + +<P> +That evening marked another crisis in the girl's inner life. Far into +the night she lay with her eyes wide open, staring into the darkness, +seeing there strange new visions of her own soul, gazing into its +hitherto unsounded depths and seeing there the heaven or the hell—she +scarcely knew which—that possessed all her being. +</P> + +<P> +"Blasphemous to close your nature to the pleasures God has created for +you!" His words burned themselves into her brain. Was it to an abyss of +degradation that her nature was bearing her in a swift and fatal +tide—or to a holy height of blessedness? Alternately her fired +imagination and awakened passion exalted her adoration of him into an +almost religious joy, making her yearn to give herself to him, soul and +body, as to a god; then plunged her into an agony of remorse and terror +at her own idolatry and lawlessness. +</P> + +<P> +A new universe was opened up to her, and all of life appeared changed. +All the poetry and the stories which she had ever read held new and +wonderful meanings. The beauty in Nature, which, even as a child, she +had felt in a way she knew those about her could never have understood, +now spoke to her in a language of infinite significance. The mystery, +the wonder, the power of love were revealed to her, and her soul was +athirst to drink deep at this magic fountain of living water. +</P> + +<P> +"You look like a Madonna!" Oh, surely, thought Tillie, in the long +hours of that wakeful night, this bliss which filled her heart WAS a +temptation of the Evil One, who did not scruple to use even such as the +teacher for an instrument to work her undoing! Was not his satanic hand +clearly shown in these vain and wicked thoughts which crowded upon +her—thoughts of how fair she would look in a red gown like Amanda's, +or in a blue hat like Rebecca's, instead of in her white cap and black +hood? She crushed her face in her pillow in an agony of remorse for her +own faithlessness, as she felt how hideous was that black Mennonite +hood and all the plain garb which hitherto had stood to her for the +peace, the comfort, the happiness, of her life! With all her mind, she +tried to force back such wayward, sinful thoughts, but the more she +wrestled with them, the more persistently did they obtrude themselves. +</P> + +<P> +On her knees she passionately prayed to be delivered from the +temptation of such unfaithfulness to her Lord, even in secret thought. +Yet even while in the very act of pleading for mercy, forgiveness, +help, to her own unutterable horror she found herself wondering whether +she would dare brave her father's wrath and ask her aunt, in the +morning, to keep back from her father a portion of her week's wages +that she might buy some new white caps, her old ones being of poor +material and very worn. +</P> + +<P> +It was a tenet of her church that "wearing-apparel was instituted by +God as a necessity for the sake of propriety and also for healthful +warmth, but when used for purposes of adornment it becomes the evidence +of an un-Christlike spirit." Now Tillie knew that her present yearning +for new caps was prompted, not by the praiseworthy and simple desire to +be merely neat, but wholly by her vain longing to appear more fair in +the eyes of the teacher. +</P> + +<P> +Thus until the small hours of the morning did the young girl wrestle +with the conflicting forces in her soul. +</P> + +<P> +But the Enemy had it all his own way; for when Tillie went down-stairs +next morning to help her aunt get breakfast, she knew that she intended +this day to buy those new caps in spite of the inevitable penalty she +would have to suffer for daring to use her own money without her +father's leave. +</P> + +<P> +And when she walked into the kitchen, her aunt was amazed to see the +girl's fair face looking out from a halo of tender little brown curls, +which, with a tortured conscience, and an apprehension of retribution +at the hands of the meeting, Tillie had brushed from under her cap and +arranged with artful care. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TILLIE TELLS A LIE +</H3> + +<P> +It was eleven o'clock on the following Saturday morning, a busy hour at +the hotel, and Mrs. Wackernagel and Tillie were both hard at work in +the kitchen, while Eebecca and Amanda were vigorously applying their +young strength to "the up-stairs work." +</P> + +<P> +The teacher was lounging on the settee in the sitting-room, trying to +read his Boston Transcript and divert his mind from its irritation and +discontent under a condition of things which made it impossible for him +to command Tillie's time whenever he wanted a companion for a walk in +the woods, or for a talk in which he might unburden himself of his +pent-up thoughts and feelings. The only freedom she had was in the +evening; and even then she was not always at liberty. There was Amanda +always ready and at hand—it kept him busy dodging her. Why was Fate so +perverse in her dealings with him? Why couldn't it be Tillie instead of +Amanda? Fairchilds chafed under this untoward condition of things like +a fretful child—or, rather, just like a man who can't have what he +wants. +</P> + +<P> +Both Tillie and her aunt went about their tasks this morning with a +nervousness of movement and an anxiety of countenance that told of +something unwonted in the air. Fairchilds was vaguely conscious of this +as he sat in the adjoining room, with the door ajar. +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie!" said her aunt, with a sharpness unusual to her, as she closed +the oven door with a spasmodic bang, "you put on your shawl and bonnet +and go right up to Sister Jennie Hershey's for some bacon." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Aunty Em!" said Tillie, in surprise, looking up from the table +where she was rolling out paste; "I can't let these pies." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll finish them pies. You just go now." +</P> + +<P> +"But we've got plenty of bacon." +</P> + +<P> +"If we've got bacon a-plenty, then get some ponhaus. Or some mush. +Hurry up and go, Tillie!" +</P> + +<P> +She came to the girl's side and took the rolling-pin from her hands. +"And don't hurry back. Set awhile. Now get your things on quick." +</P> + +<P> +"But, Aunty Em—" +</P> + +<P> +"Are you mindin' me, Tillie, or ain't you?" her aunt sharply demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"But in about ten minutes father will be stopping on his way from +Lancaster market," Tillie said, though obediently going toward the +corner where hung her shawl and bonnet, "to get my wages and see me, +Aunty Em—like what he does every Saturday still." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, don't be so dumm, Tillie! That's why I'm sendin' you off!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Aunty Em, I don't want to go away and leave you to take all the +blame for those new caps! And, anyhow, father will stop at Sister +Jennie Hershey's if he don't find me here." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't tell him you're there. And push them curls under your cap, or +Sister Jennie'll be tellin' the meeting, and you'll be set back yet! I +don't know what's come over you, Tillie, to act that vain and +unregenerate!" +</P> + +<P> +"Father will guess I'm at Sister Jennie's, and he'll stop to see." +</P> + +<P> +"That's so, too." Aunty Em thoughtfully considered the situation. "Go +out and hide in the stable, Tillie." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie hesitated as she nervously twisted the strings of her bonnet. +"What's the use of hiding, Aunty Em? I'd have to see him NEXT Saturday." +</P> + +<P> +"He won't be so mad about it till next Saturday." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie shook her head. "He'll keep getting angrier—until he has +satisfied himself by punishing me in some way for spending that money +without leave." +</P> + +<P> +The girl's face was pale, but she spoke very quietly, and her aunt +looked at her curiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie, ain't you afraid of your pop no more?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Aunty Em! YES, I am afraid of him." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm all fidgety myself, thinkin' about how mad he'll be. Dear knows +what YOU must feel yet, Tillie—and what all your little life you've +been feelin', with his fear always hangin' over you still. Sometimes +when I think how my brother Jake trains up his childern!"—indignation +choked her—"I have feelin's that are un-Christlike, Tillie!" +</P> + +<P> +"And yet, Aunty Em," the girl said earnestly, "father does care for me +too—even though he always did think I ought to want nothing else but +to work for him. But he does care for me. The couple of times I was +sick already, he was concerned. I can't forget it." +</P> + +<P> +"To be sure, he'd have to be a funny man if he wasn't concerned when +his own child's sick, Tillie. I don't give him much for THAT." +</P> + +<P> +"But it always puzzled me, Aunty Em—if father's concerned to see me +sick or suffering, why will he himself deliberately make me suffer more +than I ever suffered in any sickness? I never could understand that." +</P> + +<P> +"He always thinks he's doin' his duty by you. That we must give him. +Och, my! there's his wagon stoppin' NOW! Go on out to the stable, +Tillie! Quick!" +</P> + +<P> +"Aunty Em!" Tillie faltered, "I'd sooner stay and have it done with +now, than wait and have it hanging over me all the week till next +Saturday." +</P> + +<P> +There was another reason for her standing her ground and facing it out. +Ever since she had yielded to the temptation to buy the caps and let +her hair curl about her face, her conscience had troubled her for her +vanity; and a vague feeling that in suffering her father's displeasure +she would be expiating her sin made her almost welcome his coming this +morning. +</P> + +<P> +There was the familiar heavy tread in the bar-room which adjoined the +kitchen. Tillie flushed and paled by turns as it drew near, and her +aunt rolled out the paste with a vigor and an emphasis that expressed +her inward agitation. Even Fairchilds, in the next room, felt himself +infected with the prevailing suspense. +</P> + +<P> +"Well!" was Jake Getz's greeting as he entered the kitchen. "Em!" he +nodded to his sister. "Well, Tillie!" +</P> + +<P> +There was a note of affection in his greeting of his daughter. Tillie +realized that her father missed her presence at home almost as much as +he missed the work that she did. The nature of his regard for her was a +mystery that had always puzzled the girl. How could one be constantly +hurting and thwarting a person whom one cared for? +</P> + +<P> +Tillie went up to him dutifully and held out her hand. He took it and +bent to kiss her. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you well? You're lookin' some pale. And your hair's strubbly +[untidy]." +</P> + +<P> +"She's been sewin' too steady on them clo'es fur your childern," said +Aunty Em, quickly. "It gives her such a pain in her side still to set +and sew. I ain't leavin' her set up every night to sew no more! You can +just take them clo'es home, Jake. They ain't done, and they won't get +done here." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mebbe leave her set up readin' books or such pamp'lets, ain't?" +Mr. Getz inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"I make her go to bed early still," Mrs. Wackernagel said evasively, +though her Mennonite conscience reproached her for such want of strict +candor. +</P> + +<P> +"That dude teacher you got stayin' here mebbe gives her things to read, +ain't?" Mr. Getz pursued his suspicions. +</P> + +<P> +"He's never gave her nothin' that I seen him," Mrs. Wackernagel +affirmed. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, mind you don't leave her waste time readin'. She ain't to." +</P> + +<P> +"You needn't trouble, Jake!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Jake, "I'll leave them clo'es another week, and mebbe +Tillie'll feel some better and can get 'em done. Mom won't like it when +I come without 'em this mornin'. She's needin' 'em fur the childern, +and she thought they'd be done till this morning a'ready." +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you hire your washin' or buy her a washin'-machine? Then +she'd have time to do her own sewin'." +</P> + +<P> +"Work don't hurt a body," Mr. Getz maintained. "It's healthy. What's +Tillie doin' this morning?" +</P> + +<P> +"She was bakin' these pies, but I want her now to redd up. Take all +them pans to the dresser, Tillie." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie went to the table to do as she was bid. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I must be goin' home now," said Mr. Getz. "I'll take Tillie's +wages, Em." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Wackernagel set her lips as she wiped her hands on the +roller-towel and opened the dresser drawer to get her purse. +</P> + +<P> +"How's her?" she inquired, referring to Mrs. Getz to gain time, as she +counted out the money. +</P> + +<P> +"She's old-fashioned." +</P> + +<P> +"Is the childern all well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, they're all middlin' well. Hurry up, Em; I'm in a hurry, and +you're takin' wonderful long to count out them two dollars." +</P> + +<P> +"It's only one and a half this week, Jake. Tillie she had to have some +new caps, and they come to fifty cents. And I took notice her +underclo'es was too thin fur this cold spell, and I wanted her to buy +herself a warm petticoat, but she wouldn't take the money." +</P> + +<P> +An angry red dyed the swarthy neck and forehead of the man, as his keen +eyes, very like his sister's, only lacking their expression of +kindness, flashed from her face to the countenance of his daughter at +the dresser. +</P> + +<P> +"What business have you lettin' her buy anything?" he sternly demanded. +"You was to give me her wages, and <I>I</I> was to buy her what she couldn't +do without. You're not keepin' your bargain!" +</P> + +<P> +"She needed them caps right away. I couldn't wait till Saturday to ast +you oncet. And," she boldly added, "you ought to leave her have another +fifty cents to buy herself a warm petticoat!" +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie!" commanded her father, "you come here!" +</P> + +<P> +The girl was very white as she obeyed him. But her eyes, as they met +his, were not afraid. +</P> + +<P> +"It's easy seen why you're pale! I guess it ain't no pain in your side +took from settin' up sewin' fur mom that's made you pale! Now see +here," he sternly said, "what did you do somepin like this fur? +Spendin' fifty cents without astin' me!" +</P> + +<P> +"I needed the caps," she quietly answered. "And I knew you would not +let me buy them if I asked you, father." +</P> + +<P> +"You're standin' up here in front of me and sayin' to my face you done +somepin you knowed I wouldn't give you darst to do! And you have no +business, anyhow, wearin' them New Mennonite caps! I never wanted you +to take up with that blamed foolishness! Well, I'll learn you! If I had +you home I'd whip you!" +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't touchin' her 'round HERE!" exclaimed his sister. "You just +try it, Jake, and I'll call Abe out!" +</P> + +<P> +"Is she my own child or ain't she, Em Wackernagel? And can I do with my +own what I please, or must I ast you and Abe Wackernagel?" +</P> + +<P> +"She's too growed up fur to be punished, Jake, and you know it." +</P> + +<P> +"Till she's too growed up to obey her pop, she'll get punished," he +affirmed. "Where's the good of your religion, I'd like to know, +Em—settin' a child on to defy her parent? And you, Tillie, you STOLE +that money off of me! Your earnin's ain't yourn till you're twenty-one. +Is them New Mennonite principles to take what ain't yourn? It ain't +only the fifty cents I mind—it's your disobedience and your stealin'." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, father! it wasn't STEALING!" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course it wasn't stealin'—takin' what you earnt yourself—whether +you ARE seventeen instead of twenty-one!" her aunt warmly assured her. +</P> + +<P> +"Now look-ahere, Em! If yous are goin' to get her so spoilt fur me, +over here, she ain't stayin' here. I'll take her home!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, take her!" diplomatically answered his sister. "I can get Abe's +niece over to East Donegal fur one-seventy-five. She'd be glad to come!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz at this drew in his sails a bit. "I'll give her one more +chancet," he compromised. "But I ain't givin' her no second chancet if +she does somepin again where she ain't got darst to do. Next time I +hear of her disobeyin' me, home she comes. I'd sooner lose the money +than have her spoilt fur me. Now look-ahere, Tillie, you go get them +new caps and bring 'em here." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie turned away to obey. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Jake, what are you up to?" his sister demanded as the girl left +the room. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you suppose I'd leave her KEEP them caps she stole the money off of +me to buy?" Getz retorted. +</P> + +<P> +"She earnt the money!" maintained Mrs. Wackernagel. +</P> + +<P> +"The money wasn't hern, and I'd sooner throw them caps in the rag-bag +than leave her wear 'em when she disobeyed me to buy 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"Jake Getz, you're a reg'lar tyrant! You mind me of Herod yet—and of +Punshus Palate!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't I followin' Scripture when I train up my child to obey to her +parent?" he wanted to know. +</P> + +<P> +"Now look-ahere, Jake; I'll give you them fifty cents and make a +present to Tillie of them caps if you'll leave her keep 'em." +</P> + +<P> +But in spite of his yearning for the fifty cents, Mr. Getz firmly +refused this offer. Paternal discipline must be maintained even at a +financial loss. Then, too, penurious and saving as he was, he was +strictly honest, and he would not have thought it right to let his +sister pay for his child's necessary wearing-apparel. +</P> + +<P> +"No, Tillie's got to be punished. When I want her to have new caps, +I'll buy 'em fur her." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie reentered the room with the precious bits of linen tenderly +wrapped up in tissue paper. Her pallor was now gone, and her eyes were +red with crying. She came to her father's side and handed him the soft +bundle. +</P> + +<P> +"These here caps," he said to her, "mom can use fur night-caps, or +what. When you buy somepin unknownst to me, Tillie, I ain't leavin' you +KEEP it! Now go 'long back to your dishes. And next Saturday, when I +come, I want to find them clo'es done, do you understand?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's eyes followed the parcel as it was crushed ruthlessly into her +father's coat pocket—and she did not heed his question. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you hear me, Tillie?" he demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she answered, looking up at him with brimming eyes. +</P> + +<P> +His sister, watching them from across the room, saw in the man's face +the working of conflicting feelings—his stern displeasure warring with +his affection. Mrs. Wackernagel had realized, ever since Tillie had +come to live with her, that "Jake's" brief weekly visits to his +daughter were a pleasure to the hard man; and not only because of the +two dollars which he came to collect. Just now, she could see how he +hated to part from her in anger. Justice having been meted out in the +form of the crushed and forfeited caps in his pocket, he would fain +take leave of the girl with some expression of his kindlier feelings +toward her. +</P> + +<P> +"Now are you behavin' yourself—like a good girl—till I come again?" +he asked, laying his hand upon her shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said dully. +</P> + +<P> +"Then give me good-b'y." She held up her face and submitted to his kiss. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-by, Em. And mind you stop spoilin' my girl fur me!" +</P> + +<P> +He opened the door and went away. +</P> + +<P> +And Fairchilds, an unwilling witness to the father's brutality, felt +every nerve in his body tingle with a longing first to break the head +of that brutal Dutchman, and then to go and take little Tillie in his +arms and kiss her. To work off his feelings, he sprang up from the +settee, put on his hat, and flung out of the house to walk down to "the +krik." +</P> + +<P> +"Never you mind, Tillie," her aunt consoled her. "I'm goin' in town +next Wednesday, and I'm buyin' you some caps myself fur a present." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Aunty Em, but maybe you'd better not be so good to me!" Tillie +said, dashing away the tears as she industriously rubbed her pans. "It +was my vanity made me want new caps. And father's taking them was maybe +the Lord punishing my vanity." +</P> + +<P> +"You needed new caps—your old ones was wore out. AND DON'T YOU BE +JUDGIN' THE LORD BY YOUR POP! Don't try to stop me—I'm buyin' you some +caps." +</P> + +<P> +Now Tillie knew how becoming the new caps were to her, and her soul +yearned for them even as (she told herself) Israel of old yearned after +the flesh-pots of Egypt. To lose them was really a bitter +disappointment to her. +</P> + +<P> +But Aunty Em would spare her that grief! A sudden passionate impulse of +gratitude and love toward her aunt made her do a most unwonted thing. +Taking her hands from her dish-water, she dried them hastily, went over +to Mrs. Wackernagel, threw her arms about her neck, and kissed her. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Aunty Em, I love you like I've never loved any one—except Miss +Margaret and—" +</P> + +<P> +She stopped short as she buried her face in her aunt's motherly bosom +and clung to her. +</P> + +<P> +"And who else, Tillie?" Mrs. Wackernagel asked, patting the girl's +shoulder, her face beaming with pleasure at her niece's affectionate +demonstration. +</P> + +<P> +"No one else, Aunty Em." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie drew herself away and again returned to her work at the dresser. +</P> + +<P> +But all the rest of that day her conscience tortured her that she +should have told this lie. +</P> + +<P> +For there was some one else. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TILLIE IS "SET BACK" +</H3> + +<P> +On Sunday morning, in spite of her aunt's protestations, Tillie went to +meeting with her curls outside her cap. +</P> + +<P> +"They'll set you back!" protested Mrs. Wackernagel, in great trouble of +spirit. +</P> + +<P> +"It would be worse to be deceitful than to be vain," Tillie answered. +"If I am going to let my hair curl week-days, I won't be a coward and +deceive the meeting about myself." +</P> + +<P> +"But whatever made you take it into your head to act so vain, Tillie?" +her bewildered aunt inquired for the hundredth time. "It can't be fur +Absalom, fur you don't take to him. And, anyways, he says he wants to +be led of the Spirit to give hisself up. To be sure, I hope he ain't +tempted to use religion as a means of gettin' the girl he wants!" +</P> + +<P> +"I know I'm doing wrong, Aunty Em," Tillie replied sorrowfully. "Maybe +the meeting to-day will help me to conquer the Enemy." +</P> + +<P> +She and her aunt realized during the course of the morning that the +curls were creating a sensation. An explanation would certainly be +demanded of Tillie before the week was out. +</P> + +<P> +After the service, they did not stop long for "sociability,"—the +situation was too strained,—but hurried out to their buggy as soon as +they could escape. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie marveled at herself as, on the way home, she found how small was +her concern about the disapproval of the meeting, and even about her +sin itself, before the fact that the teacher thought her curls adorable. +</P> + +<P> +Aunty Em, too, marveled as she perceived the girl's strange +indifference to the inevitable public disgrace at the hands of the +brethren and sisters. Whatever was the matter with Tillie? +</P> + +<P> +At the dinner-table, to spare Tillie's evident embarrassment (perhaps +because of the teacher's presence), Mrs. Wackernagel diverted the +curiosity of the family as to how the meeting had received the curls. +</P> + +<P> +"What did yous do all while we was to meeting?" she asked of her two +daughters. +</P> + +<P> +"Me and Amanda and Teacher walked to Buckarts Station," Rebecca +answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Did yous, now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Up the pike a piece was all the fu'ther I felt fur goin'," continued +Eebecca, in a rather injured tone; "but Amanda she was so fur seein' +oncet if that fellah with those black MUStache was at the blacksmith's +shop yet, at Buckarts! I tole her she needn't be makin' up to HIM, fur +he's keepin' comp'ny with Lizzie Hershey!" +</P> + +<P> +"Say, mom," announced Amanda, ignoring her sister's rebuke, "I stopped +in this morning to see Lizzie Hershey, and she's that spited about +Teacher's comin' here instead of to their place that she never so much +as ast me would I spare my hat!" +</P> + +<P> +"Now look!" exclaimed Mrs. Wackernagel. "And when I said, after while, +'Now I must go,' she was that unneighborly she never ast me, 'What's +your hurry?'" +</P> + +<P> +"Was she that spited!" said Mrs. Wackernagel, half pityingly. "Well, it +was just like Sister Jennie Hershey, if she didn't want Teacher stayin' +there, to tell him right out. Some ain't as honest. Some talks to +please the people." +</P> + +<P> +"What fur sermont did yous have this morning?" asked Mr. Wackernagel, +his mouth full of chicken. +</P> + +<P> +"We had Levi Harnish. He preached good," said Mrs. Wackernagel. "Ain't +he did, Tillie?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," replied Tillie, coloring with the guilty consciousness that +scarcely a word of that sermon had she heard. +</P> + +<P> +"I like to hear a sermont, like hisn, that does me good to my heart," +said Mrs. Wackernagel. +</P> + +<P> +"Levi Harnish, he's a learnt preacher," said her husband, turning to +Fairchilds. "He reads wonderful much. And he's always thinkin' so +earnest about his learnin' that I've saw him walk along the street in +Lancaster a'ready and a'most walk into people!" "He certainly can stand +on the pulpit elegant!" agreed Mrs. Wackernagel. "Why, he can preach +his whole sermont with the Bible shut, yet! And he can put out +elocution that it's something turrible!" +</P> + +<P> +"You are not a Mennonite, are you?" Fairchilds asked of the landlord. +</P> + +<P> +"No," responded Mr. Wackernagel, with a shrug. "I bothered a whole lot +at one time about religion. Now I never bother." +</P> + +<P> +"We had Silas Trout to lead the singin' this morning," continued Mrs. +Wackernagel. "I wisht I could sing by note, like him. I don't know +notes; I just sing by random." +</P> + +<P> +"Where's Doc, anyhow?" suddenly inquired Amanda, for the doctor's place +at the table was vacant. +</P> + +<P> +"He was fetched away. Mary Holzapple's mister come fur him!" Mr. +Wackernagel explained, with a meaning nod. +</P> + +<P> +"I say!" cried Mrs. Wackernagel. "So soon a'ready! And last week it was +Sue Hess! Doc's always gettin' fetched! Nothin' but babies and babies!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie, whose eyes were always on the teacher, except when he chanced +to glance her way, noted wonderingly the blush that suddenly covered +his face and neck at this exclamation of her aunt's. In the primitive +simplicity of her mind, she could see nothing embarrassing in the mere +statement of any fact of natural history. +</P> + +<P> +"Here comes Doc now!" cried Rebecca, at the opening of the kitchen +door. "Hello, Doc!" she cried as he came into the dining-room. "What IS +it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Twin girls!" the doctor proudly announced, going over to the stove to +warm his hands after his long drive. +</P> + +<P> +"My lands!" exclaimed Amanda. +</P> + +<P> +"Now what do you think!" ejaculated Mrs. Wackernagel. +</P> + +<P> +"How's missus?" Rebecca inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Doin' fine! But mister he ain't feelin' so well. He wanted a boy—OR +boys, as the case might be. It's gettin' some cold out," he added, +rubbing his hands and holding them to the fire. +</P> + +<P> +That evening, when again Fairchilds was unable to have a chat alone +with Tillie, because of Absalom Puntz's unfailing appearance at the +hotel, he began to think, in his chagrin, that he must have exaggerated +the girl's superiority, since week after week she could endure the +attentions of "that lout." +</P> + +<P> +He could not know that it was for HIS sake—to keep him in his place at +William Penn—that poor Tillie bore the hated caresses of Absalom. +</P> + +<P> +That next week was one never to be forgotten by Tillie. It stood out, +in all the years that followed, as a week of wonder—in which were +revealed to her the depths and the heights of ecstatic bliss—a bliss +which so filled her being that she scarcely gave a thought to the +disgrace hanging over her—her suspension from meeting. +</P> + +<P> +The fact that Tillie and the teacher sat together, now, every evening, +called forth no surmises or suspicions from the Wackernagels, for the +teacher was merely helping Tillie with some studies. The family was +charged to guard the fact from Mr. Getz. +</P> + +<P> +The lessons seldom lasted beyond the early bedtime of the family, for +as soon as Tillie and Fairchilds found the sitting-room abandoned to +their private use, the school-books were put aside. They had somewhat +to say to each other. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's story of her long friendship with Miss Margaret, which she +related to Fairchilds, made him better understand much about the girl +that had seemed inexplicable in view of her environment; while her +wonder at and sympathetic interest in his own story of how he had come +to apply for the school at New Canaan both amused and touched him. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you never have any doubts, Tillie, of the truth of your creed?" he +asked curiously, as they sat one evening at the sitting-room table, the +school-books and the lamp pushed to one end. +</P> + +<P> +He had several times, in this week of intimacy, found it hard to +reconcile the girl's fine intelligence and clear thought in some +directions with her religious superstition. He hesitated to say a word +to disturb her in her apparently unquestioning faith, though he felt +she was worthy of a better creed than this impossibly narrow one of the +New Mennonites. "She isn't ready yet," he had thought, "to take hold of +a larger idea of religion." +</P> + +<P> +"I have sometimes thought," she said earnestly, "that if the events +which are related in the Bible should happen now, we would not credit +them. An infant born of a virgin, a star leading three travelers, a man +who raised the dead and claimed to be God—we would think the folks who +believed these things were ignorant and superstitious. And because they +happened so long ago, and are in the Book which we are told came from +God, we believe. It is very strange! Sometimes my thoughts trouble me. +I try hard not to leave such thoughts come to me." +</P> + +<P> +"LET, Tillie, not 'leave.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Will I ever learn not to get my 'leaves' and 'lets' mixed!" sighed +Tillie, despairingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Use 'let' whenever you find 'leave' on the end of your tongue, and +vice versa," he advised, with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him doubtfully. "Are you joking?" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed, no! I couldn't give you a better rule." +</P> + +<P> +"There's another thing I wish you would tell me, please," she said, her +eyes downcast. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't call you 'Mr.' Fairchilds, because such complimentary speech +is forbidden to us New Mennonites. It would come natural to me to call +you 'Teacher,' but you would think that what you call 'provincial.'" +</P> + +<P> +"But you say 'Miss' Margaret." +</P> + +<P> +"I could not get out of the way of it, because I had called her that so +many years before I gave myself up. That makes it seem different. But +you—what must I call you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see what's left—unless you call me 'Say'!" +</P> + +<P> +"I must have something to call you," she pleaded. "Would you mind if I +called you by your Christian name?" +</P> + +<P> +"I should like nothing better." +</P> + +<P> +He drew forward a volume of Mrs. Browning's poems which lay among his +books on the table, opened it at the fly-leaf, and pointed to his name. +</P> + +<P> +"'Walter'?" read Tillie. "But I thought—" +</P> + +<P> +"It was Pestalozzi? That was only my little joke. My name's Walter." +</P> + +<P> +On the approach of Sunday, Fairchilds questioned her one evening about +Absalom. +</P> + +<P> +"Will that lad be taking up your whole Sunday evening again?" he +demanded. +</P> + +<P> +She told him, then, why she suffered Absalom's unwelcome attentions. It +was in order that she might use her influence over him to keep the +teacher in his place. +</P> + +<P> +"But I can't permit such a thing!" he vehemently protested. "Tillie, I +am touched by your kindness and self-sacrifice! But, dear child, I +trust I am man enough to hold my own here without your suffering for +me! You must not do it." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't know Nathaniel Puntz!" She shook her head. "Absalom will +never forgive you, and, at a word from him, his father would never rest +until he had got rid of you. You see, none of the directors like +you—they don't understand you—they say you are 'too tony.' And then +your methods of teaching—they aren't like those of the Millersville +Normal teachers we've had, and therefore are unsound! I discovered last +week, when I was out home, that my father is very much opposed to you. +They all felt just so to Miss Margaret." +</P> + +<P> +"I see. Nevertheless, you shall not bear my burdens. And don't you see +it's not just to poor Absalom? You can't marry him, so you ought not to +encourage him." +</P> + +<P> +"'If I refused to le-LET Absalom come, you would not remain a month at +New Canaan," was her answer. +</P> + +<P> +"But it isn't a matter of life and death to me to stay at New Canaan! I +need not starve if I lose my position here. There are better places." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie gazed down upon the chenille table-cover, and did not speak. She +could not tell him that it did seem to HER a matter of life and death +to have him stay. +</P> + +<P> +"It seems to me, Tillie, you could shake off Absalom through your +father's objections to his attentions. The fellow could not blame you +for that." +</P> + +<P> +"But don't you see I must keep him by me, in order to protect you." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear little girl, that's rough on Absalom; and I'm not sure it's +worthy of you." +</P> + +<P> +"But you don't understand. You think Absalom will be hurt in his +feelings if I refuse to marry him. But I've told him all along I won't +marry him. And it isn't his feelings that are concerned. He only wants +a good housekeeper." +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds's eyes rested on the girl as she sat before him in the fresh +bloom of her maidenhood, and he realized what he knew she did not—that +unsentimental, hard-headed, and practical as Absalom might be, if she +allowed him the close intimacy of "setting-up" with her, the fellow +must suffer in the end in not winning her. But the teacher thought it +wise to make no further comment, as he saw, at any rate, that he could +not move her in her resolution to defend him. +</P> + +<P> +And there was another thing that he saw. The extraneous differences +between himself and Tillie, and even the radical differences of +breeding and heredity which, he had assumed from the first, made any +least romance or sentiment on the part of either of them unthinkable, +however much they might enjoy a good comradeship,—all these +differences had strangely sunk out of sight as he had, from day to day, +grown in touch with the girl's real self, and he found himself unable +to think of her and himself except in that deeper sense in which her +soul met his. Any other consideration of their relation seemed almost +grotesque. This was his feeling—but his reason struggled with his +feeling and bade him beware. Suppose that she too should come to feel +that with the meeting of their spirits the difference in their +conditions melted away like ice in the sunshine. Would not the result +be fraught with tragedy for her? For himself, he was willing, for the +sake of his present pleasure, to risk a future wrestling with his +impracticable sentiments; but what must be the cost of such a struggle +to a frail, sensitive girl, with no compensations whatever in any +single phase of her life? Clearly, he was treading on dangerous ground. +He must curb himself. +</P> + +<P> +Before another Sunday came around, the ax had fallen—the brethren came +to reason with Tillie, and finding her unable to say she was sincerely +repentant and would amend her vain and carnal deportment, she was, in +the course of the next week, "set back." +</P> + +<P> +"I would be willing to put back the curls," she said to her aunt, who +also reasoned with her in private; "but it would avail nothing. For my +heart is still vain and carnal. 'Man looketh upon the outward +appearance, but God looketh on the heart.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Then, Tillie," said her aunt, her kindly face pale with distress in +the resolution she had taken, "you'll have to go home and stay. You +can't stay here as long as you're not holding out in your professions." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's face went white, and she gazed into her aunt's resolute +countenance with anguish in her own. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd not do it to send you away, Tillie, if I could otherwise help it. +But look how inconwenient it would be havin' you here to help work, and +me not havin' dare to talk or eat with you. I'm not obeyin' to the +'Rules' NOW in talkin' to you. But I tole the brethren I'd only speak +to you long enough to reason with you some—and then, if that didn't +make nothin', I'd send you home." +</P> + +<P> +The Rules forbade the members to sit at table or hold any unnecessary +word of communication with one who had failed to "hold out," and who +had in consequence been "set back." Tillie, in her strange indifference +to the disgrace of being set back, had not foreseen her inevitable +dismissal from her aunt's employ. She recognized, now, with despair in +her soul, that Aunty Em could not do otherwise than send her home. +</P> + +<P> +"When must I go, Aunty Em?" +</P> + +<P> +"As soon as you make your mind up you AIN'T goin' to repent of your +carnal deportment." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't repent, Aunty Em!" Tillie's voice sounded hollow to herself as +she spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Then, Tillie, you're got to go to-morrow. I 'll have to get my niece +from East Donegal over." +</P> + +<P> +It sounded to Tillie like the crack of doom. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor, who was loath to have her leave, who held her interests at +heart, and who knew what she would forfeit in losing the help which the +teacher was giving her daily in her studies, undertook to add his +expostulations to that of the brethern and sisters. +</P> + +<P> +"By gum, Tillie, slick them swanged curls BACK, if they don't suit the +taste of the meeting! Are you willin' to leave go your nice education, +where you're gettin', fur a couple of damned curls? I don't know what's +got INto you to act so blamed stubborn about keepin' your hair +strubbled 'round your face!" +</P> + +<P> +"But the vanity would still be in my heart even if I did brush them +back. And I don't want to be deceitful." +</P> + +<P> +"Och, come now," urged the doctor, "just till you're got your +certificate a'ready to teach! That wouldn't be long. Then, after that, +you can be as undeceitful as you want." +</P> + +<P> +But Tillie could not be brought to view the matter in this light. +</P> + +<P> +She did not sit at table with the family that day, for that would have +forced her aunt to stay away from the table. Mrs. Wackernagel could +break bread without reproach with all her unconverted household; but +not with a backslider—for the prohibition was intended as a +discipline, imposed in all love, to bring the recalcitrant member back +into the fold. +</P> + +<P> +That afternoon, Tillie and the teacher took a walk together in the +snow-covered woods. +</P> + +<P> +"It all seems so extraordinary, so inexplicable!" Fairchilds repeated +over and over. Like all the rest of the household, he could not be +reconciled to her going. His regret was, indeed, greater than that of +any of the rest, and rather surprised himself. The pallor of Tillie's +face and the anguish in her eyes he attributed to the church discipline +she was suffering. He never dreamed how wholly and absolutely it was +for him. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it any stranger," Tillie asked, her low voice full of pain, "than +that your uncle should send you away because of your UNbelief?" This +word, "unbelief," stood for a very definite thing in New Canaan—a lost +and hopeless condition of the soul. "It seems to me, the idea is the +same," said Tillie. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," acknowledged Fairchilds, "of course you are right. Intolerance, +bigotry, narrowness—they are the same the world over—and stand for +ignorance always." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie silently considered his words. It had not occurred to her to +question the perfect justice of the meeting's action. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she saw in the path before her a half-frozen, fluttering +sparrow. They both paused, and Tillie stooped, gently took it up, and +folded it in her warm shawl. As she felt its throbbing little body +against her hand, she thought of herself in the hand of God. She turned +and spoke her thought to Fairchilds. +</P> + +<P> +"Could I possibly hurt this little bird, which is so entirely at my +mercy? Could I judge it, condemn and punish it, for some mistake or +wrong or weakness it had committed in its little world? And could God +be less kind, less merciful to me than I could be to this little bird? +Could he hold my soul in the hollow of his hand and vivisect it to +judge whether its errors were worthy of his divine anger? He knows how +weak and ignorant I am. I will not fear him," she said, her eyes +shining. "I will trust myself in his power—and believe in his love." +</P> + +<P> +"The New Mennonite creed won't hold her long," thought Fairchilds. +</P> + +<P> +"Our highest religious moments, Tillie," he said, "come to us, not +through churches, nor even through Bibles. They are the moments when we +are most receptive of the message Nature is always patiently waiting to +speak to us—if we will only hear. It is she alone that can lead us to +see God face to face, instead of 'through another man's dim thought of +him.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," agreed Tillie, "I have often felt more—more RELIGIOUS," she +said, after an instant's hesitation, "when I've been walking here alone +in the woods, or down by the creek, or up on Chestnut Hill—than I +could feel in church. In church we hear ABOUT God, as you say, through +other men's dim thoughts of Him. Here, alone, we are WITH him." +</P> + +<P> +They walked in silence for a space, Tillie feeling with mingled bliss +and despair the fascination of this parting hour. But it did not occur +to Fairchilds that her departure from the hotel meant the end of their +intercourse. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall come out to the farm to see you, Tillie, as often as you will +let me. You know, I've no one else to talk to, about here, as I talk +with you. What a pleasure it has been!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but father will never le—let me spend my time with you as I did +at the hotel! He will be angry at my being sent home, and he will keep +me constantly at work to make up for the loss it is to him. This is our +last talk together!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll risk your father's wrath, Tillie. You don't suppose I'd let a +small matter like that stand in the way of our friendship?" +</P> + +<P> +"But father will not l—LET—me spend time with you. And if you come +when he told you not to he would put you out of William Penn!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm coming, all the same, Tillie." +</P> + +<P> +"Father will blame me, if you do." +</P> + +<P> +"Can't you take your own part, Tillie?" he gravely asked. "No, no," he +hastily added, for he did not forget the talk he had overheard about +the new caps, in which Mr. Getz had threatened personal violence to his +daughter. "I know you must not suffer for my sake. But you cannot mean +that we are not to meet at all after this?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only at chance times," faltered Tillie; "that is all." +</P> + +<P> +Very simply and somewhat constrainedly they said good-by the next +morning, Fairchilds to go to his work at William Penn and Tillie to +drive out with her Uncle Abe to meet her father's displeasure. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"I'LL MARRY HIM TO-MORROW!" +</H3> + +<P> +Mr. Getz had plainly given Absalom to understand that he did not want +him to sit up with Tillie, as he "wasn't leaving her marry." Absalom +had answered that he guessed Tillie would have something to say to that +when she was "eighteen a'ready." And on the first Sunday evening after +her return home he had boldly presented himself at the farm. +</P> + +<P> +"That's where you'll get fooled, Absalom, fur she's been raised to mind +her pop!" Mr. Getz had responded. "If she disobeyed to my word, I +wouldn't give her no aus styer. I guess you wouldn't marry a girl where +wouldn't bring you no aus styer!" +</P> + +<P> +Absalom, who was frugal, had felt rather baffled at this threat. +Nevertheless, here he was again on Sunday evening at the farm to assure +Tillie that HE would stand by her, and that if she was not restored to +membership in the meeting, he wouldn't give himself up, either. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz dared not go to the length of forbidding Absalom his house, +for that would have meant a family feud between all the Getzes and all +the Puntzes of the county. He could only insist that Tillie "dishearten +him," and that she dismiss him not later than ten o'clock. To almost +any other youth in the neighborhood, such opposition would have proved +effectual. But every new obstacle seemed only to increase Absalom's +determination to have what he had set out to get. +</P> + +<P> +To-night he produced another book, which he said he had bought at the +second-hand book-store in Lancaster. +</P> + +<P> +"'Cupid and Psyche,'" Tillie read the title. "Oh, Absalom, thank you. +This is lovely. It's a story from Greek mythology—I've been hearing +some of these stories from the teacher"—she checked herself, suddenly, +at Absalom's look of jealous suspicion. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm wonderful glad you ain't in there at the HOtel no more," he said. +"I hadn't no fair chancet, with Teacher right there on the GROUNDS." +</P> + +<P> +"Absalom," said Tillie, gravely, with a little air of dignity that did +not wholly fail to impress him, "I insist on it that you never speak of +the teacher in that way in connection with me. You might as well speak +of my marrying the County Superintendent! He'd be just as likely to ask +me!" +</P> + +<P> +The county superintendent of public instruction was held in such awe +that his name was scarcely mentioned in an ordinary tone of voice. +</P> + +<P> +"As if there's no difference from a teacher at William Penn to the +county superintendent! You ain't that dumm, Tillie!" +</P> + +<P> +"The difference is that the teacher at William Penn is superior in +every way to the county superintendent!" +</P> + +<P> +She spoke impulsively, and she regretted her words the moment they were +uttered. But Absalom only half comprehended her meaning. +</P> + +<P> +"You think you ain't good enough fur him, and you think I ain't good +enough fur YOU!" he grumbled. "I have never saw such a funny girl! +Well," he nodded confidently, "you'll think different one of these here +days!" +</P> + +<P> +"You must not cherish any false hopes, Absalom," Tillie insisted in +some distress. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, fur why don't you want to have me?" he demanded for the +hundredth time. +</P> + +<P> +"Absalom,"—Tillie tried a new mode of discouragement,—"I don't want +to get married because I don't want to be a farmer's wife—they have to +work too hard!" +</P> + +<P> +It was enough to drive away any lover in the countryside, and for a +moment Absalom was staggered. +</P> + +<P> +"Well!" he exclaimed, "a woman that's afraid of work ain't no wife fur +me, anyways!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's heart leaped high for an instant in the hope that now she had +effectually cooled his ardor. But it sank again as she recalled the +necessity of retaining at least his good-will and friendship, that she +might protect the teacher. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Absalom," she feebly protested, "did you ever see me afraid of +work?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, if you ain't afraid of workin', what makes you talk so +CONTRARY?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. Come, let me read this nice book you've brought me," she +urged, much as she might have tried to divert one of her little sisters +or brothers. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd ruther just set. I ain't much fur readin'. Jake Getz he says he's +goin' to chase you to bed at ten—and ten comes wonderful soon Sundays. +Leave us just set." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie well understood that this was to endure Absalom's clownish +wooing. But for the sake of the cause, she said to herself, she would +conquer her repugnance and bear it. +</P> + +<P> +For two weeks after Tillie's return home, she did not once have a word +alone with Fairchilds. He came several times, ostensibly on errands +from her aunt; but on each occasion he found her hard at work in her +father's presence. At his first visit, Tillie, as he was leaving, rose +from her corn-husking in the barn to go with him to the gate, but her +father interfered. +</P> + +<P> +"You stay where you're at!" +</P> + +<P> +With burning face, she turned to her work. And Fairchilds, carefully +suppressing an impulse to shake Jake Getz till his teeth rattled, +walked quietly out of the gate and up the road. +</P> + +<P> +Her father was more than usually stern and exacting with her in these +days of her suspension from meeting, inasmuch as it involved her +dismissal from the hotel and the consequent loss to him of two dollars +a week. +</P> + +<P> +As for Tillie, she found a faint consolation in the fact of the +teacher's evident chagrin and indignation at the tyrannical rule which +forbade intercourse between them. +</P> + +<P> +At stated intervals, the brethren came to reason with her, but while +she expressed her willingness to put her curls back, she would not +acknowledge that her heart was no longer "carnal and vain," and so they +found it impossible to restore her to favor. +</P> + +<P> +A few weeks before Christmas, Absalom, deciding that he had imbibed all +the arithmetical erudition he could hold, stopped school. On the +evening that he took his books home, he gave the teacher a parting +blow, which he felt sure quite avenged the outrageous defeat he had +suffered at his hands on that Sunday night at the hotel. +</P> + +<P> +"Me and Tillie's promised. It ain't put out yet, but I conceited I'd +better tell you, so's you wouldn't be wastin' your time tryin' to make +up to her." +</P> + +<P> +"You and Tillie are engaged to be married?" Fairchilds incredulously +asked. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what! As good as, anyways. I always get somepin I want when I +make up my mind oncet." And he grinned maliciously. +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds pondered the matter as, with depressed spirits, he walked +home over the frozen road. +</P> + +<P> +"No wonder the poor girl yielded to the pressure of such an +environment," he mused. "I suppose she thinks Absalom's rule will not +be so bad as her father's. But that a girl like Tillie should be pushed +to the wall like that—it is horrible! And yet—if she were worthy a +better fate would she not have held out?—it is too bad, it is unjust +to her 'Miss Margaret' that she should give up now! I feel," he sadly +told himself, "disappointed in Tillie!" +</P> + +<P> +When the notable "Columbus Celebration" came off in New Canaan, in +which event several schools of the township united to participate, and +which was attended by the entire countryside, as if it were a funeral, +Tillie hoped that here would be an opportunity for seeing and speaking +with Walter Fairchilds. But in this she was bitterly disappointed. +</P> + +<P> +It was not until a week later, at the township Institute, which met at +New Canaan, and which was also attended by the entire population, that +her deep desire was gratified. +</P> + +<P> +It was during the reading of an address, before the Institute, by Miss +Spooner, the teacher at East Donegal, that Fairchilds deliberately came +and sat by Tillie in the back of the school-room. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's heart beat fast, and she found herself doubting the reality of +his precious nearness after the long, dreary days of hungering for him. +</P> + +<P> +She dared not speak to him while Miss Spooner held forth, and, indeed, +she feared even to look at him, lest curious eyes read in her face what +consciously she strove to conceal. +</P> + +<P> +She realized his restless impatience under Miss Spooner's eloquence. +</P> + +<P> +"It was a week back already, we had our Columbus Celebration," read +this educator of Lancaster County, genteelly curving the little finger +of each hand, as she held her address, which was esthetically tied with +blue ribbon. "It was an inspiring sight to see those one hundred +enthusiastic and paterotic children marching two by two, led by their +equally enthusiastic and paterotic teachers! Forming a semicircle in +the open air, the exercises were opened by a song, 'O my Country,' sung +by clear—r-r-ringing—childish voices...." +</P> + +<P> +It was the last item on the program, and by mutual and silent consent, +Tillie and Fairchilds, at the first stir of the audience, slipped out +of the schoolhouse together. Tillie's father was in the audience, and +so was Absalom. But they had sat far forward, and Tillie hoped they had +not seen her go out with the teacher. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us hurry over to the woods, where we can be alone and undisturbed, +and have a good talk!" proposed Fairchilds, his face showing the +pleasure he felt in the meeting. +</P> + +<P> +After a few minutes' hurried walking, they were able to slacken their +pace and stroll leisurely through the bleak winter forest. +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie, Tillie!" he said, "why won't you abandon this 'carnal' life +you are leading, be restored to the approbation of the brethren, and +come back to the hotel? I am very lonely without you." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie could scarcely find her voice to answer, for the joy that filled +her at his words—a joy so full that she felt but a very faint pang at +his reference to the ban under which she suffered. She had thought his +failure to speak to her at the "Celebration" had indicated indifference +or forgetfulness. But now that was all forgotten; every nerve in her +body quivered with happiness. +</P> + +<P> +He, however, at once interpreted her silence to mean that he had +wounded her. "Forgive me for speaking so lightly of what to you must be +a sacred and serious matter. God knows, my own experience—which, as +you say, was not unlike your own—was sufficiently serious to me. But +somehow, I can't take THIS seriously—this matter of your pretty curls!" +</P> + +<P> +"Sometimes I wonder whether you take any person or any thing, here, +seriously," she half smiled. "You seem to me to be always mocking at us +a little." +</P> + +<P> +"Mocking? Not so bad as that. And never at YOU, Tillie." +</P> + +<P> +"You were sneering at Miss Spooner, weren't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not at her; at Christopher Columbus—though, up to the time of that +celebration, I was always rather fond of the discoverer of America. But +now let us talk of YOU, Tillie. Allow me to congratulate you!" +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" +</P> + +<P> +"True enough. I stand corrected. Then accept my sincere sympathy." He +smiled whimsically. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie lifted her eyes to his face, and their pretty look of +bewilderment made him long to stoop and snatch a kiss from her lips. +But he resisted the temptation. +</P> + +<P> +"I refer to your engagement to Absalom. That's one reason why I wanted +you to come out here with me this afternoon—so that you could tell me +about it—and explain to me what made you give up all your plans. What +will your Miss Margaret say?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie stopped short, her cheeks reddening. +</P> + +<P> +"What makes you think I am promised to Absalom?" +</P> + +<P> +"The fact is, I've only his word for it." +</P> + +<P> +"He told you that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly. Isn't it true?" +</P> + +<P> +"Do YOU think so poorly of me?" Tillie asked in a low voice. +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her quickly. "Tillie, I'm sorry; I ought not to have +believed it for an instant!" +</P> + +<P> +"I have a higher ambition in life than to settle down to take care of +Absalom Puntz!" said Tillie, fire in her soft eyes, and an unwonted +vibration in her gentle voice. +</P> + +<P> +"My credulity was an insult to you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Absalom did not mean to tell you a lie. He has made up his mind to +have me, so he thinks it is all as good as settled. Sometimes I am +almost afraid he will win me just by thinking he is going to." +</P> + +<P> +"Send him about his business! Don't keep up this folly, dear child!" +</P> + +<P> +"I would rather stand Absalom," she faltered, "than stand having you go +away." +</P> + +<P> +"But, Tillie," he turned almost fiercely upon her—"Tillie, I would +rather see you dead at my feet than to see your soul tied to that clod +of earth!" +</P> + +<P> +A wild thrill of rapture shot through Tillie's heart at his words. For +an instant she looked up at him, her soul shining in her eyes. "Does +he—does HE—care that much what happens to me?" throbbed in her brain. +</P> + +<P> +For the first time Fairchilds fully realized, with shame at his blind +selfishness, the danger and the cruelty of his intimate friendship with +this little Mennonite maid. For her it could but end in a heartbreak; +for him—"I have been a cad, a despicable cad!" he told himself in +bitter self-reproach. "If I had only known! But now it's too +late—unless—" In his mind he rapidly went over the simple history of +their friendship as they walked along; and, busy with her own thought, +Tillie did not notice his abstraction. +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie," he said suddenly. "Next Saturday there is an examination of +applicants for certificates at East Donegal. You must take that +examination. You are perfectly well prepared to pass it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, do you really, REALLY think I am?" the girl cried breathlessly. +</P> + +<P> +"I know it. The only question is, How are you going to get off to +attend the examination?" +</P> + +<P> +"Father will be at the Lancaster market on Saturday morning!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'll hire a buggy, come out to the farm, and carry you off!" +</P> + +<P> +"No—oh, no, you must not do that. Father would be so angry with you!" +</P> + +<P> +"You can't walk to Bast Donegal. It's six miles away." +</P> + +<P> +"Let me think.—Uncle Abe would do anything I asked him—but he +wouldn't have time to leave the hotel Saturday morning. And I couldn't +make him or Aunty Em understand that I was educated enough to take the +examination. But there's the Doc!" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course!" cried Fairchilds. "The Doc isn't afraid of the whole +county! Shall I tell him you'll go if he'll come for you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes!" +</P> + +<P> +"Good! I'll undertake to promise for him that he'll be there!" +</P> + +<P> +"When father comes home from market and finds me gone!" Tillie +said—but there was exultation, rather than fear, in her voice. +</P> + +<P> +"When you show him your certificate, won't that appease him? When he +realizes how much more you can earn by teaching than by working for +your aunt, especially as he bore none of the expense of giving you your +education? It was your own hard labor, and none of his money, that did +it! And now I suppose he'll get all the profit of it!" Fairchilds could +not quite keep down the rising indignation in his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Tillie, quietly, though the color burned in her face. +"Walter! I'm going to refuse to give father my salary if I am elected +to a school. I mean to save my money to go to the Normal—where Miss +Margaret is." +</P> + +<P> +"So long as you are under age, he can take it from you, Tillie." +</P> + +<P> +"If the school I teach is near enough for me to live at home, I'll pay +my board. More than that I won't do." +</P> + +<P> +"But how are you going to help yourself?" +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't made up my mind, yet, how I'm going to do it. It will be the +hardest struggle I've ever had—to stand out against him in such a +thing," Tillie continued; "but I will not be weak, I will not! I have +studied and worked all these years in the hope of a year at the +Normal—with Miss Margaret. And I won't falter now!" +</P> + +<P> +Before he could reply to her almost impassioned earnestness, they were +startled by the sound of footsteps behind them in the woods—the heavy +steps of men. Involuntarily, they both stopped short, Tillie with the +feeling of one caught in a stolen delight; and Fairchilds with mingled +annoyance at the interruption, and curiosity as to who might be +wandering in this unfrequented patch of woods. +</P> + +<P> +"I seen 'em go out up in here!" +</P> + +<P> +It was the voice of Absalom. The answer came in the harsh, indignant +tones of Mr. Getz. "Next time I leave her go to a Instytoot or such a +Columbus Sallybration, she'll stay at HOME! Wastin' time walkin' 'round +in the woods with that dude teacher!—and on a week-day, too!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie looked up at Fairchilds with an appeal that went to his heart. +Grimly he waited for the two. +</P> + +<P> +"So here's where you are!" cried Mr. Getz, striding up to them, and, +before Fairchilds could prevent it, he had seized Tillie by the +shoulder. "What you mean, runnin' off up here, heh? What you mean?" he +demanded, shaking her with all his cruel strength. +</P> + +<P> +"Stop that, you brute!" Fairchilds, unable to control his fury, drew +back and struck the big man squarely on the chest. Getz staggered back, +amazement at this unlooked-for attack for a moment getting the better +of his indignation. He had expected to find the teacher cowed with fear +at being discovered by a director and a director's son in a situation +displeasing to them. +</P> + +<P> +"Let the child alone, you great coward—or I 'll horsewhip you!" +</P> + +<P> +Getz recovered himself. His face was black with passion. He lifted the +horsewhip which he carried. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll horsewhip me—me, Jake Getz, that can put you off William Penn +TO-MORROW if I want! Will you do it with this here? he demanded, +grasping the whip more tightly and lifting it to strike—but before it +could descend, Fairchilds wrenched it out of his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he responded, "if you dare to touch that child again, you +shameless dog!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie, with anguished eyes, stood motionless as marble, while Absalom, +with clenched fists, awaited his opportunity. +</P> + +<P> +"If I dare!" roared Getz. "If I have dare to touch my own child!" He +turned to Tillie. "Come along," he exclaimed, giving her a cuff with +his great paw; and instantly the whip came down with stinging swiftness +on his wrist. With a bellow of pain, Getz turned on Fairchilds, and at +the same moment, Absalom sprang on him from behind, and with one blow +of his brawny arm brought the teacher to the ground. Getz sprawled over +his fallen antagonist and snatched his whip from him. +</P> + +<P> +"Come on, Absalom—we'll learn him oncet!" he cried fiercely. "We'll +learn him what horsewhippin' is! We'll give him a lickin' he won't +forget!" +</P> + +<P> +Absalom laughed aloud in his delight at this chance to avenge his own +defeat at the hands of the teacher, and with clumsy speed the two men +set about binding the feet of the half-senseless Fairchilds with +Absalom's suspenders. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie felt herself spellbound, powerless to move or to cry out. +</P> + +<P> +"Now!" cried Getz to Absalom, "git back, and I'll give it to him!" +</P> + +<P> +The teacher, stripped of his two coats and bound hand and foot, was +rolled over on his face. He uttered no word of protest, though they all +saw that he had recovered consciousness. The truth was, he simply +recognized the uselessness of demurring. +</P> + +<P> +"Warm him up, so he don't take cold!" shouted Absalom—and even as he +spoke, Jake Getz's heavy arm brought the lash down upon Fairchilds's +back. +</P> + +<P> +At the spiteful sound, life came back to Tillie. Like a wild thing, she +sprang between them, seized her father's arm and hung upon it. "Listen +to me! Listen! Father! If you strike him again, I'LL MARRY ABSALOM +TO-MORROW!" +</P> + +<P> +By inspiration she had hit upon the one argument that would move him. +</P> + +<P> +Her father tried to shake her off, but she clung to his arm with the +strength of madness, knowing that if she could make him grasp, even in +his passionate anger, the real import of her threat, he would yield to +her. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll marry Absalom! I'll marry him to-morrow!" she repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"You darsent—you ain't of age! Let go my arm, or I'll slap you ag'in!" +</P> + +<P> +"I shall be of age in three months! I'll marry Absalom if you go on +with this!" +</P> + +<P> +"That suits me!" cried Absalom. "Keep on with it, Jake!" +</P> + +<P> +"If you do, I'll marry him to-morrow!" +</P> + +<P> +There was a look in Tillie's eyes and a ring in her voice that her +father had learned to know. Tillie would do what she said. +</P> + +<P> +And here was Absalom "siding along with her" in her unfilial defiance! +Jacob Getz wavered. He saw no graceful escape from his difficulty. +</P> + +<P> +"Look-ahere, Tillie! If I don't lick this here feller, I'll punish YOU +when I get you home!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie saw that she had conquered him, and that the teacher was safe. +She loosed her hold of her father's arm and, dropping on her knees +beside Fairchilds began quickly to loosen his bonds. Her father did not +check her. +</P> + +<P> +"Jake Getz, you ain't givin' in THAT easy?" demanded Absalom, angrily. +</P> + +<P> +"She'd up and do what she says! I know her! And I ain't leavin' her +marry! You just wait"—he turned threateningly to Tillie as she knelt +on the ground—"till I get you home oncet!" +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds staggered to his feet, and drawing Tillie up from the +ground, he held her two hands in his as he turned to confront his +enemies. +</P> + +<P> +"You call yourselves men—you cowards and bullies! And you!" he turned +his blazing eyes upon Getz, "you would work off your miserable spite on +a weak girl—who can't defend herself! Dare to touch a hair of her head +and I'll break YOUR damned head and every bone in your Body! Now take +yourselves off, both of you, you curs, and leave us alone!" +</P> + +<P> +"My girl goes home along with me!" retorted the furious Getz. "And +YOU—you 'll lose your job at next Board Meetin', Saturday night! So +you might as well pack your trunk! Here!" He laid his hand on Tillie's +arm, but Fairchilds drew her to him and held his arm about her waist, +while Absalom, darkly scowling, stood uncertainly by. +</P> + +<P> +"Leave her with me. I must talk with her. MUST, I say. Do you hear me? +She—" +</P> + +<P> +His words died on his lips, as Tillie's head suddenly fell forward on +his shoulder, and, looking down, Fairchilds saw that she had fainted. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE DOC CONCOCTS A PLOT +</H3> + +<P> +"So you see I'm through with this place!" Fairchilds concluded as, late +that night, he and the doctor sat alone in the sitting-room, discussing +the afternoon's happenings. +</P> + +<P> +"I was forced to believe," he went on, "when I saw Jake Getz's fearful +anxiety and real distress while Tillie remained unconscious, that the +fellow, after all, does have a heart of flesh under all his brutality. +He had never seen a woman faint, and he thought at first that Tillie +was dead. We almost had HIM on our hands unconscious!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, the faintin' saved Tillie a row with him till he got her home +oncet a'ready," the doctor said, as he puffed away at his pipe, his +hands in his vest arms, his feet on the table, and a newspaper under +them to spare the chenille table-cover. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Otherwise I don't know how I could have borne to see her taken +home by that ruffian—to be punished for so heroically defending ME!" +</P> + +<P> +"You bet! That took cheek, ain't?—fur that little girl to stand there +and jaw Jake Getz—and make him quit lickin' you! By gum, that minds me +of sceneries I've saw a'ready in the theayter! They most gener'ly +faints away in a swoond that way, too. Well, Tillie she come round all +right, ain't?—till a little while?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. But she was very pale and weak, poor child!" Fairchilds answered, +resting his head wearily upon his palm. "When she became conscious, +Getz carried her out of the woods to his buggy that he had left near +the school-house." +</P> + +<P> +"How did Absalom take it, anyhow?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's rather dazed, I think! He doesn't quite know how to make it all +out. He is a man of one idea—one at a time and far apart. His idea at +present is that he is going to marry Tillie." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and I never seen a Puntz yet where didn't come by what he set his +stubborn head to!" the doctor commented. "It wonders me sometimes, how +Tillie's goin' to keep from marryin' him, now he's made up his mind so +firm!" +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie knows her own worth too well to throw herself away like that." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now I don't know," said the doctor, doubtfully. "To be sure, I +never liked them Puntzes, they're so damned thick-headed. Dummness runs +in that family so, it's somepin' surprisin'! Dummness and stubbornness +is all they got to 'em. But Absalom he's so well fixed—Tillie she +might go furder and do worse. Now there's you, Teacher. If she took up +with you and yous two got married, you'd have to rent. Absalom he'd own +his own farm." +</P> + +<P> +"Now, come, Doc," protested Fairchilds, disgusted, "you know +better—you know that to almost any sort of a woman marriage means +something more than getting herself 'well fixed,' as you put it. And to +a woman like Tillie!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—yes—I guess," answered the doctor, pulling briskly at his pipe. +"It's the same with a male—he mostly looks to somepin besides a good +housekeeper. There's me, now—I'd have took Miss Margaret—and she +couldn't work nothin'. I tole her I don't mind if my wife IS smart, so +she don't bother me any." +</P> + +<P> +"You did, did you?" smiled Fairchilds. "And what did the lady say to +that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Och, she was sorry!" +</P> + +<P> +"Sorry to turn you down, do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was because I didn't speak soon enough," the doctor assured him. +"She was promised a'ready to one of these here tony perfessers at the +Normal. She was sorry I hadn't spoke sooner. To be sure, after she had +gave her word, she had to stick to it." He thoughtfully knocked the +ashes from his pipe, while his eyes grew almost tender. "She was +certainly, now, an allurin' female! +</P> + +<P> +"So now," he added, after a moment's thoughtful pause, "you think your +game's played out here, heh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Getz and Absalom left me with the assurance that at the Saturday-night +meeting of the Board I'd be voted out. If it depends on them—and I +suppose it does—I'm done for. They'd like to roast me over a slow +fire!" +</P> + +<P> +"You bet they would!" +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose I haven't the least chance?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don' know—I don' know. It would suit me wonderful to get +ahead of Jake Getz and them Puntzes in this here thing—if I anyways +could! Le' me see." He thoughtfully considered the situation. "The +Board meets day after to-morrow. There's six directors. Nathaniel Puntz +and Jake can easy get 'em all to wote to put you out, fur they ain't +anyways stuck on you—you bein' so tony that way. Now me, I don't mind +it—them things don't never bother me any—manners and cleanness and +them." +</P> + +<P> +"Cleanness?" +</P> + +<P> +"Och, yes; us we never seen any person where wasted so much time +washin' theirself—except Miss Margaret. I mind missus used to say a +clean towel didn't last Miss Margaret a week, and no one else usin' it! +You see, what the directors don't like is your ALWAYS havin' your hands +so clean. Now they reason this here way—a person that never has dirty +hands is lazy and too tony." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +"But me, I don't mind. And I'm swanged if I wouldn't like to beat out +Jake and Nathaniel on this here deal! Say! I'll tell you what. This +here game's got fun in it fur me! I believe I got a way of DOIN' them +fellers. I ain't tellin' you what it is!" he said, with a chuckle. "But +it's a way that's goin' to WORK! I'm swanged if it ain't! You'll see +oncet! You just let this here thing to me and you won't be chased off +your job! I'm doin' it fur the sake of the fun I'll get out of seein' +Jake Getz surprised! Mebbe that old Dutchman won't be wonderful spited!" +</P> + +<P> +"I shall be very much indebted to you, doctor, if you can help me, as +it suits me to stay here for the present." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right. Fur one, there's Adam Oberholzer; he 'll be an easy +guy when it comes to his wote. Fur if I want, I can bring a bill ag'in' +the estate of his pop, disceased, and make it 'most anything. His pop +he died last month. Now that there was a man"—the doctor settled +himself comfortably, preparatory to the relation of a tale—"that there +was a man that was so wonderful set on speculatin' and savin' and +layin' by, that when he come to die a pecooliar thing happened. You +might call that there thing phe-non-e-ma. It was this here way. When +ole Adam Oberholzer (he was named after his son, Adam Oberholzer, the +school director) come to die, his wife she thought she'd better send +fur the Evangelical preacher over, seein' as Adam he hadn't been inside +a church fur twenty years back, and, to be sure, he wasn't just so well +prepared. Oh, well, he was deef fur three years back, and churches +don't do much good to deef people. But then he never did go when he did +have his sound hearin'. Many's the time he sayed to me, he sayed, 'I +don't believe in the churches,' he sayed, 'and blamed if it don't keep +me busy believin' in a Gawd!' he sayed. So you see, he wasn't just what +you might call a pillar of the church. One time he had such a cough and +he come to me and sayed whether I could do somepin. 'You're to leave +tobacco be,' I sayed. Ole Adam he looked serious. 'If you sayed it was +caused by goin' to church,' he answered to me, 'I might mebbe break +off. But tobacco—that's some serious,' he says. Adam he used to have +some notions about the Bible and religion that I did think, now, was +damned unushal. Here one day when he was first took sick, before he got +so deef yet, I went to see him, and the Evangelical preacher was there, +readin' to him that there piece of Scripture where, you know, them that +worked a short time was paid the same as them that worked all day. The +preacher he sayed he thought that par'ble might fetch him 'round oncet +to a death-bed conwersion. But I'm swanged if Adam didn't just up and +say, when the preacher got through, he says, 'That wasn't a square deal +accordin' to MY way of lookin' at things.' Yes, that's the way that +there feller talked. Why, here oncet—" the doctor paused to chuckle at +the recollection—"when I got there, Reverend was wrestlin' with Adam +to get hisself conwerted, and it was one of Adam's days when he was at +his deefest. Reverend he shouted in his ear, 'You must experience +religion—and get a change of heart—and be conwerted before you die!' +'What d' you say?' Adam he ast. Then Reverend, he seen that wouldn't +work, so he cut it short, and he says wery loud, 'Trust the Lord!' Now, +ole Adam Oberholzer in his business dealin's and speculatin' was always +darned particular who he trusted, still, so he looked up at Reverend, +and he says, 'Is he a reliable party?' Well, by gum, I bu'st right out +laughin'! I hadn't ought to—seein' it was Adam's death-bed—and +Reverend him just sweatin' with tryin' to work in his job to get him +conwerted till he passed away a'ready. But I'm swanged if I could keep +in! I just HOLLERED!" +</P> + +<P> +The doctor threw back his head and shouted with fresh appreciation of +his story, and Fairchilds joined in sympathetically. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, did he die unconverted?" he asked the doctor. +</P> + +<P> +"You bet! Reverend he sayed afterwards, that in all his practice of his +sacred calling he never had knew such a carnal death-bed. Now you see," +concluded the doctor, "I tended ole Adam fur near two months, and +that's where I have a hold on his son the school-directer." +</P> + +<P> +He laughed as he rose and stretched himself. +</P> + +<P> +"It will be no end of sport foiling Jake Getz!" Fairchilds said, with +but a vague idea of what the doctor's scheme involved. "Well, doctor, +you are our mascot—Tillie's and mine!" he added, as he, too, rose. +</P> + +<P> +"What's THAT?" +</P> + +<P> +"Our good luck." He held out an objectionably clean hand with its +shining finger-nails. "Good night, Doc, and thank you!" +</P> + +<P> +The doctor awkwardly shook it in his own grimy fist. "Good night to +you, then, Teacher." +</P> + +<P> +Out in the bar-room, as the doctor took his nightly glass of beer at +the counter, he confided to Abe Wackernagel that somehow he did, now, +"like to see Teacher use them manners of hisn. I'm 'most as stuck on +'em as missus is!" he declared. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SUNSHINE AND SHADOW +</H3> + +<P> +Tillie's unhappiness, in her certainty that on Saturday night the Board +would vote for the eviction of the teacher, was so great that she felt +almost indifferent to her own fate, as she and the doctor started on +their six-mile ride to East Donegal. But when he presently confided to +her his scheme to foil her father and Absalom, she became almost +hysterical with joy. +</P> + +<P> +"You see, Tillie, it's this here way. Two of these here directers owes +me bills. Now in drivin' you over to East Donegal I'm passin' near to +the farms of both of them directers, and I'll make it suit to stop off +and press 'em fur my money. They're both of 'em near as close as Jake +Getz! They don't like it fur me to press 'em to pay right aways. So +after while I'll say that if they wote ag'in' Jake and Nathaniel, and +each of 'em gets one of the other two directers to wote with him to +leave Teacher keep his job, I'll throw 'em the doctor's bill off! Adam +Oberholzer he owes me about twelve dollars, and Joseph Kettering he +owes me ten. I guess it ain't worth twelve dollars to Adam and ten to +Joseph to run Teacher off William Penn!" +</P> + +<P> +"And do you suppose that they will be able to influence the other +two—John Coppenhaver and Pete Underwocht?" +</P> + +<P> +"When all them dollars depends on it, I don't suppose nothin'—I know. +I'll put it this here way: 'If Teacher ain't chased off, I'll throw you +my doctor's bill off. If he is, you'll pay me up, and pretty damned +quick, too!'" +</P> + +<P> +"But, Doc," faltered Tillie, "won't it be bribery?" +</P> + +<P> +"Och, Tillie, a body mustn't feel so conscientious about such little +things like them. That's bein' too serious." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you tell the teacher you were going to do this?" she uneasily +asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I guess I ain't such a blamed fool! I guess I know that much, +that he wouldn't of saw it the way <I>I</I> see it. I tole him I was goin' +to bully them directers to keep him in his job—but he don't know how +I'm doin' it." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad he doesn't know," sighed Tillie. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he darsent know till it's all over oncet." +</P> + +<P> +The joy and relief she felt at the doctor's scheme, which she was quite +sure would work out successfully, gave her a self-confidence in the +ordeal before her that sharpened her wits almost to brilliancy. She +sailed through this examination, which otherwise she would have dreaded +unspeakably, with an aplomb that made her a stranger to herself. Even +that bugbear of the examination labeled by the superintendent, "General +Information," and regarded with suspicion by the applicants as a snare +and a delusion, did not confound Tillie in her sudden and new-found +courage; though the questions under this head brought forth from the +applicants such astonishing statements as that Henry VIII was chiefly +noted for being "a great widower"; and that the Mother of the Gracchi +was "probably Mrs. Gracchi." +</P> + +<P> +In her unwonted elation, Tillie even waxed a bit witty, and in the quiz +on "Methods of Discipline," she gave an answer which no doubt led the +superintendent to mark her high. +</P> + +<P> +"What method would you pursue with a boy in your school who was +addicted to swearing?" she was asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose I should make him swear off!" said Tillie, with actual +flippancy. +</P> + +<P> +A neat young woman of the class, sitting directly in front of the +superintendent, and wearing spectacles and very straight, tight hair, +cast a shocked and reproachful look upon Tillie, and turning to the +examiner, said primly, "<I>I</I> would organize an anti-swearing society in +the school, and reward the boys who were not profane by making them +members of it, expelling those who used any profane language." +</P> + +<P> +"And make every normal boy turn blasphemer in derision, I'm afraid," +was the superintendent's ironical comment. +</P> + +<P> +When, at four o'clock that afternoon, she drove back with the doctor +through the winter twilight, bearing her precious certificate in her +bosom, the brightness of her face seemed to reflect the brilliancy of +the red sunset glow on snow-covered fields, frozen creek, and +farm-house windows. +</P> + +<P> +"Bully fur you, Matilda!" the doctor kept repeating at intervals. "Now +won't Miss Margaret be tickled, though! I tell you what, wirtue like +hern gits its rewards even in this here life. She'll certainly be set +up to think she's made a teacher out of you unbeknownst! And mebbe it +won't tickle her wonderful to think how she's beat Jake Getz!" he +chuckled. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you're writin' to her to-night, Tillie, ain't you?" he +asked. "I'd write her off a letter myself if writin' come handier to +me." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I shall let her know at once," Tillie replied; and in her +voice, for the first time in the doctor's acquaintance with her, there +was a touch of gentle complacency. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll get your letter out the tree-holler to-morrow morning, then, when +I go a-past—and I can stamp it and mail it fur you till noon. Then +she'll get it till Monday morning yet! By gum, won't she, now, be +tickled!" +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it all beautiful!" Tillie breathed ecstatically. "I've got my +certificate and the teacher won't be put out! What did Adam Oberholzer +and Joseph Kettering say, Doc?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've got them fixed all right! Just you wait, Tillie!" he said +mysteriously. "Mebbe us we ain't goin' to have the laugh on your pop +and old Nathaniel Puntz! You'll see! Wait till your pop comes home and +says what's happened at Board meetin' to-night! Golly! Won't he be +hoppin' mad!" +</P> + +<P> +"What is going to happen, Doc?" +</P> + +<P> +"You wait and see! I ain't tellin' even you, Tillie. I'm savin' it fur +a surprise party fur all of yous!" +</P> + +<P> +"Father won't speak to me about it, you know. He won't mention +Teacher's name to me." +</P> + +<P> +"Then won't you find out off of him about the Board meetin'?" the +doctor asked in disappointment. "Must you wait till you see me again +oncet?" +</P> + +<P> +"He will tell mother. I can get her to tell me," Tillie said. +</P> + +<P> +"All right. Somepin's going to happen too good to wait! Now look-ahere, +Tillie, is your pop to be tole about your certificate?" +</P> + +<P> +"I won't tell him until I must. I don't know how he'd take it. He might +not let me get a school to teach. Of course, when once I've got a +school, he will have to be told. And then," she quietly added, "I shall +teach, whether he forbids it or not." +</P> + +<P> +"To be sure!" heartily assented the doctor. "And leave him go roll +hisself, ain't! I'll keep a lookout fur you and tell you the first +wacancy I hear of." +</P> + +<P> +"What would I do—what should I have done in all these years, Doc—if +it hadn't been for you!" smiled Tillie, with an affectionate pressure +of his rough hand; and the doctor's face shone with pleasure to hear +her. +</P> + +<P> +"You have been a good friend to me, Doc." +</P> + +<P> +"Och, that's all right, Tillie. As I sayed, wirtue has its reward even +in this here life. My wirtuous acts in standin' by you has gave me as +much satisfaction as I've ever had out of anything! But now, Tillie, +about tellin' your pop. I don't suspicion he'd take it anyways ugly. A +body'd think he'd be proud! And he hadn't none of the expense of givin' +you your nice education!" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't be sure how he WOULD take it, Doc, so I would rather not tell +him until I must." +</P> + +<P> +"All right. Just what you say. But I dare tell missus, ain't?" +</P> + +<P> +"If she won't tell the girls, Doc. It would get back to father, I'm +afraid, if so many knew it." +</P> + +<P> +"I 'll tell her not to tell. She 'll be as pleased and proud as if it +was Manda or Rebecca!" +</P> + +<P> +"Poor Aunty Em! She is so good to me, and I'm afraid I've disappointed +her!" Tillie humbly said; but somehow the sadness that should have +expressed itself in the voice of one under suspension from meeting, +when speaking of her sin, was quite lacking. +</P> + +<P> +When, at length, they reached the Getz farm, Mr. Getz met them at the +gate, his face harsh with displeasure at Tillie's long and unpermitted +absence from home. +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, Jake!" said the doctor, pleasantly, as her father lifted her +down from the high buggy. "I guess missus tole you how I heard Tillie +fainted away in a swoond day before yesterday, so this morning I come +over to see her oncet—Aunty Em she was some oneasy. And I seen she +would mebbe have another such a swoond if she didn't get a long day out +in the air. It's done her wonderful much good—wonderful!" +</P> + +<P> +"She hadn't no need to stay all day!" growled Mr. Getz. "Mom had all +Tillie's work to do, and her own too, and she didn't get it through +all." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, better LET the work than have Tillie havin' any more of them +dangerous swoonds. Them's dangerous, I tell you, Jake! Sometimes folks +never comes to, yet!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz looked at Tillie apprehensively. "You better go in and get +your hot supper, Tillie," he said, not ungently. +</P> + +<P> +Before this forbearance of her father, Tillie had a feeling of shame in +the doctor's subterfuges, as she bade her loyal friend good night and +turned to go indoors. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll be over to Board meetin' to-night, ain't?" the doctor said to +Mr. Getz as he picked up the reins. +</P> + +<P> +"To be sure! Me and Nathaniel Puntz has a statement to make to the +Board that'll chase that tony dude teacher off his job so quick he +won't have time to pack his trunk!" +</P> + +<P> +"Is that so?" the doctor said in feigned surprise. "Well, he certainly +is some tony—that I must give him, Jake. Well, good night to yous! Be +careful of Tillie's health!" +</P> + +<P> +Getz went into the house and the doctor, chuckling to himself, drove +away. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie was in bed, but sleep was far from her eyes, when, late that +night, she heard her father return from the Board meeting. Long she lay +in her bed, listening with tense nerves to his suppressed tones as he +talked to his wife in the room across the hall, but she could not hear +what he said. Not even his tone of voice was sufficiently enlightening +as to how affairs had gone. +</P> + +<P> +In her wakefulness the night was agonizingly long; for though she was +hopeful of the success of the doctor's plot, she knew that possibly +there might have been some fatal hitch. +</P> + +<P> +At the breakfast-table, next morning, her father looked almost sick, +and Tillie's heart throbbed with unfilial joy in the significance of +this. His manner to her was curt and his face betrayed sullen anger; he +talked but little, and did not once refer to the Board meeting in her +presence. +</P> + +<P> +It was not until ten o'clock, when he had gone with some of the +children to the Evangelical church, that she found her longed-for +opportunity to question her stepmother. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she began, with assumed indifference, as she and her mother +worked together in the kitchen preparing the big Sunday dinner, "did +they put the teacher out?" +</P> + +<P> +"If they put him out?" exclaimed Mrs. Getz, slightly roused from her +customary apathy. "Well, I think they didn't! What do you think they +done yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure," said Tillie, evidently greatly interested in the turnips +she was paring, "I don't know." +</P> + +<P> +"They raised his salary five a month!" +</P> + +<P> +The turnips dropped into the pan, and Tillie raised her eyes to gaze +incredulously into the face of her stepmother, who, with hands on her +hips, stood looking down upon her. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," went on Mrs. Getz, "that's what they done! A dumm thing like +that! And after pop and Nathaniel Puntz they had spoke their speeches +where they had ready, how Teacher he wasn't fit fur William Penn! And +after they tole how he had up and sassed pop, and him a directer yet! +And Nathaniel he tole how Absalom had heard off the Doc how Teacher he +was a' UNbeliever and says musin' is the same to him as prayin'! Now +think! Such conwictions as them! And then, when the wote was took, here +it come out that only pop and Nathaniel Puntz woted ag'in' Teacher, and +the other four they woted FUR! And they woted to raise his salary five +a month yet!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's eyes dropped from her mother's face, her chin quivered, she +bit her lip, and suddenly, unable to control herself, she broke into +wild, helpless laughter. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Getz stared at her almost in consternation. Never before in her +life had she seen Tillie laugh with such abandon. +</P> + +<P> +"What ails you?" she asked wonderingly. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie could find no voice to answer, her slight frame shaking +convulsively. +</P> + +<P> +"What you laughin' at, anyhow?" Mrs. Getz repeated, now quite +frightened. +</P> + +<P> +"That—that Wyandotte hen jumped up on the sill!" Tillie murmured—then +went off into a perfect peal of mirth. It seemed as though all the +pent-up joy and gaiety of her childhood had burst forth in that moment. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see nothin' in that that's anyways comical—a Wyandotte hen on +the window-sill!" said Mrs. Getz, in stupid wonder. +</P> + +<P> +"She looked so—so—oh!" Tillie gasped, and wiped her eyes with a +corner of her apron. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't take no int'rust in what I tole you all!" Mrs. Getz +complained, sitting down near her stepdaughter to pick the chickens for +dinner. "I'd think it would make you ashamed fur the way you stood up +fur Teacher ag'in' your own pop here last Thursday—fur them four +directers to go ag'in' pop like this here!" +</P> + +<P> +"What reasons did they give for voting for the teacher?" Tillie asked, +her hysterics subsiding. +</P> + +<P> +"They didn't give no reasons till they had him elected a'ready. Then +Adam Oberholzer he got up and he spoke how Teacher learned the scholars +so good and got along without lickin' 'em any (pop he had brung that up +AG'IN' Teacher, but Adam he sayed it was FUR), and that they better +mebbe give him five extry a month to make sure to keep such a kind man +to their childern, and one that learnt 'em so good." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie showed signs, for an instant, of going off into another fit of +laughter. +</P> + +<P> +"What's ailin' you?" her mother asked in mystification. "I never seen +you act so funny! You better go take a drink." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie repressed herself and went on with her work. +</P> + +<P> +During the remainder of that day, and, indeed, through all the week +that followed, she struggled to conceal from her father the exultation +of her spirits. She feared he would interpret it as a rejoicing over +his defeat, and there was really no such feeling in the girl's gentle +heart. She was even moved to some faint—it must be confessed, very +faint—pangs of pity for him as she saw, from day to day, how hard he +took his defeat. Apparently, it was to him a sickening blow to have his +"authority" as school director defied by a penniless young man who was +partly dependent upon his vote for daily bread. He suffered keenly in +his conviction that the teacher was as deeply exultant in his victory +as Getz had expected to be. +</P> + +<P> +In these days, Tillie walked on air, and to Mrs. Getz and the children +she seemed almost another girl, with that happy vibration in her +usually sad voice, and that light of gladness in her soft pensive eyes. +The glorious consciousness was ever with her that the teacher was +always near—though she saw him but seldom. This, and the possession of +the precious certificate, her talisman to freedom, hidden always in her +bosom, made her daily drudgery easy to her and her hours full of hope +and happiness. +</P> + +<P> +Deep as was Tillie's impression of the steadiness of purpose in +Absalom's character, she was nevertheless rather taken aback when, on +the Sunday night after that horrible experience in the woods, her +suitor stolidly presented himself at the farm-house, attired in his +best clothes, his whole aspect and bearing eloquent of the fact that +recent defeat had but made him more doggedly determined to win in the +end. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie wondered if she might not be safe now in dismissing him +emphatically and finally; but she decided there was still danger lest +Absalom might wreak his vengeance in some dreadful way upon the teacher. +</P> + +<P> +Her heart was so full of happiness that she could tolerate even Absalom. +</P> + +<P> +Only two short weeks of this brightness and glory, and then the blow +fell—the blow which blackened the sun in the heavens. The teacher +suddenly, and most mysteriously, resigned and went away. +</P> + +<P> +No one knew why. Whether it was to take a better position, or for what +other possible reason, not a soul in the township could tell—not even +the Doc. +</P> + +<P> +Strange to say, Fairchilds's going, instead of pleasing Mr. Getz, was +only an added offense to both him and Absalom. They had thirsted for +vengeance; they had longed to humiliate this "high-minded dude"; and +now not only was the opportunity lost to them, but the "job" they had +determined to wrest from him was indifferently hurled back in their +faces—he DIDN'T WANT IT! Absalom and Getz writhed in their helpless +spleen. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's undiscerning family did not for an instant attribute to its +true cause her sudden change from radiant happiness to the weakness and +lassitude that tell of mental anguish. They were not given to seeing +anything that was not entirely on the surface and perfectly obvious. +</P> + +<P> +Three days had passed since Fairchilds's departure—three days of utter +blackness to Tillie; and on the third day she went to pay her weekly +visit to the tree-hollow in the woods where she was wont to place Miss +Margaret's letters. +</P> + +<P> +On this day she found, to her amazement, two letters. Her knees shook +as she recognized the teacher's handwriting on one of them. +</P> + +<P> +There was no stamp and no post-mark on the envelop. He had evidently +written the letter before leaving, and had left it with the doctor to +be delivered to her. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie had always been obliged to maneuver skilfully in order to get +away from the house long enough to pay these weekly visits to the +tree-hollow; and she nearly always read her letter from Miss Margaret +at night by a candle, when the household was asleep. +</P> + +<P> +But now, heedless of consequences, she sat down on a snow-covered log +and opened Fairchilds's letter, her teeth chattering with more than +cold. +</P> + +<P> +It was only a note, written in great haste and evidently under some +excitement. It told her of his immediate departure for Cambridge to +accept a rather profitable private tutorship to a rich man's son. He +would write to Tillie, later, when he could. Meanwhile, God bless +her—and he was always her friend. That was all. He gave her no address +and did not speak of her writing to him. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie walked home in a dream. All that evening, she was so "dopplig" +as finally to call forth a sharp rebuke from her father, to which she +paid not the slightest heed. +</P> + +<P> +Would she ever see him again, her heart kept asking? Would he really +write to her again? Where was he at this moment, and what was he doing? +Did he send one thought to her, so far away, so desolate? Did he have +in any least degree the desire, the yearning, for her that she had for +him? +</P> + +<P> +Tillie felt a pang of remorse for her disloyalty to Miss Margaret when +she realized that she had almost forgotten that always precious letter. +When, a little past midnight, she took it from her dress pocket she +noticed what had before escaped her—some erratic writing in lead on +the back of the envelop. It was in the doctor's strenuous hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Willyam Pens as good as yoorn ive got them all promist but your pop to +wote for you at the bored meating saterdy its to be a surprize party +for your pop." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE REVOLT OF TILLIE +</H3> + +<P> +At half-past seven o'clock on Saturday evening, the School Board once +more convened in the hotel parlor, for the purpose of electing +Fairchilds's successor. +</P> + +<P> +"Up till now," Mr. Getz had remarked at the supper-table, "I ain't been +tole of no candidate applyin' fur William Penn, and here to-night we +meet to elect him—or her if she's a female." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's heart had jumped to her throat as she heard him, wondering how +he would take it when they announced to him that the applicant was none +other than his own daughter—whether he would be angry at her long +deception, or gratified at the prospect of her earning so much +money—for, of course, it would never occur to him that she would dare +refuse to give him every cent she received. +</P> + +<P> +There was unwonted animation in the usually stolid faces of the School +Board to-night; for the members were roused to a lively appreciation of +the situation as it related to Jake Getz. The doctor had taken each and +every one of them into his confidence, and had graphically related to +them the story of how Tillie had "come by" her certificate, and the +tale had elicited their partizanship for Tillie, as for the heroine of +a drama. Even Nathaniel Puntz was enjoying the fact that he was +to-night on the side of the majority. With Tillie, they were in doubt +as to how Jake Getz would receive the news. +</P> + +<P> +"Is they a' applicant?" he inquired on his arrival. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, to be sure," said Nathaniel Puntz. "What fur would it be worth +while to waste time meetin' to elect her if they ain't none?" +</P> + +<P> +"Then she's a female, is she?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she ain't no male, anyways, nor no Harvard gradyate, neither. If +she was, <I>I</I> wouldn't wote fur her!" +</P> + +<P> +"What might her name be?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's some such a French name," answered the doctor, who had carried in +the lamp and was lingering a minute. "It would, now, surprise you, +Jake, if you heard it oncet." +</P> + +<P> +"Is she such a foreigner yet?" Getz asked suspiciously. "I mistrust 'em +when they're foreigners." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," spoke Adam Oberholzer, as the doctor reluctantly went out, "it +ain't ten mile from here she was raised." +</P> + +<P> +"Is she a gradyate? We hadn't ought to take none but a Normal. We had +<I>enough</I> trouble!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, she ain't a Normal, but she's got her certificate off the +superintendent." +</P> + +<P> +"Has any of yous saw her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Och, yes, she's familiar with us," replied Joseph Kettering, the +Amishman, who was president of the Board. +</P> + +<P> +"Why ain't she familiar with me, then?" Getz inquired, looking +bewildered, as the president opened the ink-bottle that stood on the +table about which they sat, and distributed slips of paper. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that's some different again, too," facetiously answered Joseph +Kettering. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't she be here to-night to leave us see her oncet?" +</P> + +<P> +"She won't, but her pop will," answered Nathaniel Puntz; and Mr. Getz +vaguely realized in the expressions about him that something unusual +was in the air. +</P> + +<P> +"What do we want with her <I>pop</I>?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"We want his <I>wote</I>!" answered Adam Oberholzer—which sally brought +forth hilarious laughter. +</P> + +<P> +"What you mean?" demanded Getz, impatient of all this mystery. +</P> + +<P> +"It's the daughter of one of this here Board that we're wotin' fur!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz's eyes moved about the table. "Why, none of yous ain't got a +growed-up daughter that's been to school long enough to get a +certificate." +</P> + +<P> +"It seems there's ways of gettin' a certificate without goin' to +school. Some girls can learn theirselves at home without even a +teacher, and workin' all the time at farm-work, still, and even livin' +out!" said Mr. Puntz. "I say a girl with inDUStry like that would make +any feller a good wife." +</P> + +<P> +Getz stared at him in bewilderment. +</P> + +<P> +"The members of this Board," said Mr. Kettering, solemnly, "and the +risin' generation of the future, can point this here applicant out to +their childern as a shinin' example of what can be did by inDUStry, +without money and without price—and it'll be fur a spur to 'em to go +thou and do likewise." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you so dumm, Jake, you don't know YET who we mean?" Nathaniel +asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, to be sure, don't I! None of yous has got such a daughter where +lived out." +</P> + +<P> +"Except yourself, Jake!" +</P> + +<P> +The eyes of the Board were fixed upon Mr. Getz in excited expectation. +But he was still heavily uncomprehending. Then the president, rising, +made his formal announcement, impressively and with dignity. +</P> + +<P> +"Members of Canaan Township School Board: We will now proceed to wote +fur the applicant fur William Penn. She is not unknownst to this here +Board. She is a worthy and wirtuous female, and has a good moral +character. We think she's been well learnt how to manage childern, fur +she's been raised in a family where childern was never scarce. The +applicant," continued the speaker, "is—as I stated a couple minutes +back—a shining example of inDUStry to the rising generations of the +future, fur she's got her certificate to teach—and wery high marks on +it—and done it all by her own unaided efforts and inDUStry. Members of +Canaan Township School Board, we are now ready to wote fur Matilda +Maria Getz." +</P> + +<P> +Before his dazed wits could recover from the shock of this +announcement, Jake Getz's daughter had become the unanimously elected +teacher of William Penn. +</P> + +<P> +The ruling passion of the soul of Jacob Getz manifested itself +conspicuously in his reception of the revelation that his daughter, +through deliberate and systematic disobedience, carried on through all +the years of her girlhood, had succeeded in obtaining a certificate +from the county superintendent, and was now the teacher-elect at +William Penn. The father's satisfaction in the possession of a child +capable of earning forty dollars a month, his greedy joy in the +prospect of this addition to his income, entirely overshadowed and +dissipated the rage he would otherwise have felt. The pathos of his +child's courageous persistency in the face of his dreaded severity, of +her pitiful struggle with all the adverse conditions of her life,—this +did not enter at all into his consideration of the case. It was obvious +to Tillie, as it had been to the School Board on Saturday night, that +he felt an added satisfaction in the fact that this wonder had been +accomplished without any loss to him either of money or of his child's +labor. +</P> + +<P> +Somehow, her father's reception of her triumph filled her heart with +more bitterness than she had ever felt toward him in all the years of +her hard endeavor. It was on the eve of her first day of teaching that +his unusually affectionate attitude to her at the supper-table suddenly +roused in her a passion of hot resentment such as her gentle heart had +not often experienced. +</P> + +<P> +"I owe YOU no thanks, father, for what education I have!" she burst +forth. "You always did everything in your power to hinder me!" +</P> + +<P> +If a bomb had exploded in the midst of them, Mr. and Mrs. Getz could +not have been more confounded. Mrs. Getz looked to see her husband +order Tillie from the table, or rise from his place to shake her and +box her ears. But he did neither. In amazement he stared at her for a +moment—then answered with a mildness that amazed his wife even more +than Tillie's "sassiness" had done. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd of LEFT you study if I'd knowed you could come to anything like +this by it. But I always thought you'd have to go to the Normal to be +fit fur a teacher yet. And you can't say you don't owe me no +thanks—ain't I always kep' you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Kept me!" answered Tillie, with a scorn that widened her father's +stare and made her stepmother drop her knife on her plate; "I never +worked half so hard at Aunty Em's as I have done here every day of my +life since I was nine years old—and SHE thought my work worth not only +my 'keep,' but two dollars a week besides. When do you ever spend two +dollars on me? You never gave me a dollar that I hadn't earned ten +times over! You owe me back wages!" +</P> + +<P> +Jake Getz laid down his knife, with a look on his face that made his +other children quail. His countenance was livid with anger. +</P> + +<P> +"OWE YOU BACK WAGES!" he choked. "Ain't you my child, then, where I +begat and raised? Don't I own you? What's a child FUR? To grow up to be +no use to them that raised it? You talk like that to me!" he roared. +"You tell me I OWE you back money! Now listen here! I was a-goin' to +leave you keep five dollars every month out of your forty. Yes, I +conceited I'd leave you have all that—five a month! Now fur sassin' me +like what you done, I ain't leavin' you have NONE the first month!" +</P> + +<P> +"And what," Tillie wondered, a strange calm suddenly following her +outburst, as she sat back in her chair, white and silent, "what will he +do and say when I refuse to give him more than the price of my board?" +</P> + +<P> +Her school-work, which began nest day, diverted her mind somewhat from +its deep yearning for him who had become to her the very breath of her +life. +</P> + +<P> +It was on the Sunday night after her first week of teaching that she +told Absalom, with all the firmness she could command, that he must not +come to see her any more, for she was resolved not to marry him. +</P> + +<P> +"Who are you goin' to marry, then?" he inquired, unconvinced. +</P> + +<P> +"No one." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean it fur really, that you'd ruther be a' ole maid?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather be SIX old maids than the wife of a Dutchman!" +</P> + +<P> +"What fur kind of a man do you WANT, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not the kind that grows in this township." +</P> + +<P> +"Would you, mebbe," Absalom sarcastically inquired, "like such a dude +like what—" +</P> + +<P> +"Absalom!" Tillie flashed her beautiful eyes upon him. "You are +unworthy to mention his name to me! Don't dare to speak to me of +him—or I shall leave you and go up-stairs RIGHT AWAY!" +</P> + +<P> +Absalom sullenly subsided. +</P> + +<P> +When, later, he left her, she saw that her firm refusal to marry him +had in no wise baffled him. +</P> + +<P> +This impression was confirmed when on the next Sunday night, in spite +of her prohibition, he again presented himself. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie was mortally weary that night. Her letter had not come, and her +nervous waiting, together with the strain of her unwonted work of +teaching, had told on her endurance. So poor Absalom's reception at her +hands was even colder than her father's greeting at the kitchen door; +for since Tillie's election to William Penn, Mr. Getz was more opposed +than ever to her marriage, and he did not at all relish the young man's +persistency in coming to see her in the face of his own repeated +warning. +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie," Absalom began when they were alone together after the family +had gone to bed, "I thought it over oncet, and I come to say I'd ruther +have you 'round, even if you didn't do nothin' but set and knit mottos +and play the organ, than any other woman where could do all my +housework fur me. I'll HIRE fur you, Tillie—and you can just set and +enjoy yourself musin', like what Doc says book-learnt people likes to +do." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's eyes rested on him with a softer and a kindlier light in them +than she had ever shown him before; for such a magnanimous offer as +this, she thought, could spring only from the fact that Absalom was +really deeply in love, and she was not a little touched. +</P> + +<P> +She contemplated him earnestly as he sat before her, looking so utterly +unnatural in his Sunday clothes. A feeling of compassion for him began +to steal into her heart. +</P> + +<P> +"If I am not careful," she thought in consternation, "I shall be +saying, 'Yes,' out of pity." +</P> + +<P> +But a doubt quickly crept into her heart. Was it really that he loved +her so very much, or was it that his obstinacy was stronger than his +prudence, and that if he could not get her as he wanted her,—as his +housekeeper and the mother of numberless children,—he would take her +on her own conditions? Only so he got her—that was the point. He had +made up his mind to have her—it must be accomplished. +</P> + +<P> +"Absalom," she said, "I am not going to let you waste any more of your +time. You must never come to see me again after to-night. I won't ever +marry you, and I won't let you go on like this, with your false hope. +If you come again, I won't see you. I'll go up-stairs!" +</P> + +<P> +One would have thought that this had no uncertain ring. But again +Tillie knew, when Absalom left her, that his resolution not only was +not shaken,—it was not even jarred. +</P> + +<P> +The weeks moved on, and the longed-for letter did not come. Tillie +tried to gather courage to question the doctor as to whether Fairchilds +had made any arrangement with him for the delivery of a letter to her. +But an instinct of maidenly reserve and pride which, she could not +conquer kept her lips closed on the subject. +</P> + +<P> +Had it not been for this all-consuming desire for a letter, she would +more keenly have felt her enforced alienation from her aunt, of whom +she was so fond; and at the same time have taken really great pleasure +in her new work and in having reached at last her long-anticipated goal. +</P> + +<P> +In the meantime, while her secret sorrow—like Sir Hudibras's rusting +sword that had nothing else to feed upon and so hacked upon +itself—seemed eating out her very heart, the letter which would have +been to her as manna in the wilderness had fallen into her father's +hands, and after being laboriously conned by him, to his utter +confusion as to its meaning, had been consigned to the kitchen fire. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz's reasons for withholding the letter from his daughter and +burning it were several. In the first place, Fairchilds was "an +UNbeliever," and therefore his influence was baneful; he was Jacob +Getz's enemy, and therefore no fit person to be writing friendly +letters to his daughter; he asked Tillie, in his letter, to write to +him, and this would involve the buying of stationery and wasting of +time that might be better spent; and finally, he and Tillie, as he +painfully gathered from the letter, were "making up" to a degree that +might end in her wanting to marry the fellow. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz meant to tell Tillie that he had received this letter; but +somehow, every time he opened his lips to speak the words, the memory +of her wild-cat behavior in defense of the teacher that afternoon in +the woods, and her horribly death-like appearance when she had lain +unconscious in the teacher's arms, recurred to him with a vividness +that effectually checked him, and eventually led him to decide that it +were best not to risk another such outbreak. So she remained in +ignorance of the fact that Fairchilds had again written to her. +</P> + +<P> +Carlyle's "Gospel of Work" was indeed Tillie's salvation in these days; +for in spite of her restless yearning and loneliness, she was deeply +interested and even fascinated with her teaching, and greatly pleased +and encouraged with her success in it. +</P> + +<P> +At last, with the end of her first month at William Penn, came the +rather dreaded "pay-day"; for she knew that it would mean the hardest +battle of her life. +</P> + +<P> +The forty dollars was handed to her in her schoolroom on Friday +afternoon, at the close of the session. It seemed untold wealth to +Tillie, who never before in her life had owned a dollar. +</P> + +<P> +She' did not risk carrying it all home with her. The larger part of the +sum she intrusted to the doctor to deposit for her in a Lancaster bank. +</P> + +<P> +When, at five o'clock, she reached home and walked into the kitchen, +her father's eagerness for her return, that he might lay his itching +palms on her earnings, was perfectly manifest to her in his unduly +affectionate, "Well, Tillie!" +</P> + +<P> +She was pale, but outwardly composed. It was to be one of those supreme +crises in life which one is apt to meet with a courage and a serenity +that are not forthcoming in the smaller irritations and trials of daily +experience. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't look so hearty," her father said, as she quietly hung up her +shawl and hood in the kitchen cupboard. "A body'd think you'd pick up +and get fat, now you don't have to work nothin', except mornings and +evenings." +</P> + +<P> +"There is no harder work in the world, father, than teaching—even when +you like it." +</P> + +<P> +"It ain't no work," he impatiently retorted, "to set and hear off +lessons." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie did not dispute the point, as she tied a gingham apron over her +dress. +</P> + +<P> +Her father was sitting in a corner of the room, shelling corn, with +Sammy and Sally at his side helping him. He stopped short in his work +and glanced at Tillie in surprise, as she immediately set about +assisting her mother in setting the supper-table. +</P> + +<P> +"You was paid to-day, wasn't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, why don't you gimme the money, then? Where have you got it?" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie drew a roll of bills from her pocket and came up to him. +</P> + +<P> +He held out his hand. "You know, Tillie, I tole you I ain't givin' you +none of your wages this month, fur sassin' me like what you done. But +next month, if you're good-behaved till then, I'll give you mebbe five +dollars. Gimme here," he said, reaching for the money across the heads +of the children in front of him. +</P> + +<P> +But she did not obey. She looked at him steadily as she stood before +him, and spoke deliberately, though every nerve in her body was jumping. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunty Em charged the teacher fifteen dollars a month for board. That +included his washing and ironing. I really earn my board by the work I +do here Saturdays and Sundays, and in the mornings and evenings before +and after school. But I will pay you twelve dollars a month for my +board." +</P> + +<P> +She laid on his palm two five-dollar bills and two ones, and calmly +walked back to the table. +</P> + +<P> +Getz sat as one suddenly turned to stone. Sammy and Sally dropped their +corn-cobs into their laps and stared in frightened wonder. Mrs. Getz +stopped cutting the bread and gazed stupidly from her husband to her +stepdaughter. Tillie alone went on with her work, no sign in her white, +still face of the passion of terror in her heart at her own unspeakable +boldness. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly two resounding slaps on the ears of Sammy and Sally, followed +by their sharp screams of pain and fright, broke the tense stillness. +</P> + +<P> +"Who tole you to stop workin', heh?" demanded their father, fiercely. +"Leave me see you at it, do you hear? You stop another time to gape +around and I 'll lick you good! Stop your bawlin' now, this minute!" +</P> + +<P> +He rose from his chair and strode over to the table. Seizing Tillie by +the shoulder, he drew her in froet of him. +</P> + +<P> +"Gimme every dollar of them forty!" +</P> + +<P> +"I have given you all I have." +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you got the others hid?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have deposited my money in a Lancaster bank." +</P> + +<P> +Jacob Getz's face turned apoplectic with rage. +</P> + +<P> +"Who took it to Lancaster fur you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I sent it." +</P> + +<P> +"What fur bank?" +</P> + +<P> +"I prefer not to tell you that." +</P> + +<P> +"You PERFER! I'll learn you PERFER! Who took it in fur you—and what +fur bank? Answer to me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Father, the money is mine." +</P> + +<P> +"It's no such thing! You ain't but seventeen. And I don't care if +you're eighteen or even twenty-one! You're my child and you 'll obey to +me and do what I tell you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Father, I will not submit to your robbing me, You can't force me to +give you my earnings. If you could, I wouldn't teach at all!" +</P> + +<P> +"You won't submit! And I darsent rob you!" he spluttered. "Don't you +know I can collect your wages off the secretary of the Board myself?" +</P> + +<P> +"Before next pay-day I shall be eighteen. Then you can't legally do +that. If you could, I would resign. Then you wouldn't even get your +twelve dollars a month for my board. That's four dollars more than I +can earn living out at Aunty Em's." +</P> + +<P> +Beside himself with his fury, Getz drew her a few steps to the closet +where his strap hung, and jerking it from its nail, he swung out his +arm. +</P> + +<P> +But Tillie, with a strength born of a sudden fury almost matching his +own, and feeling in her awakened womanhood a new sense of outrage and +ignominy in such treatment, wrenched herself free, sprang to the middle +of the room, and faced him with blazing eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Dare to touch me—ever again so long as you live!—and I'll kill you, +I'll KILL you!" +</P> + +<P> +Such madness of speech, to ears accustomed to the carefully tempered +converse of Mennonites, Amish, and Dunkards, was in itself a wickedness +almost as great as the deed threatened. The family, from the father +down to six-year-old Zephaniah, trembled to hear the awful words. +</P> + +<P> +"Ever dare to touch me again so long as we both live—and I'll stab you +dead!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Getz shrieked. Sally and Sammy clung to each other whimpering in +terror, and the younger children about the room took up the chorus. +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie!" gasped her father. +</P> + +<P> +The girl tottered, her eyes suddenly rolled back in her head, she +stretched out her hands, and fell over on the floor. Once more Tillie +had fainted. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +GETZ "LEARNS" TILLIE +</H3> + +<P> +As a drowning man clings to whatever comes in his way, Tillie, in these +weary days of heart-ache and yearning, turned with new intensity of +feeling to Miss Margaret, who had never failed her, and their +interchange of letters became more frequent. +</P> + +<P> +Her father did not easily give up the struggle with her for the +possession of her salary. Finding that he could not legally collect it +himself from the treasurer of the Board, he accused his brother-in-law, +Abe Wackernagel, of having taken it to town for her; and when Abe +denied the charge, with the assurance, however, that he "WOULD do that +much for Tillie any day he got the chancet," Mr. Getz next taxed the +doctor, who, of course, without the least scruple, denied all knowledge +of Tillie's monetary affairs. +</P> + +<P> +On market day, he had to go to Lancaster City, and when his efforts to +force Tillie to sign a cheek payable to him had proved vain, his +baffled greed again roused him to uncontrollable fury, and lifting his +hand, he struck her across the cheek. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie reeled and would have fallen had he not caught her, his anger +instantly cooling in his fear lest she faint again. But Tillie had no +idea of fainting. "Let me go," she said quietly, drawing her arm out of +his clasp. Turning quickly away, she walked straight out of the room +and up-stairs to her chamber. +</P> + +<P> +Her one change of clothing she quickly tied into a bundle, and putting +on her bonnet and shawl, she walked down-stairs and out of the house. +</P> + +<P> +"Where you goin'?" her father demanded roughly as he followed her out +on the porch. +</P> + +<P> +She did not answer, but walked on to the gate. In an instant he had +overtaken her and stood squarely in her path. +</P> + +<P> +"Where you goin' to?" he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"To town, to board at the store." +</P> + +<P> +He dragged her, almost by main force, back into the house, and all that +evening kept a watch upon her until he knew that she was in bed. +</P> + +<P> +Next morning, Tillie carried her bundle of clothing to school with her, +and at the noon recess she went to the family who kept the village +store and engaged board with them, saying she could not stand the daily +walks to and from school. +</P> + +<P> +When, at six o'clock that evening, she had not returned home, her +father drove in to the village store to get her. But she locked herself +in her bedroom and would not come out. +</P> + +<P> +In the next few weeks he tried every means of force at his command, but +in vain; and at last he humbled himself to propose a compromise. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll leave you have some of your money every month, Tillie,—as much +as ten dollars,—if you'll give me the rest, still." +</P> + +<P> +"Why should I give it to you, father? How would that benefit ME?" she +said, with a rather wicked relish in turning the tables on him and +applying his life principle of selfishness to her own case. +</P> + +<P> +Her father did not know how to meet it. Never before in her life, to +his knowledge, had Tillie considered her own benefit before his and +that of his wife and children. That she should dare to do so now seemed +to knock the foundations from under him. +</P> + +<P> +"When I'm dead, won't you and the others inherit off of me all I've +saved?" he feebly inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"But that will be when I'm too old to enjoy or profit by it." +</P> + +<P> +"How much do you want I should give you out of your wages every month, +then?" +</P> + +<P> +"You can't give me what is not yours to give." +</P> + +<P> +"Now don't you be sassin' me, or I'll learn you!" +</P> + +<P> +They were alone in her school-room on a late February afternoon, after +school had been dismissed. Tillie quickly rose and reached for her +shawl and bonnet. She usually tried to avoid giving him an opportunity +like this for bullying her, with no one by to protect her. +</P> + +<P> +"Just stay settin'," he growled sullenly, and she knew from his tone +that he had surrendered. +</P> + +<P> +"If you'll come home to board, I won't bother you no more, then," he +further humbled himself to add. The loss even of the twelve dollars' +board was more than he could bear. +</P> + +<P> +"It would not be safe," answered Tillie, grimly. +</P> + +<P> +"Och, it 'll be safe enough. I'll leave you be." +</P> + +<P> +"It would not be safe for YOU." +</P> + +<P> +"Fur me? What you talkin'?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you lost your temper and struck me, I might kill you. That's why I +came away." +</P> + +<P> +The father stared in furtive horror at the white, impassive face of his +daughter. +</P> + +<P> +Could this be Tillie—his meek, long-suffering Tillie? +</P> + +<P> +"Another thing," she continued resolutely, for she had lost all fear of +speaking her mind to him, "why should I pay you twelve dollars a month +board, when I get my board at the store for six, because I wait on +customers between times?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Getz looked very downcast. There was a long silence between them. +</P> + +<P> +"I must go now, father. This is the hour that I always spend in the +store." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll board you fur six, then," he growled. +</P> + +<P> +"And make me work from four in the morning until eight or nine at +night? It is easier standing in the store. I can read when there are no +customers." +</P> + +<P> +"To think I brung up a child to talk to me like this here!" He stared +at her incredulously. +</P> + +<P> +"The rest will turn out even worse," Tillie prophesied with conviction, +"unless you are less harsh with them. Your harshness will drive every +child you have to defy you." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll take good care none of the others turns out like you!" he +threateningly exclaimed. "And YOU'LL see oncet! You'll find out! You +just wait! I tried everything—now I know what I'm doin'. It'll LEARN +you!" +</P> + +<P> +In the next few weeks, as nothing turned up to make good these threats, +Tillie often wondered what her father had meant by them. It was not +like him to waste time in empty words. +</P> + +<P> +But she was soon to learn. One evening the doctor came over to the +store to repeat to her some rumors he had heard and which he thought +she ought to know. +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie! your pop's workin' the directers to have you chased off +William Penn till the April election a'ready!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Doc!" Tillie gasped, "how do you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's what the talk is. He's goin' about to all of 'em whenever he +can handy leave off from his work, and he's tellin' 'em they had ought +to set that example to onruly children; and most of 'em's agreein' with +him. Nathaniel Puntz he agrees with him. Absalom he talks down on you +since you won't leave him come no more Sundays, still. Your pop he says +when your teachin' is a loss to him instead of a help, he ain't leavin' +you keep on. He says when you don't have no more money, you'll have to +come home and help him and your mom with the work. Nathaniel Puntz he +says this is a warnin' to parents not to leave their children have too +much education—that they get high-minded that way and won't even get +married." +</P> + +<P> +"But, Doc," Tillie pleaded with him in an agony of mind, "you won't let +them take my school from me, will you? You'll make them let me keep it?" +</P> + +<P> +The doctor gave a little laugh. "By golly, Tillie, I ain't the +President of America! You think because I got you through oncet or +twicet, I kin do ANYthing with them directers, still! Well, a body +can't ALWAYS get ahead of a set of stubborn-headed Dutchmen—and with +Nathaniel Puntz so wonderful thick in with your pop to work ag'in' you, +because you won't have that dumm Absalom of hisn!" +</P> + +<P> +"What shall I do?" Tillie cried. "I can never, never go back to my old +life again—that hopeless, dreary drudgery on the farm! I can't, indeed +I can't! I won't go back. What shall I do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Look-ahere, Tillie!" the doctor spoke soothingly, "I'll do what I +otherwise kin to help you. I'll do, some back-talkin' myself to them +directers. But you see," he said in a troubled tone, "none of them +directers happens to owe me no doctor-bill just now, and that makes it +a little harder to persuade 'em to see my view of the case. Now if only +some of their wives would up and get sick for 'em and I could run 'em +up a bill! But," he concluded, shaking his head in discouragement, +"it's a wonderful healthy season—wonderful healthy!" +</P> + +<P> +In the two months that followed, the doctor worked hard to counteract +Mr. Getz's influence with the Board. Tillie, too, missed no least +opportunity to plead her cause with them, not only by direct argument, +but by the indirect means of doing her best possible work in her school. +</P> + +<P> +But both she and the doctor realized, as the weeks moved on, that they +were working in vain; for Mr. Getz, in his statements to the directors, +had appealed to some of their most deep-rooted prejudices. Tillie's +filial insubordination, her "high-mindedness," her distaste for +domestic work, so strong that she refused even to live under her +father's roof—all these things made her unfit to be an instructor and +guide to their young children. She would imbue the "rising generation" +with her worldly and wrong-headed ideas. +</P> + +<P> +Had Tillie remained "plain," she would no doubt have had the +championship of the two New Mennonite members of the Board. But her +apostasy had lost her even that defense, for she no longer wore her +nun-like garb. After her suspension from meeting and her election to +William Penn, she had gradually drifted into the conviction that colors +other than gray, black, or brown were probably pleasing to the Creator, +and that what really mattered was not what she wore, but what she was. +It was without any violent struggles or throes of anguish that, in this +revolution of her faith, she quite naturally fell away from the creed +which once had held her such a devotee. When she presently appeared in +the vain and ungodly habiliments of "the world's people," the brethren +gave her up in despair and excommunicated her. +</P> + +<P> +"No use, Tillie," the doctor would report in discouragement, week after +week; "we're up against it sure this time! You're losin' William Penn +till next month, or I'll eat my hat! A body might as well TRY to eat +his hat as move them pig-headed Dutch once they get sot. And they're +sot on puttin' you out, all right! You see, your pop and Nathaniel +Puntz they just fixed 'em! Me and you ain't got no show at all." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie could think of no way of escape from her desperate position. +What was there before her but a return to the farm, or perhaps, at +best, marriage with Absalom? +</P> + +<P> +"To be sure, I should have to be reduced to utter indifference to my +fate if I ever consented to marry Absalom," she bitterly told herself. +"But when it is a question between doing that and living at home, I +don't know but I might be driven to it!" +</P> + +<P> +At times, the realization that there was no possible appeal from her +situation did almost drive her to a frenzy. After so many years of +struggle, just as she was tasting success, to lose all the fruits of +her labor—how could she endure it? With the work she loved taken away +from her, how could she bear the gnawing hunger at her heart for the +presence of him unto whom was every thought of her brain and every +throbbing pulse of her soul? The future seemed to stretch before her, a +terrible, an unendurable blank. +</P> + +<P> +The first week of April was the time fixed for the meeting of the Board +at which she was to be "chased off her job"; and as the fatal day drew +near, a sort of lethargy settled upon her, and she ceased to straggle, +even in spirit, against the inevitable. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Tillie," the doctor said, with a long sigh, as he came into the +store at six o'clock on the eventful evening, and leaned over the +counter to talk to the girl, "they're all conwened by now, over there +in the hotel parlor. Your pop and Nathaniel Puntz they're lookin' +wonderful important. Tour pop," he vindictively added, "is just +chucklin' at the idea of gettin' you home under his thumb ag'in!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie did not speak. She sat behind the counter, her cheeks resting on +the backs of her hands, her wistful eyes gazing past the doctor toward +the red light in the hotel windows across the way. +</P> + +<P> +"Golly! but I'd of liked to beat 'em out on this here game! But they've +got us, Tillie! They'll be wotin' you out of your job any minute now. +And then your pop'll be comin' over here to fetch you along home! Oh! +If he wasn't your pop I c'd say somethin' real perfane about him." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie drew a long breath; but she did not speak. She could not. It +seemed to her that she had come to the end of everything. +</P> + +<P> +"Look-ahere, Tillie," the doctor spoke suddenly, "you just up and get +ahead of 'em all—you just take yourself over to the Millersville +Normal! You've got some money saved, ain't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes!" A ray of hope kindled in her eyes. "I have saved one hundred and +twenty-five dollars! I should have more than that if I had not returned +to the world's dress." +</P> + +<P> +"A hundred and twenty-five's plenty enough for a good starter at the +Millersville Normal," said the doctor. +</P> + +<P> +"But," Tillie hesitated, "this is April, and the spring term closes in +three months. What should I do and where could I go after that? If I +made such a break with father, he might refuse to take me home even if +I had nowhere else to go. Could I risk that?" +</P> + +<P> +The doctor leaned his head on his hand and heavily considered the +situation. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm blamed if I dare adwise you, Tillie. It's some serious adwisin' a +young unprotected female to leave her pop's rooft to go out into the +unbeknownst world," he said sentimentally. "To be sure, Miss Margaret +would see after you while you was at the Normal. But when wacation is +here in June she might mebbe be goin' away for such a trip like, and +then if you couldn't come back home, you'd be throwed out on the cold +wide world, where there's many a pitfall for the onwary." +</P> + +<P> +"It seems too great a risk to run, doesn't it? There seems to be +nothing—nothing—that I can do but go back to the farm," she said, the +hope dying out of her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Just till I kin get you another school, Tillie," he consoled her. +"I'll be lookin' out for a wacancy in the county for you, you bet!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, Doc," she answered wearily; "but you know another school +couldn't possibly be open to me until next fall—five months from now." +</P> + +<P> +She threw her head back upon the palm of her hand. "I'm so tired—so +very tired of it all. What's the use of struggling? What am I +struggling FOR?" +</P> + +<P> +"What are you struggling FUR?" the doctor repeated. "Why, to get shed +of your pop and all them kids out at the Getz farm that wears out your +young life workin' for 'em! That's what! And to have some freedom and +money of your own—to have a little pleasure now and ag'in! I tell you, +Tillie, I don't want to see you goin' out there to that farm ag'in!" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think I should dare to run away to the Normal?" she asked +fearfully. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor tilted back his hat and scratched his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Leave me to think it over oncet, Tillie, and till to-morrow mornin' +a'ready I'll give you my answer. My conscience won't give me the dare +to adwise you offhand in a matter that's so serious like what this is." +</P> + +<P> +"Father will want to make me go out to the farm with him this evening, +I am sure," she said; "and when once I am out there, I shall not have +either the spirit or the chance to get away, I'm afraid." +</P> + +<P> +The doctor shook his head despondently. "We certainly are up ag'in' it! +I can't see no way out." +</P> + +<P> +"There is no way out," Tillie said in a strangely quiet voice. "Doc," +she added after an instant, laying her hand on his rough one and +pressing it, "although I have failed in all that you have tried to help +me to be and to do, I shall never forget to be grateful to you—my best +and kindest friend!" +</P> + +<P> +The doctor looked down almost reverently at the little white hand +resting against his dark one. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly Tillie's eyes fixed themselves upon the open doorway, where +the smiling presence of Walter Fairchilds presented itself to her +startled gaze. +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie! AND the Doc! Well, it's good to see you. May I break in on +your conference—I can see it '& important." He spoke lightly, but his +voice was vibrant with some restrained emotion. At the first sight of +him, Tillie's hand instinctively crept up to feel if those precious +curls were in their proper place. The care and devotion she had spent +upon them during all these weary, desolate months! And all because a +man—the one, only man—had once said they were pretty! Alas, Tillie, +for your Mennonite principles! +</P> + +<P> +And now, at sight of the dear, familiar face and form, the girl +trembled and was speechless. +</P> + +<P> +Not so the doctor. With a yell, he turned upon the visitor, grasped +both his hands, and nearly wrung them off. +</P> + +<P> +"Hang me, of I was ever so glad to see a feller like wot I am you. +Teacher," he cried in huge delight, "the country's saved! Providence +fetched you here in the nick of time! You always was a friend to +Tillie, and you kin help her out now!" +</P> + +<P> +Walter Fairchilds did not reply at first. He stood, gazing over the +doctor's shoulder at the new Tillie, transformed in countenance by the +deep waters through which she had passed in the five months that had +slipped round since he had gone out of her life; and so transformed in +appearance by the dropping of her Mennonite garb that he could hardly +believe the testimony of his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it—is it really you, Tillie?" he said, holding out his hand. "And +aren't you even a little bit glad to see me?" +</P> + +<P> +The familiar voice brought the life-blood back to her face. She took a +step toward him, both hands outstretched,—then, suddenly, she stopped +and her cheeks crimsoned. "Of course we're glad to see you—very!" she +said softly but constrainedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Lemme tell you the news," shouted the doctor. "You 'll mebbe save +Tillie from goin' out there to her pop's farm ag'in! She's teacher at +William Penn, and her pop's over there at the Board meetin' now, havin' +her throwed off, and then he'll want to take her home to work herself +to death for him and all them baker's dozen of children he's got out +there! And Tillie she don't want to go—and waste all her nice +education that there way!" +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds took her hand and looked down into her shining eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I hardly know you, Tillie, in your new way of dressing!" +</P> + +<P> +"What—what brings you here?" she asked, drawing away her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I've come from the Millersville Normal School with a letter for you +from Mrs. Lansing," he explained, "and I've promised to bring you back +with me by way of answer. +</P> + +<P> +"I am an instructor in English there now, you know, and so, of course, +I have come to know your 'Miss Margaret,'" he added, in answer to +Tillie's unspoken question. +</P> + +<P> +The girl opened the envelop with trembling fingers and read: +</P> + +<P> +"MY DEAR LITTLE MENNONITE MAID: We have rather suddenly decided to go +abroad in July—my husband needs the rest and change, as do we all; and +I want you to go with me as companion and friend, and to help me in the +care of the children. In the meantime there is much to be done by way +of preparation for such a trip; so can't you arrange to come to me at +once and you can have the benefit of the spring term at the Normal. I +needn't tell you, dear child, how glad I shall be to have you with me. +And what such a trip ought to mean to YOU, who have struggled so +bravely to live the life the Almighty meant that you should live, you +only can fully realize. You're of age now and can act for yourself. +Break with your present environment now, or, I'm afraid, Tillie, it +will be never. +</P> + +<P> +"Come to me at once, and with the bearer of this note. With love, I am, +as always, your affectionate +</P> + +<P> +"'Miss MARGARET.'" +</P> + +<P> +When she had finished Tillie looked up with brimming eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Doc," she said, "listen!" and she read the letter aloud, speaking +slowly and distinctly that he might fully grasp the glory of it all. At +the end the sweet voice faltered and broke. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Doc!" sobbed Tillie, "isn't it wonderful!" +</P> + +<P> +The shaggy old fellow blinked his eyes rapidly, then suddenly relieved +his feelings with an outrageous burst of profanity. With a rapidity +bewildering to his hearers, his tone instantly changed again to one of +lachrymose solemnity: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "'Gawd moves in a mysterious way<BR> + His wonders to perform!'"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +he piously repeated. "AIN'T, now, he does, Tillie! Och!" he exclaimed, +"I got a thought! You go right straight over there to that there Board +meetin' and circumwent 'em! Before they're got TIME to wote you off +your job, you up and throw their old William Penn in their Dutch faces, +and tell 'em be blowed to 'em! Tell 'em you don't WANT their blamed old +school—and you're goin' to EUROPE, you are! To EUROPE, yet!" +</P> + +<P> +He seized her hand as he spoke and almost pulled her to the store door. +</P> + +<P> +"Do it, Tillie!" cried Fairchilds, stepping after them across the +store. "Present your resignation before they have a chance to vote you +out! Do it!" he said eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +Tillie looked from one to the other of the two men before her, +excitement sparkling in her eyes, her breath coming short and fast. +</P> + +<P> +"I will!" +</P> + +<P> +Turning away, she ran down the steps, sped across the street, and +disappeared in the hotel. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor expressed his overflowing feelings by giving Fairchilds a +resounding slap on the shoulders. "By gum, I'd like to be behind the +skeens and witness Jake Getz gettin' fooled ag'in! This is the most fun +I had since I got 'em to wote you five dollars a month extry, Teacher!" +he chuckled. "Golly! I'm glad you got here in time! It was certainly, +now," he added piously, "the hand of Providence that led you!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap26"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TILLIE'S LAST FIGHT +</H3> + +<P> +"We are now ready to wote fer the teacher fer William Penn fer the +spring term," announced the president of the Board, when all the +preliminary business of the meeting had been disposed of; "and before +we perceed to that dooty, we will be glad to hear any remarks." +</P> + +<P> +The members looked at Mr. Getz, and he promptly rose to his feet to +make the speech which all were expecting from him—the speech which was +to sum up the reasons why his daughter should not be reelected for +another term to William Penn. As all these reasons had been expounded +many times over in the past few months, to each individual school +director, Mr. Getz's statements to-night were to be merely a more +forcible repetition of his previous arguments. +</P> + +<P> +But scarcely had he cleared his throat to begin, when there was a knock +on the door; it opened, and, to their amazement, Tillie walked into the +room. Her eyes sparkling, her face flushed, her head erect, she came +straight across the room to the table about which the six educational +potentates were gathered. +</P> + +<P> +That she had come to plead her own cause, to beg to be retained at her +post, was obviously the object of this intrusion upon the sacred +privacy of their weighty proceedings. +</P> + +<P> +Had that, in very truth, been her purpose in coming to them, she would +have found little encouragement in the countenances before her. Every +one of them seemed to stiffen into grim disapproval of her unfilial act +in thus publicly opposing her parent. +</P> + +<P> +But there was something in the girl's presence as she stood before +them, some potent spell in her fresh girlish beauty, and in the +dauntless spirit which shone in her eyes, that checked the words of +stern reproof as they sprang to the lips of her judges. +</P> + +<P> +"John Kettering,"—her clear, soft voice addressed the Amish president +of the Board, adhering, in her use of his first name, to the mode of +address of all the "plain" sects of the county,—"have I your +permission to speak to the Board?" +</P> + +<P> +"It wouldn't be no use." The president frowned and shook his head. "The +wotes of this here Board can't be influenced. There's no use your +wastin' any talk on us. We're here to do our dooty by the risin' +generation." Mr. Kettering, in his character of educator, was very fond +of talking about "the rising generation." "And," he added, "what's +right's right." +</P> + +<P> +"As your teacher at William Penn, I have a statement to make to the +Board," Tillie quietly persisted. "It will take me but a minute. I am +not here to try to influence the vote you are about to take." +</P> + +<P> +"If you ain't here to influence our wotes, what are you here fer?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I ask your permission to tell the Board." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," John Kettering reluctantly conceded, "I'll give you two +minutes, then. Go on. But you needn't try to get us to wote any way but +the way our conscience leads us to." +</P> + +<P> +Tillie's eyes swept the faces before her, from the stern, set features +of her father on her left, to the mild-faced, long-haired, +hooks-and-eyes Amishman on her right. The room grew perfectly still as +they stared at her in expectant curiosity; for her air and manner did +not suggest the humble suppliant for their continued favor,—rather a +self-confidence that instinctively excited their stubborn opposition. +"She'll see oncet if she kin do with us what she wants," was the +thought in the minds of most of them. +</P> + +<P> +"I am here," Tillie spoke deliberately and distinctly, "to tender my +resignation." +</P> + +<P> +There was dead silence. +</P> + +<P> +"I regret that I could not give you a month's notice, according to the +terms of my agreement with you. But I could not foresee the great good +fortune that was about to befall me." +</P> + +<P> +Not a man stirred, but an ugly look of malicious chagrin appeared upon +the face of Nathaniel Puntz. Was he foiled in his anticipated revenge +upon the girl who had "turned down" his Absalom? Mr. Getz sat stiff and +motionless, his eyes fixed upon Tillie. +</P> + +<P> +"I resign my position at William Penn," Tillie repeated, "TO GO TO +EUROPE FOR FOUR MONTHS' TRAVEL with Miss Margaret." +</P> + +<P> +Again she swept them with her eyes. Her father's face was apoplectic; +he was leaning forward, trying to speak, but he was too choked for +utterance. Nathaniel Puntz looked as though a wet sponge had been +dashed upon his sleek countenance. The other directors stared, +dumfounded. This case had no precedent in their experience. They were +at a loss how to take it. +</P> + +<P> +"My resignation," Tillie continued, "must take effect +immediately—to-night. I trust you will have no difficulty in getting a +substitute." +</P> + +<P> +She paused—there was not a movement or a sound in the room. +</P> + +<P> +"I thank you for your attention." Tillie bowed, turned, and walked +across the room. Not until she reached the door was the spell broken. +With her hand on the knob, she saw her father rise and start toward her. +</P> + +<P> +She had no wish for an encounter with him; quickly she went out into +the hall, and, in order to escape him, she opened the street door, +stepped out, and closed it very audibly behind her. Then hurrying in at +the adjoining door of the bar-room, she ran out to the hotel kitchen, +where she knew she would find her aunt. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Wackernagel was alone, washing dishes at the sink. She looked up +with a start at Tillie's hurried entrance, and her kindly face showed +distress as she saw who it was; for, faithful to the Rules, she would +not speak to this backslider and excommunicant from the faith. But +Tillie went straight up to her, threw her arms about her neck, and +pressed her lips to her aunt's cheek. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunty Em! I can't go away without saying good-by to you. I am going to +Europe! TO EUROPE, Aunty Em!" she cried. The words sounded unreal and +strange to her, and she repeated them to make their meaning clear to +herself. "Miss Margaret has sent for me to take me with her TO EUROPE!" +</P> + +<P> +She rapidly told her aunt all that had happened, and Mrs. Wackernagel's +bright, eager face of delight expressed all the sympathy and affection +which Tillie craved from her, but which the Mennonite dared not utter. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunty Em, no matter where I go or what may befall me, I shall never +forget your love and kindness. I shall remember it always, ALWAYS." +</P> + +<P> +Aunty Em's emotions were stronger, for the moment, than her allegiance +to the Rules, and her motherly arms drew the girl to her bosom and held +her there in a long, silent embrace. +</P> + +<P> +She refrained, however, from kissing her; and presently Tillie drew +herself away and, dashing the tears from her eyes, went out of the +house by the back kitchen door. From here she made her way, in a +roundabout fashion, to the rear entrance of the store-keeper's house +across the road, for she was quite sure that her father had gone into +the store in search of her. +</P> + +<P> +Cautiously stepping into the kitchen, she found Fairchilds restlessly +pacing the floor, and he greeted her return with a look of mingled +pleasure and apprehension. +</P> + +<P> +"Your father is out front, in the store, Tillie," he whispered, coming +close to her. "He's looking for you. He doesn't know I'm in town, of +course. Come outside and I 'll tell you our plan." +</P> + +<P> +He led the way out of doors, and they sought the seclusion of a +grape-arbor far down the garden. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll leave it to the Doc to entertain your father," Fairchilds went +on; "you will have to leave here with me to-night, Tillie, and as soon +as possible, for your father will make trouble for us. We may as well +avoid a conflict with him—especially for your sake. For myself, I +shouldn't mind it!" He smiled grimly. +</P> + +<P> +He was conscious, as his eyes rested on Tillie's fair face under the +evening light, of a reserve in her attitude toward him that was new to +her. It checked his warm impulse to take her hands in his and tell her +how glad he was to see her again. +</P> + +<P> +"How can we possibly get away to-night?" she asked him. "There are no +stages until the morning." +</P> + +<P> +"We shall have to let the Doc's fertile brain solve it for us, Tillie. +He has a plan, I believe. Of course, if we have to wait until morning +and fight it out with your father, then we'll have to, that's all. But +I hope that may be avoided and that we may get away quietly." +</P> + +<P> +They sat in silence for a moment. Suddenly Fairchilds leaned toward her +and spoke to her earnestly. +</P> + +<P> +"Tillie, I want to ask you something. Please tell me—why did you never +answer my letters?" +</P> + +<P> +She lifted her startled eyes to his. "Your letters?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Why didn't you write to me?" +</P> + +<P> +"You wrote to me?" she asked incredulously. +</P> + +<P> +"I wrote you three times. You don't mean to tell me you never got my +letters?" +</P> + +<P> +"I never heard from you. I would—I would have been so glad to!" +</P> + +<P> +"But how could you have missed getting them?" +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes fell upon her hands clasped in her lap, and her cheeks grew +pale. +</P> + +<P> +"My father," she half whispered. +</P> + +<P> +"He kept them from you?" +</P> + +<P> +"It must have been so." +</P> + +<P> +Fairchilds looked very grave. He did not speak at once. +</P> + +<P> +"How can you forgive such things?" he presently asked. "One tenth of +the things you have had to bear would have made an incarnate fiend of +me!" +</P> + +<P> +She kept her eyes downcast and did not answer. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't tell you," he went on, "how bitterly disappointed I was when I +didn't hear from you. I couldn't understand why you didn't write. And +it gave me a sense of disappointment in YOU. I thought I must have +overestimated the worth of our friendship in your eyes. I see now—and +indeed in my heart I always knew—that I did you injustice." +</P> + +<P> +She did not look up, but her bosom rose and fell in long breaths. +</P> + +<P> +"There has not been a day," he said, "that I have not thought of you, +and wished I knew all about you and could see you and speak with +you—Tillie, what a haunting little personality you are!" +</P> + +<P> +She raised her eyes then,—a soft fire in them that set his pulse to +bounding. But before she could answer him they were interrupted by the +sound of quick steps coming down the board walk toward the arbor. +Tillie started like a deer ready to flee, but Fairchilds laid a +reassuring hand upon hers. "It's the Doc," he said. +</P> + +<P> +The faithful old fellow joined them, his finger on his lips to warn +them to silence. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't leave no one hear us out here! Jake Getz he's went over to the +hotel to look fer Tillie, but he'll be back here in a jiffy, and we've +got to hurry on. Tillie, you go on up and pack your clo'es in a walise +or whatever, and hurry down here back. I'm hitchin' my buggy fer yous +as quick as I kin. I'll leave yous borry the loan of it off of me till +to-morrow—then, Teacher, you kin fetch it over ag'in. Ain't?" +</P> + +<P> +"All right, Doc; you're a brick!" +</P> + +<P> +Tillie sped into the house to obey the doctor's bidding, and Fairchilds +went with him across the street to the hotel stables. +</P> + +<P> +In the course of ten minutes the three conspirators were together again +in the stable-yard behind the store, the doctor's horse and buggy ready +before them. +</P> + +<P> +"Father's in the store—I heard his voice," panted Tillie, as +Fairchilds took her satchel from her and stowed it in the back of the +buggy. +</P> + +<P> +"Hurry on, then," whispered the doctor, hoarsely, pushing them both, +with scant ceremony, into the carriage. "GOOD-by to yous—and good +luck! Och, that's all right; no thanks necessary! I'm tickled to the +end of my hair at gettin' ahead of Jake Getz! Say, Fairchilds," he +said, with a wink, "this here mare's wonderful safe—you don't HAVE to +hold the reins with both hands! See?" +</P> + +<P> +And he shook in silent laughter at his own delicate and delicious +humor, as he watched them start out of the yard and down the road +toward Millersville. +</P> + +<P> +For a space there was no sound but the rhythmic beat of hoofs and the +rattle of the buggy wheels; but in the heart of the Mennonite maid, who +had fought her last battle for freedom and won, there was ineffable +peace and content; and her happiness smiled from quivering lips and +shone in her steadfast eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Abe Wackernagel, of the New Canaan hotel, was very fond, in the +years that followed, of bragging to his transient guests of his niece +who was the wife of "such a Millersville Normal perfessor—Perfessor +Fairchilds." And Mr. Jake Getz was scarcely less given to referring to +his daughter "where is married to such a perfessor at the Normal." +</P> + +<P> +"But what do I get out of it?" he was wont ruefully to add. "Where do I +come in, yet?—I where raised her since she was born, a'ready?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tillie: A Mennonite Maid, by +Helen Reimensnyder Martin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TILLIE: A MENNONITE MAID *** + +***** This file should be named 4760-h.htm or 4760-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/6/4760/ + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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