Helen Reimensnyder Martin

“ He, too, marveled that he should have found any one in this household to whom he could speak in such a vein as this.
"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."
"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." ”

“ Harriet shook her head. "Margaret ought not to go out to-night, she's too tired. And I want you with me, dear. Margaret is not my husband, you know. That's the danger of having one of your family living with you," she sighed. "It is so apt to make a husband and wife less near to each other. I am always resisting the inclination, Walter, dear, to pair off with Margaret instead of with you. I resist it for your sake, for the children's sake, for the sake of our home."
"I shall feel a selfish beast going to a play and leaving that dear girl alone here with the babies. ”

“ 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.
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. ”

“ The fact that she had, because of the secluded life she had led, reached the age of twenty-five without ever having had a lover, must account for her feelings this morning toward Daniel Leitzel, her sense of gratitude (under the soreness of her heart at her sister's attitude to her) that any human being should like her and be kind, to the extent of such munificence as this which filled her room with fragrance and beauty. No wonder that for the time being she lost sight of the little man's grotesqueness in her keen consciousness of his kindness, and of the novelty of being admired—by a man. ”

“ In spite of all Osmond Berkeley's precautions, however, Margaret did, of course, go through the intense and fiery ordeal of "falling in love"; for when a maiden's budding soul begins to unfold to the beauty of life, to throb and thrill before the wonder and mystery of the universe, no walled imprisonment can check the course of nature—she is bound to suffer the bitter-sweet experience of becoming enamoured of something, it doesn't much matter what; a cigar-shop Indian will suffice if nothing more lively comes her way. ”

“ 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."
"The New Mennonite creed won't hold her long," thought Fairchilds.
"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. ”

“ Tillie blushed with embarrassment at being caught in an idleness that had to be reproved, and resolutely bent all her powers to her task.
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." ”

“ That New Munich hospitality, instead of being a condition of daily life as with Southerners, was so specialized an occasion as to cause the upsetting of a household and the expenditure of the nervous energy of a whole family, Margaret had come to recognize. People did not "keep open house"; they "entertained." But how was she to spring such a thing upon Walter, who knew no other standard of hospitality than that of the open Southern home? How explain to him upon his arrival that her home and her husband's was not open to him, and that he must stop at a hotel? ”

“ As Margaret came to realize that she was drifting surely, fatally, into the arms of Daniel Leitzel, her conscience forced her to try to justify her selling herself for a home.
"To marry without love? But I might have married 'Reverend Hoops' for love! And he was so much worse—less possible," she amended her reflections, "than Daniel is. It was really love that I felt for that poor, bow-legged Hoops! Yes, the sort of love that would make marriage a madness of ecstasy! Too great, indeed, for a human soul to bear! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Look at these women of New Munich who live only to kill time—how they lack the personal dignity, the character, that a life of service, of producing, gives to either man or woman! Of course mere work doesn't ennoble—beasts of burden can work—it's work that vitally interests us, as you say, and that we love for its own sake, that is the joy and health of any soul."
"Do you love being Mr. Leitzel's secretary like that?" ”

“ 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.
"Ever dare to touch me again so long as we both live—and I'll stab you dead!"
Mrs. Getz shrieked. Sally and Sammy clung to each other whimpering in terror, and the younger children about the room took up the chorus.
"Tillie!" gasped her father. ”

“ For he recognized, with fatal clearness, that though Harriet had the beautiful, clear-cut features and look of high breeding characteristic of the Berkeley race, her inexpressive countenance betrayed a commonplace mind and soul, while Margaret, lacking the Berkeley beauty, did have the family look and air of breeding, which gave her, with her countenance of intelligence and sensitiveness, a marked distinction; and Walter Eastman was a man not only of temperament, but of the poetic imagination that idealizes the woman with whom he is at the time in love. ”