Tillie

“ 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.
"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?" ”

“ Tillie had a great deal of charity for black sheep, but she believed in their having a corral to themselves, and not allowing them the chance of smutching the spotless flocks that have had good luck and escaped the mire. She was a good little woman, a warm-hearted one; and despite her cool condemnation of his wickedness when he was absent, she always found herself, in his presence, forgetting all but their comradeship of that autumn, and greeting him with the cordiality that belonged to it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even Fairchilds, in the next room, felt himself infected with the prevailing suspense.
"Well!" was Jake Getz's greeting as he entered the kitchen. "Em!" he nodded to his sister. "Well, Tillie!"
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? ”

“ 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.
"Are you from Lancaster, or wherever?" the doctor inquired of Mr. Fairchilds.
"From Connecticut," he replied in a tone that indefinably, but unmistakably checked further questioning.
"Now think! So fur off as that!"
"Yes, ain't!" exclaimed Mrs. Wackernagel. "It's a wonder a body'd ever be contented to live that fur off." ”

“ 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. ”

“ In fact, Tillie herself did not understand her own repugnance to Absalom's caresses.
"You act like as if I made you feel repulsive to me, Tillie," he complained.
"N—no. I don't want to be touched. That's all."
"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!" ”

“ 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?"
"Sure!" The doctor was out of his buggy at her side in an instant.
"Oh!" breathed Tillie, "here's pop comin' with the book!"
"See me fix him!" chuckled the doctor. "He's so dumm he'll b'lee' most anything. ”

“ Getz. "Mom had all Tillie's work to do, and her own too, and she didn't get it through all."
"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!"
Mr. Getz looked at Tillie apprehensively. "You better go in and get your hot supper, Tillie," he said, not ungently.
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.
"You'll be over to Board meetin' to-night, ain't?" ”

“ 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!"
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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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.
"It's a novel, Tillie. Have you ever read a novel?"
"No'm. Only li-bries."
"What?"
"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." ”

“ Wackernagel—which expression of contempt was one of the most scathing known to the tongue of a Pennsylvania Dutchman.
"What are you goin' to do, Tillie?" Amanda asked. "Are you goin' or stayin'?"
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.
"I'm staying," she faltered.
"Good fur you, Tillie!" laughed her uncle. "You're gettin' learnt here to take your own head a little fur things. ”

“ 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?"
"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! ”

“ I demanded. "Don't be a fool, Tillie. It takes more than two people's pictures in a newspaper with a red heart around them and an overweight cupid above to make a love-match. Love's a word that's used to cover a good many sins and to excuse them all."
"She isn't that kind," said Tillie. "She's—she's as sweet as she's beautiful, and you're as excited as I am, Minnie Waters, and if you're not, what have you got the drinking glass she used last winter put on the top shelf out of reach for?" ”

“ Once more Tillie has to remind herself that it is all true, and is not something she has “made up.” Like all romancers, she is a little terrified at seeing one of her wildest conceits admitted by the hardheaded world. If our dream comes true, we are almost afraid to believe it; for that is the best of all good fortune, and nothing better can happen to any of us.
When the people on Sylvester Street tire of Tillie’s stories, she goes over to the east part of town, where her legends are always welcome. The humbler people of Moonstone still live there. ”

“ 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?"
"It is often very hard."
"Often? Then you have been doing it for some time?"
"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. ”

“ 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.
"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. ”

“ Absalom laughed aloud, his eyes glittering as he felt her womanly helplessness in his strong clasp.
"What you goin' to do about it, Tillie? You can't help yourself—you got to get kissed if you want to or no!" ”

“ On Sunday morning, in spite of her aunt's protestations, Tillie went to meeting with her curls outside her cap.
"They'll set you back!" protested Mrs. Wackernagel, in great trouble of spirit.
"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."
"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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And then you kin pay me when you're got your nice education to make your livin' with."
"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'."
"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! ”

“ 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.
"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."
"Oh, do you really, REALLY think I am?" the girl cried breathlessly.
"I know it. The only question is, How are you going to get off to attend the examination?"
"Father will be at the Lancaster market on Saturday morning!" ”

“ Getz. "I'll take Tillie's wages, Em."
Mrs. Wackernagel set her lips as she wiped her hands on the roller-towel and opened the dresser drawer to get her purse.
"How's her?" she inquired, referring to Mrs. Getz to gain time, as she counted out the money.
"She's old-fashioned."
"Is the childern all well?"
"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."
"It's only one and a half this week, Jake. Tillie she had to have some new caps, and they come to fifty cents. ”

“ 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.
"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. ”

“ I never could understand that."
"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!"
"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." ”

“ 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."
"Yes?—yes," said the doctor, rising to go. "Well, Tillie, good-by, and don't set up nights any more readin' novels," he laughed. ”