"And you"d be learnin" her all them years to up and sa.s.s her pop when she was growed and earnin" her own livin"!" he objected.

"I certainly would not."

"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.

"She could come home to you in the summer vacations," Margaret suggested.

"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!"

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."

She pressed her lips to Tillie"s in a long kiss, while the child clung to her in pa.s.sionate 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 att.i.tude toward his child an unselfish interest and love.

So, in dogged, sullen silence, he saw this extraordinary young woman take her leave and pa.s.s out of his house.

IX

"I"LL DO MY DARN BEST, TEACHER!"

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.

"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!"

In the course of her career at William Penn, Miss Margaret had developed such a genuine fondness for the s.h.a.ggy, 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. You must help me to bring it about."

"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.

"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?"

"It"s looked to as meanin" gettin" down to BIZ!" the doctor affirmed.

"Then," meekly, "I humbly apologize."

"That"s all right," generously granted the doctor, "if you didn"t know no better. But to be sure, I"m some disappointed."

"I"m sorry for that!"

"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?"

"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."

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."

"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."

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 pa.s.s you my promise I"ll do what I can."

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.

"As soon as you are old enough," Miss Margaret admonished her, "you must a.s.sert 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."

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.

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.

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.

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."

"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!"

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.

"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!"

But her white lips were dumb, and her impotent pa.s.sion, 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.

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 Sat.u.r.day 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.

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.

"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--"

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. 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?"

She meditated upon this problem of domestic economy as she mechanically did her ch.o.r.es, 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.

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.

"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.

"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."