Tillie, a Mennonite Maid Part 30

"Tillie, ain't you afraid of your pop no more?"

"Oh, Aunty Em! YES, I am afraid of him."

"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!"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 Sat.u.r.day."

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.

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.

"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 went up to him dutifully and held out her hand. He took it and bent to kiss her.

"Are you well? You're lookin' some pale. And your hair's strubbly [untidy]."

"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."

"Do you mebbe leave her set up readin' books or such pamp'lets, ain't?"

Mr. Getz inquired.

"I make her go to bed early still," Mrs. Wackernagel said evasively, though her Mennonite conscience reproached her for such want of strict candor.

"That dude teacher you got stayin' here mebbe gives her things to read, ain't?" Mr. Getz pursued his suspicions.

"He's never gave her nothin' that I seen him," Mrs. Wackernagel affirmed.

"Well, mind you don't leave her waste time readin'. She ain't to."

"You needn't trouble, Jake!"

"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."

"Why don't you hire your was.h.i.+n' or buy her a was.h.i.+n'-machine? Then she'd have time to do her own sewin'."

"Work don't hurt a body," Mr. Getz maintained. "It's healthy. What's Tillie doin' this morning?"

"She was bakin' these pies, but I want her now to redd up. Take all them pans to the dresser, Tillie."

Tillie went to the table to do as she was bid.

"Well, I must be goin' home now," said Mr. 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-fas.h.i.+oned."

"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. 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."

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.

"What business have you lettin' her buy anything?" he sternly demanded.

"You was to give me her wages, and _I_ was to buy her what she couldn't do without. You're not keepin' your bargain!"

"She needed them caps right away. I couldn't wait till Sat.u.r.day to ast you oncet. And," she boldly added, "you ought to leave her have another fifty cents to buy herself a warm petticoat!"

"Tillie!" commanded her father, "you come here!"

The girl was very white as she obeyed him. But her eyes, as they met his, were not afraid.

"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!"

"I needed the caps," she quietly answered. "And I knew you would not let me buy them if I asked you, father."

"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!"

"You ain't touchin' her 'round HERE!" exclaimed his sister. "You just try it, Jake, and I'll call Abe out!"

"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?"

"She's too growed up fur to be punished, Jake, and you know it."

"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'."

"Oh, father! it wasn't STEALING!"

"Of course it wasn't stealin'--takin' what you earnt yourself--whether you ARE seventeen instead of twenty-one!" her aunt warmly a.s.sured her.