IV

"THE DOC" COMBINES BUSINESS AND PLEASURE

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

"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."

Miss Margaret promptly covered her letter with a blotter, corked the

raspberry-ade, and rose.

"Done a'ready?" asked the doctor.

"For the present, yes."

"See here oncet, Teacher!"

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.

"I have here," he said impressively, "an important dokiment, Teacher,

concerning of which I desire to consult you perfessionally."

"Yes?"

"You just stay settin'; I'll fetch a chair and set aside of you and

show it to you oncet."

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.

The doctor bent near to her and spoke confidentially.

"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."

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.

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."

"What's it all about?" Miss Margaret abruptly asked, examining the

paper.

"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!"

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.

"Thank you," Miss Margaret responded to his offer of free medical

services. "I'll fill out the paper for you with pleasure."

She read aloud the first question of the list. '"Where did you attend

lectures?'"

Her pen suspended over the paper, she looked at him inquiringly.

"Well?" she asked.

"Lekshures be blowed!" he exclaimed. "I ain't never 'tended no

lekshures!"

"Oh!" said Miss Margaret, nodding conclusively. "Well, then, let us

pass on to the next question. 'To what School of Medicine do you

belong?'"

"School?" repeated the doctor; "I went to school right here in this

here town--it's better 'n thirty years ago, a'ready."

"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.

"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!"

"But," said Margaret, "the question means do you practise allopathy,

homeopathy, hydropathy, osteopathy,--or, for instance, eclecticism? Are

you, for example, a homeopathist?"

"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."

"Then," said Margaret, "you might be called an eclectic?"

"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?"

"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."

"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?"

"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.

"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?"

Margaret understood very well indeed, but she put the question by.

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.

"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!"

"Thank you. But what would they get down on me for?"

"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."

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!"

Gathering up her stationery, she made a movement to rise--but the

doctor checked her with a question.

"Say! Not that I want to ast questions too close--but what was you

writin', now, in that letter of yourn, about Jake Getz?"

Miss Margaret was scarcely prepared for the question. She stared at the

man for an instant, then helplessly laughed at him.

"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."

"Yes," Miss Margaret assented.

"Say!" he suddenly put another question to her. "Why don't you get

married?"

"Well," she parried, "why don't YOU?"

"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."

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.

"What?"

"Do you like your job?"

"Well," she tentatively answered, "it's not uninteresting."

"Would you ruther keep your job than quit and get married?"

"That depends--"

"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."

"You are very fortunate," said Miss Margaret, sympathetically.

"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."

"Yes?" said Miss Margaret.

"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?"

"I CAN," was Miss Margaret's qualified answer.

"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!"

"That's one of my distinguished accomplishments," said Miss Margaret.

"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!"

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.

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.

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.

"Pop says to say you should hurry," said Sammy.

"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."

"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!"

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?"

"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."

"Oh!" said Miss Margaret.

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.

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."

"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."

V

"NOVELS AIN'T MORAL, DOC!"

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.

The doctor's verdict, when he had examined his patient's tongue, felt

her pulse, and taken her temperature, was not clear.

"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."

"Yes, if she can keep them powders down," said Mr. Getz, doubtfully.

"She can't keep nothin' with her."

"Well, keep on giving them, anyhow. She's a pretty sick child."

"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.

"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?"

"Och, no," the doctor reassured them. "It ain't smallpox. What did you

give her that she couldn't keep with her?"

"I fed some boiled milk to her."

"Did she drink tea?" he inquired, looking profound.

"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."

"And it comes cheaper," said Mister.

"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.

"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."

"And mebbe you punished her?" the doctor inquired, holding his hand to

Tillie's temples.

"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'!"

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"I don't know. If I see her pop, I 'll tell him he better put a stop to

such behaviors."

Tillie stirred restlessly on her pillow.

"What was the subjeck of that there novel, Tillie?" the doctor asked.

"Its subjeck was 'Iwanhoe,'" Mr. Getz answered. "Yes, I chucked it

right in the stove."

"'Iwanhoe'!" exclaimed the doctor. "Why, Elviny must of borrowed the

loan of that off of Teacher--I seen Teacher have it."

Tillie turned pleading eyes upon his face, but he did not see her.

"Do you mean to say," demanded Mr. Getz, "that Teacher lends NOVELS to

the scholars!"

"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."

"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!"

"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."

"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.

"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."

Tillie was gazing at the doctor, now, half in bewilderment, half in

passionate gratitude.

"If Tillie did get smallpox," Mrs. Getz here broke in, "would she mebbe

have to be took to the pest-house?"

Tillie started, and her feverish eyes sought in the face of the doctor

to know what dreadful place a "pest-house" might be.

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"Do you mean to say," hotly argued the doctor, "that they had

automobiles in them days?"

"To be sure I do! Automobiles and all the other lost sciences!"

"Well," said the doctor, restraining his scorn with a mighty effort,

"I'd like to see you prove it oncet!"

"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!"

"I got religion a plenty, but I don't hold to no SICH dumm thoughts!"

"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."

"Well, and don't you get affected too?" the doctor asked, "and go out

to the mourners' bench?"

"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."

"And what does he think of your unconwerted state?" the doctor

jocularly inquired.

"What he thinks? There's nothing to think," was the stolid answer.

"Up there to Bethel rewiwal," said Mr. Getz, "they don't stay

conwerted. Till rewiwal's over, they're off church again."

"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."

"Yes?--yes," said the doctor, rising to go. "Well, Tillie, good-by, and

don't set up nights any more readin' novels," he laughed.

"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?"

"I said I can't tell till I've saw her again a'ready."

"How long will it go till you come again?"

"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."

"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!"

"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."

"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!"

"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?"

"Will you leave me go to school to-morrow?" she pleaded piteously.

"DARE I go to school to-morrow?"

"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."

"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?"

"To be sure will she."

"Now think," said the doctor, "how much she sets store by Teacher! And

a lot of 'em's the same way--girls AND boys."

"I didn't know she was so much fur Teacher," said Mr. Getz. "She never

spoke nothin'."

"She never spoke nothin' to me about it neither," said Mrs. Getz.

"Well, I 'll give you all good-by, then," said the doctor; and he went

away.

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.

"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!"