Tillie's illness, though severe while it lasted, proved to be a matter
of only a few days' confinement to bed; and fortunately for her, it was
while she was still too weak and ill to be called to account for her
misdeed that her father discovered her deception as to the owner of
"Ivanhoe." At least he found out, in talking with Elviny Dinkleberger
and her father at the Lancaster market, that the girl was innocent of
ever having owned or even seen the book, and that, consequently, she
had of course never lent it either to Rebecca Wackernagel at the hotel
or to Tillie.
Despite his rigorous dealings with his family (which, being the outcome
of the Pennsylvania Dutch faith in the Divine right of the head of the
house, were entirely conscientious), Jacob Getz was strongly and deeply
attached to his wife and children; and his alarm at Tillie's illness,
coming directly upon his severe punishment of her, had softened him
sufficiently to temper his wrath at finding that she had told him what
was not true.
What her object could have been in shielding the real owner of the book
he could not guess. His suspicions did not turn upon the teacher,
because, in the first place, he would have seen no reason why Tillie
should wish to shield her, and, in the second, it was inconceivable
that a teacher at William Penn should set out so to pervert the young
whom trusting parents placed under her care. There never had been a
novel-reading teacher at William Penn. The Board would as soon have
elected an opium-eater.
WHERE HAD TILLIE OBTAINED THAT BOOK? And why had she put the blame on
Elviny, who was her little friend? The Doc, evidently, was in league
with Tillie! What could it mean? Jake Getz was not used to dealing with
complications and mysteries. He pondered the case heavily.
When he went home from market, he did not tell Tillie of his discovery,
for the doctor had ordered that she be kept quiet.
Not until a week later, when she was well enough to be out of bed, did
he venture to tell her he had caught her telling a falsehood.
He could not know that the white face of terror which she turned to him
was fear for Miss Margaret and not, for once, apprehension of the strap.
"I ain't whippin' you this time," he gruffly said, "if you tell me the
truth whose that there book was."
Tillie did not speak. She was resting in the wooden rocking-chair by
the kitchen window, a pillow at her head and a shawl over her knees.
Her stepmother was busy at the table with her Saturday baking; Sammy
was giving the porch its Saturday cleaning, and the other children, too
little to work, were playing outdoors; even the baby, bundled up in its
cart, was out on the grass-plot.
"Do you hear me, Tillie? Whose book was that there?"
Tillie's head hung low and her very lips were white. She did not answer.
"You 're goin' to act stubborn to ME!" her father incredulously
exclaimed, and the woman at the table turned and stared in dull
amazement at this unheard-of defiance of the head of the family.
"Tillie!" he grasped her roughly by the arm and shook her. "Answer to
me!"
Tillie's chest rose and fell tumultuously. Bat she kept her eyes
downcast and her lips closed.
"Fur why don't you want to tell, then?"
"I--can't, pop!"
"Can't! If you wasn't sick I 'd soon learn you if you can't! Now you
might as well tell me right aways, fur I'll make you tell me SOME time!"
Tillie's lips quivered and the tears rolled slowly over her white
cheeks.
"Fur why did you say it was Elviny?"
"She was the only person I thought to say."
"But fur why didn't you say the person it WAS? Answer to me!" he
commanded.
Tillie curved her arm over her face and sobbed. She was still too weak
from her fever to bear the strain of this unequal contest of wills.
"Well," concluded her father, his anger baffled and impotent before the
child's weakness, "I won't bother you with it no more NOW. But you just
wait till you 're well oncet! We'll see then if you'll tell me what I
ast you or no!"
"Here's the Doc," announced Mrs. Getz, as the sound of wheels was heard
outside the gate.
"Well," her husband said indignantly as he rose and went to the door,
"I just wonder what he's got to say fur hisself, lyin' to me like what
he done!"
"Hello, Jake!" was the doctor's breezy greeting as he walked into the
kitchen, followed by a brood of curious little Getzes, to whom the
doctor's daily visits were an exciting episode. "Howdy-do, missus," he
briskly addressed the mother of the brood, pushing his hat to the back
of his head in lieu of raising it. "And how's the patient?" he inquired
with a suddenly professional air and tone. "Some better, heh? HEH? Been
cryin'! What fur?" he demanded, turning to Mr. Getz. "Say, Jake, you
ain't been badgerin' this kid again fur somepin? She'll be havin' a
RElapse if you don't leave her be!"
"It's YOU I'm wantin' to badger, Doc Weaver!" retorted Mr. Getz. "What
fur did you lie to me about that there piece entitled 'Iwanhoe'?"
"You and your 'Iwanhoe' be blowed! Are you tormentin' this here kid
about THAT yet? A body'd think you'd want to change that subjec', Jake
Getz!"
"Not till I find from you, Doc, whose that there novel-book was, and
why you tole me it was Elviny Dinkleberger's!"
"That's easy tole," responded the doctor. "That there book belonged
to--"
"No, Doc, no, no!" came a pleading cry from Tillie. "Don't tell, Doc,
please don't tell!"
"Never you mind, Tillie, THAT'S all right. Look here, Jake Getz!" The
doctor turned his sharp little eyes upon the face of the father grown
dark with anger at his child's undutiful interference. "You're got this
here little girl worked up to the werge of a RElapse! I tole you she
must be kep' quiet and not worked up still!"
"All right. I'm leavin' HER alone--till she's well oncet! You just
answer fur YOURself and tell why you lied to me!"
"Well, Jake, it was this here way. That there book belonged to ME and
Tillie lent it off of me. That's how! Ain't Tillie?"
Mr. Getz stared in stupefied wonder, while Mrs. Getz, too, looked on
with a dull interest, as she leaned her back against the sink and dried
her hands upon her apron.
As for Tillie, a great throb of relief thrilled through her as she
heard the doctor utter this Napoleonic lie--only to be followed the
next instant by an overwhelming sense of her own wickedness in thus
conniving with fraud. Abysses of iniquity seemed to yawn at her feet,
and she gazed with horror into their black depths. How could she ever
again hold up her head.
But--Miss Margaret, at least, was safe from the School Board's wrath
and indignation, and how unimportant, compared with that, was her own
soul's salvation!
"Why didn't Tillie say it was yourn?" Mr. Getz presently found voice to
ask.
"I tole her if she left it get put out I am addicted to novel readin',"
said the doctor glibly, and with evident relish, "it might spoil my
practice some. And Tillie she's that kind-hearted she was sorry far me!"
"And so you put her up to say it was Elviny's! You put her up to tell
lies to her pop!"
"Well, I never thought you 'd foller it up any, Jake, and try to get
ELVINY into trouble."
"Doc, I always knowed you was a blasPHEmer and that you didn't have no
religion. But I thought you had anyhow morals. And I didn't think, now,
you was a coward that way, to get behind a child and lie out of your
own evil deeds!"
"I'm that much a coward and a blasPHEmer, Jake, that I 'm goin' to add
the cost of that there book of mine where you burnt up, to your
doctor's bill, unlest you pass me your promise you 'll drop this here
subjec' and not bother Tillie with it no more."
The doctor had driven his victim into a corner. To yield a point in
family discipline or to pay the price of the property he had
destroyed--one of the two he must do. It was a most untoward
predicament for Jacob Getz.
"You had no right to lend that there Book to Tillie, Doc, and I ain't
payin' you a cent fur it!" he maintained.
"I jus' mean, Jake, I 'll make out my bill easy or stiff accordin' to
the way you pass your promise."
"If my word was no more better 'n yours, Doe, my passin' my promise
wouldn't help much!"
"That's all right, Jake. I don't set up to be religious and moral. I
ain't sayed my prayers since I am old enough a'ready to know how likely
I was, still, to kneel on a tack!"
"It's no wonder you was put off of church!" was the biting retort.
"Hold up there, Jake. I wasn't put off. I WENT off. I took myself off
of church before the brethren had a chanct to PUT me off."
"Sammy!" Mr. Getz suddenly and sharply admonished his little son, who
was sharpening his slate-pencil on the window-sill with a table-knife,
"you stop right aways sharpenin' that pencil! You dassent sharpen your
slate-pencils, do you hear? It wastes 'em so!"
Sammy hastily laid down the knife and thrust the pencil into his pocket.
Mr. Getz turned again to the doctor and inquired irritably, "What is it
to YOU if I teach my own child to mind me or not, I'd like to know?"
"Because she's been bothered into a sickness with this here thing
a'ready, and it 's time it stopped now!"
"It was you started it, leavin' her lend the book off of you!"
"That's why I feel fur sparin' her some more trouble, seein' I was the
instrument in the hands of Providence fur gettin' her into all this
here mess. See?"
"I can't be sure when TO know if you're lyin' or not," said Mr. Getz
helplessly.
"Mebbe you can't, Jake. Sometimes I'm swangfid if I'm sure, still,
myself. But there's one thing you KIN be cocksure of--and that's a big
doctor-bill unlest you do what I sayed."
"Now that I know who she lent the book off of there ain't nothin' to
bother her about," sullenly granted Mr. Getz. "And as fur
punishment--she's had punishment a-plenty, I guess, in her bein' so
sick."
"All right," the doctor said magnanimously. "There's one thing I 'll
give you, Jake: you're a man of your word, if you ARE a Dutch hog!"
"A--WHATEVER?" Mr. Getz angrily demanded.
"And I don't see," the doctor complacently continued, rising and
pulling his hat down to his eyebrows, preparatory to leaving, "where
Tillie gets her fibbin' from. Certainly not from her pop."
"I don't mind her ever tellin' me no lie before."
"Och, Jake, you drive your children to lie to you, the way you bring
'em up to be afraid of you. They GOT to lie, now and again, to a feller
like you! Well, well," he soothingly added as he saw the black look in
the father's face at the airing of such views in the presence of his
children, "never mind, Jake, it 's all in the day's work!"
He turned for a parting glance at Tillie. "She 's better. She 'll be
well till a day or two, now, and back to school--IF she's kep' quiet,
and her mind ain't bothered any. Now, GOOD-by to yous."