In Canaan Township it would have been considered highly dishonorable
for a girl to allow a young man to "sit up with her Sundays" if she
definitely knew she would never marry him. Time meant money, and even
the time spent in courting must be judiciously used.
"I don't mind if I do waste my time settin' up with you Sundays,
Tillie. I take to you that much, it's something surprising, now! Will
you give me the dare to come next Sunday?"
"If you don't mind wasting your time--" Tillie reluctantly granted.
"It won't be wasted. I'll soon get you to think different to what you
think now. You just leave me set up with you a couple Sundays and see!"
"I know I'll never think any different, Absalom. You must not suppose
that I will."
"Is it somepin you're got ag'in' me?" he asked incredulously, for he
knew he was considered a prize. "I'm well-fixed enough, ain't I? I'd
make you a good purvider, Tillie. And I don't addict to no bad habits.
I don't chew. Nor I don't drink. Nor I don't swear any. The most I ever
sayed when I was spited was 'confound it.'"
"It isn't that I have anything against you, Absalom, especially.
But--look here, Absalom, if you were a woman, would YOU marry? What
does a woman gain?"
Absalom stared at her in the dusky evening light of the high road. To
ask of his slow-moving brain that it question the foundations of the
universe and wrestle with a social and psychological problem like this
made the poor youth dumb with bewilderment.
"Why SHOULD a woman get married?" Tillie repeated.
"That's what a woman's FUR," Absalom found his tongue to say.
"She loses everything and gains nothing."
"She gets kep'," Absalom argued.
"Like the horses. Only not so carefully. No, thank you, Absalom. I can
keep myself."
"I'd keep you better 'n your pop keeps you, anyways, Tillie. I'd make
you a good purvider."
"I won't ever marry," Tillie repeated.
"I didn't know you was so funny," Absalom sullenly answered. "You might
be glad I want to be your reg'lar friend."
"No," said Tillie, "I don't care about it."
They walked on in silence for a few minutes. Tillie looked away into
the starlit night and thought of Miss Margaret and wished she were
alone, that her thoughts might be uninterrupted. Absalom, at her side,
kicked up the dust with his heavy shoes, as he sulkily hung his head.
Presently he spoke again.
"Will you leave me come to see you Sundays, still, if I take my chancet
that I'm wastin' my time?"
"If you'll leave it that way," Tillie acquiesced, "and not hold me to
anything."
"All right. Only you won't leave no one else set up with you, ain't
not?"
"There isn't any one else."
"But some chance time another feller might turn up oncet that wants to
keep comp'ny with you too."
"I won't promise anything, Absalom. If you want to come Sundays to see
me and the folks, you can. That's all I'll say."
"I never seen such a funny girl as what you are!" growled Absalom.
Tillie made no reply, and again they went on in silence.
"Say!" It was Absalom who finally spoke.
Tillie's absent, dreamy gaze came down from the stars and rested upon
his heavy, dull face.
"Ezra Herr he's resigned William Penn. He's gettin' more pay at Abra'm
Lincoln in Janewille. It comes unhandy, his leavin', now the term's
just started and most all the applicants took a'ready. Pop he got a
letter from in there at Lancaster off of Superintendent Reingruber and
he's sendin' us a applicant out till next Saturday three weeks--fur the
directors to see oncet if he'll do."
Absalom's father was secretary of the Board, and Mr. Getz was the
treasurer.
"Pop he's goin' over to see your pop about it till to-morrow evenin'
a'ready if he can make it suit."
"When does Ezra go?" Tillie inquired. The New Mennonite rule which
forbade the use of all titles had led to the custom in this
neighborhood, so populated with Mennonites, of calling each one by his
Christian name.
"Till next Friday three weeks," Absalom replied. "Pop says he don't
know what to think about this here man Superintendent Reingruber's
sendin' out. He ain't no Millersville Normal. The superintendent says
he's a 'Harvard gradyate'--whatever that is, pop says! Pop he sayed it
ain't familiar with him what that there is. And I guess the other
directors don't know neither. Pop he sayed when we're payin' as much as
forty dollars a month we had ought, now, to have a Millersville Normal,
and nothin' less. Who wants to pay forty dollars a month fur such a
Harvard gradyate that we don't know right what it is."
"What pay will Ezra get at Janeville?" Tillie asked. Her heart beat
fast as she thought how SHE might, perhaps, in another year be the
applicant for a vacancy at William Penn.
"Around forty-five dollars," Absalom answered.
"Oh!" Tillie said; "it seems so much, don't it?"
"Fur settin' and doin' nothin' but hearin' off spellin' and readin' and
whatever, it's too much! Pop says he's goin' to ast your pop and the
rest of the Board if they hadn't ought to ast this here Harvard
gradyate to take a couple dollars less, seein' he ain't no Millersville
Normal."
They had by this time reached the farm, and Tillie, not very warmly,
asked Absalom whether he would "come in and sit awhile." She almost
sighed audibly as he eagerly consented.
When he had left at twelve o'clock that night, she softly climbed the
stairs to her room, careful not to disturb the sleeping household.
Tillie wondered why it was that every girl of her acquaintance exulted
in being asked to keep company with a gentleman friend. She had found
"sitting up" a more fatiguing task than even the dreaded Monday's
washing which would confront her on the morrow.
"Seein' it's the first time me and you set up together, I mebbe better
not stay just so late," Absalom had explained when, after three hours'
courting, he had reluctantly risen to take his leave, under the firm
conviction, as Tillie plainly saw, that she felt as sorry to have him
go as evidently he was to part from her!
"How late," thought Tillie, "will he stay the SECOND time he sits up
with me? And what," she wondered, "do other girls see in it?"
The following Sunday night, Absalom came again, and this time he stayed
until one o'clock, with the result that on the following Monday morning
Tillie overslept herself and was one hour late in starting the washing.
It was that evening, after supper, while Mrs. Getz was helping her
husband make his toilet for a meeting of the School Board--at which the
application of that suspicious character, the Harvard graduate, was to
be considered--that the husband and wife discussed these significant
Sunday night visits. Mrs. Getz opened up the subject while she
performed the wifely office of washing her husband's neck, his
increasing bulk making that duty a rather difficult one for him.
Standing over him as he sat in a chair in the kitchen, holding on his
knees a tin basin full of soapy water, she scrubbed his fat, sunburned
neck with all the vigor and enthusiasm that she would have applied to
the cleaning of the kitchen porch or the scouring of an iron skillet.
A custom prevailed in the county of leaving one's parlor plainly
furnished, or entirely empty, until the eldest daughter should come of
age; it was then fitted up in style, as a place to which she and her
"regular friend" could retire from the eyes of the girl's folks of a
Sunday night to do their "setting up." The occasion of a girl's
"furnishing" was a notable one, usually celebrated by a party; and it
was this fact that led her stepmother to remark presently:
"Say, pop, are you furnishin' fur Tillie, now she's comin' eighteen
years old?"
"I ain't thought about it," Mr. Getz answered shortly. "That front
room's furnished good enough a'ready. No--I ain't spendin' any!"
"Seein' she's a member and wears plain, it wouldn't cost wery expensive
to furnish fur her, fur she hasn't the dare to have nothin' stylish
like a organ or gilt-framed landscapes or sich stuffed furniture that
way."
"The room's good enough the way it is," repeated Mr. Getz. "I don't see
no use spendin' on it."
"It needs new paper and carpet. Pop, it'll get put out if you don't
furnish fur her. The neighbors'll talk how you're so close with your
own child after she worked fur you so good still. I don't like it so
well, pop, havin' the neighbors talk."
"Leave 'em talk. Their talkin' don't cost ME nothin'. I AIN'T
furnishin'!" His tone was obstinate and angry.
His wife rubbed him down with a crash towel as vigorously as she had
washed him, then fastened his shirt, dipped the family comb in the
soapy water and began with artistic care to part and comb his hair.
"Absalom Puntz he's a nice party, pop. He'll be well-fixed till his
pop's passed away a'ready."
"You think! Well, now look here, mom!" Mr. Getz spoke with stern
decision. "Tillie ain't got the dare to keep comp'ny Sundays! It made
her a whole hour late with the washin' this mornin'. I'm tellin' her
she's got to tell Absalom Puntz he can't come no more."
Mrs. Getz paused with comb poised in air, and her feeble jaw dropped in
astonishment.
"Why, pop!" she said. "Ain't you leavin' Tillie keep comp'ny?"
"No," affirmed Mr. Getz. "I ain't. What does a body go to the bother of
raisin' childern FUR? Just to lose 'em as soon as they are growed
enough to help earn a little? I ain't LEAVIN' Tillie get married! She's
stayin' at home to help her pop and mom--except in winter when they
ain't so much work, and mebbe then I'm hirin' her out to Aunty Em at
the hotel where she can earn a little, too, to help along. She can easy
earn enough to buy the children's winter clo'es and gums and
school-books."
"When she comes eighteen, pop, she'll have the right to get married
whether or no you'd conceited you wouldn't give her the dare."
"If I say I ain't buyin' her her aus styer, Absalom Puntz nor no other
feller would take her."
An "aus styer" is the household outfit always given to a bride by her
father.
"Well, to be sure," granted Mrs. Getz, "I'd like keepin' Tillie home to
help me out with the work still. I didn't see how I was ever goin' to
get through without her. But I thought when Absalom Puntz begin to come
Sundays, certainly you'd be fur her havin' him. I was sayin' to her
only this mornin' that if she didn't want to dishearten Absalom from
comin' to set up with her, she'd have to take more notice to him and
not act so dopplig with him--like as if she didn't care whether or no
he made up to her. I tole her I'd think, now, she'd be wonderful
pleased at his wantin' her, and him so well-fixed. Certainly I never
conceited you'd be ag'in' it. Tillie she didn't answer nothin'.
Sometimes I do now think Tillie's some different to what other girls
is."
"I'd be glad," said Jacob Getz in a milder tone, "if she ain't set on
havin' him. I was some oneasy she might take it a little hard when I
tole her she darsent get married."
"Och, Tillie she never takes nothin' hard," Mrs. Getz answered easily.
"She ain't never ast me you goin' to furnish fur her. She don't take no
interest. She's so funny that way. I think to myself, still, Tillie is,
now, a little dumm!"
It happened that while this dialogue was taking place, Tillie was in
the room above the kitchen, putting the two most recently arrived Getz
babies to bed; and as she sat near the open register with a baby on her
lap, every word that passed between her father and stepmother was
perfectly audible to her.
With growing bitterness she listened to her father's frank avowal of
his selfish designs. At the same time she felt a thrill of exultation,
as she thought of the cherished secret locked in her breast--hidden the
more securely from those with whom she seemed to live nearest. How
amazed they would be, her stolid, unsuspicious parents, when they
discovered that she had been secretly studying and, with Miss
Margaret's help, preparing herself for the high calling of a teacher!
One more year, now, and she would be ready, Miss Margaret assured her,
to take the county superintendent's examination for a certificate to
teach. Then good-by to household drudgery and the perpetual
self-sacrifice that robbed her of all that was worth while in life.
With a serene mind, Tillie rose, with the youngest baby in her arms,
and tenderly tucked it in its little bed.