"Indeed, no! I couldn't give you a better rule."
"There's another thing I wish you would tell me, please," she said, her
eyes downcast.
"Well?"
"I can't call you 'Mr.' Fairchilds, because such complimentary speech
is forbidden to us New Mennonites. It would come natural to me to call
you 'Teacher,' but you would think that what you call 'provincial.'"
"But you say 'Miss' Margaret."
"I could not get out of the way of it, because I had called her that so
many years before I gave myself up. That makes it seem different. But
you--what must I call you?"
"I don't see what's left--unless you call me 'Say'!"
"I must have something to call you," she pleaded. "Would you mind if I
called you by your Christian name?"
"I should like nothing better."
He drew forward a volume of Mrs. Browning's poems which lay among his
books on the table, opened it at the fly-leaf, and pointed to his name.
"'Walter'?" read Tillie. "But I thought--"
"It was Pestalozzi? That was only my little joke. My name's Walter."
On the approach of Sunday, Fairchilds questioned her one evening about
Absalom.
"Will that lad be taking up your whole Sunday evening again?" he
demanded.
She told him, then, why she suffered Absalom's unwelcome attentions. It
was in order that she might use her influence over him to keep the
teacher in his place.
"But I can't permit such a thing!" he vehemently protested. "Tillie, I
am touched by your kindness and self-sacrifice! But, dear child, I
trust I am man enough to hold my own here without your suffering for
me! You must not do it."
"You don't know Nathaniel Puntz!" She shook her head. "Absalom will
never forgive you, and, at a word from him, his father would never rest
until he had got rid of you. You see, none of the directors like
you--they don't understand you--they say you are 'too tony.' And then
your methods of teaching--they aren't like those of the Millersville
Normal teachers we've had, and therefore are unsound! I discovered last
week, when I was out home, that my father is very much opposed to you.
They all felt just so to Miss Margaret."
"I see. Nevertheless, you shall not bear my burdens. And don't you see
it's not just to poor Absalom? You can't marry him, so you ought not to
encourage him."
"'If I refused to le-LET Absalom come, you would not remain a month at
New Canaan," was her answer.
"But it isn't a matter of life and death to me to stay at New Canaan! I
need not starve if I lose my position here. There are better places."
Tillie gazed down upon the chenille table-cover, and did not speak. She
could not tell him that it did seem to HER a matter of life and death
to have him stay.
"It seems to me, Tillie, you could shake off Absalom through your
father's objections to his attentions. The fellow could not blame you
for that."
"But don't you see I must keep him by me, in order to protect you."
"My dear little girl, that's rough on Absalom; and I'm not sure it's
worthy of you."
"But you don't understand. You think Absalom will be hurt in his
feelings if I refuse to marry him. But I've told him all along I won't
marry him. And it isn't his feelings that are concerned. He only wants
a good housekeeper."
Fairchilds's eyes rested on the girl as she sat before him in the fresh
bloom of her maidenhood, and he realized what he knew she did not--that
unsentimental, hard-headed, and practical as Absalom might be, if she
allowed him the close intimacy of "setting-up" with her, the fellow
must suffer in the end in not winning her. But the teacher thought it
wise to make no further comment, as he saw, at any rate, that he could
not move her in her resolution to defend him.
And there was another thing that he saw. The extraneous differences
between himself and Tillie, and even the radical differences of
breeding and heredity which, he had assumed from the first, made any
least romance or sentiment on the part of either of them unthinkable,
however much they might enjoy a good comradeship,--all these
differences had strangely sunk out of sight as he had, from day to day,
grown in touch with the girl's real self, and he found himself unable
to think of her and himself except in that deeper sense in which her
soul met his. Any other consideration of their relation seemed almost
grotesque. This was his feeling--but his reason struggled with his
feeling and bade him beware. Suppose that she too should come to feel
that with the meeting of their spirits the difference in their
conditions melted away like ice in the sunshine. Would not the result
be fraught with tragedy for her? For himself, he was willing, for the
sake of his present pleasure, to risk a future wrestling with his
impracticable sentiments; but what must be the cost of such a struggle
to a frail, sensitive girl, with no compensations whatever in any
single phase of her life? Clearly, he was treading on dangerous ground.
He must curb himself.
Before another Sunday came around, the ax had fallen--the brethren came
to reason with Tillie, and finding her unable to say she was sincerely
repentant and would amend her vain and carnal deportment, she was, in
the course of the next week, "set back."
"I would be willing to put back the curls," she said to her aunt, who
also reasoned with her in private; "but it would avail nothing. For my
heart is still vain and carnal. 'Man looketh upon the outward
appearance, but God looketh on the heart.'"
"Then, Tillie," said her aunt, her kindly face pale with distress in
the resolution she had taken, "you'll have to go home and stay. You
can't stay here as long as you're not holding out in your professions."
Tillie's face went white, and she gazed into her aunt's resolute
countenance with anguish in her own.
"I'd not do it to send you away, Tillie, if I could otherwise help it.
But look how inconwenient it would be havin' you here to help work, and
me not havin' dare to talk or eat with you. I'm not obeyin' to the
'Rules' NOW in talkin' to you. But I tole the brethren I'd only speak
to you long enough to reason with you some--and then, if that didn't
make nothin', I'd send you home."
The Rules forbade the members to sit at table or hold any unnecessary
word of communication with one who had failed to "hold out," and who
had in consequence been "set back." Tillie, in her strange indifference
to the disgrace of being set back, had not foreseen her inevitable
dismissal from her aunt's employ. She recognized, now, with despair in
her soul, that Aunty Em could not do otherwise than send her home.
"When must I go, Aunty Em?"
"As soon as you make your mind up you AIN'T goin' to repent of your
carnal deportment."
"I can't repent, Aunty Em!" Tillie's voice sounded hollow to herself as
she spoke.
"Then, Tillie, you're got to go to-morrow. I 'll have to get my niece
from East Donegal over."
It sounded to Tillie like the crack of doom.
The doctor, who was loath to have her leave, who held her interests at
heart, and who knew what she would forfeit in losing the help which the
teacher was giving her daily in her studies, undertook to add his
expostulations to that of the brethern and sisters.
"By gum, Tillie, slick them swanged curls BACK, if they don't suit the
taste of the meeting! Are you willin' to leave go your nice education,
where you're gettin', fur a couple of damned curls? I don't know what's
got INto you to act so blamed stubborn about keepin' your hair
strubbled 'round your face!"
"But the vanity would still be in my heart even if I did brush them
back. And I don't want to be deceitful."
"Och, come now," urged the doctor, "just till you're got your
certificate a'ready to teach! That wouldn't be long. Then, after that,
you can be as undeceitful as you want."
But Tillie could not be brought to view the matter in this light.
She did not sit at table with the family that day, for that would have
forced her aunt to stay away from the table. Mrs. Wackernagel could
break bread without reproach with all her unconverted household; but
not with a backslider--for the prohibition was intended as a
discipline, imposed in all love, to bring the recalcitrant member back
into the fold.
That afternoon, Tillie and the teacher took a walk together in the
snow-covered woods.
"It all seems so extraordinary, so inexplicable!" Fairchilds repeated
over and over. Like all the rest of the household, he could not be
reconciled to her going. His regret was, indeed, greater than that of
any of the rest, and rather surprised himself. The pallor of Tillie's
face and the anguish in her eyes he attributed to the church discipline
she was suffering. He never dreamed how wholly and absolutely it was
for him.
"Is it any stranger," Tillie asked, her low voice full of pain, "than
that your uncle should send you away because of your UNbelief?" This
word, "unbelief," stood for a very definite thing in New Canaan--a lost
and hopeless condition of the soul. "It seems to me, the idea is the
same," said Tillie.
"Yes," acknowledged Fairchilds, "of course you are right. Intolerance,
bigotry, narrowness--they are the same the world over--and stand for
ignorance always."
Tillie silently considered his words. It had not occurred to her to
question the perfect justice of the meeting's action.
Suddenly she saw in the path before her a half-frozen, fluttering
sparrow. They both paused, and Tillie stooped, gently took it up, and
folded it in her warm shawl. As she felt its throbbing little body
against her hand, she thought of herself in the hand of God. She turned
and spoke her thought to Fairchilds.
"Could I possibly hurt this little bird, which is so entirely at my
mercy? Could I judge it, condemn and punish it, for some mistake or
wrong or weakness it had committed in its little world? And could God
be less kind, less merciful to me than I could be to this little bird?
Could he hold my soul in the hollow of his hand and vivisect it to
judge whether its errors were worthy of his divine anger? He knows how
weak and ignorant I am. I will not fear him," she said, her eyes
shining. "I will trust myself in his power--and believe in his love."
"The New Mennonite creed won't hold her long," thought Fairchilds.
"Our highest religious moments, Tillie," he said, "come to us, not
through churches, nor even through Bibles. They are the moments when we
are most receptive of the message Nature is always patiently waiting to
speak to us--if we will only hear. It is she alone that can lead us to
see God face to face, instead of 'through another man's dim thought of
him.'"
"Yes," agreed Tillie, "I have often felt more--more RELIGIOUS," she
said, after an instant's hesitation, "when I've been walking here alone
in the woods, or down by the creek, or up on Chestnut Hill--than I
could feel in church. In church we hear ABOUT God, as you say, through
other men's dim thoughts of Him. Here, alone, we are WITH him."
They walked in silence for a space, Tillie feeling with mingled bliss
and despair the fascination of this parting hour. But it did not occur
to Fairchilds that her departure from the hotel meant the end of their
intercourse.
"I shall come out to the farm to see you, Tillie, as often as you will
let me. You know, I've no one else to talk to, about here, as I talk
with you. What a pleasure it has been!"
"Oh, but father will never le--let me spend my time with you as I did
at the hotel! He will be angry at my being sent home, and he will keep
me constantly at work to make up for the loss it is to him. This is our
last talk together!"
"I'll risk your father's wrath, Tillie. You don't suppose I'd let a
small matter like that stand in the way of our friendship?"
"But father will not l--LET--me spend time with you. And if you come
when he told you not to he would put you out of William Penn!"
"I'm coming, all the same, Tillie."
"Father will blame me, if you do."
"Can't you take your own part, Tillie?" he gravely asked. "No, no," he
hastily added, for he did not forget the talk he had overheard about
the new caps, in which Mr. Getz had threatened personal violence to his
daughter. "I know you must not suffer for my sake. But you cannot mean
that we are not to meet at all after this?"
"Only at chance times," faltered Tillie; "that is all."
Very simply and somewhat constrainedly they said good-by the next
morning, Fairchilds to go to his work at William Penn and Tillie to
drive out with her Uncle Abe to meet her father's displeasure.