"I'LL MARRY HIM TO-MORROW!"
Mr. Getz had plainly given Absalom to understand that he did not want
him to sit up with Tillie, as he "wasn't leaving her marry." Absalom
had answered that he guessed Tillie would have something to say to that
when she was "eighteen a'ready." And on the first Sunday evening after
her return home he had boldly presented himself at the farm.
"That's where you'll get fooled, Absalom, fur she's been raised to mind
her pop!" Mr. Getz had responded. "If she disobeyed to my word, I
wouldn't give her no aus styer. I guess you wouldn't marry a girl where
wouldn't bring you no aus styer!"
Absalom, who was frugal, had felt rather baffled at this threat.
Nevertheless, here he was again on Sunday evening at the farm to assure
Tillie that HE would stand by her, and that if she was not restored to
membership in the meeting, he wouldn't give himself up, either.
Mr. Getz dared not go to the length of forbidding Absalom his house,
for that would have meant a family feud between all the Getzes and all
the Puntzes of the county. He could only insist that Tillie "dishearten
him," and that she dismiss him not later than ten o'clock. To almost
any other youth in the neighborhood, such opposition would have proved
effectual. But every new obstacle seemed only to increase Absalom's
determination to have what he had set out to get.
To-night he produced another book, which he said he had bought at the
second-hand book-store in Lancaster.
"'Cupid and Psyche,'" Tillie read the title. "Oh, Absalom, thank you.
This is lovely. It's a story from Greek mythology--I've been hearing
some of these stories from the teacher"--she checked herself, suddenly,
at Absalom's look of jealous suspicion.
"I'm wonderful glad you ain't in there at the HOtel no more," he said.
"I hadn't no fair chancet, with Teacher right there on the GROUNDS."
"Absalom," said Tillie, gravely, with a little air of dignity that did
not wholly fail to impress him, "I insist on it that you never speak of
the teacher in that way in connection with me. You might as well speak
of my marrying the County Superintendent! He'd be just as likely to ask
me!"
The county superintendent of public instruction was held in such awe
that his name was scarcely mentioned in an ordinary tone of voice.
"As if there's no difference from a teacher at William Penn to the
county superintendent! You ain't that dumm, Tillie!"
"The difference is that the teacher at William Penn is superior in
every way to the county superintendent!"
She spoke impulsively, and she regretted her words the moment they were
uttered. But Absalom only half comprehended her meaning.
"You think you ain't good enough fur him, and you think I ain't good
enough fur YOU!" he grumbled. "I have never saw such a funny girl!
Well," he nodded confidently, "you'll think different one of these here
days!"
"You must not cherish any false hopes, Absalom," Tillie insisted in
some distress.
"Well, fur why don't you want to have me?" he demanded for the
hundredth time.
"Absalom,"--Tillie tried a new mode of discouragement,--"I don't want
to get married because I don't want to be a farmer's wife--they have to
work too hard!"
It was enough to drive away any lover in the countryside, and for a
moment Absalom was staggered.
"Well!" he exclaimed, "a woman that's afraid of work ain't no wife fur
me, anyways!"
Tillie's heart leaped high for an instant in the hope that now she had
effectually cooled his ardor. But it sank again as she recalled the
necessity of retaining at least his good-will and friendship, that she
might protect the teacher.
"Now, Absalom," she feebly protested, "did you ever see me afraid of
work?"
"Well, then, if you ain't afraid of workin', what makes you talk so
CONTRARY?"
"I don't know. Come, let me read this nice book you've brought me," she
urged, much as she might have tried to divert one of her little sisters
or brothers.
"I'd ruther just set. I ain't much fur readin'. Jake Getz he says he's
goin' to chase you to bed at ten--and ten comes wonderful soon Sundays.
Leave us just set."
Tillie well understood that this was to endure Absalom's clownish
wooing. But for the sake of the cause, she said to herself, she would
conquer her repugnance and bear it.
For two weeks after Tillie's return home, she did not once have a word
alone with Fairchilds. He came several times, ostensibly on errands
from her aunt; but on each occasion he found her hard at work in her
father's presence. At his first visit, Tillie, as he was leaving, rose
from her corn-husking in the barn to go with him to the gate, but her
father interfered.
"You stay where you're at!"
With burning face, she turned to her work. And Fairchilds, carefully
suppressing an impulse to shake Jake Getz till his teeth rattled,
walked quietly out of the gate and up the road.
Her father was more than usually stern and exacting with her in these
days of her suspension from meeting, inasmuch as it involved her
dismissal from the hotel and the consequent loss to him of two dollars
a week.
As for Tillie, she found a faint consolation in the fact of the
teacher's evident chagrin and indignation at the tyrannical rule which
forbade intercourse between them.
At stated intervals, the brethren came to reason with her, but while
she expressed her willingness to put her curls back, she would not
acknowledge that her heart was no longer "carnal and vain," and so they
found it impossible to restore her to favor.
A few weeks before Christmas, Absalom, deciding that he had imbibed all
the arithmetical erudition he could hold, stopped school. On the
evening that he took his books home, he gave the teacher a parting
blow, which he felt sure quite avenged the outrageous defeat he had
suffered at his hands on that Sunday night at the hotel.
"Me and Tillie's promised. It ain't put out yet, but I conceited I'd
better tell you, so's you wouldn't be wastin' your time tryin' to make
up to her."
"You and Tillie are engaged to be married?" Fairchilds incredulously
asked.
"That's what! As good as, anyways. I always get somepin I want when I
make up my mind oncet." And he grinned maliciously.
Fairchilds pondered the matter as, with depressed spirits, he walked
home over the frozen road.
"No wonder the poor girl yielded to the pressure of such an
environment," he mused. "I suppose she thinks Absalom's rule will not
be so bad as her father's. But that a girl like Tillie should be pushed
to the wall like that--it is horrible! And yet--if she were worthy a
better fate would she not have held out?--it is too bad, it is unjust
to her 'Miss Margaret' that she should give up now! I feel," he sadly
told himself, "disappointed in Tillie!"
When the notable "Columbus Celebration" came off in New Canaan, in
which event several schools of the township united to participate, and
which was attended by the entire countryside, as if it were a funeral,
Tillie hoped that here would be an opportunity for seeing and speaking
with Walter Fairchilds. But in this she was bitterly disappointed.
It was not until a week later, at the township Institute, which met at
New Canaan, and which was also attended by the entire population, that
her deep desire was gratified.
It was during the reading of an address, before the Institute, by Miss
Spooner, the teacher at East Donegal, that Fairchilds deliberately came
and sat by Tillie in the back of the school-room.
Tillie's heart beat fast, and she found herself doubting the reality of
his precious nearness after the long, dreary days of hungering for him.
She dared not speak to him while Miss Spooner held forth, and, indeed,
she feared even to look at him, lest curious eyes read in her face what
consciously she strove to conceal.
She realized his restless impatience under Miss Spooner's eloquence.
"It was a week back already, we had our Columbus Celebration," read
this educator of Lancaster County, genteelly curving the little finger
of each hand, as she held her address, which was esthetically tied with
blue ribbon. "It was an inspiring sight to see those one hundred
enthusiastic and paterotic children marching two by two, led by their
equally enthusiastic and paterotic teachers! Forming a semicircle in
the open air, the exercises were opened by a song, 'O my Country,' sung
by clear--r-r-ringing--childish voices...."
It was the last item on the program, and by mutual and silent consent,
Tillie and Fairchilds, at the first stir of the audience, slipped out
of the schoolhouse together. Tillie's father was in the audience, and
so was Absalom. But they had sat far forward, and Tillie hoped they had
not seen her go out with the teacher.
"Let us hurry over to the woods, where we can be alone and undisturbed,
and have a good talk!" proposed Fairchilds, his face showing the
pleasure he felt in the meeting.
After a few minutes' hurried walking, they were able to slacken their
pace and stroll leisurely through the bleak winter forest.
"Tillie, Tillie!" he said, "why won't you abandon this 'carnal' life
you are leading, be restored to the approbation of the brethren, and
come back to the hotel? I am very lonely without you."
Tillie could scarcely find her voice to answer, for the joy that filled
her at his words--a joy so full that she felt but a very faint pang at
his reference to the ban under which she suffered. She had thought his
failure to speak to her at the "Celebration" had indicated indifference
or forgetfulness. But now that was all forgotten; every nerve in her
body quivered with happiness.
He, however, at once interpreted her silence to mean that he had
wounded her. "Forgive me for speaking so lightly of what to you must be
a sacred and serious matter. God knows, my own experience--which, as
you say, was not unlike your own--was sufficiently serious to me. But
somehow, I can't take THIS seriously--this matter of your pretty curls!"
"Sometimes I wonder whether you take any person or any thing, here,
seriously," she half smiled. "You seem to me to be always mocking at us
a little."
"Mocking? Not so bad as that. And never at YOU, Tillie."
"You were sneering at Miss Spooner, weren't you?"
"Not at her; at Christopher Columbus--though, up to the time of that
celebration, I was always rather fond of the discoverer of America. But
now let us talk of YOU, Tillie. Allow me to congratulate you!"
"What for?"
"True enough. I stand corrected. Then accept my sincere sympathy." He
smiled whimsically.
Tillie lifted her eyes to his face, and their pretty look of
bewilderment made him long to stoop and snatch a kiss from her lips.
But he resisted the temptation.
"I refer to your engagement to Absalom. That's one reason why I wanted
you to come out here with me this afternoon--so that you could tell me
about it--and explain to me what made you give up all your plans. What
will your Miss Margaret say?"
Tillie stopped short, her cheeks reddening.
"What makes you think I am promised to Absalom?"
"The fact is, I've only his word for it."
"He told you that?"
"Certainly. Isn't it true?"
"Do YOU think so poorly of me?" Tillie asked in a low voice.
He looked at her quickly. "Tillie, I'm sorry; I ought not to have
believed it for an instant!"
"I have a higher ambition in life than to settle down to take care of
Absalom Puntz!" said Tillie, fire in her soft eyes, and an unwonted
vibration in her gentle voice.
"My credulity was an insult to you!"
"Absalom did not mean to tell you a lie. He has made up his mind to
have me, so he thinks it is all as good as settled. Sometimes I am
almost afraid he will win me just by thinking he is going to."
"Send him about his business! Don't keep up this folly, dear child!"
"I would rather stand Absalom," she faltered, "than stand having you go
away."
"But, Tillie," he turned almost fiercely upon her--"Tillie, I would
rather see you dead at my feet than to see your soul tied to that clod
of earth!"
A wild thrill of rapture shot through Tillie's heart at his words. For
an instant she looked up at him, her soul shining in her eyes. "Does
he--does HE--care that much what happens to me?" throbbed in her brain.
For the first time Fairchilds fully realized, with shame at his blind
selfishness, the danger and the cruelty of his intimate friendship with
this little Mennonite maid. For her it could but end in a heartbreak;
for him--"I have been a cad, a despicable cad!" he told himself in
bitter self-reproach. "If I had only known! But now it's too
late--unless--" In his mind he rapidly went over the simple history of
their friendship as they walked along; and, busy with her own thought,
Tillie did not notice his abstraction.
"Tillie," he said suddenly. "Next Saturday there is an examination of
applicants for certificates at East Donegal. You must take that
examination. You are perfectly well prepared to pass it."
"Oh, do you really, REALLY think I am?" the girl cried breathlessly.
"I know it. The only question is, How are you going to get off to
attend the examination?"
"Father will be at the Lancaster market on Saturday morning!"
"Then I'll hire a buggy, come out to the farm, and carry you off!"
"No--oh, no, you must not do that. Father would be so angry with you!"
"You can't walk to Bast Donegal. It's six miles away."
"Let me think.--Uncle Abe would do anything I asked him--but he
wouldn't have time to leave the hotel Saturday morning. And I couldn't
make him or Aunty Em understand that I was educated enough to take the
examination. But there's the Doc!"
"Of course!" cried Fairchilds. "The Doc isn't afraid of the whole
county! Shall I tell him you'll go if he'll come for you?"
"Yes!"
"Good! I'll undertake to promise for him that he'll be there!"
"When father comes home from market and finds me gone!" Tillie
said--but there was exultation, rather than fear, in her voice.
"When you show him your certificate, won't that appease him? When he
realizes how much more you can earn by teaching than by working for
your aunt, especially as he bore none of the expense of giving you your
education? It was your own hard labor, and none of his money, that did
it! And now I suppose he'll get all the profit of it!" Fairchilds could
not quite keep down the rising indignation in his voice.
"No," said Tillie, quietly, though the color burned in her face.
"Walter! I'm going to refuse to give father my salary if I am elected
to a school. I mean to save my money to go to the Normal--where Miss
Margaret is."
"So long as you are under age, he can take it from you, Tillie."
"If the school I teach is near enough for me to live at home, I'll pay
my board. More than that I won't do."
"But how are you going to help yourself?"
"I haven't made up my mind, yet, how I'm going to do it. It will be the
hardest struggle I've ever had--to stand out against him in such a
thing," Tillie continued; "but I will not be weak, I will not! I have
studied and worked all these years in the hope of a year at the
Normal--with Miss Margaret. And I won't falter now!"
Before he could reply to her almost impassioned earnestness, they were
startled by the sound of footsteps behind them in the woods--the heavy
steps of men. Involuntarily, they both stopped short, Tillie with the
feeling of one caught in a stolen delight; and Fairchilds with mingled
annoyance at the interruption, and curiosity as to who might be
wandering in this unfrequented patch of woods.
"I seen 'em go out up in here!"
It was the voice of Absalom. The answer came in the harsh, indignant
tones of Mr. Getz. "Next time I leave her go to a Instytoot or such a
Columbus Sallybration, she'll stay at HOME! Wastin' time walkin' 'round
in the woods with that dude teacher!--and on a week-day, too!"
Tillie looked up at Fairchilds with an appeal that went to his heart.
Grimly he waited for the two.
"So here's where you are!" cried Mr. Getz, striding up to them, and,
before Fairchilds could prevent it, he had seized Tillie by the
shoulder. "What you mean, runnin' off up here, heh? What you mean?" he
demanded, shaking her with all his cruel strength.
"Stop that, you brute!" Fairchilds, unable to control his fury, drew
back and struck the big man squarely on the chest. Getz staggered back,
amazement at this unlooked-for attack for a moment getting the better
of his indignation. He had expected to find the teacher cowed with fear
at being discovered by a director and a director's son in a situation
displeasing to them.
"Let the child alone, you great coward--or I 'll horsewhip you!"
Getz recovered himself. His face was black with passion. He lifted the
horsewhip which he carried.
"You'll horsewhip me--me, Jake Getz, that can put you off William Penn
TO-MORROW if I want! Will you do it with this here? he demanded,
grasping the whip more tightly and lifting it to strike--but before it
could descend, Fairchilds wrenched it out of his hand.
"Yes," he responded, "if you dare to touch that child again, you
shameless dog!"
Tillie, with anguished eyes, stood motionless as marble, while Absalom,
with clenched fists, awaited his opportunity.
"If I dare!" roared Getz. "If I have dare to touch my own child!" He
turned to Tillie. "Come along," he exclaimed, giving her a cuff with
his great paw; and instantly the whip came down with stinging swiftness
on his wrist. With a bellow of pain, Getz turned on Fairchilds, and at
the same moment, Absalom sprang on him from behind, and with one blow
of his brawny arm brought the teacher to the ground. Getz sprawled over
his fallen antagonist and snatched his whip from him.
"Come on, Absalom--we'll learn him oncet!" he cried fiercely. "We'll
learn him what horsewhippin' is! We'll give him a lickin' he won't
forget!"
Absalom laughed aloud in his delight at this chance to avenge his own
defeat at the hands of the teacher, and with clumsy speed the two men
set about binding the feet of the half-senseless Fairchilds with
Absalom's suspenders.
Tillie felt herself spellbound, powerless to move or to cry out.
"Now!" cried Getz to Absalom, "git back, and I'll give it to him!"
The teacher, stripped of his two coats and bound hand and foot, was
rolled over on his face. He uttered no word of protest, though they all
saw that he had recovered consciousness. The truth was, he simply
recognized the uselessness of demurring.
"Warm him up, so he don't take cold!" shouted Absalom--and even as he
spoke, Jake Getz's heavy arm brought the lash down upon Fairchilds's
back.
At the spiteful sound, life came back to Tillie. Like a wild thing, she
sprang between them, seized her father's arm and hung upon it. "Listen
to me! Listen! Father! If you strike him again, I'LL MARRY ABSALOM
TO-MORROW!"
By inspiration she had hit upon the one argument that would move him.
Her father tried to shake her off, but she clung to his arm with the
strength of madness, knowing that if she could make him grasp, even in
his passionate anger, the real import of her threat, he would yield to
her.
"I'll marry Absalom! I'll marry him to-morrow!" she repeated.
"You darsent--you ain't of age! Let go my arm, or I'll slap you ag'in!"
"I shall be of age in three months! I'll marry Absalom if you go on
with this!"
"That suits me!" cried Absalom. "Keep on with it, Jake!"
"If you do, I'll marry him to-morrow!"
There was a look in Tillie's eyes and a ring in her voice that her
father had learned to know. Tillie would do what she said.
And here was Absalom "siding along with her" in her unfilial defiance!
Jacob Getz wavered. He saw no graceful escape from his difficulty.
"Look-ahere, Tillie! If I don't lick this here feller, I'll punish YOU
when I get you home!"
Tillie saw that she had conquered him, and that the teacher was safe.
She loosed her hold of her father's arm and, dropping on her knees
beside Fairchilds began quickly to loosen his bonds. Her father did not
check her.
"Jake Getz, you ain't givin' in THAT easy?" demanded Absalom, angrily.
"She'd up and do what she says! I know her! And I ain't leavin' her
marry! You just wait"--he turned threateningly to Tillie as she knelt
on the ground--"till I get you home oncet!"
Fairchilds staggered to his feet, and drawing Tillie up from the
ground, he held her two hands in his as he turned to confront his
enemies.
"You call yourselves men--you cowards and bullies! And you!" he turned
his blazing eyes upon Getz, "you would work off your miserable spite on
a weak girl--who can't defend herself! Dare to touch a hair of her head
and I'll break YOUR damned head and every bone in your Body! Now take
yourselves off, both of you, you curs, and leave us alone!"
"My girl goes home along with me!" retorted the furious Getz. "And
YOU--you 'll lose your job at next Board Meetin', Saturday night! So
you might as well pack your trunk! Here!" He laid his hand on Tillie's
arm, but Fairchilds drew her to him and held his arm about her waist,
while Absalom, darkly scowling, stood uncertainly by.
"Leave her with me. I must talk with her. MUST, I say. Do you hear me?
She--"
His words died on his lips, as Tillie's head suddenly fell forward on
his shoulder, and, looking down, Fairchilds saw that she had fainted.