Tillie, a Mennonite Maid Part 35

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 towns.h.i.+p united to partic.i.p.ate, 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 towns.h.i.+p Inst.i.tute, 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 Inst.i.tute, 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. G.o.d 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 friends.h.i.+p as they walked along; and, busy with her own thought, Tillie did not notice his abstraction.

"Tillie," he said suddenly. "Next Sat.u.r.day there is an examination of applicants for certificates at East Donegal. You must take that examination. You are perfectly well prepared to pa.s.s 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 Sat.u.r.day 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!"