Tillie, a Mennonite Maid Part 40

"Is they a' applicant?" he inquired on his arrival.

"Why, to be sure," said Nathaniel Puntz. "What fur would it be worth while to waste time meetin' to elect her if they ain't none?"

"Then she's a female, is she?"

"Well, she ain't no male, anyways, nor no Harvard gradyate, neither. If she was, _I_ wouldn't wote fur her!"

"What might her name be?"

"It's some such a French name," answered the doctor, who had carried in the lamp and was lingering a minute. "It would, now, surprise you, Jake, if you heard it oncet."

"Is she such a foreigner yet?" Getz asked suspiciously. "I mistrust 'em when they're foreigners."

"Well," spoke Adam Oberholzer, as the doctor reluctantly went out, "it ain't ten mile from here she was raised."

"Is she a gradyate? We hadn't ought to take none but a Normal. We had _enough_ trouble!"

"No, she ain't a Normal, but she's got her certificate off the superintendent."

"Has any of yous saw her?"

"Och, yes, she's familiar with us," replied Joseph Kettering, the Amishman, who was president of the Board.

"Why ain't she familiar with me, then?" Getz inquired, looking bewildered, as the president opened the ink-bottle that stood on the table about which they sat, and distributed slips of paper.

"Well, that's some different again, too," facetiously answered Joseph Kettering.

"Won't she be here to-night to leave us see her oncet?"

"She won't, but her pop will," answered Nathaniel Puntz; and Mr. Getz vaguely realized in the expressions about him that something unusual was in the air.

"What do we want with her _pop_?" he asked.

"We want his _wote_!" answered Adam Oberholzer--which sally brought forth hilarious laughter.

"What you mean?" demanded Getz, impatient of all this mystery.

"It's the daughter of one of this here Board that we're wotin' fur!"

Mr. Getz's eyes moved about the table. "Why, none of yous ain't got a growed-up daughter that's been to school long enough to get a certificate."

"It seems there's ways of gettin' a certificate without goin' to school. Some girls can learn theirselves at home without even a teacher, and workin' all the time at farm-work, still, and even livin'

out!" said Mr. Puntz. "I say a girl with inDUStry like that would make any feller a good wife."

Getz stared at him in bewilderment.

"The members of this Board," said Mr. Kettering, solemnly, "and the risin' generation of the future, can point this here applicant out to their childern as a s.h.i.+nin' example of what can be did by inDUStry, without money and without price--and it'll be fur a spur to 'em to go thou and do likewise."

"Are you so dumm, Jake, you don't know YET who we mean?" Nathaniel asked.

"Why, to be sure, don't I! None of yous has got such a daughter where lived out."

"Except yourself, Jake!"

The eyes of the Board were fixed upon Mr. Getz in excited expectation.

But he was still heavily uncomprehending. Then the president, rising, made his formal announcement, impressively and with dignity.

"Members of Canaan Towns.h.i.+p School Board: We will now proceed to wote fur the applicant fur William Penn. She is not unknownst to this here Board. She is a worthy and wirtuous female, and has a good moral character. We think she's been well learnt how to manage childern, fur she's been raised in a family where childern was never scarce. The applicant," continued the speaker, "is--as I stated a couple minutes back--a s.h.i.+ning example of inDUStry to the rising generations of the future, fur she's got her certificate to teach--and wery high marks on it--and done it all by her own unaided efforts and inDUStry. Members of Canaan Towns.h.i.+p School Board, we are now ready to wote fur Matilda Maria Getz."

Before his dazed wits could recover from the shock of this announcement, Jake Getz's daughter had become the unanimously elected teacher of William Penn.

The ruling pa.s.sion of the soul of Jacob Getz manifested itself conspicuously in his reception of the revelation that his daughter, through deliberate and systematic disobedience, carried on through all the years of her girlhood, had succeeded in obtaining a certificate from the county superintendent, and was now the teacher-elect at William Penn. The father's satisfaction in the possession of a child capable of earning forty dollars a month, his greedy joy in the prospect of this addition to his income, entirely overshadowed and dissipated the rage he would otherwise have felt. The pathos of his child's courageous persistency in the face of his dreaded severity, of her pitiful struggle with all the adverse conditions of her life,--this did not enter at all into his consideration of the case. It was obvious to Tillie, as it had been to the School Board on Sat.u.r.day night, that he felt an added satisfaction in the fact that this wonder had been accomplished without any loss to him either of money or of his child's labor.

Somehow, her father's reception of her triumph filled her heart with more bitterness than she had ever felt toward him in all the years of her hard endeavor. It was on the eve of her first day of teaching that his unusually affectionate att.i.tude to her at the supper-table suddenly roused in her a pa.s.sion of hot resentment such as her gentle heart had not often experienced.

"I owe YOU no thanks, father, for what education I have!" she burst forth. "You always did everything in your power to hinder me!"

If a bomb had exploded in the midst of them, Mr. and Mrs. Getz could not have been more confounded. Mrs. Getz looked to see her husband order Tillie from the table, or rise from his place to shake her and box her ears. But he did neither. In amazement he stared at her for a moment--then answered with a mildness that amazed his wife even more than Tillie's "sa.s.siness" had done.

"I'd of LEFT you study if I'd knowed you could come to anything like this by it. But I always thought you'd have to go to the Normal to be fit fur a teacher yet. And you can't say you don't owe me no thanks--ain't I always kep' you?"

"Kept me!" answered Tillie, with a scorn that widened her father's stare and made her stepmother drop her knife on her plate; "I never worked half so hard at Aunty Em's as I have done here every day of my life since I was nine years old--and SHE thought my work worth not only my 'keep,' but two dollars a week besides. When do you ever spend two dollars on me? You never gave me a dollar that I hadn't earned ten times over! You owe me back wages!"

Jake Getz laid down his knife, with a look on his face that made his other children quail. His countenance was livid with anger.

"OWE YOU BACK WAGES!" he choked. "Ain't you my child, then, where I begat and raised? Don't I own you? What's a child FUR? To grow up to be no use to them that raised it? You talk like that to me!" he roared.

"You tell me I OWE you back money! Now listen here! I was a-goin' to leave you keep five dollars every month out of your forty. Yes, I conceited I'd leave you have all that--five a month! Now fur sa.s.sin' me like what you done, I ain't leavin' you have NONE the first month!"

"And what," Tillie wondered, a strange calm suddenly following her outburst, as she sat back in her chair, white and silent, "what will he do and say when I refuse to give him more than the price of my board?"

Her school-work, which began nest day, diverted her mind somewhat from its deep yearning for him who had become to her the very breath of her life.

It was on the Sunday night after her first week of teaching that she told Absalom, with all the firmness she could command, that he must not come to see her any more, for she was resolved not to marry him.

"Who are you goin' to marry, then?" he inquired, unconvinced.

"No one."

"Do you mean it fur really, that you'd ruther be a' ole maid?"

"I'd rather be SIX old maids than the wife of a Dutchman!"

"What fur kind of a man do you WANT, then?"

"Not the kind that grows in this towns.h.i.+p."

"Would you, mebbe," Absalom sarcastically inquired, "like such a dude like what--"

"Absalom!" Tillie flashed her beautiful eyes upon him. "You are unworthy to mention his name to me! Don't dare to speak to me of him--or I shall leave you and go up-stairs RIGHT AWAY!"