Tillie, a Mennonite Maid Part 42

"You PERFER! I'll learn you PERFER! Who took it in fur you--and what fur bank? Answer to me!"

"Father, the money is mine."

"It's no such thing! You ain't but seventeen. And I don't care if you're eighteen or even twenty-one! You're my child and you 'll obey to me and do what I tell you!"

"Father, I will not submit to your robbing me, You can't force me to give you my earnings. If you could, I wouldn't teach at all!"

"You won't submit! And I da.r.s.ent rob you!" he spluttered. "Don't you know I can collect your wages off the secretary of the Board myself?"

"Before next pay-day I shall be eighteen. Then you can't legally do that. If you could, I would resign. Then you wouldn't even get your twelve dollars a month for my board. That's four dollars more than I can earn living out at Aunty Em's."

Beside himself with his fury, Getz drew her a few steps to the closet where his strap hung, and jerking it from its nail, he swung out his arm.

But Tillie, with a strength born of a sudden fury almost matching his own, and feeling in her awakened womanhood a new sense of outrage and ignominy in such treatment, wrenched herself free, sprang to the middle of the room, and faced him with blazing eyes.

"Dare to touch me--ever again so long as you live!--and I'll kill you, I'll KILL you!"

Such madness of speech, to ears accustomed to the carefully tempered converse of Mennonites, Amish, and Dunkards, was in itself a wickedness almost as great as the deed threatened. The family, from the father down to six-year-old Zephaniah, trembled to hear the awful words.

"Ever dare to touch me again so long as we both live--and I'll stab you dead!"

Mrs. Getz shrieked. Sally and Sammy clung to each other whimpering in terror, and the younger children about the room took up the chorus.

"Tillie!" gasped her father.

The girl tottered, her eyes suddenly rolled back in her head, she stretched out her hands, and fell over on the floor. Once more Tillie had fainted.

XXV

GETZ "LEARNS" TILLIE

As a drowning man clings to whatever comes in his way, Tillie, in these weary days of heart-ache and yearning, turned with new intensity of feeling to Miss Margaret, who had never failed her, and their interchange of letters became more frequent.

Her father did not easily give up the struggle with her for the possession of her salary. Finding that he could not legally collect it himself from the treasurer of the Board, he accused his brother-in-law, Abe Wackernagel, of having taken it to town for her; and when Abe denied the charge, with the a.s.surance, however, that he "WOULD do that much for Tillie any day he got the chancet," Mr. Getz next taxed the doctor, who, of course, without the least scruple, denied all knowledge of Tillie's monetary affairs.

On market day, he had to go to Lancaster City, and when his efforts to force Tillie to sign a cheek payable to him had proved vain, his baffled greed again roused him to uncontrollable fury, and lifting his hand, he struck her across the cheek.

Tillie reeled and would have fallen had he not caught her, his anger instantly cooling in his fear lest she faint again. But Tillie had no idea of fainting. "Let me go," she said quietly, drawing her arm out of his clasp. Turning quickly away, she walked straight out of the room and up-stairs to her chamber.

Her one change of clothing she quickly tied into a bundle, and putting on her bonnet and shawl, she walked down-stairs and out of the house.

"Where you goin'?" her father demanded roughly as he followed her out on the porch.

She did not answer, but walked on to the gate. In an instant he had overtaken her and stood squarely in her path.

"Where you goin' to?" he repeated.

"To town, to board at the store."

He dragged her, almost by main force, back into the house, and all that evening kept a watch upon her until he knew that she was in bed.

Next morning, Tillie carried her bundle of clothing to school with her, and at the noon recess she went to the family who kept the village store and engaged board with them, saying she could not stand the daily walks to and from school.

When, at six o'clock that evening, she had not returned home, her father drove in to the village store to get her. But she locked herself in her bedroom and would not come out.

In the next few weeks he tried every means of force at his command, but in vain; and at last he humbled himself to propose a compromise.

"I'll leave you have some of your money every month, Tillie,--as much as ten dollars,--if you'll give me the rest, still."

"Why should I give it to you, father? How would that benefit ME?" she said, with a rather wicked relish in turning the tables on him and applying his life principle of selfishness to her own case.

Her father did not know how to meet it. Never before in her life, to his knowledge, had Tillie considered her own benefit before his and that of his wife and children. That she should dare to do so now seemed to knock the foundations from under him.

"When I'm dead, won't you and the others inherit off of me all I've saved?" he feebly inquired.

"But that will be when I'm too old to enjoy or profit by it."

"How much do you want I should give you out of your wages every month, then?"

"You can't give me what is not yours to give."

"Now don't you be sa.s.sin' me, or I'll learn you!"

They were alone in her school-room on a late February afternoon, after school had been dismissed. Tillie quickly rose and reached for her shawl and bonnet. She usually tried to avoid giving him an opportunity like this for bullying her, with no one by to protect her.

"Just stay settin'," he growled sullenly, and she knew from his tone that he had surrendered.

"If you'll come home to board, I won't bother you no more, then," he further humbled himself to add. The loss even of the twelve dollars'

board was more than he could bear.

"It would not be safe," answered Tillie, grimly.

"Och, it 'll be safe enough. I'll leave you be."

"It would not be safe for YOU."

"Fur me? What you talkin'?"

"If you lost your temper and struck me, I might kill you. That's why I came away."

The father stared in furtive horror at the white, impa.s.sive face of his daughter.

Could this be Tillie--his meek, long-suffering Tillie?

"Another thing," she continued resolutely, for she had lost all fear of speaking her mind to him, "why should I pay you twelve dollars a month board, when I get my board at the store for six, because I wait on customers between times?"