Tillie, a Mennonite Maid Part 7

"Do you mean to say," demanded Mr. Getz, "that Teacher lends NOVELS to the scholars!"

"Och!" said the doctor, suddenly catching the frantic appeal of Tillie's eyes, and answering it with ready invention, "what am I talkin' about! It was Elviny lent it to Aunty Em's little Rebecca at the HOtel, and Teacher was tellin' Rebecca she mustn't read it, but give it back right aways to Elviny."

"Well!" said Mr. Getz, "a teacher that would lend novels to the scholars wouldn't stay long at William Penn if MY wote could put her out! And there 's them on the Board that thinks just like what I think!"

"To be sure!" the doctor soothed him. "TO be sure! Yes," he romanced, "Rebecca she lent that book off of Elviny d.i.n.kleberger, and Teacher she tole Rebecca to give it back."

"I'll speak somepin to Elviny's pop, first time I see him, how Elviny's lendin' a novel to the scholars!" affirmed Mr. Getz.

"You needn't trouble," said the doctor, coolly. "Elviny's pop he GIVE Elviny that there book last Christmas. I don't know what he'll think, Jake, at your burnin' it up."

Tillie was gazing at the doctor, now, half in bewilderment, half in pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude.

"If Tillie did get smallpox," Mrs. Getz here broke in, "would she mebbe have to be took to the pest-house?"

Tillie started, and her feverish eyes sought in the face of the doctor to know what dreadful place a "pest-house" might be.

"Whether she'd have to be took to the pest-house?" the doctor inquiringly repeated. "Yes, if she took the smallpox. But she ain't takin' it. You needn't worry."

"Doctors don't know near as much now as what they used to, still," Mr.

Getz affirmed. "They didn't HAVE to have no such pest-houses when I was a boy. Leastways, they didn't have 'em. And they didn't never ketch such diseases like 'pendycitis and grip and them."

"Do you mean to say, Jake Getz, that you pa.s.s it as your opinion us doctors don't know more now than what they used to know thirty years ago, when you was a boy?"

"Of course they don't," was the dogmatic rejoinder. "Nor n.o.body knows as much now as they did in ancient times a'ready. I mean back in Bible times."

"Do you mean to say," hotly argued the doctor, "that they had automobiles in them days?"

"To be sure I do! Automobiles and all the other lost sciences!"

"Well," said the doctor, restraining his scorn with a mighty effort, "I'd like to see you prove it oncet!"

"I can prove it right out of the Bible! Do you want better proof than that, Doc? The Bible says in so many words, 'There's nothing new under the sun.' There! You can't come over that there, can you? You don't consider into them things enough, Doc. You ain't a religious man, that 's the trouble!"

"I got religion a plenty, but I don't hold to no SICH dumm thoughts!"

"Did you get your religion at Bethel rewiwal?" Mrs. Getz quickly asked, glancing up from the little stocking she was darning, to look with some interest at the doctor. "I wanted to go over oncet before the rewiwal's done. But now Tillie's sick, mebbe I won't get to go fur all. When they have rewiwals at Bethel they always make so! And," she added, resuming her darning, "I like to see 'em jump that way. My, but they jump, now, when they get happy! But I didn't get to go this year yet."

"Well, and don't you get affected too?" the doctor asked, "and go out to the mourners' bench?"

"If I do? No, I go just to see 'em jump," she monotonously repeated. "I wasn't never conwerted. Mister he's a hard Evangelical, you know."

"And what does he think of your unconwerted state?" the doctor jocularly inquired.

"What he thinks? There's nothing to think," was the stolid answer.

"Up there to Bethel rewiwal," said Mr. Getz, "they don't stay conwerted. Till rewiwal's over, they're off church again."

"It made awful funny down there this two weeks back," repeated Mrs.

Getz. "They jumped so. Now there's the Lutherans, they don't make nothin' when they conwert themselves. They don't jump nor nothin'. I don't like their meetin's. It's onhandy Tillie got sick fur me just now. I did want to go oncet. Here 's all this mendin' she could have did, too. She 's handier at sewin' than what I am, still. I always had so much other work, I never come at sewin', and I 'm some dopplig at it."

"Yes?--yes," said the doctor, rising to go. "Well, Tillie, good-by, and don't set up nights any more readin' novels," he laughed.

"She ain't likely to," said her father. "My childern don't generally do somepin like that again after I once ketch 'em at it. Ain't so, Tillie?

Well, then, Doc, you think she ain't serious?"

"I said I can't tell till I've saw her again a'ready."

"How long will it go till you come again?"

"Well," the doctor considered, "it looks some fur fallin'

weather--ain't? If it rains and the roads are muddy till morning, so 's I can't drive fast, I won't mebbe be here till ten o'clock."

"Oh, doctor," whispered Tillie, in a tone of distress, "can't I go to school? Can't I? I'll be well enough, won't I? It's Friday to-morrow, and I--I want to go!" she sobbed. "I want to go to Miss Margaret!"

"No, you can't go to school to-morrow, Tillie," her father said, "even if you're some better; I'm keepin' you home to lay still one day anyhow."

"But I don't want to stay home!" the child exclaimed, casting off the shawl with which her father had covered her and throwing out her arms.

"I want to go to school! I want to, pop!" she sobbed, almost screaming.

"I want to go to Miss Margaret! I will, I will!"

"Tillie--Tillie!" her father soothed her in that unwonted tone of gentleness that sounded so strange to her. His face had turned pale at her outcries, delirious they seemed to him, coming from his usually meek and submissive child. "There now," he said, drawing the cover over her again; "now lay still and be a good girl, ain't you will?"

"Will you leave me go to school to-morrow?" she pleaded piteously.

"DARE I go to school to-morrow?"

"No, you da.s.sent, Tillie. But if you're a good girl, mebbe I 'll leave Sammy ast Teacher to come to see you after school."

"Oh, pop!" breathed the child ecstatically, as in supreme contentment she sank back again on her pillow. "I wonder will she come? Do you think she will come to see me, mebbe?"

"To be sure will she."

"Now think," said the doctor, "how much she sets store by Teacher! And a lot of 'em's the same way--girls AND boys."

"I didn't know she was so much fur Teacher," said Mr. Getz. "She never spoke nothin'."

"She never spoke nothin' to me about it neither," said Mrs. Getz.

"Well, I 'll give you all good-by, then," said the doctor; and he went away.

On his slow journey home through the mud he mused on the inevitable clash which he foresaw must some day come between the warm-hearted teacher (whom little Tillie so loved, and who so injudiciously lent her "novel-books") and the stern and influential school director, Jacob Getz.

"There MY chanct comes in," thought the doctor; "there's where I mebbe put in my jaw and pop the question--just when Jake Getz is makin' her trouble and she's gettin' chased off her job. I pa.s.sed my word I'd stand by her, and, by gum, I 'll do it! When she's out of a job--that's the time she 'll be dead easy! Ain't? She's the most allurin' female I seen since my wife up't and died fur me!"

VI