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 shinin’ 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 Township 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 shining 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 Township 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 passion 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 Saturday 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 attitude to her at the supper-table suddenly roused in her a passion of hot resentment such as her gentle heart had not often experienced.