“A hundred and twenty-five’s plenty enough for a good starter at the Millersville Normal,” said the doctor.

“But,” Tillie hesitated, “this is April, and the spring term closes in three months.  What should I do and where could I go after that?  If I made such a break with father, he might refuse to take me home even if I had nowhere else to go.  Could I risk that?”

The doctor leaned his head on his hand and heavily considered the situation.

“I’m blamed if I dare adwise you, Tillie.  It’s some serious adwisin’ a young unprotected female to leave her pop’s rooft to go out into the unbeknownst world,” he said sentimentally.  “To be sure, Miss Margaret would see after you while you was at the Normal.  But when wacation is here in June she might mebbe be goin’ away for such a trip like, and then if you couldn’t come back home, you’d be throwed out on the cold wide world, where there’s many a pitfall for the onwary.”

“It seems too great a risk to run, doesn’t it?  There seems to be nothing—­nothing—­that I can do but go back to the farm,” she said, the hope dying out of her eyes.

“Just till I kin get you another school, Tillie,” he consoled her.  “I’ll be lookin’ out for a wacancy in the county for you, you bet!”

“Thank you, Doc,” she answered wearily; “but you know another school couldn’t possibly be open to me until next fall—­five months from now.”

She threw her head back upon the palm of her hand.  “I’m so tired—­ so very tired of it all.  What’s the use of struggling?  What am I struggling for?”

“What are you struggling fur?” the doctor repeated.  “Why, to get shed of your pop and all them kids out at the Getz farm that wears out your young life workin’ for ’em!  That’s what!  And to have some freedom and money of your own—­to have a little pleasure now and ag’in!  I tell you, Tillie, I don’t want to see you goin’ out there to that farm ag’in!”

“Do you think I should dare to run away to the Normal?” she asked fearfully.

The doctor tilted back his hat and scratched his head.

“Leave me to think it over oncet, Tillie, and till to-morrow mornin’ a’ready I’ll give you my answer.  My conscience won’t give me the dare to adwise you offhand in a matter that’s so serious like what this is.”

“Father will want to make me go out to the farm with him this evening, I am sure,” she said; “and when once I am out there, I shall not have either the spirit or the chance to get away, I’m afraid.”

The doctor shook his head despondently.  “We certainly are up ag’in’ it!  I can’t see no way out.”

“There is no way out,” Tillie said in a strangely quiet voice.  “Doc,” she added after an instant, laying her hand on his rough one and pressing it, “although I have failed in all that you have tried to help me to be and to do, I shall never forget to be grateful to you—­my best and kindest friend!”