“I’d be glad,” said Jacob Getz in a milder tone, “if she ain’t set on havin’ him.  I was some oneasy she might take it a little hard when I tole her she darsent get married.”

“Och, Tillie she never takes nothin’ hard,” Mrs. Getz answered easily.  “She ain’t never ast me you goin’ to furnish fur her.  She don’t take no interest.  She’s so funny that way.  I think to myself, still, Tillie is, now, a little dumm!”

It happened that while this dialogue was taking place, Tillie was in the room above the kitchen, putting the two most recently arrived Getz babies to bed; and as she sat near the open register with a baby on her lap, every word that passed between her father and stepmother was perfectly audible to her.

With growing bitterness she listened to her father’s frank avowal of his selfish designs.  At the same time she felt a thrill of exultation, as she thought of the cherished secret locked in her breast—­hidden the more securely from those with whom she seemed to live nearest.  How amazed they would be, her stolid, unsuspicious parents, when they discovered that she had been secretly studying and, with Miss Margaret’s help, preparing herself for the high calling of a teacher!  One more year, now, and she would be ready, Miss Margaret assured her, to take the county superintendent’s examination for a certificate to teach.  Then good-by to household drudgery and the perpetual self-sacrifice that robbed her of all that was worth while in life.

With a serene mind, Tillie rose, with the youngest baby in her arms, and tenderly tucked it in its little bed.

XIII

EZRA HERR, PEDAGOGUE

It was a few days later, at the supper-table, that Tillie’s father made an announcement for which she was not wholly unprepared.

“I’m hirin’ you out this winter, Tillie, at the hotel.  Aunty Em says she’s leavin’ both the girls go to school again this winter and she’ll need hired help.  She’ll pay me two dollars a week fur you.  She’ll pay it to me and I’ll buy you what you need, still, out of it.  You’re goin’ till next Monday.”

Tillie’s heart leaped high with pleasure at this news.  She was fond of her Aunty Em; she knew that life at the country hotel would be varied and interesting in comparison with the dull, grubbing existence of her own home; she would have to work very hard, of course, but not so hard, so unceasingly, as under her father’s eye; and she would have absolute freedom to devote her spare time to her books.  The thought of escaping from her father’s watchfulness, and the prospect of hours of safe and uninterrupted study, filled her with secret joy.

“I tole Aunty Em she’s not to leave you waste no time readin’; when she don’t need you, you’re to come home and help mom still.  Mom she says she can’t get through the winter sewin’ without you.  Well, Aunty Em she says you can sew evenin’s over there at the HOtel, on the childern’s clo’es.  Mom she can easy get through the other work without you, now Sallie’s goin’ on thirteen.  Till December a’ready Sally’ll be thirteen.  And the winter work’s easy to what the summer is.  In summer, to be sure, you’ll have to come home and help me and mom.  But in winter I’m hirin’ you out.”