“Mind Tillie!” laughed Mr. Wackernagel, suddenly, “lookin’ scared at the way yous are all talkin’ up to Teacher!  Tillie she’s afraid of you,” he explained to Mr. Fairchilds.  “She ain’t never got her tongue with her when there’s strangers.  Ain’t, Tillie?”

Tillie’s burning face was bent over her plate, and she did not attempt to answer.  Mr. Fairchilds’ eyes rested for an instant on the delicate, sensitive countenance of the girl.  But his attention was diverted by an abrupt exclamation from Mrs. Wackernagel.

“Oh, Abe!” she suddenly cried, “you ain’t tole Teacher yet about the Albright sisters astin’ you, on market, what might your name be!”

The tone in which this serious omission was mentioned indicated that it was an anecdote treasured among the family archives.

“Now, I would mebbe of forgot that!” almost in consternation said Mr. Wackernagel.  “Well,” he began, concentrating his attention upon the teacher, “it was this here way.  The two Miss Albrights they had bought butter off of us, on market, for twenty years back a’ready, and all that time we didn’t know what was their name, and they didn’t know ourn; fur all, I often says to mom, ’Now I wonder what’s the name of them two thin little women.’  Well, you see, I was always a wonderful man fur my jokes.  Yes, I was wery fond of makin’ a joke, still.  So here one day the two sisters come along and bought their butter, and then one of ’em she says, ’Excuse me, but here I’ve been buyin’ butter off of yous fur this twenty years back a’ready and I ain’t never heard your name.  What might your name be?’ Now I was such a man fur my jokes, still, so I says to her”—­Mr. Wackernagel’s whole face twinkled with amusement, and his shoulders shook with laughter as he contemplated the joke he had perpetrated—­“I says, ‘Well, it might be Gener’l Jackson’”—­ laughter again choked his utterance, and the stout form of Mrs. Wackernagel also was convulsed with amusement, while Amanda and Rebecca giggled appreciatively.  Tillie and the doctor alone remained unaffected. “‘It might be Gener’l Jackson,’ I says.  ’But it ain’t.  It’s Abe Wackernagel,’ I says.  You see,” he explained, “she ast me what might my name be.—­See?—­and I says ’It might be Jackson’—­might be, you know, because she put it that way, what might it be.  ‘But it ain’t,’ I says.  ‘It’s Wackernagel.’”

Mr. and Mrs. Wackernagel and their daughters leaned back in their chairs and gave themselves up to prolonged and exuberant laughter, in which the teacher obligingly joined as well as he was able.

When this hilarity had subsided, Mr. Wackernagel turned to Mr. Fairchilds with a question.  “Are you mebbe feelin’ oneasy, Teacher, about meetin’ the school directors to-night?  You know they meet here in the HOtel parlor at seven o’clock to take a look at you; and if you suit, then you and them signs the agreement.”

“And if I don’t suit?”