Immediately after dinner the teacher went out and did not turn up again until evening, when he retired immediately to the seclusion of his own room.

The mystification of the family at this unaccountably unsocial behavior, their curiosity as to where he had been, their suspense as to what he did when alone so long in his bedroom, reached a tension that was painful.

Promptly at half-past six, Absalom, clad in his Sunday suit, appeared at the hotel, to perform his weekly stint of sitting-up.

As Rebecca always occupied the parlor on Sunday evening with her gentleman friend, there was only left to Absalom and Tillie to sit either in the kitchen or with the assembled family in the sitting-room.  Tillie preferred the latter.  Of course she knew that such respite as the presence of the family gave her was only temporary, for in friendly consideration of what were supposed to be her feelings in the matter, they would all retire early.  Absalom also knowing this, accepted the brief inconvenience of their presence without any marked restiveness.

“Say, Absalom,” inquired the doctor, as the young man took up his post on the settee beside Tillie, sitting as close to her as he could without pushing her off, “how did your pop pass his opinion about the new teacher after the Board meeting Saturday, heh?”

The doctor was lounging in his own special chair by the table, his fat legs crossed and his thumbs thrust into his vest arms.  Amanda idly rocked back and forth in a large luridly painted rocking-chair by the window, and Mrs. Wackernagel sat by the table before an open Bible in which she was not too much absorbed to join occasionally in the general conversation.

“He sayed he was afraid he was some tony,” answered Absalom.  “And,” he added, a reflection in his tone of his father’s suspicious attitude on Saturday night toward Fairchilds, “pop sayed he couldn’t make out what was his conwictions.  He couldn’t even tell right was he a Bible Christian or no.”

“He certainly does, now, have pecooliar views,” agreed the doctor.  “I was talkin’ to him this after—­”

“You was!” exclaimed Amanda, a note of chagrin in her voice.  “Well, I’d like to know where at?  Where had he took himself to?”

“Up to the woods there by the old mill.  I come on him there at five o’clock—­layin’ readin’ and musin’—­when I was takin’ a short cut home through the woods comin’ from Adam Oberholzer’s.”

“Well I never!” cried Amanda.  “And was he out there all by hisself the whole afternoon?” she asked incredulously.

“So much as I know.  Ain’t he, now, a queer feller not to want a girl along when one was so handy?” teased the doctor.

“Well,” retorted Amanda, “I think he’s hard up—­to be spendin’ a whole afternoon readin’!”

“Oh, Doc!” Tillie leaned forward and whispered, “he’s up in his room and perhaps he can hear us through the register!”