“To be sure, he’d have to be a funny man if he wasn’t concerned when his own child’s sick, Tillie.  I don’t give him much for that.”

“But it always puzzled me, Aunty Em—­if father’s concerned to see me sick or suffering, why will he himself deliberately make me suffer more than I ever suffered in any sickness?  I never could understand that.”

“He always thinks he’s doin’ his duty by you.  That we must give him.  Och, my! there’s his wagon stoppin’ now!  Go on out to the stable, Tillie!  Quick!”

“Aunty Em!” Tillie faltered, “I’d sooner stay and have it done with now, than wait and have it hanging over me all the week till next Saturday.”

There was another reason for her standing her ground and facing it out.  Ever since she had yielded to the temptation to buy the caps and let her hair curl about her face, her conscience had troubled her for her vanity; and a vague feeling that in suffering her father’s displeasure she would be expiating her sin made her almost welcome his coming this morning.

There was the familiar heavy tread in the bar-room which adjoined the kitchen.  Tillie flushed and paled by turns as it drew near, and her aunt rolled out the paste with a vigor and an emphasis that expressed her inward agitation.  Even Fairchilds, in the next room, felt himself infected with the prevailing suspense.

“Well!” was Jake Getz’s greeting as he entered the kitchen.  “Em!” he nodded to his sister.  “Well, Tillie!”

There was a note of affection in his greeting of his daughter.  Tillie realized that her father missed her presence at home almost as much as he missed the work that she did.  The nature of his regard for her was a mystery that had always puzzled the girl.  How could one be constantly hurting and thwarting a person whom one cared for?

Tillie went up to him dutifully and held out her hand.  He took it and bent to kiss her.

“Are you well?  You’re lookin’ some pale.  And your hair’s strubbly [untidy].”

“She’s been sewin’ too steady on them clo’es fur your childern,” said Aunty Em, quickly.  “It gives her such a pain in her side still to set and sew.  I ain’t leavin’ her set up every night to sew no more!  You can just take them clo’es home, Jake.  They ain’t done, and they won’t get done here.”

“Do you mebbe leave her set up readin’ books or such pamp’lets, ain’t?” Mr. Getz inquired.

“I make her go to bed early still,” Mrs. Wackernagel said evasively, though her Mennonite conscience reproached her for such want of strict candor.

“That dude teacher you got stayin’ here mebbe gives her things to read, ain’t?” Mr. Getz pursued his suspicions.

“He’s never gave her nothin’ that I seen him,” Mrs. Wackernagel affirmed.

“Well, mind you don’t leave her waste time readin’.  She ain’t to.”

“You needn’t trouble, Jake!”

“Well,” said Jake, “I’ll leave them clo’es another week, and mebbe Tillie’ll feel some better and can get ’em done.  Mom won’t like it when I come without ’em this mornin’.  She’s needin’ ’em fur the childern, and she thought they’d be done till this morning a’ready.”