“She’s too growed up fur to be punished, Jake, and you know it.”

“Till she’s too growed up to obey her pop, she’ll get punished,” he affirmed.  “Where’s the good of your religion, I’d like to know, Em—­settin’ a child on to defy her parent?  And you, Tillie, you stole that money off of me!  Your earnin’s ain’t yourn till you’re twenty-one.  Is them New Mennonite principles to take what ain’t yourn?  It ain’t only the fifty cents I mind—­it’s your disobedience and your stealin’.”

“Oh, father! it wasn’t stealing!”

“Of course it wasn’t stealin’—­takin’ what you earnt yourself—­ whether you are seventeen instead of twenty-one!” her aunt warmly assured her.

“Now look-ahere, Em!  If yous are goin’ to get her so spoilt fur me, over here, she ain’t stayin’ here.  I’ll take her home!”

“Well, take her!” diplomatically answered his sister.  “I can get Abe’s niece over to East Donegal fur one-seventy-five.  She’d be glad to come!”

Mr. Getz at this drew in his sails a bit.  “I’ll give her one more chancet,” he compromised.  “But I ain’t givin’ her no second chancet if she does somepin again where she ain’t got darst to do.  Next time I hear of her disobeyin’ me, home she comes.  I’d sooner lose the money than have her spoilt fur me.  Now look-ahere, Tillie, you go get them new caps and bring ’em here.”

Tillie turned away to obey.

“Now, Jake, what are you up to?” his sister demanded as the girl left the room.

“Do you suppose I’d leave her keep them caps she stole the money off of me to buy?” Getz retorted.

“She earnt the money!” maintained Mrs. Wackernagel.

“The money wasn’t hern, and I’d sooner throw them caps in the rag-bag than leave her wear ’em when she disobeyed me to buy ’em.”

“Jake Getz, you’re a reg’lar tyrant!  You mind me of Herod yet—­and of Punshus Palate!”

“Ain’t I followin’ Scripture when I train up my child to obey to her parent?” he wanted to know.

“Now look-ahere, Jake; I’ll give you them fifty cents and make a present to Tillie of them caps if you’ll leave her keep ’em.”

But in spite of his yearning for the fifty cents, Mr. Getz firmly refused this offer.  Paternal discipline must be maintained even at a financial loss.  Then, too, penurious and saving as he was, he was strictly honest, and he would not have thought it right to let his sister pay for his child’s necessary wearing-apparel.

“No, Tillie’s got to be punished.  When I want her to have new caps, I’ll buy ’em fur her.”

Tillie reentered the room with the precious bits of linen tenderly wrapped up in tissue paper.  Her pallor was now gone, and her eyes were red with crying.  She came to her father’s side and handed him the soft bundle.

“These here caps,” he said to her, “mom can use fur night-caps, or what.  When you buy somepin unknownst to me, Tillie, I ain’t leavin’ you keep it!  Now go ’long back to your dishes.  And next Saturday, when I come, I want to find them clo’es done, do you understand?”