Tillie: A Mennonite Maid | Page 8

fell on Miss
Margaret's shoulder as she broke into wildest crying. Her body
quivered with her gasping sobs and her little hands clutched
convulsively at Miss Margaret's gown.
"You poor little thing!" whispered Miss Margaret, her arms about the
child; "WHAT'S the matter with you, honey? There, there, don't cry
so--tell me what's the matter."
It was such bliss to be petted like this--to feel Miss Margaret's arms
about her and hear that loved voice so close to her!--for the last time!
Never again after this moment would she be liked and caressed! Her
heart was breaking and she could not answer for her sobbing.
"Tillie, dear, sit down here in my chair until I send the other children
out to recess--and then you and I can have a talk by ourselves, "Miss
Margaret said, leading the child a step to her arm-chair on the platform.
She stood beside the chair, holding Tillie's throbbing head to her side,
while she tapped the bell which dismissed the children.
"Now," she said, when the door had closed on the last of them and she
had seated herself and drawn Tillie to her again, "tell me what you are
crying for, little girlie."
"Miss Margaret!" Tillie's words came in hysterical, choking gasps;
"you won't never like me no more when I tell you what's happened,
Miss Margaret!"
"Why, dear me, Tillie, what on earth is it?"
"I didn't mean to do it, Miss Margaret! And I'll redd up for you, Fridays,

still, till it's paid for a'ready, Miss Margaret, if you'll leave me, won't
you, please? Oh, won't you never like me no more?"
"My dear little goosie, what IS the matter with you? Come," she said,
taking the little girl's hand reassuringly in both her own, "tell me,
child."
A certain note of firmness in her usually drawling Southern voice
checked a little the child's hysterical emotion. She gulped the choking
lump in her throat and answered.
"I was readin' 'Ivanhoe' in bed last night, and pop woke up, and seen
my candle-light, and he conceited he'd look once and see what it was,
and then he seen me, and he don't uphold to novel-readin', and
he--he--"
"Well?" Miss Margaret gently urged her faltering speech.
"He whipped me and--and burnt up your Book!"
"Whipped you again!" Miss Margaret's soft voice indignantly
exclaimed. "The br--" she checked herself and virtuously closed her
lips. "I'm so sorry, Tillie, that I got you into such a scrape!"
Tillie thought Miss Margaret could not have heard her clearly.
"He--burnt up your book yet, Miss Margaret!" she found voice to
whisper again.
"Indeed! I ought to make him pay for it!"
"He didn't know it was yourn, Miss Margaret--he don't uphold to
novel-readin', and if he'd know it was yourn he'd have you put out of
William Penn, so I tole him I lent it off of Elviny Dinkleberger--and I'll
help you Fridays till it's paid for a'ready, if you'll leave me, Miss
Margaret!"
She lifted pleading eyes to the teacher's face, to see therein a look of
anger such as she had never before beheld in that gentle
countenance--for Miss Margaret had caught sight of the marks of the
strap on Tillie's bare neck, and she was flushed with indignation at the
outrage. But Tillie, interpreting the anger to be against herself, turned
as white as death, and a look of such hopeless woe came into her face
that Miss Margaret suddenly realized the dread apprehension torturing
the child.
"Come here to me, you poor little thing!" she tenderly exclaimed,
drawing the little girl into her lap and folding her to her heart. "I don't
care anything about the BOOK, honey! Did you think I would? There,

there--don't cry so, Tillie, don't cry. I love you, don't you know I
do!"--and Miss Margaret kissed the child's quivering lips, and with her
own fragrant handkerchief wiped the tears from her cheeks, and with
her soft, cool fingers smoothed back the hair from her hot forehead.
And this child, who had never known the touch of a mother's hand and
lips, was transported in that moment from the suffering of the past
night and morning, to a happiness that made this hour stand out to her,
in all the years that followed, as the one supreme experience of her
childhood.
Ineffable tenderness of the mother heart of woman!
That afternoon, when Tillie got home from school,--ten minutes late
according to the time allowed her by her father,--she was quite unable
to go out to help him in the field. Every step of the road home had been
a dragging burden to her aching limbs, and the moment she reached the
farm-house, she tumbled in a little heap upon the kitchen settee and lay
there, exhausted and white, her eyes shining