baby in her arms,
and tenderly tucked it in its little bed.

XIII

EZRA HERR, PEDAGOGUE

It was a few days later, at the supper-table, that Tillie's father made
an announcement for which she was not wholly unprepared.

"I'm hirin' you out this winter, Tillie, at the hotel. Aunty Em says
she's leavin' both the girls go to school again this winter and she'll
need hired help. She'll pay me two dollars a week fur you. She'll pay
it to me and I'll buy you what you need, still, out of it. You're goin'
till next Monday."

Tillie's heart leaped high with pleasure at this news. She was fond of
her Aunty Em; she knew that life at the country hotel would be varied
and interesting in comparison with the dull, grubbing existence of her
own home; she would have to work very hard, of course, but not so hard,
so unceasingly, as under her father's eye; and she would have absolute
freedom to devote her spare time to her books. The thought of escaping
from her father's watchfulness, and the prospect of hours of safe and
uninterrupted study, filled her with secret joy.

"I tole Aunty Em she's not to leave you waste no time readin'; when she
don't need you, you're to come home and help mom still. Mom she says
she can't get through the winter sewin' without you. Well, Aunty Em she
says you can sew evenin's over there at the HOtel, on the childern's
clo'es. Mom she can easy get through the other work without you, now
Sallie's goin' on thirteen. Till December a'ready Sally'll be thirteen.
And the winter work's easy to what the summer is. In summer, to be
sure, you'll have to come home and help me and mom. But in winter I'm
hirin' you out."

"But Sally ain't as handy as what Tillie is," said Mrs. Getz,
plaintively. "And I don't see how I'm goin' to get through oncet
without Tillie."

"Sally's got to LEARN to be handier, that's all. She's got to get
learnt like what I always learnt Tillie fur you."

Fire flashed in Tillie's soft eyes--a momentary flame of shame and
aversion; if her blinded father had seen and understood, he would have
realized how little, after all, he had ever succeeded in "learning" her
the subservience he demanded of his children.

As for the warning to her aunt, she knew that it would be ignored; that
Aunty Em would never interfere with the use she made of the free time
allowed her, no matter what her father's orders were to the contrary.

"And you ain't to have Absalom Puntz comin' over there Sundays