rful little household worker, Tillie, when very much
tired out, was apt to drop dishes; and absent-mindedly she would put
her sunbonnet instead of the bread into the oven, or pour molasses
instead of batter on the griddle. Such misdemeanors were always
plaintively reported by Mrs. Getz to Tillie's father, who, without
fail, conscientiously applied what he considered the undoubted cure.

In practising the strenuous economy prescribed by her husband, Mrs.
Getz had to manoeuver very skilfully to keep her children decently
clothed, and Tillie in this matter was a great help to her; for the
little girl possessed a precocious skill in combining a pile of patches
into a passably decent dress or coat for one of her little brothers or
sisters. Nevertheless, it was invariably Tillie who was slighted in the
small expenditures that were made each year for the family clothing.
The child had always really preferred that the others should have "new
things" rather than herself--until Miss Margaret came; and now, before
Miss Margaret's daintiness, she felt ashamed of her own shabby
appearance and longed unspeakably for fresh, pretty clothes. Tillie
knew perfectly well that her father had plenty of money to buy them for
her if he would. But she never thought of asking him or her stepmother
for anything more than what they saw fit to give her.

The Getz family was a perfectly familiar type among the German farming
class of southeastern Pennsylvania. Jacob Getz, though spoken of in the
neighborhood as being "wonderful near," which means very penurious, and
considered by the more gentle-minded Amish and Mennonites of the
township to be "overly strict" with his family and "too ready with the
strap still," was nevertheless highly respected as one who worked hard
and was prosperous, lived economically, honestly, and in the fear of
the Lord, and was "laying by."

The Getz farm was typical of the better sort to be found in that
county. A neat walk, bordered by clam shells, led from a wooden gate to
the porch of a rather large, and severely plain frame house, facing the
road. Every shutter on the front and sides of the building was tightly
closed, and there was no sign of life about the place. A stranger,
ignorant of the Pennsylvania Dutch custom of living in the kitchen and
shutting off the "best rooms,"--to be used in their mustiness and stiff
unhomelikeness on Sunday only,--would have thought the house
temporarily empty. It was forbiddingly