and uncompromisingly
spick-and-span.

A grass-plot, ornamented with a circular flower-bed, extended a short
distance on either side of the house. But not too much land was put to
such unproductive use; and the small lawn was closely bordered by a
corn-field on the one side and on the other by an apple orchard. Beyond
stretched the tobacco--and wheat-fields, and behind the house were the
vegetable garden and the barn-yard.

Arrived at home by half-past three, Tillie hid her "Ivanhoe" under the
pillow of her bed when she went up-stairs to change her faded calico
school dress for the yet older garment she wore at her work.

If she had not been obliged to change her dress, she would have been
puzzled to know how to hide her book, for she could not, without
creating suspicion, have gone up-stairs in the daytime. In New Canaan
one never went up-stairs during the day, except at the rare times when
obliged to change one's clothes. Every one washed at the pump and used
the one family roller-towel hanging on the porch. Miss Margaret, ever
since her arrival in the neighborhood, had been the subject of
wide-spread remark and even suspicion, because she "washed up-stairs"
and even sat up-stairs!--in her bedroom! It was an unheard-of
proceeding in New Canaan.

Tillie helped her father in the celery-beds until dark; then, weary,
but excited at the prospect of her book, she went in from the fields
and up-stairs to the little low-roofed bed-chamber which she shared
with her two half-sisters. They were already in bed and asleep, as was
their mother in the room across the hall, for every one went to bed at
sundown in Canaan Township, and got up at sunrise.

Tillie was in bed in a few minutes, rejoicing in the feeling of the
book under her pillow. Not yet dared she venture to light a candle and
read it--not until she should hear her father's heavy snoring in the
room across the hall.

The candles which she used for this surreptitious reading of
Sunday-school "li-bries" and any other chance literature which fell in
her way, were procured with money paid to her by Miss Margaret for
helping her to clean the school-room on Friday afternoons after school.
Tillie would have been happy to help her for the mere joy of being with
her, but Miss Margaret insisted upon paying her ten cents for each such
service.

The little girl was obliged to resort to a deep-laid plot in order to
do this work for the teacher. It had been her father's custom