ere hung her shawl and bonnet, "to get my wages and see me,
Aunty Em--like what he does every Saturday still."

"Well, don't be so dumm, Tillie! That's why I'm sendin' you off!"

"Oh, Aunty Em, I don't want to go away and leave you to take all the
blame for those new caps! And, anyhow, father will stop at Sister
Jennie Hershey's if he don't find me here."

"I won't tell him you're there. And push them curls under your cap, or
Sister Jennie'll be tellin' the meeting, and you'll be set back yet! I
don't know what's come over you, Tillie, to act that vain and
unregenerate!"

"Father will guess I'm at Sister Jennie's, and he'll stop to see."

"That's so, too." Aunty Em thoughtfully considered the situation. "Go
out and hide in the stable, Tillie."

Tillie hesitated as she nervously twisted the strings of her bonnet.
"What's the use of hiding, Aunty Em? I'd have to see him NEXT Saturday."

"He won't be so mad about it till next Saturday."

Tillie shook her head. "He'll keep getting angrier--until he has
satisfied himself by punishing me in some way for spending that money
without leave."

The girl's face was pale, but she spoke very quietly, and her aunt
looked at her curiously.

"Tillie, ain't you afraid of your pop no more?"

"Oh, Aunty Em! YES, I am afraid of him."

"I'm all fidgety myself, thinkin' about how mad he'll be. Dear knows
what YOU must feel yet, Tillie--and what all your little life you've
been feelin', with his fear always hangin' over you still. Sometimes
when I think how my brother Jake trains up his childern!"--indignation
choked her--"I have feelin's that are un-Christlike, Tillie!"

"And yet, Aunty Em," the girl said earnestly, "father does care for me
too--even though he always did think I ought to want nothing else but
to work for him. But he does care for me. The couple of times I was
sick already, he was concerned. I can't forget it."

"To be sure, he'd have to be a funny man if he wasn't concerned when
his own child's sick, Tillie. I don't give him much for THAT."

"But it always puzzled me, Aunty Em--if father's concerned to see me
sick or suffering, why will he himself deliberately make me suffer more
than I ever suffered in any sickness? I never could understand that."

"He always thinks he's doin' his duty by you. That we must give him.
Och, my! there's his wagon stoppin' NOW! Go on out to the stable,
Tillie! Quick!"

"Aunty Em!" Tillie faltered, "I'd sooner stay and have it