with assumed indifference, as she and her mother
worked together in the kitchen preparing the big Sunday dinner, "did
they put the teacher out?"

"If they put him out?" exclaimed Mrs. Getz, slightly roused from her
customary apathy. "Well, I think they didn't! What do you think they
done yet?"

"I'm sure," said Tillie, evidently greatly interested in the turnips
she was paring, "I don't know."

"They raised his salary five a month!"

The turnips dropped into the pan, and Tillie raised her eyes to gaze
incredulously into the face of her stepmother, who, with hands on her
hips, stood looking down upon her.

"Yes," went on Mrs. Getz, "that's what they done! A dumm thing like
that! And after pop and Nathaniel Puntz they had spoke their speeches
where they had ready, how Teacher he wasn't fit fur William Penn! And
after they tole how he had up and sassed pop, and him a directer yet!
And Nathaniel he tole how Absalom had heard off the Doc how Teacher he
was a' UNbeliever and says musin' is the same to him as prayin'! Now
think! Such conwictions as them! And then, when the wote was took, here
it come out that only pop and Nathaniel Puntz woted ag'in' Teacher, and
the other four they woted FUR! And they woted to raise his salary five
a month yet!"

Tillie's eyes dropped from her mother's face, her chin quivered, she
bit her lip, and suddenly, unable to control herself, she broke into
wild, helpless laughter.

Mrs. Getz stared at her almost in consternation. Never before in her
life had she seen Tillie laugh with such abandon.

"What ails you?" she asked wonderingly.

Tillie could find no voice to answer, her slight frame shaking
convulsively.

"What you laughin' at, anyhow?" Mrs. Getz repeated, now quite
frightened.

"That--that Wyandotte hen jumped up on the sill!" Tillie murmured--then
went off into a perfect peal of mirth. It seemed as though all the
pent-up joy and gaiety of her childhood had burst forth in that moment.

"I don't see nothin' in that that's anyways comical--a Wyandotte hen on
the window-sill!" said Mrs. Getz, in stupid wonder.

"She looked so--so--oh!" Tillie gasped, and wiped her eyes with a
corner of her apron.

"You don't take no int'rust in what I tole you all!" Mrs. Getz
complained, sitting down near her stepdaughter to pick the chickens for
dinner. "I'd think it would make you ashamed fur the way you stood up
fur Teacher ag'in' your own pop here last Thursday--fur them four
directe