s she went on with her work.
Presently she spoke again. "This after, a lady agent come along. She
had such a complexion lotion. She talked near a half-hour. She was,
now, a beautiful conversationist! I just set and listened. Then she was
some spited that I wouldn't buy a box of complexion lotion off of her.
But she certainly was, now, a beautiful conversationist!"
The advent of an agent in the neighborhood was always a noteworthy
event, and Tillie's utterly indifferent reception of the news that
to-day one had "been along" made Mrs. Getz look at her wonderingly.
"Are you too sick to take interest?" she asked.
The child made no answer. The woman rose to put her potatoes on the
stove.
It was an hour later when, as Tillie still lay motionless on the
settee, and Mrs. Getz was dishing up the supper and putting it on the
table, which stood near the wall at one end of the kitchen, Mr. Getz
came in, tired, dirty, and hungry, from the celery-beds.
The child opened her eyes at the familiar and often dreaded step, and
looked up at him as he came and stood over her.
"What's the matter? What's hurtin' you, Tillie?" he asked, an unwonted
kindness in his voice as he saw how ill the little girl looked.
"I don'--know," Tillie whispered, her heavy eyelids falling again.
"You don' know! You can't be so worse if you don' know what's hurtin'
you! Have you fever, or the headache, or whatever?"
He laid his rough hand on her forehead and passed it over her cheek.
"She's some feverish," he said, turning to his wife, who was busy at
the stove. "Full much so!"
"She had the cold a little, and I guess she's took more to it," Mrs.
Getz returned, bearing the fried potatoes across the kitchen to the
table.
"I heard the Doc talkin' there's smallpox handy to us, only a mile away
at New Canaan," said Getz, a note of anxiety in his voice that made the
sick child wearily marvel. Why was he anxious about her? she wondered.
It wasn't because he liked her, as Miss Margaret did. He was afraid of
catching smallpox himself, perhaps. Or he was afraid she would be
unable to help him to-morrow, and maybe for many days, out in the
celery-beds. That was why he spoke anxiously--not because he liked her
and was sorry.
No bitterness was mingled with Tillie's quite matter-of-fact acceptance
of these conclusions.
"It would be a good much trouble to us if she was took down with the
smallpox," Mrs. Getz's tired voice replied.
"I guess not a
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