Tillie: A Mennonite Maid | Page 9

with fever, her mouth
parched with thirst, her head throbbing with pain--feeling utterly
indifferent to the consequences of her tardiness and her failure to meet
her father in the field.
"Ain't you feelin' good?" her stepmother phlegmatically inquired from
across the room, where she sat with a dish-pan in her lap, paring
potatoes for supper.
"No, ma'am," weakly answered Tillie.
"Pop 'll be looking fur you out in the field."
Tillie wearily closed her eyes and did not answer.
Mrs. Getz looked up from her pan and let her glance rest for an instant
upon the child's white, pained face. "Are you feelin' too mean to go
help pop?"
"Yes, ma'am. I--can't!" gasped Tillie, with a little sob.
"You ain't lookin' good," the woman reluctantly conceded. "Well, I'll
leave you lay a while. Mebbe pop used the strap too hard last night. He
sayed this dinner that he was some uneasy that he used the strap so
hard--but he was that wonderful spited to think you'd set up readin' a
novel-book in the night-time yet! You might of knew you'd ketch an
awful lickin' fur doin' such a dumm thing like what that was. Sammy!"
she called to her little eight-year-old son, who was playing on the
kitchen porch, "you go out and tell pop Tillie she's got sick fur me, and

I'm leavin' her lay a while. Now hurry on, or he'll come in here to see,
once, ain't she home yet, or what. Go on now!"
Sammy departed on his errand, and Mrs. Getz diligently resumed her
potato-paring.
"I don't know what pop'll say to you not comin' out to help," she
presently remarked.
Tillie's head moved restlessly, but she did not speak. She was past
caring what her father might say or do.
Mrs. Getz thoughtfully considered a doubtful potato, and, concluding at
length to discard it, "I guess," she said, throwing it back into the pan,
"I'll let that one; it's some poor. Do you feel fur eatin' any supper?" she
asked. "I'm havin' fried smashed- potatoes and wieners [Frankfort
sausages]. Some days I just don't know what to cook all."
Tillie's lips moved, but gave no sound.
"I guess you're right down sick fur all; ain't? I wonder if pop'll have
Doc in. He won't want to spend any fur that. But you do look wonderful
bad. It's awful onhandy comin' just to-day. I did feel fur sayin' to pop
I'd go to the rewiwal to-night, of he didn't mind. It's a while back
a'ready since I was to a meetin'--not even on a funeral. And they say
they do now make awful funny up at Bethel rewiwal this week. I was
thinkin' I'd go once. But if you can't redd up after supper and help milk
and put the childern to bed, I can't go fur all."
No response from Tillie.
Mrs. Getz sighed her disappointment as 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