"If I say I ain't buyin' her her aus styer, Absalom Puntz nor no other
feller would take her."

An "aus styer" is the household outfit always given to a bride by her
father.

"Well, to be sure," granted Mrs. Getz, "I'd like keepin' Tillie home to
help me out with the work still. I didn't see how I was ever goin' to
get through without her. But I thought when Absalom Puntz begin to come
Sundays, certainly you'd be fur her havin' him. I was sayin' to her
only this mornin' that if she didn't want to dishearten Absalom from
comin' to set up with her, she'd have to take more notice to him and
not act so dopplig with him--like as if she didn't care whether or no
he made up to her. I tole her I'd think, now, she'd be wonderful
pleased at his wantin' her, and him so well-fixed. Certainly I never
conceited you'd be ag'in' it. Tillie she didn't answer nothin'.
Sometimes I do now think Tillie's some different to what other girls
is."

"I'd be glad," said Jacob Getz in a milder tone, "if she ain't set on
havin' him. I was some oneasy she might take it a little hard when I
tole her she darsent get married."

"Och, Tillie she never takes nothin' hard," Mrs. Getz answered easily.
"She ain't never ast me you goin' to furnish fur her. She don't take no
interest. She's so funny that way. I think to myself, still, Tillie is,
now, a little dumm!"

It happened that while this dialogue was taking place, Tillie was in
the room above the kitchen, putting the two most recently arrived Getz
babies to bed; and as she sat near the open register with a baby on her
lap, every word that passed between her father and stepmother was
perfectly audible to her.

With growing bitterness she listened to her father's frank avowal of
his selfish designs. At the same time she felt a thrill of exultation,
as she thought of the cherished secret locked in her breast--hidden the
more securely from those with whom she seemed to live nearest. How
amazed they would be, her stolid, unsuspicious parents, when they
discovered that she had been secretly studying and, with Miss
Margaret's help, preparing herself for the high calling of a teacher!
One more year, now, and she would be ready, Miss Margaret assured her,
to take the county superintendent's examination for a certificate to
teach. Then good-by to household drudgery and the perpetual
self-sacrifice that robbed her of all that was worth while in life.

With a serene mind, Tillie rose, with the youngest