s he spoke and almost pulled her to the store door.

"Do it, Tillie!" cried Fairchilds, stepping after them across the
store. "Present your resignation before they have a chance to vote you
out! Do it!" he said eagerly.

Tillie looked from one to the other of the two men before her,
excitement sparkling in her eyes, her breath coming short and fast.

"I will!"

Turning away, she ran down the steps, sped across the street, and
disappeared in the hotel.

The doctor expressed his overflowing feelings by giving Fairchilds a
resounding slap on the shoulders. "By gum, I'd like to be behind the
skeens and witness Jake Getz gettin' fooled ag'in! This is the most fun
I had since I got 'em to wote you five dollars a month extry, Teacher!"
he chuckled. "Golly! I'm glad you got here in time! It was certainly,
now," he added piously, "the hand of Providence that led you!"

XXVI

TILLIE'S LAST FIGHT

"We are now ready to wote fer the teacher fer William Penn fer the
spring term," announced the president of the Board, when all the
preliminary business of the meeting had been disposed of; "and before
we perceed to that dooty, we will be glad to hear any remarks."

The members looked at Mr. Getz, and he promptly rose to his feet to
make the speech which all were expecting from him--the speech which was
to sum up the reasons why his daughter should not be reelected for
another term to William Penn. As all these reasons had been expounded
many times over in the past few months, to each individual school
director, Mr. Getz's statements to-night were to be merely a more
forcible repetition of his previous arguments.

But scarcely had he cleared his throat to begin, when there was a knock
on the door; it opened, and, to their amazement, Tillie walked into the
room. Her eyes sparkling, her face flushed, her head erect, she came
straight across the room to the table about which the six educational
potentates were gathered.

That she had come to plead her own cause, to beg to be retained at her
post, was obviously the object of this intrusion upon the sacred
privacy of their weighty proceedings.

Had that, in very truth, been her purpose in coming to them, she would
have found little encouragement in the countenances before her. Every
one of them seemed to stiffen into grim disapproval of her unfilial act
in thus publicly opposing her parent.

But there was something in the girl's presence as she stood before
them, some