"Oh! I love her! I love her!" throbbed her little hungry heart.





II

"I'M GOING TO LEARN YOU ONCE!"


Tillie was obliged, when about a half-mile from her father's farm,
to hide her precious book. This she did by pinning her petticoat
into a bag and concealing the book in it. It was in this way that
she always carried home her "li-bries" from Sunday-school, for all
story-book reading was prohibited by her father. It was
uncomfortable walking along the highroad with the book knocking
against her legs at every step, but that was not so painful as her
father's punishment would be did he discover her bringing home a
"novel"! She was not permitted to bring home even a school-book,
and she had greatly astonished Miss Margaret, one day at the
beginning of the term, by asking, "Please, will you leave me let
my books in school? Pop says I darsen't bring 'em home."

"What you can't learn in school, you can do without," Tillie's
father had said. "When you're home you'll work fur your wittles."

Tillie's father was a frugal, honest, hard-working, and very
prosperous Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, who thought he religiously