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Updated: June 15, 2025
She dwelt upon the thought of it, however, dreamily gazing out of the window near which she sat, into the blue sky of the October afternoon until presently her ear was caught by the sound of Miss Margaret's voice speaking to Absalom Puntz, who stood at the foot of the composition class, now before her on the platform. "You may read your composition, Absalom."
"No use, Tillie," the doctor would report in discouragement, week after week; "we're up against it sure this time! You're losin' William Penn till next month, or I'll eat my hat! A body might as well TRY to eat his hat as move them pig-headed Dutch once they get sot. And they're sot on puttin' you out, all right! You see, your pop and Nathaniel Puntz they just fixed 'em!
Well, a body can't ALWAYS get ahead of a set of stubborn-headed Dutchmen and with Nathaniel Puntz so wonderful thick in with your pop to work ag'in' you, because you won't have that dumm Absalom of hisn!" "What shall I do?" Tillie cried. "I can never, never go back to my old life again that hopeless, dreary drudgery on the farm! I can't, indeed I can't! I won't go back. What shall I do?"
And then, when the wote was took, here it come out that only pop and Nathaniel Puntz woted ag'in' Teacher, and the other four they woted FUR! And they woted to raise his salary five a month yet!" Tillie's eyes dropped from her mother's face, her chin quivered, she bit her lip, and suddenly, unable to control herself, she broke into wild, helpless laughter. Mrs.
"Well, Tillie," the doctor said, with a long sigh, as he came into the store at six o'clock on the eventful evening, and leaned over the counter to talk to the girl, "they're all conwened by now, over there in the hotel parlor. Your pop and Nathaniel Puntz they're lookin' wonderful important.
"Isn't it all beautiful!" Tillie breathed ecstatically. "I've got my certificate and the teacher won't be put out! What did Adam Oberholzer and Joseph Kettering say, Doc?" "I've got them fixed all right! Just you wait, Tillie!" he said mysteriously. "Mebbe us we ain't goin' to have the laugh on your pop and old Nathaniel Puntz! You'll see!
The turnips dropped into the pan, and Tillie raised her eyes to gaze incredulously into the face of her stepmother, who, with hands on her hips, stood looking down upon her. "Yes," went on Mrs. Getz, "that's what they done! A dumm thing like that! And after pop and Nathaniel Puntz they had spoke their speeches where they had ready, how Teacher he wasn't fit fur William Penn!
"Well, Tillie, look-ahere. I spoke somepin to the Doc how I wanted to fetch you somepin along when I come over sometime, and I ast him what, now, he thought you would mebbe like. And he sayed a book. So I got Cousin Sally Puntz to fetch one along fur me from the Methodist Sunday-school li-bry, and here I brung it over to you." He produced a small volume from his coat pocket.
His wife rubbed him down with a crash towel as vigorously as she had washed him, then fastened his shirt, dipped the family comb in the soapy water and began with artistic care to part and comb his hair. "Absalom Puntz he's a nice party, pop. He'll be well-fixed till his pop's passed away a'ready." "You think! Well, now look here, mom!" Mr. Getz spoke with stern decision.
It was when Tillie was seventeen years old a slight, frail girl, with a look in her eyes as of one who lives in two worlds that Absalom Puntz, one Sunday evening in the fall of the year, saw her safe home from meeting and asked permission to "keep comp'ny" with her. A request for permission to "keep comp'ny" with a young lady meant a very definite thing in Canaan Township.
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