"Well!" was Jake Getz's greeting as he entered the kitchen. "Em!" he nodded to his sister. "Well, Tillie!"
There was a note of affection in his greeting of his daughter. Tillie realized that her father missed her presence at home almost as much as he missed the work that she did. The nature of his regard for her was a mystery that had always puzzled the girl. How could one be constantly hurting and thwarting a person whom one cared for?
Tillie went up to him dutifully and held out her hand. He took it and bent to kiss her.
"Are you well? You're lookin' some pale. And your hair's strubbly [untidy]."
"She's been sewin' too steady on them clo'es fur your childern," said Aunty Em, quickly. "It gives her such a pain in her side still to set and sew. I ain't leavin' her set up every night to sew no more! You can just take them clo'es home, Jake. They ain't done, and they won't get done here."
"Do you mebbe leave her set up readin' books or such pamp'lets, ain't?" Mr. Getz inquired.
"I make her go to bed early still," Mrs. Wackernagel said evasively, though her Mennonite conscience reproached her for such want of strict candor.
"That dude teacher you got stayin' here mebbe gives her things to read, ain't?" Mr. Getz pursued his suspicions.
"He's never gave her nothin' that I seen him," Mrs. Wackernagel affirmed.
"Well, mind you don't leave her waste time readin'. She ain't to."