"You can't walk to Bast Donegal. It's six miles away."
"Let me think.—Uncle Abe would do anything I asked him—but he wouldn't have time to leave the hotel Saturday morning. And I couldn't make him or Aunty Em understand that I was educated enough to take the examination. But there's the Doc!"
"Of course!" cried Fairchilds. "The Doc isn't afraid of the whole county! Shall I tell him you'll go if he'll come for you?"
"Yes!"
"Good! I'll undertake to promise for him that he'll be there!"
"When father comes home from market and finds me gone!" Tillie said—but there was exultation, rather than fear, in her voice.
"When you show him your certificate, won't that appease him? When he realizes how much more you can earn by teaching than by working for your aunt, especially as he bore none of the expense of giving you your education? It was your own hard labor, and none of his money, that did it! And now I suppose he'll get all the profit of it!" Fairchilds could not quite keep down the rising indignation in his voice.
"No," said Tillie, quietly, though the color burned in her face. "Walter! I'm going to refuse to give father my salary if I am elected to a school. I mean to save my money to go to the Normal—where Miss Margaret is."
"So long as you are under age, he can take it from you, Tillie."
"If the school I teach is near enough for me to live at home, I'll pay my board. More than that I won't do."