At the spiteful sound, life came back to Tillie. Like a wild thing, she sprang between them, seized her father's arm and hung upon it. "Listen to me! Listen! Father! If you strike him again, I'LL MARRY ABSALOM TO-MORROW!"
By inspiration she had hit upon the one argument that would move him.
Her father tried to shake her off, but she clung to his arm with the strength of madness, knowing that if she could make him grasp, even in his passionate anger, the real import of her threat, he would yield to her.
"I'll marry Absalom! I'll marry him to-morrow!" she repeated.
"You darsent—you ain't of age! Let go my arm, or I'll slap you ag'in!"
"I shall be of age in three months! I'll marry Absalom if you go on with this!"
"That suits me!" cried Absalom. "Keep on with it, Jake!"
"If you do, I'll marry him to-morrow!"
There was a look in Tillie's eyes and a ring in her voice that her father had learned to know. Tillie would do what she said.
And here was Absalom "siding along with her" in her unfilial defiance! Jacob Getz wavered. He saw no graceful escape from his difficulty.