Jake Getz realized, as with a sort of dull wonder his eyes followed her, that there was a something in his daughter's face this day, and in the bearing of her young frame as she walked before him, which he was not wont to see, which he did not understand, and with which he felt he could not cope. The vague sense of uneasiness which it gave him strengthened his resolve to crush, with a strong hand, this budding insubordination.
Two uneventful weeks passed by, during which Tillie's quiet and dutiful demeanor almost disarmed her father's threatening watchfulness of her; so that when, one Sunday afternoon, at four o'clock, she returned from a walk to her Aunty Em Wackernagel's, clad in the meek garb of the New Mennonites, his amazement at her intrepidity was even greater than his anger.
The younger children, in high glee at what to them was a most comical transformation in their elder sister, danced around her with shrieks of laughter, crying out at the funny white cap which she wore, and the prim little three-cornered cape falling over her bosom, designed modestly to cover the vanity of woman's alluring form.
Mrs. Getz, mechanically moving about the kitchen to get the supper, paused in her work only long enough to remark with stupid astonishment, "Did you, now, get religion, Tillie?"
"Yes, ma'am. I've gave myself up."
"Where did you come by the plain dress?"
"Aunty Em bought it for me and helped me make it."
Her father had followed her in from the porch and now came up to her as she stood in the middle of the kitchen. The children scattered at his approach.
"You go up-stairs and take them clo'es off!" he commanded. "I ain't leavin' you wear 'em one hour in this house!"
"I have no others to put on, pop," Tillie gently answered, her soft eyes meeting his with an absence of fear which puzzled and baffled him.