Part 28 (1/2)
”May I see!”
He bent to look at her book, pressing it open with his palm, and the movement brought his hand in contact with hers. Tillie felt for an instant as if she were going to swoon, so strangely delicious was the shock.
”'Hiawatha,'” he said, all unconscious of the tempest in the little soul apparently so close to him, yet in reality so immeasurably far away. ”Do you enjoy it?” he inquired curiously.
”Oh, yes”; then quickly she added, ”I am parsing it.”
”Oh!” There was a faint disappointment in his tone.
”But,” she confessed, ”I read it all through the first day I began to pa.r.s.e it, and--and I wish I was parsing something else, because I keep reading this instead of parsing it, and--”
”You enjoy the story and the poetry?” he questioned.
”But a body mustn't read just for pleasure,” she said timidly; ”but for instruction; and this 'Hiawatha' is a temptation to me.”
”What makes you think you ought not to read 'just for pleasure'?”
”That would be a vanity. And we Mennonites are loosed from the things of the world.”
”Do you never do anything just for the pleasure of it?”
”When pleasure and duty go hand in hand, then pleasure is not displeasing to G.o.d. But Christ, you know, did not go about seeking pleasure. And we try to follow him in all things.”
”But, child, has not G.o.d made the world beautiful for our pleasure? Has he not given us appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions for our pleasure?--minds and hearts and bodies constructed for pleasure?”
”Has he made anything for pleasure apart from usefulness?” Tillie asked earnestly, suddenly forgetting her shyness.
”But when a thing gives pleasure it is serving the highest possible use,” he insisted. ”It is blasphemous to close your nature to the pleasures G.o.d has created for you. Blasphemous!”
”Those thoughts have come to me still,” said Tillie. ”But I know they were sent to me by the Enemy.”
”'The Enemy'?”
”The Enemy of our souls.”
”Oh!” he nodded; then abruptly added, ”Now do you know, little girl, I wouldn't let HIM bother me at this stage of the game, if I were you!
He's a back number, really!” He checked himself, remembering how dangerous such heresies were in New Canaan. ”Don't you find it dull working alone?” he asked hastily, ”and rather uphill?”
”It is often very hard.”
”Often? Then you have been doing it for some time?”
”Yes,” Tillie answered hesitatingly. No one except the doctor shared her secret with Miss Margaret. Self-concealment had come to be the habit of her life--her instinct for self-preservation. And yet, the teacher's evident interest, his presence so close to her, brought all her soul to her lips. She had a feeling that if she could overcome her shyness, she would be able to speak to him as unrestrainedly, as truly, as she talked in her letters to Miss Margaret.
”Do you have no help at all?” he pursued.
Could she trust him with the secret of Miss Margaret's letters? The habit of secretiveness was too strong upon her. ”There is no one here to help me--unless YOU would sometimes,” she timidly answered.
”I am at your service always. Nothing could give me greater pleasure.”
”Thank you.” Her face flushed with delight.