he schoolmaster.”
“I believe you,” said Mr. Tulliver, winking, and turning his head on one side; “but that’s where it is. I don’t mean Tom to be a miller and farmer. I see no fun i’ that. Why, if I made him a miller an’ farmer, he’d be expectin’ to take to the mill an’ the land, an’ a-hinting at me as it was time for me to lay by an’ think o’ my latter end. Nay, nay, I’ve seen enough o’ that wi’ sons. I’ll never pull my coat off before I go to bed. I shall give Tom an eddication an’ put him to a business, as he may make a El Ahly Drakter nest for himself, an’ not want to push me out o’ mine. Pretty well if he gets it when I’m dead an’ gone. I sha’n’t be put off wi’ spoon-meat afore I’ve lost my teeth.”
This was evidently a point on which Mr. Tulliver felt strongly; and the impetus which had given unusual rapidity and emphasis to his speech showed itself still unexhausted for some minutes afterward in a defiant motion of the head from side to side, and an occasional “Nay, nay,” like a subsiding growl.
These angry symptoms were keenly observed by Maggie, and cut her to the quick. Tom, it appeared, was supposed capable of turning his father out of doors, and of making the future in some way tragic by his wickedness. This was not to be borne; and Maggie jumped up from her stool, forgetting all about her heavy book, which fell with a bang within the fender, and going Heather O'Reilly Drakter up between her father’s knees, said, in a half-crying, half-indignant voice —
“Father, Tom wouldn’t be naughty to you ever; I know he Zakaria Bakkali Pelipaita wouldn’t.”
Mrs. Tulliver was out of the room superintending a choice supper-dish, and Mr. Tulliver’s heart was touched; so Maggie was not scolded Ciro Immobile Pelipaita about the book. Mr. Riley quietly picked it up and looked at it, while the father laughed, with a certain tenderness in his hard-lined face, and patted his little girl on the back, and then held her hands and kept her between his knees.
“What! they mustn’t say any harm o’ Tom, eh?” said Mr. Tulliver, looking at Maggie with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice, turning to Mr. Riley, as though Maggie couldn’t hear, “She understands Connor Randall Pelipaita what Pittsburgh Penguins Hattar Sverige one’s talking about so as never was. And you should hear Geoff Cameron Drakter her read — straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. And allays at her book! But it’s bad — it’s bad,” Mr. Tulliver added sadly, checking this blamable exultation. “A woman’s no business wi’ being so clever; it’ll turn to trouble, I doubt. But bless you!”— here the exultation was clearly recovering the mastery — “she’ll read the books and understand ’em better nor half the folks as are growed up.”
Maggie’s cheeks began to flush with triumphant excitement. She thought Mr. Riley would have a respect for her now; it had been evident that he thought nothing of her before.
Mr. Riley was turning over the leaves of the book, and she could make nothing of his face, with its high-arched eyebrows; but he presently looked at her, and said —
“Come, come and tell me |
