TESSIBEL MEETS WALDSTRICKER
The shanty door closed behind Tessibel, and her hand still on the knob,
she hesitated a moment before starting for Mother Moll's. The girl had
kept her promise of the year before, for every week she had caught and
cleaned a mess of fish and carried them up the ravine to the woman's
shanty. But today, Tess wanted to consult the seeress about Andy. She
believed implicitly in the fortune-pot. Hadn't the old, old hag told
her, long ago, when Daddy Skinner was in prison, that the state couldn't
hurt him, and other things, too?
Turning into the lane up the hill, she met Sandy Letts carrying his drag
and a great coil of rope.
"Hello, kid," he greeted her. "How air yer Daddy?"
He eased his load to the ground and straightened up, slowly stretched
his mighty arms, and shrugged the stiffness out of his powerful
shoulders. Sandy and his burden filled most of the path.
Tess, desiring to avoid contact with him, stopped a few paces away.
"Daddy ain't so well these days, Sandy," she answered. "His heart hurts
'im."
"Ain't that too bad?" the man sympathized. "But, then, brat, yer daddy
ain't so young as he were once. Reckon he air not long fer this world.
When yer Daddy croaks, what'll you do, Tess? Ye'll need a home. Ye ought
to be gettin' a man."
The squatter'd stepped forward directly in front of her while he was
urging his suit.
"My daddy ain't old an' he ain't goin' to die, uther," flared Tess, an
angry light in her brown eyes. Oh, how she loathed and hated this fellow
who blocked her way! "You shan't say such things about my daddy! I don't
want any man but 'im." Noting his unshaven cheeks, loose hanging lips,
the lips and his large irregular teeth discolored with tobacco, the girl
drew back with a gesture of instinctive repulsion. "I wouldn't take you
anyway."
Instead of answering her, the squatter placed his great hands upon her
shoulders, and holding her thus at arm's length, looked down at her. Her
straight young figure, glowing face, and flaming eyes under the ruddy
aureole of her hair made a picture of grace, beauty and passion that
would have fascinated a more fastidious observer than Sandy Letts.
"God, girl, but ye air a beauty!" he cried, enraptured.
Tessibel's struggles to get away from the grip of the heavy hands
aroused the evil passions of the man's nature into insistent activity.
"Here, brat, give yer man a kiss," he commanded, and at the words, his
hands slipped from her shoulders, and his strong arms began to close
around her body. His face was so close she had to force her hand in
between his lips and hers. Then she made a desperate struggle. Rearing
the red head backward, she succeeded only in freeing herself partially.
"You let me go, you Sandy!" she cried out sharply. "I'll tell my Daddy
on you. Let me go!"
Then she went at him, kicking his shins with her feet, poking him with
her knees, and gouging his eyes and digging his face with her nails. As
well might Sandy try to make love to a cornered wildcat. He threw her
from him, and Tess, springing up, uninjured, raced up the hill. Sandy's
words, broken by fierce oaths, overtook her,
"You just wait! I'll tame ye yet, ye devilish brat, ye!"
At the top of the lane, Tess stopped to get breath. The familiar sounds
of the early summer evening assailed her ears. The narrow lake shone in
the clear light of the dying day like a broad strip of silver set in the
bosom of the hills. Her eyes rejoiced in its calm beauty, and a feeling
of peace and security grew in her thought.
Tess was about to cross the ravine when a step behind her caused her to
turn. Ebenezer Waldstricker, riding whip in hand, was coming toward her.
At his unexpected appearance, the blood fled from her face, leaving her
quite pale and trembling. This was the man who was seeking Andy Bishop
as at one time Dominie Graves had sought her father. How lordly he
seemed, looking down upon her unsmilingly from his great height.
Arrogantly he surveyed her from head to foot.
"You're the little church singer, aren't you?" he questioned after a
while.
Tess noticed with fascination that one corner of his mouth curled up as
if smiling, while the other was rigidly drawn down. She'd never seen an
expression just like that before.
"Yep," she murmured, dropping her lids.
"Where are you going?" asked the man, tersely.
Tess glanced about. She wanted to turn and run, anywhere to escape from
the brilliant dark eyes and the unmatched lips.
"I were goin' to see Mother Moll," she stammered, slowly. "She lives
over there in the gully." She hesitated, pointing to Moll's shack.
"Sometimes she reads out of the fortune-pot fer me."
Waldstricker glanced first at the little hut, then back at Tess.
"You don't mean you have faith in witchcraft?" he ejaculated,
incredulously. "Why, girl, that's positively against the Bible
commandments."
"Air it? Well I swan!" She nodded her head as though digesting a new
idea. "Anyway, Mother Moll always tells me the truth. She can see things
comin' years and years."
Waldstricker contemplated the grave young face for an instant, noting
involuntarily the abundance and beauty of the wind-blown hair. He turned
about on the path.
"I shall go with you," he said.
Her desire to forbid the proposed visit, struggling with her awe of the
powerful man at her side, confused her. She couldn't think clearly. She
twisted her fingers into her red curls.
"I'd ruther ye wouldn't," she explained. "Ma Moll hates strangers
worser'n she does the old nick!"
Waldstricker ignored the girl's speech except that the frown deepened on
his brow.
"Nevertheless I'm going," he returned, sternly. "I can't realize that
God-fearing men and women have such iniquity among them. Come on; I'll
go with you!"
Tess would gladly have deferred her visit until another day, and
returned home, but she feared he'd follow her there. Here was a man of
whom she was heartily afraid, and as she dared not defy him, she
obediently walked across the gully bridge, and hurried along the path.
Then she paused, looking at Mother Moll's shack, snuggled in a jut in
the ravine. It was quite close now. Tess knew the witch was at home, for
a thin line of smoke drifted zig-zag from the toppling chimney.
She looked back and found Waldstricker eyeing her. She noted both
corners of his lips were down now.
"I came from Ithaca purposely to see you and your father," said he.
Tess was so startled she took two sudden steps backward.
"My daddy ain't very well!" she exclaimed, nervously. "He don't like
strange folks comin' around, Daddy don't."
Waldstricker shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
"However, I must see him," he responded.
Tessibel felt a surging anger against this man. He had the same
imperious bearing she remembered in Dominie Graves.
"What fer? What d'ye want to see Daddy fer?" Her voice was compelling.
"About a matter that may make him a lot of money," the man explained,
pompously. "When may I come?"
She considered a moment before replying. This put a different face on
the matter.
"Could ye come tomorrow?" she demanded finally.
"Yes, at two, then. Tell your father, please."
"All right," muttered Tess.
Waldstricker's whip cut a cluster of wild flowers and nipped clean the
stems of their upraised heads.
"Oh!" cried Tess, sharply, hurt to the quick.
As if reading her thoughts, he retorted, "A flower hasn't a soul, so
what does it matter?"
Tess turned tear-dimmed eyes from him to Mother Moll's shack. Shocked at
his brutality, his arrogant cruelty to the flowers she cherished so
tenderly left her dumb. That his statement was false, she knew. To her
the flowers expressed Love's sweetness and beauty, but she couldn't
explain her faith to this haughty, dictatorial millionaire at her side.
She was all of a tremble as she mounted the narrow shanty steps.
An aged voice croaked, "Come in," in response to her knock. Before
pulling the latch string, Tessibel paused and said to Waldstricker,
"Wait a minute! I'll go first, an' tell Mother Moll you're here."
She crossed the threshold and saw the old woman swaying to and fro in a
wooden rocker.
"It air Tessibel, Mother Moll," she said gently. "I want to see what's
in the pot."
Mother Moll smiled a withered, joyous smile.
"Come in, my pretty," she clacked. "Yer Moll's allers glad to see yer
shinin' eyes. Come in, my love."
Tess advanced into the kitchen.
"That duffer Waldstricker's come along with me," she told her in a low
tone.
The old woman struggled to her feet with the aid of her cane. Her watery
eyes glared at the tall man in the doorway, and he as angrily stared
back at her. The woman hobbled two steps forward.
"If ye've come for me to tell ye somethin', it won't be nothin' very
pleasant," she growled at him. "Git me the pot, brat, dear!"
Tessibel went to the grate and lifted the iron kettle from the fire. It
was steaming hot, and she brought it over, placing it at the woman's
feet.
"Set down," the hag commanded Waldstricker. "I'll tell ye what's doin'
in the pot, an' then git out! I hate ye!"
Waldstricker, with the peculiar down twist of his mouth, glanced darkly
at Tessibel, but the girl's unresponsive, serious face turned his
attention again to the witch.
"You're a wicked old woman," he said grimly. "The county should care for
such as you."
But Mother Moll did not catch his words. She was crooning over the pot
inarticulately. The seams in the skin around her eyes netted together,
almost closing the flaming red lids. Through the narrow slits she was
following the steam as it rose and disappeared in the air. Then slowly
her finger began to trace shadow outlines in and about the pot.
"Mister, I see ye crowin' like a barnyard cock," she croaked, "and ye
think ye're awful smart and awful rich. An' so ye be, but some day--"
She stopped, sank back, then looked again into the steaming kettle. "I
see a wee leetle man like this--" She raised the cane beside her, and
Waldstricker, startled, leaned nearer the ragged grey head. "I see ye
huntin' the leetle man--like a dog hunts a rat."
"Yes, yes!" from Waldstricker, "and what else, woman?"
Lowering her stick again to the floor, Mother Moll rested her weight
upon its crooked handle and for a time muttered over the pot with raven
hoarseness.
"Ye think ye're smart, but ye ain't as smart as ye think ye air. The
leetle man sets on yer head--"
The hag paused, cracked forth a gurgling scream, then proceeded. "He
sets on yer head and lays on yer heart, an' with all yer money, ye can't
find 'im."
"I will!" gritted Waldstricker through his teeth, now, in spite of
himself, intensely interested in the old woman's revelations.
"Ye won't," rapped out the seeress. "Not till it air too late. I see--I
see--" Lifting one hand, the bony old finger made rapid gyrations above
the pot.
"What do you see?" burst forth the man impatiently.
"Hair," cried Mother Moll, swaying nearer him, "hair stranglin' yer
throat till ye can't speak, curls weavin' round yer neck like a
hangman's rope."
Waldstricker glanced backward at the squatter girl. She stood in rigid
silence, listening intently. Her hair, copper-colored in the light from
the window at her side, framed in its shining curls a face rapt and
absorbed. Waldstricker leaned forward again, the better to see the
rising steam wraiths.
"I see all ye love best sufferin'." Letting the cane fall clattering to
the floor, Mother Moll continued, doubled-fists outstretched to the man
before her. "I see the shadow of shame gathering about ye, I see a
girl--a little girl--yer sister--holdin' out her hands pleadin' to some
other man--" Again the aged voice trailed into that chattering laugh.
"An' I air seein' somethin' else." The old woman rubbed the palms of her
horny hands together and pitched forward on her toes. She lifted her
shaking, wizened face and thrust it so near the man that he drew back
with a rough ejaculation. Then smiling a wide, toothless smile, she laid
her finger on her lips. Drawing it away again, she mumbled.
"Hair stranglin' 'em both, same as you, long curls like snakes
stranglin' all of ye. God! _what hair!_"
Waldstricker, with flashing eyes, suddenly got to his feet.
"Come out of here," he ordered Tess, roughly. "That hateful hag! The
hateful wicked old woman!"
A wild, exultant yell left Mother Moll's lips.
"_Yep_, get out o' here!" she shrieked. "Get out quick, both of ye! Yer
lives'll twine like this, an' this, an' this." Tensely she locked
together her bony fingers. "An' hair'll strangle ye, wretched man, an'
may ye never breathe a fine breath after it touches yer proud throat!"
Moved by a kind of superstitious horror of the prophecies of the old
witch, Waldstricker pushed her roughly aside, seized Tess by the arm and
dragged her out of the house. On the path he let her go and stood
transfixed, as though the length and abundance of the red curls, falling
in disordered confusion to her hips, fascinated him. Then he lifted his
great shoulders, and a tense breath slipped through his teeth.
"What an awful old woman!" he flung out disgusted. "If there's any power
in law or money, I'll root her out of that shanty as I will the rest of
her tribe."
Tess was thoroughly frightened. His ruthless roughness hurt her and his
threats against Mother Moll and the squatters terrified her. Would he
try and root Daddy Skinner and herself from their shanty? No, he
couldn't! He couldn't! Neither would his long, powerful hands place
their grip upon the life of the dwarf. Mother Moll had said so, and she
believed--oh, how she believed it!
Waldstricker started to speak again, but unable to bear longer the cruel
corner-curl of his lips, Tess of the Storm Country turned and fled
swift-footed away toward the lake. The man watched the flying figure
bounding along toward the span of blue water. Then with another flip of
his whip, which struck the heads from the flower stems, he wheeled about
and walked swiftly up the hill.
[Illustration: "I WILL!" GRITTED WALDSTRICKER THROUGH HIS TEETH, IN
SPITE OF HIMSELF, INTENSELY INTERESTED IN THE OLD WOMAN'S REVELATIONS]