THE NEW HOME
WHEN Professor Young arrived at the end of the lane near the Skinner's
shack, he dismounted, blanketed the horse and hitched him to the fence.
The approach to the hut had been shovelled recently and the snow was
banked high on either side. He hurried along the path and knocked at the
door.
A stir in the shanty told the lawyer the dwarf was seeking the attic.
After an instant of quiet, he heard Tessibel's voice.
"Who air there?"
The man's nerves throbbed quick response to the clear young tones that
came sure and strong through the shack boards.
"It's I, Tessibel," he answered.
And at his answer the bar raised from its holder and Young opened the
door and stepped in. The change from the brilliant glare of the almost
horizontal beams of the declining sun on the sparkling snow to the
half-light of the closely curtained room, obscured his vision for a
moment. But by the time he'd removed his cap and rebarred the door, he
could discern the familiar outlines of the shanty kitchen. He saw Tess,
half-risen on the cot. She rested on one elbow and stretched the other
arm out to him. Her face, wreathed in smiles, shone a cordial welcome.
When he'd gone to her and snatched the extended hand in both his own,
she bent moist lips and touched the back of the fingers.
Her spontaneous joy brought him a sudden hope that tingled through his
blood and warmed it. To see her so well, so sparkling and joyous, lifted
his burden of anxiety and warmed in him a glow of profound thanksgiving.
"Tessibel!" he greeted her, relief and yearning compressed into the one
word.
It was some time before either spoke. In Tessibel's heart swelled an
affection such as she held for no other person. In Young's, in spite of
his self-communion on the way, surged the insistent call of the man for
his mate, a hopeless longing which might never be satisfied.
"I'm glad it's over, child," he said softly. "My sister told me--"
"I got my baby!" she broke in. "He air over there. Take a peep at 'im."
There was no embarrassment in the bright smile she sent him, no sense of
shame in showing her friend the dear little being who had come to her
out of the Infinite to be worked for and loved. Young smothered a groan
but he turned obediently and went to the chair in which the baby was
cradled.
Folding back the blanket, he gazed at the sleeping infant. Manlike, he
was experiencing the passionate wish that this small boy were his own.
Jealousy, sudden and violent, assailed him. Hardly could he restrain the
words of interrogation and denunciation that demanded utterance.
The mother's question brought him back to the cot.
"He air beautiful, ain't he?" she breathed, a misty gleam on her lashes.
"Yes," said Young, and he sat down in Daddy Skinner's big rocker.
"Wouldn't ye like to hold him?" Tess hoped he would.
"Not yet," replied the lawyer. "I want to know more about him. You must
tell me now whose son he is, and let me help you decide what to do about
it.... Won't you trust me a little, Tess, dear?"
He hitched his chair nearer the cot and looked earnestly into the dear,
brown eyes she turned fearlessly and unashamed up to his own.
"He air mine," Tessibel told him, and a tender smile played about her
lips, "but I can't tell ye any more.... There ain't nothin' to do about
it. It air all right--huh?"
"Oh, my dear," sighed the man. "I hoped you'd relieve my mind a little.
But--but I'll not speak about it again till you come of your own accord
and tell me.... I've been thinking about something else, though--"
"Air it about Andy?" interrupted Tessibel.
Young looked up and discovered a boyish face smiling down upon him from
the attic.
"Come down," he said to the dwarf.
Andy descended the ladder and trudged across the floor.
The lawyer stood up and extended his hand. "How are you, Andy?" he
enquired pleasantly. "Pretty well, I hope?"
Andy shook hands gravely.
"Yep, thank ye, professor, I air that," he assented. "Hope ye're the
same."
"Andy's been more'n good to me," Tess confided. "Please sit down again,
Mr. Young.... Set on the floor, Andy!"
Obediently the dwarf curled up on the floor and turned eagerly to Young
who had resumed his chair.
"Ain't Tess got the fine baby?" he queried, and as though not expecting
an answer, added, "And she air awful happy."
A fugitive smile trembled on Young's face.
Awful happy! Awful happy! Was it possible? He looked into Tessibel's
joyous eyes and pondered. Yes, she was happy. He could see that! Happy
in a squatter's hut! Happy in the companionship of a condemned murderer,
and happy with a nameless child! His eyes went to the little one on the
chair. Yes, the three of them were happy. Tessibel's love was bound up
in Andy and the baby, and the dwarf had forgotten his own danger to
serve the other two. To help in the same loyal and unselfish way would
be his future work. At that moment Deforrest Young buried deep in his
heart the passion which hurt like nothing else hurts on earth, and
something very like happiness took its place.
He leaned back and crossed his legs. Then he reached into his coat
pocket and produced his cigar case. He bent forward and offered it to
Andy.
"Smoke, Andy?" he queried.
"Nope, thank ye, sir. Hain't smoked since Pal Skinner got sick. Couldn't
smell up the shanty with a pipe, ye see, eh?"
When the cigar was glowing and the fragrant smoke drifted in eddying
clouds through the kitchen, the smoker rocked a few minutes
contemplatively.
"I've seen Owen Bennet," he began presently. "He sticks to the story
that you did the shooting, Bishop, but I knew all the time he was
lying."
"Yep, he lied," interpolated Andy, bobbing his head.
"But as long as he won't tell the truth," Young stated "you're liable to
be taken back to Auburn."
The dwarf cringed as from a blow. Fear of going back to prison killed
the joy in his face instantly, but the speaker's quick assurance
straightened the bent shoulders.
"But no one knows where you are, and perhaps something can be done to
bring a confession from Bennet. Just at this time, though," looking from
the little man to the girl on the cot, "I'm more concerned about your
futures."
Tess didn't speak. She knew wherein her confidence lay and was willing
to await her friend's suggestion. She sat up, punched the pillow, turned
it over, and lay down again.
"It's perfectly evident you can't stay here, either one of you," said
Young, after a pause, "and if you'll be guided by me--"
"We'll do what ye want," murmured Tess, "if ye'll let us stay together
an' keep the baby."
"Yes, that is my plan," he replied.
Andy folded his short legs under him nervously.
"We want to stay together, me an' Tess does," he echoed, "an' the baby's
awful glad to live with us."
Young's lips curled an instant into a smile responsive to the quaint
statement.
"You remember, Tess," he resumed, "I have a lease of the house where
Graves used to live."
She answered only by a little forward bend of her head.
"My idea is this: I'll open the house, and you, Tess, can come there
with the baby. You can keep house in a little way for us all."
"Ye said Andy could live with--"
"Wait," interrupted the lawyer. "There're two nice rooms on the top
floor. You can arrange them for Bishop and he will be as snug as a bug
in a rug."
A sharp cry of joy broke from the young mother. She sat up straight. She
threw back the tangled curls, and leaning forward grasped the hand the
speaker thrust out to support her.
"Oh, what a good, good man!" she rejoiced. "An' me an' the baby'll love
ye forever, me an' the baby will."
Tessibel didn't remember she'd made the same promise to another man when
she'd begged him in vain to help her. She only knew that Deforrest Young
was offering herself and her little child a home, and a safe refuge for
Andy Bishop.
"It won't be all for you, you understand, child," said Deforrest.
"Think! I'll have a home, too, and you can study and work."
"An' some day when I'm earnin' money, and Andy's free, we'll pay you all
back," the girl interjected.
"Well, we won't worry about that now!... As soon as you're well enough,
I'll move you all up to the house. Tomorrow I'll see that coal and
things're sent down from town!"
The reply to his offer was a tighter squeeze from the squatter girl's
hand, and a sob from the dwarf. Unable to restrain his joy, the wee man
bounded from the floor and fled up the ladder into the garret. For a
time the man and girl in the room below sat silent, and all was quiet in
the shanty save the voice of Andy Bishop giving forth a thanksgiving
such as he had never expressed before.
* * * * *
Two weeks later a light filtered through the closed shutters of Young's
residence on the hill. The old Graves house creaked in the blustery
March gale. The hurtling snow-particles rattled upon the blinds and
against the clapboards like small shot. Deforrest Young came out of the
house and fought his way against the blizzard's buffeting down the hill
to the Skinner shack.
Stumbling, he fell against the door.
"It's I, Tess," he shouted.
The girl lifted the bar and admitted him. Dressed in her outer wraps,
she stood in the kitchen, anxious and expectant. This minute to Tess was
the changing point of her life. Young as she was, she understood what it
would mean to the three of them to leave the shanty, to take up their
abode in a real home.
"Ye said we was to take the baby first," she greeted him, reaching for
the shawl on a peg in the door post.
"Yes, but it's so bad I'll have to take you first, child," the lawyer
replied. "Come down, Andy, and after we're gone, bar the door and stand
by the boy.... I'll come back after you in a few minutes."
Then he flung an arm about Tess and drew her into the winter night.
Wind-blown and snow-covered, Young almost carried the shivering girl up
the steps into her new home. How luxurious the comfortable furnishings
seemed compared to the poverty of the shack! Young helped her off with
her coat and rubbers.
"Get the baby and Andy, quick," she panted.
Left alone her imagination followed her champion out under the
frost-laden trees into the drifted lane. She knew his call would raise
the bar and let him into the shanty. She could see the dwarf's beautiful
face smiling his welcome. The thought that Deforrest would wrap up her
baby, protect him from the keen blasts, thrilled her.
She went to the window in the north room and pressed her face to the
pane. Ah, yes, there in the little path were two figures, one little and
one big, struggling through the drifts. Her two friends! Presently, in
the arms of the tall figure, she could discern a bundle, a small bundle.
She watched them until she heard their steps on the porch. When
Deforrest placed the baby in her arms, and she noted Andy's happy face,
Tessibel's joy was complete.