Ben Letts rose to his feet after cleaning his jack-knife in the water
and took the same path around the mud cellar which Tessibel had taken.
The cabin door was closed--Tess nowhere in sight. Ben had intended--Ben
didn't know just what his intentions were. He stopped short when his
eyes fell upon Frederick's log. It took a long time for a thought to be
born in the dense brain of the fisherman, but one was there, for the
cross eyes opened and the red tongue licked greedily at the thick chops
like that of a wolf when he comes upon prey for which he does not have
to fight. Letts looked sneakily at the hut window where hung the
remnants of a ragged curtain--all was quiet. He quickly ran his long arm
into the opening of the log and with a snap of his teeth drew out the
high-backed toad.
Holding the reptile in his hand, he slunk behind the willow tree and
stood an instant in abstract hesitation. Suddenly his fiendish face
became flooded with the exultation of a plan fully matured. He let the
toad fall to the ground, needing both hands to draw the blade of his
jack-knife. Frederick hopped vigorously along in the direction of his
log, but Ben, gorged with the instincts of an inquisitor, snatched him
up as he was about to escape. After divesting Frederick of all the
ornaments which nature had given him, the man allowed him to hop about,
grinning, as he watched the rapid leaps of the toad. Frederick had
forgotten the path to his log, he could only turn around and around as
if he had been born to radiate in a circle. Ben could have watched this
tumbling toad all night, so great was his joy at the sight, but it was
getting dark and soon the call would come for the fishermen to gather
for the netting and he would be expected to go.
Taking the toad gingerly up from the earth, he returned it to the hole
in the log, and with but a hasty glance at the dirty curtain which hung
limp and ugly at the cabin window, sneaked away.
* * * * *
After leaving Ezra Longman, Tessibel stood in the cabin for one single
moment with the terrible thought which the boy had planted there,
burning in her brain. She had but a few times seen the minister's son
who lived in the big house on the hill and not even to herself had she
mentioned that he was her ideal of manhood--he was as far above her as
the learned minister was above her own squatter father. Her heart seemed
to almost stop beating as she sprang headlong into "Daddy's bed" and
covered herself with the ragged blanket.
Only when she heard her father pounding at the door did she lift her
head. She jumped swiftly from the bed to let him in. No thought of
supper for him had entered her mind. He looked his hunger as he noted
the absence of a fire, and spoke rather mournfully, but Tess cut him
short. The lithe young form bounded squarely upon the bible-back of the
fisherman. She drew back his shaggy head, her bright wide eyes shining
into Skinner's and a low voice deepened by the first arousal of womanly
emotion which had ever come knowingly into the young life, was murmuring
to him.
"I loves ye, Daddy, I do. What does ye care for supper when I loves ye
like this. Daddy, I could--just bite ye hard, that I could, I love ye
so."
"Get off my back, Tess," ordered Skinner, trying to loosen her fingers
from his hair. "I air tired, Brat, and there be nettin' to-night. Ye air
goin' to Mis' Longman's till we get back."
"Won't get off till ye kisses me square on the bill, Daddy," replied the
girl softly, "square where I does my eatin's." And square on "the bill"
the girl got the caress--and then eagerly hastened to fry the inevitable
fish.
"I air coming after ye to Longman's when the nettin's over," broke in
Orn Skinner presently, his mouth full of bread and fish, "and ye'd best
duck yer head in the lake, Tess, afore ye go. Yer face has a week's dirt
caked on it."
Tessibel allowed her red lips to spread wide in a loving smile.
"Ye air a durn good Daddy, ye air, and I loves ye, if my face be dirty."
She rose quickly and came to his side.
"Daddy," she began, twisting his big head so her eyes met his, "Can't I
go nettin' to-night? I air a good helper, ain't I, Daddy?"
Orn Skinner dreaded the wheedling tone in Tessibel's voice and the
pleading in the eyes so like her mother's. He dropped his gaze upon his
plate and slowly shook his head.
"Nope, Tess, ye air goin' to Longman's. Don't ... now there be a kiss
... sit down and eat ... that air a good brat."
The last ejaculation was brought forth by Tess herself. She had turned
back to her place at the table and had complacently begun to eat the
crisp, brown fish.
"And ye ain't to stay on the ragged rocks, nuther, Tess," cautioned
Skinner, rising from the table. "Ye be a good Tess. Scoot along now."
The fisherman moved lumberingly to the water's edge, pushing his boat
into the lake, and stepped in. Thrusting his powerful head down between
his shoulders, he pulled lazily away at the oars until he lost sight of
the shore on which stood the small silent figure in the fast gathering
gloom.
* * * * *
Tess did not fancy netting nights. She always feared that something
might happen to her father. But she knew, too, that they could not live,
even meagerly, through the long winter unless the nets were used. So
this night after she had received many kisses, "square on the bill," she
watched her father's bent shoulders, rising and falling with the motion
of the oars as long as she could see him, and turning, scudded through
the underbrush which grew in profusion near the forest--up to the rugged
rocks toward the Longmans' hut. She slid down beside a large stone as
she heard the lapping of oars below her on the lake, and knew that
"Satisfied" Longman and his son Ezra were going to join the others at
Jake Brewer's shanty.
She was alone under the heavens, alone with the eagles and sleepy
twittering birds--she could think of what had been forced upon her that
day. She bitterly regretted the tears shed before Ezra, and she must
never, never again look at the student Graves. She felt that to see his
face, even from a distance, would cause her to drop dead before him.
Every muscle tingled and her eyes burned with unshed tears. She had
never dared to speak even to his sister, the pretty Teola Graves, who
fluttered about with pink ribbons among her curls and wore high heels on
her shoes.
Suddenly Tess opened her lips and sent ringing over the lake in glorious
tones of pathos, the hymn she loved best,
"Rescue the perishin',
Care for the dyin'."
* * * * *
Tessibel knew what it meant to almost perish from the cold. She had felt
the cruel blasts of the winter winds upon her chilblained feet, for she
had never known the luxury of shoes. She had also seen the dying and
understood what it meant to turn a longing face toward heaven, with a
burning desire to know what was beyond.
Such a voice as Tessibel's had never been heard upon Cayuga lake. Ben
Letts said it put him in mind of listening to the wild cry of a lost
soul, while Myra Longman could hear only the songs of angels in the
exquisite tones which fell, pure and sweet, from the red lips. Tess knew
nothing of breath power, nothing of trained trilling tones, but nature
had given her both and like the birds of the air she used them.
The girl had not moved from beside the stone near which she had fallen.
The night was so strange, so different from any night Tessibel had ever
known. Her whole idea of life had been altered that day by the word of
a fisherman, and the woman's heart grew larger and larger, until the
squatter girl felt that it was going to burst. Something crawled over
her bare foot and brought her to her senses. Leaning over she drew to
her lap a long, slimy lizard, which she held caressingly in her fingers.
She lifted him high up and looked at him through the moonlight.
"Green," she said slowly, "ain't he a dandy. But I don't dare carry him
even a little way for fear he'll lose his house. I bet he has a pile of
green babies."
Dropping the lizard beside the rock, she sped away.
Just before reaching the Longman cabin, she raised her voice and sang
again,
"Rescue the perishin',
Care for the dyin'."
Some one opened the door and she bounded in.
"Glad ye come, Tessibel," said Mrs. Longman, a small wizened old woman.
"The brat air sick to-day. He does nothin' but squall so that my head
air a bustin' the hours through. Give him to Tessibel, Myry."
"After she air rested a spell," replied Myra, who resembled her mother,
but was smaller and thinner. "He seems to have a pain, Tess."
"Mebbe he has," responded Tessibel, "give him to me."
The wee boy stopped his tears immediately. His back grew limp and his
fists opened out as Tessibel began to sing. This time the song was, "Did
ye ever go into an Irishman's shanty?"
The child fell asleep and Tessibel laid him gently in the box prepared
for him. Bed room was scarce in the huts of the fishermen and the small
members of the family slept on rope beds, let down from the ceiling. But
Myra's child, still too tender and always sick, slept in a box which his
grandfather, "Satisfied" Longman, had made for him as soon as he was
born.
"It air a seemly night for the men to fish," commented Myra when
Tessibel had seated herself again. "I air always a hopin' that nothin'
will happen to none of them."
"The hull bunch air cute," assured Tessibel, "and Daddy can row faster
than any man on this here lake."
"But when them game men gets after 'em with the permit to shoot, that's
what I fears," complained Mrs. Longman--and she sighed.
The fisherwoman's life she had led had been harder than most women bore,
for Ezra was going a crooked path, while Myra, well--the brat slept in
the cradle. Both girls saw her glance toward it and read her thoughts.
Myra's face deepened in color, Tessibel hummed a tune.
"'Taint no use to try to bring up children anywheres decent," the woman
broke in sharply, after a silent moment. "God! but to see one's own--"
"Ma," Myra's voice was pleading, "it air over and ye said--"
"I knows I did, and so did yer Daddy. But I ain't thinkin' only of ye
to-night, Myra, look at the mess that Ezry's a makin' of things, and
just 'cause ye won't marry him, Tessibel."
"I ain't never goin' to marry no one," said Tess sullenly; "goin' to
stay with Daddy."
"Yer Daddy won't live allers," interposed Mrs. Longman, "and what's
more, yer better off with a man what will look after ye as Ezy will. Be
ye a thinkin' of it at all, Tessibel?"
The girl shook her head.
"Nope, 'taint no use; don't like Ezy anyway."
"Ezry ain't the worst boy in the world," defended the mother; "if the
right woman gets him, Tess, he'll make her a good man. Ye couldn't think
of tryin' him, could ye?"
Tessibel shook her head again. She shuddered perceptibly, and Myra
thought she realized the feeling in the girl's heart.
"Don't bother her, ma, don't bother--"
"If ye'd a bothered a little yerself, Myra," broke in the woman
pettishly, "we might all been better off. It ain't 'cause of the brat,
air it, Tessibel?"
She shot a glance at the infant's box.
"Why 'cause of the brat," asked Tessibel sharply, "why 'cause of the
brat?"
"He air a come-be-chance, ye know--"
"That ain't no fault of his'n, air it," demanded Tessibel. "Nope,
'tain't nothin' to do with the brat. I loves him, I does, come-be-chance
or no. It don't make no difference to me."
Myra pressed Tessibel's bare toe with hers in loving fellowship.
"Ye allers was a funny gal, Tessibel," ruminated Mrs. Longman. "Now Ezy
says that yer takin' a likin' to such things as toads, lizards and
snakes, shows as how ye needs some one to help ye. God'll make ye a
happy mother if ye'll keep yer nose low in the air, and not think too
much of yer betters."
Ezra, then, had told his mother of the student. A frown deepened on the
girl's brow. She hated Ezra Longman with an inward fury for what he had
said that day.
"Ye might have a come-be-chance, yerself, Tessibel," warned Mrs. Longman
as she went to bed, clambering up the long ladder to the loft, leaving
the girls alone.