Orn Skinner was to be taken to prison the Monday after the famous sermon
preached by Dominie Graves. Professor Young had gained permission for
Tessibel to spend fifteen minutes with Skinner before his departure.
There was something about the fishermaid that touched his heart. Her
ignorance, her devotion to her father, and the loveliness of the anxious
young face haunted the professor during his working hours, and at night,
when he could not sleep, he created plans for her future and her
father's release. He persuaded himself continually that Tessibel was not
the motive for clearing the fisherman of the murder charge, it was the
love of justice--justice to the squatter and his lovely child. Often the
lawyer had set his jaw when he thought of Minister Graves and the
evident malice shown by the parson against the fisherman.
That Monday afternoon he met Tessibel as she came into the jail-yard,
much the same Tessibel he had seen in the court-room.
Professor Young took the girl's hand in his and led her into the small
waiting room of the stone prison. He desired to be alone with her for a
few minutes that he might satisfy himself as to her history, which since
her dramatic entrance into the court-room had been so distorted.
"You have no mother, I understand, my dear," he began.
"Nope," and Tessibel shifted one boot along the seam in the red carpet.
"Do you remember her?"
"Nope; don't remember none but Daddy."
"Have you ever been to school?"
Tessibel shook her head, displaying her teeth in smile which quickly
faded.
"Squatter's brats don't never go to school," she muttered.
She edged away from the professor, raising her eyes pleadingly to his.
The man read the desire the girl dared not put into words, but without
heeding her glance he proceeded to question her.
"Would you like to go to school?"
"Nope, all I want air Daddy home in the shanty. That air enough for me."
She suddenly turned her face away toward the door that led to the upper
cells.
"But if I assure you," urged Professor Young, "that your father will
positively get another trial, which is all that can be done at present,
would you then like to study?"
A definite shake of her head and another quick glance was Tessibel's
answer.
"I wants to read the Bible," she said, presently turning toward the
professor; "it air a dum hard book to read, I hear."
Professor Young tugged at the corners of his mustache to keep down a
smile.
"It would be easy for you to read any book if you went to school," he
told her. "How old are you?"
"Comin' sixteen."
"And cannot read--it's a pity! And wouldn't you like to learn to sing?"
Young was desirous of touching a responsive strain in the girl.
"Dum sight rather see Daddy--that's what I came here for! Ain't ye going
to let me see him?"
Professor Young rose with a sigh. Like the rest of her race, she did not
know gratitude. He had worked diligently, preparing an appeal for a new
trial which would bring acquittal to her humpbacked father, and he was
interested in her own welfare, but her thankless words checked his
inquiry. The professor did not realize what love meant to Tessibel, for
every desire within her paled into insignificance beside her passionate
devotion to Daddy Skinner.
Tess followed him silently up the long winding stairs, her heart
thumping in anticipation. The deputy's search of her clothing brought a
flush to her face, but without a word she allowed him to draw off the
great boots and quietly watched him as he turned them upside down,
receiving them back gravely. Her longing to see Daddy Skinner, to be in
his arms, to hug the grizzled head, overshadowed even this indignity. So
long had it been since Tess had nestled in the shaggy chin hair, that
her heart was sore and wildly impatient. Faith in Frederick's God had
been forgotten--no other thought occupied her mind save that they were
going to take away her beloved--the only one left to her. She deigned
not a glance at Professor Young after the deputy had gone, and measured
the oilcloth-covered floor restlessly with the stamp, stamp, stamp of
the big boots.
Professor Young's presence was no more to her than the small insects
which scurried from the edge of the floor covering into the light and
then back into their hiding places, afraid of the human giants which
loomed up before them. What did she care for reading, writing and such
things. She wanted to be with Daddy Skinner--wanted him home in the
shanty, as of old.
She kept her eyes riveted upon the open door. Suddenly she leaned
forward, for the ominous clanging of irons came to her ears. She thought
of the night she had been found scaling the ivy to Daddy's cell--how
long she had waited in the darkness for only a little word about him.
They had given her none, and her vivid imagination brought back the
anguish of that lonely walk through the storm to the hut.
Approaching footsteps made her alert, and in the paling of the sweet
face Professor Young divined the tumult going on in the tender,
uneducated heart.
"Child," exclaimed he, "don't make your father's going away harder for
him!"
"Shut up," muttered Tess, just as the huge shackled prisoner appeared at
the door.
Every muscle in the strong young body stiffened. Tess had not seen her
father since the trial. Intensity narrowed the eyes, the drooping white
lids covering the lights in the brown iris, the small hands clutched
convulsively. Daddy Skinner--her Daddy--was standing before her, his
blue-gray eyes piercing her very soul from under the long shaggy brows.
She bounded toward him, and two creatures of primeval passion met in one
long embrace. It was the passion of an aboriginal father for his child,
of a primitive girl watching her loved one separate from her through the
portals of death. Tess had lifted herself deftly to the bible-back, and
lowered her head to the grizzled face, the man's large mouth covering
the twitching lips of the girl. The shrouding red hair hid the squatter
faces from the professor, and he turned his eyes away. He could not look
upon them without distressing emotion. The strange maid was an enigma to
him and he found himself wishing that he might guide her future. When
Young glanced again, the fisherman had seated himself and had slipped
Tessibel from his shoulders, gathering her closely into his great
embrace--for she was the brawn of his brawn and the bone of his bone.
Under the squatter's huge red arm, the fisher-girl had wedged her head
tightly, the low brows were taut with pain, the bronze eyes defiantly
closed. Tess was as firmly fixed in her position as the iron chains that
encased her "Daddy's" ankles. She had come to stay with Daddy Skinner,
to go with him where he went, in spite of the great man from the hill,
in spite of the majesty of the law--even in spite of Daddy himself.
The deputy warden with open watch stood over the prisoner with observing
eye. The fifteen minutes allowed the girl were gone, and he slowly
touched the humpback on the shoulder.
"Time's up, Skinner," said he. "Sorry, but it's the law, you know."
Skinner tried to draw the curly head from under his arm but the muscles
in the girl's body only tightened, the white lips grew more rigid.
"It air time fer me to go, Tess," murmured the squatter in her ear.
"I air--I--I air a goin' with ye."
The words were scarcely more than the flutter of a breath. The deputy
warden stepped forward a little, then back to his place by the door; the
professor rose but sank again to his chair; the bible-back of the
fisherman pulsated as if a separate heart was beating in each great
hump. Tess was as immovable as if nature had aided her to grow into her
position. Skinner again tried to loosen the bare red arms.
"Ye can't go to prison with me, Tess," he said coaxingly; "set up like a
good brat ... Daddy'll kiss ye good-bye."
"I air goin'," she insisted. "It air like a dead man's yard without ye
in the shanty.... I can wash dishes. I can do a hull lot if ye'll take
me with ye, Daddy Skinner."
Not one whit less rigid was the slender body, the closed lids only
pressed tighter together.
The deputy grunted impatiently.
"Come, Kid," said he gruffly; "it's the law ye're tamperin' with. Do you
hear? Let the prisoner go."
Professor Young felt his throat tighten. The pitiful sight of the girl,
the ragged skirt, the terrible unkemptness of the small body, almost
brought a shout from his lips. It was a new sensation to the learned
man, a stinging, rebellious, pitying sensation, a feeling that he wanted
to shake the girl from her father's arms, and then care tenderly for
her. One great boot had fallen from Tessibel's many times frozen foot.
The little toe marked and cut by frost, limply hanging independent of
its fellows, made Young wince.
Suddenly Tessibel sat up and wound her arms more tightly about the big
humpbacked body.
"I can't go back to the shanty without ye, Daddy," she whimpered, "and
they said--as how ye was comin'--home to stay.... And I ain't
goin'--darned if I air."
Young turned his head again toward the window. He could not banish the
wish that Tess would listen to him.
The deputy placed his hand firmly upon the prisoner's arm, the fisherman
himself trying in vain to loosen the girl's fingers from the shaggy
beard.
"I--I--air to go with Daddy--I air--I air!"
Tessibel brought out the words snappingly, but Skinner, with the aid of
the deputy, opened the clenched hands. Tessibel gave way; she was unable
to stop the awful impending danger that hung over her--absolute
separation from Daddy Skinner.
"Daddy, Daddy," she gasped, sitting up straight: "man--man, let me go
... I air dyin' without my Daddy ... I air alone--all alone!"
The official moved anxiously as she made this appeal to him. She was now
standing on her bare feet, but she bounded forward as the bible-back
rose and fell, and large tears dragged themselves from the lowered lids
of the fisherman's blue-gray eyes. She pantingly caught her father's
hand in hers.
"Kisses, Daddy Skinner, kisses on the bill for Tess--before ye go ...
Tess air a bad brat--"
She could not finish the sentence for the squatter had pressed her to
him convulsively. Then Skinner dropped the slender, relaxed body into
the wooden arm-chair, and iron-hampered, took up his march behind the
deputy. The professor mutely watched the storm, desperate and terrible,
break over the squatter girl. Her wild weeping settled into sobs, the
sound of which rent and shook the man's emotions. At last he ventured to
speak:
"Child, may I be your friend?"
"'Taint no friends I want. It air somethin' to love--to kiss. It air
Daddy I want."
The voice came brokenly from the veil of red hair.
Just then the great iron door clanged in the distance behind the
prisoner. Tessibel sprang to the open door, straining her ears to catch
another sound from the "black place" which had enveloped her father
within its menacing shadows.
"He air--gone.... Daddy--air--gone!"
The words were spoken slowly, and hurt the watching man almost as if the
torture were his own. A shriek rose from the rounded white throat and
the girl threw herself bootless upon the floor, and screamed in
passionate childish sorrow, the wealth of disheveled hair mantling the
dirty jacket, and covering the woful face.
Neither the professor nor Tessibel heard the hurrying footsteps upon the
stone floor in the prison corridor, but Tess, still in the frenzy of her
new grief, heard her name spoken through a maze:
"Tessibel Skinner!" And then again: "Tessibel Skinner!"
The squatter raised a pale, tear-streaked face to Frederick Graves. She
sat up with a painful flush, drawing the bare legs closely under the wet
skirt. The student spoke again:
"Tessibel Skinner has forgotten that God rules and is just. Have your
prayers proven nothing to you?"
Tessibel gazed scarlet and embarrassed, into Frederick's face, her under
lip quivering. The red head sank slowly down, and the exhausted child
wept as only a hurt child can weep.
"I were a-goin' with him," she cried between her sobs, "I could have
washed dishes in the prison--to be near Daddy. I air such a lonely Tess
'out him in the hut."
The student lifted her gently in his arms and seated her in the wooden
chair. With the tenderness of a brother, he placed the great boots once
more upon the girl's feet, and Tessibel was ready to start again upon
her long tramp through the row of huts to her shanty home.
The tears had ceased to flow, and with bowed head she was hanging upon
every word the student uttered. Professor Young went quietly out,
unheeded by either girl or boy.
"No one blames you for your grief, child, at being obliged to leave your
father," Frederick said huskily. "But are you going to take off the
'Armor of God' and forget all that He has promised you?"
Tessibel blinked ignorantly at the long words, "Armor of God," "Armor of
God." It was something she had not heard before--perhaps it meant that
the student's Christ would not help her now. It all came back in a flood
of light--her utter faithlessness in the prayers of the student, in the
pine-tree God who had waved her so many assurances. She had not dared to
look into the noble face above her, but when they stepped from the jail
into the street, she raised her eyes to Frederick's and murmured:
"I air sorry cause I were so cussed ... I only wanted to go with Daddy."
"I realize that," replied Frederick, making preparations to walk with
her by drawing his coat collar tightly about his neck, "but it was
impossible, and, from now until the time he comes back, study your
Bible."
Tess halted a moment, looking up steadily into the dark eyes of the
tall boy.
"Does the Bible talk of Daddy Skinner?" she entreated; "does it tell as
how he air comin' home?"
"Indeed, yes," was the student's answer. "There's nothing the Bible
doesn't contain. The Saviour was nailed to the Cross bearing his misery
to give you a heavenly harp and crown, Tessibel. If you read Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John, you will see it all plainly. You can be happy if
you pray and are a good girl while your father is away." Then, desiring
to ease the tense-drawn face, he added:
"It will please him if you write him often and tell him about yourself....
Come now, it's getting too dark for you to walk those tracks. Child,
haven't you a friend in town with whom you can pass the night? It's
frightful to tramp that distance alone."
Tess stiffened instantly. Daddy's shanty was in her care, and of what
night had she ever been afraid?
"I air a goin' home," she answered almost sullenly; "ain't a dum bit
afraid of nothin'."
As Frederick turned to her side, Tess glanced up confusedly.
"Ye can't walk with me through the streets of Ithacy," said she.
"Why not?"
"Cause--well, cause ye can't, that's why!"
Frederick understood, and, gravely lifting his hat, turned in the other
direction with the remark that he would see her again soon.
The girl stood for some seconds staring fixedly after him. Then, wiping
her face with the sleeve of a ragged jacket, she started off toward the
squatters' row.