For almost an hour Tessibel lay thinking deeply, her brain alive with
the past rapid happening of events. That the student would ever sleep
under her roof was more than she had dreamed. She could hear him
breathing evenly; he was asleep with "Daddy's" blankets wrapped tightly
about his finely shaped head. Through the dim light Tessibel could
follow the outline of the great form stretched out on the roped bed. A
feeling of thanksgiving swept over her--she was his protector. She had
not thought of asking about his crime. Of course he was fleeing from the
law, but he could have done nothing that would lessen her desire to aid
him. If he had murdered, then it was necessary that he should; if he had
stolen, it was the common lot of all men in need. The one thing to do
was to keep him from the clutches of the law. She felt herself getting
drowsy, and soon the even breathing of the squatter and the student told
that both slept.
Tess would never know what time it happened. Suddenly her eyes flew open
and through the light of a lantern she saw Ben Letts leering into her
face. The frosty air was blowing in gusts through the window which the
squatter Ben had forced open. The horror of the situation came slowly
over her. For the instant she forgot the student sleeping in her
father's bed, and Ben Letts had not noticed him.
Ben began to speak in low tones:
"If ye wants to live, don't holler ... Get up!"
Tess crawled out of bed, fully dressed. Frederick slept on, hearing no
sound, for the cold room had compelled him nearly to cover his head.
Suddenly the presence of the student came into the girl's mind; but she
only threw a furtive glance at the sleeping youth.
"What do ye want?" she demanded vaguely.
"First ye air to come with me to the Brindle Bull at Kennedy's--I air
got somethin' for him.... He air dead in the mornin' by the hand of the
girl what loves him."
There was unlimitable sarcasm in the vile, low face as Ben hissed this
out.
"And after that?" asked Tess, edging toward the lower part of "Daddy's"
bed. There she could reach for the covering over Frederick, and he would
save her. The feeling of the night before that she was his protector
vanished. He would--
"Never mind after that," growled Ben. "Ye had yer chance at bein' hones'
and ye wouldn't take it."
Tessibel slipped her feet into Daddy's boots--she was strangely buoyant
and unafraid. It was the woman in her rising to that supreme moment when
she should call upon the man she loved, and he would answer. Ben was
leaning against the wall, his eyes having sought for no other person in
the room.
With the agility of a hare, Tessibel dashed around him toward Frederick,
and snatched the blankets from the bed. The workings of Ben's mind were
so slow that the form of the student loomed up, before he realized that
the minister's son was in Tessibel's cabin.
"Ye air here to save me, Frederick," cried Tess, the light of the
lantern sending a ray into the upturned widening eyes.
Letts dropped his under jaw, his body relaxing in fear. He was an arrant
coward like the most of his downtrodden race. Then something shifted
through his thick brain, and he smiled knowingly.
"So the high and the low air together--eh? The Dominie's son, and the
fisherman's brat--the student--and the--"
Before he had finished the sneering words, Frederick had struck him full
in the face. Boyish dignity--his father's position--God--everything was
forgotten save Tess. He only knew that she was being maligned, and that
her holy mission of rescuing him from the frost of a night like this was
being turned into evil by a squint-eyed fisherman whom he had never seen
before.
Into the man's fat flabby body crashed Frederick's strong fists.
Tessibel stood looking on, her head bent forward alertly. One arm was
clasped about her neck--excitement sparkling from the flushed face and
panting lips. Once the throat sound that came when she was excited
rolled forth; otherwise she was silent.
Thrashed from side to side, his ragged coat made worse by the severe
shaking Frederick was administering, Ben Letts groaned audibly.
"Have you had enough?" demanded the student, standing over the
fisherman.
"Yep, I's a goin' home."
Tess laughed low and wickedly. She loved to see the blood oozing from
the mark in the ugly face. Every drop matched those dragged from the
hearts of the brat's mother, who had suffered for Ben, and of the poor
little miserable child himself, struggling for life in the Longman
shanty.
"You'd better go home," ordered Frederick, "and I want to tell you
something. If I ever hear you uttering a word about my being in this
hut, I'll follow you to the ends of the earth, and flog the life out of
you.... Don't try any of your tricks on me, either."
Frederick shivered as the wind swept cold from the frozen lake to his
damp brow. Ben had lifted his lantern and was swaying toward the door.
"I'll go hum," said he, "but I ain't done with ye--some day--"
Frederick bounded forward like a whiplash, but Tess held him back. Ben
gave a quick jump and was gone.
"He wasn't worth a-hurtin' any more," Tess commented, lighting a candle.
"I know he air the man what killed my other Frederick."
The name slipped out with loving intonation.
Then the boy and the girl turned and faced each other. The shanty rocked
in the wind like the cradle of a child. The willow mourned its tale of
winter over the roof, scraping the broken tin in hollow groans,
shrieking now and then as a gust roared through it.
For fully three minutes after the going of Ben, Tessibel stood looking
at the student. He had saved her from Myra's fate, from a hated thing
that made her teeth press hard together, and her eyes gather an
expression of melting gratitude.
"It were--it were--"
But the halting tongue could not finish. Untutored as she was, Tess had
read the message in the student's eyes. Love teaches in one night its
dreadful longing and response. Its domineering power brought Frederick
Graves nearer to Tess in her rags. It made them equal, even as all are
equal in love--and in death. In an instant the girl in the fish-tainted
tatters was clasped close to his heart, the bright, beautiful face
lifted to his. Then came the kiss, the making of which blended two lives
indissolubly together. The paleness of death settled over the boy; the
strong muscles of his shoulders stood out beneath the whiteness of his
shirt sleeves, while his fingers pressed the red-brown head closer to
him, his kiss deepening the crimson richness in the squatter's face. It
was the one supreme passionate moment of Tessibel's life. The sound of
the whistling wind left her ears. The cold night blasts driving through
the window were as the faint breezes of a summer's evening. The
smoldering candle lifted its flame, blazing forth a glory that
surrounded the student with a golden halo. Tessibel had experienced her
first kiss. The nature in her demanded that she know the fullness of
it--the pitying fullness which would bring to her that which it brings
to all loving women dominated by the passion born within them. The blood
of her race, her uneducated primeval race, rose and clamored for its
own. In her untutored youth she could have crushed the lad in her wild
longing for such another kiss.
Pantingly she drew herself from Frederick. Why? Tess could never tell
why! Myra's love for Ben Letts rushed over her overwhelmingly.... The
"brat's" mother knew the sweetness of a kiss, and in it had forgotten
the blasting winter winds on the ragged rocks where Ben Letts had broken
her arm.
Frederick, ashy-pale, struggled for control; a consciousness of the
ignorance of the girl--and his own godly profession broke upon him; and
he sank upon the stool with a sob. His face in his hands filled
Tessibel's soul with remorse. Delicately, with the touch of a lady born,
she rested her hand upon the student's dark head. The small fingers,
used to the drudgery of a fisherwoman's life, lifted the damp hair from
the high forehead. Her woman's sense of the fitness of things rose
keenly to quiet the boy's grief over his indiscretion.
"It were good of ye to remember that Daddy were gone," she whispered.
"He gives me kisses on the bill."
All passion had left her tones. Of course, thought the student, she was
but a child--but a forlorn beautiful child born without--without what?
If he could have known--
The next moment he did know. With abandon, complete and absolute, the
hot blood coursing madly from her heart to her face, Tess threw herself
upon the shanty floor. Frederick Graves drew her quickly to her feet.
"Tess ... Tessibel ... Tess ... Stand up, Tess!"
The last word came out in a shout. He had her in his arms, and she was
clinging to him as ivy clings for life to an old church.
Tessibel made no effort to support herself. She was leaning limply
against him with closed eyes.
"It air good to forget--sometimes," she stammered, "I air a forgettin'
all but the--student."
As on that memorable day when "Daddy" had been taken to prison in
Auburn, and she had planted herself in his arms not to be removed, so
Tess hung to Frederick. Ben Letts was forgotten, the suffering child in
the Longman shanty whom she loved was forgotten; even Daddy Skinner was
forgotten. Tessibel had found her man, and all the experiences of her
kind could not help her in her hour of temptation.
"Tessibel, Tess, we can't forget, stand up." The boy's words spread
through the dazed brain. Frederick dragged her arms from his neck,
forcing her to the stool.
"Tessibel, have you forgotten--the Christ, your father and me?"
Had she forgotten him? Only him she had remembered--only his voice rang
through her like the sweetest music. But she was so quiet now that the
boy seated himself beside her, drawing her hands into his.
"Tess," he began, intensely, bending to look into the flushed face,
"Tess--look at me!"
Slowly the brown eyes dragged their gaze upward until the boy and girl
were staring wide-lidded directly at each other.
"Tess, have you ever thought that, some time, we might be more to each
other--some time in the future when you have learned and studied much?"
Wonderingly she drew her hands from his, hiding them in the folds of the
torn gingham skirt.
"I air a squatter," she got out at last. "You be high--I air low, as Ben
Letts said.... But, but," she faltered, finishing her sentence brokenly,
"But I's yer squatter."
For one bitter moment the Longman child with its old-man face flitted
across her vision. She shivered, rose hastily, and went to the stove,
scattering the lids from their openings before uttering another word.
Frederick was watching her critically.
"You ought to go to school, Tess," he said presently.
"I has to stay here," she replied beginning to stir the embers. "If I
left the hut alone yer pappy could fire it, and Daddy and me wouldn't
have a home.... Ain't nice nights like this to be without a roof to
cover ye."
Frederick realized this. Had he not been that very night with no place
to lay his head, and no kindly hand save hers to give him something to
eat? He flushed deeply at the mention of his father, and marveled that
the squatter girl had not spoken with any hard feeling in her tone. It
was what could be expected--so her voice implied; if she left the shanty
alone, the rightful owner could then take back what the law would not
allow if the squatters remained.
"Ye be a goin' to stay here to-morry?" asked Tess later by five minutes.
"If I may."
"Be ye goin' to tell me what ye air hidin' for?"
Frederick threw back his head and laughed. He had forgotten to tell her.
"Of course. You see I am the freshman class president.... The boys in
the upper classes kidnaped me, and kept me prisoner in an unused house
at the inlet.... I escaped last night, and you brought me here."
The story was so tame--so unlike what Tess had expected to hear that she
drew a long, disappointed breath. There had been a vague wish within her
heart that she were going to be of infinite benefit to him. It was such
a little thing to lose a fine supper. His life had not been in danger as
she had supposed.
"You understand, Tess, that it's a disgrace to our class not to have the
president there," Frederick burst forth, "even if he is kept away by
force. I would rather sacrifice anything than have it happen--only, I do
not want to harm your good name, Tessibel."
Tess stared at him blankly.
"Squatter's brats don't have no names.... Ye can't do me any harm."
"Oh, yes, I could," insisted Frederick. "What if that scoundrel who was
here a little while ago should say that I were here?... It would harm us
both."
Tess paused in her breakfast preparations long enough to say simply,
"Yer Christ wouldn't let him harm ye, would He?"
The boy swept her with an incredulous glance.
Did she so thoroughly have faith in a miraculous interference in human
affairs by divine power? The delicate face was lighted with exquisite
coloring which came and went in the morning light like the tints of a
sea-shell. The bright trustful eyes were shining into his, every motion
of the lovely head and body bespeaking the blind faith in which the
squatter girl lived. Frederick found himself wishing impetuously with
all his soul that he could command a faith like hers. His own seemed so
dead, so unlike a living faith that he sighed as he turned toward her.
"Tessibel," he said honestly, "you are a better girl than I am a boy ...
I am learning many things from you." Then, looking up with a smile after
a moment's thought, he finished: "No, I believe with you, that it is
impossible for him to harm one of us if we have faith in God."
"So, I can help ye to-morry if ye ain't in Daddy's fix?"
Then Frederick understood that she would have saved him, even if he had
been in danger of his life.
"Yes," he replied, "you can aid me.... Do you know where my fraternity
is?"
Tess shook her head with a troubled expression.
"I can tell you where it is! I want you to go there and ask for Dan
Jordan and tell him I am here. You must speak to no one else about me,
or they will come and take me away, and I told you I would almost rather
die than not be with my class at the banquet."
Tessibel's spirits rose high. She could help him--after all.
"How air ye goin' to get into the place where ye eats without gettin'
took again?"
A flashing intelligence leaped into the brown eyes during her question.
"I knows how I can help ye." She lowered her voice and began to describe
the escape and the final fulfillment of their plan.
Frederick chuckled when she had finished.
"That's capital. You tell Dan Jordan, then, to-morrow what you have told
me. You see the banquet takes place to-morrow night."
"Yep, I tells him, so I will. I goes to town early to-morry and up to
your house.... Come and eat now!"