Dusk had fallen over the lake, closing the shanty within the shadows of
the weeping willows. Mother Moll had departed before sunset. Tessibel
had four candles streaming their twinkling light upon the bare floor of
the hut, and was busying herself at the stove. A voice from the bed
faintly whispered:
"Did you tell Rebecca what I told you to? Tell me again what you said to
her."
"I telled that ye was to stay to-night with a girl below the ragged
rocks, and she didn't give a dum. She air only a workin' girl; she ain't
yer own flesh and blood."
"And the baby, Tessibel? May I see my baby?"
"Nope, not to-night."
"Please, Tessibel! Please! Are his eyes grey, and has he dark hair on
his head?"
"If ye don't shut up, I takes the brat to Ma Moll.... Now, then, drink
this tea, and eat this bread. To-morry ye has to go home, ye know."
"But my baby, Tess! What shall I do about my baby?"
The nervous whining in Teola's voice brought Tess over to her. The
squatter forced the soiled blanket over the young shoulders.
"If ye sleeps to-night, I tells ye in the mornin' about the brat....
Sleep, now."
For more than an hour Tessibel sat with Teola Graves' baby clasped
tightly in her arms, moving back and forth silently in the wooden
rocker. A broken board squeaked now and then under the girl's weight,
but she slipped the chair into other positions, and rocked on.
She marveled at the child born but that afternoon. The eyes were large
and grey. Locks of damp hair fell over a wrinkled, broad brow, giving
the infant the expression of an old, old man. In the light Tess could
mark every feature. She had never seen a babe so small, and so
sickly-looking. She ran her fingers over the right cheek, tenderly,
rubbing down a livid mark that extended from the dark hair to the upper
part of the breast. It was the birth-mark of fire, red and gleaming
crimson as the brightest blood, and it had been because of this mark
that Tess had refused the young mother's request to see her child.
Perhaps in the morning it would be gone. If not, Teola would be stronger
and better able to bear the shock. After wrapping the infant closely in
a warm cloth, Tess took it in her arms, and laid herself down beside
Teola; and the trio slept as all youth sleeps, until the morning sun had
been shining long in the window.
* * * * *
"Be ye better now?" asked Tess, trying to stand Teola on her feet.
"I am dreadfully ill yet," was the whispered answer. "But I want to see
my baby.... And what shall I do with him? Oh, what shall I do?"
"He air a-sleepin' now," replied the squatter. "And he stays here with
me, ye hear? Ye can't take him to yer pa's house, and the hut air good
enough for him to live in, if it was good enough for him to be borned
in."
"You mean, Tessibel, that you will care for my baby, until I can
arrange something for him?--So that my father and mother may not know--"
"Er the student," broke in Tess.
"My brother! Tess, my brother Frederick! He must not know. It would kill
him--and me. You, Tess,--you swear that you won't tell him?"
"I ain't a-tellin' him nothin'. I swears it, ye hear? I swears I won't
tell the student nothin' about the little kid."
"Of course you won't," answered Teola weakly. "I trust you, Tessibel."
There was a deep questioning in the squatter girl's eyes as they rested
upon the quiet bundle on the foot of the bed. How could a mother leave
her child in the care of a stranger?--leave him in a squatter's hut,
where the rats scurried hungrily about the floor, and the bats fluttered
among the ceiling rafters!
"Don't look like that, Tessibel!" Teola burst in. "You understand, don't
you, that I can't tell them?--that I can't take him home? My brother
loves me better than any other person in the world, and I love him as
much as he does me."
The blood suffused the drawn face to the hair line.
"And I want to see my baby before I go," she pleaded.
Tess shook her shoulders, and hesitated awkwardly.
"He air to sleep.... And ye ain't no business a-wakin' him up, nuther."
Suddenly a dread flashed into Teola's mind.
"Tessibel, he is.... There is something the matter with him!" She was
fully dressed, tremblingly holding the post of the bed for support.
"There is something the matter with him!" she gasped again.
"Nothin' that air a-hurtin' him," soothed Tess. "He air marked with the
fire what killed his pa, that air all.... See, t'ain't much."
She lifted the babe from the bed and held him up. The covering dropped
from the shoulder, exposing the brilliant scar.
"Not much," moaned Teola. "Not much! Poor little baby Dan!"
The mark gleamed out on the wizened old face, the deep veins in the thin
skin showing darkly. To Tess it looked more horrible than in the night
before. But she had to reassure the mother--the little mother who,
before that year, had never known one twinge of agony.
"It sure goes away sometime," said Tess.
Teola took the infant in her arms for a moment only. Moving the child
caused the large grey eyes to open, the mouth widening into a yawn.
"Take him, Tess!" mourned the mother. "Oh, I--I want to die. Dear God!
Dear, good God! Dan!... Dan, I want to come to you!"
In the presence of such grief Tessibel was silent.
She covered the infant again, and for some minutes she sat by the bed,
with her fingers tightly pressed in those of Teola. It was a tragedy
with which Tess could not cope. So she remained there until Teola cried
herself into a quietude that left an expression of wonder, knowledge and
sorrow. As Tess led her up the hill to the minister's cottage, she saw
that tears would come no more; that the mother would never know the
emotions of a girl again. Teola resembled the squatter, Myra, with her
pain-drawn face.
"She falled from the rocks," glibly lied Tess, as Rebecca placed the
pale girl in a chair. "Better put her in bed.... She has a bad ankle....
She couldn't walk much."
The frightened maid quickly responded to the advice of the squatter.
"She found me," pleaded Teola, "and you will let her come once in a
while to see me?"
Rebecca hesitated.
"Your mother and father--"
"They are not here yet, and I am so lonely and ill. Let Tessibel come
once in a while!"
"I have my doubts," said the maid, and she followed Tess down the long
stairs, just to see that the fisher-girl did not steal anything. Let
that dirty squatter come into a minister's home! No, not again, vowed
Rebecca inwardly. It was only the girl's duty to save a human being from
a fall over the rocks. Tess turned and faced the woman when they were
alone.
"I air a-comin' again," she said slyly, "and I ain't one what tells that
ye slides from the house every night to the lake with Deacon Hall's
coachman, I ain't. I has a tongue in my head, I has, but it ain't
a-waggin' 'bout no coachman and yerself."
Tess saw instantly that her point was gained. That anyone had seen her
meet the man by the light of the summer's moon had never entered
Rebecca's head for one moment.
"And I don't steal from the minister's house, nuther," assured Tess,
with a smile. "I brings ye some berries to-morry, and gives them to ye.
And ye can keep the Dominie's money for a rag of a ribbon to light the
coachman's eyes with."
She smiled again, and left Rebecca, with wide-open mouth, gaping after
the scurrying figure.
In the hut Tessibel lifted the blanket from the scarred face, and
contemplated it earnestly. She had forgotten all save the babe and the
student. She knew that the Longman brat had sugar rags--she had arranged
them herself many a time. Tearing a piece from the cloth that was
wrapped about the child, she went to the shore, and washed it clean in
the blue lake water. Filling it with bread and a liberal amount of
sugar, Tessibel soaked it in some warm milk, and put the sop-rag into
the small, gaping mouth. She must make a place for him to sleep during
his stay in the shanty. Daddy would not need all the old coats hanging
about the wall, and the blankets were longer than was necessary. From
the back of the stove the squatter dragged a small box, and turned the
splinters of wood into the fire. This, too, she washed in the lake,
setting it in the sun to dry. From one of the hooks among the rafters
she took a large-sized grape-basket, which also received its cleansing
treatment. After a bit of blanket had been cut from those on Skinner's
bed, Tess slipped the infant into the basket, to see if it were long
enough. The tiny feet did mot reach the bottom.
"Ye air to sleep many a day in it," she said aloud, "for yer legs ain't
as big as a rabbit's, and yer face ain't any beautifuller than Ma
Moll's.... But ye air a livin' and that air somethin'."
Hardly had she got the words from her lips and fitted the cover securely
before the door opened, and Ezra Longman stepped into the hut.
Tessibel's clear hearing could detect an unmistakable smack from the
babe.
"What did ye come for, Ezy?" she asked. "Air Myry all right, and yer
ma?"
"Yep. I come to see ye to-day. Ben Letts says as how ye air a-goin' to
marry him some time. Did ye tell him that?"
"Did he tell yer that?" asked Tess, instead of answering the boy's
question.
"Nope. Jake Brewer says as how Ben telled him one night that when yer
daddy air dead ye air goin' to his shanty. Ye ain't, air ye, Tess?" The
pale eyes of the young squatter boy darkened under the emotion that rose
in his breast. He looked at the girl he had loved since she had taken
her first step. Every wicked act he had committed he laid fretfully at
the door of her refusal to marry him.
Tessibel watched Ezra, waiting for him to speak again. She feared the
child would cry out--feared that the dark secret of the improvised
cradle would get into the hands of her enemies.
"Daddy ain't a-goin' to die," she said, quietly giving the grape-basket
a touch with her foot, and deftly shoving it under the bed. Another
smack told her that the infant was awake.
"And, what air more, Ezy, I ain't a-goin' to marry Ben Letts, or nobody
else, for a lot of years.... I air a-goin' to wait here for Daddy."
"And if yer Daddy goes dead?" inquired Ezra longingly.
"If he goes dead," she interrupted, lifting her unfathomable eyes, "if
he air hanged, then I comes to the Longman shanty and marries yer....
Now go, dum quick!"
She had quieted one of her enemies with a promise which she would never
be forced to keep. For was not the student's God going to save Daddy
Skinner? And wasn't she going to Auburn prison to see him? That clean
skirt in the corner, washed and dried in the sun, Tess was going to
wear. She was going with the great man from the hill. Suddenly came the
thought of the babe. With whom could she leave it? Her face whitened
with grief.... Of course she could not go now.
She turned again to Ezra, who was loitering at the door.
"Ye go now, Ezy, and tell Myra I ain't a-comin' this evenin', and I
hopes her brat won't be yelping too much."
* * * * *
The next day Tess appeared at the back of the minister's cottage, with a
basket slung over her arm. Rebecca ushered her up the stairs to the
pretty blue room. Teola moved her head languidly, but, recognizing her
visitor, brightened a little.
"I am so glad you came. Tell me how he is.... I have nearly died to see
him."
"He air well. Have ye had a doctor?"
"Yes, and I have told him all about it, for I was so sick. I told him
about you, and he ordered Rebecca to let you come and see me. He is a
friend of my father's, and will never tell anyone."
Tess walked to the door, and listened; then laid her finger on her lips.
She raised the basket from the floor, slipped back the cover, and Teola
Graves was peeping in upon a tiny sleeping face.
"He air a-goin' with me wherever I has to go.... I ain't a-comin' here
again with him, fearin' some one will know.... I think ye be happier,
now that ye hes seen his bed--eh? Now I air a-goin', and when ye gets
well ye can come to the hut to see him. He air gettin' powerful hungry.
He can smack louder than a dog can holler.... Poor little devil!"
That night, a small figure left the Skinner shanty bent upon an act of
theft. Up through the lane to the tracks, with a small pail in her hand,
Tessibel went. The brindle bull capered about her as she slid through
the wires. Without the slightest compunction, Tessibel returned to the
shanty with the warm milk which she had taken from one of the fine cows
at Kennedy's; then by the light of the candle she filled the tin cup,
and warmed it over the fire. This, too, would have to be sweetened.
Spoonful after spoonful she emptied into the smacking lips, and, when
the babe slept, Tess placed it under the blankets, and took up the Bible
to read of the promises of the student's God.