Tess closed the door of her shanty, looked about to see if anyone were
watching her movements, then she, too, broke into the high weeds that
surrounded the running brook under the mud cellar. Her little ruse in
giving the child to its mother delighted her. She would find Teola, and
bring her and the babe back to the shanty. Softly she parted the
branches that hid the spot where she had first seen the Dominie's
daughter. Through the maze of brambles she saw the girl, with the child
clasped closely in her arms. The cloth in which Tess had wrapped it had
fallen from the little shoulders, leaving them white, save for the
blood-red mark of fire. Teola lifted the infant, and kissed it
passionately, bending her head over it, praying. Tess could not enter
upon such a holy scene. She sank down upon the turf. The basket yawned
upon a bed of moss, its flannel rags hanging over the edge. Teola was
making the babe ready to return to its bed, when Tess slipped under the
branches of the short sumac trees, and entered the clearing.
"Come back to the shanty," she said. "Ye be here too long."
"I can't. I must go home, Tessibel.... I could hardly get away as it
was. Oh, Tess, isn't he beautiful?... Don't you think the mark will soon
go away? What makes him open his mouth so much? Possibly the sugar rag
is too large."
"Nope, 'tain't that. He be tired, and that air what makes him gape like
that. Wait until he gets some bigness. He air little yet."
"I haven't asked you, Tess," and Teola turned troubled eyes upon the
squatter, "I haven't been able to ask you how you feed him. And where do
you get the milk?... Oh, if I only had some money! When mother is home,
I do get a little. But Rebecca won't give me a cent. Tessibel, where do
you get the milk?"
The babe was still clasped in her arms.
"I crib it from the cows at Kennedy's. They all has too much for their
calves, anyhow."
"You mean you steal it, Tess?" asked Teola fearfully. "Oh, Tessibel! Oh!
Oh, Tess, Tess, how good you are!"
"I ain't good," Tess retorted. "It ain't good to steal, air it? And
squatters ain't never good, they ain't. But the brat's got to eat, ain't
he? If I ain't got no milk, then I has to crib it. See?"
Bitter tears were falling upon the head of little Dan. They were the
mother's first tears since that day when Tess had led her up the hill to
the summer cottage.
"But Kennedy will shut his cows up soon," announced the squatter. "Then
I don't know what to do. The brat air too little to eat fish, he air."
Suddenly Teola conceived an idea.
"If I should put out a little milk behind the house, in a pail, could
you come after it, Tessibel?"
"Yep," replied Tess eagerly. "I could crib it from your yard, if ye'll
let me."
"Yes, yes; that's the way to do," replied Teola, with a faint smile. "If
I can't get the milk out, you go into the kitchen. Simply take all you
can get. Take all you want. My father and mother will be home soon.
They know by this time I am ill. My brother also gets back from camping
at the same time. You see how careful I shall have to be, Tessibel. And
in September, we go back to the city, for school always takes us home
then. If I could only have my own baby. My own precious baby!"
Tessibel grunted. Teola misunderstood her.
"Oh, I am grateful to you, dear! I think that you are the best girl in
all the world. So does my brother Frederick. He says--"
She stooped to cover the child, her voice ceasing.
The babe had been carefully tucked in.
"He's a been sayin' what?" The tones of the squatter were eager, her
eyes so bright that Teola did not answer for a moment.
"He says that there is no girl as good as you, and that your faith in
God is what he would rather have than anything else in the world.... Oh,
Tess, if I could only believe, and be sure that soon the baby and I
could go to--his father!"
"If ye asks, ye can go," replied Tess solemnly. "The student says what
ye asks with faith ye'll get. Ain't that enough to prove it?"
This fell reverently from the lips of the girl. Faith in Frederick
rather than faith in God had given birth to her believing soul. But
neither girl realized it. Both were silent for some minutes. Teola was
looking dreamily at the opposite hill, the basket with its precious
burden already hanging on the squatter's arm. Tess had learned that such
loud smacks as the infant was giving were indicative of hunger. So she
made a move to go.
"I takes him back to feed him. He air hungry."
"Oh, Tess, if I could only feed him! If I could only always have him! I
wish--I wish I were a squatter. Then I would face the world with my
baby.... Oh, I am so unhappy and ill!"
True, she was ill, for there came to Tessibel's ears a cough that echoed
against the rocks with the familiar sound of death in it. It sounded
like that of a fisherwoman she had known in a shanty below the great
rocks, who had died and been taken to the Potter's field.
"I air a-prayin' every day," said Tess, with a lump in her throat, "that
ye be taken with the brat to the sky--to the brat's pa what ye loves....
Air that the prayin' ye wants?"
Teola nodded, and Tess, smiling tenderly, hesitated, and whispered:
"The student's God can do anything He wants to. Asks Him to let ye go
'cause ye be sick, and the brat air sick, too, and--the winter'll be
cold for him."
She touched the handle on her arm lightly, turned, and disappeared.
Teola sat for some moments dry-eyed, looking at the high hill across the
blue water, thinking of the next few weeks, and of how she and the babe
would be called away. If she only had the precious uplifting faith of
Tessibel! Something must come to her and the baby. Her stern father, who
hated Tessibel Skinner with all his heart, must never know of the little
Dan. Her mother, weary and nervous, would go to her grave from the
shock; and Frederick--
Teola straightened at the thought of her brother. He would help her in
all things, even in the tragedy that now covered her life. Of that
Teola felt sure, but the humiliation would be too great. Better die
apart from her child. With another racking cough, she turned her face
toward home, two hectic spots shining clear and red upon the white
cheeks. Rebecca silently helped her to bed.
That night, at ten o'clock, after Tess had silenced the child in her
arms and Teola had lost her nervousness in a stupor, three boats shot
from different points of the west shore, and quietly oared a path
through the moonlit lake toward the netting place.
The occupants of one boat were Satisfied Longman and his son. In another
Jake Brewer sat, alone. In the third Ben Letts puffed upon his pipe. His
thoughts were upon the one person he desired--Tess. Like most of
mankind, he wanted what he could not get; wanted the girl who turned a
mocking, beautiful face toward him and used such a bitter tongue. Tess
was responsible for the scars upon his face, but he would feel them well
carried if he gained the girl--and tamed her. That Tess was a devoted
admirer of the student Graves made her none the less desirable. Ben
dipped his oars with dexterous aptitude and shot under the shadow of the
trees. An instant later, his boat was beside those of the other
squatters, and he was standing with his hand upon the north reel. Out
into the lake the net was carried by Satisfied Longman and Jake Brewer.
Ben could see the tall, thin form of Ezra through the shadows, guiding
the ropes as they slipped through his fingers. Here was a boy aspiring
to the love of Tessibel Skinner. Ben heard the swish of the net far out
in the lake as it took to the silent waters, heard the dipping of the
oars, and saw the boats strike for the shore. Then Ezra came toward him,
at the command of his father, Satisfied Longman.
During that evening, Deforest Young was calling upon Deacon Hall. He
refused the Deacon's invitation to row him to the city.
"Thanks," said he, "but the night is delightful. I think I shall walk. I
shall go by the shore and skirt to the tracks at the Hoghole."
He failed to say, however, that his reason for walking was that he
desired to catch a glimpse of the red-haired Tess. He had not seen her
since the discovery of the new-born babe.
The candle was lighted in the Skinner hut, and he tapped gently. For an
instant there was no response, He knew the girl was at home--there had
been a sudden discontinuance of a humming when he knocked.
"Miss Skinner, it is I--Professor Young," he called. "If it is too late,
I will come again."
The door was promptly thrown open.
"Come in," said Tess with a smile. "I thought as how it were someone
else."
"I have been at Deacon Hall's," explained he. "They agree with me that
you ought to go and see your father. I did not tell them why you could
not. Where is the little child?"
Tess glanced at the babe.
"I keeps him in the basket or the box in the daytime, but nights I takes
him to bed with me. The rats be so dum thick that one of them big
fellers would chew the little chap's ear offen him afore I could stop
it."
She said it so naturally, as if she were speaking of the most ordinary
thing, that Young felt a hysterical desire to laugh. It was a dreadful
thought, this of the rat in the box with the babe.
"Are the men netting to-night?" he asked, quickly changing the subject.
"Yep, they be."
"I suppose there is no stopping it," sighed Young; "and they run such
dreadful risks. But, if there were no laws about it, there would be no
fish left in the lake."
Tessibel's brow gathered a thick network of wrinkles. She had heard the
subject discussed and argued from her babyhood days. The best fish in
the waters must be kept for the gentlemen who came for sport during the
season. But the fishermen, who needed bread for their families, were
forced by the law to go without.
"There oughtn't to be no laws about fishin'," she frowned, in decision.
"It air wicked, when brats air a-wantin' bread and beans."
Young saw danger ahead in the argument, so he switched to the
home-coming of the minister's family. From that he again spoke of the
infant, who was whimpering a little. Tess took him up, and warmed the
milk.
"I shall go now, child," said Young, rising. "You are tired. You ought
to go to bed."
"Yep, I air tired, I air," answered Tess, wearily "Good-night."
Once out upon the shore, Young looked back at the hut. It was dark. He
saw three boats flit silently by him toward the city, as if phantoms
guided them. They crossed the moonbeams, and Young lost them in the dark
shadows near the shore.