The rain rushed in through the open door. The wind shook the dust in
clouds from the overhanging nets, waving the long cobwebs that hung in
fine threads from the ceiling into fantastic figures.
Frederick, still supporting his sister, stepped into the glare of the
lightning. Tess closed the door behind them, and stood with her back
against it. The high chest lifted and lifted, the white, tightened
throat choking down the sobs that tried to force themselves to her lips.
"She were a damn sneak," were the first words she said, shudderingly
covering her face with her hands.
"Aw, aw, I ain't a-goin' to have it here.... I can't have it here."
She was thinking of the child, now twisting and turning for more sugar.
A whine from its lips drew Tess slowly toward it. She stood looking down
upon it for many minutes. The baby had taken away her all, for Tess
realized now the extent of her love for Frederick. Nothing would make
the days shorter; there was no looking forward to a kindly nod or a
gracious word from him.
"I hates ye," she said out loud, slowly, leaning over the infant with a
frown on her face, "but I hates yer ma worse than I hates you. Yer ma
air a piker, she air."
The babe whimpered and shivered. Tessibel wrapped its bare shoulders in
a piece of the blanket.
"I could throw ye out in the rain, I hates ye so," she burst forth in
sudden anger. "Ye ain't no right in this shanty."
Her eyes glittered with rage and humiliation; her head sank nearer and
nearer the fire-marked child, her shock of red hair falling like a
mantle of gold across its thin body. The twisting fingers entangled
themselves in the tawny curls, drawing the squatter down until her face
was almost in the box. With a grunt of abhorrence she spread out the
wiry little hands, extricating lock after lock.
Once free, she squatted back upon her feet, scrutinizing the child with
no sign of sympathy in her eyes. Suddenly she caught a glimpse of the
forest and the lake beyond through the window. She could see the rain
falling in quantities into the water, and the great pine-tree, in which
sat her God of Majesty, whitened under the zig-zag glare of lightning.
The superstitious, imaginative girl rose unsteadily to her feet.
Pressing her face to the smeared pane, she saw the jagged lightning
tearing again toward the tree; then it played about the figure that Tess
had grown to love. The old man amid the branches bent toward the
squatter, and held out his waving arms. A cry burst from Tessibel's
lips. She opened the door, standing in bold relief against the
candlelight, and shot her hands far into the dark night.
"Oh, Goddy, Goddy!" she breathed, catching her breath in stifling sobs.
"The student air gone, and the Bible air burnt, and Daddy air in a
prison cell. Might'n I asks ye--?"
She turned, with heaving bosom, without finishing. Bending over the
child, she drew him into her arms. With the same sublime expression of
suffering, she went back to the open door and knelt in the beating rain,
and tendered the little child toward the God of her dreams.
"Might'n it please ye, Goddy, to bless the brat--and Tess?"
The student was no longer the motive power of her prayer. Tess, the
squatter, was struggling with a new faith of her own. Flash after flash
brightened the sky, and still she knelt, offering the sick child for her
God to bless. One long peal of thunder shook the inky waters, and
rumbled reverberatingly into the hills. Tessibel's eyes were riveted
upon the pine-tree. The wind dropped the shaking branches for a
minute--the arms extended straight toward her. With fast-falling tears
she bowed over the wailing baby, and stood up with a long breath.
"Goddy, Goddy, it air hard work for ye to forgive Tessibel, I knows....
To-day I loved the student best"--a sob tightened her throat--"to-night
I love you best, and ... and the Man hanging on the Cross."
She closed the hut door, and seated herself at the oven, and warmed the
infant with tender solicitude, forcing the warm, sweetened water into
the meager body. Then she slipped off her clothes, gathered the little
Dan to her breast, and crept into bed.
"I said as how I hated ye, brat," she whispered, "but I don't hate ye
now, poor little shiverin' dum devil!"
During the rest of the storm the babe slept, but Tessibel wept out her
loss of the only love she had ever known save Daddy Skinner's--wept
until, from sheer exhaustion, her head dropped upon the dark one of Dan
Jordan's babe, and she slept.
* * * * *
The next morning, Tess rose languidly. Without a smile or a prayer, she
arranged the sop for the babe, then sat down beside him to think. Such a
radical change in her life brought an influx of indescribable emotions.
Her Bible was gone--the one book out of which she was learning the
secret of happiness and patience. She remembered how, the night before,
the realization of her despair had brought her closer to the Cross. Out
of the brightness of the lightning she had received a promise of a
blessing. Still, the tender, sensitive heart was bleeding for its own.
But Tess had the hidden God to help her--and the child. She sat watching
him; she could see that he was growing thinner, growing more emaciated
as the days passed. He could eat only the food Tess forced into his
mouth. But the sugar rags kept him from whining. At this moment he was
eying the window-pane with intelligent intentness.
"Ye air the miserablest little devil I ever seed. No pappy, and a mammy
what air afraid to say ye air hers. I hated ye last night, but ye air
such a wrinkled little tramp that this mornin' I promises ye to keep ye
till ye dies."
She was bending over the babe, watching every expression that flitted
over the drawn mouth. In this position she did not hear the door open
silently, as Teola stepped in.
The minister's daughter whispered to the crouching squatter:
"Tessibel, can--can you ever forgive me?"
Tess stood up and took a long breath. Teola noted how the night had
changed the brilliant coloring to a whiteness that startled her. An
agony of remorse broke over her, and, dropping upon her knees, she wept
upon the face of little Dan.
"Tess, I've nearly died all through the night.... Oh, can you forgive
me?"
"I ain't no business to be a-forgivin' ye. It be the brat what ye air
to asks forgiveness of."
Teola sprang to her feet.
"Tess!" she cried sharply. Never had the girl appeared in this light.
"It air hard on the little kid," Tessibel said meditatively, "when its
ma says what another woman air a-mothering it for good and all."
This remark came forth in even tones. Teola had not thought of the harm
she had done the child of Dan Jordan, by throwing the motherhood upon
the squatter. She turned her troubled eyes, first upon Tess, then upon
the child.
"Tessibel, I do love him, even if I disowned him. But I haven't the
courage you have. You looked so beautiful when you said he was yours....
And Frederick is ill to-day."
Tessibel's heart thumped loudly.
"I heard him crying all night, Tess," went on Teola, "and, oh! so many
times I wanted to go and tell him that you were--a good girl; but I
didn't have the courage. But I know that sometime--Tess, will you pray
for me?"
"I ain't doin' no prayin' to-day," replied Tess. "To-morry, mebbe....
Aw! I wanted the student to pray for Daddy, and to like me--"
Teola never forgot the scene that followed.
The fisher-girl settled in a heap upon the floor, bowed the tired head,
and wept.
"Tessibel! Tess," called Teola, touching the girl's shoulder, "listen.
I'll tell him!--I'll tell him! He shall come back to you to-night--if it
kills me."
Tessibel lifted her white face.
"Ye be goin' to tell him that the brat air yers?" queried she brokenly.
"I'll go and make it all right with him. He shall come to you to-day....
Oh, what a wicked girl I was! Kiss me, Tess."
Elias Graves' beautiful daughter sank on the breast of the squatter, and
there was a kiss of forgiveness.
The baby whimpered. Teola drew away from Tessibel with a long sigh. She
reached for the milk-can.
"There ain't none there," Tess said, with a touch of joy in her tones.
"It air all gone. He et all that you brought him."
"And I can't get him any more now," moaned Teola. "Oh, Tess, I'm so ill!
I wish I were dead!"
A tall boy had repeated the same words the night before. Tess drew
herself up painfully. She pitied Teola from the bottom of her heart,
but, in spite of her pity, she could not help the thrill of happiness
when she thought of Frederick coming, and knowing all.
"It ain't no use to wish ye were dead," said she, "'cause ye can't
allers die if ye wants to. When I thought Daddy was a-goin' to the rope,
I say every day I were a-goin' to die.... Women ain't a-dyin' so easy."
She was preparing the warm sop for the child, and taking him from his
mother's arm, she sat down in the rocking chair. She did not speak again
until she had drained the sweetened water from the bread-crusts, and the
child had smacked it down eagerly.
Suddenly she spoke, handing the babe to Teola.
"Can't ye put out a drop more milk evenin's?"
"I took all there was last night, and the night before, too. And this
morning Rebecca was furious--she had to go without milk in her coffee. I
don't know that I can get any to-night."
"The weather air so cold now," explained Tess, "Kennedy won't let his
cows stay in the fields nights. I might crib some more if I could. Every
time I steals up to yer house, I thinks yer woman'll see me; and yer
Pappy and Mammy comes home to-morry."
Teola nodded.
"If yer Pappy catched me swipin' milk, he'd knock the head offen me. I
steals it just the same.... I air afraid of yer Pappy, though."
"No wonder," replied Teola, and she lapsed into silence.
Her father hated the squatter girl--hated the fishermen who still plied
their unlawful trade under the noses of the gamekeepers.
Teola was crying softly. She felt it was only just to relieve Tess of
the stigma she had placed upon her. But to go home and face the proud
young brother with the story of her sin--with the lie she had told--were
almost unbearable. Then another thought pierced her. Could Tess keep the
baby all winter? And would she herself have the courage to live, knowing
that he might sometimes be hungry and cold? Frederick would help her.
She was glad she had decided to tell him.
* * * * *
As she walked up the long hill, she saw her brother standing on the
porch, and noted the pallor of his face, the expression of misery in his
eyes. At first the boy did not see her--not until she called his name
softly.
Teola sank upon the upper step.
"It takes away my breath to climb that hill," she panted, when she
could speak. "It grows harder and harder every day."
"I shall be glad when we leave this old cottage," was the boy's moody
reply. "I never knew how much I hated the lake until to-day."
Teola did not answer to this, for she knew that she was to blame for
that hatred. Frederick was looking at the hut under the willow wofully.
"If anyone had told me what I saw last night," he blurted out, a moment
later, "I believe I would have killed him.... I loved her, Teola."
Now she would tell him--send him back to Tessibel with joy in his heart.
She sprang up impetuously.
"Frederick," she began quickly, "let me tell--"
But he interrupted her.
"You need not tell me that I have to forgive her for such a thing as
this because of ignorance.... It's too horrible!... I shall never get
the sight of that child out of my mind.... That streak of awful, lurid
red ... that yapping mouth ... those clawing hands.... God! the disgust
I felt.... Teola! Teola! You are ill! Rebecca, come here! Come! Come!"
Together they lifted her from the porch where she had fallen, like a man
stabbed with a knife. Gurgling from her lips poured the fresh red blood
from the diseased lungs. Teola tried to speak, tried to tell Frederick
the truth, but the awful tugging in her chest, and her brother's order
that she must not speak, closed her lips upon the good resolution. Added
to his command came one from the doctor, who arrived later, that she
must not speak one word until he came the next day. The hemorrhage had
been brought on by Frederick's description of her child. After her
brother had gone, she thought of the hour when she could tell him, but
with a thankful feeling in her heart that it had been delayed a little
time.
* * * * *
Until the great University bells chimed the hour of midnight, Tessibel
waited in the hut for Frederick.
"She hes forgot to tell him," she muttered wearily, pulling the sleepy
babe into her arms, "and--and he ain't a-comin'."