Two days later, on Friday evening, Teola slipped quietly from her home,
and the Skinner hut opened to her timid knock. Tess had no more fear
when visitors came. Ben Letts had gone with Myra, and Ezra Longman was
dead.
The girls eyed each other for one embarrassed moment. The day for
separation was at hand: Tess would face the lean winter, Teola the
burden of a conscience in torment.
"Come in," muttered Tess.
"Tessibel," Teola burst out spontaneously, "we are going away to-morrow.
I wish I were going to stay with you and the baby!"
Gloomily Tess scrutinized the young mother, checking an ejaculation that
rose to her lips.
"I don't understand what you are going to do," said Teola. "Tess, do you
think he is very ill? You do! I can see it in your face. Look how he
yawns, and screws his mouth, and shuts his eyes! Oh, he is suffering,
Tessibel!"
"Yep, he air sick," replied Tess, turning her back. She had grown to
love the hapless thing, and knew that he suffered as all human beings
suffer when they go slowly away to the mystery of mysteries.
Teola's next words brought her about sharply.
"Tessibel, do you--hate me?"
"Nope."
"Oh, what a coward I am! Frederick has forbidden me to come here."
"That air 'cause he air a good bloke," snorted Tess. "But if he
knowed--"
"I can't get my breath when I think of telling him, Tess."
"He ain't to know never, then?" bounded from Tessibel's lips, the
passion in the tones lowering the voice almost to a whisper.
"No," replied the young mother; "I can't tell him."
The squatter just caught the next words, "But I am going to die, too,
Tess."
The conviction in the statement made Tess spring back.
"Ye ain't yet. Ye ain't goin' yet!"
"The doctor says I am very ill here." Teola placed her hand upon her
chest. "I've had three hemorrhages. People ill like I am never get well.
I don't want to--either," she ended brokenly.
She looked so forlorn, so thin and ill that Tess went awkwardly to her.
"I takes care of the brat if ye goes before him," said she.
"Thank you, dear," drifted from the depths of the child's box. "And
forgive me all the sorrow I have caused you."
"I has forgivin' ye," assured Tess, seating herself. "I were--sorry
about the student, though."
"I know, I know; and perhaps God won't forgive me, for I've been so
wicked! I make up my mind every night, when I can't sleep, that I will
tell; then in the daylight I am afraid."
Tess did not answer.
"I shall think every moment of the day about you two here. Oh, my
precious baby! If I could only take him with me! That mark will never
disappear," she concluded, rubbing the tiny red forehead with her
fingers. "If he only goes when I do! God couldn't be so cruel as to let
him live, with his face like that, and have neither father nor mother."
"Nope," replied Tess with decision. "He'll take the brat, too."
"Will he die soon, Tess?"
"Yep."
"Why do you think so? Why?"
"He air too thin to hold out much longer. He don't eat, nuther. He don't
do nothin' but smack all day long on them sugar rags, like a suckin'
calf. And there ain't no makin' him eat."
"But he doesn't cry much," argued Teola.
"That air 'cause he air so weak. Ma Moll were here with the hoss doctor,
and they says he air to croak dum quick."
Teola raised her head, startled.
"Oh, I didn't know you had had a doctor. I was going to speak about it
to-night." She dropped her eyes, reddened, and then added, "But the
horse doctor, Tessibel?"
"Squatters allers has the hoss doctor--they air cheaper."
"But he can't die!" Teola moaned. "Not now--not yet! He has never been
baptized. If he died now, he wouldn't go to Heaven!"
"Aw! shut up. He air a-goin' in faster'n any of them. Don't you worry
yer head over that. God ain't that kind of a bloke that He wouldn't take
in a sick brat what ain't never done no harm."
Tess had risen, and was standing over the child, Teola having placed
him back in the bed.
"But you don't understand, Tess dear! You see, it's this way: the Bible
says that if a child isn't baptized, he will go to a place where he must
stay always. He won't go to Heaven. You understand?"
"Air the Bible a-sayin' that?"
"Yes."
"Won't he go to a place where God'll find him, if he ain't sprinkled?"
"No."
"That air strange. The poor brat air so blue, so shiverin'--he air so
sick! Aw! Christ'll love him, 'cause he ain't got no friends."
Her eyes spread wide with infinite compassion as she contemplated the
grave-shadowed child.
"Did the student tell ye that the Bible were a-sayin' that?" she asked
peremptorily.
"Yes; and my father has often preached upon it. I know that it is true,"
insisted Teola. "A child must be cleansed of its original sin in the
church.... You see? You see, Tess?"
"I don't see--I don't know, nuther. But what the student says air right.
If the little kid ain't to see God's face 'less he air slapped on the
head with water in the church, then the brat air got to be tooked
there."
"But--but, Tess, is it possible?"
Again the squatter bent her head to gather the words.
"He air a-goin' to die," she replied with conviction, "and he has to be
hit with the water, if he air a-goin' to die, don't he? Air that what ye
means?"
Teola, dropping her face upon the babe, bowed her head in assent, and
wept silently, until the cough that had fastened itself upon the
slender chest since the coming of the child, dried the tears.
Tess remained quiet until the paroxysm had passed.
"Air yer pappy a good sprinkler of brats?"
Teola nodded.
"Air it likely he would sprinkle this 'un'?"
"I don't think my father would turn away a dying babe that needed
cleansing of its sin by the Holy Ghost."
"The Huly what? The student were a-talkin' 'bout him once."
"The Holy Ghost," explained Teola. "He lives in the church, and when a
baby is baptized He comes and stands by the font, and when the water
falls upon it, He takes away all the sin that it is born with."
Tess grunted disbelievingly.
"Can ye sees him?"
"No; He is a spirit."
"Ye mean that he air like the headless man from Haytes, and the squaw
with her burnt brat?"
They were both down beside the babe again, Tess eying the mother
eagerly.
"Oh, no, Tess! Those are but superstitions. This is the truth. No matter
how little the child is, he won't go to a holy place if he isn't
baptized."
"Air the Huly Ghost livin' only in the church?"
"Yes, He doesn't stay anywhere else."
"Who says it air true?"
"God."
"Your brother's God?"
"Yes."
"Then, of course, it air so. Why didn't ye say so before? Could the brat
be sprinkled this comin' Sunday?"
"Yes; yes, it is baptismal Sunday. Deacon Hall's new baby is to be
baptized, and lots of others, too!"
"Then yer brat air goin' to be sprinkled with 'em," decided Tessibel.
"Tess!" gasped Teola. "How? How?... I should die if I had to take him to
the church."
"I takes him," replied Tess grimly. "I takes him, and I says to yer
pappy, 'Dominie, I knows that ye don't like me nor my Daddy, but here
air a brat what air sick to death.... He can't find God by hisself
'cause he air too little, and God won't try and find him if he ain't
sprinkled. Will ye do it?'"
Teola shifted her position, and looked into the squatter's face. It was
gleaming with heavenly resolve and uplifted faith.
"Tess, would you dare?" gasped she.
"Yep! The little brat has to go. I takes him."
The fisher-girl clambered to her feet, and shoved another log into the
stove.
"It air a chilly night," she commented, "and the ghosts air a-howling
like mad, 'cause Ma Moll's been here. She can raise spirits any time of
night."
Teola evidently did not hear. Her eyes were fixed upon the face of the
babe, her mouth twitching nervously at the corners. She wondered
silently what her father would say when Tess presented the child for
baptism on Sunday morning. She could imagine her own happiness after it
was all over. She thought she would get better for a time. She
remembered how her mother had worried over her cough, how her father had
advised with the best doctors of the city; but they had gravely shaken
their heads, saying that the girl might grow out of it; they hoped she
would. But day by day she had seen herself growing more and more
slender, more and more fragile-looking. And, as Teola knelt over the
child in the flickering candlelight, Tess shivered superstitiously. The
young mother was so white that the squatter could almost have imagined
her one of Ma Moll's ghosts.
"They be a-callin' ye from yer house," remarked Tess, after a long
stillness.
"Yes, I hear them.... It is my father. But I am so tired that it seems
as if I could never climb the hill. I'll see you a minute to-morrow,
Tess.... If I can't, will you bring the baby to the church Sunday, at
eleven o'clock?... Thank you, dear; thank you.... Good-bye, precious
little Dan.... And--and forgive me, Tessibel!"