Minister Graves watched his child painfully climb the front steps. He
could see, even through the dim shadows, how thin she had become, how
she panted for breath over the slight exertion of walking up the hill. A
thought that stung him like a whip seized him, convulsing his heart and
shaking his powerful frame as if he had been attacked by sudden ague.
Was his daughter going to die? She could not die--God would not take her
from him! He remembered Teola's birth, with a groan of pain: remembered
how he had taken the dark-haired babe, so tiny and helpless, into his
study alone, and had uttered the sincerest prayer of a father's life,
that the blessings of Heaven would cover his new-found treasure and
would guide the little footsteps during the whole bright future--her
future must be bright, with his love to shield her. He could remember
each succeeding day--his pride and ambitions for her--and now--
Teola paused on the top step, clinging to the veranda pillar. He came
hastily to her, the darkness covering the emotions that had paled his
face, and bent over the exhausted girl, kissing her lips tenderly.
"Teola, darling! My darling, why will you persist in being out at
night?... See, now, how you are coughing.... Child, what would become of
me, if anything should happen to you?"
Teola knew the heart of her father. He had sternly preached orthodox
doctrine, had persecuted the squatters according to his beliefs; but he
loved his children, and especially had he idolized her. The thought of
the babe in the fisherman's hut sped through her mind, her father's
consternation and horror if she should be compelled to tell her secret.
But Tessibel stood in her place as mother to the little boy, and had
taken an oath that nothing could force her to break. The squatter had
been the scapegoat upon which had been heaped the sins of a girl no one
had thought capable of doing wrong. Teola, resting in her father's arms,
struggled with her conscience, trying to press down the moral weakness
that had compelled her to keep the tragedy in the cabin quiet. The
minister helped her to her chamber, and, after she had retired, went in
and prayed with and for her. His voice, low and tender, with the
exquisite tones of an orator, was strangely moved.
"Child," he groaned, "I would give much to see you in good health
again."
"I shall never be better, dearest; never. I know now that I cannot--that
I sha'n't--"
His hand covered her lips.
"If you want to break my heart, Teola," he cried, unnerved, "then say
what you were going to. I can't, and won't, bear it! You are not yet
eighteen. You've always been well until these past few weeks.... Oh, I
wish your mother and I had never gone abroad--or that you had gone with
us.... But you begged so hard to stay at home!"
Teola had coveted the chance to tell him of the little human link
between Dan Jordan's life and hers. She raised herself on her pillow,
the long hair mantling her shoulders and aureoling the death-like face.
"Father," she gasped. "Father! Let me tell you something about Tessibel
Skinner. No! Don't put your fingers over my lips! Don't! Don't! Listen."
"Teola," interjected Graves gravely, "if you want to displease me--"
"She's so lonely," broke in the girl, her courage ebbing away under the
bent brows of her father. "I thought--you--might help her."
"Go to sleep," replied the minister, "there's a good girl!...
Good-night."
For a moment, Teola lay panting nervously. She had been so near the
confession, so near telling her father about the little babe in the
shanty. She slipped out of bed to the window. The wind still flung the
dead leaves, whirling them to and fro in the orchard like willful
spirits. The night had darkened until, to Teola, shivering and ill, it
seemed alive with shadowy goblins which mocked at her.
She could just make out the dark line of the hut under the willow
branches. A candlelight flickered a moment in the window, and was gone.
Teola moaned long, muttering loving messages to the child cuddled in
Tessibel's arms. She loved it, but could not bring it home--yet! At last
sleep, a deep, fatigued sleep, enveloped her. She was too tired to
dream.
After Tess was alone, she made ready for bed. The child whimpered
drowsily. The squatter lifted it up with infinite tenderness, binding
the rags more closely about the scrawny body.
"Ye don't amount to as much as the tuft on Kennedy's mare's tail," she
said aloud. "Eat now, I says, or I opens yer mouth and pours it full."
The words, gathered from the vocabulary of the squatter, were harsh,
but the emotion in the tones softened them.
"Ye air a-dyin' 'cause ye won't eat, kid, and ye have the smell of a
dead rat, too. Yer lips be that blue--and yer mouth air like a
baby-bird's.... Eat, I says, damn ye.... Will ye swallow that?"
She held the withered lips open, and filled the cavity with warm milk.
"Eat, I says," crooned the girl; "eat, and Tess takes ye tight--like
this--and the rats can't bite ye, or the ghosts get ye till ye air dead.
Tess loves ye, ye poor little brat."
The child, strangling for breath, gulped down a mouthful of milk, but
the jaws set again, and the lips settled into a blue line. Tess prepared
the sugar rag, putting in a large amount of sweet, and dipped it in the
tea-pan in which she had warmed the milk. Then she allowed a little of
the syrup to fall upon the lips. The mouth snapped upon it, and long
after Tess had gathered the infant into her arms the smacking went on
and on, until both slept. Neither heard the wind that rattled the hut
boards, that rasped its endless sawing on the tin roof; neither heard
the willow branches brushing to and fro against the rickety chimney. The
child slept the sleep of a human creature moving silently toward death;
and Tess the sleep of the exhausted.
* * * * *
The next morning she stood in the doorway, grimly watching the
cottagers' boats, loaded with household goods, one by one as they
passed. This time of year was prophetic of the coming winter, and told
Tess a few more weeks would see the snow piled up about the hut and the
lake covered with ice. Deacon Hall's private launch steamed by, with
huge piles of bedding heaped up on the bow. One after another of the
summer residents disappeared in the inlet, and Tess was waiting for the
hill-house people also to leave.
She heard Frederick's voice in the lane, and closed the door, pressing
her face to the window. She saw him climb into his father's little yacht
to make it ready for the summer's stock from the cottage. Teola, too,
was on the shore, and Tess saw the girl turn longing eyes toward the
hut. Then, with a boyish tug at his belt, Frederick started up the hill.
His face in profile showed the squatter that he had changed--he was
thinner, paler, and looked years older. Closer pressed the sweet face to
the dirty pane, brighter grew the brown eyes. Drawn by his own desire,
the student turned and looked at her. First an expression of eagerness
leaped into his face; then one of sorrow settled upon it. He went on to
the cottage without even nodding his head. He would soon come down with
his father, mother and sister Babe, and Tess would see him no more.
She sank down upon the bed beside the sucking child, and did not hear
the hut door open softly.
"Tess, Tess! It's Teola, dear. What is the matter?"
The squatter choked back her tears, and sat up.
"There ain't nothin' the matter," she replied sulkily. "I can cry if I
wants to, can't I?"
"But, Tessibel, I have never seen you cry like that before, never! Is it
money? Here, dear; here is a dollar. Father gave it to me. It will buy
some milk, until I can send more. Oh, let me see my baby again. Darling
little man! Your mother does love you, even if she must leave you. Tess,
he looks worse than he did when I went home last night. You--you will
bring him to the church to-morrow?"
"Yep."
"And, Tess, I left a lot of white cloths on the pear-tree near the barn.
I could not bring them to you before, for Mother only sorted them out to
throw away this morning. Oh, the baby looks so thin and ill, Tess!"
Tears trickled down upon the infant. Teola pressed her lips again and
again to the thin mouth. The vivid mark was offering its crimson tinge
sharply against the dead blue of the rest of the baby face.
"And, Tess," burst forth Teola, "how gladly I would give you a dress for
yourself if I could, and a dress for him! You can't bring him like this
to the church. You don't mind coming as you are?"
"Nope," came the bitter interruption from the squatter. "I don't need no
clothes to have a brat sprinkled. I air a squatter, and squatters don't
give--a hell about nothin'."
Her looks belied the words. With the dignity of a queen, the fine young
head had settled back upon the broad shoulders sloping bare at the arms.
The sweet face gave the lie to the hardened speech uttered from the
grief she had just spent upon the bed.
"Don't speak like that, Tess! Don't! don't!" gasped Teola. "Some day,
after the babe and I are dead--"
Teola had come close to the fisher-girl, her pale face thrust
beseechingly forward. Tess hesitated; then flung out her arms and drew
the minister's daughter into them. Her eyes were filled with awe
indescribable.
"I's a mean brat to make ye say that," she faltered. "I brings the kid
to-morry to the church. And, yes, I gets him a dress, too. See? And I
buys milk for him, and makes him eat, and he sleeps here," Tess pounded
her own strong breast, and ended, "till his dead pappy and his ma come
after him, poor little cuss."
Both girls cried softly, till Frederick's voice on the hill rang out
sharply in answer to a question from his father. Teola kissed her babe
over and over, drawing a small shawl about her shoulders, and picked a
path out through the fish-bones on the floor. When Frederick returned to
the boat, she was listlessly throwing small stones into the water.