Sunday morning, Tessibel was out upon the tracks, walking swiftly toward
the city. She could hear the church bell at Haytes Corner ringing out a
welcome to the country folk; she could hear the tolling of the chapel
bell from the University hill. Clothed in the clean skirt she had washed
at the time she had thought of going to Auburn prison, and a worn but
clean jacket, Tess felt fit to face the best-dressed in Ithaca. Of
course she was barefooted, for Daddy's boots were too big to wear into
the house of the student's God. Earlier in the morning Tessibel had sat
for a long time upon the small fishing dock, swinging her feet in the
clear water. They, too, like the skirt and jacket, were clean.
In the basket, snuggling in the nest of white clothes, lay little Dan.
He was robed, in the much-worn garment of the Longman child, and
Tessibel had looked at him with pride as she settled him in his bed
preparatory to her trip.
She passed swiftly through the city, and crossed Dewitt Park. How
vividly she remembered the many midnights she had taken the same way,
turning toward the jail to visit "Daddy"!
Tessibel paused before Minister Graves' church, and heard him read in
deep tones from the Scriptures: "Suffer little children to come unto me,
for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." The harmonious voice floated
through the window to the fisher-girl, now crouched in the sun. Every
word fell distinctly upon her ear.
She lifted the basket cover, and peeped in upon the babe. He looked
bluer and thinner than Tess had ever seen him; his lips rested upon the
rag with no indrawing movement. Unblinkingly stared the wide gray eyes
when the sunbeams flashed upon his face. The vivid birth-mark grew
fainter in the yellow light. Tess drew him into the shade, and waited.
The tones rolled out like thunder when Dominie Graves bade the members
of his flock bring their children to the Holy Font, that they might
receive the blessing of God, and everlasting life. Tess heard him say
that the Father in Heaven demanded that all children should be baptized
in the name of the crucified Saviour--that to put off such a duty might
prove dangerous to their eternal welfare. Many of the long words the
squatter did not understand, but she gathered enough to know how
necessary it was to obey the minister's commands. She glanced again at
the babe, with a worried pucker between her eyes. There was the same
stare, the same unmoving lips. But he was quiet, and Tessibel let him
lie.
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden--" rang forth the
powerful voice. It fell upon the red-haired girl and soothed her.
Tess knew that Teola would be expecting her, and that Frederick would
turn his face away when she presented the child for baptism, but no
cloud gathered into the downcast eyes, for Tessibel's faith had grown
since she knew that Myra's prayers had been answered. Had she not seen
the girl clasped in the arms of the fisherman, who had once said that he
hated her? Had she not seen the smile upon the dead lips which dripped
with lake water? Tessibel had never before been so confident in prayer,
and upon this beautiful Sunday morning, in the white light of day,
kneeling under the church window, she believed that God would give her
back the student--some time. She thought of the pain that would rest in
the proud dark eyes of the boy when he saw her; but she smiled, because
she knew that God lived, heard and answered the prayers of the
heavy-laden.
An anthem rolled up from the church choir, chanting out the love of
Christ, chanting His crucifixion and death for a dying world.
"Come unto me, come unto me," it sang, and "Come unto me," rose from the
lips of the squatter waiting to take the little human thing, with its
burden of sickness and death, to Dominie Graves, that he might petition
the Holy Ghost to take away its sin.
"Come unto me," again sang the choir. Then silence. Tess leaned nearer
the window. Dominie Graves read out the names of the babies to be
baptized that day.
A carriage rolled rapidly to the church door, and Deacon Hall,
accompanied by his wife, stepped to the pavement. The Deacon held a
bundle with long white draperies hanging from it. It was their new baby,
with lace upon its frock, going in to receive a blessing at the altar of
God. Tess peered down upon the little Dan, and pulled the coarse dress
closer about his chin. A violent wish born of the love she had for him
came into her heart. Oh, that she had one bit of lace, to make his skin
look less blue and the mouth less drawn! The wide eyes were still fixed
upon her, immovable and unblinking. Once only had she seen the lids
fall slowly downward, to rise again over the unseeing eyes.
"He knows he air a-goin' to church," she muttered lovingly. "I wonder if
that air why he air so good.... Mebbe the spirit of his pappy air here."
She heard the names fall from the lips of the clergyman, as he took the
infants, one by one, and placed his hand upon them with the water.
"I baptize thee, John Richard," Graves said slowly, "in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
"Of the Holy Ghost...." He was the Spirit of God Who stood by the
children, to take away the sin with which they had been born. Teola had
told Tess so. The Holy Ghost would take away the sin of little Dan.
"I baptize thee," broke the silence, time after time, amid the tiny
splashes of falling water. The last must have gone up to the altar, for
Tess heard the minister telling the fathers and mothers the duty they
owed their children.
"I finish my service to-day," said he, "by praying God to bless you all,
and calling down the good-will of Heaven upon your children just
baptized in His name."
Tessibel did not wait to hear the rest. She raised the child from the
basket, shielding him from the sun with her body, stretched him out
reverently upon her hands, and tiptoed up the long flight of steps into
the church. A sea of heads rose before her startled vision. Transfixed,
she paused in the door, waiting for Graves to cease speaking. Her eye
caught the pew of the minister. Teola sat next to Frederick on the end,
Mrs. Graves between her and her younger daughter. Tess noticed the
tense expression upon the sharp profile of the babe's mother. How glad
Teola would be when the baby was baptized! How happy in the new-found
Heaven for her child!
The minister's voice had fallen into a prayer. And still Tess waited
with the dying infant, staring wide-eyed upward at the great church
dome. Every head was bowed: no one saw the strange girl, with hair flung
wide about her shoulders, nor the tiny human being resting upon her
hands.
Silence fell upon the congregation, and Tessibel commenced her walk down
through the sea of faces to the pulpit. She gave no glance toward Teola
as she passed, but kept her eyes fixed upon Dominie Graves, who, without
noticing her, had turned to the little flight of steps that led to his
pulpit. When he reached the Bible stand, and opened his lips to speak,
his gaze dropped upon the squatter. At first he thought he was dreaming.
He looked again--looked at her--at the child--and paled to his ears.
Tessibel was holding the infant up toward him, with a beseeching
expression in her eyes that staggered him.
Teola had seen Tess pass, and had caught a glimpse of the thin child
upon her hands. The pursed baby lips, from which hung the useless sugar
rag, made her lower her head to the prayer cushion, shuddering
violently. Frederick had also seen the squatter--everyone in the church
had seen her, and the silence grew wider and wider, until even breathing
was hushed to catch her words.
Her low, sweet voice began to speak; it thrilled through the
congregation like the song of angels.
[Illustration: "BE YE GOIN' TO LET HIM GO A PLACE WHERE GOD CAN'T FIND
HIM?"]
"I has brought ye a dyin' brat, Dominie Graves," began Tess with
shaking voice, "who has got to be sprinkled, or he can't go to Heaven."
The vast silence of the edifice echoed her petition.
The gaping minister never once took his eyes from her face, and made no
move to answer her.
"It air a-dyin', I say," she went on, "and I wants ye to put the water
on it."
So deadly in earnest was the girl that a sob broke out in the back of
the church. The lithe, barefooted squatter, and the feeble, dying child
offered a living picture of pathos, which with its tragedy slowly dawned
upon the more sensitive minds, silently telling its tale of human
suffering. Minister Graves refused to answer her. He wore the same
expression of scorn Tess had seen in the student when she had
acknowledged the child as hers.
"Be ye goin' to sprinkle him?" she demanded steadfastly, her voice
growing stronger with her emotions. "Be ye?"
"No, I'm not." Graves' voice fell like the sound of a deep-toned bell.
"Be ye goin' to let him go to a place where God can't find him? Be ye?"
Tess entreated.
Anger and revolt glinted through the golden-brown of her eyes; she
swayed back a little from the font, still holding out the babe.
"He air so little," she pleaded with a choke, "and so awful sick. Mebbe
he won't live till mornin'. He can't hurt the others, now they air done
with the water, can he?"
She peeped into the marble basin, and lifted her eyes to his face.
"There air lots of water left. Be there other babies wantin' it worse
than this one?"
She turned half-way round, and faced the wall of white faces, sending
the question out in high-pitched tones.
Then Graves spoke with austerity and strength, riding down his anger
with a mighty effort.
"You will please take the child from the church. You have your own
squatter mission for such as that."
He had forgotten his members--forgotten that he was a man of God. As he
bent toward her, he remembered only that she was the girl who had
thwarted him, who had won in the squatter fight against his own
influence. Tessibel heard the words "squatter" and "mission." It had not
occurred to her to take the child there. She looked down upon the little
fire-marked face. Would baby Dan live until she could get him there? He
might be dead before she could carry him to the inlet and cross the
tracks to the young rector's house. Teola had said that the baby would
never be with his father without baptism, that even she, his mother,
could not see him when she, too, went away. Little Dan, uncleansed,
would live far from the bright angels. Her anger rose in a twinkling.
She took another backward step, threw the red curls into a mass over her
shoulder, and spoke again.
"Air I to take him from the church without the water?"
"Yes."
"I'll be damned if I's a-goin' to take him away," she flung back,
panting. "He air so near dead, he air blind--look at his eyes! I says,
he air to be sprinkled, he air! If ye won't give the Huly Ghost a
chance at him--" Here she stepped forward to the font, flashed a look of
hatred at Graves, and suddenly dipped her hand into the water.
"I sprinkles him myself," she ended.
The drops fell upon the livid baby face, dripping down upon the bare
feet of the squatter.
"I baptize--" Tess wavered for lack of words. She had thought she could
not forget the benediction.
A voice from the back of the church broke in abruptly upon her
hesitation.
"I baptize thee, child," it rang, "in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
Bill Hopkins was in the middle aisle, coming toward her. Tess snatched
one glimpse of his face, still holding her wet hand upon the dark-haired
babe.
"Say it, girl," Hopkins commanded. "Say it, quick. The child is dying."
"I baptize thee, child, in the name--" gasped Tess.
She stepped back again, throwing an entreating, silent appeal to the
huge, bald-headed man.
"Of the Father, and of the Son," repeated Bill.
"Of the Father, and of the Son," echoed Tess.
"And of the Holy Ghost," ended Hopkins.
"And of the Huly Ghost," whispered Tess.
"Amen" rolled from a hundred tear-choked throats, like the distant
murmuring of the sea. Hopkins sat down, saying no more.
Minister Graves had sunk into his chair, and on the girl's last words
the congregation drew a long, gasping breath. The eyes of the babe gazed
steadily on into the shadows of eternal silence; the water seemingly
unfelt upon its head. The small boy was slipping away to that place of
mystery where his father, Myra and Ben Letts had gone. The long days of
suffering with the child in the hut rushed over Tess. She dropped on her
knees, facing the pulpit, and hugged him to her breast, and whispered,
"Suffer little children to come unto me--"
Then another voice, shrill, sobbing and terrible, hushed her prayer. The
squatter instinctively shifted her position toward the Dominie's pew.
Teola Graves was standing up, tall and pale, and was looking directly at
the minister.
"Father," she cried, "Father, if you don't take the baby and baptize him
in the name of the Saviour, you will consign to everlasting darkness--"
She lost her breath, caught it again, and finished, "your own flesh and
blood. God! dear God, take us both to Dan!... Tessibel, Tessibel, give
me my baby!"
She wrenched herself loose from Frederick's detaining fingers, and was
in the aisle before her brother realized what had happened.
"He's my baby," she cried, between the spasmodic pressures upon her
chest. "Tess! Tess, is he dead?"
"Yep, he air dead," fell from Tessibel; for she had seen the large,
glazed eyes draw in at the corners and the little face blanch. The tiny
spirit fled as the frantic girl-mother clasped her babe to her breast.
"But he air gone to his pappy," consoled the squatter.
For one awful moment, Dominie Graves looked into the accusing eyes of
his congregation. Bill Hopkins was seated, with his face in his hands,
but Augusta Hall, with her new baby folded tightly in her arms, was
looking at him in dark-eyed disdain.
Graves swayed dizzily, ... caught at the pulpit table for support.
"Jesus," he appealed dizzily, "Christ Jesus."
Frederick pressed his way to his sister's side. The squatter threw up
her head before him: for the first time since that last dreadful night,
she looked directly into his eyes, her dishonor slipping from her like a
loosened garment. Frederick's soul shone forth in the glance he sent
her. God in His own time had given her back the student.
Tessibel turned, and passed up through the mute gathering. Bill Hopkins
put out his hand, and touched her.
"Child," he said brokenly, "you are the one bright spirit in this
generation."
But Tessibel did not understand. She went down the long flight of steps,
and into the sun-lit street, with but a backward glance at the
rag-draped basket she had left under the church window.