Tess of the Storm Country Part 46

"Some other squatter girl."

"I ain't got no other squatter's brat here," she cried, turning her eyes upon Teola. "It ain't no other squatter's brat, air it?"

"No, no, Frederick," replied Teola, white and wan; "she has told you the truth--it isn't another squatter's child."

Hope died in the boy and outraged feeling leaped into its place. He held Tessibel's eyes with his relentlessly.

"Did you expect to mix prayers for your father with filth like that?" he demanded, pointing to the hidden infant in the fold of her dress. "Did you expect G.o.d to hear you, when your life was full of--sin?... I am ashamed I ever loved you, ashamed that I took my life from your hands.... I wish I were--dead! I wish I were dead!"

Teola gasped in her new understanding. The squatter and her handsome brother loved each other! Never for one moment had it dawned upon her, until she saw the tall boy drop beside the stool and sob out his heart agony upon the open Bible.

If she dared speak the truth, she could a.s.sure him of the goodness of the fisher-girl. But her lips sealed themselves with her soul's consent.

She raised her face, giving Tess one look of terror. Reaching out, she touched her brother's arm.

"Frederick, come home with me. This is awful--awful!"

"I don't want to go home," sobbed the boy, in pitiful abandon. "I didn't know anything could be so hard to bear. And I loved her faith and her character--and her beautiful face.... Oh, I love her, I love her, Teola!"

The squatter listened to every pa.s.sionate word, listened until her face whitened into a despair that settled there and did not vanish. She had not moved from the wooden box, nor ceased pressing the half-clad infant to her breast. Turning, she shot a soul-cutting glance at the other girl, who owed her very life to her. The glance pleaded for the miserable boy by the stool, for the sick babe held close to her heart, and lastly, for herself, her squatter honor, and the powerful love she had for the student brother. From the depths of her eyes came a demand to Teola that she tell the truth. The answer was but a slight negative shake of the proudly-set head, followed by an embarra.s.sment that Teola covered by leaning over her brother, and raising him from the floor.

Frederick allowed his sister to lead him by the wooden box, past Tessibel to the door. His eyes traveled back to the open Bible upon the stool, where but a moment since his own dark head had rested. Then he laughed--laughed until the sharp sting of his tones made the fisher-girl grunt in her characteristic way.

Striding forward, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the book, tore off the covers, and in another minute had thrust it through the smoke into the stove.

"There goes your faith--your canting trash about your love for the Saviour! I might have known that one of your kind could not rise above the grossness in you. I hope you will be as miserable and as unhappy as I am.... I hope that child will...."

Tess stopped him with a cry. She stooped down, and placed the little Dan in his bed without a word. Her anger was gone, and from the waters of bitterness that swept over her a better Tess lived. Her faith in the boy died instantly, and a higher, n.o.bler and greater faith in the crucified Saviour lived instead.

She would never tell Frederick that his sister was mother to the little being he had scorned, nor would she as much as utter the name of Dan Jordan. Covering the child tenderly, she faced Frederick Graves without a touch of the awkward girlishness that had hitherto marked her movements. A glorified expression lightened the white face and shone from her eyes. He had taught her a lesson of independence she could not have learned through any other person. Without one glance at the s.h.i.+vering young mother, she walked to the door, and opened it, as she had done that night when he had come first to the hut.

"Ye can go," she said, "both of ye. Ye burned my Book, ye did, but ye can't take it out of my heart. The G.o.d up their ain't all yers. He air mine--and Daddy's--and--the brat's."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

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 d.a.m.n 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 s.h.i.+vered. 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 quant.i.ties into the water, and the great pine-tree, in which sat her G.o.d of Majesty, whitened under the zig-zag glare of lightning.

The superst.i.tious, 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, G.o.ddy, G.o.ddy!" 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 finis.h.i.+ng. 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 G.o.d of her dreams.

"Might'n it please ye, G.o.ddy, 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 G.o.d 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.

"G.o.ddy, G.o.ddy, 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 s.h.i.+verin' 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 G.o.d to help her--and the child. She sat watching him; she could see that he was growing thinner, growing more emaciated as the days pa.s.sed. 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.