The Secret of the Storm Country Part 78

"Child," he said, taking a chair at her side, "Letts won't bother you any more. If he doesn't go away, I shall have him arrested tomorrow....

I won't have you insulted like this.... And, dear, I believe I'd better send you and the boy away for a spell. A change will do you both good."

"Yes, yes, do!" pleaded Tess. She s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand and pressed it to her cheek hysterically. "Let me go somewhere, please!"

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE SINS OF THE PARENTS

A few days after Sandy's tempestuous courting, Tessibel Skinner and her son left Ithaca to spend the remaining part of the summer in the North Woods. In September Young joined them for a few days and then brought them back to the hillside above Cayuga Lake.

Later in the fall, when the cold winds and driving rains of the lake began to find out the cracks in the shanties, Tessibel asked, and the lawyer consented, that old Mother Moll come from Brewer's to them. Tess gave her one of Andy's rooms. The dwarf had entered a school on College Hill and lived in the city most of the time, but was home now for the Christmas vacation.

The day after his return dawned bright and cold--one of those beautiful winter days occasionally seen in the Storm Country. Heavy snows had already fallen and made certain a white Christmas. Andy was helping Tessibel in order that she might have time to complete her Yuletide preparations. She'd filled her son's heart with delightful antic.i.p.ations of the holiday, now but a few days distant, and he was eagerly looking forward to the Santa Claus who came to visit good little boys and fill their stockings with goodies.

At the north of the house Deforrest had made a little snow-hill for Boy.

Many a happy hour the little fellow spent upon it with his sled. Oftimes his mother joined him in the sport, and the joyous laughter of the two children of nature rose high and clear in the winter air.

The morning's work finished, Tessibel wrapped up Boy and sent him out to play. She stood for some moments on the porch watching the st.u.r.dy little figure arrange the sled at the top of the hill.

How she loved him, and how good he was! Never since the day of his birth had he given her one sorrowful moment. She turned her eyes from Boy to the lake, and allowed them to rest upon the shanty near the sh.o.r.e. A disturbing thought pressed into her mind. They would not be long there now.

Deforrest had told her that his lease of the house expired the first of January, and Waldstricker had refused to renew it. If they moved away, she'd be lonely for the sight of her old friends and all the dear, familiar things that had met her eyes every day since she could remember.

She hoped her new home might be in the Storm Country. She loved the lake in its every mood. Dark and sullen, visitors had called it. But she'd seen it on summer days, a band of burnished blue cementing the harmonies of greens and browns into a picture of perfect beauty. She knew its deep, brooding peace when the light was fading and the evening breeze gently ruffled its surface. She'd skated over its s.h.i.+ning bosom in the blinding glare of the unclouded sun and in the soft radiance of the shadow-filled moonlight. She knew the soft spots in the ice caused by flowing springs in the lake-bottom and had drunk their pure, cold water.

Her lifelong intimacy had wooed from rockbound lake its inmost secrets.

Today the water lay a gleaming jewel, huge by contrast to the myriad sparkles the sunbeams p.r.i.c.ked out of the snow. She looked across to East Hill at the frosty veil of a ravine waterfall and sighed.

At a shout from Boy, she went to the far edge of the porch to watch him slide swiftly through the pear orchard toward the lane. Glancing along the line of his flight, she saw Waldstricker on his horse directly in Boy's path. Fear and horror held her dumb and motionless. Evidently the rider hadn't seen the swift-coming sled--but the horse had.

He reared and attempted to turn. At that point the ditches were deep and the rounded crown of the road covered with ice. The animal slipped and fell. At the proper moment the horseman jumped off and pulled the bridle rein over his mount's head.

Her muscles taut with fright, Tess jumped from the porch and ran down the hill to the scene of the accident. When she arrived Waldstricker was jerking his steed savagely.

"Get out of the way you little imp," he shouted, in the midst of his struggles with the animal. "What do you mean by riding in a public road scaring horses this way?"

"Mummy said Boy could ride down hill," answered the child, holding his ground staunchly.

"I'll mummy you!" The man's exasperation was increased by the child's resistance. "Get out of the way!"

"Boy, come straight here to me," Tess called, trying to pa.s.s the excited animal.

The child picked up the rope fastened to his sled, gave it a jerk and started toward his mother. Frightened by the flash of the sled in the snow, the horse reared and plunged anew.

"Drop that sled and get out of here!" Ebenezer thundered. "How many times must I tell you? Get out!"

Tess called again, but Boy flung up a red, angry face to the elder.

"Mummy said I could slide," he repeated stubbornly.

"I'll teach you to argue with me," snapped Waldstricker, and before Tess could reach him, he'd raised his arm and given the child a sharp cut with his riding whip. "Get out, I tell you!"

"Mover!" screamed Boy, jumping back and falling over the sled. "Oh, Mover! Mover!"

Like an enraged tigress, Tess threw herself upon Waldstricker, and tore at the upraised whip in his hand. The frantic horse, fairly beside himself with fear and excitement, pulled them both down the hill through the snow. By a strenuous effort Ebenezer threw off the girl's grip, and when he finally conquered the steed he was below the top of the lane near the Skinner hut.

Before Waldstricker could mount and ride back up the lane, Tess had picked up the boy from the snow where he had fallen. Without waiting an instant, she fled frantically toward the house.

"Andy! Andy!" she screamed.

Andy came downstairs as fast as his little legs could carry him.

"Waldstricker's killed Boy!" gasped Tess. "Andy, get something.... Tell Mother Moll.... Some water!"

She laid the baby on the divan in the sitting room and stood over him until old Moll came.

"He air got a spasm," croaked the old woman. "Poor little brat! Get some hot water."

For hours the child pa.s.sed from one convulsion into another. When Deforrest came home, Tess was in a state of frantic despair.

"Waldstricker struck him," she explained. "He's going to die."

In response to his questions, the girl gave him the details, and hotter and hotter grew the listener's anger. He attempted to quiet Tessibel's fears while he got ready to go for the doctor, but she persisted in her claim that Boy wouldn't recover.

On his way home, the elder tried to make peace with himself. He was rather sorry he'd struck the boy; that he'd hurt the little imp, he poofed at. Anyway, he had taught Tess Skinner to keep her brat out of his way. His efforts to discipline her had resulted in an open breach with his brother-in-law and caused discord between himself and his wife.

His disputes with Deforrest about the squatters had not turned out to his satisfaction. His efforts to drive the old witch off his lake-land by tearing down her shack had opened to her the house that he himself owned. He had had to pay Sandy Letts the $5,000 reward for the capture of Andy Bishop, and the whole city had laughed at the price paid for the little man's short imprisonment. He'd tried every way he knew to put an end to the situation. Helen ought to be able to do something with her brother. She should have saved her husband from the gossip Forrie was causing.

When he entered his home, Helen perceived that he'd acquired a new grievance and discreetly remained silent while he was preparing himself for dinner.

After a quiet meal, when they had seated themselves by the log fire in the library, Mrs. Waldstricker took up a doll's dress she was finis.h.i.+ng for Elsie's Christmas. Her husband, stretched in an easy chair, glowered sullenly into the grate flames. The meditations of husband and wife were quite different. Helen wondered what was bothering Ebenezer now. She wished they were more companionable; that things were pleasanter, more as it used to be when they were abroad. Since their return, he'd sit for hours in gloomy meditation. His fits of complete abstraction filled her with dread.

She brought back in sequenced retrospection the happy years of travel--how proud she'd always been of her handsome husband and of his courtly deference to her. She had never ceased to be grateful that Heaven had given her this man to love and cherish her. She couldn't tell how or when the change had come, but somehow they weren't happy together any more. He was so moody and quarrelsome lately. She missed her brother, too. Why those two men should get by the ears over the inhabitants of the Silent City she couldn't understand. But her thoughts were soon concentrated upon the work at hand and contemplating the joy she would have in Elsie's pleasure, she began to hum to herself.

Two or three times she peered at Ebenezer through her lashes. How moodily quiet he was! She wished Elsie were awake--the little girl always succeeded in dissipating the frown from her father's brows.

Suddenly, she held up the doll in all its newly-adjusted festive attire.

"There, now, dear, isn't the doll baby pretty?" she smiled.

Ebenezer didn't take his gaze from the burning logs.

"I'm not interested in dolls tonight." His tone was harsh and his manner studiously rude. Then, as though he'd finally determined to say something else, he looked around at her.