CHAPTER XII
Twenty young people had gathered for the toffy pull at Minister Graves'. Tess was the topic of conversation; every one was eager to talk of the unheard-of action in the court-room that day.
"My mother says," chimed in a pretty girl, "that when that Skinner girl walked up through the court room, she sounded like a horse trotting along."
"She had on a pair of man's boots, that's why," said another, "but she has a beautiful voice, hasn't she?"
This question was directed to Frederick Graves.
"Yes," he assented, flushing to his high-forehead line.
"And besides a beautiful voice," broke in Richard Hall, "she has a mighty pretty face—and such hair! If she hadn't been crying and had so many people around her, I should have spoken to her. She's worth consoling!"
A sharp pang of jealousy shot through Frederick's heart. That another should make lighter the burdens of the squatter girl filled him with unrest. A pleading face flashed across his vision and Tessibel's voice rang anew in his ears. He was living over again the moments spent in the cabin, and his heart thrilled at the memory of the momentary glance sent to him over the heads of the spectators in the crowded court-room.
Teola entered the drawing-room, turning the conversation from Tess to the pleasure of the evening.
"Will some one help me pull the toffy?" said she.
Her eyes were upon Dan Jordan—he rose quickly to his feet and followed the girl smilingly to the kitchen.
"I wanted you to help me get it ready," Teola said; coloring.
"I'm glad you chose me," replied Dan.
"I didn't ask you, did I?" The beautiful head hung low over the brown mixture in the kettle.
"Your eyes did," laughed Dan. "Didn't you notice that none of the other boys got up when you spoke." His glance filled with merriment as he went on: "I think, too, that I should have been a little—jealous if anyone else had—helped you."
"And your hands are so strong," murmured Teola.
"You only wanted my hands," queried the boy, trying to catch a glimpse of her face. "I wish you had wanted me for some other—"
Teola stood with the long wooden spoon twirling in her fingers.
"I did want you for yourself, Dan—"
And then she stopped and nothing could be heard but the click, click, click, of the toffy as it snapped to and fro in the huge fingers of the student.
"I'm mighty glad that I chose Cornell for my college," broke in the boy presently. "I thought first of going to Yale.... And you're pleased, too, Teola, that I came to Ithaca? Aren't you?"
"Very glad," came the low voice distinctly.
"And I've never been so ambitious in all my life as I have since I've been here, and known you, and I was wondering to-day if—if—"
Frederick's voice broke off the words; his big form loomed in the doorway before Dan could finish his sentence.
"Haven't you kids finished that toffy? Better let me help, too."
There was a noticeable tremor in Teola's voice as she replied:
"We've finished, Frederick, and you can carry the butter and those plates."
"I've something important to tell you, Teola," whispered Dan.
The girl did not answer, but the student knew that she would listen to him in some future time.
The drawing-room was festooned with evergreens and winter ferns, wound here and there with streamers of various-colored ribbons. Two large lamps, one in the window, and the other on a table near the dining-room door, sent forth their light through red shades. Glass dishes filled with apples and golden oranges decorated the top of the piano and surrounded the lamps.
When Dan and Teola left the kitchen, both flushed with the first emotions of their youthful hearts, there came to them gurgles of girlish laughter, intermingled now and then with the loud voice of some merry, happy boy.
After two hours of strenuous toffy-pulling the tired young revellers sat down to plates heaped with goodies.
Just at this juncture a ring of the door-bell pealed through the house. A silence fell over the company and a sound of altercation came to them distinctly. Suddenly the drawing-room door burst violently open and a spectacle, in strange contrast to the cheery sceneabout them, flashed upon the eyes of the young people. A red-haired girl, unkempt and dripping, wild anxiety portrayed upon her face, stood in the doorway. There was not the slightest embarrassment in her glance as her peculiar eyes traveled the lines of boys and girls, sitting round the wall. When at last they fell on Frederick, she took an impetuous step toward him, a brilliant smile lighting the wan face. Stupefaction rested upon the student as he recognized Tessibel Skinner.
"It air time—to pray," said she, looking straight at him, as he slowly rose from his chair. "Daddy Skinner air to be took away—unless yer God stops the rope."
Every word was distinct—unless God would stay the rope. The words repeated themselves over in the boy's brain and his face deepened in color. It was the beautiful faith of the wild, untaught young girl with the hot blood rushing in her veins that called forth the flush. His heart sickened with his own lack of confidence in God. He was to preach of a crucified Saviour, but no such faith and hope as this of Tessibel Skinner's would aid him. He was even now ashamed of the girl in cowhide boots and torn, thin skirt.
As these thoughts floated past him, he saw the young squatter wither under a giggle from a girl in the corner.
"Look at her feet," were the words that changed Tessibel's frankness to embarrassment, her eager pathos to wofulness.
Tessibel shrank close to the door, for the first time realizing how out of place she was.
"I were—I were—a fool to come, but—but—"
The earnestness of the vibrant voice, the proud, appealing young face moved Frederick to pity and self-reproach.
"It was right—you should have come," said he, gently taking her hands, "and no one dare question your privilege to ask a prayer for your father."
Still retaining her fingers in his, he turned, explaining:
"This is Miss Skinner whose father is suffering now from a stroke of the law. We, who have fathers and mothers whom we love, must wish her well."
Tessibel sank down, down, among her boots and rags, his words reducing her to tears. Teola came to her brother's side. She had never before been actually in the presence of a squatter, for, when they had brought fish and berries to the back door, her mother had always ordered the children to the front of the house; but now, filled with sympathy she stooped down and placed her hand upon Tessibel's head. The touch was so gentle that the fishermaid lifted her eyes to see who sorrowed with her.
The squatter covered the white fingers with tears and kisses. Then she struggled to her feet, the nails in Daddy's boots scraping the polished floor, making long white marks. To Tessibel there were no other persons in the room save Frederick and his beautiful sister. She made a queer upward movement with her head, wiping the tears away with the tattered sleeve.
"I was afeared ye'd forget Daddy Skinner," she murmured. "The big man from the hill said like you did. And I says it air prayin' time and I comed."
She had forgotten the tears of a few minutes before, forgotten that twenty pairs of searching youthful eyeswatched her every movement and mentally criticized her, from the masses of long hair to the rock-torn boots on her feet. She only remembered the student—that he was smiling into her eyes, and that, his sister, too, Teola Graves, had sympathized with her.
With a radiant, grateful smile, she turned to go, the door opening under her eager grasp. It was here that Dan Jordan spoke:
"Won't Miss Skinner have some coffee?"
Tessibel looked at him with an incredulous glance. He, too, had come forward and stood with his kindly gray eyes fixed upon her face.
"Yes, yes, of course," hurriedly put in Teola, "pardon me—I forgot.... You shall have my cup.... Here, Tessibel! I may call you that, mayn't I? Please drink some of mine."
Teola held the cup invitingly to the shivering lips, and Tessibel swallowed it down in one gulp.
"I air goin' now," she said desperately, wiping away coffee drops that lingered upon her face, "and ye ain't goin' to forget?"
This last was to Frederick, and he shook his head emphatically. He would not forget again; he would make the girl's father a special medium to establish a line of faith between the God he professed to love and himself—the quality of which should be no less than the one that Tessibel had cultivated during her weary weeks of waiting.
No thought entered anyone's mind of asking the girl if she were afraid of the dark night—she seemed so much a part of the darkness, of the falling snow and thrashing trees, that she was allowed to depart without aquestion. As he stood on the Rectory steps, the clicking of the big boots came to Frederick long after the slender form had disappeared from sight.
After that the party broke up, for the merriment had died in Tessibel's grief. An impression had been made upon the thoughtless boys and girls, and a shadow rested on each face as they bade "good-night" to their young hostess.
"She's the prettiest girl I ever saw," confided Teola to Frederick afterward; "her eyes are the color of a marigold."
In her heart Teola was glad that she had gone to the squatter in sympathy, for, upon leaving, Dan Jordan had whispered words that had burned deep into her soul:
"You are an angel, Teoladear, and I—love—you."
For one instant the tall student had bent his head, laying his lips upon hers—and had gone without another word.
CHAPTER XIII
The last day of the trial was so different from that of Tessibel's dreams! Again she must cross the dark Hoghole trestle alone on her way to the hut. But the singing in her heart when she left the Rectory took away the pain of her loneliness. Frederick Graves had said that she had done right in coming to him and asking prayers for "Daddy Skinner." Her faith in the student carried her above the material things of the earth, more than her absolute faith in God, for like women, Tessibel lived and had faith through the man of her choice.
It was nearly midnight when she passed Kennedy's wheat field in which capered Pete, the brindle bulldog. She called to him softly, pronouncing his name twice in loving resonance, which brought a low, pleased howl from the coarse throat of the dog. But the exhausted squatter-girl did not wait to touch the long, red tongue as Pete thrust his nose through the fence. She passed quickly down the lane to her father's hut. Turning the corner of the mud cellar, she saw dimly a man's form leaning against the shanty door. Her eyes were accustomed to marking correctly through the darkness, and it took Tess but a moment to ascertain that the lounging figure was Ben Letts.
In an instant, the first real fear she had ever felt swept over her and she drew back into the shadows. Asa child she had fled from this man because he tantalized her; as a woman she dreaded him more than any reptile that came from the earth.
The man, hearing footsteps, raised his head; the silence continuing, he dropped it again, thinking he had been mistaken, and resumed his former position of waiting.
Tessibel wondered if she should go bravely forward—insist that the shanty was hers, and that he should go away. The mud cellar was between her and the waiting man, and as she peered closer to see if Ben were still there one brilliant tangle of hair fell over her shoulder. Ben Letts caught the movement and Tessibel knew it.
Alert as a young deer, she turned and fled back up the lane. Daddy's boots impeded her speed and one after the other she kicked them off. She could hear the man running after her, shouting his rage into her tingling ears. He was gaining upon the girl and commanded her to stop.
"If I get my claws on ye once," he growled, "it'll be bad for ye."
Tessibel heard and flew faster. There was no one to help her and her only salvation lay in her own two sturdy little legs and bruised feet. She reached the tracks but did not dare run the ties—she might trip in the darkness, and nothing could save her from her enemy. Her eyes, strained with convulsive fright, lifted one moment to the sky, and her glance fell directly upon the giant pine whose branches formed the image of her fantastic God. Her lips fell apart with a gasp—she fancied her Deity sent her an assurance of aid.
"Goddy—Goddy," was her petition, "for the love of yer Christ ... and the student."
Suddenly out upon the air rang the voice of one of Tessibel's friends. The brindle bulldog from Kennedy's farm had heard the unequal race. With short tail raised, his fat neck bristling with stubby hair, he started for the tracks, as Tess did for the fence when she heard his growl. As the girl came on and on, the dog bounded along the ground toward her. Tess opened her lips and spoke sharply—and a pleased bark came in response.
God had heard and answered her. One wild leap in the air, and the sound of tearing clothes as her already tattered skirt came in contact with the barbed wire—and Tess was crouching down in the safe-keeping of the brindle bull. The dog whirled frantically around, licking her face. Fear weakened her tongue—she could not speak—only little spasmodic sobs burst from the parted lips. She caught the huge dog to her breast and waited.
Ben Letts was on the tracks; she could hear his big chest heaving with fast-coming breath. He halted on the other side of the fence.
Pete scented an enemy and straightened out his strong muscles like whip cords, a hoarse growl coming from between his jaws.
Ben leaned over the fence with an oath.
"Ye'd better come away from him," he grunted threateningly. "Ye air thinking the brute can save ye—but I'll put a bullet through his pate."
Tessibel knew that the man had no rifle with him; and by the time he could get one she and the dog wouldbe far away. Her mind worked fast under the pressure.
"What do you want, Ben Letts?" she demanded.
"I just wanted to talk to yer," wheedled the man. "Come over the fence, will ye?"
"Ye can talk to me here," sullenly replied Tess. "I don't want to hear none of yer dum gab."
"It air somethin' nice—it air candy," feigned Ben. Then the tones hardened in the coarse voice, and he ended:
"Ye can't stay always with the brute."
"To-night I can, and in the day I ain't afeared—I don't want no candy."
The brindle bulldog lifted his head again and sent a low snarl in the direction of the fisherman—Ben in his rage had come too close to the fence. The animal's warning sent him back. Months before, Pete had buried his teeth in the man's hand and Ben would bear the marks to his grave.
"Ye go home, Ben Letts," insisted Tess. "Ye ain't no business here. Go home to yer mammy."
"I'm a-goin' to stay, just the same," rejoined Ben, sitting down upon the tracks.
Tessibel wound her arms around the dog's neck, banking the red curls under her cheek for a pillow. It was good to rest with her friend. Between the fence wires she could see the branches of the pine tree, its shadowy arms creating odd figures across the light streaks in the sky. What a wonderful being the student's God was! He had listened to the cry of a squatter and had saved her.
"Yer daddy ain't a-comin' home," Ben Letts broke in upon her meditations.
"He air," retorted Tess. "He air the nextest time I go for him."
"It air a lie," insisted the fisherman, "ye comes with me to the minister and I'll make yer an hones' woman. Ye'll have to cut that mop and settle down like a woman should. Do ye hear?... Tessibel, I says an hones' woman!"
Tessibel shifted her head from Pete's neck and sat up.
"Ye says as how—ye and—me—will go to the minister?"
"Yep."
"And we air to be—married ... eh?"
"Yep."
"How about—the—brat—and—and—and Satisfied's girl?"
Myra's secret had slipped from her. Ben's silence invited her to proceed.
"Yer brat air sick to his grave, he air," said she mournfully, a tear settling in her voice, making its sweetness rough, "and Myry air a-dyin' of a broken heart.... If yer wants to make an hones' woman, make her one, that air what I says, I does. And ye broke her arm on the ragged rocks! Ye did! And then yer comes—and talks about bein' hones'," the musical voice rose to a cry. "Ye can't make a woman hones' for ye ain't hones' yerself."
Without a sound Ben rose from the tracks, reached for a stone and whirled it through the fence at Tessibel. The stone missed her, but struck the dog. Trembling with rage, Pete lifted his great body with a low, vicious growl.
Tessibel sprang from the ground, whilst another stone hurtled through the air, catching her curls in its flight.Then she lifted the lower wire of the barbed fence. Pete crouched, and wiggled his flattened body through. Ben hadn't expected this—he turned and ran. The skurrying legs of the dog carried him quickly on after the fisherman. While Ben, screeching like a great night owl, hooted out his fear of the maddened dog, and yelled for Tess to call him off.
The girl did not speak, only waited, waited until a louder cry from the hunted man assured her that Pete had gripped him. Tessibel scarcely dared breathe; her friend, God's earthly instrument, sent to save her, and her mortal enemy were in deadly combat.
Ben's cries had ceased, but the listening girl could hear the two bodies as they turned over and over beyond on the tracks—and rolled into the ditch. Her feet were nearly frozen but she gathered them under her skirt and dumbly waited.
Then came no sound—there was nothing but a deathly silence in the dim shadows near the land.
Would she ever see either Ben or the dog again? There was no danger that Pete would—
"Ben," she called loudly, leaning over the fence. No answer came from the deep trench by the railroad bed.
"Pete, Pete, come to Tessibel, come to Tessibel."
Out of the blackness came the dog, his head hanging low, the angry sparkle in his eyes quenched.
Tess raised the wire once more for Pete's body to wriggle under. The girl shouted anxiously for Ben but no answer came to her call.
Crouching beside Pete, Tessibel reasoned out a way of escape: if she took the brindle bulldog to the hut with her, she would be safe from Ben were he lurking about.She propped the lower wire of the fence high with a stick so that Pete could reach Kennedy's barn on the hill again when she sent him home. Together the girl and the bristling Pete slid silently to the railroad tracks, Tessibel holding tightly to the dog's collar. Some fifty feet beyond he twisted his heavy neck, set forth his huge jaw, and refused to move.
Beside the track was a long dark object—it was undeniably, unquestionably quiet. Tess tugged at the dog's collar and dragged him resisting from the spot.
Down the lane ran the squatter and the dog with no pause save to pick up the cowhide boots from the side of the path, where Tess had cast them in the mad race. She clasped the head of Pete as she opened the hut door.
"Ye can come in, too, Pete," she whispered, lifting the ugly head, "and go home in the morning."
Tessibel locked the door, but did not light a candle. Slipping her wet clothes to the floor, she crawled into Daddy's bed, and with the forgetfulness of youth sank into a sleep.
CHAPTER XIV
The next morning after her encounter with Ben Letts, Tess sat up in bed, wondering what had happened. Then she remembered. One slant ray of sun breaking through the dirty curtain showed that the day was far advanced. She jumped out of bed, opened the door and allowed Pete to scamper away.
After kindling a fire and frying a fish, she sat down to eat.
Suddenly a knock on the door startled her. Ben might return even after his lesson of the night before. Without unclasping the lock, she called out:
"Who air it?"
"It air me, Tessibel. Open the door.—It air Myry!"
Tess flung open the door with a smile. She drew back, seeing Myra's seamed face, white and drawn.
"Ye be sick, Myry?"
"Nope!"
"Air it the brat, then?"
"Nope, it air Ben Letts. He were hurt by the Brindle Bull at Kennedy's Farm. Ezy and 'Satisfied' found him near dead on the tracks and took him home."
Tess stood waiting, wide-eyed, without a word.
"He wouldn't say nothin' about it," complained Myry; "just says that he air goin' to get even with some one."
"Have ye seen him?" stammered Tess.
"Yep, this mornin' in his shanty. He were cut bad. They got the horse doctor to sew him up. He air sick, Ben air!"
"And the brat," demanded Tess, changing the subject purposely.
"Sick the hours through," replied Myra bitterly. "He hes got the pitifullest cry that breaks my heart all the time. But he ain't so sick as his pappy."
"Ben Letts ain't a-goin' to die, air he?"
Tessibel's woful expression caused Myra to shake her head emphatically, her thin lips twitching, then tightening under the nervous strain.
"Nope, he ain't, but he air goin' to be sick a long time. He air the brat's pa, and I want to do somethin' for him."
"What?"
"He air wantin' to see ye, Tessibel. Will ye go to him?"
"Nope," Tess burst forth spontaneously.
Myra looked at her curiously.
"He ain't amountin' to much," she ventured, "but he air a pappy—that air somethin', ain't it?"
"Yep," mused Tessibel. "A daddy air more than a mammy."
So had Tessibel and Myra been brought up to believe. The squatter women fawned at the feet of their brutal husbands, as a beaten dog cringes to its master. That Ben Letts had broken Myra's arm on the ragged rocks, and yet the girl wanted to aid him, showed Tess the superiority of the male sex, and Myra loved the squint-eyed fisherman, she evidenced it in every action.
The lips of the younger squatter were sealed about the trail which she herself had laid in the midnighttragedy. But through the tender young heart flashed the hope that the experience with the dog would cause Ben Letts to turn his face toward the wretched, shrunken creature, who had suffered so much through him. She contemplated Myra an instant.
"Do ye want me to see him?" she asked, rising.
"Yep," replied Myra, the dull eyes filled with a momentary sparkle. "He hes somethin' to say to ye, and I did say as how ye would come."
"Air he alone?" questioned Tess.
"Nope, his mammy air with him—we'll go now—eh?"
Slipping on Daddy's boots was Tessibel's assent, and they started through the underbrush in silence.
"The brat ain't goin' to die, air he?" asked Tess presently.
It had been several days since she had seen Myra's little son. The troubles of Daddy Skinner had taken up every moment of her time.
"Mebbe," grunted Myra unemotionally; "he howls like a sick pup from mornin' till night."
"I air a goin' home with ye, Myry," assured Tessibel; "he won't yap when I sings to him."
The lake had risen over the strip of beach, its waters freezing against the rocks. This forced the girls to take the path through the wood to the hill beyond. Until they came in sight of Ben Letts' cabin, they said no more.
At their knock Ben's mother softly opened the door. Her shaggy gray hair had not been combed and her fierce old eyes glowed with agony unsoftened by tears.
"Ben air too sick to get up," she explained awkwardly, presenting each girl a chair, "I said as how yecouldn't come, Tessibel, but Ben said Myry were to bring ye."
From the back room came the sound of belabored breathing and a hoarse voice called for Tessibel. The squatter girl rose to her feet, her color changing from red to white. The thought of the fisherman with his dog-bitten face was repulsive to her.
"Ye be goin' in with me to see him, ain't ye, Myry?" The brown eyes entreated that she should not be sent to Ben Letts alone.
Myra Longman shook her head. She knew that the brat's pa did not want to see her, and again she shook her head as Tessibel waited.
"He air been askin' all the mornin' for ye, Tess," urged Mrs. Letts, "Ben ain't no likin' for Myry, Ben ain't!"
A dull red flush crimsoned Myra Longman's face. She watched Tess enviously as the girl tiptoed through the doorway and disappeared.
Ben Letts was stretched out on the rope cot, his massive head and thick neck swathed in bandages. Two huge hands, with patches of plaster here and there lay outside the red Indian blanket. The swollen upper lid was tightly pressed over his blind eye, the squint one slowly opening at Tessibel's entrance.
She looked down upon the bandaged face but for a moment; neither of them spoke.
"I see ye comes," Ben broke in at last.
"Yep, I's here ... What do ye want?"
A drop of salt water oozed from the weak eye; Ben moved his head as if in pain.
"Sop up the tear with the rag, will ye, Tess?" he grunted. "It air burnin' like hell fire."
Tessibel took the soiled cloth in her fingers, and not too lightly did as Ben bade her.
"Ye didn't tell Myry how I comed sick, did ye?" asked Ben, settling his head back upon the pillow.
Tess gave a negative gesture.
"Er no one else?"
"Nope!"
"Ye be a pert girl, Tessibel, and I were a cuss for trying to scare ye—but the brindle bull has got to die."
"Nope, he ain't got to die," frowned Tess.
"When I gets up he eats what I gives him," assured Ben. "He has to die, I says, I does.... But ye be a pert gal, Tess."
Ben moved his head to bring the girl within the vision of his one eye.
"What be ye wantin' with me?" Tess muttered. "I wants to go home."
She saw another tear roll down the plastered cheek, and repeated her operation with the rag.
"What do ye want?" she demanded again.
"To tell ye thet I air a goin' to make an hones' woman of ye. I's a goin' to marry ye. I knows I's a pappy, but the brat'll die, and he'll be forgot like yer daddy will!"
Tess instantly froze into a white, tense little form. She did not follow the fisherman's glance as he motioned her to take up the cloth.
"I's a tellin' yer mammy to wipe yer old eye," she said pettishly. "I ain't got no notion of bein' an hones' woman ... I hates yer like I hates Ezry Longman."
She wheeled to go out, but the man stayed her with a grunt.
"I's to be sick for a long time," exclaimed he, "and mammy will step to the grave most any day ... I wants pert fingers to put the plasters on my cuts."
Here he groaned and fought for the cloth, the salt tears scorching the rents in the skin as they rolled hot from the red eye and soaked into the plasters. The squatter girl mechanically wiped away the tears, turning again.
"Myry air pert," she said, halting in the door. "She air more than that—her fingers air lovin' ones. These," and she held up her two brown hands, "would be hurtin' ye, cause I hates ye so."
Tessibel and Myra walked away from Ben's hut in silence, up the ragged rocks to the Longman shanty.
"Ben were askin' to marry yer, Tess, weren't he?" demanded Myra as they approached the door.
Tess nodded.
"Were he sayin' as how ye could take care of him?"
"Yep."
"Be ye goin' to?" The intense longing and misery in her voice made Tess gasp:
"Nope, he air too mean a cuss to live. If he air the brat's pa, let the brat's ma take care of him. The brat air a good little devil."
Mrs. Longman was moving about in the loft overhead when the two girls entered the shanty.
Tess went to the wooden box and looked down upon the small, pinched face of the sleeping infant. The babe had worn out his little lungs, screeching in his pain, the small faded eyes rolling backward as he slept.
The young mother came quietly to the side of her Squatter friend.
"If the brat dies," she began in a low, tense tone, "be ye goin' to marry Ben Letts?"
"Nope, I ain't never goin' to marry nobody!"
"Yep, ye will, when ye gets done bein' a baby!"
Tess drew her eyes from the dozing infant and glanced at Myra.
"I wants a Bible," said she deliberately.
"What for?"
"To read out of!"
"Can ye read?"
"Nope, not much, but I can spell out words, and write a bit. And the Bible says as how, if ye seeks, ye'll find what ye seeks."
The shining eyes were sending a truthful message into the heart of the young mother.
"That ain't nothin' to do with Ben Letts," muttered Myra.
"Yep, it air," insisted Tess. "It says what ye seeks ye find. Ain't ye seekin' Ben Letts?"
"I knows where he air already," sullenly replied Myra.
"But ye can seek his lovin's, can't ye?... I's a seekin' Daddy—and somethin' else."
"What?"
"To be readin' and writin' like—like the minister's gal does. I air a-seekin' it every day!"
"How?"
Tess flushed. She could not tell Myra of the long bearded God in the pine tree, nor of the stumbling prayers she had repeated night after night. Myra understood that she could sing, so Tess said laconically:
"I sings for it sometimes, and that air a seekin'."
Myra grunted.
"I can't sing," and she frowned.
The babe whined in the cradle and Tessibel took him up. The glorious voice hushed the child to sleep, Myra Longman bitterly scanning the beautiful face. There were only two years between her and Tessibel, and her own poor, ghastly wrinkled face looked years older. If she were only pretty, Ben might love her. Tess had the splendid vigor of healthy youth—Myra, the worn-out complexion of a bad digestion. Beans and bacon had made the one beautiful—and destroyed the other.
Suddenly Myra leaned over with a new expression in her eyes.
"Tessibel, I tries to seek Ben Letts and his lovin's for me and the brat."
Tessibel placed the small boy in the box, then she and Myra obeyed Mrs. Longman's fretful demand that they draw up and eat.
CHAPTER XV
That evening Minister Graves came blustering in after his family were seated at the table. What was this ridiculous thing that he had heard? His home disgraced, his position ruined, his children ostracized. He glanced at Teola and Frederick. His wife, fastening Babe's napkin under the child's chin, remonstrated.
"Why, father, what's the trouble?"
"I was making a clerical call on Mrs. Robman to-day," fumed the Dominie, "and that girl of hers, and a saucy one she is, too, burst into the room, and, mother, what tale do you think she told—before us?"
Frederick glanced at his sister, but Teola's eyes were upon her empty plate. Mrs. Graves shook her head.
"That that Skinner girl came here last night and in all her rags and filth drank coffee from our daughter's cup! Madame, did you ever imagine that such a disgrace could fall upon you?"
Mrs. Graves looked helplessly from her husband's distorted face to her son and daughter.
"She came into your home," went on the minister, "and was asked to take refreshments from your cups. Mrs. Robman said that she disliked to think that such degraded guests were allowed in your home.... Do you understand what that means, Mrs. Graves?"
"Let Frederick explain, father," pleaded the tremblingwife; "he was going to speak and you stopped him. What and how did it happen?"
"The girl came to the Rectory to ask prayers for her father," said Frederick, an expression darkening his eyes which his mother dreaded.
"Prayers ... prayers!" roared the minister, "Prayers for a squatter and a murderer!... And drinking coffee from your cups. Such a disgrace can never be lifted from this house."
"What hurt did she do?" irreverently asked Babe. Frederick was thankful for the child's frank question.
"Hurt? Harm, you mean. If she should just hurt a person that could be mended. Harm was what she did!"
"What harm?" persisted Babe.
"Madam, you see your children are all growing up like heathens. There arn't any of the parents whose sons and daughters were here last night, who won't think a long time before they allow them to come again. You understand, don't you, that that squatter covered with germs of all kinds drank from your daughter's cup."
Mrs. Graves started preceptibly. She was noted for a fear of germs.
"Teola, your mouth must be scoured with peroxide ... Oh, if some one would only tell me how it all happened!"
Frederick rose from his chair and impulsively laid his hand on his mother's shoulder. To Teola he looked so tall and strong, so capable of explaining, that she rose, too.
"I will tell you mother," said the student. "Thegirl was in distress. In some way she had been led to believe that prayers, effective prayers, could bring about any desired result. She simply came to ask us to pray for her father."
Teola was by his side now, reassuringly pressing his arm.
"And where would she go," she broke in suddenly, "if not to a minister's home?"
The pastor's whole family, at least the members that had been submissive—for Babe had always challenged her father's commands—was rising against him. His wife, instead of taking her willful children to task, was weeping; his son and daughter stood beside her refuting every word he said. He brought down his hand with a bang, his eyes narrowing into a slit.
"You will every one do as I say," he cried. "Frederick, you are to stay away from classes for two days, your professors knowing that you have disobeyed your father. If your fellow students ask you why you are absent, you must tell them what I have said. And, you, Teola—"
Frederick stopped the rush of words.
"If I stay away from college two days," he said in a low tone, so deliberate that every word burned into the mother's brain, "I shall never go back again. I am no longer a child and I won't be punished. And what is more, I shall leave your home forever. You may take your choice, father, but not until I make another statement. The girl from the lake asked me to pray for her. That is my intention, and I shall do more if possible. I shall use every bit of influence I have to aid her father to escape hanging.... Also, if you punish Teola, you will never see me again."
Mrs. Graves had risen from her chair. She walked straight to her son—placed her hand upon him.
"Frederick, you wouldn't leave your mother?"
The strong arm pressed about the wearied little form reassuringly.
"And you can bet, papa Graves," put in Babe, "that I'll go with mamma any old day, that's what I will."
Teola stood irresolutely, looking first at Frederick, then at her father. She went toward the minister and almost whispered,
"Father, let me speak! The girl came without having been invited by anyone, and she did not stay five minutes. She was drenched through, and cold ... I gave her my cup of coffee, and she stated her errand and went away."
The minister rose, leaving his supper untouched, put on his overcoat, not one remonstrating word coming from his family, and went out.
Pastor Graves made his way up the town through the main street to Bates' drug-store, his hunger having died in his anger and amazement.
He was positive that he could have brought his children to terms, had not their mother taken sides with them. His thoughts went back to the early days of his married life when nothing had disturbed their peace; the children obeyed, and Mrs. Graves thought her husband's word the essence of all law.
He turned into the drug-store in the middle of the block. Here met, nearly every evening, the head ones of his flock for a little while to talk over religion andpolitics. Outsiders called it the "Amen Corner" of Ithaca.
"Ah," exclaimed the druggist, "you're early, Graves. Must have had your supper at the going down of the sun."
Graves coughed his embarrassment and sat down.
"Feeling sick, Elias?"
The druggist opened the door for a child to pass out.
"No, not ill, only disgusted with the world in general."
"Skinner's girl coming to the court went against your notions, eh?"
"And every one else's with any sense," snapped Graves.
"Professor Young stopped in here to-day on his way up the hill," resumed Bates, "he had been over to the jail, talking to Skinner, and he says that the man will be murdered if the state hangs him."
"That's all Young knows about it," growled the minister. "You and I know these people, Bates, better then Young does, and Skinner's word isn't worth the powder to blow it up with."
Bates took his accustomary position on the book-keeper's stool and spread his long hands out on his knees.
"Well, the professor says," he went on, "that Skinner can prove that he didn't use the gun."
"How can he prove it?" asked Graves sharply, "only by the oaths of men with no more veracity than he has. I wouldn't believe one of those squatters if he used the sacred oath twenty times over."
"Maybe the next jury will think differently," argued the druggist.
"Bigger fools they then," interrupted Graves. "I don't know what the town is coming to if the fishermen can shoot down our officials without even remonstrance. I'll tell you what, Bates, there'll be a city war over Skinner. Let Young take up the cudgel, and I'll see what the church can do. There's power in the pulpit, I can tell you that."
Bates agreed to this.
"If the citizens of this city," continued the minister, encouraged by the evident acquiescence of the druggist, "should take this matter up as a body, ten men like Young couldn't bring about Skinner's acquittal."
"I'm not so sure," muttered Bates.
"I'm sure," insisted Graves strenuously, "very sure, for, if to a man every one is ready to do his duty, what kind of a jury could they have? Like yesterday's—conviction, swift and sure."
"But" objected the druggist, "a juror who takes his oath in a murder case, must know little or nothing of it. Men would not be accepted if for a week or month they had listened to combative sermons against the prisoner. And you certainly wouldn't have a juror perjure himself, would you, Graves?"
"The district attorney is no fool," replied the minister, softening his argument under the shocked expression of Bates; "he knows when the state is to be benefited by the outcome of a trial. He can leave off certain questions; it has been done."
"I know it," interrupted Bates. "But—it seems hardly fair."
Just then the door opened, and Silas Jones, the richest man in the town, took his seat with the other two "Ameners." The fascinating subject of the day, theunusualness of the squatter trial and the girl with the singing voice, continued to be the topic of conversation. Minister Graves' family, in standing out against him in a matter so near his heart, only strengthened his desire to see the end as he wished it to be—the sentence of yesterday executed against the fisherman without another trial.
"Young lost his senses to-day, don't you think so, Silas?" he asked.
"Well," drawled Jones, "if Skinner didn't commit willful murder, I'd hate to see him hang. It wouldn't do any harm as I see to give him another chance."
"You'll change your mind in church next Sunday," commented the parson. "I'm going to show every man his duty clear and plain."
He brought down his hand upon his knee with an egotistical slap.
"All folks don't think the same way you do, Dominie," persisted Jones. "Now then, Bill Hopkins of the toggery shop, he don't believe in women speakin' in meetin'."
The minister distinctly remembered this. More than once had he taken the delinquent Bill Hopkins to task for taking his letter to another church, but Bill could not be induced to return, because the creed had not been followed by its members, nor enforced by the shepherd of the flock.
Hopkins was the best-read man in the whole county, and his voice went far when he spoke, but for over a year his place among the "Ameners" had been vacant—also his pew in Graves' church. The Dominie needed such men as Bill in his congregation if he would win his fight against the squatters. These thoughts were prominentin his mind when the door admitted a great gust of wind—and the famous Bill Hopkins. The parson caught his breath. Bill spoke a genial good-evening, shook hands around, and bought a small bottle of witch-hazel, some camphor, and was about to leave, when Graves ejaculated:
"Sit down, Bill."
Bill sat down, took his hat from his bald head, and placed his fingers complacently around a smooth white wart on his cranium, and waited.
He looked questioningly at the rich man, and the druggist with the wide-spread hands. The church subject had been thrashed out long ago—the women of the congregation gaining the day in spite of the august presence of some of the deacons, who openly declared that the female portion of the church was unbecomingly usurping the authority of the men. Because of this flagrant disobedience of the church's creed, Bill Hopkins had taken his name from the roll, and was known to have said that he would not be led by a shepherd who could not order his flock. To-night he smacked his lips for the coming argument while the minister, glad to have him among them again, felt his hopes rise higher.
Bates flattened his hands with delight, noticing a smile that drew down the corners of Jones' lips. Long ago the pleasant religious argument of Ithaca's "Amen" corner had become a thing of the past, because of the absence of Bill Hopkins. He had been the zest of the crowd.
The Dominie, forgetting his grievance of the supper table, straightened himself for the combat. He had suddenly conceived a plan whereby he could gain afriend to aid him in the coming squatter fight. Bill Hopkins still waited with a quizzical expression in his shaggy-browed eyes.
"Strange happenings in town for a few days past," said Graves.
"The Skinner case?" asked Bill, rubbing gently the smooth white wart.
"Yes," assented the minister. "What do you think of it all, Bill?"
"The girl's a brick," commented Hopkins—and sank into silence.
"The girl's not being tried for murder," rebuked the minister sharply.
"But she played her part with feelin' and power," was the drawling reply.
The clergyman saw a flitting expression of triumph in the druggist's face.
"She'd make a capital actress," ruminated Graves.
He glanced at the rich man to see if he coincided with him, but that gentleman was looking into the street.
"We all act in this world," excused Bill; "even you ministers use methods that you have found in elocution to bring your beliefs to bear upon your congregations."
Graves did not relish being classed with the squatter's child, but he made no comment upon it. He changed his tactics.
"Bill," said he, "have you altered your ideas about the church?"
"What ideas?"
"Well, about women having the privilege of speaking in meetings."
Bill shook his head, and Graves resumed:
"Well, I'm changing my mind ... I'm going to stop this nonsense."
The rich man sat up and the druggist, scenting a religious rumpus, drew his stool nearer. Bill coughed loudly.
"Those women," continued Graves, "have had their own way too long ... I shall put a stop to it immediately."
Bill Hopkins wondered what was coming. It behooved him to wait and see; so he settled back with his head bowed and his piercing eyes directed steadily upon the pastor. A dark flush mounted to the minister's face. He had expected that such condescension to an ex-member would be received with enthusiasm. As no other of the "Ameners" offered a word, Graves continued:
"Next thing that we know, the women will be coming into the church with uncovered heads. I wonder I've stood it so long."
Still Bill did not speak. He could remember that when the dispute had been at its height these had not been the sentiments of Pastor Graves. In fact, when a delegation had gone to the parsonage to demand obedience to the constitution of the church, the Dominie had replied that the ladies had come out victorious in the matter, and that it was an old-fashioned idea to forbid the women to speak or pray in public if they so wished; and the crest-fallen delegates had gone away from the rectory, and Bill Hopkins, with several others, from the church.
Seeing that not one of the respectable "Ameners" was going to help him, the Dominie sputtered out his wrath in another direction.
"If Young had kept his hands off that Skinner business,there wouldn't have been the slightest chance of the fisherman winning out."
"Ah! here's where the shoe pinches," thought Hopkins; "the parson needs help to wrest Skinner's squatter rights from him."
But he did not voice his thoughts.
"I guess that's right, Dominie," were his spoken words. "Skinner didn't have many friends in the court until that girl came in. She certainly did make a change in the ideas of most people in this town."
"Fools! to let a child like that break up the dignity of a court-room." Graves settled back angrily in his chair. He had lost in the game he was about to play with Bill Hopkins—lost before the game had begun.
"Skinner can thank his kid for his life, nevertheless," interjected Jones, "for another jury will never convict him.
"Think not?" queried the druggist.
Bates' question remained unanswered, for Dominie Graves turned the subject again.
"Bill, if I come out strong in the church and give you your own way in the disputed question, then you must do something for me. I'll speak to you later about it."
"Pretty far along in the day," was Bill's answer, "but as you please, Dominie. I don't know what you want, but most of your friends will stick by you if the church is run on its old plan and according to the creed and the Bible."
When Minister Graves walked home he felt that in spite of family differences he had scored a point in getting from Hopkins a tacit consent to come back into his congregation.