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Longman, a child without a father, or a place in the world. Tess loved the babe because there was an expression in its eyes that she had once seen in a wounded baby bird's ... a pitiful unborn expression which would go with the brat to its grave. She stooped down and placed the toad again in his hole, shoving
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him deep down into his cavity, for the sun was going down and Frederick would sleep as long as there were no flies about. The boy spoke again. "Mammy says as how if ye don't stop runnin' wild ye'll be worse than Myry with another--" Suddenly the clenched fist of the girl flew up and struck the fisherman with a
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swiftness and force that took him from his feet. Tessibel was standing over him rigidly. "I hates ye, I hates ye, I'd ruther marry--yep, I'd ruther marry my toad or a man as ugly as him than you, Ezry Longman, does yer hear, does yer hear?" The lumbering body raised itself from the ground. The squint eyes were almost closed,
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only a glint of the gray ring that surrounded the pupil showing between the lids. "Ye think that ye can hide from me what ye be a doin'," burst out Ezra. "Why did ye name that toad after the student of Minister Graves? Just 'cause he wears nice clothes and don't do no honest rakin' of hay, nor catchin' a
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fish only by trollin'. Ye loves that feller, that's what ye does." Bewilderment leapt alive in the girl's brown eyes. The shade deepened almost to black as the thought the boy had planted in the sensitive mind took root and grew. Then the dirty young face flooded with crimson which tinted the rounded neck and colored the low forehead, and
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Tess dropped down beside the log and covered her face with her hands. The fisherman was so surprised that he uttered not a word while the wild storm broke over the girl's heart, dying away in a smothered moan. Without a glance at the boy, she lifted herself slowly from the earth and walking, erect and tall, into her father's
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hut, closed the door with a bang. She slipped the leather fastening into its place and dazedly adjusted the iron peg in the opening to hold it. Tessibel's heart had manifested its hitherto unknown burden and the woman lived amid the dirt and squalor of the fisherman's cabin. Tessibel's peremptory leaving and the hauteur in her face were so foreign
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to her that Ezra Longman did not dare follow. He leaned upon his rake looking after her, his gray eyes gathered into an incomprehensive squint. Had Tess again cuffed his ears, he would have been secretly delighted; but this manner, so unlike her, seemed to take her as far above him as that flock of black crows yonder, flying to
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the forest to find shelter for the night. "Tessibel," he called helplessly, under his breath, but Tessibel did not hear. He limped away not knowing that she had passed as effectually out of his life as if she had not dwelt in the rickety cabin on his right. Ben Letts rose to his feet after cleaning his jack-knife in the
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water and took the same path around the mud cellar which Tessibel had taken. The cabin door was closed--Tess nowhere in sight. Ben had intended--Ben didn't know just what his intentions were. He stopped short when his eyes fell upon Frederick's log. It took a long time for a thought to be born in the dense brain of the fisherman,
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but one was there, for the cross eyes opened and the red tongue licked greedily at the thick chops like that of a wolf when he comes upon prey for which he does not have to fight. Letts looked sneakily at the hut window where hung the remnants of a ragged curtain--all was quiet. He quickly ran his long arm
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into the opening of the log and with a snap of his teeth drew out the high-backed toad. Holding the reptile in his hand, he slunk behind the willow tree and stood an instant in abstract hesitation. Suddenly his fiendish face became flooded with the exultation of a plan fully matured. He let the toad fall to the ground, needing
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both hands to draw the blade of his jack-knife. Frederick hopped vigorously along in the direction of his log, but Ben, gorged with the instincts of an inquisitor, snatched him up as he was about to escape. After divesting Frederick of all the ornaments which nature had given him, the man allowed him to hop about, grinning, as he watched
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the rapid leaps of the toad. Frederick had forgotten the path to his log, he could only turn around and around as if he had been born to radiate in a circle. Ben could have watched this tumbling toad all night, so great was his joy at the sight, but it was getting dark and soon the call would come
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for the fishermen to gather for the netting and he would be expected to go. Taking the toad gingerly up from the earth, he returned it to the hole in the log, and with but a hasty glance at the dirty curtain which hung limp and ugly at the cabin window, sneaked away. * * * * * After leaving
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Ezra Longman, Tessibel stood in the cabin for one single moment with the terrible thought which the boy had planted there, burning in her brain. She had but a few times seen the minister's son who lived in the big house on the hill and not even to herself had she mentioned that he was her ideal of manhood--he was
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as far above her as the learned minister was above her own squatter father. Her heart seemed to almost stop beating as she sprang headlong into "Daddy's bed" and covered herself with the ragged blanket. Only when she heard her father pounding at the door did she lift her head. She jumped swiftly from the bed to let him in.
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No thought of supper for him had entered her mind. He looked his hunger as he noted the absence of a fire, and spoke rather mournfully, but Tess cut him short. The lithe young form bounded squarely upon the bible-back of the fisherman. She drew back his shaggy head, her bright wide eyes shining into Skinner's and a low voice
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deepened by the first arousal of womanly emotion which had ever come knowingly into the young life, was murmuring to him. "I loves ye, Daddy, I do. What does ye care for supper when I loves ye like this. Daddy, I could--just bite ye hard, that I could, I love ye so." "Get off my back, Tess," ordered Skinner, trying
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to loosen her fingers from his hair. "I air tired, Brat, and there be nettin' to-night. Ye air goin' to Mis' Longman's till we get back." "Won't get off till ye kisses me square on the bill, Daddy," replied the girl softly, "square where I does my eatin's." And square on "the bill" the girl got the caress--and then eagerly
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hastened to fry the inevitable fish. "I air coming after ye to Longman's when the nettin's over," broke in Orn Skinner presently, his mouth full of bread and fish, "and ye'd best duck yer head in the lake, Tess, afore ye go. Yer face has a week's dirt caked on it." Tessibel allowed her red lips to spread wide in
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a loving smile. "Ye air a durn good Daddy, ye air, and I loves ye, if my face be dirty." She rose quickly and came to his side. "Daddy," she began, twisting his big head so her eyes met his, "Can't I go nettin' to-night? I air a good helper, ain't I, Daddy?" Orn Skinner dreaded the wheedling tone in
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Tessibel's voice and the pleading in the eyes so like her mother's. He dropped his gaze upon his plate and slowly shook his head. "Nope, Tess, ye air goin' to Longman's. Don't ... now there be a kiss ... sit down and eat ... that air a good brat." The last ejaculation was brought forth by Tess herself. She had
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turned back to her place at the table and had complacently begun to eat the crisp, brown fish. "And ye ain't to stay on the ragged rocks, nuther, Tess," cautioned Skinner, rising from the table. "Ye be a good Tess. Scoot along now." The fisherman moved lumberingly to the water's edge, pushing his boat into the lake, and stepped in.
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Thrusting his powerful head down between his shoulders, he pulled lazily away at the oars until he lost sight of the shore on which stood the small silent figure in the fast gathering gloom. * * * * * Tess did not fancy netting nights. She always feared that something might happen to her father. But she knew, too, that
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they could not live, even meagerly, through the long winter unless the nets were used. So this night after she had received many kisses, "square on the bill," she watched her father's bent shoulders, rising and falling with the motion of the oars as long as she could see him, and turning, scudded through the underbrush which grew in profusion
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near the forest--up to the rugged rocks toward the Longmans' hut. She slid down beside a large stone as she heard the lapping of oars below her on the lake, and knew that "Satisfied" Longman and his son Ezra were going to join the others at Jake Brewer's shanty. She was alone under the heavens, alone with the eagles and
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sleepy twittering birds--she could think of what had been forced upon her that day. She bitterly regretted the tears shed before Ezra, and she must never, never again look at the student Graves. She felt that to see his face, even from a distance, would cause her to drop dead before him. Every muscle tingled and her eyes burned with
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unshed tears. She had never dared to speak even to his sister, the pretty Teola Graves, who fluttered about with pink ribbons among her curls and wore high heels on her shoes. Suddenly Tess opened her lips and sent ringing over the lake in glorious tones of pathos, the hymn she loved best, "Rescue the perishin', Care for the dyin'."
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* * * * * Tessibel knew what it meant to almost perish from the cold. She had felt the cruel blasts of the winter winds upon her chilblained feet, for she had never known the luxury of shoes. She had also seen the dying and understood what it meant to turn a longing face toward heaven, with a burning
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desire to know what was beyond. Such a voice as Tessibel's had never been heard upon Cayuga lake. Ben Letts said it put him in mind of listening to the wild cry of a lost soul, while Myra Longman could hear only the songs of angels in the exquisite tones which fell, pure and sweet, from the red lips. Tess
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knew nothing of breath power, nothing of trained trilling tones, but nature had given her both and like the birds of the air she used them. The girl had not moved from beside the stone near which she had fallen. The night was so strange, so different from any night Tessibel had ever known. Her whole idea of life had
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been altered that day by the word of a fisherman, and the woman's heart grew larger and larger, until the squatter girl felt that it was going to burst. Something crawled over her bare foot and brought her to her senses. Leaning over she drew to her lap a long, slimy lizard, which she held caressingly in her fingers. She
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lifted him high up and looked at him through the moonlight. "Green," she said slowly, "ain't he a dandy. But I don't dare carry him even a little way for fear he'll lose his house. I bet he has a pile of green babies." Dropping the lizard beside the rock, she sped away. Just before reaching the Longman cabin, she
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raised her voice and sang again, "Rescue the perishin', Care for the dyin'." Some one opened the door and she bounded in. "Glad ye come, Tessibel," said Mrs. Longman, a small wizened old woman. "The brat air sick to-day. He does nothin' but squall so that my head air a bustin' the hours through. Give him to Tessibel, Myry." "After
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she air rested a spell," replied Myra, who resembled her mother, but was smaller and thinner. "He seems to have a pain, Tess." "Mebbe he has," responded Tessibel, "give him to me." The wee boy stopped his tears immediately. His back grew limp and his fists opened out as Tessibel began to sing. This time the song was, "Did ye
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ever go into an Irishman's shanty?" The child fell asleep and Tessibel laid him gently in the box prepared for him. Bed room was scarce in the huts of the fishermen and the small members of the family slept on rope beds, let down from the ceiling. But Myra's child, still too tender and always sick, slept in a box
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which his grandfather, "Satisfied" Longman, had made for him as soon as he was born. "It air a seemly night for the men to fish," commented Myra when Tessibel had seated herself again. "I air always a hopin' that nothin' will happen to none of them." "The hull bunch air cute," assured Tessibel, "and Daddy can row faster than any
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man on this here lake." "But when them game men gets after 'em with the permit to shoot, that's what I fears," complained Mrs. Longman--and she sighed. The fisherwoman's life she had led had been harder than most women bore, for Ezra was going a crooked path, while Myra, well--the brat slept in the cradle. Both girls saw her glance
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toward it and read her thoughts. Myra's face deepened in color, Tessibel hummed a tune. "'Taint no use to try to bring up children anywheres decent," the woman broke in sharply, after a silent moment. "God! but to see one's own--" "Ma," Myra's voice was pleading, "it air over and ye said--" "I knows I did, and so did yer
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Daddy. But I ain't thinkin' only of ye to-night, Myra, look at the mess that Ezry's a makin' of things, and just 'cause ye won't marry him, Tessibel." "I ain't never goin' to marry no one," said Tess sullenly; "goin' to stay with Daddy." "Yer Daddy won't live allers," interposed Mrs. Longman, "and what's more, yer better off with a
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man what will look after ye as Ezy will. Be ye a thinkin' of it at all, Tessibel?" The girl shook her head. "Nope, 'taint no use; don't like Ezy anyway." "Ezry ain't the worst boy in the world," defended the mother; "if the right woman gets him, Tess, he'll make her a good man. Ye couldn't think of tryin'
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him, could ye?" Tessibel shook her head again. She shuddered perceptibly, and Myra thought she realized the feeling in the girl's heart. "Don't bother her, ma, don't bother--" "If ye'd a bothered a little yerself, Myra," broke in the woman pettishly, "we might all been better off. It ain't 'cause of the brat, air it, Tessibel?" She shot a glance
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at the infant's box. "Why 'cause of the brat," asked Tessibel sharply, "why 'cause of the brat?" "He air a come-be-chance, ye know--" "That ain't no fault of his'n, air it," demanded Tessibel. "Nope, 'tain't nothin' to do with the brat. I loves him, I does, come-be-chance or no. It don't make no difference to me." Myra pressed Tessibel's bare
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toe with hers in loving fellowship. "Ye allers was a funny gal, Tessibel," ruminated Mrs. Longman. "Now Ezy says that yer takin' a likin' to such things as toads, lizards and snakes, shows as how ye needs some one to help ye. God'll make ye a happy mother if ye'll keep yer nose low in the air, and not think
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too much of yer betters." Ezra, then, had told his mother of the student. A frown deepened on the girl's brow. She hated Ezra Longman with an inward fury for what he had said that day. "Ye might have a come-be-chance, yerself, Tessibel," warned Mrs. Longman as she went to bed, clambering up the long ladder to the loft, leaving
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the girls alone. Outside the Longman hut the wind had quickened its pace up the dark lake, but inside there was no sound save the small snore of the infant. "Don't hurt you and me bein' friends, does it, Myry," broke in Tessibel impetuously, "'cause I can't love Ezry?" "Nope, I wouldn't love him nuther. Ma don't know all that's
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to know and I wouldn't a married the brat's pa if I could," and she shivered, for she knew that she had lied to Tess. This was the first time Myra had mentioned her trouble, that is, in just that confidential manner. Tessibel came closer. Had it not been a mystery since the coming of the brat, who had been
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responsible for his tiny life? "It air some un what ye knows, too, Tessibel," Myra said, shifting her eyes from her companion's face to the box where the infant lay, but Tess did not ask the name. Suddenly Myra leaned over and whispered something in the other girl's ear, and Tessibel started as if she had been stung by an
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adder. "Nope ... it ain't him," she cried, starting up, "he air bad but not so bad as that." "It were him," replied Myra, "and he beat me that night on the ragged rocks and that air what broke my arm. Ye remember?" Tessibel nodded. She had heard a secret that not even Myra's mother knew--she felt intuitively that Myra
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intended her to keep silent. She did not dare to speak again, fearing the woman above was not asleep. But Myra, with less fear, resumed, "'Taint no hopin' the brat will live, and if he does he'll get his eatin's alright. What brats don't? But, Tessibel, I telled ye this to keep ye away from the ragged rocks for there
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air no tellin' what will happen to ye. And yer that pretty--" Tessibel stared blankly. "Pretty! pretty!" she gasped, stumbling over the words, "ye say pretty. Me--pretty, Myra Longman?" "As if ye didn't know it," scoffed Myra, "but yer face air allers so dum dirty that ye can't see nothin' but yer eyes, and yer matty old hair--it air a
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shame to live like ye do." Tessibel sat up. This was her first ambitious moment. Never had lips said such things to her, and she had always known Myra Longman. Rising from the chair she disappeared into the outer room, and Myra could hear the splashing of water and the shuffling of feet as Tessibel stood first on one and
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then the other, washing her dirty face. She mopped the long red hair in and out of the wash-basin, and Myra was not prepared for the vision which Tessibel made in her new state of cleanliness. The impetus of being good-looking by an effort of her own had blackened the copper colored eyes. The long fringed lashes dripped with pearls
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of water while the skin had reddened from the vigorous rubbing, but it was very, very clean. "I wants yer comb, Myry Longman," said Tessibel slowly shaking herself like a big dog. Myra hesitated. "Ye got too much dirt in your hair yet," said she, "but if ye'll take care of yer mop, I'll be givin' ye a comb to
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yourself." Tess did not deny the accusation of her filth. She took the comb and drew it through the wet locks. Myra was regarding her critically. Tessibel--was beautiful. In the last year Ezra's sister had seen the change coming. The complexion had whitened under the perpetual dirt and the long eyes had gathered an expression of knowledge, while their color
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changed from light to dark with passing emotions. Myra bent her brows as she examined Tessibel closer. The skin was clean and shone with the glossiness of much soap. The low brow was covered with small wet ringlets, which turned and twisted here and there in luxurious confusion. Over the shoulders, hidden by a soiled calico blouse, the copper colored
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mass hung in dripping flame-like waves. "You air pretty," said Myra slowly, "but ye air so dum dirty no one can ever see it. Why ain't you washed up like that every day?" "Never knowed how before. Didn't see nothin' to keep clean in my face." As Tessibel spoke she stood before the glass looking at her own image--spying upon
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the prettiness which Myra said was there. "This hair air like red snakes," she gasped passionately. "Just like the snakes that eats the little birds in the spring. In the sun their backs air red like this--and this--and this." She was angrily tearing at the beautiful tightly curled ringlets with but one thought dominating her brain. Students never liked red
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haired girls with eyes which looked like copper. "Don't," ordered Myra, catching the rough hands as they pulled at the profusion of redness. "Don't, ye air tearin' it out by the roots, and it looks like--like the sun when it air goin' down in one ball of fire. It air beautiful." Beautiful! beautiful! Tessibel caught her breath and looked at
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Myra with a yellowish glint, born of a new emotion in her eyes. Was the brat's mother making fun of her? All her short life had this been Tessibel's portion. Ben Letts had followed her along the ragged rocks over which her bare feet flew with the swiftness of eagle's wings and when he found she could not be induced
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to stop he would shout in defiance, "Brick top, red head," and such names that went deep into the sensitive little heart. When she reached home she would tear at the curls and cut them fiercely with the knife which her father used to skin his fish and large eels. Yet nature would send more and more of the burnished
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gold to adorn Tessibel's head, and not until to-night had she ever heard one word in praise of it. The reformation had begun. Tessibel went again to the soap and water and Myra looking through the crack of the door, saw Tess dragging madly at her hair, sopping it first in the pan and then in the deep bucket which
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Ezra used to give the pig their swill. Once Myra saw the mass of gold disappear into the pail, and when Tessibel came again to view she was sputtering, coughing, and blowing the cold water from her nose and mouth. "Won't be much left if ye keeps on at yer hair that way," called Myra grimly, "but the soap air
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good for cleanin' it. There air other days and nights, too," she went on sarcastically, "and it air almost midnight. Yer Daddy'll be here soon. Wonder if the game warden air out to-night?" As if in answer to her question they heard the dipping of oars and a little later a boat was dragged to its moorings on the shore.
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"Satisfied" Longman entered with his son and Ben Letts. "Daddy were tired and didn't come for me?" asked Tessibel. "Your Daddy didn't come child," replied the elder Longman, whilst Ben Letts stood with his squint eyes lowered. He had an exquisite feeling within him, longing for the sight of the girl after she had heard their news. "I air goin'
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home to Daddy--I ain't afeared to go home alone," she said stoutly and defiantly, for Ben Letts made a move to accompany her. "I ain't afeared of the night things, nor nothin' that crawls nor flies. Ye knows I ain't afeared, Myra." "Ye ain't goin' home to-night, Tessibel," said Long man, "for yer father ain't there." At first Tessibel didn't
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comprehend. She thought of the care which was taken to keep the fish fresh for the market. Daddy was putting the pickerel and numerous eels in the blind fish cars until they could be cleaned. She looked into "Satisfied" Longman's face. "Air he a carin' for the fish?" Longman shook his head in the negative. "Where air he then?" Tessibel's
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voice was sharp and penetrating. It awoke Mrs. Longman upstairs and the infant in the box beside the rope cot. "He air gone to prison," put in Ezra opening and shutting his eyes, and licking his thick lips with his red tongue. "He air where ye won't see him to scratch his face when ye goes into a tantrum. He
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air in prison." The bronze eyes widened and lengthened till the very fear in them startled her companions. The tall, slight figure with its weight of rags, swayed to the hut floor--the clean shining face gathered into a painful pucker, while the two fists which had fought many a hard battle, clenched until the nails entered the calloused skin under
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each finger. Not one word came from the tightened white lips. The dumb agony was worse than a child's frantic scream of fear. Somehow, Ben's mind went back to the toad, when it also had borne its misery dumbly. "Satisfied" Longman, stooping down, grasped the girl and stood her on her feet. No one had ever seen Tess like this.
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Ben leered, the sides of his fat cheeks protruding in the joyful emotion he felt at Tessibel's suffering. "He killed the gamekeeper," he grinned, leaning back against the wall. "He air where ye won't hurt him now." The tortured Tess could bear no more. She had striven to be brave when she thought of "Daddy" in the small cell which
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she had heard many times vividly described. She had thought vaguely of months, perhaps a whole year without him, but Ben's words made her father a murderer, and murderers went away sometimes never to return. Her Daddy!--and Ezra had said that she could never scratch his face again. She hurt Daddy? Did every one in the settlement think that? She
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sank down beside Myra's father and winding her arms about his legs implored him to say that it was only Ben's and Ezra's fun. "It air fun, only fun, Satisfied, ain't it," she pleaded, "for Daddy, poor old Daddy, never killed no man." "We all says as how it were a mistake," replied Longman. "Ben says the gun went off
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in yer Daddy's hands and the warden dropped, and the other gamekeeper took yer Daddy away at the point of his pistol. I were at the north reel and couldn't save him nohow." Tessibel understood. It was all plain now. She loosened her arms and painfully raised herself. The shock had hurt her flesh, and made her sore and lame.
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She started dazedly toward the door, "Satisfied" trying to stop her flight, but the strong young body, mad with grief and newly found despair, slipped through the friendly fingers, and the night, Tessibel's night, gathered her into its arms, till she was lost in the long shadows of the pine forest. A night owl hooted in Tessibel's ear as she
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ran. A bat whirled into her face--then took himself off. Over the shadowy rocks which cut and bruised her feet, Tessibel flew. Daddy was home in the shanty; he was in his bed tired from hauling his nets. She remembered Ezra had grinned at her as with one hasty look she had fixed his face in her mind. He had
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lied to her. Daddy was in the hut, and if he were up waiting for her--there passed through Tessibel's small mind the thought of how joyfully she would hop to the bowed shoulders, and she longed for the kisses she knew would be hers. She halted before the dark hut and waited. Insects whizzed about her ears as though they
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little feared her. The long branches of the weeping willow dragged themselves across the tin roof with a ghostly sound. This was Tessibel's night of heart experiences--her first day and her first night. Oh! to go back to yesterday, with the hidden fear of the student sleeping soundly in her breast and a Daddy, a dear stooping old Daddy. She
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slipped open the shanty door, lighted a candle and looked around. The frying pan lay bottom up on the floor where she had dropped it. The tea pail was on the table; a cut loaf of bread lay beside it, covered with a host of small red ants. All this was familiar to Tess. She kicked the pan from her
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path with her bare foot, and sat down on the three legged stool which her father used at his meals. Portions of fish and plenty of bones were spread about upon the floor, but the littered shanty did not distress her newly found notions of cleanliness. Daddy might go away to the black place where they had taken the Canadian
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Indian, who had killed his squaw. Tess remembered hearing how he had been carried to prison, twelve men had found him guilty of the crime and at last--Tessibel started up with a groan--the Canadian Indian had been carried to the place where the rope was. Daddy Skinner and the Canadian Indian. Tess dared think no longer. She caught a glimpse
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of herself in the cracked mirror which Skinner used when he plied the pinchers to his beard--and her wild eyed bronzeness caused her to give a startled ejaculation. Daddy was gone; and Frederick the toad, was her all. The thought of the reptile she loved brought her quickly to her feet. Frederick should sleep in the shanty while Daddy was
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away. Tessibel halted apprehensively in the open doorway. From the shore willows, hoot owls pierced the inky night with their sonorous cries--while in throaty discord, a million marsh frogs bellowed farewell to summer. The lake shores caught the unceasing waves in eternal laps, the rhythm soothing the ears of the squatter girl as her unfathomable gaze pierced the midnight gloom.
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But the weight of sorrow and longing on the strong nature, untried by emotion, strangled the rising fear, and Tessibel advanced a step to the pebbly path. Once outside in the darkness, she lifted her voice and repeated as of yore, "Rescue the perishin' Care for the dyin'." Never before had the words roused her as now--Daddy Skinner needed that
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refrain. She darted around the corner of the mud cellar, and shoving her hand into the familiar hole in the log, Tessibel drew Frederick quickly out. She dropped him into her blouse and retraced her steps to the shanty. She could never be lonely and quite without hope if Frederick were with her. Hadn't she loved him for four long
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months, and daily fed him his portion of flies? She took him from her bosom, where many times he had sunk into toad dream-land, and without looking at him placed him on the floor. "It air a bad night for us, Frederick," she said out loud, "it air. But you'll not sleep in the log to-night, but in Daddy's bed.
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And I'll just pretend ye air Daddy, and when ye croak with the daylight ye can have all the flies lightin' on the sugar, and then we air goin' after Daddy and bring him home to the shanty, Frederick." Tessibel turned her head and glanced at Frederick. Generally when she spoke he would give an answering grunt. She gazed at
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him but dared not venture closer. Had she lost her mind like Jake Brewer's sister, when they brought home the body of her drowned husband? Tessibel lighted another candle and then the third--the match burned low between her fingers as she touched it to the fourth. Once more she looked upon the horrid sight--terror striving and struggling for some outlet
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in her torn young soul. Frederick blinked a pair of beady eyes, filmed with death,--he moved a mutilated body with painful jerks, but there was nothing to show the girl that he felt her presence. The silent awful pulsating of the toad manifested its dumb suffering. A candle flickered as she sought to solve the problem. The night wind flapped
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the dirty curtain and Tessibel turned her head slowly toward it. A bird's cry from somewhere in the weeping willow, came in through the window. With silent intensity, she dragged her body slowly across the floor toward the flattened reptile--above him she squatted--the gorgeous hair sweeping the filth strewn floor. Tess could mark the places where the beloved warts had
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been--she knew how many there were even to the tiny ones. With the halting precision of the ignorant, she had counted them singly every day. But the severest heart wrench of all was to come to Tess. The great squat hind legs, which had been her pride, when Frederick jumped through her rounded arms--curled to make a hoop--were gone, and
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the movements of Frederick's body left a tiny trail of dark blood upon the shanty floor. She couldn't touch that dying thing. In her vehement desire to relieve him of his pain, she burst into song which went upward and outward, ringing over the lake, returning again, only to be sent further and further into the heavens. "Rescue the perishin'
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Care for the dyin'." This was all Tessibel knew of the hymn--over and over she sang it, fearfully watching the toad move grotesquely in the candlelight. Time after time the blinking eyes closed and flew open--again and again Tessibel sent her importunate prayer into the heart of the Great Unknown. Frederick gave a great deep sob, his fat sides lifted
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and fell twice, and as the petitionate lips of the girl sent the song once more into the night, he flopped over on his back, straightened out the little wounded stumps, and died. Daddy Skinner, the Canadian Indian, and Frederick! Tess couldn't separate the three--the prayerful mood died with the toad. She opened her lips and uttered two great piercing
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shrieks, which sounded and resounded through the rafters of the shanty, out into the darkness and up to the ragged rocks. It was the cry of a wounded human thing, amounting to but little in the great whirling universe. The dying of the scream brought words from her lips. "Daddy Skinner, Daddy Skinner." Then twice in equally shrill longing, resounded
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the name of her dead friend. "Frederick, aw, aw Frederick!" Both cries followed the prayer, echoing their agony out through the window--the flapping curtain with its tatters offering no impediment for its outgoing. Suddenly Tessibel staggered to her feet, for back to her through the window, from somewhere near the mud cellar, came an answering voice, deep-toned and vibrant-- "What?
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What?" Frederick, the student, stood in the door of the dirty shanty, looking upon an unkempt, copper-eyed girl, and a great squat, dead, wartless toad. "You called me?" A silence. "You called me?" The student repeated the words twice, so satisfied was he that his name had been called out in tones of great insistence. Tessibel was deaf to his
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words. His presence had filled her completely. Leaning against the post of Daddy's bed, she glued her eyes upon the student's face, the fringed lids sprung to their fullest capacity. The extreme fascination in her gaze held the boy spellbound--then the eyelids quivered and it was over. Frederick glanced hurriedly about the room, the untidiness of it all striking his
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sensitiveness. He noted the pungent smell of fried fish mixed with inferior grease, the ant-covered bread, the confusion of ragged bed-clothes, and lastly of all, the other Frederick. Tessibel gasped as the newcomer looked longest upon her dead. She thought she saw him shiver as he stepped back a little. This brought her grief vividly back to her. The pain,
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