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that they won't be comin' back just yet." Tess closed the door of her shanty, looked about to see if anyone were watching her movements, then she, too, broke into the high weeds that surrounded the running brook under the mud cellar. Her little ruse in giving the child to its mother delighted her. She would find Teola, and bring
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her and the babe back to the shanty. Softly she parted the branches that hid the spot where she had first seen the Dominie's daughter. Through the maze of brambles she saw the girl, with the child clasped closely in her arms. The cloth in which Tess had wrapped it had fallen from the little shoulders, leaving them white, save
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for the blood-red mark of fire. Teola lifted the infant, and kissed it passionately, bending her head over it, praying. Tess could not enter upon such a holy scene. She sank down upon the turf. The basket yawned upon a bed of moss, its flannel rags hanging over the edge. Teola was making the babe ready to return to its
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bed, when Tess slipped under the branches of the short sumac trees, and entered the clearing. "Come back to the shanty," she said. "Ye be here too long." "I can't. I must go home, Tessibel.... I could hardly get away as it was. Oh, Tess, isn't he beautiful?... Don't you think the mark will soon go away? What makes him
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open his mouth so much? Possibly the sugar rag is too large." "Nope, 'tain't that. He be tired, and that air what makes him gape like that. Wait until he gets some bigness. He air little yet." "I haven't asked you, Tess," and Teola turned troubled eyes upon the squatter, "I haven't been able to ask you how you feed
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him. And where do you get the milk?... Oh, if I only had some money! When mother is home, I do get a little. But Rebecca won't give me a cent. Tessibel, where do you get the milk?" The babe was still clasped in her arms. "I crib it from the cows at Kennedy's. They all has too much for
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their calves, anyhow." "You mean you steal it, Tess?" asked Teola fearfully. "Oh, Tessibel! Oh! Oh, Tess, Tess, how good you are!" "I ain't good," Tess retorted. "It ain't good to steal, air it? And squatters ain't never good, they ain't. But the brat's got to eat, ain't he? If I ain't got no milk, then I has to crib
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it. See?" Bitter tears were falling upon the head of little Dan. They were the mother's first tears since that day when Tess had led her up the hill to the summer cottage. "But Kennedy will shut his cows up soon," announced the squatter. "Then I don't know what to do. The brat air too little to eat fish, he
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air." Suddenly Teola conceived an idea. "If I should put out a little milk behind the house, in a pail, could you come after it, Tessibel?" "Yep," replied Tess eagerly. "I could crib it from your yard, if ye'll let me." "Yes, yes; that's the way to do," replied Teola, with a faint smile. "If I can't get the milk
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out, you go into the kitchen. Simply take all you can get. Take all you want. My father and mother will be home soon. They know by this time I am ill. My brother also gets back from camping at the same time. You see how careful I shall have to be, Tessibel. And in September, we go back to
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the city, for school always takes us home then. If I could only have my own baby. My own precious baby!" Tessibel grunted. Teola misunderstood her. "Oh, I am grateful to you, dear! I think that you are the best girl in all the world. So does my brother Frederick. He says--" She stooped to cover the child, her voice
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ceasing. The babe had been carefully tucked in. "He's a been sayin' what?" The tones of the squatter were eager, her eyes so bright that Teola did not answer for a moment. "He says that there is no girl as good as you, and that your faith in God is what he would rather have than anything else in the
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world.... Oh, Tess, if I could only believe, and be sure that soon the baby and I could go to--his father!" "If ye asks, ye can go," replied Tess solemnly. "The student says what ye asks with faith ye'll get. Ain't that enough to prove it?" This fell reverently from the lips of the girl. Faith in Frederick rather than
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faith in God had given birth to her believing soul. But neither girl realized it. Both were silent for some minutes. Teola was looking dreamily at the opposite hill, the basket with its precious burden already hanging on the squatter's arm. Tess had learned that such loud smacks as the infant was giving were indicative of hunger. So she made
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a move to go. "I takes him back to feed him. He air hungry." "Oh, Tess, if I could only feed him! If I could only always have him! I wish--I wish I were a squatter. Then I would face the world with my baby.... Oh, I am so unhappy and ill!" True, she was ill, for there came to
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Tessibel's ears a cough that echoed against the rocks with the familiar sound of death in it. It sounded like that of a fisherwoman she had known in a shanty below the great rocks, who had died and been taken to the Potter's field. "I air a-prayin' every day," said Tess, with a lump in her throat, "that ye be
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taken with the brat to the sky--to the brat's pa what ye loves.... Air that the prayin' ye wants?" Teola nodded, and Tess, smiling tenderly, hesitated, and whispered: "The student's God can do anything He wants to. Asks Him to let ye go 'cause ye be sick, and the brat air sick, too, and--the winter'll be cold for him." She
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touched the handle on her arm lightly, turned, and disappeared. Teola sat for some moments dry-eyed, looking at the high hill across the blue water, thinking of the next few weeks, and of how she and the babe would be called away. If she only had the precious uplifting faith of Tessibel! Something must come to her and the baby.
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Her stern father, who hated Tessibel Skinner with all his heart, must never know of the little Dan. Her mother, weary and nervous, would go to her grave from the shock; and Frederick-- Teola straightened at the thought of her brother. He would help her in all things, even in the tragedy that now covered her life. Of that Teola
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felt sure, but the humiliation would be too great. Better die apart from her child. With another racking cough, she turned her face toward home, two hectic spots shining clear and red upon the white cheeks. Rebecca silently helped her to bed. That night, at ten o'clock, after Tess had silenced the child in her arms and Teola had lost
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her nervousness in a stupor, three boats shot from different points of the west shore, and quietly oared a path through the moonlit lake toward the netting place. The occupants of one boat were Satisfied Longman and his son. In another Jake Brewer sat, alone. In the third Ben Letts puffed upon his pipe. His thoughts were upon the one
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person he desired--Tess. Like most of mankind, he wanted what he could not get; wanted the girl who turned a mocking, beautiful face toward him and used such a bitter tongue. Tess was responsible for the scars upon his face, but he would feel them well carried if he gained the girl--and tamed her. That Tess was a devoted admirer
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of the student Graves made her none the less desirable. Ben dipped his oars with dexterous aptitude and shot under the shadow of the trees. An instant later, his boat was beside those of the other squatters, and he was standing with his hand upon the north reel. Out into the lake the net was carried by Satisfied Longman and
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Jake Brewer. Ben could see the tall, thin form of Ezra through the shadows, guiding the ropes as they slipped through his fingers. Here was a boy aspiring to the love of Tessibel Skinner. Ben heard the swish of the net far out in the lake as it took to the silent waters, heard the dipping of the oars, and
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saw the boats strike for the shore. Then Ezra came toward him, at the command of his father, Satisfied Longman. During that evening, Deforest Young was calling upon Deacon Hall. He refused the Deacon's invitation to row him to the city. "Thanks," said he, "but the night is delightful. I think I shall walk. I shall go by the shore
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and skirt to the tracks at the Hoghole." He failed to say, however, that his reason for walking was that he desired to catch a glimpse of the red-haired Tess. He had not seen her since the discovery of the new-born babe. The candle was lighted in the Skinner hut, and he tapped gently. For an instant there was no
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response, He knew the girl was at home--there had been a sudden discontinuance of a humming when he knocked. "Miss Skinner, it is I--Professor Young," he called. "If it is too late, I will come again." The door was promptly thrown open. "Come in," said Tess with a smile. "I thought as how it were someone else." "I have been
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at Deacon Hall's," explained he. "They agree with me that you ought to go and see your father. I did not tell them why you could not. Where is the little child?" Tess glanced at the babe. "I keeps him in the basket or the box in the daytime, but nights I takes him to bed with me. The rats
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be so dum thick that one of them big fellers would chew the little chap's ear offen him afore I could stop it." She said it so naturally, as if she were speaking of the most ordinary thing, that Young felt a hysterical desire to laugh. It was a dreadful thought, this of the rat in the box with the
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babe. "Are the men netting to-night?" he asked, quickly changing the subject. "Yep, they be." "I suppose there is no stopping it," sighed Young; "and they run such dreadful risks. But, if there were no laws about it, there would be no fish left in the lake." Tessibel's brow gathered a thick network of wrinkles. She had heard the subject
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discussed and argued from her babyhood days. The best fish in the waters must be kept for the gentlemen who came for sport during the season. But the fishermen, who needed bread for their families, were forced by the law to go without. "There oughtn't to be no laws about fishin'," she frowned, in decision. "It air wicked, when brats
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air a-wantin' bread and beans." Young saw danger ahead in the argument, so he switched to the home-coming of the minister's family. From that he again spoke of the infant, who was whimpering a little. Tess took him up, and warmed the milk. "I shall go now, child," said Young, rising. "You are tired. You ought to go to bed."
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"Yep, I air tired, I air," answered Tess, wearily "Good-night." Once out upon the shore, Young looked back at the hut. It was dark. He saw three boats flit silently by him toward the city, as if phantoms guided them. They crossed the moonbeams, and Young lost them in the dark shadows near the shore. Keeping to the water's edge,
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Professor Young walked rapidly toward Ithaca. He knew that further up the shore the fishermen were drawing their nets; he did not wish to advance upon them. Since knowing Tessibel Skinner, he had become more lenient toward the law-breakers. He turned into the forest at the side of the Hoghole, but the sound of voices brought him to a standstill.
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Ezra Longman was shouting out a threat. "Ye be a-tryin' to get Tess, and I tells ye to look out." "Shet up!" responded Ben Letts. "If ye air a-wishin' to live," came the boy's voice again, "I says for ye to keep away from her." "I lives 'cause I lives, and I ain't afraid of ye, nohow." The Professor barely
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caught the words, for they were gurgled in the deep throat. "I wants Tess for a woman," Ben broke out, "and for a woman I air a-goin' to have her. She'll care for Mammy and me. I gets her. See?" The north reel stopped turning, but the south one went on silently. Ben Letts and Ezra Longman were turning over
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and over on the sand, at grips with each other. Professor Young uttered no word. Then Ezra's voice came from under Ben's big body. "I tells what I knows about Skinner if ye don't get up and let me be," said he. "I tells--" Red fingers closed over his throat, and Ezra Longman spoke no more. As the south reel
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kept turning around and around, the rope slackened from the north reel in the water; and still Ben Letts held his deadly fingers pressed about the neck of his enemy. Professor Young saw Ben sit up and bend his head to the heart of the other fisherman. Then, with a furtive glance about, he lifted the boy in his arms,
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and came toward Young, grunting under his burden. Young drew back into the overhanging branches. The squatter stumbled up the rocks, dragging the boy after him, and with a mighty effort lifted him high in the air, and tumbled the body into the Hoghole. In another instant, Ben was back upon the shore at the reel, turning swiftly until silently
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it caught up with the other, just as the net dragged in the shallow waters, with bushels of flopping fish inside. * * * * * Professor Young lowered himself into the Hoghole. It was necessary for him to use the greatest caution. The lad came to the surface directly below him, and the Professor saw him catch at a
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jagged end of a rock. "Can you breathe?" asked Young, in a low voice. "And can you help yourself a little?" "Yep," came back the faint answer. "Then, when I put out my foot, take hold of it, and make no noise, for your enemy is but a short distance away, and he meant to kill you. Now, come up....
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There! Don't lean too heavily upon me, for the rocks are slippery." Without any more conversation, the two men, one wet and weak, with bleeding head, with a gash over his right brow, crossed the forest toward the tracks. By dint of persuasion, Young forced the boy to give his father's name. He had caught enough of the talk between
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the fishermen to know that Tess was the cause of their quarrel. But what Ezra had threatened to tell about Skinner he did not know. Two miles from Ithaca the boy became light-headed and feeble. His tongue was loosened in his delirium, and Young heard a story that made his heart beat faster and revived hopes he had considered almost
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dead. Through the moonbeams that slanted to the tracks he imagined he saw a little figure skirting the rays, with flying red hair. Not for anything in the world would he lose sight of the boy. He had the first clue in the case that so interested him. Acquittal for the father of Tessibel Skinner was within his grasp. It
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was late when he dragged Ezra, laughing and gibbering, into a private hospital. He installed a nurse beside the boy, bidding her keep a record of any delirious mutterings he might make, and to observe silence about them. * * * * * Ben Letts wondered what Satisfied Longman would ask about his son. He spoke to the father first,
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his thick brain trying to avoid trouble. "Ye air both got a lot of nerve to keep three men at the south reel, when I air the only one here." "Where's Ezy?" asked Longman. There was no anxiety in his voice. He was tumbling the fish into the cars. "I ain't no way a-knowin' where he air. He skipped away,
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and said how he wanted to speak to his pappy, and I ain't seed him since.... Ezy were a fool when he was born." "Gone home, like a sneakin' kid," put in Jake Brewer. "He ain't no hankerin' for nettin'. He ain't been right since Orn Skinner shot the gamekeeper." "He air my brat," replied Longman, "and he air good,
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if he does do what he oughtn't to sometimes. I air satisfied with him.... Let's go home." And, silently, as a spectral fleet, the boats lapped their way back, edging the shore carefully. * * * * * Far into the night Satisfied Longman and the tired mother waited for their boy. "He'll show up to break'us," soothed the father;
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but the mother trembled with terror. It was the first evening Ezra had missed the netting, and he had never been from home for a whole night. As day after day passed, it was noised about the settlement that Ezra Longman had run away, some saying that he had been seen upon a line of canal boats going to Albany.
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The mother watched each hour for some word from him. Then, with a sorrowful expression in the faded eyes, she said to Myra: "If Ezy had had any edication, he'd 'a' writ. He'll be a-comin' home some of these days." After that, the fisherman's hut carried along its usual routine--while a boy in the city was wrestling with fever, and
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the head of the law school hung upon his muttered words with avidity. * * * * * "You think he is very ill, Tess?" Teola asked, early one evening in September, when she and Tessibel were alone in the Skinner hut. Tess came forward to the wooden box, holding in her hand the frying-pan filled with bacon fat, and
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gazed down upon the baby Dan, contemplating the wee old-man face thoughtfully. "He air sick! He air a look on him what air on Myry's brat--kind of sickly. That air because he has so many lines in his face, and he air so little," she finished, wrinkling the sun-tanned cheeks and shrugging her shoulders almost disdainfully. Teola knelt down, and
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slipped one slender arm under the dark head. These two girls had been drawn together during the past few weeks by a tie stronger than death. It had brought Frederick nearer to the squatter, and little did Teola realize that, had it not been for her handsome brother, her secret would have been discovered long before. It was of him
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she was thinking as she bent over the fire-scarred babe on this stormy September night in the fisherman's hut. "I may not be able to come down to-morrow, Tessibel," she said, looking up into the serious face, "because my brother is coming home early in the morning." The frying-pan fell to the floor; the fat spattered and ran across the
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broken, tilted boards until it congealed into rounded miniature mountains. Teola turned a puzzled face toward the fishermaid, but there was nothing about the girl to tell her why the accident had happened, for Tessibel, grappling with a huge cloth, was wiping the floor furiously. "I was saying, Tess," repeated Teola, "that I may not come down to-morrow.... Oh! hear
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how it rains, and the thunder!... Tess, since he died, and the baby came, thunder-storms make me shiver." "It ain't nothin' that'll hurt ye," grunted Tess from her position on the floor. "I know it, unless one stands directly in the lightning's path. But I am such a coward, Tessibel! You have so much faith--that's why you're not afraid." The
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pathetic face turned suddenly upon Tess with a questioning look. "My brother, you know, thinks you are such a good girl--and--and--you are a good girl, aren't you, Tess?" "Squatters ain't never good," answered Tess in a low tone, her eyes dropping under the steady gaze of the other girl. "But I--I love the student's God, I does." She was standing
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with rag hanging from her right hand, her face illumined by a deep flush that disappeared only when it met the red hair. "I believe that you do love Him, Tess," Teola breathed. "And Frederick told me that if he had your faith, he could do anything in the world. You know, the Bible says that if we had faith
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as large as a mustard seed, we could move a mountain." Her voice faltered on the last words. Tess grunted significantly. "Aw! a mustard seed ain't no bigger than a speck of dirt." "I know it, Tess; I know it. But one only has to have a little faith in God to enable Him to answer every prayer we utter."
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She grasped the thin baby to her breast frantically, kissed the crimson mark up and down, until where the frenzied lips had traveled the flesh turned purple. Oh! to have faith to believe that she might soon have her child with her always--always! Of late there had crept over Teola the shadow of the great beyond, into which her student
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lover had been so hastily summoned. The shrieking of the wind, and the mournful fluttering of the tiny hands made her shiver, and she coughed slightly. "A mountain air bigger than that hill with the look-out on it," ruminated Tess, picking up a huge knot of wood from behind the stove. "I know that, too," replied Teola. For the space
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of many minutes only the smacking of the baby lips upon the sugar rag and the roaring of the turbulent wind were heard in the hut. Suddenly the vibrations of a great peal of thunder shook the shanty with violent effect; a streak of lightning shot zig-zaggedly through the room like some livid, malicious spirit. Teola screamed in terror. "It
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hit some place near here," said Tess. "Yes, and wasn't it awful? Oh, if the storm would only cease!" "It air comin' nearer," answered Tess, with the keen instincts of a squatter. "It air got to turn sidewise through the window afore it goes over the hill. What air ye afraid of, if ye believes that ye can move a
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mountain if ye has the faith? God wouldn't hit the brat with lightnin', would He?" "Oh, I haven't the faith, Tess!" moaned Teola, rocking to and fro in her keen agony of soul. "Long ago I stopped believing the way I did when I was a child. I prayed that night when Dan was killed, until my head ached and
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pounded for days. I wanted to see him once more, and God wouldn't let me; and then I prayed again--" Teola buried her face in the breast of the infant, and sobbed, "I prayed that the baby might die when he was born, but God didn't see fit to take him. Somehow, it doesn't do any good to pray any
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more." Tess paused in her work, standing with her hands on her hips, a solemn expression in the long eyes. "Yer faith wasn't as big as a speck of dirt, then, were it?" she queried. "And maybe mine ain't for Daddy. But the student air a-prayin' for him! It air a damn shame ye ain't got him a-prayin' for yerself
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and the kid.... Ye'd a seen yer man before now, and the brat would 'a' died, too." With a start caused by the squatter's words, Teola laid the child down, crouching back upon her feet. She eyed the fisher-girl critically. What a strange mixture of good and bad--of the holy and the unholy--lived in the tawny, magnificent squatter! She answered
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hesitatingly: "But if my brother should know about the baby, it would break my heart, Tessibel. It would kill me--and him, too! Nothing could ever make me tell him. You understand, don't you, Tess?" "Yep." It was as Tess had said. The storm was coming nearer, sending vivid shafts of lightning in splendid awfulness across the sky. Torrents of rain
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descended, thrashing the lake into uneven, towering crests of white foam. The weeping willow tree groaned over the shanty roof, jarring and tearing at the broken bits of tarred tin. "Tess, Tess, how can you bear that awful noise, constantly through the night? It frightens me to death. It sounds like the spirits of people who are dead." She shivered
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again, the cutting rasp from the chimney place stinging her with fright. "It air spirits," replied Tess softly. "There air one kind of spirits for the sun when it air a-shinin', and the waves just a-ripplin' over the lake. They air good spirits. But on nights like this there air bad ones--the ghosts of Indians, squaws, and sometimes of the
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Letts' family--them dead 'uns." She paused, her low voice trailing into silence on that one word "dead," the luminous eyes burning with superstitious fear. How many times had the squaw and her burnt brat, now long since called to the land of their fathers, moaned through the winter nights, making the shanty ring with their piteous plaints! How many times
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Tessibel had imagined that she had seen the headless man from Haytes' Corner flit from the shadows of the long lane and lose himself in the overhanging willows on the shore! Suddenly a foreign sound pierced the storm. Tessibel drew near Teola. Both girls were standing over the wooden box. The violence of the storm impelled them to grasp each
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other's hands. In through the broken window the strange sound was borne again. "A boat's a-beatin' agin the shore," said Tess quietly. "Some one air a-comin' in out of the rain." The words were only formed on her lips when the door opened abruptly. Tessibel turned her head; Teola dropped her hand and uttered a cry. Frederick Graves, with his
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fingers upon the door, was closing it against the fury of the storm. "You didn't mind my running in, did you, Tessibel?" asked Frederick, turning toward the squatter with a broad, comrade-like smile. Then he noticed his sister, with surprise. "Ah, Teola! you, too, were caught in the storm? What a blessing to have a shelter like this! Miss Tessibel
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won't mind if we stay until it is over. I came home before I was expected. I almost wish, now, that I had waited until morning. But I am safe here, though.... Whew! it is a terrible night." The distance between Teola and Tessibel widened perceptibly. Neither girl attempted to speak, and the student smiled at the embarrassment upon his
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sister's face. He made to go toward her. "You needn't mind being here, dear," he said in a low tone. "I don't believe as Father and Mother do. I shouldn't ask for you to be in a better place than this hut." He turned his face toward the roof, letting his eyes sweep the cobwebbed net, the old coats upon
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the wall; and lastly to the stove, out of the top of which jutted the smoking knot. "There is here," he continued impressively, "a feeling of rest and contentment to me.... I believe, Tessibel Skinner, that your faith permeates every inch of it." He lifted the lid of the stove, and shoved the smouldering wood from sight. His deep voice
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came again to Tessibel's ears as if from afar: "I wish I could impress upon my father what it means to pray and be good and pure under such circumstances as surround you. I mean, you know, Tess"--here he turned squarely upon her--"I mean that, for one so young, you have purity of faith and uplifted confidence in God's goodness."
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His voice was silenced by a half-smothered cry dragging itself from the squatter's throat. Then he noted that something was wrong. Teola, pale and wretched, had gradually placed a greater distance between herself and the wooden box. Tess had involuntarily drawn closer to it. She dully comprehended that Teola was ashamed of the rabbit-like body, struggling for a mere existence.
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Expressions of consternation, of indecision and terror swept over her face. Her eyes dropped for an instant upon the silent infant. The child gave one great yawn, and whiningly dropped the sugar rag. Just at this juncture, lightning flashed through the cracked window and played above the face of the babe until the red of the fire mark from head
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to shoulder glowed crimson under the blotched skin. The tiny, scrawny arms were bare, the withered mouth opened and shut, gapingly. As the eyes of the boy fell upon it, he went so deadly white that Tess thought he was going to fall. Without a word, he walked to the box, considering the wrinkled baby face like a man in
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a trance. His gaze took in the flaming brand, the gray eyes fastened upon the candlelight, and the tiny, searching fingers, which constantly sought something they could not find. It seemed an eternity before he gathered himself together, forcing his eyes upward to rest first on Teola, then upon Tess. He was the first to speak. "Where--did--that--child--come--from?" There was imperious
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inquisition in the dark eyes. His voice had changed, until the deepness of it was terrifying. Teola came nearer to him. Tessibel dropped down beside the infant. "I want to know where--that child--came from?" commanded the boy once more. "Whose child is it?" Tess swung her body round upon the shanty floor, turning cloudy, rebuking eyes upon Teola. She, Tessibel
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Skinner, crouching squatter-like over Dan Jordan's baby, had sworn never to tell Frederick his sister's secret, and no thought of doing so entered her mind. The minister's daughter must speak the truth. The mother of the babe would answer the question put by the student. Quickly Tess turned over her great desire for the freedom of her father, followed by
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the passionate wish to retain the love and prayers of Frederick Graves. If she denied the child, he would turn upon his sister, and the shivering girl would divulge her trouble. It would be the same as breaking her oath. Yet Frederick must not think the child hers. She turned toward Teola again, and seemed about to open her lips,
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when the expression upon the other girl's face stayed her tongue. It was a mixture of despair, illness and fright. Tessibel imagined she had discovered beneath the pain-drawn face a desire to claim her own. Ah! Teola would gather her babe, that tiny bit of shriveled flesh, into her arms before the whole world. There rose in the squatter's heart
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a vast respect for Myra Longman, who had taken her child from the beginning of its tiny life, and defied the babbling tongues of the settlement gossips. Teola Graves, although of a different class, was no less a mother--she would do the same. Tessibel sat up, waiting for the confession. Why was the minister's daughter so silent?--why so deathly looking?
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"I will be answered," insisted the student. Then, centering his eyes full upon Tess, he added: "Tessibel Skinner, _it_ is--yours!" Teola's lips were pressed closely together. Spasms of pain drew them down at the corners, making the girl resemble a woman twice her years. With a sudden inspiration, she turned upon her brother. "Frederick, Frederick," she stammered. "Don't blame her
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too much. She is only a girl." A cry escaped from the lips of Frederick; another followed from those of Tess. The minister's daughter was throwing the motherhood of the babe upon her. Teola had branded her squatter savior with a nameless child--a horror from which the student shrank! She saw unbelief rise quickly in his eyes, and saw him
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draw aside his long rain-coat as it almost touched the box upon the floor. Shrinking disgust of the wriggling, whimpering thing on the rags made Frederick involuntarily reach out his hand to his sister, but his eyes were bent upon Tess. "And you're the girl I've trusted!" he gasped, as Teola neared him slowly. "Yours is the faith I've envied!--your
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life the one standard I wish to gain!... God!" he groaned, "you--you--you the mother of that!" His bitter tones stung her to the quick, whipping her into immediate action. Fire gold-brown and swift as lightning swept into the flashing eyes. Frederick's sister had thrust the child upon her. The secret was dead between them. Tess remembered her oath--remembered her love
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for the boy, and Teola's cowardice. Her despair gathered as her false position was forced upon her. She stooped, and grasped the babe in her hands with a passion that tore the meager clothing from its body. She crushed the infant to her as if indeed Teola's words were true. The small dark head fell limply upon her bosom, the
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thin legs hung straight and bare over the soiled jacket. One little hand clutched her torn sleeve, as if there lived in the infant-brain a fear of harm. Tess, instinct with potent life and rage, wheeled like a tawny tigress furiously upon Frederick and Teola. "Air it any of yer damn business," she demanded hotly, "if I wants to have
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a brat?" She had silenced the student by the condemning words, which seared his soul like molten lead. A dazed terror gathered in his eyes. He smoothed his forehead with trembling fingers. The lightning forked about the squatter and the babe, illuminating the small head and the bony body of the child. Tess felt it shiver and mechanically she lifted
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her skirt, wrapping him close within it. Her gaze took in sneeringly the shrinking form of Teola, and the arm of the student encircling his sister's waist. For one instant she hated them both with all the strength of her half-savage nature. Still, no thought came of breaking her promise. "Ye can both go to hell," she ended distinctly. A
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fierce cry from Frederick closed her lips, and the anger within her changed to terror. What was she doing? Blasting his love, his faith, his confidence with words that blackened her soul with perfidy and her life with dishonor. Had she not told the student that long-ago night that she loved him?--that she was his squatter for ever and ever?
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And was she not now at this moment keeping a secret from him for his own sake? Something in her small, ghastly face brought the lad in his boyish agony, impulsively forward. "For God's love--and mine, Tess--tell me, it isn't true! Tell me you are shielding someone else--" Teola caught her breath painfully, and Frederick ended: "Some other squatter girl."
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"I ain't got no other squatter's brat here," she cried, turning her eyes upon Teola. "It ain't no other squatter's brat, air it?" "No, no, Frederick," replied Teola, white and wan; "she has told you the truth--it isn't another squatter's child." Hope died in the boy and outraged feeling leaped into its place. He held Tessibel's eyes with his relentlessly.
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"Did you expect to mix prayers for your father with filth like that?" he demanded, pointing to the hidden infant in the fold of her dress. "Did you expect God to hear you, when your life was full of--sin?... I am ashamed I ever loved you, ashamed that I took my life from your hands.... I wish I were--dead! I
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wish I were dead!" Teola gasped in her new understanding. The squatter and her handsome brother loved each other! Never for one moment had it dawned upon her, until she saw the tall boy drop beside the stool and sob out his heart agony upon the open Bible. If she dared speak the truth, she could assure him of the
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