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goodness of the fisher-girl. But her lips sealed themselves with her soul's consent. She raised her face, giving Tess one look of terror. Reaching out, she touched her brother's arm. "Frederick, come home with me. This is awful--awful!" "I don't want to go home," sobbed the boy, in pitiful abandon. "I didn't know anything could be so hard to bear.
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And I loved her faith and her character--and her beautiful face.... Oh, I love her, I love her, Teola!" The squatter listened to every passionate word, listened until her face whitened into a despair that settled there and did not vanish. She had not moved from the wooden box, nor ceased pressing the half-clad infant to her breast. Turning, she
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shot a soul-cutting glance at the other girl, who owed her very life to her. The glance pleaded for the miserable boy by the stool, for the sick babe held close to her heart, and lastly, for herself, her squatter honor, and the powerful love she had for the student brother. From the depths of her eyes came a demand
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to Teola that she tell the truth. The answer was but a slight negative shake of the proudly-set head, followed by an embarrassment that Teola covered by leaning over her brother, and raising him from the floor. Frederick allowed his sister to lead him by the wooden box, past Tessibel to the door. His eyes traveled back to the open
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Bible upon the stool, where but a moment since his own dark head had rested. Then he laughed--laughed until the sharp sting of his tones made the fisher-girl grunt in her characteristic way. Striding forward, he snatched up the book, tore off the covers, and in another minute had thrust it through the smoke into the stove. "There goes your
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faith--your canting trash about your love for the Saviour! I might have known that one of your kind could not rise above the grossness in you. I hope you will be as miserable and as unhappy as I am.... I hope that child will...." Tess stopped him with a cry. She stooped down, and placed the little Dan in his
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bed without a word. Her anger was gone, and from the waters of bitterness that swept over her a better Tess lived. Her faith in the boy died instantly, and a higher, nobler and greater faith in the crucified Saviour lived instead. She would never tell Frederick that his sister was mother to the little being he had scorned, nor
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would she as much as utter the name of Dan Jordan. Covering the child tenderly, she faced Frederick Graves without a touch of the awkward girlishness that had hitherto marked her movements. A glorified expression lightened the white face and shone from her eyes. He had taught her a lesson of independence she could not have learned through any other
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person. Without one glance at the shivering young mother, she walked to the door, and opened it, as she had done that night when he had come first to the hut. "Ye can go," she said, "both of ye. Ye burned my Book, ye did, but ye can't take it out of my heart. The God up their ain't all
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yers. He air mine--and Daddy's--and--the brat's." The rain rushed in through the open door. The wind shook the dust in clouds from the overhanging nets, waving the long cobwebs that hung in fine threads from the ceiling into fantastic figures. Frederick, still supporting his sister, stepped into the glare of the lightning. Tess closed the door behind them, and stood
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with her back against it. The high chest lifted and lifted, the white, tightened throat choking down the sobs that tried to force themselves to her lips. "She were a damn sneak," were the first words she said, shudderingly covering her face with her hands. "Aw, aw, I ain't a-goin' to have it here.... I can't have it here." She
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was thinking of the child, now twisting and turning for more sugar. A whine from its lips drew Tess slowly toward it. She stood looking down upon it for many minutes. The baby had taken away her all, for Tess realized now the extent of her love for Frederick. Nothing would make the days shorter; there was no looking forward
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to a kindly nod or a gracious word from him. "I hates ye," she said out loud, slowly, leaning over the infant with a frown on her face, "but I hates yer ma worse than I hates you. Yer ma air a piker, she air." The babe whimpered and shivered. Tessibel wrapped its bare shoulders in a piece of the
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blanket. "I could throw ye out in the rain, I hates ye so," she burst forth in sudden anger. "Ye ain't no right in this shanty." Her eyes glittered with rage and humiliation; her head sank nearer and nearer the fire-marked child, her shock of red hair falling like a mantle of gold across its thin body. The twisting fingers
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entangled themselves in the tawny curls, drawing the squatter down until her face was almost in the box. With a grunt of abhorrence she spread out the wiry little hands, extricating lock after lock. Once free, she squatted back upon her feet, scrutinizing the child with no sign of sympathy in her eyes. Suddenly she caught a glimpse of the
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forest and the lake beyond through the window. She could see the rain falling in quantities into the water, and the great pine-tree, in which sat her God of Majesty, whitened under the zig-zag glare of lightning. The superstitious, imaginative girl rose unsteadily to her feet. Pressing her face to the smeared pane, she saw the jagged lightning tearing again
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toward the tree; then it played about the figure that Tess had grown to love. The old man amid the branches bent toward the squatter, and held out his waving arms. A cry burst from Tessibel's lips. She opened the door, standing in bold relief against the candlelight, and shot her hands far into the dark night. "Oh, Goddy, Goddy!"
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she breathed, catching her breath in stifling sobs. "The student air gone, and the Bible air burnt, and Daddy air in a prison cell. Might'n I asks ye--?" She turned, with heaving bosom, without finishing. Bending over the child, she drew him into her arms. With the same sublime expression of suffering, she went back to the open door and
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knelt in the beating rain, and tendered the little child toward the God of her dreams. "Might'n it please ye, Goddy, to bless the brat--and Tess?" The student was no longer the motive power of her prayer. Tess, the squatter, was struggling with a new faith of her own. Flash after flash brightened the sky, and still she knelt, offering
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the sick child for her God to bless. One long peal of thunder shook the inky waters, and rumbled reverberatingly into the hills. Tessibel's eyes were riveted upon the pine-tree. The wind dropped the shaking branches for a minute--the arms extended straight toward her. With fast-falling tears she bowed over the wailing baby, and stood up with a long breath.
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"Goddy, Goddy, it air hard work for ye to forgive Tessibel, I knows.... To-day I loved the student best"--a sob tightened her throat--"to-night I love you best, and ... and the Man hanging on the Cross." She closed the hut door, and seated herself at the oven, and warmed the infant with tender solicitude, forcing the warm, sweetened water into
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the meager body. Then she slipped off her clothes, gathered the little Dan to her breast, and crept into bed. "I said as how I hated ye, brat," she whispered, "but I don't hate ye now, poor little shiverin' dum devil!" During the rest of the storm the babe slept, but Tessibel wept out her loss of the only love
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she had ever known save Daddy Skinner's--wept until, from sheer exhaustion, her head dropped upon the dark one of Dan Jordan's babe, and she slept. * * * * * The next morning, Tess rose languidly. Without a smile or a prayer, she arranged the sop for the babe, then sat down beside him to think. Such a radical change
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in her life brought an influx of indescribable emotions. Her Bible was gone--the one book out of which she was learning the secret of happiness and patience. She remembered how, the night before, the realization of her despair had brought her closer to the Cross. Out of the brightness of the lightning she had received a promise of a blessing.
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Still, the tender, sensitive heart was bleeding for its own. But Tess had the hidden God to help her--and the child. She sat watching him; she could see that he was growing thinner, growing more emaciated as the days passed. He could eat only the food Tess forced into his mouth. But the sugar rags kept him from whining. At
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this moment he was eying the window-pane with intelligent intentness. "Ye air the miserablest little devil I ever seed. No pappy, and a mammy what air afraid to say ye air hers. I hated ye last night, but ye air such a wrinkled little tramp that this mornin' I promises ye to keep ye till ye dies." She was bending
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over the babe, watching every expression that flitted over the drawn mouth. In this position she did not hear the door open silently, as Teola stepped in. The minister's daughter whispered to the crouching squatter: "Tessibel, can--can you ever forgive me?" Tess stood up and took a long breath. Teola noted how the night had changed the brilliant coloring to
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a whiteness that startled her. An agony of remorse broke over her, and, dropping upon her knees, she wept upon the face of little Dan. "Tess, I've nearly died all through the night.... Oh, can you forgive me?" "I ain't no business to be a-forgivin' ye. It be the brat what ye air to asks forgiveness of." Teola sprang to
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her feet. "Tess!" she cried sharply. Never had the girl appeared in this light. "It air hard on the little kid," Tessibel said meditatively, "when its ma says what another woman air a-mothering it for good and all." This remark came forth in even tones. Teola had not thought of the harm she had done the child of Dan Jordan,
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by throwing the motherhood upon the squatter. She turned her troubled eyes, first upon Tess, then upon the child. "Tessibel, I do love him, even if I disowned him. But I haven't the courage you have. You looked so beautiful when you said he was yours.... And Frederick is ill to-day." Tessibel's heart thumped loudly. "I heard him crying all
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night, Tess," went on Teola, "and, oh! so many times I wanted to go and tell him that you were--a good girl; but I didn't have the courage. But I know that sometime--Tess, will you pray for me?" "I ain't doin' no prayin' to-day," replied Tess. "To-morry, mebbe.... Aw! I wanted the student to pray for Daddy, and to like
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me--" Teola never forgot the scene that followed. The fisher-girl settled in a heap upon the floor, bowed the tired head, and wept. "Tessibel! Tess," called Teola, touching the girl's shoulder, "listen. I'll tell him!--I'll tell him! He shall come back to you to-night--if it kills me." Tessibel lifted her white face. "Ye be goin' to tell him that the
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brat air yers?" queried she brokenly. "I'll go and make it all right with him. He shall come to you to-day.... Oh, what a wicked girl I was! Kiss me, Tess." Elias Graves' beautiful daughter sank on the breast of the squatter, and there was a kiss of forgiveness. The baby whimpered. Teola drew away from Tessibel with a long
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sigh. She reached for the milk-can. "There ain't none there," Tess said, with a touch of joy in her tones. "It air all gone. He et all that you brought him." "And I can't get him any more now," moaned Teola. "Oh, Tess, I'm so ill! I wish I were dead!" A tall boy had repeated the same words the
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night before. Tess drew herself up painfully. She pitied Teola from the bottom of her heart, but, in spite of her pity, she could not help the thrill of happiness when she thought of Frederick coming, and knowing all. "It ain't no use to wish ye were dead," said she, "'cause ye can't allers die if ye wants to. When
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I thought Daddy was a-goin' to the rope, I say every day I were a-goin' to die.... Women ain't a-dyin' so easy." She was preparing the warm sop for the child, and taking him from his mother's arm, she sat down in the rocking chair. She did not speak again until she had drained the sweetened water from the bread-crusts,
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and the child had smacked it down eagerly. Suddenly she spoke, handing the babe to Teola. "Can't ye put out a drop more milk evenin's?" "I took all there was last night, and the night before, too. And this morning Rebecca was furious--she had to go without milk in her coffee. I don't know that I can get any to-night."
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"The weather air so cold now," explained Tess, "Kennedy won't let his cows stay in the fields nights. I might crib some more if I could. Every time I steals up to yer house, I thinks yer woman'll see me; and yer Pappy and Mammy comes home to-morry." Teola nodded. "If yer Pappy catched me swipin' milk, he'd knock the
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head offen me. I steals it just the same.... I air afraid of yer Pappy, though." "No wonder," replied Teola, and she lapsed into silence. Her father hated the squatter girl--hated the fishermen who still plied their unlawful trade under the noses of the gamekeepers. Teola was crying softly. She felt it was only just to relieve Tess of the
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stigma she had placed upon her. But to go home and face the proud young brother with the story of her sin--with the lie she had told--were almost unbearable. Then another thought pierced her. Could Tess keep the baby all winter? And would she herself have the courage to live, knowing that he might sometimes be hungry and cold? Frederick
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would help her. She was glad she had decided to tell him. * * * * * As she walked up the long hill, she saw her brother standing on the porch, and noted the pallor of his face, the expression of misery in his eyes. At first the boy did not see her--not until she called his name softly.
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Teola sank upon the upper step. "It takes away my breath to climb that hill," she panted, when she could speak. "It grows harder and harder every day." "I shall be glad when we leave this old cottage," was the boy's moody reply. "I never knew how much I hated the lake until to-day." Teola did not answer to this,
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for she knew that she was to blame for that hatred. Frederick was looking at the hut under the willow wofully. "If anyone had told me what I saw last night," he blurted out, a moment later, "I believe I would have killed him.... I loved her, Teola." Now she would tell him--send him back to Tessibel with joy in
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his heart. She sprang up impetuously. "Frederick," she began quickly, "let me tell--" But he interrupted her. "You need not tell me that I have to forgive her for such a thing as this because of ignorance.... It's too horrible!... I shall never get the sight of that child out of my mind.... That streak of awful, lurid red ...
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that yapping mouth ... those clawing hands.... God! the disgust I felt.... Teola! Teola! You are ill! Rebecca, come here! Come! Come!" Together they lifted her from the porch where she had fallen, like a man stabbed with a knife. Gurgling from her lips poured the fresh red blood from the diseased lungs. Teola tried to speak, tried to tell
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Frederick the truth, but the awful tugging in her chest, and her brother's order that she must not speak, closed her lips upon the good resolution. Added to his command came one from the doctor, who arrived later, that she must not speak one word until he came the next day. The hemorrhage had been brought on by Frederick's description
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of her child. After her brother had gone, she thought of the hour when she could tell him, but with a thankful feeling in her heart that it had been delayed a little time. * * * * * Until the great University bells chimed the hour of midnight, Tessibel waited in the hut for Frederick. "She hes forgot to
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tell him," she muttered wearily, pulling the sleepy babe into her arms, "and--and he ain't a-comin'." Tess saw the minister's family arrive in the small lake steamer, and saw Frederick meet them at the dock. She was watching from between the tatters of the ragged curtain, and noted that Teola had not come down the hill with her brother. This
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disturbed the squatter, for the baby's mother had looked ill when she left the day before, with the resolution to tell the student her secret. As Minister Graves passed, she saw Frederick looking fondly into his father's face, but he sent no friendly glance toward the hut snuggled under the willow. The watching girl saw that the student's face was
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haggard, and a thrill swept over her. It was because of his love; he wanted to be with her! But he thought she had been--Tess turned her head from the window, blinded by tears. But for the child in the box! There swept into her mind a text she had learned. "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed,
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ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove." Ah! if she could have such faith, only such a little faith, she could bring the boy back--bring back, through God's goodness, the student she loved. "I air a-lovin' ye, Jesus," she trembled. "I takes care of the brat till he croaks. Give me back--"
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Emotion left the prayer unuttered in her breast. * * * * * At eight o'clock that evening, Tess, hugging the fence, sneaked up through the rain. She turned into Graves' orchard, scurrying barefooted toward the house, casting glances at intervals behind her. Through the small garret window she could see Rebecca moving in her room, preparing to go out.
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The library, facing the lane, was dark. But the streak of light flung long upon the porch told the squatter that the Dominie's family was in the drawing-room. Tess ventured to the back of the house, drawing near the dark kitchen. Here was where Teola had placed the milk for several days. She scraped about in the inky darkness, but
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her fingers touched nothing. The babe's mother had forgotten to put out the pail! Until the coming of the Dominie and his wife, Tess had had but little fear, but now her breath came spasmodically. There was danger of detection if she crept into the kitchen to obtain the milk. If she could only get into Kennedy's barn! If the
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cows were only out to pasture! Tess turned the handle of the kitchen door softly, and stepped in. A light streak came from the drawing-room, and she located the ice-safe through the dim shadows. Teola had told her to take the milk from there if she failed to find it outside. She advanced slowly into the kitchen, holding her breath,
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but her heart thumped so loudly that she feared the family would hear it. Kneeling down at the refrigerator, she fumbled for the lock. The door slid open silently. A small pail of milk stood behind the butter-plate, and Tessibel, clutching it in her fingers, rose up. As she did so, a light flashed into her face, and she looked
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up to find Dominie Graves towering over her, his brows caught together with anger. "So Miss Skinner is the thief who takes our milk! The hymn-singing girl!... Ah, it is you!" Tessibel dropped her eyes, still holding the can of milk. "I air a-stealin' yer milk," she said presently, lifting her gaze. "Air ye goin' to--let me have it?" "No,
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my lady, I am not going to let you have it," he mimicked. "But something else you are going to get." The Dominie stepped to the kitchen door leading into the yard, and turned the key in the lock. He placed the lamp on the table, the squatter waiting with fear-laden eyes. "For a long time," went on the Dominie,
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in slow, measured tones, "I have thought it would be a good thing to give you a sound whipping. The Bible says, 'Spare the rod, and spoil the child.' ... I am going to do something your father forgot to do, Miss Skinner." The sneer in his voice and his slur on her father brought a bright flush of anger
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to Tessibel's face. "Ye can cowhide me if ye wants to, but don't say nothin' against my Daddy!" "I'll say what I wish to! Now, then, how many times have you stolen from this house?" Tess looked about for some way of escape; then pondered. "I dunno," she replied sullenly. "I can just about tell," answered Graves. "Rebecca says that
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for many mornings she has had no milk for her coffee. And I left the kitchen door unlocked to-night purposely to catch the thief. Let me see.... I think we've been robbed for ten days? That means ten good stripes for you, Tessibel Skinner.... Put down that milk!" "I won't do it," Tessibel whitened. She had not believed the minister
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when he had threatened to whip her. He was trying to scare her. He would probably take away the milk, and send her home again. But he had stepped to the wall, and taken a riding-whip from a nail. Tess had seen that whip before, once--the time she had twiggled her fingers. Graves had shaken it at her from his
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saddle-horse. Then she had not been afraid.... The clergyman came toward her. "Ye hit me with that whip," growled Tess, "and--and--I'll kill ye!" "Oh! you will, eh?... Well, then, there it is!" A stinging blow fell across her shoulders, and another and another. The slender body writhed silently, turned and twisted to escape the descending whip. Drops of milk spattered
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upon the floor. Never before had Tess known such physical pain. The minister was counting the blows deliberately as they fell. At the eighth stroke, the girl opened her lips and uttered a long, piercing cry--an intense, vibrating cry. The last blow fell upon Tessibel's shivering back,--and Frederick appeared in the doorway. His father leaning against the wall breathlessly, the
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whip hanging limply from his hand; Tessibel Skinner, barefooted and weeping, with a pail of milk clasped in her fingers--was what the boy saw. He had no chance to speak before Teola, too, with streaming hair, her nightrobe clutched convulsively in one hand, opened the hall door. The scene whirled before her like a frightful nightmare. The fisher-girl turned and
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faced her. "Yer Pappy air a-beatin' me ... I hev a-been stealin' milk." Her words fell between little, broken gasps. They touched Frederick as he never had been touched before. He stepped forward hastily to speak. "I air a-needin' the milk," she explained, bowing her head before him. "I has to have it!" The infant rushed into Frederick's mind ...
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the squalid cabin, that twisting thing, with thin, discolored veins. It had been for him that Tess had stolen. Teola staggered toward her father, a cough racking the emaciated frame. Minister Graves threw his arms about her. "Go back! Go back quickly, child! You should not have ventured out of bed. I will settle with the squatter." "You whipped her!"
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breathed Teola. "Yes, and will again, if I catch her stealing from my kitchen. Now, miss, you can go home. Put down that milk; and, if I find you here in the future, I shall put you behind the bars, with your father." Frederick counted the beats of his heart through the blank silence. He felt impelled to reach forward
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to Tessibel,--to say something to relieve the white, tense face. His father was waiting for the squatter to take her departure. But Tess remained with the pail in her hand. Suddenly she lifted her streaming eyes to the minister's face. "I has been beaten.... And I air a-feelin' so--bad! Air I to have the milk? I needs it." Tess sobbed
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again, and continued, "I ain't a-carin' so awful about the lickin' as I does about havin' the milk." She came forward close to him, with searching sweetness in her gaze. The Dominie drew back, fearing the soiled dress would touch him. The girl was making the appeal to him alone, and a cloud of color gathered slowly over his face
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under her steady eyes. He regained himself, and replied, "No, you can't have the milk, no matter how much you may need it." "Some one'll die without it," she entreated again, lowering her voice, throwing no glance at the silent boy or shivering girl. "Then let them die," retorted the clergyman. "I do not believe you--anyway!" He was weakening a
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little, the attitude of his son and daughter striking him almost to consent. Frederick's eyes were filled with hauteur unusual to the boy, and Teola was clinging to his neck, weeping wildly. The children had never approved of his persecution of the squatters, but both of them could see that the girl had been caught in open-handed theft. "Father," Teola
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implored, "give the girl the milk. She says she needs it--" "Yes, Father," interrupted Frederick, "give it to her.... She won't steal again.... You won't, will you--girl?" This was the first word to her since that night he had lost faith in her. His voice seemed harsh; it fell upon her, numbing her senses. Her body went cold as if
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a frosty gust had struck it. "You won't steal again--ever? Will you?" demanded he. Tessibel struggled to speak. At last there came a fluttered confession, which made Teola Graves shiver like an aspen leaf. If she could only summon courage to tell her arrogant father the truth! She could not bear to look upon her squatter friend, nor upon Frederick's
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white face. "I has to steal," said Tess. "I has to have the milk.... I can't get it no way else." "There! There!" exclaimed the Dominie, with a derisive laugh. "If that isn't depravity, I don't know what is.... Now, then, miss, put down that pail, and go!" He strode forward and grasped the handle in his fingers. But Tess
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held it firmly. Her mind flashed to the child in the hut, smacking fiercely through the long night ... she thought of the morning, of the hungry gray eyes and the ceaseless baby whimper--and defied the minister. "I air a-goin' to have it," she insisted. "Take yer hand offen that handle." Graves gasped for breath, but did not relax his
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hold upon the pail. With a motion as quick as lightning flashes, Tess lowered her head, and set her teeth into the Dominie's fat white hand. A cry of pain escaped him, and he opened his fingers. "I said as how I got to have the milk--and--and I air got it! Open that door!" Tess shrieked out the last words,
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her eyes, full of hatred, bent upon Graves. Frederick strode forward, turned the key in the lock, and Tess sprang out. * * * * * Tessibel ran swiftly through the orchard, out into the lane, her rage dying out in her fear for the babe. She had never left him so long before. Her flesh still tingled from the
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Dominie's blows, but her admission before Frederick that she was compelled to steal hurt her worse than the blue welts rising upon her shoulders. She regretted, too, that she had bitten the clergyman's hand, but that had been done for the baby--little Dan had to live. She came to an alert standstill in front of the cabin. She saw the
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light from a candle flickering out through the window. Tess was sure she had left the hut dark--she had extinguished the light just before going out for the milk. Who was in the hut? Or had she made a mistake, and left the candle there? For the sake of the child she had to enter. She set down the pail,
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lifted her skirt, wiped away the traces of tears. Then, flinging wide the door, she came upon Ben Letts. Ben was standing beside the bed, with the open grape-basket in his hand, looking down intently upon the child. His one eye flashed past Tess in its blindness, while the watery one with the red veins running through it distorted itself
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into a squint, and brought its evil gaze upon her. The fat chin, covered with a stubby growth of hair, shook with malicious pleasure, the dark teeth set grimly through the brown, tobacco-stained lips. "It air a brat!" he said at last, Tess standing paralyzed. "Air its Pappy the--" He did not finish. Tess snatched the basket from his hand,
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and covered the whining babe. "Ye be allers snoopin' yer nose in some one's else's business," she said darkly, her fear of him growing with each minute. "Ye can't keep from my hut any day, and ye ain't no right here nuther." "I telled ye and the student that the time'd come when I'd get even with ye both--and it
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air here!... It air here, I say!" "The student ain't nothin' to do with this here brat," retorted Tess. "Ye thinks as how ye knows a heap.... Well, ye don't.... And it air time for ye to be a-goin' now, Ben Letts!" "I air a-goin' to stay," said he, "Daddy's" stool creaking under his weight. From a tree near the
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forest Tess could hear the screech of a night-owl die away in smothered laughter. The scraping of the willow on the tin roof came dimly to her in the silence. If some other squatter would only come along! God had always saved her from Ben Letts.--Dared she pray? Her eyes sought the window. If she could only see the pine-tree
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God!--send Him a little petition--He would forgive and save her. Dominie Graves had gone completely from her mind; only a wish, a desperate wish, came to escape the man who had constantly thrown his menacing shadow across the path of her life. Suddenly her bosom heaved. A verse was thrown bomb-like into her mind. Tess opened her lips and muttered,
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keeping her eyes upon the fisherman. "If ye have faith as the grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain--" The time between the present and that night the student had left her in bitter sorrow faded. In her imagination she was alone in the rain, with the child upon her hands, offering it up to the dark God
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for a blessing. The same uplifting faith was upon her. The Crucified Savior would protect her. "I believe! I believe!" she ejaculated. No soul-desiring thought of Frederick interrupted her uprising faith. She needed him no more to pray for her. "A mustard-seed air--a--a mighty little thing, ain't it, Ben Letts?" Tess stood up, looking beyond him like one in a
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dream. "Yep," grunted the fisherman, staring. He had never understood the moods of Tess. She was as incomprehensible to him as the myriads of stars that strung themselves through the sky. But his inability to understand her made him desire the girl the more. He had come at an hour when he was sure Tess would be alone. He would
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force her to come to his cabin, to marry him even before her father was hanged. Ben's eyes settled again upon the basket. Through his heavy senses sifted a wave of hatred for the miserable child, whining for the milk Tess had stolen. Ben moved his great feet, tearing up a long splinter from a broken board with his worn-down
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heel. It startled Tess from her reverie. In upon her faith came the sickening thought of Frederick, his confidence in her blasted and gone; it choked a prayer that lingered upon her lips. Ben rose to his feet, an oath belching from his ugly mouth. "Put down that basket. Put it down, I says!" Never had it entered her mind
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before to conciliate the dark-browed fisherman who had pestered her with his attentions, but her frightened womanhood caught at the idea. "Wait till I gives him somethin' to eat," she said stolidly. "If he yaps, someone'll hear him." Ben sat down and watched her narrowly. Tessibel had grown so beautiful in the last few months that the brute force in
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the man rose in his desire to possess her. There was one way to bring the girl on her knees to him, one way to bow the proud red head--the little child made no difference to him. And some day he would get even with the student, too. The small bare feet of the squatter girl noiselessly plied their way
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from the smoking stove to the sugar-bowl, thence to the basket. Tess held the warm, sweet milk to the infant's lips, lifting the withered chin that the child might drink the better. Her mind was working rapidly. How should she escape and rescue the babe? She went back for more milk, wetting the corner of the cloth and wiping little
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Dan's face. Then she gazed straight at Ben Letts, and said, "How air yer mammy?" It seemed the most natural thing that she should ask this of him. "She air well," answered Ben, thrown off his guard. He took out his pipe, and continued: "When ye comes to the shanty, ye can't bring that brat." "Nope; I ain't a-goin' to
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bring him," Tess replied, whispering a prayer for aid. "What be ye goin' to do with it?" "I don't know yet." A muttered petition fell over the baby's face, but she said aloud: "I think it air a-goin' to croak." "I's a-thinkin' so, too," Ben said thoughtfully. "He hes the look of death on his mug, Tessibel.... Air it yer
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brat?" "He air mine now," she answered slowly, raising her head, "and I stays here with him till he dies." "Nope; ye be a-comin' to my shanty to-morry. Mammy air expectin' ye.... And ye'll be glad to come--afore I gets done with ye!" Tess shivered. She remembered Myra's broken wrist, and heard again the woful cry from the other squatter
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girl as she told of the harm done her. If she could get out of the shanty, she could run from him, but that would leave the child to his mercy. She glanced toward the door. Whatever came to her, she must protect the babe. Lifting him from his bed, she sat down at the oven, and extended the blue
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legs toward the heat. "He air so damn thin," she said in excuse, "that he allers yaps if he air cold.... Have ye seen Myry's kid lately?" "Yep; to-day. He air a-growin' a little more pert." "Glad for Myry," was Tessibel's comment. "Ye ain't heard nothin' from yer Daddy, have ye?" asked Ben, presently. "Yep. I had a letter from
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him. He air a-comin' to the shanty as soon as he air out." "He ain't a-goin' to get out!" "Yep, he air; sure he air." "Air he a-knowin' of yer brat?" Ben was staring at the child. Tess stared back at him. She had forgotten that she had intimated that the baby was hers. "I ain't tellin' Daddy nothin'.... His
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