Tess of the Storm Country. Grace Miller White
people as the Skinners that the Christ had suffered. He felt an incentive rising in his heart to seek guidance from the Book, for although Frederick Graves greatly reverenced his father he would not give up his own opinions without a struggle.
"I've got this Skinner just where I want him after all these years," hurled forth the minister, as they passed the pear orchard, and then added:
"But I don't understand how you came to be in the hut."
"I heard the girl crying," replied Frederick curtly.
"I missed you when we left Hall's," explained the Dominie. "Charlie called me back to ask about the plans for the new church, and if I had not whistled just when I did, you might have been in that hut still, I suppose."
Frederick found himself wishing that his father had not whistled, his mind going back to the girl in the shanty, whom he had left with her living grief—and her dead.
He saw his sister, Teola, standing on the broad porch waiting for them. The girl scented something unusual in the angry tones of her father's voice. She followed Frederick alone into the library which looked out upon Tessibel's hut.
"What's the matter?"
Frederick shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
"Nothing much."
The brother and sister had grown into a confidential friendship during the past two years. Teola's face dropped as she heard Frederick's halting answer.
"I know better," she retorted decidedly. "You have been having words with father."
"No, not words," replied the boy, "but you see father thinks that no one can have any ideas but himself. It sort of makes me tired, for sometimes I know when a thing is right or wrong."
"What was the matter?" insisted Teola once more.
"The Skinners," replied Frederick slowly.
"You mean the squatters?"
"Yes."
"Aren't they alright where they are?" hesitated Teola.
"Skinner killed the gamekeeper to-night, and the girl is alone in the shanty. Father doesn't seem to realize that they have souls to be saved as well as the rest of the world."
Teola thought an instant before answering.
"They are so dirty," she said at last.
"That's true," Frederick reflected, "but nevertheless they are human."
"Were you in the hut?"
"Yes, with father."
"Whew! What did he say?"
The question was answered by loud words from the minister talking to his wife in the dining room.
"I tell you," said his voice, ringing out so that the two listeners could hear, "those squatters have got to go. I'm not the only one who thinks that way. If they had the instincts of decency I wouldn't say a word, but they haven't. I say it's time to make a move."
"You know," continued the minister, "that their hut is in direct line with our view. There's no buying them off … I've tried that. Now that Skinner is arrested it won't be hard to frighten the girl away, for she can't stay there alone."
"I'm not so sure," mused Mrs. Graves; "those people are not easily frightened."
"She's afraid of me," shouted the Dominie, "and she will be more so before I get through with her and her father. If Skinner is hanged, she shan't stay there."
Later there was a long discussion between the father and son upon the rights of squatters, which ended in Frederick's going to bed before it was half finished more disgusted and unhappy than he had ever been before. He looked out upon the lake. The wind was still rolling the water into white crested waves, and his eyes could scarcely outline the small hut under the willow tree. Into the boy's life something had come—a new something he could not explain, while out of it another something as hard to define had gone forever.
Two jack rabbits perched on the tracks above the fodder lot of Minister Graves lifted their long ears and listened. Human steps at this time of night were out of the ordinary. The dog at Kennedy's farm beyond the tracks heard them, too, and bayed loudly. Then as they grew more distinct he bounded toward the fence, capering madly about, to scent the intruder. It was but a forlorn little figure, but Pete, the brindle bull, lifting his voice in a pleased howl, crouched close to the fence as a small hand came through to pet him.
"It air only Tess," said a voice in which tears had gathered. "Ye air glad to see Tess, ain't ye? … Tess air glad to see ye, too … Frederick and Daddy air gone and I must be goin'."
Tessibel placed her face down near the big dog and he shoved out his long red tongue, touching her with delight. The girl hugged the large head with an admonishing appeal that Pete must go back to his kennel—and stepped again to the track—that long, black winding road which she must travel before reaching her destination.
It was raining again, the water falling in steady drops upon the bare head. Frequently the girl wiped the water from her face with a torn calico skirt. Once she sat down and gathered her feet under her wet dress to stop their stinging pain—and here alone under the dark sky, Tessibel offered up her first balanced prayer, for had not Frederick said that God would save Daddy Skinner.
"He do say," and she lifted her eyes upward with a simultaneous wipe at her face, "that there air a God who'll help my Daddy … I wants to find my Daddy … for a minute … a little minute … be it pleasin' to ye, Goddy?"
Tessibel always put "dy" to Dad to make it more effective—and it was with the same sweet, serious voice, with which she would have pleaded with her own father, that she made familiar with the majesty of heaven. She could make no distinction between Daddy Skinner and Jehovah. Both to her were the reigning powers of the earth. Daddy she had always known, but the other—Frederick had said it was good to pray. She rose stumbling, and at three o'clock in the morning entered the city of Ithaca, walking up State street drabbled and thoroughly wet. She knew the streets that led to the city jail, for many a time when selling greens and berries had she gone steathily to the gray stone building and examined the barred windows.
She crossed Dewitt park, and passed by the churches which surrounded the jail. Around and around the ivy-covered stone structure wandered the rain-soaked, barefooted girl. She could not distinguish one ray of light at first in any of the windows. … Suddenly she stopped and took a long breath. Up near the roof line a faint light flickered … some one was moving to and fro. Tessibel could distinguish a rounded shadow on the ceiling of the cell, and tears choked her, as she saw cast upon the wall the shadowy outline of a large humpbacked form. It was Daddy—Daddy Skinner, and Tessibel backed from the building, straining her eyes to get a better view of him. Now the image was in sight, again it disappeared—Daddy was walking up and down, but he did not come near enough to the window for her to see his face.
Seven times she counted Daddy's rounded shadow on the wall, and seven times it faded. The eighth—a grizzled head cast its outline distinctly across the bars.
"Daddy—aw—Daddy Skinner."
It was only a loving name breathed by a troubled child, but it was caught in its upward flight by the father's ear above. Tess saw the pictured humps pause, and as she whispered the name again, Daddy Skinner came to the iron lattice. She could discern her father plainly through the rain and held her arms up toward him.
"It air lonely in the shanty, in the … shanty … without ye, Daddy," she breathed, "and Tessibel … air sorry … for all her badness. Come home, Daddy … dear, good Daddy … and Tess—"
She stopped, for a sight strange and unusual fell upon her. Daddy Skinner was looking down, clinging to the bars mightily, his under lip shaking, his dark teeth chattering together—the grizzled head making a sharp picture of misery in the barred window. Emotion in her father was new to Tess. A little frightened cry fell from her lips and she clutched hurriedly at the thick creeping