Tess of the Storm Country. Grace Miller White
wouldn't let us," put in Teola in dismay; "then, too, I don't know what we could do for a squatter."
"Neither do I, that's the problem," finished Frederick, and after he was gone Teola mused long with Dan Jordan in her mind.
At the break of the first day of the Skinner trial, smoke could be seen curling up from the chimney of Tessibel's hut. A candle stood in the window, flickering its smoky flame toward the light streaks in the east. From the lighthouse to the ragged rocks the lake was covered with the ice and snow of an early winter. Beyond, the little waves curled up and washed over the frozen masses, adhering here and there, making an icy fringe along the edge. Flocks of wild ducks fluttered close to the lake surface, filling the morning air with discordant quacking.
Tessibel had not forgotten that her father was to be brought that day before his accusers—she had made elaborate preparations for the reception of her dear one, when he should be free to return to her. She would stay in the shanty during the trial—and pray.
Daddy was playing a part in a most agonizing drama—he and the student and herself were the principals—while a few others, their enemies, made the background.
… When the curtain fell Tessibel would bring "Daddy" home to the hut—and it was for this that she was preparing.
The bed had been dragged from the wall, and the squatter girl was sweeping out the dust of ages which settled again upon the coats and among the webby meshes of the net now dry and shrunken from disuse. One leg was missing from the stove, but three red bricks shoved under the side did the work of the broken part; the ancient frying pan with patches of grease upon it suspended itself from a newly driven nail in the wall.
Tess had learned many things since her father's imprisonment—had learned that a girl of fifteen couldn't run barefooted in the open with impunity. She had found a pair of Daddy's old cast-off boots, tied rags about her feet, and clambered into them.
How like a woman she felt with covered legs! True, the water gushed in through the holes that Daddy had cut in the soles on the rocks, but the tops were whole—and Tess looked upon them with pride.
When the daylight flooded the cabin Tess blew out the candle and viewed her work with delight. How pleased Daddy would be—after this she would be a model housekeeper. He should sleep in the morning until she had prepared his breakfast, and her fingers would fly in the summer, gathering the berries and fruit to make more money so that he should not run risks with the netting!
That first day of waiting seemed interminably long, but Tess spent it happily, for ever vividly into her mind came the words of Frederick the student—that God would hear, and answer.
Day by day her faith in the efficacy of her petitions had grown upon her. In spite of the fact that she had been caught by Daddy's enemies in her nightly scrambles up the ivy at the jail, God had answered in letting her see her father so many times at the end of her midnight walks.
Three men of squatter's row staggered through the storm up the Lehigh Valley tracks. They passed the line of huts, making an occasional comment upon the inhabitants of some lighted shanty.
It was the evening of the second of November, the first day of Orn Skinner's trial. The squatters had turned out in great numbers to see how the humped prisoner looked before his condemnation, for all believed that the fisherman would hang. It would be establishing a new precedent if Skinner were acquitted—and Ithaca never established new precedents with squatters.
So mused the men as they sullenly toiled toward home, each satisfied in his heart that, if Skinner went the way of others from the row, it would be but another act of revenge upon the part of the townspeople, for had not one and every witness save Elias Graves testified that day to the good character of the accused man?
The headlight of a locomotive sent them to the side track.
"Orn's face were yaller'n saffron, wern't it, when Minister Graves said as how he were a cussed pap of a cusseder gal," said Ezy Longman to Jake Brewer and Ben Letts.
"He were that mad," agreed Letts, "that the humps on his back just riz up and down—he were that mad he were."
"But it were screechin' funny when the jedge made the parson speak out what Tess done," laughed Jake Brewer.
"You bet," assented Ezry Longman. "But why weren't she there to-day?"
"Don't know," answered Jake. "She were home, I guess. She 'lows as how her Daddy comes home to-morry … I 'lows as how he don't."
"I 'lows it, too," grunted Ben Letts.
They walked on in silence for some time, the wind crooning its endless tune through the telegraph wires. As they passed Kennedy's, Pete, the brindle bulldog, howled in rage at not being able to attack the squatters. The dog snapped viciously at all strangers—and more than this would he have done if he had had an opportunity to reach Ben Letts and Ezra Longman. These men had spared neither stones nor sticks, in times past, to arouse the dog's ire; and Pete never forgot an enemy.
At the end of the lane, the candle in Skinner's window flickered them an invitation to stop. Tessibel answered their knock and embarrassedly offered each a chair as the door closed behind them.
"It ain't ended?" she faltered with a hasty glance at the three stolid faces, the post of Daddy's bed supporting the supple young form.
"To-morry," replied Jake Brewer.
Ben Letts moved uneasily in his chair. It was the first time he had ventured into the presence of Tessibel since he had put Frederick to death.
"He air comin' home, then?"
There was a question in the pleading voice as her eyes fell first upon one and then another.
"Nope," grinned Ezry, "he air to be took away."
Tessibel shrank back further and further, every muscle tired in its agony of burden-bearing. The rotten post squeaked loudly, bending beneath her weight, and over her in lightning rapidity swept the shadow of the rope, snatching her father from her—and God. The student had not limited the power of the cross; but Tess had discovered its limitations in Ezra Longman's statement—limitations that made her quiver with pain, as she pictured the evil thing which darkly menaced her loved one.
"He air a damn liar," burst forth Jake Brewer, "the jedge ain't said no words what Ezy says he has."
Tessibel heard and understood. The splendid, buoyant youth gathered instantly together, faith in the eternal promise of God sweeping over her once more. She might have known that Daddy was safe. Every long day had been filled with petitions, hurled at the feet of the Almighty: Tess, in her ignorance, had juggled with the sacred name of Jehovah, expecting the fulfillment of her prayers just as a boy, filled with ecstatic faith, expects his ball to come back to him after he has tossed it into the air. So would Daddy Skinner come to her, snatched from the shadow of an ignominious death, through some miracle of God's goodness.
"It air over to-morry?" she stammered, holding no grudge against Ezra Longman for his untimely joke.
"Yep."
"Then he air comin' home to-morry night?" she said almost in a whisper.
Ben Letts, looking at Ezra, closed one red lid, letting it fall slowly over the blurred blind eye. Neither he nor the boy spoke.
Letts brought his squint gaze back to Tess.
"He air comin' home to-morry night?" she repeated questioningly, raising her voice a little with an insistent glance at each fisherman. This time Tess read denial in their faces, but smiled radiantly. What did they knew about it? What did fishermen understand of the student's God … of the faith that would bring Daddy home to her in spite of the twelve grim men, and all her father's enemies in Ithaca. Hadn't she consigned the beloved humpbacked father to Him who held the worlds in the hollow of His hand.
Ben Letts still gazed steadily at Tess, the red eyelids opening wider and wider. She had never been so beautiful before. During