Tess of the Storm Country Part 56

"He be a-lovin' me, too." She was hardly able to utter the words.

"Then why do you weep, if you love him and he loves you?"

Tessibel's eyes settled upon the babe, yawning in the sun. Young followed her gaze.

"The child has separated you?" he said slowly.

"Yep."

"Why?"

"'Cause--'cause--"

All Teola's perfidy rushed over her in a twinkling. All the student's suffering stung her as if she had been struck in the face. She bounded from the bed, possessed of a dark spirit.

"A d.a.m.n bloke air a-doin' it. It were a oath I took.... Will you go now?--Please!"

"Yes," a.s.sented Young. "But it is all a mystery to me. I cannot understand it."

And Tessibel, thinking of Teola, the child, and its dead father, muttered:

"I ain't understandin' it, nuther.... Good-bye."

Transfixed, Tess stood for many minutes where Young had left her. A shadow dropped upon the path. Teola, pale and ill, came toward her, and she did not move.

"My father and brother have gone to Ithaca, and I--Tessibel! Tess, don't look at me that way! Don't! don't!"

"You forgot to tell him," dropped from the squatter's lips.

"No, I didn't forget. Tessibel, I've tried, and I can't tell him.... I haven't the courage," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, waiting long for a reply from the rigid girl. Her lips trembled as she faltered:

"My father was cruel to you, Tess!"

"I were a-stealin'," Tess muttered. "He wouldn't a whipped me if he--had knowed about it, would he?"

"No, no! He would have died first.... Tessibel, why didn't you tell him?"

"Didn't ye say it would kill the student if he knowed it? And I swored, didn't I? when the brat was borned, that I wouldn't tell--and I ain't no liar--leastwise about no brats. If it air told, the brat's ma's got to tell it," she finished.

Teola dropped beside her infant.

"I'm afraid to tell it. My father and brother have such confidence in me!" She shifted about, and looked at Tessibel. "We are going to move to the city, Sat.u.r.day.... I have been thinking about the baby's milk--"

"I has money now," broke in Tess. "I don't have to steal no more. Daddy air a-comin' home soon, too."

"I know it. Father heard from Professor Young all about it. I am so glad for you, Tess. What will you say to him about the baby?"

"I dunno," grunted the squatter.

She answered no more of Teola's questions, but for a long time remained moodily looking, with narrowed eyes and burning heart, at the minister's daughter.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

Two days later, on Friday evening, Teola slipped quietly from her home, and the Skinner hut opened to her timid knock. Tess had no more fear when visitors came. Ben Letts had gone with Myra, and Ezra Longman was dead.

The girls eyed each other for one embarra.s.sed moment. The day for separation was at hand: Tess would face the lean winter, Teola the burden of a conscience in torment.

"Come in," muttered Tess.

"Tessibel," Teola burst out spontaneously, "we are going away to-morrow.

I wish I were going to stay with you and the baby!"

Gloomily Tess scrutinized the young mother, checking an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n that rose to her lips.

"I don't understand what you are going to do," said Teola. "Tess, do you think he is very ill? You do! I can see it in your face. Look how he yawns, and screws his mouth, and shuts his eyes! Oh, he is suffering, Tessibel!"

"Yep, he air sick," replied Tess, turning her back. She had grown to love the hapless thing, and knew that he suffered as all human beings suffer when they go slowly away to the mystery of mysteries.

Teola's next words brought her about sharply.

"Tessibel, do you--hate me?"

"Nope."

"Oh, what a coward I am! Frederick has forbidden me to come here."

"That air 'cause he air a good bloke," snorted Tess. "But if he knowed--"

"I can't get my breath when I think of telling him, Tess."

"He ain't to know never, then?" bounded from Tessibel's lips, the pa.s.sion in the tones lowering the voice almost to a whisper.

"No," replied the young mother; "I can't tell him."

The squatter just caught the next words, "But I am going to die, too, Tess."

The conviction in the statement made Tess spring back.

"Ye ain't yet. Ye ain't goin' yet!"

"The doctor says I am very ill here." Teola placed her hand upon her chest. "I've had three hemorrhages. People ill like I am never get well.

I don't want to--either," she ended brokenly.

She looked so forlorn, so thin and ill that Tess went awkwardly to her.