Tess of the Storm Country Part 61

"Faith the size of a mustard-seed," flashed into her mind. Her own past unbelief pressed upon her, and the color fled from her cheeks, leaving them pale.

She opened the basket, and put her wistful face close to the sleeping child, her mental tension gone in her uprising faith.

"I thought as how ye were a-keepin' the student from me, but ye ain't.

G.o.d ain't ready to let me have him. But he air a-goin' to let me have him some time. I air glad I got ye, and I hopes that ye live, too. Myry air got Ben Letts, and I air a-goin' to have--Frederick." She walked home in a reverie deep and sweet.

CHAPTER XLII

Sunday morning, Tessibel was out upon the tracks, walking swiftly toward the city. She could hear the church bell at Haytes Corner ringing out a welcome to the country folk; she could hear the tolling of the chapel bell from the University hill. Clothed in the clean skirt she had washed at the time she had thought of going to Auburn prison, and a worn but clean jacket, Tess felt fit to face the best-dressed in Ithaca. Of course she was barefooted, for Daddy's boots were too big to wear into the house of the student's G.o.d. Earlier in the morning Tessibel had sat for a long time upon the small fishing dock, swinging her feet in the clear water. They, too, like the skirt and jacket, were clean.

In the basket, snuggling in the nest of white clothes, lay little Dan.

He was robed, in the much-worn garment of the Longman child, and Tessibel had looked at him with pride as she settled him in his bed preparatory to her trip.

She pa.s.sed swiftly through the city, and crossed Dewitt Park. How vividly she remembered the many midnights she had taken the same way, turning toward the jail to visit "Daddy"!

Tessibel paused before Minister Graves' church, and heard him read in deep tones from the Scriptures: "Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." The harmonious voice floated through the window to the fisher-girl, now crouched in the sun. Every word fell distinctly upon her ear.

She lifted the basket cover, and peeped in upon the babe. He looked bluer and thinner than Tess had ever seen him; his lips rested upon the rag with no indrawing movement. Unblinkingly stared the wide gray eyes when the sunbeams flashed upon his face. The vivid birth-mark grew fainter in the yellow light. Tess drew him into the shade, and waited.

The tones rolled out like thunder when Dominie Graves bade the members of his flock bring their children to the Holy Font, that they might receive the blessing of G.o.d, and everlasting life. Tess heard him say that the Father in Heaven demanded that all children should be baptized in the name of the crucified Saviour--that to put off such a duty might prove dangerous to their eternal welfare. Many of the long words the squatter did not understand, but she gathered enough to know how necessary it was to obey the minister's commands. She glanced again at the babe, with a worried pucker between her eyes. There was the same stare, the same unmoving lips. But he was quiet, and Tessibel let him lie.

"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden--" rang forth the powerful voice. It fell upon the red-haired girl and soothed her.

Tess knew that Teola would be expecting her, and that Frederick would turn his face away when she presented the child for baptism, but no cloud gathered into the downcast eyes, for Tessibel's faith had grown since she knew that Myra's prayers had been answered. Had she not seen the girl clasped in the arms of the fisherman, who had once said that he hated her? Had she not seen the smile upon the dead lips which dripped with lake water? Tessibel had never before been so confident in prayer, and upon this beautiful Sunday morning, in the white light of day, kneeling under the church window, she believed that G.o.d would give her back the student--some time. She thought of the pain that would rest in the proud dark eyes of the boy when he saw her; but she smiled, because she knew that G.o.d lived, heard and answered the prayers of the heavy-laden.

An anthem rolled up from the church choir, chanting out the love of Christ, chanting His crucifixion and death for a dying world.

"Come unto me, come unto me," it sang, and "Come unto me," rose from the lips of the squatter waiting to take the little human thing, with its burden of sickness and death, to Dominie Graves, that he might pet.i.tion the Holy Ghost to take away its sin.

"Come unto me," again sang the choir. Then silence. Tess leaned nearer the window. Dominie Graves read out the names of the babies to be baptized that day.

A carriage rolled rapidly to the church door, and Deacon Hall, accompanied by his wife, stepped to the pavement. The Deacon held a bundle with long white draperies hanging from it. It was their new baby, with lace upon its frock, going in to receive a blessing at the altar of G.o.d. Tess peered down upon the little Dan, and pulled the coa.r.s.e dress closer about his chin. A violent wish born of the love she had for him came into her heart. Oh, that she had one bit of lace, to make his skin look less blue and the mouth less drawn! The wide eyes were still fixed upon her, immovable and unblinking. Once only had she seen the lids fall slowly downward, to rise again over the unseeing eyes.

"He knows he air a-goin' to church," she muttered lovingly. "I wonder if that air why he air so good.... Mebbe the spirit of his pappy air here."

She heard the names fall from the lips of the clergyman, as he took the infants, one by one, and placed his hand upon them with the water.

"I baptize thee, John Richard," Graves said slowly, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

"Of the Holy Ghost...." He was the Spirit of G.o.d Who stood by the children, to take away the sin with which they had been born. Teola had told Tess so. The Holy Ghost would take away the sin of little Dan.

"I baptize thee," broke the silence, time after time, amid the tiny splashes of falling water. The last must have gone up to the altar, for Tess heard the minister telling the fathers and mothers the duty they owed their children.

"I finish my service to-day," said he, "by praying G.o.d to bless you all, and calling down the good-will of Heaven upon your children just baptized in His name."

Tessibel did not wait to hear the rest. She raised the child from the basket, shielding him from the sun with her body, stretched him out reverently upon her hands, and tiptoed up the long flight of steps into the church. A sea of heads rose before her startled vision. Transfixed, she paused in the door, waiting for Graves to cease speaking. Her eye caught the pew of the minister. Teola sat next to Frederick on the end, Mrs. Graves between her and her younger daughter. Tess noticed the tense expression upon the sharp profile of the babe's mother. How glad Teola would be when the baby was baptized! How happy in the new-found Heaven for her child!

The minister's voice had fallen into a prayer. And still Tess waited with the dying infant, staring wide-eyed upward at the great church dome. Every head was bowed: no one saw the strange girl, with hair flung wide about her shoulders, nor the tiny human being resting upon her hands.

Silence fell upon the congregation, and Tessibel commenced her walk down through the sea of faces to the pulpit. She gave no glance toward Teola as she pa.s.sed, but kept her eyes fixed upon Dominie Graves, who, without noticing her, had turned to the little flight of steps that led to his pulpit. When he reached the Bible stand, and opened his lips to speak, his gaze dropped upon the squatter. At first he thought he was dreaming.

He looked again--looked at her--at the child--and paled to his ears.

Tessibel was holding the infant up toward him, with a beseeching expression in her eyes that staggered him.

Teola had seen Tess pa.s.s, and had caught a glimpse of the thin child upon her hands. The pursed baby lips, from which hung the useless sugar rag, made her lower her head to the prayer cushion, shuddering violently. Frederick had also seen the squatter--everyone in the church had seen her, and the silence grew wider and wider, until even breathing was hushed to catch her words.

Her low, sweet voice began to speak; it thrilled through the congregation like the song of angels.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BE YE GOIN' TO LET HIM GO A PLACE WHERE G.o.d CAN'T FIND HIM?"]

"I has brought ye a dyin' brat, Dominie Graves," began Tess with shaking voice, "who has got to be sprinkled, or he can't go to Heaven."

The vast silence of the edifice echoed her pet.i.tion.

The gaping minister never once took his eyes from her face, and made no move to answer her.

"It air a-dyin', I say," she went on, "and I wants ye to put the water on it."

So deadly in earnest was the girl that a sob broke out in the back of the church. The lithe, barefooted squatter, and the feeble, dying child offered a living picture of pathos, which with its tragedy slowly dawned upon the more sensitive minds, silently telling its tale of human suffering. Minister Graves refused to answer her. He wore the same expression of scorn Tess had seen in the student when she had acknowledged the child as hers.

"Be ye goin' to sprinkle him?" she demanded steadfastly, her voice growing stronger with her emotions. "Be ye?"

"No, I'm not." Graves' voice fell like the sound of a deep-toned bell.

"Be ye goin' to let him go to a place where G.o.d can't find him? Be ye?"

Tess entreated.

Anger and revolt glinted through the golden-brown of her eyes; she swayed back a little from the font, still holding out the babe.

"He air so little," she pleaded with a choke, "and so awful sick. Mebbe he won't live till mornin'. He can't hurt the others, now they air done with the water, can he?"

She peeped into the marble basin, and lifted her eyes to his face.

"There air lots of water left. Be there other babies wantin' it worse than this one?"

She turned half-way round, and faced the wall of white faces, sending the question out in high-pitched tones.

Then Graves spoke with austerity and strength, riding down his anger with a mighty effort.

"You will please take the child from the church. You have your own squatter mission for such as that."

He had forgotten his members--forgotten that he was a man of G.o.d. As he bent toward her, he remembered only that she was the girl who had thwarted him, who had won in the squatter fight against his own influence. Tessibel heard the words "squatter" and "mission." It had not occurred to her to take the child there. She looked down upon the little fire-marked face. Would baby Dan live until she could get him there? He might be dead before she could carry him to the inlet and cross the tracks to the young rector's house. Teola had said that the baby would never be with his father without baptism, that even she, his mother, could not see him when she, too, went away. Little Dan, uncleansed, would live far from the bright angels. Her anger rose in a twinkling.

She took another backward step, threw the red curls into a ma.s.s over her shoulder, and spoke again.

"Air I to take him from the church without the water?"