Tess of the Storm Country Part 63

"Nope; I's here to stay with my pretty brat.... Air ye glad to see yer Daddy?"

"Glad! glad! Daddy, daddy! I air a-goin' to be your brat till we dies!"

She had nestled, as in the old days, completely under his chin hair, crying silently, deeply, with low-caught sobs.

For a long time they sat thus, until the man outside entered and spoke to them.

Tess jubilantly cooked the fish for dinner, spattering the bacon fat upon the floor. She smiled alternately at her father and Professor Young; she caroled like a spring bird with bursts of happy song. Then they three sat down to the table to eat the homely squatter fare.

A sickening longing swept over Deforest Young. To have the love of this girl he would be willing to live in the shanty--to eat just such food for the rest of his life. But during the few days past, he had fully realized that he could not make Tess love him. He would never speak of love to her again.

Yet it pleased him to remain with them through the long afternoon, with Tess near him to watch the sun sink behind the western hill.

He had drawn on his coat preparatory to leaving, and stood with Tessibel's hand in his. A sharp, quick knock on the door stayed his farewell. Orn Skinner lifted the latch, and Frederick Graves entered at the fisherman's bidding. His face was drawn and pale, his eyes red from weeping. Tessibel's heart bounded in sympathy, but she remained backed against the shanty wall until his eyes searched hers for a welcome. He spoke first.

"My sister is dead," he said slowly, his voice breaking as the tears came into the dark eyes; "and my father sent you this."

Daddy Skinner was seated blinkingly on his stool; Professor Young, hat in hand, waited for the girl to take the extended paper. But for several seconds she stood staring at Frederick, with wide-eyed wonderment. He had said that his beautiful sister was dead, that she had gone with the thin babe to her loved one, even as Myra Longman had gone with Ben Letts. To Tess it was but another answered prayer, showered from Heaven.

She felt no thrill of grief; she was only glad that the pale, sick mother had had her wish.

She took the paper awkwardly, and scanned it with painful embarra.s.sment.

"I can't read the writin'," she said, handing it back. "Will ye tell me what it says?"

"Oh, I can't, I can't, Tessibel! I am so ashamed, so miserable!"

Tess silently handed the paper to Professor Young; then she slipped forward and stood close to Frederick, rapidly considering his face with forgiving eyes.

Young turned to the student.

"Shall I?"

An acquiescent nod gave him permission to lift the note and read:

"Dear Child:

My daughter is dead. Frederick will tell you. If you can forgive me for all I have done against you and your father, will you come here to us, and tell Mrs. Graves and myself of the past few weeks.

Frederick has told me that he loves you, and of your sacrifice for Teola. I can only say at present that we thank you.

Yours in grief and grat.i.tude, Elias Graves.

P. S.--When your father comes back, I shall ask you to give him the t.i.tle of the ground upon which your house stands."

Professor Young read it slowly, word by word; each breath taken by the four people could be plainly heard in the silence that followed.

Frederick broke it.

"Tess, will you come to our home, and tell Father and Mother about--Teola?"

The name slipped into a whisper from his lips, and, leaning against the hut door, he burst into boyish, bitter tears.

"Forgive me, please," he murmured; "but it was so awful! And what she must have suffered!... And I didn't know--we none of us knew." He lifted his face, swept them with a heartrending glance, and finished. "She died in the church to-day with the baby."

"She air happy to be with the man what she loves, ain't she?" said Tess, softly.

Frederick grasped her hands, her brilliant smile easing the pain that like a knife stabbed his heart.

"You think she was happy to die, Tess?... Tell me all she said.... Did she know she was going away?"

For an instant the rapid rush of questions daunted Tessibel. But she sorted them out, commencing from the first one to answer them.

"Yep, she air happy," she said positively; "awful happy. She wanted to go to her man in the sky.... He were a-waitin' for her every day, and she knowed she were a-goin' to die, 'cause--'cause she prayed every night that G.o.d'd take her and the brat."

"Prayed? She prayed to die, when we all loved her so?" stammered Frederick.

"Yep. She were a-lovin' the burnt student better'n anything else. And, when women air a-lovin' like that--"

She ceased abruptly, and her own love for him attacked her as lightning attacks an oak in the autumn. Teola Graves had gone willingly to the burnt student, and Myra Longman had loved the ugly fisherman with a love that hurt like hers.

No one asked the short-skirted, barefooted girl to finish her sentence.

The three men understood that her last pa.s.sionate statement rang from the depths of her woman's heart. Frederick lifted his head.

"Tess--Tessibel, I can only say with my father that we all love you for what you have done for her."

His voice broke.

"And for myself, I say again, as I have said many times, that I--I love you--with my whole soul!"

His fingers closed over hers in an intense, desperate clasp. How long she had waited for him to tell her this once more! And he had confessed his great love in the presence of Daddy Skinner and the big man from the hill.

Her father watched her, this child whom but a year before he had left almost a baby. She was a woman now, with a woman's voice and a woman's love. The fisherman pa.s.sed his hand over his face with a forlorn gesture. Had he found his darling again but to lose her?

Impetuously Tess turned toward him, and met his misty gaze with her tear-dimmed eyes. The student was still clinging to her hand.

"I air Daddy's brat," she whispered. "But I says," and she flashed Frederick a lightning-like glance through the red lashes before she dropped her eyes, and murmured, "but I says, as how I said before, that I air yer squatter."