Tess of the Storm Country Part 8

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 G.o.d would save Daddy Skinner.

"He do say," and she lifted her eyes upward with a simultaneous wipe at her face, "that there air a G.o.d who'll help my Daddy ... I wants to find my Daddy ... for a minute ... a little minute ... be it pleasin' to ye, G.o.ddy?"

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 pa.s.sed 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 ivy which clung to the old gray stone building.

"I air comin', Daddy Skinner," she cried. "I air comin'."

She followed the main body of the ivy on its upward growth, slipping and sliding on the wet creeper as she made her perilous ascent. Daddy Skinner was near the roof and it took Tessibel many torturing minutes to reach him. He knew she was coming by the continual dragging at the ivy, but he dared not speak, for the guard walked outside his door in the hall, and the sound of a voice would bring danger to Tess. Once he strained his face to the bars--saw her climbing frantically, and the sight made him dizzy. He could only wait--wait the interminable time until the red-brown head appeared and the wide eyes stared into his.

Skinner quietly drew his child to the stone sill and placed his fingers over her lips to enjoin silence. Tess understood and even drew softer breaths, holding tightly to the beloved hands.

"I comed for kisses on the bill, Daddy," she breathed. "Tess ... air lonely without ye."

The livid, shaking lips met the quivering mouth through the iron rods. A long, long kiss, such as Tess had wanted quieted her suffering a little.

It was the same old Daddy whom she was going to save by praying. She had asked to see him only a minute, and the student's G.o.d had granted her prayer.

She whispered again, shivering and shaking with the cold.

"Did ye kill the gamekeeper, Daddy?"

The gray head shook the answer, "no."

"If ye did ye didn't mean to, did ye?"

The two negative replies made Tessibel's heart bound. It would be easier for G.o.d to help him if he had not committed a crime, and for no instant did she doubt his word. She kissed him again pa.s.sionately, clinging to his lips with all the young growing emotion in her body.

The squatter clung desperately to the body of his child. He could not let her go, fearing she would fall to the hard stones below, but he knew that she stood in danger of being discovered and dared not detain her.

"Kin ye get down again?" he whispered.

"Yep, Daddy Skinner, and ye ain't goin' to hang, 'cause some one what can, air goin' to help ye."

"Who air he?"

"G.o.d ... up there!" and Tessibel motioned with her hand toward the dark sky. "He says as how He helps folks like us ... that a cross was beared for us ... and I says to Him to-night, and I says every day till ye come back to the shanty ... that He lets ye free, Daddy.... I asks the sheriff to-morrow if I can come afternoons to see ye. And, Daddy, I holds the shanty till ye come home."

He kissed her small pinched face again and again--and took his arms away. Tess slipped down the creeper and when she reached the ground called softly:

"I air here, Daddy Skinner."

She saw him pressing against the bars, his lips shaking and his eyes closely shut as if he were stumblingly offering a prayer for the child of his fisherman soul.

CHAPTER IX

The fraternities of Cornell University gave home and social comforts to students, rich and popular enough to be invited to join them. Each fraternity had its own s.p.a.cious house, with its staff of servants, where the members lived during the college year.

Every first-year man had the ambition to join one, which if he attained a.s.sured him a luxurious home during the four years he spent in Ithaca.