The Secret of the Storm Country Part 58

A weary apathy had settled over the young mother. Strange dreams filled the small room with haunting, tangible things which she could reach out and touch if she dared. The rafters, too, were peopled with faces partly hidden in the dry nets. But she seemed to be staring at something out and beyond--as Daddy Skinner, too, had stared that never-to-be-forgotten night.

The past months, where the grey days and sun days had all been the same, moved vaguely in silent procession before her. She had lived through them like a pale ghost indifferent alike to sunshine or shadow, and this night she had drained to the last drop the bitter cup Frederick Graves had given her to drink. Frederick, her husband, her beloved! She thought of him indifferently. Even his babe at her breast seemed unimportant.

She considered them without emotion. But the ghostly faces, hovering among the nets, interested her.

Then, distinctly from among them advanced a figure, a dear, familiar figure. Daddy Skinner ... the same old adorable daddy--his s.h.a.ggy, thready beard hanging over his chest. For one single instant he bent over her, lovingly laid his hand upon the bronze curls and smiled in the way he had of doing before he had gone away with mummy. Tess flung up her hands.

"Daddy! Daddy Skinner!" she cried.

The movement startled the babe from his sleep. The dwarf, roused by the cries scrambled to the open hole.

"Tessibel--Tess," he called brokenly.

The girl lifted heavy lids.

"Daddy was here, Andy," she wailed in misery. "My own Daddy Skinner. I want to go with him.... I can't live any longer without him."

"Can I come down, brat?" begged the dwarf, huskily.

"Yep," whispered Tess. "Mother Moll air gone."

"I heard 'er when she went," said Andy, and he slipped down the ladder.

The babe's shrill cry continued as the dwarf went to the bed.

"Yer daddy don't need ye as much as me an' the little feller. Let me take 'im--I ain't seen 'im yet, ye know."

Andy bent over the cot. Gently he lifted the infant and carried him nearer the lamp's dim rays. He stood gazing intently into the rosy face.

Then, he raised a tiny hand and spread first one finger, then each baby fellow out in his own palm.

"Why he's real handsome," he decided at last. "Brat, he air the most beautifulest in the world!"

At the last words he turned shining eyes toward Tessibel. She lay gazing, not at Andy or the babe in his arms, but up into and beyond the nets in the rafters, seeking another glimpse of her father's dear face.

Alarmed by her strange silence, the little man bore his precious burden back to the cot and knelt beside the pa.s.sive figure. Holding the baby close, he breathed,

"Don't, brat, dear! Look at me. I been feelin' yer daddy round all day, too. He'll always be near to help you an' the little kid."

A pathetic trembling of her lips hushed the flow of his words.

"It seems's if I couldn't live, Andy. I dunno how I can, I dunno how!"

Her voice trailed away into a plaintive moan.

"Let me take hold of yer hand, brat," murmured Andy. "I want to tell ye somethin'."

He clasped one of her hands in his, while her free fingers shaded her eyes.

"You got three folks standin' by you, kid," continued Andy, earnestly.

"Me, Young an' Jesus. While I been alone in the garret, all this time, I been readin' an' a reasonin' out things. Don't ye remember when Mr.

Young come that night how he said he didn't blame ye fer nothin' ye'd done?"

Beneath the tense fingers, she breathed a simple, "Yes."

"An' me--why me--I know yer heart's if I'd made it, honey, an'

Jesus--Air ye listening Tess?"

"Sure," a.s.sented Tess.

"Then I'll tell ye a story. Once a woman loved a man awful much, an' she loved 'im like all women love men folks. An' a hull lot of righteous ones dragged 'er right up to Jesus an' says, 'She air a sinner, sir, what'll we do with 'er?' An' he says, 'Go away an' leave 'er with me.'"

Tessibel's hand clutched at the fingers holding hers.

"An' when he were alone with 'er," went on the dwarf, "an' she were a kneelin' at 'is feet, he jest touched her lovin' like, an' says--"

"Don't, Andy, you--you hurt me ..." moaned Tess. "Don't!"

"An' I wanted to help ye, sweet," insisted Andy. "But still, I air askin' ye to listen to the rest. Will ye?"

Tess acquiesced silently, her hand falling away from her white, drawn face.

"An' Jesus says to the woman in baby trouble like yours, he says, 'Poor soul, I ain't blamin' ye this day, I ain't!'"

The little man's eyes shone with the sublimity of the truth he was imparting, and an uplifted expression of faith settled on his features.

The baby whimpered in his arms, and loosening his hold upon the girl's hand, he rose to his feet carefully. Tessibel was crying now, in low caught breaths that wrenched and tore at Andy's heart cruelly.

To soothe the child, he pattered to and fro upon the shanty floor; and when he began to chant in a low, sweet voice that old, old precious hymn, "Rescue the Perishin';" Tess cried out again. Andy Bishop, the dwarf, was impressing upon Tessibel Skinner's heart that mysterious faith she'd known so long, that same sense of G.o.d's love which she'd taught him in those days when the dark doors of Auburn Prison yawned wide for him.

The state had branded him a murderer, but here, with glistening eyes, he preached the Christ and Him crucified. In the solitude of the garret, he had learned his lesson well ... by the dim attic light, he had studied the story of the forgiveness of sin. Suddenly, he ceased his song, and as he trotted back and forth, swaying the little child in his arms, Tessibel caught murmured words, "'Nuther do I condemn thee," said Jesus.

"Nuther do I condemn thee," said he.

And in that next pulsing minute through the eyes of her soul, the watching girl saw above the squat dwarf the shadowy image of the smiling Christ, and unspeakable peace descended upon her like a benediction. The lines of suffering vanished from about her pursed mouth. The hurt within her heart gave way to the "still waters."

"'Nuther do I condemn thee,' said Jesus Christ," whispered Andy over the boy's face, and "neither do I condemn thee" sank into the very being of the squatter girl as warm rain sinks to the heart of a parched flower.

She followed the waddling figure, a gleam of grat.i.tude beaming in her eyes. Surely, the bread Tessibel Skinner had cast upon the waters of Andy Bishop's stormy life was returning after many weary days!

"Andy," she called. "Andy, dear, bring me my baby."

The dwarf laid the sleeping child within its mother's arms.

"The man on the cross, your man an' mine, brat," he whispered, "said, 'If ye have burdens, come an' I'll rest ye.' Didn't he say it, kid?"

"Yes, yes, Andy," whispered Tessibel. "Everything'll be all right fer--you an' me an' the baby," and she ended, ... "Get back in the garret an' pray for my brat's daddy, too, Andy. He air needin' it worser'n me an' you."

Then the squatter girl turned her face to the wall, drew the baby under the coverlet, and the dwarf scuttled up the ladder.