The Secret of the Storm Country Part 61

But--but I'll not speak about it again till you come of your own accord and tell me.... I've been thinking about something else, though--"

"Air it about Andy?" interrupted Tessibel.

Young looked up and discovered a boyish face smiling down upon him from the attic.

"Come down," he said to the dwarf.

Andy descended the ladder and trudged across the floor.

The lawyer stood up and extended his hand. "How are you, Andy?" he enquired pleasantly. "Pretty well, I hope?"

Andy shook hands gravely.

"Yep, thank ye, professor, I air that," he a.s.sented. "Hope ye're the same."

"Andy's been more'n good to me," Tess confided. "Please sit down again, Mr. Young.... Set on the floor, Andy!"

Obediently the dwarf curled up on the floor and turned eagerly to Young who had resumed his chair.

"Ain't Tess got the fine baby?" he queried, and as though not expecting an answer, added, "And she air awful happy."

A fugitive smile trembled on Young's face.

Awful happy! Awful happy! Was it possible? He looked into Tessibel's joyous eyes and pondered. Yes, she was happy. He could see that! Happy in a squatter's hut! Happy in the companionship of a condemned murderer, and happy with a nameless child! His eyes went to the little one on the chair. Yes, the three of them were happy. Tessibel's love was bound up in Andy and the baby, and the dwarf had forgotten his own danger to serve the other two. To help in the same loyal and unselfish way would be his future work. At that moment Deforrest Young buried deep in his heart the pa.s.sion which hurt like nothing else hurts on earth, and something very like happiness took its place.

He leaned back and crossed his legs. Then he reached into his coat pocket and produced his cigar case. He bent forward and offered it to Andy.

"Smoke, Andy?" he queried.

"Nope, thank ye, sir. Hain't smoked since Pal Skinner got sick. Couldn't smell up the shanty with a pipe, ye see, eh?"

When the cigar was glowing and the fragrant smoke drifted in eddying clouds through the kitchen, the smoker rocked a few minutes contemplatively.

"I've seen Owen Bennet," he began presently. "He sticks to the story that you did the shooting, Bishop, but I knew all the time he was lying."

"Yep, he lied," interpolated Andy, bobbing his head.

"But as long as he won't tell the truth," Young stated "you're liable to be taken back to Auburn."

The dwarf cringed as from a blow. Fear of going back to prison killed the joy in his face instantly, but the speaker's quick a.s.surance straightened the bent shoulders.

"But no one knows where you are, and perhaps something can be done to bring a confession from Bennet. Just at this time, though," looking from the little man to the girl on the cot, "I'm more concerned about your futures."

Tess didn't speak. She knew wherein her confidence lay and was willing to await her friend's suggestion. She sat up, punched the pillow, turned it over, and lay down again.

"It's perfectly evident you can't stay here, either one of you," said Young, after a pause, "and if you'll be guided by me--"

"We'll do what ye want," murmured Tess, "if ye'll let us stay together an' keep the baby."

"Yes, that is my plan," he replied.

Andy folded his short legs under him nervously.

"We want to stay together, me an' Tess does," he echoed, "an' the baby's awful glad to live with us."

Young's lips curled an instant into a smile responsive to the quaint statement.

"You remember, Tess," he resumed, "I have a lease of the house where Graves used to live."

She answered only by a little forward bend of her head.

"My idea is this: I'll open the house, and you, Tess, can come there with the baby. You can keep house in a little way for us all."

"Ye said Andy could live with--"

"Wait," interrupted the lawyer. "There're two nice rooms on the top floor. You can arrange them for Bishop and he will be as snug as a bug in a rug."

A sharp cry of joy broke from the young mother. She sat up straight. She threw back the tangled curls, and leaning forward grasped the hand the speaker thrust out to support her.

"Oh, what a good, good man!" she rejoiced. "An' me an' the baby'll love ye forever, me an' the baby will."

Tessibel didn't remember she'd made the same promise to another man when she'd begged him in vain to help her. She only knew that Deforrest Young was offering herself and her little child a home, and a safe refuge for Andy Bishop.

"It won't be all for you, you understand, child," said Deforrest.

"Think! I'll have a home, too, and you can study and work."

"An' some day when I'm earnin' money, and Andy's free, we'll pay you all back," the girl interjected.

"Well, we won't worry about that now!... As soon as you're well enough, I'll move you all up to the house. Tomorrow I'll see that coal and things're sent down from town!"

The reply to his offer was a tighter squeeze from the squatter girl's hand, and a sob from the dwarf. Unable to restrain his joy, the wee man bounded from the floor and fled up the ladder into the garret. For a time the man and girl in the room below sat silent, and all was quiet in the shanty save the voice of Andy Bishop giving forth a thanksgiving such as he had never expressed before.

Two weeks later a light filtered through the closed shutters of Young's residence on the hill. The old Graves house creaked in the bl.u.s.tery March gale. The hurtling snow-particles rattled upon the blinds and against the clapboards like small shot. Deforrest Young came out of the house and fought his way against the blizzard's buffeting down the hill to the Skinner shack.

Stumbling, he fell against the door.

"It's I, Tess," he shouted.

The girl lifted the bar and admitted him. Dressed in her outer wraps, she stood in the kitchen, anxious and expectant. This minute to Tess was the changing point of her life. Young as she was, she understood what it would mean to the three of them to leave the shanty, to take up their abode in a real home.

"Ye said we was to take the baby first," she greeted him, reaching for the shawl on a peg in the door post.

"Yes, but it's so bad I'll have to take you first, child," the lawyer replied. "Come down, Andy, and after we're gone, bar the door and stand by the boy.... I'll come back after you in a few minutes."

Then he flung an arm about Tess and drew her into the winter night.

Wind-blown and snow-covered, Young almost carried the shivering girl up the steps into her new home. How luxurious the comfortable furnishings seemed compared to the poverty of the shack! Young helped her off with her coat and rubbers.