Читать книгу Tess of the Storm Country - Grace Miller White - Страница 13

Table of Contents

Minister Graves' city home, the Rectory, was a magnificent house, covered with a thick growth of ivy; one bay window ornamenting it on the west, another looking on the street.

The first evening in November, the family was seated about the table, the minister reading the evening paper. "Babe" was arguing with her mother that all little girls should be allowed to roller skate upon the pavement; that "there wasn't a bit of danger in it."

Frederick was silently eating his dinner—Teola following his example. Suddenly the minister ejaculated:

"Ah, that's good."

"What's good, father?" inquired Mrs. Graves.

"Skinner is brought to trial to-morrow. The paper says there isn't the slightest hope for him to escape. And listen to this:

"Of all the happenings in the annals of the Ithaca courts the following is the most extraordinary. Orn Skinner, the squatter, who is to be tried this week for the murder of Emery Stebbins, the game warden, is the father of a girl some fifteen years old. The day after his incarceration the girl presented herself at the office of the sheriff, asking permission to see her father. The sheriff thought wiser not and refused the request. But the night before last the girl was discovered ascending, like a squirrel, the thick growth of ivy that covers the stone structure of the jail. For nearly a month she has been tramping the Lehigh Valley railroad tracks after dark, reaching the jail at midnight, and holding converse with her father on the stone sill of his cell window, two stories above the ground. The girl was closely questioned but refused to answer, probably fearing the consequences of visiting a prisoner without the consent of the sheriff. Skinner has been removed to an inner cell, the authorities fearing some plan of escape. The girl is very pretty, with long red hair, and brown eyes, and those who have seen her say that she is like a frightened rabbit, refusing to talk with any, save a few of her kind."

The Dominie grunted, as he finished reading.

"I should think they would remove him to an inner cell," said he. "Such goings on! The girl ought to have a taste of the rawhide."

"Maybe she loves her father and wanted to see him," ventured Babe, who had no reverence for paternal opinions.

"Love, love," retorted the Dominie, "all the love those people have in their lives you could put in a nutshell."

"Her father's trial comes up to-morrow—I wonder if they will allow the girl to attend."

This was from Frederick—he had not seen Tessibel since the night he had told her how to help her father. His face gathered a crimson shade as he remembered that he had promised her that he, too, would pray for her Daddy. The sympathy he had felt in his heart, throbbed again as he thought of her lonely grief—and the dead toad. He would keep his promise to Tess—pray that something might come into her life if somebody went out.

"Mother," said Teola, changing the subject abruptly, "why can't we have a toffy pull. I want one so badly."

"It's such a messy thing," sighed Mrs. Graves, looking about upon the tidy home, "and not one of you young people can keep your sticky hands from the curtains and furniture. But I suppose, if you will have it, nothing I can say will alter it. But remember this: I won't have those boys and girls tramping through my house and mussing up everything."

As they rose from the table Teola followed her brother into the hall.

"Frederick, if I arrange the toffy pull, do you suppose Mr. Jordan would come?"

She dropped her eyes—the blood curling to the edge of the tiny ringlets that clung to her forehead. Her brother gave a low laugh.

"He would be only too pleased, Sis, and he is a capital chap. He's a great favorite at the frat with all the boys. Shall I invite him?"

"Yes … for day after to-morrow evening. Will that suit you?"

"Let me see," reflected Frederick, "we are having a meeting at the fraternity, but we might come down afterward, unless we are kept too late."

"Don't let them keep you," pleaded Teola, flashing her brilliant eyes into Frederick's face, "you and Mr. Jordan have influence enough to get away, even if you are freshmen."

The student stooped and kissed his sister fondly.

"I'll arrange it to suit you, Sister … I want to go to the Skinner trial to-morrow. I suppose father will go, too?"

"Everybody will be there," rejoined Teola. "I wonder if his daughter will be permitted to see him after she has been discovered breaking the law."

This time it was Frederick who flushed—it suddenly dawned upon him that he was going to the court simply to see the squatter girl again. He explained his embarrassment by exclaiming:

"Poor little soul! She is the loneliest child in the world. I wish we could do something for her!"

"Father wouldn't let us," put in Teola in dismay; "then, too, I don't know what we could do for a squatter."

"Neither do I, that's the problem," finished Frederick, and after he was gone Teola mused long with Dan Jordan in her mind.

At the break of the first day of the Skinner trial, smoke could be seen curling up from the chimney of Tessibel's hut. A candle stood in the window, flickering its smoky flame toward the light streaks in the east. From the lighthouse to the ragged rocks the lake was covered with the ice and snow of an early winter. Beyond, the little waves curled up and washed over the frozen masses, adhering here and there, making an icy fringe along the edge. Flocks of wild ducks fluttered close to the lake surface, filling the morning air with discordant quacking.

Tessibel had not forgotten that her father was to be brought that day before his accusers—she had made elaborate preparations for the reception of her dear one, when he should be free to return to her. She would stay in the shanty during the trial—and pray.

Daddy was playing a part in a most agonizing drama—he and the student and herself were the principals—while a few others, their enemies, made the background.

… When the curtain fell Tessibel would bring "Daddy" home to the hut—and it was for this that she was preparing.

The bed had been dragged from the wall, and the squatter girl was sweeping out the dust of ages which settled again upon the coats and among the webby meshes of the net now dry and shrunken from disuse. One leg was missing from the stove, but three red bricks shoved under the side did the work of the broken part; the ancient frying pan with patches of grease upon it suspended itself from a newly driven nail in the wall.

Tess had learned many things since her father's imprisonment—had learned that a girl of fifteen couldn't run barefooted in the open with impunity. She had found a pair of Daddy's old cast-off boots, tied rags about her feet, and clambered into them.

How like a woman she felt with covered legs! True, the water gushed in through the holes that Daddy had cut in the soles on the rocks, but the tops were whole—and Tess looked upon them with pride.

When the daylight flooded the cabin Tess blew out the candle and viewed her work with delight. How pleased Daddy would be—after this she would be a model housekeeper. He should sleep in the morning until she had prepared his breakfast, and her fingers would fly in the summer, gathering the berries and fruit to make more money so that he should not run risks with the netting!

That first day of waiting seemed interminably long, but Tess spent it happily, for ever vividly into her mind came the words of Frederick the student—that God would hear, and answer.

Day by day her faith in the efficacy of her petitions had grown upon her. In spite of the fact that she had been caught by Daddy's enemies in her nightly scrambles up the ivy at the jail, God had answered in letting her see her father so many times at the end of her midnight walks.

Three men of squatter's row staggered through the storm up the Lehigh Valley tracks. They passed the line of huts, making an occasional comment upon the inhabitants of some lighted shanty.

It was the evening of the second of November, the first day of Orn Skinner's trial. The squatters had turned out in great numbers to see how the humped prisoner looked before his condemnation, for all believed that the fisherman would hang. It would be establishing a new precedent if Skinner were acquitted—and Ithaca never established new precedents with squatters.

So mused the men as they sullenly toiled toward home, each satisfied in his heart that, if Skinner went the way of others from the row, it would be but another act of revenge upon the part of the townspeople, for had not one and every witness save Elias Graves testified that day to the good character of the accused man?

The headlight of a locomotive sent them to the side track.

"Orn's face were yaller'n saffron, wern't it, when Minister Graves said as how he were a cussed pap of a cusseder gal," said Ezy Longman to Jake Brewer and Ben Letts.

"He were that mad," agreed Letts, "that the humps on his back just riz up and down—he were that mad he were."

"But it were screechin' funny when the jedge made the parson speak out what Tess done," laughed Jake Brewer.

"You bet," assented Ezry Longman. "But why weren't she there to-day?"

"Don't know," answered Jake. "She were home, I guess. She 'lows as how her Daddy comes home to-morry … I 'lows as how he don't."

"I 'lows it, too," grunted Ben Letts.

They walked on in silence for some time, the wind crooning its endless tune through the telegraph wires. As they passed Kennedy's, Pete, the brindle bulldog, howled in rage at not being able to attack the squatters. The dog snapped viciously at all strangers—and more than this would he have done if he had had an opportunity to reach Ben Letts and Ezra Longman. These men had spared neither stones nor sticks, in times past, to arouse the dog's ire; and Pete never forgot an enemy.

At the end of the lane, the candle in Skinner's window flickered them an invitation to stop. Tessibel answered their knock and embarrassedly offered each a chair as the door closed behind them.

"It ain't ended?" she faltered with a hasty glance at the three stolid faces, the post of Daddy's bed supporting the supple young form.

"To-morry," replied Jake Brewer.

Ben Letts moved uneasily in his chair. It was the first time he had ventured into the presence of Tessibel since he had put Frederick to death.

"He air comin' home, then?"

There was a question in the pleading voice as her eyes fell first upon one and then another.

"Nope," grinned Ezry, "he air to be took away."

Tessibel shrank back further and further, every muscle tired in its agony of burden-bearing. The rotten post squeaked loudly, bending beneath her weight, and over her in lightning rapidity swept the shadow of the rope, snatching her father from her—and God. The student had not limited the power of the cross; but Tess had discovered its limitations in Ezra Longman's statement—limitations that made her quiver with pain, as she pictured the evil thing which darkly menaced her loved one.

"He air a damn liar," burst forth Jake Brewer, "the jedge ain't said no words what Ezy says he has."

Tessibel heard and understood. The splendid, buoyant youth gathered instantly together, faith in the eternal promise of God sweeping over her once more. She might have known that Daddy was safe. Every long day had been filled with petitions, hurled at the feet of the Almighty: Tess, in her ignorance, had juggled with the sacred name of Jehovah, expecting the fulfillment of her prayers just as a boy, filled with ecstatic faith, expects his ball to come back to him after he has tossed it into the air. So would Daddy Skinner come to her, snatched from the shadow of an ignominious death, through some miracle of God's goodness.

"It air over to-morry?" she stammered, holding no grudge against Ezra Longman for his untimely joke.

"Yep."

"Then he air comin' home to-morry night?" she said almost in a whisper.

Ben Letts, looking at Ezra, closed one red lid, letting it fall slowly over the blurred blind eye. Neither he nor the boy spoke.

Letts brought his squint gaze back to Tess.

"He air comin' home to-morry night?" she repeated questioningly, raising her voice a little with an insistent glance at each fisherman. This time Tess read denial in their faces, but smiled radiantly. What did they knew about it? What did fishermen understand of the student's God … of the faith that would bring Daddy home to her in spite of the twelve grim men, and all her father's enemies in Ithaca. Hadn't she consigned the beloved humpbacked father to Him who held the worlds in the hollow of His hand.

Ben Letts still gazed steadily at Tess, the red eyelids opening wider and wider. She had never been so beautiful before. During the past two months the girl had grown into a woman, into a soulful creature whom the squatter Ben ardently desired for his wife. Ah, he would see to that!

He shoved his great legs up and down before him tumbling these things over in his mind. The taming of such a girl would be his vicious delight. The first thing to do would be to ply the scissors to the red curls. Ben could see that the hair was clean, each curl clinging lovingly to its mate, yet living apart—so different from the matted locks of the Tess he had always known.

"Yer Daddy got good and mad to-day," remarked Jake Brewer abruptly, the deadly silence grating upon his nerves.

"What about?" said Tess sharply.

"Dominie Graves were in the witness-box, and said as how yer pap were a wicked daddy of a wickeder gal, and the jedge made him tell as how ye was so cussed, and yer daddy's humps riz up like a cat's back wet with cold tea."

Tess waited expectantly.

"And the Dominie said as how ye twiggled yer fingers to yer nose at him," continued Jake. "Did ye?"

The pale face went to a deep crimson—she remembered the day well. The Dominie had caught her stealing berries and like all the weaker ones in a strife Tess had used her tongue bitterly—and had twiggled her fingers.

The squatters went away, leaving Tessibel with a new feeling of shame. Ben Letts went with reluctance—he dared not remain. After Skinner had gone the way of all squatters who incurred the penalties of the law, he, Ben Letts, would have the girl for weal or woe.