Tess of the Storm Country Part 40

Her glance sought his for a twinkling, as if she thought he had lost his mind.

She shook her head.

"Nope."

She was not disloyal to Teola in saying this.

"I have offered you all the help a man can give to another human being."

Here his voice broke a little. "All I have offered to do for you, you have refused. Now, if you want me to continue to help your father, you are to tell me whose child it is."

Before the vivid mind of the girl rose the handsome, manly face of the student. Her labor for the child and its mother had been wholly for Frederick's sake--not for anything in the world would she have consented to do what she had done, if it had not been to save him pain.

"Well, 'tain't mine," she drawled after a time, "and it ain't belonging to anyone ye know. It air only a brat what ain't nothin' but a grape-basket to sleep in. And now ye says that if I wants my Daddy saved from the rope, I must tell yer whose it air. I says it ain't mine. And I says as how ye knows a new little bloke when ye sees one. Here it air!

And if ye don't know that it ain't mine, then ye air a bigger fool lawyer than I thinks ye air."

She was speaking rapidly, and had again slipped the cover from the babe, lifting it from its bed. The fire scar was uppermost, and the loud smacking of the half-naked child caused the man to sink into his seat.

The blood-red cheeks of the squatter denoted perfect health. The eyes were wide, confiding and entreating. Young held out his hands and took it from her. Then, for the second time in her life, Tess noted emotion in a man. Once in Daddy Skinner, in the jail--she had given way before it. And now in the strong friend of her father, who laid his face on the body of the infant, and sobbed.

In an instant Tess was on her knees before him.

"Air ye a-blattin' 'cause ye thinks it air my brat? Aw, ye knows it ain't. Ye knows I air but a-takin' care of it till its ma can. If I swears by the student's G.o.d, will ye believe?"

Young rose, white and nervous, from his chair. With tender fingers he placed the little one in the receptacle, set the rag securely between its lips, and turned to Tess.

"I believe you, child," he said wearily. "I thought at first--oh, it was an awful thought for me ... because I love you, Tessibel."

Tess blinked her eyes as if she were looking into a powerful sun. The strong form of the lawyer was bending over her. She lifted her face to his, not realizing the greatness of his love. She only knew that he was her friend--Daddy's friend. She grasped his hands in hers, kissed them tearfully, and took up the basket.

"I were a-goin' with ye on Thursday, but I can't now. Thank ye for believin' me, and I'll work as hard as ye says I must, and if I air a bad brat, then I air sorry."

She had gone out, crying bitterly, before he could say another word; but a happier feeling was in his heart than had been for many weeks. She had promised to work, and in that promise had failed, for the first time, to utter the name of Frederick Graves.

"Tess air a-gettin' stylish," said Mrs. Longman, rattling the newspaper one Sunday morning. "Her name air right here, in print."

"What do it say, Mammy?" asked Ezra, lighting his pipe with a piece of burning paper.

"As how Tessie air a-goin' to see her Daddy, with the big man on the hill."

Ben Letts shoved his big boots from one side to the other, plainly disturbed by the news.

"Folks on the hill air a-doin' better if they minds their own business, I air a-sayin'," grumbled he. "There ain't no reason why Orn Skinner can't go dead, like other squatters has before him."

His red bandana handkerchief sought the blurred blue eye. A pair of pale gray ones from above the smoking pipe of Ezra Longman settled upon Ben Lett's face, with a tightening of the thick lids.

"Tessibel air so sure that her father air innocent that I hopes they prove it," Myra Longman said, trundling her babe to and fro, in the huge wooden rocker.

"There be some folks as knows more than they'll tell," put in Ezra, keeping his eyes upon the squatter Ben.

"And there air folks what thinks they knows a dum sight more than they can prove," replied Ben.

The great white eye jerked open, the crossed blue one twisting to bring Ezra Longman within its vision.

An expression of deadening hate flashed for a moment across the red face, and the white eye closed again. Myra had seen the by-play, and sat up with a gasp. What was there between Ben and her brother?

Placing the child upon her mother's lap, she stirred the stew bubbling in the pot on the stove.

"Scoot, and get an armful of wood, Ezy," ordered she; and no sooner had the tall boy disappeared than she slipped after him.

She stood beside him at the wood pile, staring down upon the crouched form.

"Hold a minute, Ezy," commanded she.

Ezra stood up.

"What air the matter with yer and Ben Letts?"

"Nothin' ain't the matter."

"There air," insisted Myra, "and it air Tess what air a-doin' it. Ben Letts air a-lovin' Tessibel. And ye hates him."

"Yep."

"Tess ain't for none of ye! She ain't like other squatters. The man from the hill says as how Tess can read better'n most gals can, and she has done it all herself."

"Don't care," grunted Ezra, stooping again. "Ben Letts can keep his hands offen her, or I tells what I knows."

This was Myra's chance. She grasped the boy's arm, and twisted him about so that he faced her.

"What can ye tell?"

"Somethin'."

"About Skinner?"

"Yep."

"Ye'd hang Ben Letts if ye could. But ye won't, ye see? Ye'd not hang a man what ought to be in yer own fambly, would ye?"

"If I tells Pa Satisfied that ye said that, Myry," muttered the boy, "he wouldn't wait for the law to handle Ben Letts--he'd shoot his dum head offen him quicker than a cat can blink."

"I knows a hull lot about you, Ezy," warned Myra, "and if ye tells on Ben, I tells on yer, too. I loves Ben Letts, I does!"

"Bid him keep from Tess, then," answered Ezra sulkily, filling his arms with wood. Myra looked after him fearfully.

The trouble between her child's father and her brother had come upon her so suddenly that she had given Ezra another hold upon the man she loved, by telling him her secret.

That afternoon she followed Letts a short distance along the sh.o.r.e toward his cabin. When out of sight of her own home, she ran forward.