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Tess turned from them, and went to the window again. Darkness had now fallen without, but she put her face to the pane as though to peer into the gloom. It was really to hide her tears. If she could only believe what the children were singing; if she were only sure, how different all would now be; how confidently she would leave them to Providence and their future kingdom!
"Does he seem all hid, Daddy Skinner?" queried she. The squatter walked to the head of the cot and peered from all points of vantage. "He sure air, kid," he chuckled. "I can't see nothin' but a row of red curls a mile long. Andy'll git back in the garret all right if Burnett don't pull you off'n that bed." "He won't do that," said Tess. "Jesus'll see I stay on it, I bet."
"Ben Letts, too," added the squatter girl. "And the brat," finished Longman. Tess, startled, lifted up her head. "The brat! I had forgot him," she muttered. "He air dead, too?" "Yep. He air here." Longman drew down the sheet still further, exposing the lifeless baby. The thin little body lay between the father and mother. For many minutes they surveyed the dead trio in rapt attention.
"Thank you, dear," drifted from the depths of the child's box. "And forgive me all the sorrow I have caused you." "I has forgivin' ye," assured Tess, seating herself. "I were sorry about the student, though." "I know, I know; and perhaps God won't forgive me, for I've been so wicked! I make up my mind every night, when I can't sleep, that I will tell; then in the daylight I am afraid."
Luck seems to be a thing I lack. Now, if I had picked up that letter I've a notion that the information in it would have saved me a year's work." Tess was quite sure that Tom had not picked the letter up, but there was no need to betray her knowledge. "Do you mean you'd have opened a letter you picked up in my garden?" she demanded. His eyes accepted her challenge. "Why not?" "But why? Surely "
For the space of many minutes only the smacking of the baby lips upon the sugar rag and the roaring of the turbulent wind were heard in the hut. Suddenly the vibrations of a great peal of thunder shook the shanty with violent effect; a streak of lightning shot zig-zaggedly through the room like some livid, malicious spirit. Teola screamed in terror. "It hit some place near here," said Tess.
Can't you fashion a harness and some kind of a cart for him so that we can take turns riding Dot and me? He used to draw Sam Pinkney." "Glo-ree!" grumbled the colored man again. "I kin see where I got my han's full wid disher goat I do!" "But you can, Uncle Rufus?" said Tess. "Oh, yes, chile. I s'pect so.
But that sense of her having morally no claim upon him had always led Tess to suspend her impulse to send these notes; and to the family at the Vicarage, therefore, as to her own parents since her marriage, she was virtually non-existent.
Almost as much as in Yasmini's daring they took ingenuous delight in Tess, persuading Yasmini to interpret questions and reply or, very rarely, bringing with them some duenna who had a smattering of English. All imprisoned folk, and especially women in the shuttered zenanas of the East, develop a news-sense of their own that passes the comprehension of free-ranging mortals.
Dot held to her first belief in the personal existence of Saint Nick, and although Tess had some doubts as to his real identity, she would not for the world have said anything to weaken Dot's belief.
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