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Her eyes, strained with convulsive fright, lifted one moment to the sky, and her glance fell directly upon the giant pine whose branches formed the image of her fantastic God. Her lips fell apart with a gasp she fancied her Deity sent her an assurance of aid. "Goddy Goddy," was her petition, "for the love of yer Christ ... and the student."
With fast-falling tears she bowed over the wailing baby, and stood up with a long breath. "Goddy, Goddy, it air hard work for ye to forgive Tessibel, I knows.... To-day I loved the student best" a sob tightened her throat "to-night I love you best, and ... and the Man hanging on the Cross."
"Goddy knows," he burst out again, "it's solemn enough around here anyhow with Sim Caley's old woman like a grave hole, and now you go and get it too.... Berry might put up with it, and Sim's just fool-hearted, but a regular man wouldn't abide it, he'd he'd go to Paris, where the women are civilized and dance all night."
He wiped the mouth on his sleeve and passed it to Gordon; then held the gurgling vessel to his open throat. "There was some hell raised last night," he proceeded; "a man from up back had his head busted with a stone, and a drunken looney shot through the women's tent: an old girl hollered out they had Goddy right in there among 'em."
He worked until the figures swam before his eyes, when he laid aside the pen, and picked up the Bugle, glancing carelessly over the first page. His attention immediately concentrated on the headlines of the left-hand column, his gaze had caught the words, "Tennessee and Northern." "Goddy!" he exclaimed aloud; "they've got it in the Bugle, the railroad coming and all."
The prisoner's great horny hand descended upon the curly head and for a moment the fingers of the girl tried to pry the wrinkled eyelids open. Her singing ceased, and she spoke no great orator ever had a more intense audience. "It air it air Tess, Daddy Skinner, did ye think that her had forgot and Goddy?" Everyone in the room heard the musical voice.
He might get them all together, explain, persuade.... Goddy! it was for their good. They needn't be cross-grained. There it would be, the offer, for them to take or leave. But, if they delayed, watch out! Railroad people couldn't be fooled with. They might get left; that was all. This, he felt, was more than he could undertake, more than any reasonable person would ask.
With the same sublime expression of suffering, she went back to the open door and knelt in the beating rain, and tendered the little child toward the God of her dreams. "Might'n it please ye, Goddy, to bless the brat and Tess?" The student was no longer the motive power of her prayer. Tess, the squatter, was struggling with a new faith of her own.
"I air Daddy's brat," she urged with a smile, "and Goddy in the sky said as how Daddy Skinner would come home with Tessibel ... He air to go with me, ain't he?" Her voice, raised in sudden entreaty, the long eyes filled with an anguished anxiety, sent a pang of pity unknown before through the heart of the judge. The audience rose as one man only a swish and another dead silence.
Pete, puzzled that the girl did not join him in his play as usual, came back and stood in front of her and looked up into her face. She turned to the old pine tree, her familiar friend, and extended her arms to the God of her exalted faith. "Goddy, dear, goodest Goddy," she prayed, "bless my Frederick wherever he air an' help Tessibel to die in in the spring."
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