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Updated: June 24, 2025
"All the girls in town are going and Dan will take care of me. We are going in separate sleighs to Slaterville. I'm going, mother, and that's all there is to it." "It seems to me that you are growing rather friendly with that young Jordan, Teola," her father said. "He's been here every night for a week, hasn't he?"
"Oh, I I want to die. Dear God! Dear, good God! Dan!... Dan, I want to come to you!" In the presence of such grief Tessibel was silent. She covered the infant again, and for some minutes she sat by the bed, with her fingers tightly pressed in those of Teola. It was a tragedy with which Tess could not cope.
"I know better," she retorted decidedly. "You have been having words with father." "No, not words," replied the boy, "but you see father thinks that no one can have any ideas but himself. It sort of makes me tired, for sometimes I know when a thing is right or wrong." "What was the matter?" insisted Teola once more. "The Skinners," replied Frederick slowly. "You mean the squatters?" "Yes."
"You won't steal again ever? Will you?" demanded he. Tessibel struggled to speak. At last there came a fluttered confession, which made Teola Graves shiver like an aspen leaf. If she could only summon courage to tell her arrogant father the truth! She could not bear to look upon her squatter friend, nor upon Frederick's white face. "I has to steal," said Tess.
She was watching from between the tatters of the ragged curtain, and noted that Teola had not come down the hill with her brother. This disturbed the squatter, for the baby's mother had looked ill when she left the day before, with the resolution to tell the student her secret.
The minister leaned far over his flock, as he finished this impressive text. His eyes fell upon Deacon Hall's pew, then upon his own in which sat his wife with Babe near her. Frederick was between Teola and the little girl, and they were all earnestly watching their father something was going to happen, but they did not know what.
The girls eyed each other for one embarrassed moment. The day for separation was at hand: Tess would face the lean winter, Teola the burden of a conscience in torment. "Come in," muttered Tess. "Tessibel," Teola burst out spontaneously, "we are going away to-morrow. I wish I were going to stay with you and the baby!"
"Tessibel, I do love him, even if I disowned him. But I haven't the courage you have. You looked so beautiful when you said he was yours.... And Frederick is ill to-day." Tessibel's heart thumped loudly. "I heard him crying all night, Tess," went on Teola, "and, oh! so many times I wanted to go and tell him that you were a good girl; but I didn't have the courage.
That it had brought disaster to Teola Graves showed in the tired eyes as they rested on the sky, gray with the coming morning. She had stolen silently into the house, reaching her chamber without disturbing either father or mother. At the window she halted. Here and there a star sparkled, dying dim in the advancing sky.
"Tess, would you dare?" gasped she. "Yep! The little brat has to go. I takes him." The fisher-girl clambered to her feet, and shoved another log into the stove. "It air a chilly night," she commented, "and the ghosts air a-howling like mad, 'cause Ma Moll's been here. She can raise spirits any time of night." Teola evidently did not hear.
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