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Updated: May 8, 2025
The next day, directly after the midday meal, Tessibel went to see Mrs. Longman, whose triple tragedy had made the woman an invalid, with broken nerves and useless hands. Every few days since the drowning of Myra Longman and Ben Letts and the baby, the squatter girl had carried to the sick woman some little offering to gladden her lonely existence.
Tessibel had grown so beautiful in the last few months that the brute force in the man rose in his desire to possess her. There was one way to bring the girl on her knees to him, one way to bow the proud red head the little child made no difference to him. And some day he would get even with the student, too.
Then he slowly knocked the ashes from its bowl, giving it a final rap in the hollow of his hand. "Every day me an' ma miss Myry an' Ezry more," said he, stolidly. "Us uns just plumb lately made up our minds both them kids was too good to live, but us uns'd be awful satisfied to know if they air happy." Tessibel brightened. She flashed a radiant smile at the sad-faced man.
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!"
Suddenly the clenched fist of the girl flew up and struck the fisherman with a swiftness and force that took him from his feet. Tessibel was standing over him rigidly. "I hates ye, I hates ye, I'd ruther marry yep, I'd ruther marry my toad or a man as ugly as him than you, Ezry Longman, does yer hear, does yer hear?" The lumbering body raised itself from the ground.
As these thoughts floated past him, he saw the young squatter wither under a giggle from a girl in the corner. "Look at her feet," were the words that changed Tessibel's frankness to embarrassment, her eager pathos to wofulness. Tessibel shrank close to the door, for the first time realizing how out of place she was. "I were I were a fool to come, but but "
"It air a seemly night for the men to fish," commented Myra when Tessibel had seated herself again. "I air always a hopin' that nothin' will happen to none of them." "The hull bunch air cute," assured Tessibel, "and Daddy can row faster than any man on this here lake." "But when them game men gets after 'em with the permit to shoot, that's what I fears," complained Mrs. Longman and she sighed.
"Yer Daddy won't live allers," interposed Mrs. Longman, "and what's more, yer better off with a man what will look after ye as Ezy will. Be ye a thinkin' of it at all, Tessibel?" The girl shook her head. "Nope, 'taint no use; don't like Ezy anyway." "Ezry ain't the worst boy in the world," defended the mother; "if the right woman gets him, Tess, he'll make her a good man.
In a low voice, Tessibel began to sing; nor did she take her hand from the thin arm lying inertly on the sheet. "Rescue the Perishin'; Care for the Dyin'." came forth like the chanting of the chimes. When the words, "Jesus is merciful," followed, Bennet put up his hand and touched the girl's fingers. Tessibel closed her own over his.
Daddy's boots impeded her speed and one after the other she kicked them off. She could hear the man running after her, shouting his rage into her tingling ears. He was gaining upon the girl and commanded her to stop. "If I get my claws on ye once," he growled, "it'll be bad for ye." Tessibel heard and flew faster.
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