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Updated: May 8, 2025
After a lapse of what seemed ages to the waiting girl, Frederick gathered courage, and began, "Tess, I've told you how very ill my mother is, haven't I?" "Yes, an' I air awful sorry, dearie," she murmured. The compassion he aroused subdued her voice to a whisper. "And she's asked me to do something for her and I've got to do it, Tessibel," faltered Frederick. "Sure ye have," Tess agreed.
Then, something impelled him to do the very thing he had decided would be fruitless. One bound took him through the piles of snow at the side of the road. The lawyer bent down, his heart tightening with fear. A human being lay close to the fence. Young quickly pulled the face into the moonlight. The quiet, death-like form was Tessibel Skinner.
The student had not limited the power of the cross; but Tess had discovered its limitations in Ezra Longman's statement limitations that made her quiver with pain, as she pictured the evil thing which darkly menaced her loved one. "He air a damn liar," burst forth Jake Brewer, "the jedge ain't said no words what Ezy says he has." Tessibel heard and understood.
It was about three o'clock when Tessibel ushered the little man up the ladder and displayed the clean attic. "'Tain't high 'nough fer me to stand up in," she told him, "but ye'll get along all right, an' I air goin' to fix ye somethin' so ye can see to read.... Can ye read?" "Sure, I can read." Andy's voice rang with pride. "My ma, she's dead now, she learned me how, she did!"
Tessibel had not spoken to the minister's daughter since her father had been taken away to Auburn, and some of the intensity Tess had felt upon that one great day of her life came back to her as she stood hesitant, watching the student's sister. Perhaps the girl was weeping for some pleasure denied her perhaps for a jewel to wear about her neck.
"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.
"Ye allers was a funny gal, Tessibel," ruminated Mrs. Longman. "Now Ezy says that yer takin' a likin' to such things as toads, lizards and snakes, shows as how ye needs some one to help ye. God'll make ye a happy mother if ye'll keep yer nose low in the air, and not think too much of yer betters." Ezra, then, had told his mother of the student. A frown deepened on the girl's brow.
Teola turned a puzzled face toward the fishermaid, but there was nothing about the girl to tell her why the accident had happened, for Tessibel, grappling with a huge cloth, was wiping the floor furiously. "I was saying, Tess," repeated Teola, "that I may not come down to-morrow.... Oh! hear how it rains, and the thunder!... Tess, since he died, and the baby came, thunder-storms make me shiver."
"I's a-goin' for a stick of wood!" As Tessibel walked past him, Ben did not stop her squatters never saved steps for their women. The girl flung open the door, but hesitated on the threshold. During the instant of her indecision, a silent panorama of night passed before her. Heavy rain clouds dipped almost to the dark water, obscuring the city and the University hill beyond.
"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.
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