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In parting, Waldstricker shook hands with Frederick, and placing his hand on the boy's shoulder said with genuine emotion in his voice, "Make her happy, my boy, and there's nothing in the world too good for you." Frederick went into the sunshine, his head in a whirl. Waldstricker's promises unfolded visions of ease and success surpassing in splendor his wildest dreams.
She stepped to the shanty door, gave the sound which warned Andy of a stranger's approach, and was back again when Waldstricker's great black horse came in sight. Opposite her, he drew his steed to a standstill and bowed curtly. Tess had never seen his lips so sternly set, not even when he had dragged her from Mother Moll's hut. She made no move to go to him.
Waldstricker's hands ain't dragged me back to Auburn, an' God's hands has kept me here.... You showed me that from the beginnin', eh, brat?... It's sure, ain't it?" He hunched himself nearer her, his face beautiful with faith. "Ain't it true, kid?" "Sure! Sure, it air true!" faltered Tessibel.
Just before Boy Skinner's birth, Frederick and Madelene had gone to San Francisco. A place had been made for him in Waldstricker's office there and Madelene felt the continent none too wide to put between her husband and the Skinner girl, but her efforts to win his affection had been a complete failure.
Young nodded, and Tess rose and started toward the stairs. Passing Sandy and Waldstricker, she had to draw aside her skirts to avoid touching them. The dwarf, seated on the floor beside Boy, was mending a train of cars when Tessibel's white face appeared at the door. "Andy," she said, trying to speak calmly. "Remember about the hands stronger'n Waldstricker's? Nobody can hurt you. But but "
Frederick Graves had just left Tess at the shanty door. He had found it difficult to explain away his conduct on the evening of the musicale at Waldstricker's. "It were awful," sobbed Tess, after Frederick had mollified her anger somewhat. "I wanted to die! Ye looked like some big man I didn't know 't all." "Silly baby," laughed the student.
She stood very near the wall as she bent dizzily to slip them on. All the time her soul was looking upward for the eternal answer, an answer from a power stronger than Waldstricker's. Then she went slowly to the little box where she kept her hat. After brushing her hair back, she pinned it on in front of the mirror. Today well, now she was dressed, ready to go. She turned and came forward.
Daddy Skinner's face grew furtive with fear. "Why well now, s'posin' Andy Bishop ye remember Andy, the little man I told ye about, the weenty, little dwarf who squatted near Glenwood?" Tess nodded, and the fisherman went on, hesitant. "He were accused of murderin' " "Waldstricker Ebenezer Waldstricker's father?" interjected Tess. "Sure, I remember!" Her eyes widened in anxiety.
Their heavy breathing and Ma Brewer's sobs mingled with the ticking of the clock and the storm's racket against the hut sides. She studied the whip and tested its hissing pliability. That tip had stung Boy beyond endurance. The length of it had put him in his grave. Waldstricker's hands had tortured her son. She would make his daughter pay the reckoning. She drew a deep breath and raised her arm.
She bowed her head and silently went through the baleful glare he cast upon her down the stairs and out of the mansion to which she had been brought a happy bride. Gloom lay over the Silent City. Bitter hatred burned in the simple heart of every squatter. Waldstricker's open enmity had expressed itself in a series of injuries, calculated to enrage them.
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