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Updated: May 16, 2025
The angry man on the threshold effectually prevented her. Mrs. Waldstricker turned down the hall and went to her own room. She could hardly comprehend the untoward disaster that had destroyed the whole fabric of her life at one stroke. The blood was throbbing at her temples and pounding through her body. Her ears rang; her face burned and she was trembling all over.
"Yes, it looked, when I came around the corner, as if you didn't want him, miss," scoffed the elder. Then he laughed, and the laugh cut the throbbing girl to the quick. "Very much as if you wanted him to go.... Now, then, sir, what's this girl to you?" "I'm nothing to him, Mr. Waldstricker," she asserted, without giving Frederick a chance to speak.
"I air goin' now, an'll never come no more, but don't ask me to say nothin', please." She turned into the aisle as Griggs stepped from the platform. She directed an appealing glance toward him that cut the man's heart through like a knife. "I want to go," she repeated. "Please!" "Not yet," broke in Waldstricker, grim-jawed. "It's the duty of this church to teach you a lesson if it can."
She chilled to the bone, nor dared look again. When the song was finished, she sat down limply. Deforrest Young, strangely stirred, took her hand. "Sweet child," he murmured, "it was delightful! Lovely!" At the same moment Waldstricker was bending over Helen Young. "My dear, how ambitious you are for so young a pupil!" he laughed. "There's nothing she can't sing," she replied, rising.
Then she told me that she was on her way to a seeress, Mother Moll, she called her, wasn't it?" "Yes," assented Young, nodding his head. "The old woman lives on the north side of the gully." Waldstricker bent forward and pursued. "I went into the hut with the girl." He stopped and his lip took an upward curve. "The old hag tells fortunes from a pot, a steaming pot full of boiling water, I think."
"She won't learn it from me," promised Ebenezer. "Nor from me," agreed Frederick. "I've no wish to have a whining woman hanging to my neck." Waldstricker muttered an oath under his breath. "Well, of all the contemptible pups in the world!" he snorted. "Talk of ingratitude! Here's a girl, a good girl, too, and Madelene's that " "No one said she wasn't," snapped Graves.
"What's the matter between you and Madelene?" he inquired presently, fixing Frederick with a steady gaze. "Nothing.... Nothing, that I'm to blame for. Madelene followed me to the lake and found me in Skinner's shack. That's all the row was about." "Why were you there?" Waldstricker did not change his tone.
How cruel he had looked and how strong his hands were! Once, some one had said Waldstricker's hands were stronger than God's. But, no, that wasn't true! She and Andy had proved it false. It was just that Waldstricker didn't like her; he didn't like any of the squatters, that's why he made her go away. Probably, he wasn't as glad as she thought he'd be to get his baby back.
The words had scarcely left his lips before both husband and wife heard the approach of sleigh-bells. "He's coming now," said Mrs. Waldstricker, and she rose and started to the window. "Sit down and don't look as if you were going to die," her husband commanded. "But perhaps you'd better go to your room while I'm explaining the thing to him."
"Yes," she decided, "you're all very satisfactory, Tess." Then to her brother, "Now, let's go, dear." When Deforrest drove his horses up the long roadway leading to the Waldstricker mansion, Tessibel noticed the house was lighted from cellar to garret, that a long line of vehicles was making its slow way to the porch. Her heart fluttered with embarrassment.
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