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"Scoot!" was all Tess said, and she waved her hand and snapped the pruning shears together derisively. Waldstricker whirled his horse up the lane, and striking the animal with a spur, bounded away. Helen Waldstricker walked nervously up and down the library. Many times during the past hour she had gone to the window and stared out into the night.
She looked down at the floor while she traced a line on it with her toe. "Mebbe," she replied in a very subdued voice. She stood in the door and watched them walk slowly up the hill. Then she turned back into the kitchen. "My God, brat!" sobbed a voice through the hole in the ceiling. "Wasn't that a nice list of beautiful things ye was goin' to buy? Oh, kid, I air bettin' Waldstricker gits me."
He hung his head in shame and the elder man, again mistaking the emotion, ascribed it to diffidence. "Mr. Waldstricker," began Frederick, "you were so kind to my mother and so was Madelene. I'm not fit to marry your sister." "Pshaw, boy, you're too modest!" Waldstricker laughed good-naturedly. "If she's satisfied, that's all there is to it." Turning back to the desk, he seated himself.
Already Ebenezer could see, in his mind's eye, how happy Madelene would be when he brought her the news. The big, dark-faced squatter was standing beside the red-headed girl, and Silander Griggs was hurriedly hunting through a book for the marriage ceremony. "Make it short," gritted Waldstricker to the minister. Tess stood as if she had died standing, her face devoid of blood even to the lips.
They had turned slowly up the hill, when suddenly Helen stopped and slipped her hand into Ebenezer's arm. "There is that old woman you heard read from the fortune pot!" she exclaimed. "Let's step one side until she's passed us? She rarely lets a person go by without speaking." Waldstricker threw up his head arrogantly. "I'm not afraid of the hag," he replied pompously.
I ain't been fer two Sundays, now, 'cause I been feelin' so bad." She raised her eyes full of misery to meet Andy's sympathetic gaze. How could she go after that awful scene nearly three weeks before with Madelene and Frederick? She never could face the Waldstricker family again. "I won't never go to church, ever any more," she mourned presently.
"Yep," she answered, more calmly. "I remember 'im, sure I do! He " Waldstricker interrupted her with a quick interrogation. "We had a little meeting yesterday, didn't we, Miss Tessibel? You didn't wait for me to tell you what I wanted." He delivered this most affably, and Tess counted him very handsome, indeed, when both corners of his mouth went up, but she knew that other trick of those lips.
It was an order from the court recalling the warrant obtained by Ebenezer Waldstricker for Tessibel Skinner's arrest. The constable grinned sheepishly at Waldstricker. "I guess that ends my usefulness here," he said, smiling admiringly at Professor Young. "Good afternoon, miss! Goodday, gentlemen!"
He had said it was the only way she could be of any service, and her great love rose up and demanded the sacrifice. Tess scarcely recognized her own voice when she next spoke. "Did ye tell Madelene I mean Miss Waldstricker ye'd marry her?" she asked. "Well ... yes," stammered Frederick. "And ye ye ye kissed 'er?... Oh, say ye didn't kiss 'er!... Ye didn't, did ye?"
Young turned swiftly, and going to the door, swung out without another word, and Tess hurried upstairs to Boy. Tessibel Skinner's flight left Ebenezer Waldstricker and Graves together on the ragged rocks. The bigger man turned and surveyed the other, scorn, anger and disgust struggling for expression in his face.
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