Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 16, 2025
"Read that letter; then you'll see why I'm angry," said Ebenezer Waldstricker to Helen one morning after he had frowningly perused a letter from Madelene. "Her last two have had a touch of this thing in them, too. If I find " He stopped because his wife had dropped her eyes and begun to read. "Dear Eb: "Your letters have come along one after another, but they haven't made me feel happier.
She turned toward her father, but his red lids were closed, and he was breathing heavily. "Daddy goes to sleep awful easy!" she excused to all three. Then she told Waldstricker, "Yep, Daddy said the man broke out o' jail." The man she spoke to looked keenly at her. "The officers feel pretty sure he'll make his way down the lake side," he explained, "eventually landing among his own people."
Why, he couldn't belong to Madelene Waldstricker! Like a deer, Tess sped along the rocks in the direction of the lane. A night bird brushed a slender wing against her curls as he shot by her. To him she paid no heed save to swerve a little. Wildly, twice, three times she cried, "Frederick!" An owl hooted a mocking response from the willow tree nearby. "Frederick!
Before Waldstricker could mount and ride back up the lane, Tess had picked up the boy from the snow where he had fallen. Without waiting an instant, she fled frantically toward the house. "Andy! Andy!" she screamed. Andy came downstairs as fast as his little legs could carry him. "Waldstricker's killed Boy!" gasped Tess. "Andy, get something.... Tell Mother Moll.... Some water!"
And when he had her, he'd carry out all the brutalities conceived in the long nights in his cell. He'd find out the father of her boy. If that duffer, Waldstricker, could discover it, he could. He'd make Tess tell. He'd show Young, too. He'd get even with the lawyer for helping send him to Auburn.
Still snarling in pain, she lifted one shaking arm and pointed a crooked forefinger at Waldstricker. "She won't always stay with ye, ye skunk ye!" Then she staggered away, Helen and Ebenezer staring after her until she was lost in the gloom of the gully. "Isn't she dreadful?" Ebenezer said, with a rueful laugh. "She's so old," was Helen's gentle reproof. "She's not accountable for anything.
She lifted her shaking, wizened face and thrust it so near the man that he drew back with a rough ejaculation. Then smiling a wide, toothless smile, she laid her finger on her lips. Drawing it away again, she mumbled. "Hair stranglin' 'em both, same as you, long curls like snakes stranglin' all of ye. God! what hair!" Waldstricker, with flashing eyes, suddenly got to his feet.
"Wasn't that a funny thing for him to do, Ebbie?" Waldstricker pushed back angrily. "Funny! Funny!" he ejaculated. "It isn't decent, and I've told him so, too." Frederick's face flushed, and he toyed nervously with the silver at the side of his plate. "But, Ebenezer, you don't mean she's living with him, do you?" he faltered, leaning forward.
"I want her and I want her right away." Madelene fell back a step, wax-white. "Elsie!" she echoed. "Isn't she home?" "Madelene," Ebenezer began in a deadening voice, "you know me well enough not to play with me like this. Where's my daughter?" Madelene's hands came together. "She's not here!... She's home, Ebbie, dear, she must be!" "She's not!" fell from Waldstricker. "Call Helen!"
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.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking