Tess of the Storm Country Part 49

"I air a-goin' to have it," she insisted. "Take yer hand offen that handle."

Graves gasped for breath, but did not relax his hold upon the pail. With a motion as quick as lightning flashes, Tess lowered her head, and set her teeth into the Dominie's fat white hand. A cry of pain escaped him, and he opened his fingers.

"I said as how I got to have the milk--and--and I air got it! Open that door!"

Tess shrieked out the last words, her eyes, full of hatred, bent upon Graves. Frederick strode forward, turned the key in the lock, and Tess sprang out.

Tessibel ran swiftly through the orchard, out into the lane, her rage dying out in her fear for the babe. She had never left him so long before. Her flesh still tingled from the Dominie's blows, but her admission before Frederick that she was compelled to steal hurt her worse than the blue welts rising upon her shoulders. She regretted, too, that she had bitten the clergyman's hand, but that had been done for the baby--little Dan had to live.

She came to an alert standstill in front of the cabin. She saw the light from a candle flickering out through the window. Tess was sure she had left the hut dark--she had extinguished the light just before going out for the milk. Who was in the hut? Or had she made a mistake, and left the candle there? For the sake of the child she had to enter. She set down the pail, lifted her skirt, wiped away the traces of tears. Then, flinging wide the door, she came upon Ben Letts.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

Ben was standing beside the bed, with the open grape-basket in his hand, looking down intently upon the child. His one eye flashed past Tess in its blindness, while the watery one with the red veins running through it distorted itself into a squint, and brought its evil gaze upon her.

The fat chin, covered with a stubby growth of hair, shook with malicious pleasure, the dark teeth set grimly through the brown, tobacco-stained lips.

"It air a brat!" he said at last, Tess standing paralyzed. "Air its Pappy the--"

He did not finish. Tess s.n.a.t.c.hed the basket from his hand, and covered the whining babe.

"Ye be allers snoopin' yer nose in some one's else's business," she said darkly, her fear of him growing with each minute. "Ye can't keep from my hut any day, and ye ain't no right here nuther."

"I telled ye and the student that the time'd come when I'd get even with ye both--and it air here!... It air here, I say!"

"The student ain't nothin' to do with this here brat," retorted Tess.

"Ye thinks as how ye knows a heap.... Well, ye don't.... And it air time for ye to be a-goin' now, Ben Letts!"

"I air a-goin' to stay," said he, "Daddy's" stool creaking under his weight.

From a tree near the forest Tess could hear the screech of a night-owl die away in smothered laughter. The sc.r.a.ping of the willow on the tin roof came dimly to her in the silence. If some other squatter would only come along! G.o.d had always saved her from Ben Letts.--Dared she pray?

Her eyes sought the window. If she could only see the pine-tree G.o.d!--send Him a little pet.i.tion--He would forgive and save her. Dominie Graves had gone completely from her mind; only a wish, a desperate wish, came to escape the man who had constantly thrown his menacing shadow across the path of her life. Suddenly her bosom heaved. A verse was thrown bomb-like into her mind. Tess opened her lips and muttered, keeping her eyes upon the fisherman.

"If ye have faith as the grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain--"

The time between the present and that night the student had left her in bitter sorrow faded. In her imagination she was alone in the rain, with the child upon her hands, offering it up to the dark G.o.d for a blessing.

The same uplifting faith was upon her. The Crucified Savior would protect her.

"I believe! I believe!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. No soul-desiring thought of Frederick interrupted her uprising faith. She needed him no more to pray for her.

"A mustard-seed air--a--a mighty little thing, ain't it, Ben Letts?"

Tess stood up, looking beyond him like one in a dream.

"Yep," grunted the fisherman, staring.

He had never understood the moods of Tess. She was as incomprehensible to him as the myriads of stars that strung themselves through the sky.

But his inability to understand her made him desire the girl the more.

He had come at an hour when he was sure Tess would be alone. He would force her to come to his cabin, to marry him even before her father was hanged. Ben's eyes settled again upon the basket. Through his heavy senses sifted a wave of hatred for the miserable child, whining for the milk Tess had stolen. Ben moved his great feet, tearing up a long splinter from a broken board with his worn-down heel. It startled Tess from her reverie. In upon her faith came the sickening thought of Frederick, his confidence in her blasted and gone; it choked a prayer that lingered upon her lips. Ben rose to his feet, an oath belching from his ugly mouth.

"Put down that basket. Put it down, I says!"

Never had it entered her mind before to conciliate the dark-browed fisherman who had pestered her with his attentions, but her frightened womanhood caught at the idea.

"Wait till I gives him somethin' to eat," she said stolidly. "If he yaps, someone'll hear him."

Ben sat down and watched her narrowly. Tessibel had grown so beautiful in the last few months that the brute force in the man rose in his desire to possess her. There was one way to bring the girl on her knees to him, one way to bow the proud red head--the little child made no difference to him. And some day he would get even with the student, too.

The small bare feet of the squatter girl noiselessly plied their way from the smoking stove to the sugar-bowl, thence to the basket. Tess held the warm, sweet milk to the infant's lips, lifting the withered chin that the child might drink the better. Her mind was working rapidly. How should she escape and rescue the babe? She went back for more milk, wetting the corner of the cloth and wiping little Dan's face. Then she gazed straight at Ben Letts, and said,

"How air yer mammy?"

It seemed the most natural thing that she should ask this of him.

"She air well," answered Ben, thrown off his guard. He took out his pipe, and continued:

"When ye comes to the shanty, ye can't bring that brat."

"Nope; I ain't a-goin' to bring him," Tess replied, whispering a prayer for aid.

"What be ye goin' to do with it?"

"I don't know yet." A muttered pet.i.tion fell over the baby's face, but she said aloud: "I think it air a-goin' to croak."

"I's a-thinkin' so, too," Ben said thoughtfully. "He hes the look of death on his mug, Tessibel.... Air it yer brat?"

"He air mine now," she answered slowly, raising her head, "and I stays here with him till he dies."

"Nope; ye be a-comin' to my shanty to-morry. Mammy air expectin' ye....

And ye'll be glad to come--afore I gets done with ye!"

Tess s.h.i.+vered. She remembered Myra's broken wrist, and heard again the woful cry from the other squatter girl as she told of the harm done her.

If she could get out of the shanty, she could run from him, but that would leave the child to his mercy. She glanced toward the door.

Whatever came to her, she must protect the babe. Lifting him from his bed, she sat down at the oven, and extended the blue legs toward the heat.

"He air so d.a.m.n thin," she said in excuse, "that he allers yaps if he air cold.... Have ye seen Myry's kid lately?"

"Yep; to-day. He air a-growin' a little more pert."

"Glad for Myry," was Tessibel's comment.

"Ye ain't heard nothin' from yer Daddy, have ye?" asked Ben, presently.

"Yep. I had a letter from him. He air a-comin' to the shanty as soon as he air out."