The Secret of the Storm Country

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ried in green, etched here and there by stretches of winding white road, and crowned by the buildings on the campus of Cornell University. Stretched from the foot of State Street on either side of the Lehigh Valley track lay the Silent City, its northern end spreading several miles up the west shore of the Lake. Its inhabitants were canalers, fishermen and hunters, uneducated, rough and superstitious. They built their little huts in the simplest manner out of packing boxes and rough lumber and r

and sold them in the city and the men worked occasionally, as the fit struck them. But the winters were bitter and cruel. The countryside, buried deep in snow

elpin' Professor Young," said Jake Brewer, t

," answered Longman. The speaker turned a serious face to

thickness of his chest while they tended to conceal the length of his arms. A few months before he'd been in the death hous

from his mouth and smoothed the thready

e me dirt 'nough. If it hadn't been fer T

died, did ye, Orn?" interrupted "Satisfied" Longman

it," he explained. "He writ Tess a letter. He said as how he were

ght "Satisfied" Longman to his feet,

ength any more," said Skinner. "He ain't be

ch to my way o' thinkin', but their pa an' ma set considerable store by 'em ... Ben Letts were a bad 'un, too. It used t

'tweren't till Ezry swore he saw 'im that the lawyer could prove I didn't

him, an' done the killin' they was goin' to hang you fer, up she gits an' takes the brat an' goes of

remark. The other two fell silent. After he'd sat dow

got Ben. Fer myself, I dunno, though. But, if M

nt, Jake took out his pipe and filled it. Holding the

r Tess?"

an' his sister air helpin' the brat sing. It air astonis

too. She sings fer ma 'most every day. I heard her only yesterd

ree minutes, they lapsed into sil

er marry the Student

h, I don't like high born pups like him hangin' '

hes out of his pip

ng, pals," he smiled. "The

some pork an' beans she wants to send up to Mother

an' the brat'll take 'em up the ravine

tood by Tess. She allers says Tess air a goin' to surprise us all. She says as how the brat'll be ric

from Auburn," added Skinner, "when i

f the shack with a

years ago she'd lose her brats in a sto

fisherman directed his steps toward his own ho

ig body. The path, an outcropping ledge of the precipitous cliff, was very narrow because of the unusually high level o

re of hateful publicity had been thrown, without warning, upon him and his motherless brat. He'd been torn away from his quiet haunts at the lake side and shut up in the narrow confines of a fetid cell. The enforced separation from his daughter, at

ve and courage and had disciplined her high temper and awakened her ambition. The dirt and disorder that had formerly obtained in the shack had disap

their whispering leaves. Their bare limbs thrashed and pounded the tin roof when the storm winds tore down the lake. In front and to one side, Tessibel's new privet hedge shone a dark, dusky green, and the flower

n met his daughter and w

mid the ceaseless struggles against the hardships of the Storm Country, gave to her slender body strength and lent to it poise and grace. Bright brown eyes lighted by loving intelligence illumined her face, tanned by sun and wind, but very sweet and winsome, especially when the cu

p of a small country town, while Cayuga Lake gleamed and glistened in the moonlight, as if fairies were tumbling it with powdered fingers.

erself on one elbow. Her sleep-laden eyes fell upon the white light slanting across the rough

wice the head disappeared, and as suddenly returned, poised a moment, then, like an image moving across a screen, was gone. Instantly Tess sat straight up in bed. Perhaps one of the squatters needed her. She crept to the floor, yawning, tiptoed to the door, and u

being no dearer than those flying by night. She felt no deeper thrills for the bright-winged bir

of friend or stranger, answered the persuasive importunity of Tessibel. But, after she was again in the doorway, she heard north of the shanty the crackling of twigs as

and looked at her. His twisted smile of greeting brought an exclamation of love from the girl. All the inhabitants of the Silent City knew this crippled old man could play on

for a pail of water, and she spran