Tess of the Storm Country

y and dazedly she closed the door. She remembered the day she had talked the warts off from Graves' hand-remembered how he had said to her that she was possessed of the devil. Just what th

d the fisherman's child had had little chance to see him. He had said that the cross and crown would save her dadd

him, his fat white belly sunken and misshapened. The very stillness of him made the girl round him in a circle, watching him with an intentness wh

ftly, "but I ain't no more. Ye wouldn't hurt the

softened her grief, and through Frederick Graves, for the sake of her lo

ng left for her to do save to rescue Daddy Skinner from the black cap, and she must see him before the

tastic figure in Tessibel's eyes. It took the form of a venerable old man and it had been one of her vivid imaginings, since she could remember, that some time the man shaped against the skies would step down in the flesh. Tess had grown to love him in sunshine and in rain-to watch him in silent, mystified longing as he bent towar

she breathed, "hel

f and the student's admonition had made

ed the long fishing dock, rowing to the bobbing little fish car which held Daddy's eels. She pulled out the nail, and holding up the top of the car, ran h

e half circles, turning over and over until as he neared the edge of the table Tessibel caught him. Longer the girl's eyes rested upon t

"ye can stay there and let me pet ye

it was for Daddy's sake-he was more to her than all of nature's creatures. With expert fingers, she sent the life from the twisting eels, and gathering them into a small bag, Tessibel slung them over her arm and broke off into the

f a small dark hut set deeply in the opposite bank of a ravine, through which water was

st a broken window. Although on friendly terms with Mother Moll, Tess had always stood in awe of her, but the squatter girl had infinite confidence in the future events foretold by the witch. To-night s

ving no answer, she sent another pealing sound throug

voice came

e do ye want here, at th

Moll. I wants y

d come agin

goin' to see ye to-night. I air goin'

k room,-the whizzing of insects overhead coming dimly to her through the rocking of the shanty. On

growled the hag, "be it the headless man from Hayte's place wha

words. Tess did not answer, but waited until Mother Moll

said she, opening the bag, and displaying the

n the shore," asked the hag suspicio

Tess. "It hurts them to lug them livin' out of th

all iron pot. The bats had ceased the infernal flapping of their grotesque wings, and were clinging tremb

laugh she always answered questions as to her age with the assertion that she was "nigh on to two hundred a

shoulders, drawn down by great age, held a head grizzled and shriveled. A few tufts of gray hair hung over the ragged wrapper-like garment which cov

l asked again peering into the pot, "no-it ain

coming forward, and sinking dow

e squaw and her burnt

faltered Tess, with

e shadder

bubbling kettle while the red-bro

oop in the end," w

n. The awfulness-the loneliness of her despair made her whimper brokenly behind a

as she described the instrument of death. Tessibel's head was now close to the hag's.

, and air there humps under

the gray straggling locks mingling with the copper curls, and the youthful sho

s above and blinded by the light of the candle, thrashed its zig-zag course about the shanty, banging first the window, then the door,

d held the whirling stick the hag's bony finger po

"big round humps standin' out as

ied in a hoa

mps, but there

he witch's words that she sank back

reathed slowly, hardly

a dead man, but his face ain't a showin'. There air another

per," fill

, as Tessibel leaned over to follow

ent on, "a child alone, and dead th

addy Skinner coming back to the shanty? The dragon blood sputtered, boiling higher and hi

ll and a man

humps?" ga

y-grizzled head. Tessibel wound her

ss with a Christ

ark mixture, her eyes squinting to

air hurt, and be there

ded blue eyes of the hag, the dark wide-spread ones o

oss for ye, brat, to

hrist a bearin'

uttered a curse. The rain tore its way through the small dirty room; the bats loosened their hold upon the wooden rafters and circled

forcing the door bespoke evil for Daddy. With

there air a cross with a Christ hangin' to i

time filling her with a strange mysterious fear, Tessibel went. She turned into the dark forest of w