"Yes; yes, it is baptismal Sunday. Deacon Hall's new baby is to be baptized, and lots of others, too!"
"Then yer brat air goin' to be sprinkled with 'em," decided Tessibel.
"Tess!" gasped Teola. "How? How?... I should die if I had to take him to the church."
"I takes him," replied Tess grimly. "I takes him, and I says to yer pappy, 'Dominie, I knows that ye don't like me nor my Daddy, but here air a brat what air sick to death.... He can't find God by hisself 'cause he air too little, and God won't try and find him if he ain't sprinkled. Will ye do it?'"
Teola shifted her position, and looked into the squatter's face. It was gleaming with heavenly resolve and uplifted faith.
"Tess, would you dare?" gasped she.
"Yep! The little brat has to go. I takes him."
The fisher-girl clambered to her feet, and shoved another log into the stove.
"It air a chilly night," she commented, "and the ghosts air a-howling like mad, 'cause Ma Moll's been here. She can raise spirits any time of night."
Teola evidently did not hear. Her eyes were fixed upon the face of the babe, her mouth twitching nervously at the corners. She wondered silently what her father would say when Tess presented the child for baptism on Sunday morning. She could imagine her own happiness after it was all over. She thought she would get better for a time. She remembered how her mother had worried over her cough, how her father had advised with the best doctors of the city; but they had gravely shaken their heads, saying that the girl might grow out of it; they hoped she would. But day by day she had seen herself growing more and more slender, more and more fragile-looking. And, as Teola knelt over the child in the flickering candlelight, Tess shivered superstitiously. The young mother was so white that the squatter could almost have imagined her one of Ma Moll's ghosts.
"They be a-callin' ye from yer house," remarked Tess, after a long stillness.
"Yes, I hear them.... It is my father. But I am so tired that it seems as if I could never climb the hill. I'll see you a minute to-morrow, Tess.... If I can't, will you bring the baby to the church Sunday, at eleven o'clock?... Thank you, dear; thank you.... Good-bye, precious little Dan.... And--and forgive me, Tessibel!"