Tess of the Storm Country

"Rescue the perishin' Care for the dyin'."

This was all Tessibel knew of the hymn--over and over she sang it, fearfully watching the toad move grotesquely in the candlelight. Time after time the blinking eyes closed and flew open--again and again Tessibel sent her importunate prayer into the heart of the Great Unknown.

Frederick gave a great deep sob, his fat sides lifted and fell twice, and as the petitionate lips of the girl sent the song once more into the night, he flopped over on his back, straightened out the little wounded stumps, and died.

Daddy Skinner, the Canadian Indian, and Frederick! Tess couldn't separate the three--the prayerful mood died with the toad. She opened her lips and uttered two great piercing shrieks, which sounded and resounded through the rafters of the shanty, out into the darkness and up to the ragged rocks. It was the cry of a wounded human thing, amounting to but little in the great whirling universe. The dying of the scream brought words from her lips.

"Daddy Skinner, Daddy Skinner."

Then twice in equally shrill longing, resounded the name of her dead friend.

"Frederick, aw, aw Frederick!"

Both cries followed the prayer, echoing their agony out through the window--the flapping curtain with its tatters offering no impediment for its outgoing.

Suddenly Tessibel staggered to her feet, for back to her through the window, from somewhere near the mud cellar, came an answering voice, deep-toned and vibrant-"What? What?"

Frederick, the student, stood in the door of the dirty shanty, looking upon an unkempt, copper-eyed girl, and a great squat, dead, wartless toad.