The Secret of the Storm Country

But the next few hours were laden with a sense of approaching calamity, that sense which ties the tongue in apprehension. Andy was perched on the ladder while Tess sat just below in the wooden rocker.

Suddenly, from far up the lane, the sound of wheels grating on the snow, could be heard plainly. Both man and girl stared white-faced at each other for perhaps thirty seconds.

"They're comin', but they can't take ye, Brat," muttered Andy. "You'll stay in this shanty the same 's if you was nailed to the floor."

Then, he sought his place under the straw tick, and as nearer and louder came the clatter of the horses hoofs, the more quiet grew the Skinner hut.

Tessibel stood in the middle of the kitchen, her hand pressing down the beatings of her heart. Somebody was approaching! There were footsteps on the dry snow!

Directly the crunching sound ceased, a loud knock fell on the door. Tessibel lifted the bar, and at her faint, "Come in," the door flung back on its hinges and Ebenezer Waldstricker stepped over the threshold. Another man, seemingly by common consent, waited outside. Waldstricker came to a halt at the sight of the squatter girl. Even in her mourning, and ashen pale, she looked glorious. Her burnished, unmanageable hair clung like a golden mantle about her. She had lifted heavy lashes and was looking him straight in the face.

Ebenezer, suddenly, felt a wild desire to strike, but he dared not touch her, nor dared he go forward one step. Her advancing motherhood crowned her with unapproachable dignity, and the man muttered an imprecation under his breath. To have her appear in court so austerely lovely would be to lose his case. He had expected she would plead, cry, perhaps scream. What should he say to break that steady calm? He did not know what a day and night of communion with the Infinite had done for the squatter girl. He did not understand that beneath her were everlasting arms, that her life was held in the hollow of a hand more powerful than his own.

"I believe, my girl," said he, without preliminaries, "I told you when the church took action against you, you'd be sent to some place where girls of your class go, didn't I?"

Tess didn't move by so much as a wink. She seemed simply to have grown deaf and dumb. How could she answer when she had not heard? She was staring back into the man's bold, dark eyes. Her silence was like a spark to his inflammatory temper.

"Aren't you going to answer me, Miss?" His rasping voice aroused Tess from her trance.