The Secret of the Storm Country

"Five thousand dollars!" she ruminated. "I'd have a bully time a spendin' it, wouldn't I?... I'd buy my Daddy a new overcoat every day fer a year, an' I'd git 'im four new beds--one fer every corner of this here kitchen, an' I'd git 'im a flannel shirt thick as a board to keep the pains from 'is bones.... Then, I'd buy me a cow an' a calf an' a horse an' a little baby pig an' a few cats an' a lot of dogs, an' I'd let all the squatter brats play in my flower garden--"

Helen broke off this chatter with an amused laugh.

"Then mebbe I'd go to school a while," Tess kept on, "an' learn myself a lot out o' books, an' after that I'd take singin' lessons an' I'd sing to everybody what asked me--Then mebbe--" She dropped back for lack of words. "I wonder if that'd take the hull of the five thousand."

Waldstricker stood up.

"You've got the right idea of spending money," he laughed. "And now, young lady, we'll leave you, and if you hear that this dwarf is in any of your friends' huts, you let me know, and I'll come right down."

"Sure," said Tess, heartily. "Ye bet I will."

Scrambling to her feet, she lifted the ruddy curls and flung them back on her shoulders. To Ebenezer, watching her, came like a haunting memory the witch's cry, "Hair, stranglin' ye--God, what hair!"

But he dismissed the suggestion easily and turned to Helen, smiling.

"Why not bring Miss Skinner to the next musicale and have her sing?... Wouldn't you like that, Tess?"

"I'd get scared stiff," gasped Tessibel, terrified.

"But, Tess, dear," Helen thrust in, "I'd teach you the songs, and--"

The girl was looking down upon her dress, her face gathering a deep red.

Miss Young divined what was going on in the girlish mind.

"And I'd help you make a new dress," she went on.

"A hull lot of money folks'd be there, eh?" Tess demanded. Oh, how afraid she always was of a crowd of those--different people!

Her words directed Waldstricker's attention to the contrast between this squatter girl in the bare shack and the fashionable folk who'd throng his spacious drawing room.

"Well, a few," he answered, "but you come along with Miss Young just the same, will you?"

Tessibel took the outstretched hand awkwardly enough and as quickly dropped it and began to fumble with her own fingers. She looked down at the floor while she traced a line on it with her toe.

"Mebbe," she replied in a very subdued voice.

She stood in the door and watched them walk slowly up the hill. Then she turned back into the kitchen.