Grace Miller White

“ The dead faces were so close to each other that a human hand could not pass between them. Upon the plain face of Myra rested a peaceful expression, as if she possessed a quietude she had never known before. Her eyes were closed, and one arm was tightly clasped about Ben's neck—the other about his waist. The storm had loosened the meager hair, had flung it in disorder over the fisher-girl's shoulders. Ben's brown teeth gleamed dark; the drawn lips were stretched wide, as if a pain, dreadful and torturing, had opened them never to be closed again. ”

“ The squatter girl had been in the valley of shadows, and had struggled back from its depths, bringing with her that miracle of miracles, a son, a little son not much bigger than the hand of a man; and, now, pillowed on her arm, very near her heart, lay a small head, a baby's head, covered with soft, damp curls.
Mother Moll had come and gone. When the old, old woman had looked down upon the girl, she'd smiled that senile smile of age that split her lips like a knife cut.
"Ha! So it air another brat comin' to the shanty," she shrilled. "Holy Mary! It air the way of the world, the way of woman." ”

“ The smoldering candle lifted its flame, blazing forth a glory that surrounded the student with a golden halo. Tessibel had experienced her first kiss. The nature in her demanded that she know the fullness of it—the pitying fullness which would bring to her that which it brings to all loving women dominated by the passion born within them. The blood of her race, her uneducated primeval race, rose and clamored for its own. In her untutored youth she could have crushed the lad in her wild longing for such another kiss.
Pantingly she drew herself from Frederick. ”

“ Marry him! This, too, was a new thought. Jinnie’s heart fluttered like a bird in her breast. To be with him always? To have him for her own? Of course, he was hers, and she was his! Then into her mind came the thought of Lafe, Peggy, and Bobbie, and the arms around him relaxed.
“I love you better’n anybody in the world,” she told him, pathetically, “but I can’t ever leave the cobbler.... They need me there.”
“They can’t keep you,” he cried passionately. “I want you myself.” ”

“ Not more than two weeks after Lon had demanded the twins from Horace, Everett Brimbecomb sat in his office, brooding over the shadow that had so suddenly darkened his life. The dream he had dreamed of a woman he could call Mother, of some man—his father—of whom he had striven to be worthy, had dissolved into a specter with a shriveled face and shaggy hair, into a woman whom he had left in the cemetery to die. ”

“ While Tessibel Skinner, lonely and despondent, was grieving in the squatter country, Frederick Graves arrived in Paris with his young wife. There had been for him but few hours since that last evening upon the ragged rocks, during which Tessibel's face had not haunted him, the brown eyes, sometimes smiling, more frequently shadowed with tears. Impotent remorse possessed his days and filled his wakeful nights with anguish. At such times when life seemed intolerable, the thought of the comfort he had supplied for his mother and sister was balm to his troubled soul. ”

“ Every muscle in the strong young body stiffened. Tess had not seen her father since the trial. Intensity narrowed the eyes, the drooping white lids covering the lights in the brown iris, the small hands clutched convulsively. Daddy Skinner—her Daddy—was standing before her, his blue-gray eyes piercing her very soul from under the long shaggy brows. She bounded toward him, and two creatures of primeval passion met in one long embrace. It was the passion of an aboriginal father for his child, of a primitive girl watching her loved one separate from her through the portals of death. ”

“ Fledra pressed Ann's arm.
"And don't you remember, Dear, that almost immediately he was helped?"
"You had a doctor," said Fledra slowly.
"Yes, for a doctor is God's agent for the good of mankind; but we had faith, too. And in something like this—Is your trouble illness?"
"Only here," answered Flea, laying her hand upon her heart.
Ann could not force Flea's confidence; so she said:
"Then if it is impossible to confide in Horace, or in me, will you pray tonight, fully believing that you will be answered? You must remember how much Jesus loved you to come down to suffer and die for you." ”

“ The wood gatherer came so close that he forced her back a step on the marsh path. Her disdainful eyes had drawn him to her, for, like all men, he could be drawn by the woman who scorned him, and mesmerized by the sheer repulse. By great effort, Jinnie had escaped from Maudlin’s insults for many months, but he had never been quite so aggressive as this! Now she could see the dark blood in his passionate face mount even to the whites of his eyes, those eyes which coveted the youngness of her body, the vitality of her girl life, and all the good within her. ”

“ When she woke again, Daddy Skinner was moving softly near the stove, kindling the fire, and Tessibel lay in languid silence. She watched him yearningly until he felt her gaze and looked at her. His twisted smile of greeting brought an exclamation of love from the girl. All the inhabitants of the Silent City knew this crippled old man could play on the emotions of his lovely young daughter as the morning sun plays upon the sensibilities of the lark. How she adored him, in spite of his great humps and his now hobbling legs! ”

“ A candle flickered as she sought to solve the problem. The night wind flapped the dirty curtain and Tessibel turned her head slowly toward it. A bird's cry from somewhere in the weeping willow, came in through the window. With silent intensity, she dragged her body slowly across the floor toward the flattened reptile—above him she squatted—the gorgeous hair sweeping the filth strewn floor. Tess could mark the places where the beloved warts had been—she knew how many there were even to the tiny ones. With the halting precision of the ignorant, she had counted them singly every day. ”

“ Lafe Grandoken, in his wheel chair, sat under the barred prison window, an open Bible on his knees. Slowly the shadows were falling about him, and to the man every shade had an entity of its own. First there trooped before him all the old memories of the many yesterdays—of Peg—his little dead lad—and Jinnie. And lastly, ghostlike, came the shattered hopes of to-morrow, and with these he groaned and shivered. ”

“ The one dream the girl had had was a dream of long hair, ankle dresses, and girl's shoes. Until that year Lon had insisted that her hair be kept short, and had himself trimmed the ebony curls every month. Now, in the damp air, they twisted and turned in the wildest profusion. The coming of womanhood had thrown new light into the clear-gray, brown-flecked eyes. At this moment she was wondering what she and her brother would do if Granny Cronk died. She shivered as she thought of life in the hut without the protecting old woman. ”

“ What a cruel persecutor Ebenezer was! How Helen had suffered during his outrageous harangue! The young man ground his teeth. So Ebenezer was but biding his time to do some terrible harm to Tessibel and her little boy, his boy! Frederick breathed deeply, and pressed his hand upon his heart. Would the thing never stop beating that way! Would it never in this world quit that awful hurt when he thought of the squatter country! He undressed hastily and went to bed, nor did he speak when Madelene crept softly in beside him. ”

“ There was a deep questioning in the squatter girl's eyes as they rested upon the quiet bundle on the foot of the bed. How could a mother leave her child in the care of a stranger?—leave him in a squatter's hut, where the rats scurried hungrily about the floor, and the bats fluttered among the ceiling rafters!
"Don't look like that, Tessibel!" Teola burst in. "You understand, don't you, that I can't tell them?—that I can't take him home? My brother loves me better than any other person in the world, and I love him as much as he does me." ”

“ Everett's passion for Fledra only heightened his misery, and the girl's face haunted him continually. In his imagination he compared her with Ann, and the younger girl stood out in radiant contrast. He had daily fostered his jealous hatred for Horace, and, because of her allegiance to her brother, he had come to loathe Ann, although he was more than ever determined to marry her. The home in which he had been reared repelled him, and he could now live only for the fame that would rise from his talent and work, and for the pleasures that come to those without heart or conscience. ”

“ How much had happened since she had married Frederick, and Ebenezer had married Helen Young—how much to her and to him!
Frederick's conduct had destroyed her illusions about marriage. She could be supremely happy if he would treat her a little more as if she were his wife, more as the husbands of her friends treated them. She rode on again slowly until through the willow trees she saw the smoke curling upward from the chimney of the Skinner shanty. Her heart beat furiously when she slipped from her horse and tied him to a fence post. ”

“ Then Jordan Morse understood. The hot blood was tearing to his ear drums. The blind boy he had persecuted and tortured, the boy he had made suffer, was his own son. That wonderful quality in the man, the fatherhood within him, rose in surging insistence. Instant remorse attacked him, as an oak is attacked by fierce winter storms. He saw the boy’s angelic face grow the color of death; saw Molly the Merry gather him up. ”

“ For more than an hour Tessibel sat with Teola Graves' baby clasped tightly in her arms, moving back and forth silently in the wooden rocker. A broken board squeaked now and then under the girl's weight, but she slipped the chair into other positions, and rocked on.
She marveled at the child born but that afternoon. The eyes were large and grey. Locks of damp hair fell over a wrinkled, broad brow, giving the infant the expression of an old, old man. In the light Tess could mark every feature. She had never seen a babe so small, and so sickly-looking. ”

“ There was sweet reproof in the girl's tones.
"More than satisfied," he said; "but somehow I feel—no I won't say it, Ann. It would seem caddish to you."
"Nothing you could say to me would seem that," she answered.
Everett rose and walked up and down the room. "Well, it seems to me that, although the blood of the Brimbecomb's is blue, mine is bluer still; that, while they have many famous ancestors, I have still more illustrious ones. I feel sometimes a longing to run wild and do unheard-of things, and to make men know my strength, to—well, to virtually turn the world upside down." ”

“ Grandoken had fitted up the little shop, telling him grimly that every hand in the world should do its share. And that was how Lafe Grandoken, laborer and optimist, began his life’s great work—of cobbling a ray of comfort to every soul entering the shack. Sometimes he would insist that the sun shone brighter than the day before; then again that the clouds had a cooling effect. But if in the world outside Lafe found no comfort, he always spoke of to-morrow with a ring of hope in his voice. ”

“ Now, through the lane to the lake, they struggled, heads bent against the blinding blizzard. Under the weeping willow trees stood the empty shanty which had housed her childhood days, and, mechanically, she turned her eyes toward it. She recalled, dully, the strange sequence of events that had transformed her from a squatter's brat and lifted her out of the bleak barrenness of life in the shack. She'd escaped the squalor, the horrid cold and the hardships, common to the women of the Silent City. She lived more comfortably and decently than the fishermen's wives. ”