Tessie

“ Had it been anybody but Tessie I should not have bothered my head about scruples. For it did not occur to me to sacrifice Tessie as I would have sacrificed a woman of the world. I looked the future squarely in the face and saw the several probable endings to the affair. She would either tire of the whole thing, or become so unhappy that I should have either to marry her or go away. If I married her we would be unhappy. I with a wife unsuited to me, and she with a husband unsuitable for any woman. For my past life could scarcely entitle me to marry. ”

“ You, Jim Statt, you are a callous monster. You’ve a soul as black as hell. If I judge you I am poisoned.... You, Susan, you’re twisted. You hold a man in your arms to feel him die there ... all that is really he. That’s your love: hate. That’s your passion: death. If I judge you, I am poisoned.... And you, sweet Tessie, you’re hardest of all. With your sensitive soft soul and your unbalanced eyes: with your wanton small hands that turned you from an artist into this. If I despise you, Tessie, I am poisoned.
—Clara, thee I love. ”

“ Bert looked triumphantly at Mr. Bill. "The queen and I had our little tête-à-two. Didn't we, Miss Gilfooly?"
"You must dance with every one," scolded Granny. "You can't pick and choose." Her fingers straightened the lace shoulder-straps of Tessie's frock.
"What's the good of being a queen," muttered Tessie, but she sounded more rebellious than she acted. She obediently danced with every one. ”

“ One went in by the kitchen door, not by the front door, at Dawes Hole. Tarleton knocked.
"What are you doing here?" Tessie cried. She was as stern as a sentencing judge.
"I—I—came— You don't understand—" he faltered. He had never asked a woman to marry him before—and meant it. "I—I—want to marry you, Tessie."
At that fury broke loose in her.
"Marry you!" she cried. "Marry you!"
"Tessie—don't—you understand?" He couldn't believe it. It had never occurred to him that he could not have any woman he wanted. He had never even had to pay a price before.
The spectacle of her anger inflamed him. ”

“ Tessie Golden could say things to the escapement-room foreman that anyone else would have been fired for. Her wide mouth was capable of glorious insolences. Whenever you heard shrieks of laughter from the girls' washroom at noon you knew that Tessie was holding forth to an admiring group. She was a born mimic; audacious, agile, and with the gift of burlesque. The autumn that Angie Hatton came home from Europe wearing the first tight skirt that Chippewa had ever seen, Tessie gave an imitation of that advanced young woman's progress down Grand Avenue in this restricting garment. ”

“ But in families such as Tessie's demonstration is a thing to be ashamed of; affection a thing to conceal. Tessie's father was janitor of the Chippewa High School. A powerful man, slightly crippled by rheumatism, loquacious, lively, fond of his family, proud of his neat gray frame house, and his new cement sidewalk, and his carefully tended yard and garden patch. In all her life Tessie had never seen a caress exchanged between her parents. ”

“ Tessie, walking slowly past it, and peering through the high iron fence, could not help noting an air of unwonted excitement about the place, usually so aloof, so coldly serene. Automobiles standing out in front. People going up and down. They didn't look very cheerful. Just as if it mattered whether anything happened to her or not!
Tessie walked around the block and stood a moment, uncertainly. Then she struck off down Grand Avenue and past Donovan's pool shack. A little group of after-supper idlers stood outside, smoking and gossiping, as she knew there would be. ”

“ There was not a girl there who would have refused to give her dearest possessions, all of her possessions, to step into Tessie's shoes, the high-heeled, narrow-toed shoes Tessie wore in defiance of Miss Morley's earnest advice. Think of being a queen and of lunching with young Bill Kingley! Surely the gods crammed the measure full to overflowing for some people. And although the room was decorated entirely in blue and gold it seemed all green, and far more anarchists went out of it that day than had come into it. ”

“ Granny stood still with Tessie's worn blue serge suit in one hand and a clothesbrush in the other. "Of course you're a queen!" The firm confident tone sent a shiver of delight down Tessie's spine. "Didn't your Uncle Pete die and make you a queen? Come down just as soon as you're dressed, Tessie. We ain't got time to waste to-day."
Even when Bert Douglas drove up in a shining touring car, Tessie could not believe that she was to ride in it, although Bert told her that she was, and he for one was mighty glad that she was. ”

“ He nodded at big-eyed Tessie. "I've made it my business to know. [Pg 151] Every one else has been so wrapped up in the fact that Tess was a Queen that they haven't cared if her kingdom was only half a dozen little islands inhabited by cannibals."
"They're not cannibals now!" declared Tessie.
"They were! Your Uncle Pete was almost eaten by them!"
"They've been civilized and Christianized!" insisted Tessie. "Uncle Bill built a church. It has a corrugated tin roof, and when the sun shines on it the natives think it's silver. The Home of the Silver God, they call it. Ka-kee-ta told me!" ”

“ When Tessie explained it all, mother laughed and said, "Why, there aren't any eggs now in that nest, little girl—don't you know all the little robins were hatched long ago?"
"Well, I don't believe pussy knows it," answered Tessie, "for there she is now looking into the nest—how disappointed she'll be!" ”

“ Bill hastily, for in spite of his words, he did not want Ka-kee-ta at his heels for a minute. It was all right for Tessie to have a bodyguard, but it would be far from all right for the basement floorwalker of the Evergreen to be so attended. "What was your uncle afraid of in his islands that he trained a man to stand beside him with an ax in his hand?" he asked curiously.
"The people!" Tessie told him in a whisper. "That's another reason why I'm not so crazy over this queen business as I was. I never used to be afraid of anything, and now I'm afraid of almost everything!" ”

“ She laid her head between her arms and sobbed as if her heart would break. What a precious triple donkey I had made of myself! But I was about to break my record. I went over and put my arm about her.
“Tessie dear, forgive me,” I said; “I had no business to frighten you with such nonsense. You are too sensible a girl, too good a Catholic to believe in dreams.” ”

“ And Tessie and I; I bend over to hear Tessie's soft, low German as she tells me how good her Mann is to her; how he never, never scolds, no matter if she buys a new hat or what; how he brings home all his pay every week and gives it to her. He is such a good Mann. They are saving all their money. In two years they will go back near München and buy a little farm.
Tessie and her poor Mann, with his broken elbow and his swollen arm all black and blue, couldn't sleep last night. Oh dear! this New York! One man at one corner he talk about Harding, one man other corner he talk about Cox ”

“ Easy enough to paw over the men-folks and get silly over brass buttons and a uniform. She put it that way. She thought of the refrain of a popular song: "What Are You Going to Do to Help the Boys?" Tessie, smiling a crooked little smile up there in the darkness, parodied the words deftly: "What're you going to do to help the girls?" she demanded. "What're you going to do——" She rolled over on one side and buried her head in her arms.
There was news again next morning at the watch factory. Tessie of the old days had never needed to depend on the other girls for the latest bit of gossip. ”

“ Tessie went to school again after the Easter holidays, and they missed her sadly. But they both strove conscientiously, not only to be patient, but to be happy, in the great lonely house that had so changed to them. But waiting is weary work to young and eager hearts, and time passed slowly. ”

“ Although Tessie was a superior type of Irish girl, and usually spoke fairly good English, when excited, she always dropped into a rich brogue which greatly delighted the children.
"Just the thing, Tessie; write for your mother at once, or I'll write for you, if you like, and I hope she'll come up with the rest of them."
"Shure, she will, Miss Dorothy; she lives all alone an' she can come as aisy as not. ”

“ Listen! If you knew—if you knew—A guy's got to—he's got no right to——"
And presently Tessie was mollified, but only on the surface. She smiled and glanced and teased and sparkled. And beneath was terror. He talked differently. He walked differently. It wasn't his clothes or the army. It was something else—an ease of manner, a new leisureliness of glance, an air. Once Tessie had gone to Milwaukee over Labor Day. It was the extent of her experience as a traveler. She remembered how superior she had felt for at least two days after. But Chuck! California! New York! ”

“ Then she wrote a second letter, this one to Dagmar, care of the Flosston post-office, and as the mail for Rose Dixon and Dagmar Brodix was promptly mailed to Mrs. Cosgrove at Franklin, Tessie planned better than she knew in hoping thus to reach her abandoned companion. Her letters finished, Tessie (for the time Stacia) slipped down the palatial hall to the door of Jacqueline's sunset room, to inquire if the young mistress needed any attention. It was one of those prolonged days in early summer when night seems unable to break in on the soft, pelucent shadows of sunset meeting twilight. ”

“ They don't have to be too particular about girls they are supposed to help. I'll give them a good chance to help little old Tessie," and with that prophetic statement, more important to her than the unhappy girl had any way of guessing, Tessie tried for one more "place" to earn a little more money, that she might eventually make her way toward a big city. ”

“ No one can buy your islands if you won't sell them, you know. That's a peach of a frock!" He changed the subject abruptly and gazed admiringly [Pg 125] at Tessie's blue-and-silver dancing frock. "And awfully becoming!" His admiration shifted to her puzzled little face. "You look like a—a—" he stammered as he tried to tell Tessie what she resembled—"a dream!" he finally decided. "Is that the royal jewel?" He bent forward to look at the Tear of God as it hung around Tessie's white neck. ”

“ Granny sounded important as she showed Tessie the word scrawled on the envelope. "I thought perhaps it might be something about that special representative. Maybe he has escaped from those rebels!" suggested Granny, eager to know what was inside the letter which was so important on the outside. "Really, Tessie, when I think of those Sons of Sunshine I wish Johnny was here instead of at that Boy Scout [Pg 199] camp. I've got more confidence in a good strong American boy than I have in all the frizzle-headed, tattooed natives in the world! Even if they do carry axes in their hand." ”

“ I don't mind Uncle Pete, but some of those old cannibals before Uncle Pete civilized the islands make me shiver. But if I don't wear it Ka-kee-ta has a fit. H-sh! Some one is looking for me!" For in the hall she heard a voice call, "Tessie! Tessie! Where has the child gone?"
And there in the doorway stood Granny in her black lace and jet, as fine a Gilfooly as ever was.
"Tessie, Tessie," she scolded. "This is no way for a queen to behave. Queens don't go lalligaging with lawyers! They have to stay where folks can see them. ”

“ Bill all but died of envy. He wished that he was a Boy Scout, and then he was glad that he wasn't. A Boy Scout might have privileges, but a man could have hopes. He was not sure what he hoped, but he knew that he admired Tessie tremendously, and that it was amazingly [Pg 49] exciting to be on such friendly terms with a queen. It seemed impossible that only a few hours ago he had never known that there was a Tessie Gilfooly in the world. And now—why now she seemed the only girl in the world! ”

“ I charters a five-piece orchestra, gives a rush order to a decorator, and engages a swell caterer, warnin' Tessie by wire what to expect. Vee tackled the telephone work, and with her aunt's help dug up about a dozen old families that remembered the Bagstocks. How they hypnotized so many old dames to take a trip 'way downtown I don't know; but after Mrs. Tessie McCloud had watched the fourth limousine unload from two to three classy-lookin' guests, she near swallowed her gum. ”

“ And I'll make croquettes and omelets, and all sorts of lovely things, and Tessie can look after the boiling of the potatoes and vegetables, and plain things like that. You haven't had much experience in cooking, have you, Tessie?"
"No, Miss Dorothy; but I'm glad to learn, and I'll do just whatever you tell me."
"Fairy can set the table, and help with the dusting. We girls will each take care of our own rooms, and Tessie can take care of Leicester's. I'll attend to grandma's room myself." ”

“ She never plots against people!” Aunt Tessie shouted, nodding her head with wild emphasis, and rolling her eyeballs round in their sockets.
Mrs. Lambe could do nothing. She dared not let Aunt Tessie sit next to any of the visitors, and of course she herself had to have one of the important clients upon either side of her, but she made Ena and Evelyn, who were lunching downstairs in honour of the godfather’s presence, take their places one on each side of their extraordinary old relative. ”