CHAPTER XLII
Sunday morning, Tessibel was out upon the tracks, walking swiftly toward the city. She could hear the church bell at Haytes Corner ringing out a welcome to the country folk; she could hear the tolling of the chapel bell from the University hill. Clothed in the clean skirt she had washed at the time she had thought of going to Auburn prison, and a worn but clean jacket, Tess felt fit to face the best-dressed in Ithaca. Of course she was barefooted, for Daddy's boots were too big to wear into the house of the student's God. Earlier in the morning Tessibel had sat for a long time upon the small fishing dock, swinging her feet in the clear water. They, too, like the skirt and jacket, were clean.
In the basket, snuggling in the nest of white clothes, lay little Dan. He was robed, in the much-worn garment of the Longman child, and Tessibel had looked at him with pride as she settled him in his bed preparatory to her trip.
She passed swiftly through the city, and crossed Dewitt Park. How vividly she remembered the many midnights she had taken the same way, turning toward the jail to visit "Daddy"!
Tessibel paused before Minister Graves' church, and heard him read in deep tones from the Scriptures: "Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." The harmonious voice floated through the window to the fisher-girl, now crouched in the sun. Every word fell distinctly upon her ear.
She lifted the basket cover, and peeped in upon the babe. He looked bluer and thinner than Tess had ever seen him; his lips rested upon the rag with no indrawing movement. Unblinkingly stared the wide gray eyes when the sunbeams flashed upon his face. The vivid birth-mark grew fainter in the yellow light. Tess drew him into the shade, and waited.
The tones rolled out like thunder when Dominie Graves bade the members of his flock bring their children to the Holy Font, that they might receive the blessing of God, and everlasting life. Tess heard him say that the Father in Heaven demanded that all children should be baptized in the name of the crucified Saviour—that to put off such a duty might prove dangerous to their eternal welfare. Many of the long words the squatter did not understand, but she gathered enough to know how necessary it was to obey the minister's commands. She glanced again at the babe, with a worried pucker between her eyes. There was the same stare, the same unmoving lips. But he was quiet, and Tessibel let him lie.
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden—" rang forth the powerful voice. It fell upon the red-haired girl and soothed her.
Tess knew that Teola would be expecting her, and that Frederick would turn his face away when she presented the child for baptism, but no cloud gathered into the downcast eyes, for Tessibel's faith had grown since she knew that Myra's prayers had been answered. Had she not seen the girl clasped in the arms of the fisherman, who had once said that he hated her? Had she not seen the smile upon the dead lips which dripped with lake water? Tessibel had never before been so confident in prayer, and upon this beautiful Sunday morning, in the white light of day, kneeling under the church window, she believed that God would give her back the student—some time. She thought of the pain that would rest in the proud dark eyes of the boy when he saw her; but she smiled, because she knew that God lived, heard and answered the prayers of the heavy-laden.
An anthem rolled up from the church choir, chanting out the love of Christ, chanting His crucifixion and death for a dying world.
"Come unto me, come unto me," it sang, and "Come unto me," rose from the lips of the squatter waiting to take the little human thing, with its burden of sickness and death, to Dominie Graves, that he might petition the Holy Ghost to take away its sin.
"Come unto me," again sang the choir. Then silence. Tess leaned nearer the window. Dominie Graves read out the names of the babies to be baptized that day.
A carriage rolled rapidly to the church door, and Deacon Hall, accompanied by his wife, stepped to the pavement. The Deacon held a bundle with long white draperies hanging from it. It was their new baby, with lace upon its frock, going in to receive a blessing at the altar of God. Tess peered down upon the little Dan, and pulled the coarse dress closer about his chin. A violent wish born of the love she had for him came into her heart. Oh, that she had one bit of lace, to make his skin look less blue and the mouth less drawn! The wide eyes were still fixed upon her, immovable and unblinking. Once only had she seen the lids fall slowly downward, to rise again over the unseeing eyes.
"He knows he air a-goin' to church," she muttered lovingly. "I wonder if that air why he air so good.... Mebbe the spirit of his pappy air here."
She heard the names fall from the lips of the clergyman, as he took the infants, one by one, and placed his hand upon them with the water.
"I baptize thee, John Richard," Graves said slowly, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
"Of the Holy Ghost...." He was the Spirit of God Who stood by the children, to take away the sin with which they had been born. Teola had told Tess so. The Holy Ghost would take away the sin of little Dan.
"I baptize thee," broke the silence, time after time, amid the tiny splashes of falling water. The last must have gone up to the altar, for Tess heard the minister telling the fathers and mothers the duty they owed their children.
"I finish my service to-day," said he, "by praying God to bless you all, and calling down the good-will of Heaven upon your children just baptized in His name."
Tessibel did not wait to hear the rest. She raised the child from the basket, shielding him from the sun with her body, stretched him out reverently upon her hands, and tiptoed up the long flight of steps into the church. A sea of heads rose before her startled vision. Transfixed, she paused in the door, waiting for Graves to cease speaking. Her eye caught the pew of the minister. Teola sat next to Frederick on the end, Mrs. Graves between her and her younger daughter. Tess noticed the tense expression upon the sharp profile of the babe's mother. How glad Teola would be when the baby was baptized! How happy in the new-found Heaven for her child!
The minister's voice had fallen into a prayer. And still Tess waited with the dying infant, staring wide-eyed upward at the great church dome. Every head was bowed: no one saw the strange girl, with hair flung wide about her shoulders, nor the tiny human being resting upon her hands.
Silence fell upon the congregation, and Tessibel commenced her walk down through the sea of faces to the pulpit. She gave no glance toward Teola as she passed, but kept her eyes fixed upon Dominie Graves, who, without noticing her, had turned to the little flight of steps that led to his pulpit. When he reached the Bible stand, and opened his lips to speak, his gaze dropped upon the squatter. At first he thought he was dreaming. He looked again—looked at her—at the child—and paled to his ears. Tessibel was holding the infant up toward him, with a beseeching expression in her eyes that staggered him.
Teola had seen Tess pass, and had caught a glimpse of the thin child upon her hands. The pursed baby lips, from which hung the useless sugar rag, made her lower her head to the prayer cushion, shuddering violently. Frederick had also seen the squatter—everyone in the church had seen her, and the silence grew wider and wider, until even breathing was hushed to catch her words.
Her low, sweet voice began to speak; it thrilled through the congregation like the song of angels.
"BE YE GOIN' TO LET HIM GO A PLACE WHERE GOD CAN'T FIND HIM?"
"I has brought ye a dyin' brat, Dominie Graves," began Tess with shaking voice, "who has got to be sprinkled, or he can't go to Heaven."
The vast silence of the edifice echoed her petition.
The gaping minister never once took his eyes from her face, and made no move to answer her.
"It air a-dyin', I say," she went on, "and I wants ye to put the water on it."
So deadly in earnest was the girl that a sob broke out in the back of the church. The lithe, barefooted squatter, and the feeble, dying child offered a living picture of pathos, which with its tragedy slowly dawned upon the more sensitive minds, silently telling its tale of human suffering. Minister Graves refused to answer her. He wore the same expression of scorn Tess had seen in the student when she had acknowledged the child as hers.
"Be ye goin' to sprinkle him?" she demanded steadfastly, her voice growing stronger with her emotions. "Be ye?"
"No, I'm not." Graves' voice fell like the sound of a deep-toned bell.
"Be ye goin' to let him go to a place where God can't find him? Be ye?" Tess entreated.
Anger and revolt glinted through the golden-brown of her eyes; she swayed back a little from the font, still holding out the babe.
"He air so little," she pleaded with a choke, "and so awful sick. Mebbe he won't live till mornin'. He can't hurt the others, now they air done with the water, can he?"
She peeped into the marble basin, and lifted her eyes to his face.
"There air lots of water left. Be there other babies wantin' it worse than this one?"
She turned half-way round, and faced the wall of white faces, sending the question out in high-pitched tones.
Then Graves spoke with austerity and strength, riding down his anger with a mighty effort.
"You will please take the child from the church. You have your own squatter mission for such as that."
He had forgotten his members—forgotten that he was a man of God. As he bent toward her, he remembered only that she was the girl who had thwarted him, who had won in the squatter fight against his own influence. Tessibel heard the words "squatter" and "mission." It had not occurred to her to take the child there. She looked down upon the little fire-marked face. Would baby Dan live until she could get him there? He might be dead before she could carry him to the inlet and cross the tracks to the young rector's house. Teola had said that the baby would never be with his father without baptism, that even she, his mother, could not see him when she, too, went away. Little Dan, uncleansed, would live far from the bright angels. Her anger rose in a twinkling. She took another backward step, threw the red curls into a mass over her shoulder, and spoke again.
"Air I to take him from the church without the water?"
"Yes."
"I'll be damned if I's a-goin' to take him away," she flung back, panting. "He air so near dead, he air blind—look at his eyes! I says, he air to be sprinkled, he air! If ye won't give the Huly Ghost a chance at him—" Here she stepped forward to the font, flashed a look of hatred at Graves, and suddenly dipped her hand into the water.
"I sprinkles him myself," she ended.
The drops fell upon the livid baby face, dripping down upon the bare feet of the squatter.
"I baptize—" Tess wavered for lack of words. She had thought she could not forget the benediction.
A voice from the back of the church broke in abruptly upon her hesitation.
"I baptize thee, child," it rang, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
Bill Hopkins was in the middle aisle, coming toward her. Tess snatched one glimpse of his face, still holding her wet hand upon the dark-haired babe.
"Say it, girl," Hopkins commanded. "Say it, quick. The child is dying."
"I baptize thee, child, in the name—" gasped Tess.
She stepped back again, throwing an entreating, silent appeal to the huge, bald-headed man.
"Of the Father, and of the Son," repeated Bill.
"Of the Father, and of the Son," echoed Tess.
"And of the Holy Ghost," ended Hopkins.
"And of the Huly Ghost," whispered Tess.
"Amen" rolled from a hundred tear-choked throats, like the distant murmuring of the sea. Hopkins sat down, saying no more.
Minister Graves had sunk into his chair, and on the girl's last words the congregation drew a long, gasping breath. The eyes of the babe gazed steadily on into the shadows of eternal silence; the water seemingly unfelt upon its head. The small boy was slipping away to that place of mystery where his father, Myra and Ben Letts had gone. The long days of suffering with the child in the hut rushed over Tess. She dropped on her knees, facing the pulpit, and hugged him to her breast, and whispered,
"Suffer little children to come unto me—"
Then another voice, shrill, sobbing and terrible, hushed her prayer. The squatter instinctively shifted her position toward the Dominie's pew. Teola Graves was standing up, tall and pale, and was looking directly at the minister.
"Father," she cried, "Father, if you don't take the baby and baptize him in the name of the Saviour, you will consign to everlasting darkness—" She lost her breath, caught it again, and finished, "your own flesh and blood. God! dear God, take us both to Dan!... Tessibel, Tessibel, give me my baby!"
She wrenched herself loose from Frederick's detaining fingers, and was in the aisle before her brother realized what had happened.
"He's my baby," she cried, between the spasmodic pressures upon her chest. "Tess! Tess, is he dead?"
"Yep, he air dead," fell from Tessibel; for she had seen the large, glazed eyes draw in at the corners and the little face blanch. The tiny spirit fled as the frantic girl-mother clasped her babe to her breast.
"But he air gone to his pappy," consoled the squatter.
For one awful moment, Dominie Graves looked into the accusing eyes of his congregation. Bill Hopkins was seated, with his face in his hands, but Augusta Hall, with her new baby folded tightly in her arms, was looking at him in dark-eyed disdain.
Graves swayed dizzily, ... caught at the pulpit table for support.
"Jesus," he appealed dizzily, "Christ Jesus."
Frederick pressed his way to his sister's side. The squatter threw up her head before him: for the first time since that last dreadful night, she looked directly into his eyes, her dishonor slipping from her like a loosened garment. Frederick's soul shone forth in the glance he sent her. God in His own time had given her back the student.
Tessibel turned, and passed up through the mute gathering. Bill Hopkins put out his hand, and touched her.
"Child," he said brokenly, "you are the one bright spirit in this generation."
But Tessibel did not understand. She went down the long flight of steps, and into the sun-lit street, with but a backward glance at the rag-draped basket she had left under the church window.