Making Ready for the Warden
The next day, while Frederick was studying over the problems relating to his engagement to Madelene Waldstricker, Tessibel Skinner was sitting with Helen Young on the veranda of the latter's home. The young squatter girl was receiving a lesson in sewing.
"It air goin' to be pretty, ain't it?" she asked, holding up a blue chambray dress.
"Yes, very," replied Helen. "You're doing nicely. I'm very proud of you, dear!"
A shadow crept into Tessibel's eyes.
"I'll be a missin' ye awful after—after—"
"But you may come as often as you like to—our—home after we're married," said Helen, affectionately. "Mr. Waldstricker will soon grow fond of you, too, and the distance is only a little over a mile, short cut."
"But you'll be so rich," sighed Tess, "an' mebbe'll be awful busy."
"Never too busy to see my friends," Helen smiled. "There! Now you've been sewing an hour.... Let me hear you read.... By the way, I meant to tell you last night's paper said they're trailing the man who killed Mr. Waldstricker's father down here. The offer of five thousand dollars' reward is stirring a lot of men to hunt for him."
"I thought as how they'd lost 'im, sure," remarked Tess, inwardly quaking.
She forced her voice to say this in a tone as nearly natural as possible.
"Yes, I think the paper says they did lose track of him," replied Helen, "but they've suddenly found his trail again.... He must be somewhere near here. A deputy warden by the name of Burnett is coming to Ithaca.... Mr. Waldstricker will be very much pleased if they find him."
Tessibel's questioning gaze prompted Helen to proceed.
"The paper says, too, the men up there in Auburn are pretty sure he's somewhere among his own people."
A scarlet wave dyed Tessibel's face, and then receded. Her eyes drew down a little at the corners.
"Ye mean 'mong the squatters, don't ye?" she queried sharply. "Squatters air jest as good as any one else, Miss Young."
"Well, now, dear, I didn't mean they weren't," Helen laughed pleasantly; "and I'm sure if they're all like you, Tessibel, they're very nice indeed."
The memory of Teola Graves, the small, sickly baby, and the sudden death of Minister Graves passed through Tessibel's mind. The promise to her of the deed to the land on which their shanty stood was also in that procession of ghosts belonging to the past.
"Daddy and me was goin' to own our hut ground," she confided thoughtfully, "but—but—the dominie died afore we got it—so we air squatters yet jest the same as the rest. Squatters be awful nice folks! Most of 'em air better'n me."
"Well, anyway," took up Helen, wishing to keep off dangerous ground, "the paper says the warden's going to start from the head of Cayuga Lake and search every house and cabin until he—"
Tessibel rose to her feet unsteadily. In her vivid imagination she saw the strong arm of the law reach out from Auburn Prison and drag from her care and protection the wee, twisted little man chanting over the verses and prayers she'd taught him.
"I ain't a goin' to read today,—I got to go now," she gulped. "Good bye, Miss Young."
Daddy Skinner unbarred the door when he heard Tessibel call his name. At the sight of his young daughter's agitated face, the fisherman slid into his chair, beckoning her to a place on his knee.
"What air doin', Tess?" he questioned swiftly. "Ye're as white as bleached starch."
Tess placed her finger on her lips, glancing in the direction of the garret. Getting up, she barred the door and crept back to her father's side.
"Burnett air a scootin' down here after Andy," she murmured, too low for the dwarf to hear. "Miss Young says it air in the paper. I got to tell the poor little feller now so he won't die o' fright when the warden comes."
She went to the ladder and looked up through the hole. Then she set one foot on the lower rung and began to sing softly,
"Rescue the Perishin';
Care for the Dyin'."
And on and on she sang, in throbbing melody, to the end of the hymn. Tess had long ago discovered the fear-dissipating qualities of "Rescue the Perishin'." A long happy sigh in the attic told her the dwarf had enjoyed her song.
"Andy," she called in a low tone, "come down an' set beside the cot. I has to talk to ye."
Andy needed no second invitation. His legs were stiff but his heart full of good cheer, as he scrambled down the ladder with the Bible in his hand. Crawling across the floor, he propped his bent little body against the cot, and looked inquiringly at Daddy Skinner, and Daddy Skinner stared moodily back at him.
"Andy," Tess began, squatting beside him. "Ye remember how slick Daddy Skinner hopped out o' jail an' right back to me?"
Andy bobbed his head.
"Yep, I remember, brat," he responded. "I were glad fer him, but I sure were sorry fer myself when he left Auburn."
"An' I were that happy I nearly died," replied Tess, musingly. "Well, I air goin' to show ye a verse in the Bible what hauled 'im smack out o' prison." Tess took up the holy book and opened it. "There! now read it.... Right where my finger air! See?"
For several seconds Andy studied the words under Tessibel's pointing finger, and Daddy Skinner evinced his interest by bending nearer in a questioning attitude.
"If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed," Andy spelled haltingly, and then glanced up, mystified. "Why, it air talkin' about movin' mountains.... Ain't it, Tess?"
"Sure!" agreed Tess, displaying her white teeth in smiling affirmation. "See?"
Andy shook his head.
"No, I don't see, brat," he replied. "I ain't wantin' to move no mountains, I ain't."
Tess flung back her curls impatiently.
"Oh, Andy, yer head air all bone. Now look at me."
Misty, eager eyes were raised to the girl's.
"Can't ye see, Andy dear," she proceeded solemnly, "it air harder to get a mountain out of yer way than 'tis to stay out of prison."
"Mebbe 'tis," conceded Andy, brightening. "I never thought of it like that."
"But ye must begin thinkin' quick," ordered Tess. "Now every minute of the day ye air to say over an' over verses I show ye. And the man who helps folks move mountains'll keep ye right in this shack.... I air thinkin' that'd suit ye some, huh?"
Andy looked at her meltingly.
"I'd ruther be here than any place in the hull world," he murmured in reverent humility.
"Then," avowed Tess, "I air a goin'—Oh, Andy, I got to tell ye somethin', honey, an' I—"
"What?" gasped Andy, faintly.
Tess paused an instant.
"Burnett's pell-mellin' down from Auburn after ye," she blurted. "I just heard it at Young's."
Andy's face blanched to the hue of death. He had been so satisfied—so secure in the little garret under the protection of his friends, and now he would have to go back after all.
"Burnett?" he repeated almost inaudibly. "Burnett's comin' after me?"
Tess reached out and touched him.
"But he ain't knowing ye air here," she asserted hastily. "An' he ain't a goin' to know it uther. An' I tell ye, Andy, if ye'll learn yerself that verse 'bout the mustard seed, it'll keep ye here."
"I'll learn it, brat," promised Andy, but he seemed as if turned to stone.
"But what be we goin' to do, kid?" asked Skinner, a look of helplessness wrinkling his face.
"I dunno," replied Tess, with her hand still on the dwarf's arm.
And that was true, too! Tessibel didn't know just at that moment what she could do to save Andy from the officers, but of one thing she was certain; that beyond where the birds flew, and above the fast-moving clouds, and over all and under all, was an arm and a love upon which she had leaned and trusted, and they had never failed her. With this thought deepening the red-brown eyes, she turned and looked first at her Bible-backed father and then at the little dwarf.
"There air one thing ye both got to do," she instructed them. "Ye got to stop yer worryin' an' ye got to stop bein' 'fraid."
Andy's jaw dropped.
"Stop bein' 'fraid!" he muttered. "Stop bein' 'fraid! God, Tessibel, ye don't know what it means to allers be in the shadow of the prison, you don't."
"Oh, yep I do," interposed Tess, blandly, "'course I do. Weren't Daddy Skinner there? An' Daddy never'd got out in this world if it hadn't been for a helpin' hand; the same'll help you, Andy."
"She's talkin' of Professor Young," grunted Orn, glancing at the dwarf.
Tess turned to her parent impatiently.
"I ain't nuther talkin' about Professor Young, Daddy. I ain't goin' to tell him Andy's here 't all! I'll tell you both who I mean right now."
The men leaned forward, the dwarf's head shooting out like a turtle's.
"Who d'ye mean?" he entreated brokenly.
The color mantled Tessibel's brow and swept in rich waves over the lovely, earnest face.
"Jesus," she breathed radiantly, flashing her eyes from one to the other. "Jesus jest air a dotin' on ye, Andy, ye poor little dub ye! He allers dotes on folks in trouble."
"Shucks!" grunted Andy, and "Holy thunderin' Moses!" fell from Daddy Skinner.
Tessibel stood up, an angry glint in her eyes.
"Ye can say, 'Shucks!' if ye want to, Andy, 'cause you don't know nothin'; but, Daddy Skinner, you ought to be ashamed of yerself. Why, he's the man what got ye out of jail! I couldn't a done nothin', an' Professor Young couldn't a done nothin' uther if Jesus hadn't helped him. An' now ye're saying, 'Holy thunderin' Moses,' just's if ye didn't believe it."
The fisherman drew a shaking hand across his shaggy chin whiskers.
"I s'pose I do believe it, brat," he groaned, "but it air all so kind a mysterious like, an' Young, ye know—Young fought like the devil to git me back home."
"I know he did, Daddy," affirmed the girl, "but can't ye see ye'd a gone to the rope if—"
A shrill cry broke from the dwarf, interrupting Tessibel's explanation. Those ominous words recalled his own terror of Auburn Prison. Tears gathered thick in his eyes and ran down his cheeks. The sight of the little man's misery so affected Tessibel that she wound one arm about his neck.
"Andy, darlin'," she comforted, "don't blubber like that. Don't I say! There, put yer head on Tessibel's shoulder! I air a goin' to mother ye a bit."
She took up her skirt, wiped away the dwarf's fast-falling tears, and then her own.
"Now ye mustn't snivel," she faltered, trying to be courageous. "Why, if ye keep it up, I don't know what Daddy an' me'll do. Listen, Andy, listen to Tess."
Placing a slender finger under his chin, Tess drew the wry face up until his tearful eyes were directed into hers.
"Andy," she imparted, "there ain't a deputy in this hull world can get ye, an' don't ye be worryin' 'bout it. Jesus'd butt in an' help ye afore the man could get his nippers on ye. He'll fix it so they can't get ye, I bet."
And of a truth, Tessibel knew whereof she spoke.
"But Burnett'll be here most any time, now," shivered the little man, his chest rising and falling with emotion, "an' I tell ye, Tess—" Here he straightened up, his eyes glistening. "I tell ye, once let 'im git after a house he thinks a feller air in an' he'd turn it topsy-turvy, tissel end up. Why, Burnett can smell a man from prison a mile. I know him, I do! Hain't I seen,—and you have too, Orn,—many a poor cuss get away just like I did, mebbe over the river, mebbe a hundred miles or two, or he might even git in another state, but Burnett'll haul him back by his neck, jest the same."
Andy wilted at the end of his long speech like a hothouse plant in the frost.
"But he ain't a goin' to git you, Andy dear," Tess interposed, hugging the bent little figure. "Me an' Daddy loves ye, an' we'll hide ye, we will. Be glad ye're little, honey. If ye was big, it'd be harder to sneak ye out of sight."
"I don't see where ye're goin' to hide 'im, Tess?" remarked Skinner, making the statement a question by the rising inflection in his voice. "It air jest like Andy says, if Burnett gits on 'is scent, he'll find 'im all right, all right, an' five thousand dollars'd spur any man on to hunt 'im down."
The squatter girl smiled in sudden decision.
"They won't find 'im where I put 'im," said she, decisively.
"Tell us about it, brat," urged her father, wistfully.
Tess thought a minute, and hummed a minute.
"He air goin' to get put in my straw tick! That air where ye're goin', Andy," she explained presently. "An' I air got to be awful sick an' git in bed an' stay there. I don't know anything else to do! Oh dear! I can't look sick to save my life, can I?"
She got up and went to the glass and considered minutely her own rosy reflection. After contemplating it for some time, she came back and sat down, leaning a dimpled chin on the palm of one hand.
"I guess as how I don't need to be sick anywhere inside me," she decided. Then a smile smoothed away the slight pucker on her brow. "I know! I could hurt my foot, couldn't I? I guess as how that air best.... I'll hurt my foot.... Mebbe I'll sprain my ankle. I dunno yet, but I'll be a bed all right, an' I'll have Deacon with me. I bet when that warden sees me spread on that cot an' a owl starin' at 'im, he won't even think o' askin' me to git up."
The dwarf uttered a weird cry in chorus with a groan from the squatter.
"What'll ye do, if he tries to take ye offen the bed?" Orn questioned.
Tess tossed the profusion of curls over her shoulder, and her smile showed two rows of white teeth.
"I'll grin at him first, like this," she laughed, "an' if that don't do no good, I'll sing at 'im. I air bettin' he won't touch me then. But if he goes to haul me off, I'll holler an' make such a fuss I bet he'll be glad to let me alone."
With this statement, Tessibel rose and finished, "Get off'n that bed, Daddy. I air goin' to begin rippin' the tick now. If them deputies be comin' down the lake, us uns got to be ready.... It's only straw, ye know, Andy, an' awful soft. I'll fix yer head so it'll hang out a little. Then ye can breathe."
Before the shadow of the willow trees went to sleep in their soft earth bed late that afternoon, Tessibel had fitted the dwarf into the space she had made vacant in her straw tick. At the top of the springs, which consisted of taut ropes, she made a comfortable pillow for the little man's head. And then they waited, the hearts of the two men heavy with bitter fear, and the heart of the girl vibrant with faith that all would be well with her friend.