Later in the fall, when the cold winds and driving rains of the lake began to find out the cracks in the shanties, Tessibel asked, and the lawyer consented, that old Mother Moll come from Brewer's to them. Tess gave her one of Andy's rooms. The dwarf had entered a school on College Hill and lived in the city most of the time, but was home now for the Christmas vacation.
The day after his return dawned bright and cold—one of those beautiful winter days occasionally seen in the Storm Country. Heavy snows had already fallen and made certain a white Christmas. Andy was helping Tessibel in order that she might have time to complete her Yuletide preparations. She'd filled her son's heart with delightful anticipations of the holiday, now but a few days distant, and he was eagerly looking forward to the Santa Claus who came to visit good little boys and fill their stockings with goodies.
At the north of the house Deforrest had made a little snow-hill for Boy. Many a happy hour the little fellow spent upon it with his sled. Oftimes his mother joined him in the sport, and the joyous laughter of the two children of nature rose high and clear in the winter air.
The morning's work finished, Tessibel wrapped up Boy and sent him out to play. She stood for some moments on the porch watching the sturdy little figure arrange the sled at the top of the hill.
How she loved him, and how good he was! Never since the day of his birth had he given her one sorrowful moment. She turned her eyes from Boy to the lake, and allowed them to rest upon the shanty near the shore. A disturbing thought pressed into her mind. They would not be long there now.
Deforrest had told her that his lease of the house expired the first of January, and Waldstricker had refused to renew it. If they moved away, she'd be lonely for the sight of her old friends and all the dear, familiar things that had met her eyes every day since she could remember.
She hoped her new home might be in the Storm Country. She loved the lake in its every mood. Dark and sullen, visitors had called it. But she'd seen it on summer days, a band of burnished blue cementing the harmonies of greens and browns into a picture of perfect beauty. She knew its deep, brooding peace when the light was fading and the evening breeze gently ruffled its surface. She'd skated over its shining bosom in the blinding glare of the unclouded sun and in the soft radiance of the shadow-filled moonlight. She knew the soft spots in the ice caused by flowing springs in the lake-bottom and had drunk their pure, cold water. Her lifelong intimacy had wooed from rockbound lake its inmost secrets. Today the water lay a gleaming jewel, huge by contrast to the myriad sparkles the sunbeams pricked out of the snow. She looked across to East Hill at the frosty veil of a ravine waterfall and sighed.
At a shout from Boy, she went to the far edge of the porch to watch him slide swiftly through the pear orchard toward the lane. Glancing along the line of his flight, she saw Waldstricker on his horse directly in Boy's path. Fear and horror held her dumb and motionless. Evidently the rider hadn't seen the swift-coming sled—but the horse had.
He reared and attempted to turn. At that point the ditches were deep and the rounded crown of the road covered with ice. The animal slipped and fell. At the proper moment the horseman jumped off and pulled the bridle rein over his mount's head.
Her muscles taut with fright, Tess jumped from the porch and ran down the hill to the scene of the accident. When she arrived Waldstricker was jerking his steed savagely.