The Secret of the Storm Country | Page 5

at length from the man's shaking lips.
Tess stroked his arm lovingly.
"Sure, Daddy, I remember 'bout lots of 'em, an' how good they be, an' how kind, an' how none of 'em be guilty."
"Ye bet none of 'em be guilty," muttered Daddy Skinner. "Nobody air ever guilty who gets in jail.... Folks be mostly guilty that air out o' prison to my mind."
"That air true, Daddy Skinner," she assented, smiling. "Sure it air true, but it ain't no good reason fer you to be yappin' 'bout Auburn, air it?... Now git that look out of yer eyes, an' tell Tessibel what air troublin' ye!"
But Daddy Skinner's grave old face still kept its set expression. The haunted look, born in his eyes in the Ithaca Jail, had returned after all these happy months. Tess was frantic with apprehension and dread.
"Ye know well's ye're born, Daddy, nobody can hurt ye," she told him strenuously. "Ye've got Tessibel, and ye've got--" She was about to say, "Frederick," but substituted, "Professor Young."
The girl lovingly slipped her fingers over her father's heavy hand and drew it from her curls.
"Ye're goin' to peel it off to me now, ain't ye?" she coaxed.
"Let's go inside the shanty," said the fisherman, in a thick voice.
With the door closed and barred, the father and daughter sat for some time in troubled silence.
"I asked if ye remembered some of my pals in Auburn Prison, an' ye said ye did, didn't ye, Tessibel?" asked Skinner, suddenly.
Tess gave an impatient twist of her shoulders.
"An' I told ye I did, Daddy," she replied. "'Course I do. I ain't never forgot nobody who were good to you, honey."
"An' ye're pretty well satisfied, ain't ye, brat, most of 'em there air innercent?"
"Ye bet, Daddy darlin', I air that!"
"Well, what if one of them men who were good to yer old father'd come an' ask ye to do somethin' for 'im?"
With an upward movement of her head, Tessibel scrambled to her feet.
"Why, I'd help 'im!" she cried in one short, quick breath. "I'd help 'im; 'course I would."
"An' ye'd always keep it a secret?"
"Keep what a secret?"
Daddy Skinner's face grew furtive with fear.
"Why--well now, s'posin' Andy Bishop--ye remember Andy, the little man I told ye about, the weenty, little dwarf who squatted near Glenwood?"
Tess nodded, and the fisherman went on, hesitant.
"He--were accused--of murderin'--"
"Waldstricker--Ebenezer Waldstricker's father?" interjected Tess. "Sure, I remember!" Her eyes widened in anxiety. "Andy were sent up there fer all his life, weren't he? An' weren't he the one Sandy Letts swore agin?... 'Satisfied' Longman says Waldstricker give Sandy money for tellin' the jury what he did."
"Like as not," answered Skinner. "Anyhow, Bishop were there fer life! He air been there five years a innercent man.... My God, Auburn fer five years!"
The last four words were wailed forth, the look of hopeless horror deepening in his old eyes. Then he threw back his shoulders and spoke directly to Tess.
"Well, what if he skipped out o' jail, an' what if he'd come here an' say, 'Kid, 'cause what I done fer yer dad, now you do somethin' fer me!'"
Tess was trembling with excitement as she stood before her father. The generosity of her loving nature instinctively responded to his apparent need. She was instantly eager to show her love and loyalty.
"I'd do it, Daddy!" she exploded. "I'd do it quick!"
"But what if--if--if--if--it made ye lots of trouble an'--an'--mebbe some of yer friends--if they found it out--wouldn't think 'twere right?"
A queer, obstinate expression lived a moment in the girl's eyes. Then she smiled.
"I ain't got no friends who'd say it were wrong to help somebody what'd helped my darlin' old daddy."
Skinner bent his heavy brows in a troubled frown over stern eyes.
"But ye couldn't tell yer friends about it, kid," he cautioned.
A mist shone around the girl's thick lashes.
"Daddy, ye know I never blat things I hadn't ought to.... Slide yer arms 'round yer brat's neck, look 'er straight in the eye, an' tell 'er 'bout Andy; an' if she can help, she sure will."
A noise in the vicinity of the cot gave Tessibel an involuntary start. She turned her head slowly and saw two feet protruding from under her bed. Clinging to Daddy Skinner, she watched, with widening lids, a dwarfed figure crawl slowly into full view, and Tess found herself staring into a pair of beautiful, boyish, blue eyes.
A slow smile broke over the dwarf's face.
"Yer brat's the right sort, Orn," he cried, in the sweetest tenor voice Tess ever heard. "Ye don't need to make her promise no more.... Her word air good's God's law."
"So it air, Andy," replied Orn. "Tessibel, this air my friend, Andy Bishop, an' he were a good pal, as good as any man ever had."
For one single, tensely-strung moment, Tessibel contemplated the ugly little figure and the upraised, appealing