THE COMING OF ANDY BISHOP
Later in the forenoon, when Tessibel
returned home from an errand to Kennedys’, she
found Daddy Skinner on the bench at the side of the
shanty, one horny hand clutching the bowl of a pipe
in which the ashes were dead. It took but one
sharp glance from the red-brown eyes for Tess to note
that his face was white, almost grey; she saw, too,
with a quiver of loving sympathy, that his lower lip
hung away from his dark teeth as though he suffered.
She sprang toward him, and dropped to her knees, at
his side.
“Daddy Skinner!” she exclaimed.
“Daddy Skinner, ye’re sick! Ye’re
sick, darlin’!... Tell me, Daddy, what
air the matter? Tell Tessibel.”
She laid her hand tenderly on his
chest. His heart was beating a heavy tattoo against
the blue gingham shirt.
“Ye hurt here?” she queried breathlessly.
The pipe dropped to the soft sand,
and Skinner’s crooked fingers fell upon the
profusion of red curls. Then he slowly tilted
up her face.
“Yep, I hurt in there!” he muttered brokenly.
And as ashen and more ashen grew the
wrinkled old countenance, Tessibel cried out sharply
in protest.
“Why, Daddy, what d’ye
mean by yer heart’s hurtin’ ye?...
What do ye mean, Daddy?... I thought the doctor’d
fixed yer heart so it wouldn’t pain ye no more.”
The man considered the appealing young face an instant.
“I want to talk to ye about
somethin’,” said he, presently, “and
I know ye’ll never tell anythin’ Daddy
tells ye.”
With a little shake of her head that
set the tawny curls a-tremble, Tessibel squatted back
on her feet.
“’Course I won’t
tell nobody, but if ye’ve got a pain in yer heart,
daddy, the doctor ”
“I don’t need no doctor,
brat. I jest jest got to talk to ye,
that air all.”
A slender girlish figure cuddled between
Daddy Skinner’s knees, and warm young lips met
his. Never had Tess seen him look just that way,
not even when he had been taken from her to prison.
The expression on his face was hopeless, forlornly
hopeless, and to wait until he began to speak took
all the patience the eager girl-soul could muster.
“Brat, dear,” he sighed
at length, “I ain’t needin’ to tell
ye again what I went through in Auburn, hev I?”
Brown eyes, frightened and fascinated,
sought and found the faded greys.
“‘Course not, Daddy Skinner!
But what fer air ye talkin’ about Auburn
Prison?... Ye promised me, Daddy, ye’d forgit
all about them days, an’ now what’re ye
rememberin’ ’em fer?”
Skinner’s face blanched, and
drops of sweat formed in the spaces behind his ears
and trickled in little streams down his neck.
“I got to remember ’em, child,”
he groaned.
“What fer I want to know?
Ye’d best make a hustle an’ tell me or,
in a minute, I’ll be gettin’ awful mad.”
The pleading, sorrowful face belied
the threat, and a pair of red lips touched Skinner’s
hand between almost every word.
“Do ye bring to mind my tellin’
ye about any of the fellers up there, Tessibel?”
came 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 face. Then as a sudden sense
of protection spurred her to immediate action, she
sent back a welcoming smile. Two or three quick
steps took her to the dwarf’s side.
“I air going’ to help
ye, Andy,” she announced brokenly. “Ye
was in prison fer life, wasn’t ye,
huh?”
“Yep, an’ an’
I broke out, kid.... An’ I ain’t able
to tell how I done it.”
“Oh, never mind that!”
soothed Tessibel. “Ye was lookin’
in the window last night, wasn’t ye?”
The dwarf rolled his eyes at the squatter,
then back to the girl.
“Yep, that were me, but I didn’t
do no murder, brat; that air the main thing an’
Sandy Letts lied when he told the jury I done it.”
“He said as how ye gunned Ebenezer
Waldstricker’s father, eh?” Tess interrupted.
“Eb air the richest man in Ithaca, an’
him an’ his sister air been to Europe, but they
come back early in the spring. I see ’em
every Sunday at Hayt’s when I go there to sing.
He air goin’ to marry Mr. Young’s sister,
Helen, an’ he air gittin’ some pink peach
when he gets her, ye can bet on that.”
“But he’ll get me by my
neck if he can,” lamented the dwarf, in despair.
“Waldstricker air a mean duffer a
mighty mean duffer.”
“He air awful religious,”
reflected Tess, soberly. “I s’posed
he were awful good.”
The dwarf made a gesture of disgust with his hand.
“Well, good or bad, I never
killed his daddy,” he returned. “I
saw Owen Bennett when he done it, but him an’
Sandy socked it off on me. I got life an’
Owen got ten years.... There ain’t no makin’
him own up he done it, air there, Orn?”
“Nope,” mumbled the fisherman.
“Most men won’t take life sentence by
confessin’ when by keepin’ still they c’n
git off with ten years.”
“Mr. Waldstricker air a awful
big, handsome lookin’ man,” asserted Tess,
thoughtfully. “Folks says he air good to
the poor, too. He air the biggest, fattest, elegantest
elder in our church.”
Andy flipped his fingers in the air
and summed up what he thought of the last statement
in five words.
“Shucks! That fer the church,”
mocked he.
“It air just like Sandy Letts
to lie about ye,” remarked Tess, changing the
subject abruptly. “There ain’t a hatefuller
man in the Silent City ’n him. He makes
a pile of money, though.... Once last fall he
dragged the lake fer two students an’ got
a thousand apiece fer handin’ ’em
over to their folks, dead.”
“He’d git five thousand
fer handin’ me over to Waldstricker, alive,”
replied Andy, solemnly. “I wouldn’t
a gone up if ’t ’adn’t been fer
him. He can lie faster’n a horse can trot.”
Heaving a deep sigh, Orn turned to his daughter.
“What we goin’ to do with
my pal, Tess?” he asked. “He’s
got to keep out of sight of folks.... Eb Waldstricker’s
five thousand bucks fer gettin’ ‘im
back to Auburn will be settin’ men like Sandy
flyin’ all over the state.”
The dwarf shivered from the top of
his head to the soles of his feet.
“I don’t want ’em
to git me,” he whimpered disconsolately.
“Ye won’t let ’em git me, will ye,
Orn?... Will ye, kid?”
Tess cheered the dwarf’s despairing
mood by a reassuring smile and confident nods of the
shining curls.
“Nope,” she promptly promised.
And, “Nope,” repeated
Orn, grimly. “Git back under the bed, now,
old man. Any minute Sandy might be comin’
in. Ye can’t depend on that squatter.
He’d steal the pennies off’n his dead mammy’s
eyes.”
As was her habit when thinking, Tess
threaded her fingers through several red curls, while
her eyes followed Andy Bishop crawling feet first
under her cot.
“I bet ye didn’t do nothin’
wicked, ye poor little shaver,” she remarked.
“Bet I didn’t do no Waldstricker
murder,” answered the dwarf.
“I know where I can hide ’im,”
she then said, with a satisfied smile. “I’ll
fix up the garret fer ’im. ’Tain’t
very big, but no one but me ever goes up there.
You, there, under the bed, ye ain’t ’fraid
of bats or owls, air ye?”
“Nope,” came forth a sweet
voice. “I ain’t ‘fraid of nothin’
nor nobody but Ed Waldstricker and Sandy Letts.”
Tess giggled in glee.
“Well, they nuther one of ’em
gits in my garret if I see ’em first,”
said she, “an’ the owls air as tame as
cats, an’ ’ll be company when ye’re
lonely nights. Deacon air the speckled one an’
he loves every inch of Daddy an’ me. If
ye’re good to ’im, he’ll love you,
too, Andy.” Turning to her father, “The
person what’ll help Andy air Professor Young,
I bet.”
Daddy Skinner’s face fell perceptibly,
and two long lines marked off the sides of his nose.
“Who’s he?” came from under the
bed in a stifled breath.
“He air a awful nice man,”
explained Tess. “He lives in Graves’
old place on the hill, an’ he learns me new
things out of books every day.... His sister’s
teachin’ me to sew, too. I told ye she air
goin’ to marry ”
“Tessibel,” interrupted
Skinner, gravely fearful. “Ye said jest
now Waldstricker were a goin’ to marry Young’s
sister. That makes them two families kinda like
one. Ye bet Young’d stand by his sister’s
man.... See?... Besides that, Young air
a lawyer, an’ if ye tell ’im about Andy,
it’ll sure be ’is duty to pinch ‘im
an’ put ’im back where he were.”
“He helped you once, Daddy!” the girl
rebuked him.
“But I were in jail all the
time, don’t ye see the difference, brat?...
Till ’twere proved Ben Letts done the murder,
I were kept in jail, too, an’ they’ll
put Andy back if ye say anythin’ to Young ’bout
it.”
“They sure will,” came the dwarf’s
sobbing tones.
Tessibel sighed.
“Well, us uns’ll have
to keep our clacks shut ’bout ‘is bein’
here, then,” she acquiesced, “an’ an’ Andy’ll
have to keep in the garret till the man in Auburn
coughs up, that air all, huh?... He can come down
sometimes when it air a rainin’ hard or dark
nights when there ain’t nobody around, an’ an’ darlin’,
ye can offen chat with ’im when I air outside
watchin’ fer folks.... Now, can’t
ye, Daddy?”
The young speaker went close to her
father, smiling. She wanted to chase that hunted
look from his eyes, to make him feel a little more
secure about his prison friend.
“Please don’t be lookin’
like that, sweety,” she pleaded. “Ye’re
just like ye was goin’ dead.... I tell
ye nobody’ll hurt the poor little feller in
the garret.... I’ll see to that....
I’ll fix it up all comfy fer ’im.”
With this idea of future protection
for the little man, Tessibel began to reconstruct
the shanty. Dark curtains were hung at the square
little windows, for it was quite a daily occurrence
for Sandy Letts to peek through them before entering
the door. Tessibel didn’t wish to shut out
the sunshine and moonbeams, but then there was Andy
Bishop to think of, and Andy already had a warmer
place in the squatter girl’s heart than even
the sun or moon. Tessibel was beginning to love
him, not only because he’d been a friend to
Daddy, but on his own account, because he was a soul
in torment and needed her.
It took quite three hours to arrange
the garret for the dwarf’s occupancy. There
were many pieces of fishing tackle to be sorted and
hung in the kitchen rafters. The nuts that had
been spread out on the floor to dry, now had to be
gathered in sacks and stored in the mud cellar.
The cobwebs must come down, and a cotton tick filled
with new, fresh straw to be put in the garret.
It was about three o’clock when Tessibel ushered
the little man up the ladder and displayed the clean
attic.
“’Tain’t high ’nough
fer me to stand up in,” she told him, “but
ye’ll get along all right, an’ I air goin’
to fix ye somethin’ so ye can see to read....
Can ye read?”
“Sure, I can read.”
Andy’s voice rang with pride. “My
ma, she’s dead now, she learned me how, she
did!”
“Then I’ll get ye lots
of books,” replied Tess, “an’ ye’d
best always keep hid less’n I let ye down, ‘cause
Sandy might catch onto yer bein’ here.
Waldstricker’s money’ll set loose a lot
of sneaks like him lookin’ fer ye!”
Late that afternoon the dwarf ate
his first meal in the garret, and Tessibel and Orn
Skinner ate theirs at the table, but the conversation
of the father and daughter intermingled now and then
with a soft statement or a question from above, and
there was happiness in the Skinner hut.
As soon as they finished supper, Tess
went to the foot of the ladder and called softly.
“I air goin’ to tell ye somethin’,
Andy, ye listenin’?”
“Yep, brat. Sure, I air listenin’.”
“I air a goin’ somewheres
to find out somethin’,” announced the girl
mysteriously. “Mebbe when I get back I’ll
tell ye what ye’ll like to hear.... Ye’ll
stay hid, won’t ye?”
“Sure so,” agreed Andy.
After bending to kiss her father affectionately, the
girl said to him,
“Now, Daddy, I air goin’
out a little while, an’ you two be awful careful
how loud ye talk.... Somebody might hear ye!”
And for a short moment after the girl
had gone there was silence in the shack. Then
a prolonged sigh drifted from the garret.
“My God, Orn, but she air a
fine young thing fer ye to be fatherin’,
huh? Ain’t she?”
Andy’s voice, though but little
more than a whisper, expressed his wonder and admiration.
“God’s best,” muttered
Orn, and once more they lapsed into the companionable
silence of good friends.