SANDY PROPOSES TO TESS
Andy Bishop was stretched out in the
middle of Tessibel’s straw tick, while the girl
measured her length on the cot to assure her father
that the dwarf would be fully concealed from prying
eyes.
“Does he seem all hid, Daddy Skinner?”
queried she.
The squatter walked to the head of
the cot and peered from all points of vantage.
“He sure air, kid,” he
chuckled. “I can’t see nothin’
but a row of red curls a mile long. Andy’ll
git back in the garret all right if Burnett don’t
pull you off’n that bed.”
“He won’t do that,”
said Tess. “Jesus’ll see I stay on
it, I bet.”
“There’s some un a comin’
now,” hissed Skinner between his teeth, startled.
Tess had no more than cuddled under the blanket when
a loud knock resounded throughout the shanty.
Daddy Skinner lifted the bar and opened the door,
his large form filling the narrow door-frame.
At the sight of Sandy Letts’ smiling face, he
stepped back, relieved.
“God, Sandy,” he grinned,
“ye might as well kill a man as scare him to
death. Come in an’ set.”
Lysander stepped into the kitchen,
and his eyes fell upon Tess.
“What air the matter with the
brat?” he asked, looking from Orn to the girl
lying there so languidly.
“She air kind a hurt ” began
the fisherman.
“My foot air all packed up in
a rag,” interjected Tess. “I air always
doin’ something to myself. The next time
I come jumpin’ down the lane, I hope I won’t
be hurtin’ my ankle.”
She smiled wanly at Sandy, and he grinned back at
her.
“If I knowed ye was sick, Tess,
I’d a brought ye some candy,” said he,
good-naturedly.
“Candy ain’t good for
a girl’s teeth,” sighed Tess. “Don’t
never bother ‘bout bringin’ it, Sandy.”
“A pound or two won’t
hurt ye,” asserted Letts. “An’
when I likes a girl, I allers bring ’er
sweets. I say kid, ye do look awful pretty, layin’
there with your curls all stretched out that way.
Now, my cousin Ben, he wanted to marry ye, too, but
he never liked yer hair; I love it.”
“Daddy were jest a sayin’,”
put in Tess, with a fleeting glance at her father,
“that it air mighty good for my curls to get
spread out like this. Wasn’t you, Daddy?”
Daddy Skinner stared at her, and her
warm, glowing smile gave strength to the old man’s
heart. Without waiting for his reply, Tess turned
to Letts.
“Where ye been, Sandy, an’
what ye been doin’?” she asked, simulating
an interest she did not feel.
Lysander, pleased at the attention,
thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his vest and
spread out all his fingers, giving a little important
twist to each.
“I been down to Riker’s
a searchin’ their shack fer Andy Bishop,”
bragged he, “an’ now I air goin’
to Longman’s.”
A little groan fell from Tessibel’s lips.
“I air ashamed of ye, Sandy,”
she said slowly. “Longmans wouldn’t
have no murderer in their hut.... They be awful
good folks.... Ye know they be, Sandy.”
“Sure I know it, Tessie, but
I’ve said as how I air goin’ to search
all the squatters’ huts an’ I air goin’
to do it, I can tell ye that.”
Tess smiled at him wistfully, pleadingly.
“I’d hate ye all my life,
Sandy Letts,” she vowed, winking one eye at
the burly squatter, “if ye’d come in my
house and butt ’round. Course ye can do
it if ye want to, but I’d never speak to ye again
in the hull world.”
Sandy threw back his head and guffawed.
“I wouldn’t do nothin’
like that to you, pretty kid,” he answered with
pride in his tones, “’cause I know if ye
had that dwarf in this hut ye’d pass him up
to me quick.... Five thousand ain’t to be
got off’n every bush these days. I air
after that Waldstricker reward, an’ I air goin’
to get it!”
Tess spread a little wider a few of
the dusky, shining curls.
“It’s a lot o’ money,” she
said thoughtfully.
Letts hitched his chair nearer the cot and bent over
eagerly.
“Sure it air, Tessie,”
he said, “an’ I air here today a purpose
to tell ye somethin’. I want you an’
yer pa to listen wise to me fer a minute.
I air goin’ to git that there five thousand
an’ I air goin’ to marry you.”
Tess started to speak, but Lysander
stopped her with a wag of his head and a wave of his
hand.
“I said for ye to listen,”
he cried brusquely. “Ye ain’t havin’
offers like mine every day, miss, an’ yer Daddy
won’t never have no chances like I air givin’
‘im. I said listen, an’ here air what
I say.
“It won’t be more’n
a week afore I hand that dwarf over to the warden.
Burnett air comin’ down from Auburn. He
air almost here by this time. Then when I git
the money, I air a goin’ to put yer Daddy in
a nice place where he’ll get rid of ‘is
rheumatiz, an’ after that I air goin’
to fix my shack up with a lot of new stuff, an’
ye can have the choosin’ of it, brat, an’
there air my word, by God.”
Sandy gazed from father to daughter
with a broad smile. He had delivered his speech
in pompous pride, his voice rising higher and louder
with each word.
“What do ye say, Orn?” he demanded.
Skinner looked at Tess out of the
corner of his eye. He could see her lips moving
ever so slightly, and he knew she was murmuring a prayer
for the little man in the straw. His own eyes
felt stinging tears around their lids.
“Ye’ll have to settle
it with the brat,” said he at length, wiping
his lips with the back of his hand. “I’ve
allers said ’s how if Tess wanted to git
married, I wouldn’t say nothin’ ’gainst
it, as long as she got a good man.”
“An’ I air that,”
Sandy affirmed positively. “’Course I been
in jail more’n fifty times, an’ mebbe
I’ll git in fifty times more, but that don’t
do a man no harm as I knows of. I’d allers
leave a little money home for my fambly.”
He threw his bold, black eyes upon
the little figure in the bed, and the girl dropped
her lids.
“How about it, Tessie?” he wheedled in
low tones.
Tess wriggled. She didn’t
know just what answer to give. She wanted to
keep the big squatter good-natured, yet desired that
he should go away. She was sorry for the little
man beneath her.
Prompted by instinct, she turned her
solemn brown eyes upon Letts.
“I’ll say this to ye,
Sandy,” she began. “If ye’ll
let me alone, an’ not be tryin’ always
to kiss me ”
Lysander cracked his knee with one large fist.
“I ain’t never got a kiss from ye yet,
brat,” he chuckled.
“’Course not,” she
responded; “but ’tain’t because ye
ain’t fit fer one, now air it, Sandy?”
“No, ye can bet on that,”
laughed the man, “an’ I got marks on my
shins to this day you put on ’em the last time
I tried it. But I like to see ye fight, brat,
I swear I do.... Now, how about gettin’
married to me, huh?”
Tessibel contemplated the heavy face
a moment. She was going to drive a hard bargain
with Lysander if she had to drive any at all.
“Ben used to make me awful mad
teasin’ for kisses,” she exclaimed.
“I told him an’ I air tellin’ you,
Sandy, I ain’t goin’ to give any man my
kisses less’n I marry him.”
Letts puffed out his chest and struck
it with a loud resounding whack.
“I air glad of that,”
he grinned. “It sounds good to me, you bet.
I don’t want no other man palaverin’ over
my woman. I got ”
“An’ you been makin’
me mad lately, too, Sandy,” Tess interrupted,
“what with runnin’ after me an’
makin’ me fight to keep my own kisses, I don’t
have no peace. Now, I’ll tell ye what I’ll
do. You get busy an’ find Andy Bishop,
an’ git that five thousand, then ye come here
again an’ ask me what ye just did, an’
ye see what I say to ye. Eh? How’d
that suit ye?”
A scarlet flush rushed over Lett’s swarthy skin.
“But ye got to promise me ye
won’t ever try fer no more kisses, till
I git married to ye, Sandy,” Tess continued.
“You said what you wanted; now, I’ve said
somethin’, an’ I mean it too.”
Letts shifted one large boot along
a crack in the floor. He was thinking deeply.
“That’s pretty tough on
a feller when he air lovin’ a girl the way I
love you, brat,” he said after a while.
“But ye got to promise what
I want ye to, Sandy, or mebbe I’ll git married
to some ’un else.”
“Ye’d better not, kid,”
he muttered darkly, “if ye don’t want to
git yerself an’ the other fellow into trouble.”
“Then ye’d best promise
’bout the kisses,” returned Tess, decidedly.
“I’d kiss ye now fer
a two cent piece,” he undertoned passionately,
but Daddy Skinner had his hand on the other man’s
arm before he could move toward the cot.
“I wouldn’t do nothin’
like that, Sandy,” he said, ominously. “No
man don’t kiss my brat less’n she air
wantin’ his kisses. Tessibel said as how
when ye git Bishop an’ the five thousand, ye
can come back.... Today, she ain’t feelin’
well, an’ I air goin’ to ask ye to go along
home, or wherever ye were pointed fer when ye
stopped ’ere.”
Then Daddy Skinner opened the door.
“The leaves won’t be fallin’
from the trees, brat,” he flung back sulkily,
“afore I come fer ye, an’ don’t
forgit it!”
Daddy Skinner closed the door and
dropped the bar after his departed guest, and there
was silence in the shanty until the sound of Lysander’s
footsteps faded away.
Then Tess crawled off the dwarf and stood up.
“Landy,” she groaned,
“wouldn’t that crack yer ribs! Now
I got to be prayin’ to beat the band every minute
to keep Andy in the garret an’ to save me from
bein’ married to the hatefullest old squatter
devil in the hull world.”