I'll come right down."

"Sure," said Tess, heartily. "Ye bet I will."

Scrambling to her feet, she lifted the ruddy curls and flung them back
on her shoulders. To Ebenezer, watching her, came like a haunting memory
the witch's cry, "Hair, stranglin' ye--God, what hair!"

But he dismissed the suggestion easily and turned to Helen, smiling.

"Why not bring Miss Skinner to the next musicale and have her sing?...
Wouldn't you like that, Tess?"

"I'd get scared stiff," gasped Tessibel, terrified.

"But, Tess, dear," Helen thrust in, "I'd teach you the songs, and--"

The girl was looking down upon her dress, her face gathering a deep red.

Miss Young divined what was going on in the girlish mind.

"And I'd help you make a new dress," she went on.

"A hull lot of money folks'd be there, eh?" Tess demanded. Oh, how
afraid she always was of a crowd of those--different people!

Her words directed Waldstricker's attention to the contrast between this
squatter girl in the bare shack and the fashionable folk who'd throng
his spacious drawing room.

"Well, a few," he answered, "but you come along with Miss Young just the
same, will you?"

Tessibel took the outstretched hand awkwardly enough and as quickly
dropped it and began to fumble with her own fingers. She looked down at
the floor while she traced a line on it with her toe.

"Mebbe," she replied in a very subdued voice.

She stood in the door and watched them walk slowly up the hill. Then she
turned back into the kitchen.

"My God, brat!" sobbed a voice through the hole in the ceiling. "Wasn't
that a nice list of beautiful things ye was goin' to buy? Oh, kid, I air
bettin' Waldstricker gits me."

Tess chuckled low, as she turned her face upward.

"Andy," she said, "ye needn't be worryin' 'bout me an' Jesus handin' ye
over to that old elder. Why, Him an' me air goin' to stick to you like
pitch to a nigger."

She turned to go, but hearing a sigh, took four steps up the ladder and
finished,

"Why, honey, Waldstricker air got as much chance a ketchin' you as a
tallow dog has chasin' an asbestos cat through hell."

CHAPTER VII

WALDSTRICKER AND MOTHER MOLL

"Deforrest is so interested in the little Skinner girl," Helen Young
explained to Ebenezer Waldstricker when they were alone after supper.
"Ever since he helped to get her father out of Auburn, he's done all he
could for her."

"He's a philanthropist at heart, I imagine," remarked Ebenezer,
a