mn his dirty hide. He ain't no more good than--"

Something caused her to close her lips. A large high-warted toad sprang
into her dirty lap and slipped to the ground through the rent in her
skirt. Tenderly she took the reptile in her fingers, for she loved this
warted monster who seemed by the turn of his head to reciprocate in some
way the devotion the girl showered upon him. She lifted him close to her
face, and intently searched his poppy eyes.

"I said, damn his hide, Frederick," she said in a low tone, "'cause I
thought he took ye. And ye ain't done nothin' to him, have ye? Ye was
just out huntin' flies, wasn't ye, Frederick? Don't never stay long or
ye'll git hit with a spear. Ezry Longman don't like ye nuther, 'cause I
kisses ye, and 'cause, on my birthday, I hit his mug with a dishrag when
he was tryin' to kiss me fifteen times, and was askin' me to marry him.
I'd rather kiss--"

Her sentence remained unfinished. She looked up to see a tall boy
leaning upon a rake, a boy with pale gray eyes, and an evil face. His
short hair looked as if it had passed through the fingers of a prison
barber. His blue-jean breeches were held up by a rope fastened in the
button holes with small iron nails, and the blue blouse which had been
clean that morning was now drenched with perspiration.

"Ain't ye got nothin' better to do than to be kissin' a toad," he
expostulated, without waiting for the girl to greet him, although she
had risen to her feet, holding fast to her reptile treasure.

"Ain't nothin' to you, air it, what I does as long as Daddy don't care?"
she retorted, and sullenly counted one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight long weeping willow leaves which had died that day and had
fallen to the ground. She gathered each leaf between her great bare toe
and its next-door neighbor, deftly throwing them aside as she counted.

"I care," stolidly said the boy coming nearer, "and ye air a goin' to
throw that toad away, does ye see? Ma says as how ye could be made into
a woman if ye hadn't got batty with birds and things. She says as how
when ye sing to the brat that yer voice sounds like an angel's, and
that's why the kid sleeps. He air a cryin' all the time to have ye sing
to him."

Tess hadn't expected this. She did love the tiny unwelcome child of Myra
Longman, a child without a father, or a place in the world. Tess loved
the babe because there was an expression in its eyes that she had once
seen in a wounded