The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tess of the Storm Country, by Grace Miller
White, Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy

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Title: Tess of the Storm Country

Author: Grace Miller White

Release Date: July 13, 2007 [eBook #22064]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY

by

GRACE MILLER WHITE

Illustrations by Howard Chandler Christy

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1909, by
W. J. WATT & COMPANY

WITH
LOVE AND GRATITUDE
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO
MY FATHER

TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY

CHAPTER I

One September afternoon, not many years ago, three men sat on the banks
of Cayuga Lake cleaning the fish they had caught in their nets the
previous night. When they glanced up from their work, and looked beyond
the southern borders of the lake, they could see, rising from the mantle
of forestry, the towers and spires of Cornell University in Ithaca City.
An observer would have noticed a sullen look of hatred pass
unconsciously over their faces as their eyes lighted on the distant
buildings, for the citizens of Ithaca were the enemies of these squatter
fishermen and thought that their presence on the outskirts of the town
besmirched its fair fame. Not only did the summer cottages of the
townfolk that bordered the lake, look down disdainfully upon their
neighbors, the humble shanties of the squatter fishermen, but their
owners did all they could to drive the fishermen out of the land. None
of the squatters were allowed to have the title of the property upon
which their huts stood, yet they clung with death-like tenacity