FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36  
37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   >>   >|  
stening to the wild cry of a lost soul, while Myra Longman could hear only the songs of angels in the exquisite tones which fell, pure and sweet, from the red lips. Tess knew nothing of breath power, nothing of trained trilling tones, but nature had given her both and like the birds of the air she used them. The girl had not moved from beside the stone near which she had fallen. The night was so strange, so different from any night Tessibel had ever known. Her whole idea of life had been altered that day by the word of a fisherman, and the woman's heart grew larger and larger, until the squatter girl felt that it was going to burst. Something crawled over her bare foot and brought her to her senses. Leaning over she drew to her lap a long, slimy lizard, which she held caressingly in her fingers. She lifted him high up and looked at him through the moonlight. "Green," she said slowly, "ain't he a dandy. But I don't dare carry him even a little way for fear he'll lose his house. I bet he has a pile of green babies." Dropping the lizard beside the rock, she sped away. Just before reaching the Longman cabin, she raised her voice and sang again, "Rescue the perishin', Care for the dyin'." Some one opened the door and she bounded in. "Glad ye come, Tessibel," said Mrs. Longman, a small wizened old woman. "The brat air sick to-day. He does nothin' but squall so that my head air a bustin' the hours through. Give him to Tessibel, Myry." "After she air rested a spell," replied Myra, who resembled her mother, but was smaller and thinner. "He seems to have a pain, Tess." "Mebbe he has," responded Tessibel, "give him to me." The wee boy stopped his tears immediately. His back grew limp and his fists opened out as Tessibel began to sing. This time the song was, "Did ye ever go into an Irishman's shanty?" The child fell asleep and Tessibel laid him gently in the box prepared for him. Bed room was scarce in the huts of the fishermen and the small members of the family slept on rope beds, let down from the ceiling. But Myra's child, still too tender and always sick, slept in a box which his grandfather, "Satisfied" Longman, had made for him as soon as he was born. "It air a seemly night for the men to fish," commented Myra when Tessibel had seated herself again. "I air always a hopin' that nothin' will happen to none of them." "The hull bunch air cute," assured Tessibel, "and Daddy can row f
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36  
37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Tessibel

 

Longman

 

larger

 

opened

 

nothin

 

lizard

 
responded
 

stopped

 

immediately

 
squall

wizened

 

bounded

 

bustin

 

mother

 
resembled
 

smaller

 
thinner
 

replied

 

rested

 

shanty


seemly
 

commented

 

grandfather

 

tender

 

Satisfied

 
seated
 

assured

 

happen

 

Irishman

 

asleep


gently

 

prepared

 

ceiling

 

family

 

scarce

 
fishermen
 

members

 
altered
 

strange

 

Something


crawled

 
fisherman
 

squatter

 

fallen

 

breath

 

trained

 
trilling
 

exquisite

 
angels
 
nature