Many were the troubling thoughts which possessed the mind of Tess as she strode along. In the fulvid depths of her red-brown eyes there dwelt an expression of misery. As the child took her way through the streets, with none to care whither she went, her face lighted with a sudden determination. Frederick had told her to read, to study, to pray--that these three with faith would save Daddy Skinner from the rope of the Canadian Indian; but the student, like all those having plenty, forgot to enquire how Tess was to read without books, or study without anyone to teach her. True, Tess could pick out a few words which Daddy had taught her, could haltingly count the stars in the heavens at night, and the rain-drops on the shanty window. She could read the names upon the store signs and had often seated herself on the railroad tracks with a bit of newspaper to stammer forth the words she knew.
But it was a Bible she needed--to learn about the student's God and the Christ. Tess was more interested in the cross than the crown, more interested in the nails that had opened the wounds in the Saviour's hands and feet, than in any royal head-covering that might come in some future time to her. There was too much misery in her own life, too much desperate desire for her loved one, to allow the glitter of a promised crown to affect her. She wanted to know of the suffering Christ, to read of how He had promised--Here Tess stopped and tossed back the red hair. What was it she wanted to read about? Ah, yes--not heaven and its glories nor hell and its terrors, but of Daddy Skinner back in the shanty.
The Bible would tell her just how to bring him back,--but where should she get one? At the squatter mission, of course. Tessibel remembered that once she had been coaxed to enter the mission, but the children had laughed at her rags and after that she could not be induced to go again. Then in the bitterness of her heart she had thrown stones and clay from the edges of the track through the open window upon the other children, and had been told by the superintendent never to come near the small church again. But that was four long months ago, and not once since--since the horror of Daddy's going, had she even looked toward the mission.
The dusk fell, slowly striking out the day-shadows from the railroad bed and she halted where the two tracks met. The mission was opposite her. Would she dare ask for a Bible? A rich, warm light flooded through the window and then the old squatter who had kept the place in order for many years came out and closed the door. Tessibel's eyes followed his form through the dim twilight until he disappeared into his shanty.