Tess of the Storm Country

During the illness of Teola, Tessibel had forgotten that she had promised Professor Young she would come some morning to his office in Morril Hall on the hill. Two weeks after t...

Tessibel was a child again, a happy, free-hearted child. The body of her death had fallen away as Christian's burden had slipped from his shoulders at the foot of the cross. The...

"I think the boy would put up a great fight if he had a chance," resumed the minister, "but with a lot of fellows against him one chap can't do much. I hardly know what to think...

"I want to do something to help," he wailed; "I feel as if it were all my fault that the parson is gone. We can't have any fun without him. It's tedious, too, being cooped up he...

When the family gathered about the table the next morning in the rectory, the Dominie told his wife solemnly that he wished to talk with her after the children had gone to schoo...

That evening Minister Graves came blustering in after his family were seated at the table. What was this ridiculous thing that he had heard? His home disgraced, his position rui...

Ezra looked so like a wandering night-shade, so tall, wet and thin, that Tess uttered a shriek. The lad pushed his way into the cabin, and dropped on the floor. All thought of t...

For almost an hour Tessibel lay thinking deeply, her brain alive with the past rapid happening of events. That the student would ever sleep under her roof was more than she had...

Orn Skinner was to be taken to prison the Monday after the famous sermon preached by Dominie Graves. Professor Young had gained permission for Tessibel to spend fifteen minutes...

Sunday morning, Tessibel was out upon the tracks, walking swiftly toward the city. She could hear the church bell at Haytes Corner ringing out a welcome to the country folk; she...

The fraternities of Cornell University gave home and social comforts to students, rich and popular enough to be invited to join them. Each fraternity had its own spacious house,...

Tessibel watched Minister Graves' yacht steam by the Hoghole, across the head of the lake and into the inlet. With it went the hopes of reconciliation with the student; the Domi...

Minister Graves' city home, the Rectory, was a magnificent house, covered with a thick growth of ivy; one bay window ornamenting it on the west, another looking on the street.

Keeping to the water's edge, Professor Young walked rapidly toward Ithaca. He knew that further up the shore the fishermen were drawing their nets; he did not wish to advance up...

For one short moment after the going of Frederick, Tessibel stood, gapingly, looking out into the darkness. The student had gone and with him her horror of the minister. The ste...

Dusk had fallen over the lake, closing the shanty within the shadows of the weeping willows. Mother Moll had departed before sunset. Tessibel had four candles streaming their tw...

The rain rushed in through the open door. The wind shook the dust in clouds from the overhanging nets, waving the long cobwebs that hung in fine threads from the ceiling into fa...

Elias Graves was pastor of one of the largest churches in Ithaca. His family consisted of his wife, his son Frederick, and his daughter Teola, a girl of sixteen, and little Babe...

Ben Letts rose to his feet after cleaning his jack-knife in the water and took the same path around the mud cellar which Tessibel had taken. The cabin door was closed--Tess nowh...

The babe smacked loudly. The September wind whirled its rain and dead willow leaves over the hut floor. A rasping sound, like the filing of a saw, came from the tin roof.

That night, as Tessibel slept and dreamed of Frederick, another girl waited for her lover. Teola Graves watched for the approach of Dan Jordan with strange emotions. When he was...

"Ah, Teola! you, too, were caught in the storm? What a blessing to have a shelter like this! Miss Tessibel won't mind if we stay until it is over. I came home before I was expec...

On Wednesday evening Deacon Hall tucked Augusta's pretty hand under his arm with a happy sense of proprietorship. He was proud to stand by his beautiful wife in her fight for ch...

Tess saw the minister's family arrive in the small lake steamer, and saw Frederick meet them at the dock. She was watching from between the tatters of the ragged curtain, and no...

Tess closed the door of her shanty, looked about to see if anyone were watching her movements, then she, too, broke into the high weeds that surrounded the running brook under t...

The next morning after her encounter with Ben Letts, Tess sat up in bed, wondering what had happened. Then she remembered. One slant ray of sun breaking through the dirty curtai...

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 f...

One day in the following July, Tessibel was going to Mrs. Longman's hut, with a list of Bible words she did not understand. She stopped at the edge of the forest, and listened t...

The last day of Skinner's trial found Tessibel taking her lonely way toward town. She was going for Daddy Skinner--to bring him home to a shanty which she thought was clean, alt...

Professor Young knocked at the Skinner hut. Tess smiled at him from between the tatters of the curtain, and unlocked the door, standing, as her friend took the wooden rocker.

"Nope, I wouldn't love him nuther. Ma don't know all that's to know and I wouldn't a married the brat's pa if I could," and she shivered, for she knew that she had lied to Tess.

Minister Graves watched his child painfully climb the front steps. He could see, even through the dim shadows, how thin she had become, how she panted for breath over the slight...

Tessibel was deaf to his words. His presence had filled her completely. Leaning against the post of Daddy's bed, she glued her eyes upon the student's face, the fringed lids spr...

Ben was standing beside the bed, with the open grape-basket in his hand, looking down intently upon the child. His one eye flashed past Tess in its blindness, while the watery o...

The last day of the trial was so different from that of Tessibel's dreams! Again she must cross the dark Hoghole trestle alone on her way to the hut. But the singing in her hear...

The next morning at eight o'clock Tessibel walked eastward up the long hill toward the college. The "Cranium" fellows were yet asleep. The whole house was tired out from looking...

Twenty young people had gathered for the toffy pull at Minister Graves'. Tess was the topic of conversation; every one was eager to talk of the unheard-of action in the court-ro...

A sense of embarrassment accompanied Dominie Graves to the breakfast table the next morning after the triumphant victory of Augusta Hall. He made no remark upon the disagreeable...

Two days later, on Friday evening, Teola slipped quietly from her home, and the Skinner hut opened to her timid knock. Tess had no more fear when visitors came. Ben Letts had go...

In the beginning, it is said, God made the heavens and the earth. He made the seas and all that in them is, with the myriads of fish, the toads, the snakes and afterward man. Th...

A night owl hooted in Tessibel's ear as she ran. A bat whirled into her face--then took himself off. Over the shadowy rocks which cut and bruised her feet, Tessibel flew.

Shorts had a shaky grasp of one arm of Dillon, and Spuddy the other. On through the cold night they dragged him, until they reached the broad white carriage way that led to the...

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 chi...