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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Girl Of The Limberlost, by Gene Stratton-Porter
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: A Girl Of The Limberlost
+
+Author: Gene Stratton-Porter
+
+Release Date: April, 1994 [eBook #125]
+[Most recently updated: March 17, 2023]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: Judith Boss
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST ***
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST
+
+By Gene Stratton-Porter
+
+
+
+
+To All Girls Of The Limberlost
+In General
+And One
+Jeanette Helen Porter
+In Particular
+
+
+
+
+CHARACTERS:
+
+ELNORA, who collects moths to pay for her education, and lives the
+Golden Rule.
+PHILIP AMMON, who assists in moth hunting, and gains a new conception
+of love.
+MRS. COMSTOCK, who lost a delusion and found a treasure.
+WESLEY SINTON, who always did his best.
+MARGARET SINTON, who “mothers” Elnora.
+BILLY, a boy from real life.
+EDITH CARR, who discovers herself.
+HART HENDERSON, to whom love means all things.
+POLLY AMMON, who pays an old score.
+TOM LEVERING, engaged to Polly.
+TERENCE O’MORE, Freckles grown tall.
+MRS. O’MORE, who remained the Angel.
+TERENCE, ALICE and LITTLE BROTHER, the O’MORE children.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+  A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST
+  CHAPTER I 
+  CHAPTER II 
+  CHAPTER III 
+  CHAPTER IV 
+  CHAPTER V 
+  CHAPTER VI 
+  CHAPTER VII 
+  CHAPTER VIII 
+  CHAPTER IX 
+  CHAPTER X 
+  CHAPTER XI 
+  CHAPTER XII 
+  CHAPTER XIII 
+  CHAPTER XIV 
+  CHAPTER XV 
+  CHAPTER XVI 
+  CHAPTER XVII 
+  CHAPTER XVIII 
+  CHAPTER XIX 
+  CHAPTER XX 
+  CHAPTER XXI 
+  CHAPTER XXII 
+  CHAPTER XXIII 
+  CHAPTER XXIV 
+  CHAPTER XXV 
+
+
+
+
+A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA GOES TO HIGH SCHOOL AND LEARNS MANY LESSONS NOT FOUND IN
+HER BOOKS
+
+
+“Elnora Comstock, have you lost your senses?” demanded the angry voice
+of Katharine Comstock while she glared at her daughter.
+
+“Why mother!” faltered the girl.
+
+“Don’t you ‘why mother’ me!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You know very well
+what I mean. You’ve given me no peace until you’ve had your way about
+this going to school business; I’ve fixed you good enough, and you’re
+ready to start. But no child of mine walks the streets of Onabasha
+looking like a play-actress woman. You wet your hair and comb it down
+modest and decent and then be off, or you’ll have no time to find where
+you belong.”
+
+Elnora gave one despairing glance at the white face, framed in a most
+becoming riot of reddish-brown hair, which she saw in the little
+kitchen mirror. Then she untied the narrow black ribbon, wet the comb
+and plastered the waving curls close to her head, bound them fast,
+pinned on the skimpy black hat and opened the back door.
+
+“You’ve gone so plumb daffy you are forgetting your dinner,” jeered her
+mother.
+
+“I don’t want anything to eat,” replied Elnora.
+
+“You’ll take your dinner or you’ll not go one step. Are you crazy? Walk
+almost three miles and no food from six in the morning until six at
+night. A pretty figure you’d cut if you had your way! And after I’ve
+gone and bought you this nice new pail and filled it especial to start
+on!”
+
+Elnora came back with a face still whiter and picked up the lunch.
+“Thank you, mother! Good-bye!” she said. Mrs. Comstock did not reply.
+She watched the girl follow the long walk to the gate and go from sight
+on the road, in the bright sunshine of the first Monday of September.
+
+“I bet a dollar she gets enough of it by night!” commented Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+Elnora walked by instinct, for her eyes were blinded with tears. She
+left the road where it turned south, at the corner of the Limberlost,
+climbed a snake fence and entered a path worn by her own feet. Dodging
+under willow and scrub oak branches she came at last to the faint
+outline of an old trail made in the days when the precious timber of
+the swamp was guarded by armed men. This path she followed until she
+reached a thick clump of bushes. From the debris in the end of a hollow
+log she took a key that unlocked the padlock of a large weatherbeaten
+old box, inside of which lay several books, a butterfly apparatus, and
+a small cracked mirror. The walls were lined thickly with gaudy
+butterflies, dragonflies, and moths. She set up the mirror and once
+more pulling the ribbon from her hair, she shook the bright mass over
+her shoulders, tossing it dry in the sunshine. Then she straightened
+it, bound it loosely, and replaced her hat. She tugged vainly at the
+low brown calico collar and gazed despairingly at the generous length
+of the narrow skirt. She lifted it as she would have cut it if
+possible. That disclosed the heavy high leather shoes, at sight of
+which she seemed positively ill, and hastily dropped the skirt. She
+opened the pail, removed the lunch, wrapped it in the napkin, and
+placed it in a small pasteboard box. Locking the case again she hid the
+key and hurried down the trail.
+
+She followed it around the north end of the swamp and then entered a
+footpath crossing a farm leading in the direction of the spires of the
+city to the northeast. Again she climbed a fence and was on the open
+road. For an instant she leaned against the fence staring before her,
+then turned and looked back. Behind her lay the land on which she had
+been born to drudgery and a mother who made no pretence of loving her;
+before her lay the city through whose schools she hoped to find means
+of escape and the way to reach the things for which she cared. When she
+thought of how she appeared she leaned more heavily against the fence
+and groaned; when she thought of turning back and wearing such clothing
+in ignorance all the days of her life she set her teeth firmly and went
+hastily toward Onabasha.
+
+On the bridge crossing a deep culvert at the suburbs she glanced
+around, and then kneeling she thrust the lunch box between the
+foundation and the flooring. This left her empty-handed as she
+approached the big stone high school building. She entered bravely and
+inquired her way to the office of the superintendent. There she learned
+that she should have come the previous week and arranged about her
+classes. There were many things incident to the opening of school, and
+one man unable to cope with all of them.
+
+“Where have you been attending school?” he asked, while he advised the
+teacher of Domestic Science not to telephone for groceries until she
+knew how many she would have in her classes; wrote an order for
+chemicals for the students of science; and advised the leader of the
+orchestra to hire a professional to take the place of the bass violist,
+reported suddenly ill.
+
+“I finished last spring at Brushwood school, district number nine,”
+said Elnora. “I have been studying all summer. I am quite sure I can do
+the first year work, if I have a few days to get started.”
+
+“Of course, of course,” assented the superintendent. “Almost invariably
+country pupils do good work. You may enter first year, and if it is too
+difficult, we will find it out speedily. Your teachers will tell you
+the list of books you must have, and if you will come with me I will
+show you the way to the auditorium. It is now time for opening
+exercises. Take any seat you find vacant.”
+
+Elnora stood before the entrance and stared into the largest room she
+ever had seen. The floor sloped to a yawning stage on which a band of
+musicians, grouped around a grand piano, were tuning their instruments.
+She had two fleeting impressions. That it was all a mistake; this was
+no school, but a grand display of enormous ribbon bows; and the second,
+that she was sinking, and had forgotten how to walk. Then a burst from
+the orchestra nerved her while a bevy of daintily clad, sweet-smelling
+things that might have been birds, or flowers, or possibly gaily
+dressed, happy young girls, pushed her forward. She found herself
+plodding across the back of the auditorium, praying for guidance, to an
+empty seat.
+
+As the girls passed her, vacancies seemed to open to meet them. Their
+friends were moving over, beckoning and whispering invitations. Every
+one else was seated, but no one paid any attention to the white-faced
+girl stumbling half-blindly down the aisle next the farthest wall. So
+she went on to the very end facing the stage. No one moved, and she
+could not summon courage to crowd past others to several empty seats
+she saw. At the end of the aisle she paused in desperation, while she
+stared back at the whole forest of faces most of which were now turned
+upon her.
+
+In a flash came the full realization of her scanty dress, her pitiful
+little hat and ribbon, her big, heavy shoes, her ignorance of where to
+go or what to do; and from a sickening wave which crept over her, she
+felt she was going to become very ill. Then out of the mass she saw a
+pair of big, brown boy eyes, three seats from her, and there was a
+message in them. Without moving his body he reached forward and with a
+pencil touched the back of the seat before him. Instantly Elnora took
+another step which brought her to a row of vacant front seats.
+
+She heard laughter behind her; the knowledge that she wore the only hat
+in the room burned her; every matter of moment, and some of none at
+all, cut and stung. She had no books. Where should she go when this was
+over? What would she give to be on the trail going home! She was
+shaking with a nervous chill when the music ceased, and the
+superintendent arose, and coming down to the front of the flower-decked
+platform, opened a Bible and began to read. Elnora did not know what he
+was reading, and she felt that she did not care. Wildly she was racking
+her brain to decide whether she should sit still when the others left
+the room or follow, and ask some one where the Freshmen went first.
+
+In the midst of the struggle one sentence fell on her ear. “Hide me
+under the shadow of Thy wings.”
+
+Elnora began to pray frantically. “Hide me, O God, hide me, under the
+shadow of Thy wings.”
+
+Again and again she implored that prayer, and before she realized what
+was coming, every one had arisen and the room was emptying rapidly.
+Elnora hurried after the nearest girl and in the press at the door
+touched her sleeve timidly.
+
+“Will you please tell me where the Freshmen go?” she asked huskily.
+
+The girl gave her one surprised glance, and drew away.
+
+“Same place as the fresh women,” she answered, and those nearest her
+laughed.
+
+Elnora stopped praying suddenly and the colour crept into her face.
+“I’ll wager you are the first person I meet when I find it,” she said
+and stopped short. “Not that! Oh, I must not do that!” she thought in
+dismay. “Make an enemy the first thing I do. Oh, not that!”
+
+She followed with her eyes as the young people separated in the hall,
+some climbing stairs, some disappearing down side halls, some entering
+adjoining doors. She saw the girl overtake the brown-eyed boy and speak
+to him. He glanced back at Elnora with a scowl on his face. Then she
+stood alone in the hall.
+
+Presently a door opened and a young woman came out and entered another
+room. Elnora waited until she returned, and hurried to her. “Would you
+tell me where the Freshmen are?” she panted.
+
+“Straight down the hall, three doors to your left,” was the answer, as
+the girl passed.
+
+“One minute please, oh please,” begged Elnora: “Should I knock or just
+open the door?”
+
+“Go in and take a seat,” replied the teacher.
+
+“What if there aren’t any seats?” gasped Elnora.
+
+“Classrooms are never half-filled, there will be plenty,” was the
+answer.
+
+Elnora removed her hat. There was no place to put it, so she carried it
+in her hand. She looked infinitely better without it. After several
+efforts she at last opened the door and stepping inside faced a smaller
+and more concentrated battery of eyes.
+
+“The superintendent sent me. He thinks I belong here,” she said to the
+professor in charge of the class, but she never before heard the voice
+with which she spoke. As she stood waiting, the girl of the hall passed
+on her way to the blackboard, and suppressed laughter told Elnora that
+her thrust had been repeated.
+
+“Be seated,” said the professor, and then because he saw Elnora was
+desperately embarrassed he proceeded to lend her a book and to ask her
+if she had studied algebra. She said she had a little, but not the same
+book they were using. He asked her if she felt that she could do the
+work they were beginning, and she said she did.
+
+That was how it happened, that three minutes after entering the room
+she was told to take her place beside the girl who had gone last to the
+board, and whose flushed face and angry eyes avoided meeting Elnora’s.
+Being compelled to concentrate on her proposition she forgot herself.
+When the professor asked that all pupils sign their work she firmly
+wrote “Elnora Comstock” under her demonstration. Then she took her seat
+and waited with white lips and trembling limbs, as one after another
+professor called the names on the board, while their owners arose and
+explained their propositions, or “flunked” if they had not found a
+correct solution. She was so eager to catch their forms of expression
+and prepare herself for her recitation, that she never looked from the
+work on the board, until clearly and distinctly, “Elnora Cornstock,”
+called the professor.
+
+The dazed girl stared at the board. One tiny curl added to the top of
+the first curve of the m in her name, had transformed it from a good
+old English patronymic that any girl might bear proudly, to Cornstock.
+Elnora sat speechless. When and how did it happen? She could feel the
+wave of smothered laughter in the air around her. A rush of anger
+turned her face scarlet and her soul sick. The voice of the professor
+addressed her directly.
+
+“This proposition seems to be beautifully demonstrated, Miss
+Cornstalk,” he said. “Surely, you can tell us how you did it.”
+
+That word of praise saved her. She could do good work. They might wear
+their pretty clothes, have their friends and make life a greater misery
+than it ever before had been for her, but not one of them should do
+better work or be more womanly. That lay with her. She was tall,
+straight, and handsome as she arose.
+
+“Of course I can explain my work,” she said in natural tones. “What I
+can’t explain is how I happened to be so stupid as to make a mistake in
+writing my own name. I must have been a little nervous. Please excuse
+me.”
+
+She went to the board, swept off the signature with one stroke, then
+rewrote it plainly. “My name is Comstock,” she said distinctly. She
+returned to her seat and following the formula used by the others made
+her first high school recitation.
+
+As Elnora resumed her seat Professor Henley looked at her steadily. “It
+puzzles me,” he said deliberately, “how you can write as beautiful a
+demonstration, and explain it as clearly as ever has been done in any
+of my classes and still be so disturbed as to make a mistake in your
+own name. Are you very sure you did that yourself, Miss Comstock?”
+
+“It is impossible that any one else should have done it,” answered
+Elnora.
+
+“I am very glad you think so,” said the professor. “Being Freshmen, all
+of you are strangers to me. I should dislike to begin the year with you
+feeling there was one among you small enough to do a trick like that.
+The next proposition, please.”
+
+When the hour had gone the class filed back to the study room and
+Elnora followed in desperation, because she did not know where else to
+go. She could not study as she had no books, and when the class again
+left the room to go to another professor for the next recitation, she
+went also. At least they could put her out if she did not belong there.
+Noon came at last, and she kept with the others until they dispersed on
+the sidewalk. She was so abnormally self-conscious she fancied all the
+hundreds of that laughing, throng saw and jested at her. When she
+passed the brown-eyed boy walking with the girl of her encounter, she
+knew, for she heard him say: “Did you really let that gawky piece of
+calico get ahead of you?” The answer was indistinct.
+
+Elnora hurried from the city. She intended to get her lunch, eat it in
+the shade of the first tree, and then decide whether she would go back
+or go home. She knelt on the bridge and reached for her box, but it was
+so very light that she was prepared for the fact that it was empty,
+before opening it. There was one thing for which to be thankful. The
+boy or tramp who had seen her hide it, had left the napkin. She would
+not have to face her mother and account for its loss. She put it in her
+pocket, and threw the box into the ditch. Then she sat on the bridge
+and tried to think, but her brain was confused.
+
+“Perhaps the worst is over,” she said at last. “I will go back. What
+would mother say to me if I came home now?”
+
+So she returned to the high school, followed some other pupils to the
+coat room, hung her hat, and found her way to the study where she had
+been in the morning. Twice that afternoon, with aching head and empty
+stomach, she faced strange professors, in different branches. Once she
+escaped notice; the second time the worst happened. She was asked a
+question she could not answer.
+
+“Have you not decided on your course, and secured your books?” inquired
+the professor.
+
+“I have decided on my course,” replied Elnora, “I do not know where to
+ask for my books.”
+
+“Ask?” the professor was bewildered.
+
+“I understood the books were furnished,” faltered Elnora.
+
+“Only to those bringing an order from the township trustee,” replied
+the Professor.
+
+“No! Oh no!” cried Elnora. “I will have them to-morrow,” and gripped
+her desk for support for she knew that was not true. Four books,
+ranging perhaps at a dollar and a half apiece; would her mother buy
+them? Of course she would not—could not.
+
+Did not Elnora know the story of old. There was enough land, but no one
+to do clearing and farm. Tax on all those acres, recently the new
+gravel road tax added, the expense of living and only the work of two
+women to meet all of it. She was insane to think she could come to the
+city to school. Her mother had been right. The girl decided that if
+only she lived to reach home, she would stay there and lead any sort of
+life to avoid more of this torture. Bad as what she wished to escape
+had been, it was nothing like this. She never could live down the
+movement that went through the class when she inadvertently revealed
+the fact that she had expected books to be furnished. Her mother would
+not secure them; that settled the question.
+
+But the end of misery is never in a hurry to come; before the day was
+over the superintendent entered the room and explained that pupils from
+the country were charged a tuition of twenty dollars a year. That
+really was the end. Previously Elnora had canvassed a dozen methods for
+securing the money for books, ranging all the way from offering to wash
+the superintendent’s dishes to breaking into the bank. This additional
+expense made her plans so wildly impossible, there was nothing to do
+but hold up her head until she was from sight.
+
+Down the long corridor alone among hundreds, down the long street alone
+among thousands, out into the country she came at last. Across the
+fence and field, along the old trail once trodden by a boy’s bitter
+agony, now stumbled a white-faced girl, sick at heart. She sat on a log
+and began to sob in spite of her efforts at self-control. At first it
+was physical breakdown, later, thought came crowding.
+
+Oh the shame, the mortification! Why had she not known of the tuition?
+How did she happen to think that in the city books were furnished?
+Perhaps it was because she had read they were in several states. But
+why did she not know? Why did not her mother go with her? Other
+mothers—but when had her mother ever been or done anything at all like
+other mothers? Because she never had been it was useless to blame her
+now. Elnora realized she should have gone to town the week before,
+called on some one and learned all these things herself. She should
+have remembered how her clothing would look, before she wore it in
+public places. Now she knew, and her dreams were over. She must go home
+to feed chickens, calves, and pigs, wear calico and coarse shoes, and
+with averted head, pass a library all her life. She sobbed again.
+
+“For pity’s sake, honey, what’s the matter?” asked the voice of the
+nearest neighbour, Wesley Sinton, as he seated himself beside Elnora.
+“There, there,” he continued, smearing tears all over her face in an
+effort to dry them. “Was it as bad as that, now? Maggie has been just
+wild over you all day. She’s got nervouser every minute. She said we
+were foolish to let you go. She said your clothes were not right, you
+ought not to carry that tin pail, and that they would laugh at you. By
+gum, I see they did!”
+
+“Oh, Uncle Wesley,” sobbed the girl, “why didn’t she tell me?”
+
+“Well, you see, Elnora, she didn’t like to. You got such a way of
+holding up your head, and going through with things. She thought some
+way that you’d make it, till you got started, and then she begun to see
+a hundred things we should have done. I reckon you hadn’t reached that
+building before she remembered that your skirt should have been pleated
+instead of gathered, your shoes been low, and lighter for hot September
+weather, and a new hat. Were your clothes right, Elnora?”
+
+The girl broke into hysterical laughter. “Right!” she cried. “Right!
+Uncle Wesley, you should have seen me among them! I was a picture!
+They’ll never forget me. No, they won’t get the chance, for they’ll see
+me again to-morrow!
+
+“Now that is what I call spunk, Elnora! Downright grit,” said Wesley
+Sinton. “Don’t you let them laugh you out. You’ve helped Margaret and
+me for years at harvest and busy times, what you’ve earned must amount
+to quite a sum. You can get yourself a good many clothes with it.”
+
+“Don’t mention clothes, Uncle Wesley,” sobbed Elnora, “I don’t care now
+how I look. If I don’t go back all of them will know it’s because I am
+so poor I can’t buy my books.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know as you are so dratted poor,” said Sinton
+meditatively. “There are three hundred acres of good land, with fine
+timber as ever grew on it.”
+
+“It takes all we can earn to pay the tax, and mother wouldn’t cut a
+tree for her life.”
+
+“Well then, maybe, I’ll be compelled to cut one for her,” suggested
+Sinton. “Anyway, stop tearing yourself to pieces and tell me. If it
+isn’t clothes, what is it?”
+
+“It’s books and tuition. Over twenty dollars in all.”
+
+“Humph! First time I ever knew you to be stumped by twenty dollars,
+Elnora,” said Sinton, patting her hand.
+
+“It’s the first time you ever knew me to want money,” answered Elnora.
+“This is different from anything that ever happened to me. Oh, how can
+I get it, Uncle Wesley?”
+
+“Drive to town with me in the morning and I’ll draw it from the bank
+for you. I owe you every cent of it.”
+
+“You know you don’t owe me a penny, and I wouldn’t touch one from you,
+unless I really could earn it. For anything that’s past I owe you and
+Aunt Margaret for all the home life and love I’ve ever known. I know
+how you work, and I’ll not take your money.”
+
+“Just a loan, Elnora, just a loan for a little while until you can earn
+it. You can be proud with all the rest of the world, but there are no
+secrets between us, are there, Elnora?”
+
+“No,” said Elnora, “there are none. You and Aunt Margaret have given me
+all the love there has been in my life. That is the one reason above
+all others why you shall not give me charity. Hand me money because you
+find me crying for it! This isn’t the first time this old trail has
+known tears and heartache. All of us know that story. Freckles stuck to
+what he undertook and won out. I stick, too. When Duncan moved away he
+gave me all Freckles left in the swamp, and as I have inherited his
+property maybe his luck will come with it. I won’t touch your money,
+but I’ll win some way. First, I’m going home and try mother. It’s just
+possible I could find second-hand books, and perhaps all the tuition
+need not be paid at once. Maybe they would accept it quarterly. But oh,
+Uncle Wesley, you and Aunt Margaret keep on loving me! I’m so lonely,
+and no one else cares!”
+
+Wesley Sinton’s jaws met with a click. He swallowed hard on bitter
+words and changed what he would have liked to say three times before it
+became articulate.
+
+“Elnora,” he said at last, “if it hadn’t been for one thing I’d have
+tried to take legal steps to make you ours when you were three years
+old. Maggie said then it wasn’t any use, but I’ve always held on. You
+see, I was the first man there, honey, and there are things you see,
+that you can’t ever make anybody else understand. She loved him Elnora,
+she just made an idol of him. There was that oozy green hole, with the
+thick scum broke, and two or three big bubbles slowly rising that were
+the breath of his body. There she was in spasms of agony, and beside
+her the great heavy log she’d tried to throw him. I can’t ever forgive
+her for turning against you, and spoiling your childhood as she has,
+but I couldn’t forgive anybody else for abusing her. Maggie has got no
+mercy on her, but Maggie didn’t see what I did, and I’ve never tried to
+make it very clear to her. It’s been a little too plain for me ever
+since. Whenever I look at your mother’s face, I see what she saw, so I
+hold my tongue and say, in my heart, ‘Give her a mite more time.’ Some
+day it will come. She does love you, Elnora. Everybody does, honey.
+It’s just that she’s feeling so much, she can’t express herself. You be
+a patient girl and wait a little longer. After all, she’s your mother,
+and you’re all she’s got, but a memory, and it might do her good to let
+her know that she was fooled in that.”
+
+“It would kill her!” cried the girl swiftly. “Uncle Wesley, it would
+kill her! What do you mean?”
+
+“Nothing,” said Wesley Sinton soothingly. “Nothing, honey. That was
+just one of them fool things a man says, when he is trying his best to
+be wise. You see, she loved him mightily, and they’d been married only
+a year, and what she was loving was what she thought he was. She hadn’t
+really got acquainted with the man yet. If it had been even one more
+year, she could have borne it, and you’d have got justice. Having been
+a teacher she was better educated and smarter than the rest of us, and
+so she was more sensitive like. She can’t understand she was loving a
+dream. So I say it might do her good if somebody that knew, could tell
+her, but I swear to gracious, I never could. I’ve heard her out at the
+edge of that quagmire calling in them wild spells of hers off and on
+for the last sixteen years, and imploring the swamp to give him back to
+her, and I’ve got out of bed when I was pretty tired, and come down to
+see she didn’t go in herself, or harm you. What she feels is too deep
+for me. I’ve got to respectin’ her grief, and I can’t get over it. Go
+home and tell your ma, honey, and ask her nice and kind to help you. If
+she won’t, then you got to swallow that little lump of pride in your
+neck, and come to Aunt Maggie, like you been a-coming all your life.”
+
+“I’ll ask mother, but I can’t take your money, Uncle Wesley, indeed I
+can’t. I’ll wait a year, and earn some, and enter next year.”
+
+“There’s one thing you don’t consider, Elnora,” said the man earnestly.
+“And that’s what you are to Maggie. She’s a little like your ma. She
+hasn’t given up to it, and she’s struggling on brave, but when we
+buried our second little girl the light went out of Maggie’s eyes, and
+it’s not come back. The only time I ever see a hint of it is when she
+thinks she’s done something that makes you happy, Elnora. Now, you go
+easy about refusing her anything she wants to do for you. There’s times
+in this world when it’s our bounden duty to forget ourselves, and think
+what will help other people. Young woman, you owe me and Maggie all the
+comfort we can get out of you. There’s the two of our own we can’t ever
+do anything for. Don’t you get the idea into your head that a fool
+thing you call pride is going to cut us out of all the pleasure we have
+in life beside ourselves.”
+
+“Uncle Wesley, you are a dear,” said Elnora. “Just a dear! If I can’t
+possibly get that money any way else on earth, I’ll come and borrow it
+of you, and then I’ll pay it back if I must dig ferns from the swamp
+and sell them from door to door in the city. I’ll even plant them, so
+that they will be sure to come up in the spring. I have been sort of
+panic stricken all day and couldn’t think. I can gather nuts and sell
+them. Freckles sold moths and butterflies, and I’ve a lot collected. Of
+course, I am going back to-morrow! I can find a way to get the books.
+Don’t you worry about me. I am all right!
+
+“Now, what do you think of that?” inquired Wesley Sinton of the swamp
+in general. “Here’s our Elnora come back to stay. Head high and right
+as a trivet! You’ve named three ways in three minutes that you could
+earn ten dollars, which I figure would be enough, to start you. Let’s
+go to supper and stop worrying!”
+
+Elnora unlocked the case, took out the pail, put the napkin in it,
+pulled the ribbon from her hair, binding it down tightly again and
+followed to the road. From afar she could see her mother in the
+doorway. She blinked her eyes, and tried to smile as she answered
+Wesley Sinton, and indeed she did feel better. She knew now what she
+had to expect, where to go, and what to do. Get the books she must;
+when she had them, she would show those city girls and boys how to
+prepare and recite lessons, how to walk with a brave heart; and they
+could show her how to wear pretty clothes and have good times.
+
+As she neared the door her mother reached for the pail. “I forgot to
+tell you to bring home your scraps for the chickens,” she said.
+
+Elnora entered. “There weren’t any scraps, and I’m hungry again as I
+ever was in my life.”
+
+“I thought likely you would be,” said Mrs. Comstock, “and so I got
+supper ready. We can eat first, and do the work afterward. What kept
+you so? I expected you an hour ago.”
+
+Elnora looked into her mother’s face and smiled. It was a queer sort of
+a little smile, and would have reached the depths with any normal
+mother.
+
+“I see you’ve been bawling,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I thought you’d get
+your fill in a hurry. That’s why I wouldn’t go to any expense. If we
+keep out of the poor-house we have to cut the corners close. It’s
+likely this Brushwood road tax will eat up all we’ve saved in years.
+Where the land tax is to come from I don’t know. It gets bigger every
+year. If they are going to dredge the swamp ditch again they’ll just
+have to take the land to pay for it. I can’t, that’s all! We’ll get up
+early in the morning and gather and hull the beans for winter, and put
+in the rest of the day hoeing the turnips.”
+
+Elnora again smiled that pitiful smile.
+
+“Do you think I didn’t know that I was funny and would be laughed at?”
+she asked.
+
+“Funny?” cried Mrs. Comstock hotly.
+
+“Yes, funny! A regular caricature,” answered Elnora. “No one else wore
+calico, not even one other. No one else wore high heavy shoes, not even
+one. No one else had such a funny little old hat; my hair was not
+right, my ribbon invisible compared with the others, I did not know
+where to go, or what to do, and I had no books. What a spectacle I made
+for them!” Elnora laughed nervously at her own picture. “But there are
+always two sides! The professor said in the algebra class that he never
+had a better solution and explanation than mine of the proposition he
+gave me, which scored one for me in spite of my clothes.”
+
+“Well, I wouldn’t brag on myself!”
+
+“That was poor taste,” admitted Elnora. “But, you see, it is a case of
+whistling to keep up my courage. I honestly could see that I would have
+looked just as well as the rest of them if I had been dressed as they
+were. We can’t afford that, so I have to find something else to brace
+me. It was rather bad, mother!”
+
+“Well, I’m glad you got enough of it!”
+
+“Oh, but I haven’t,” hurried in Elnora. “I just got a start. The
+hardest is over. To-morrow they won’t be surprised. They will know what
+to expect. I am sorry to hear about the dredge. Is it really going
+through?”
+
+“Yes. I got my notification today. The tax will be something enormous.
+I don’t know as I can spare you, even if you are willing to be a
+laughing-stock for the town.”
+
+With every bite Elnora’s courage returned, for she was a healthy young
+thing.
+
+“You’ve heard about doing evil that good might come from it,” she said.
+“Well, mother mine, it’s something like that with me. I’m willing to
+bear the hard part to pay for what I’ll learn. Already I have selected
+the ward building in which I shall teach in about four years. I am
+going to ask for a room with a south exposure so that the flowers and
+moths I take in from the swamp to show the children will do well.”
+
+“You little idiot!” said Mrs. Comstock. “How are you going to pay your
+expenses?”
+
+“Now that is just what I was going to ask you!” said Elnora. “You see,
+I have had two startling pieces of news to-day. I did not know I would
+need any money. I thought the city furnished the books, and there is an
+out-of-town tuition, also. I need ten dollars in the morning. Will you
+please let me have it?”
+
+“Ten dollars!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “Ten dollars! Why don’t you say a
+hundred and be done with it! I could get one as easy as the other. I
+told you! I told you I couldn’t raise a cent. Every year expenses grow
+bigger and bigger. I told you not to ask for money!”
+
+“I never meant to,” replied Elnora. “I thought clothes were all I
+needed and I could bear them. I never knew about buying books and
+tuition.”
+
+“Well, I did!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I knew what you would run into! But
+you are so bull-dog stubborn, and so set in your way, I thought I would
+just let you try the world a little and see how you liked it!”
+
+Elnora pushed back her chair and looked at her mother.
+
+“Do you mean to say,” she demanded, “that you knew, when you let me go
+into a city classroom and reveal the fact before all of them that I
+expected to have my books handed out to me; do you mean to say that you
+knew I had to pay for them?”
+
+Mrs. Comstock evaded the direct question.
+
+“Anybody but an idiot mooning over a book or wasting time prowling the
+woods would have known you had to pay. Everybody has to pay for
+everything. Life is made up of pay, pay, pay! It’s always and forever
+pay! If you don’t pay one way you do another! Of course, I knew you had
+to pay. Of course, I knew you would come home blubbering! But you don’t
+get a penny! I haven’t one cent, and can’t get one! Have your way if
+you are determined, but I think you will find the road somewhat rocky.”
+
+“Swampy, you mean, mother,” corrected Elnora. She arose white and
+trembling. “Perhaps some day God will teach me how to understand you.
+He knows I do not now. You can’t possibly realize just what you let me
+go through to-day, or how you let me go, but I’ll tell you this: You
+understand enough that if you had the money, and would offer it to me,
+I wouldn’t touch it now. And I’ll tell you this much more. I’ll get it
+myself. I’ll raise it, and do it some honest way. I am going back
+to-morrow, the next day, and the next. You need not come out, I’ll do
+the night work, and hoe the turnips.”
+
+It was ten o’clock when the chickens, pigs, and cattle were fed, the
+turnips hoed, and a heap of bean vines was stacked beside the back
+door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WHEREIN WESLEY AND MARGARET GO SHOPPING, AND ELNORA’S WARDROBE IS
+REPLENISHED
+
+
+Wesley Sinton walked down the road half a mile and turned at the lane
+leading to his home. His heart was hot and filled with indignation. He
+had told Elnora he did not blame her mother, but he did. His wife met
+him at the door.
+
+“Did you see anything of Elnora?” she questioned.
+
+“Most too much, Maggie,” he answered. “What do you say to going to
+town? There’s a few things has to be got right away.”
+
+“Where did you see her, Wesley?”
+
+“Along the old Limberlost trail, my girl, torn to pieces sobbing. Her
+courage always has been fine, but the thing she met to-day was too much
+for her. We ought to have known better than to let her go that way. It
+wasn’t only clothes; there were books, and entrance fees for
+out-of-town people, that she didn’t know about; while there must have
+been jeers, whispers, and laughing. Maggie, I feel as if I’d been a
+traitor to those girls of ours. I ought to have gone in and seen about
+this school business. Don’t cry, Maggie. Get me some supper, and I’ll
+hitch up and see what we can do now.”
+
+“What can we do, Wesley?
+
+“I don’t just know. But we’ve got to do something. Kate Comstock will
+be a handful, while Elnora will be two, but between us we must see that
+the girl is not too hard pressed about money, and that she is dressed
+so she is not ridiculous. She’s saved us the wages of a woman many a
+day, can’t you make her some decent dresses?”
+
+“Well, I’m not just what you call expert, but I could beat Kate
+Comstock all to pieces. I know that skirts should be pleated to the
+band instead of gathered, and full enough to sit in, and short enough
+to walk in. I could try. There are patterns for sale. Let’s go right
+away, Wesley.”
+
+“Set me a bit of supper, while I hitch up.”
+
+Margaret built a fire, made coffee, and fried ham and eggs. She set out
+pie and cake and had enough for a hungry man by the time the carriage
+was at the door, but she had no appetite. She dressed while Wesley ate,
+put away the food while he dressed, and then they drove toward the city
+through the beautiful September evening, and as they went they planned
+for Elnora. The trouble was, not whether they were generous enough to
+buy what she needed, but whether she would accept their purchases, and
+what her mother would say.
+
+They went to a drygoods store and when a clerk asked what they wanted
+to see neither of them knew, so they stepped aside and held a whispered
+consultation.
+
+“What had we better get, Wesley?”
+
+“Dresses,” said Wesley promptly,
+
+“But how many dresses, and what kind?”
+
+“Blest if I know!” exclaimed Wesley. “I thought you would manage that.
+I know about some things I’m going to get.”
+
+At that instant several high school girls came into the store and
+approached them.
+
+“There!” exclaimed Wesley breathlessly. “There, Maggie! Like them!
+That’s what she needs! Buy like they have!”
+
+Margaret stared. What did they wear? They were rapidly passing; they
+seemed to have so much, and she could not decide so quickly. Before she
+knew it she was among them.
+
+“I beg your pardon, but won’t you wait one minute?” she asked.
+
+The girls stopped with wondering faces.
+
+“It’s your clothes,” explained Mrs. Sinton. “You look just beautiful to
+me. You look exactly as I should have wanted to see my girls. They both
+died of diphtheria when they were little, but they had yellow hair,
+dark eyes and pink cheeks, and everybody thought they were lovely. If
+they had lived, they’d been near your age now, and I’d want them to
+look like you.”
+
+There was sympathy on every girl face.
+
+“Why thank you!” said one of them. “We are very sorry for you.”
+
+“Of course you are,” said Margaret. “Everybody always has been. And
+because I can’t ever have the joy of a mother in thinking for my girls
+and buying pretty things for them, there is nothing left for me, but to
+do what I can for some one who has no mother to care for her. I know a
+girl, who would be just as pretty as any of you, if she had the
+clothes, but her mother does not think about her, so I mother her some
+myself.”
+
+“She must be a lucky girl,” said another.
+
+“Oh, she loves me,” said Margaret, “and I love her. I want her to look
+just like you do. Please tell me about your clothes. Are these the
+dresses and hats you wear to school? What kind of goods are they, and
+where do you buy them?”
+
+The girls began to laugh and cluster around Margaret. Wesley strode
+down the store with his head high through pride in her, but his heart
+was sore over the memory of two little faces under Brushwood sod. He
+inquired his way to the shoe department.
+
+“Why, every one of us have on gingham or linen dresses,” they said,
+“and they are our school clothes.”
+
+For a few moments there was a babel of laughing voices explaining to
+the delighted Margaret that school dresses should be bright and pretty,
+but simple and plain, and until cold weather they should wash.
+
+“I’ll tell you,” said Ellen Brownlee, “my father owns this store, I
+know all the clerks. I’ll take you to Miss Hartley. You tell her just
+how much you want to spend, and what you want to buy, and she will know
+how to get the most for your money. I’ve heard papa say she was the
+best clerk in the store for people who didn’t know precisely what they
+wanted.”
+
+“That’s the very thing,” agreed Margaret. “But before you go, tell me
+about your hair. Elnora’s hair is bright and wavy, but yours is silky
+as hackled flax. How do you do it?”
+
+“Elnora?” asked four girls in concert.
+
+“Yes, Elnora is the name of the girl I want these things for.”
+
+“Did she come to the high school to-day?” questioned one of them.
+
+“Was she in your classes?” demanded Margaret without reply.
+
+Four girls stood silent and thought fast. Had there been a strange girl
+among them, and had she been overlooked and passed by with
+indifference, because she was so very shabby? If she had appeared as
+much better than they, as she had looked worse, would her reception
+have been the same?
+
+“There was a strange girl from the country in the Freshman class
+to-day,” said Ellen Brownlee, “and her name was Elnora.”
+
+“That was the girl,” said Margaret.
+
+“Are her people so very poor?” questioned Ellen.
+
+“No, not poor at all, come to think of it,” answered Margaret. “It’s a
+peculiar case. Mrs. Comstock had a great trouble and she let it change
+her whole life and make a different woman of her. She used to be
+lovely; now she is forever saving and scared to death for fear they
+will go to the poorhouse; but there is a big farm, covered with lots of
+good timber. The taxes are high for women who can’t manage to clear and
+work the land. There ought to be enough to keep two of them in good
+shape all their lives, if they only knew how to do it. But no one ever
+told Kate Comstock anything, and never will, for she won’t listen. All
+she does is droop all day, and walk the edge of the swamp half the
+night, and neglect Elnora. If you girls would make life just a little
+easier for her it would be the finest thing you ever did.”
+
+All of them promised they would.
+
+“Now tell me about your hair,” persisted Margaret Sinton.
+
+So they took her to a toilet counter, and she bought the proper hair
+soap, also a nail file, and cold cream, for use after windy days. Then
+they left her with the experienced clerk, and when at last Wesley found
+her she was loaded with bundles and the light of other days was in her
+beautiful eyes. Wesley also carried some packages.
+
+“Did you get any stockings?” he whispered.
+
+“No, I didn’t,” she said. “I was so interested in dresses and hair
+ribbons and a—a hat——” she hesitated and glanced at Wesley. “Of course,
+a hat!” prompted Wesley. “That I forgot all about those horrible shoes.
+She’s got to have decent shoes, Wesley.”
+
+“Sure!” said Wesley. “She’s got decent shoes. But the man said some
+brown stockings ought to go with them. Take a peep, will you!”
+
+Wesley opened a box and displayed a pair of thick-soled, beautifully
+shaped brown walking shoes of low cut. Margaret cried out with
+pleasure.
+
+“But do you suppose they are the right size, Wesley? What did you get?”
+
+“I just said for a girl of sixteen with a slender foot.”
+
+“Well, that’s about as near as I could come. If they don’t fit when she
+tries them, we will drive straight in and change them. Come on now,
+let’s get home.”
+
+All the way they discussed how they should give Elnora their purchases
+and what Mrs. Comstock would say.
+
+“I am afraid she will be awful mad,” said Margaret.
+
+“She’ll just rip!” replied Wesley graphically. “But if she wants to
+leave the raising of her girl to the neighbours, she needn’t get
+fractious if they take some pride in doing a good job. From now on I
+calculate Elnora shall go to school; and she shall have all the clothes
+and books she needs, if I go around on the back of Kate Comstock’s land
+and cut a tree, or drive off a calf to pay for them. Why I know one
+tree she owns that would put Elnora in heaven for a year. Just think of
+it, Margaret! It’s not fair. One-third of what is there belongs to
+Elnora by law, and if Kate Comstock raises a row I’ll tell her so, and
+see that the girl gets it. You go to see Kate in the morning, and I’ll
+go with you. Tell her you want Elnora’s pattern, that you are going to
+make her a dress, for helping us. And sort of hint at a few more
+things. If Kate balks, I’ll take a hand and settle her. I’ll go to law
+for Elnora’s share of that land and sell enough to educate her.”
+
+“Why, Wesley Sinton, you’re perfectly wild.”
+
+“I’m not! Did you ever stop to think that such cases are so frequent
+there have been laws made to provide for them? I can bring it up in
+court and force Kate to educate Elnora, and board and clothe her till
+she’s of age, and then she can take her share.”
+
+“Wesley, Kate would go crazy!”
+
+“She’s crazy now. The idea of any mother living with as sweet a girl as
+Elnora and letting her suffer till I find her crying like a funeral. It
+makes me fighting mad. All uncalled for. Not a grain of sense in it.
+I’ve offered and offered to oversee clearing her land and working her
+fields. Let her sell a good tree, or a few acres. Something is going to
+be done, right now. Elnora’s been fairly happy up to this, but to spoil
+the school life she’s planned, is to ruin all her life. I won’t have
+it! If Elnora won’t take these things, so help me, I’ll tell her what
+she is worth, and loan her the money and she can pay me back when she
+comes of age. I am going to have it out with Kate Comstock in the
+morning. Here we are! You open up what you got while I put away the
+horses, and then I’ll show you.”
+
+When Wesley came from the barn Margaret had four pieces of crisp
+gingham, a pale blue, a pink, a gray with green stripes and a rich
+brown and blue plaid. On each of them lay a yard and a half of wide
+ribbon to match. There were handkerchiefs and a brown leather belt. In
+her hands she held a wide-brimmed tan straw hat, having a high crown
+banded with velvet strips each of which fastened with a tiny gold
+buckle.
+
+“It looks kind of bare now,” she explained. “It had three quills on it
+here.”
+
+“Did you have them taken off?” asked Wesley.
+
+“Yes, I did. The price was two and a half for the hat, and those things
+were a dollar and a half apiece. I couldn’t pay that.”
+
+“It does seem considerable,” admitted Wesley, “but will it look right
+without them?”
+
+“No, it won’t!” said Margaret. “It’s going to have quills on it. Do you
+remember those beautiful peacock wing feathers that Phoebe Simms gave
+me? Three of them go on just where those came off, and nobody will ever
+know the difference. They match the hat to a moral, and they are just a
+little longer and richer than the ones that I had taken off. I was
+wondering whether I better sew them on to-night while I remember how
+they set, or wait till morning.”
+
+“Don’t risk it!” exclaimed Wesley anxiously. “Don’t you risk it! Sew
+them on right now!”
+
+“Open your bundles, while I get the thread,” said Margaret.
+
+Wesley unwrapped the shoes. Margaret took them up and pinched the
+leather and stroked them.
+
+“My, but they are fine!” she cried.
+
+Wesley picked up one and slowly turned it in his big hands. He glanced
+at his foot and back to the shoe.
+
+“It’s a little bit of a thing, Margaret,” he said softly. “Like as not
+I’ll have to take it back. It seems as if it couldn’t fit.”
+
+“It seems as if it didn’t dare do anything else,” said Margaret.
+“That’s a happy little shoe to get the chance to carry as fine a girl
+as Elnora to high school. Now what’s in the other box?”
+
+Wesley looked at Margaret doubtfully.
+
+“Why,” he said, “you know there’s going to be rainy days, and those
+things she has now ain’t fit for anything but to drive up the cows——”
+
+“Wesley, did you get high shoes, too?”
+
+“Well, she ought to have them! The man said he would make them cheaper
+if I took both pairs at once.”
+
+Margaret laughed aloud. “Those will do her past Christmas,” she
+exulted. “What else did you buy?”
+
+“Well sir,” said Wesley, “I saw something to-day. You told me about
+Kate getting that tin pail for Elnora to carry to high school and you
+said you told her it was a shame. I guess Elnora was ashamed all right,
+for to-night she stopped at the old case Duncan gave her, and took out
+that pail, where it had been all day, and put a napkin inside it.
+Coming home she confessed she was half starved because she hid her
+dinner under a culvert, and a tramp took it. She hadn’t had a bite to
+eat the whole day. But she never complained at all, she was pleased
+that she hadn’t lost the napkin. So I just inquired around till I found
+this, and I think it’s about the ticket.”
+
+Wesley opened the package and laid a brown leather lunch box on the
+table. “Might be a couple of books, or drawing tools or most anything
+that’s neat and genteel. You see, it opens this way.”
+
+It did open, and inside was a space for sandwiches, a little porcelain
+box for cold meat or fried chicken, another for salad, a glass with a
+lid which screwed on, held by a ring in a corner, for custard or jelly,
+a flask for tea or milk, a beautiful little knife, fork, and spoon
+fastened in holders, and a place for a napkin.
+
+Margaret was almost crying over it.
+
+“How I’d love to fill it!” she exclaimed.
+
+“Do it the first time, just to show Kate Comstock what love is!” said
+Wesley. “Get up early in the morning and make one of those dresses
+to-morrow. Can’t you make a plain gingham dress in a day? I’ll pick a
+chicken, and you fry it and fix a little custard for the cup, and do it
+up brown. Go on, Maggie, you do it!”
+
+“I never can,” said Margaret. “I am slow as the itch about sewing, and
+these are not going to be plain dresses when it comes to making them.
+There are going to be edgings of plain green, pink, and brown to the
+bias strips, and tucks and pleats around the hips, fancy belts and
+collars, and all of it takes time.”
+
+“Then Kate Comstock’s got to help,” said Wesley. “Can the two of you
+make one, and get that lunch to-morrow?”
+
+“Easy, but she’ll never do it!”
+
+“You see if she doesn’t!” said Wesley. “You get up and cut it out, and
+soon as Elnora is gone I’ll go after Kate myself. She’ll take what I’ll
+say better alone. But she’ll come, and she’ll help make the dress.
+These other things are our Christmas gifts to Elnora. She’ll no doubt
+need them more now than she will then, and we can give them just as
+well. That’s yours, and this is mine, or whichever way you choose.”
+
+Wesley untied a good brown umbrella and shook out the folds of a long,
+brown raincoat. Margaret dropped the hat, arose and took the coat. She
+tried it on, felt it, cooed over it and matched it with the umbrella.
+
+“Did it look anything like rain to-night?” she inquired so anxiously
+that Wesley laughed.
+
+“And this last bundle?” she said, dropping back in her chair, the coat
+still over her shoulders.
+
+“I couldn’t buy this much stuff for any other woman and nothing for my
+own,” said Wesley. “It’s Christmas for you, too, Margaret!” He shook
+out fold after fold of soft gray satiny goods that would look lovely
+against Margaret’s pink cheeks and whitening hair.
+
+“Oh, you old darling!” she exclaimed, and fled sobbing into his arms.
+
+But she soon dried her eyes, raked together the coals in the cooking
+stove and boiled one of the dress patterns in salt water for half an
+hour. Wesley held the lamp while she hung the goods on the line to dry.
+Then she set the irons on the stove so they would be hot the first
+thing in the morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA VISITS THE BIRD WOMAN, AND OPENS A BANK ACCOUNT
+
+
+Four o’clock the following morning Elnora was shelling beans. At six
+she fed the chickens and pigs, swept two of the rooms of the cabin,
+built a fire, and put on the kettle for breakfast. Then she climbed the
+narrow stairs to the attic she had occupied since a very small child,
+and dressed in the hated shoes and brown calico, plastered down her
+crisp curls, ate what breakfast she could, and pinning on her hat
+started for town.
+
+“There is no sense in your going for an hour yet,” said her mother.
+
+“I must try to discover some way to earn those books,” replied Elnora.
+“I am perfectly positive I shall not find them lying beside the road
+wrapped in tissue paper, and tagged with my name.”
+
+She went toward the city as on yesterday. Her perplexity as to where
+tuition and books were to come from was worse but she did not feel
+quite so badly. She never again would have to face all of it for the
+first time. There had been times yesterday when she had prayed to be
+hidden, or to drop dead, and neither had happened. “I believe the best
+way to get an answer to prayer is to work for it,” muttered Elnora
+grimly.
+
+Again she followed the trail to the swamp, rearranged her hair and left
+the tin pail. This time she folded a couple of sandwiches in the
+napkin, and tied them in a neat light paper parcel which she carried in
+her hand. Then she hurried along the road to Onabasha and found a
+book-store. There she asked the prices of the list of books that she
+needed, and learned that six dollars would not quite supply them. She
+anxiously inquired for second-hand books, but was told that the only
+way to secure them was from the last year’s Freshmen. Just then Elnora
+felt that she positively could not approach any of those she supposed
+to be Sophomores and ask to buy their old books. The only balm the girl
+could see for the humiliation of yesterday was to appear that day with
+a set of new books.
+
+“Do you wish these?” asked the clerk hurriedly, for the store was
+rapidly filling with school children wanting anything from a dictionary
+to a pen.
+
+“Yes,” gasped Elnora, “Oh, yes! But I cannot pay for them just now.
+Please let me take them, and I will pay for them on Friday, or return
+them as perfect as they are. Please trust me for them a few days.”
+
+“I’ll ask the proprietor,” he said. When he came back Elnora knew the
+answer before he spoke.
+
+“I’m sorry,” he said, “but Mr. Hann doesn’t recognize your name. You
+are not a customer of ours, and he feels that he can’t take the risk.”
+
+Elnora clumped out of the store, the thump of her heavy shoes beating
+as a hammer on her brain. She tried two other dealers with the same
+result, and then in sick despair came into the street. What could she
+do? She was too frightened to think. Should she stay from school that
+day and canvass the homes appearing to belong to the wealthy, and try
+to sell beds of wild ferns, as she had suggested to Wesley Sinton? What
+would she dare ask for bringing in and planting a clump of ferns? How
+could she carry them? Would people buy them? She slowly moved past the
+hotel and then glanced around to see if there were a clock anywhere,
+for she felt sure the young people passing her constantly were on their
+way to school.
+
+There it stood in a bank window in big black letters staring straight
+at her:
+
+WANTED: CATERPILLARS, COCOONS, CHRYSALIDES, PUPAE CASES, BUTTERFLIES,
+MOTHS, INDIAN RELICS OF ALL KINDS. HIGHEST SCALE OF PRICES PAID IN CASH
+
+Elnora caught the wicket at the cashier’s desk with both hands to brace
+herself against disappointment.
+
+“Who is it wants to buy cocoons, butterflies, and moths?” she panted.
+
+“The Bird Woman,” answered the cashier. “Have you some for sale?”
+
+“I have some, I do not know if they are what she would want.”
+
+“Well, you had better see her,” said the cashier. “Do you know where
+she lives?”
+
+“Yes,” said Elnora. “Would you tell me the time?”
+
+“Twenty-one after eight,” was the answer.
+
+She had nine minutes to reach the auditorium or be late. Should she go
+to school, or to the Bird Woman? Several girls passed her walking
+swiftly and she remembered their faces. They were hurrying to school.
+Elnora caught the infection. She would see the Bird Woman at noon.
+Algebra came first, and that professor was kind. Perhaps she could slip
+to the superintendent and ask him for a book for the next lesson, and
+at noon—“Oh, dear Lord make it come true,” prayed Elnora, at noon
+possibly she could sell some of those wonderful shining-winged things
+she had been collecting all her life around the outskirts of the
+Limberlost.
+
+As she went down the long hall she noticed the professor of mathematics
+standing in the door of his recitation room. When she passed him he
+smiled and spoke to her.
+
+“I have been watching for you,” he said, and Elnora stopped bewildered.
+
+“For me?” she questioned.
+
+“Yes,” said Professor Henley. “Step inside.”
+
+Elnora followed him into the room and closed the door behind them.
+
+“At teachers’ meeting last evening, one of the professors mentioned
+that a pupil had betrayed in class that she had expected her books to
+be furnished by the city. I thought possibly it was you. Was it?”
+
+“Yes,” breathed Elnora.
+
+“That being the case,” said Professor Henley, “it just occurred to me
+as you had expected that, you might require a little time to secure
+them, and you are too fine a mathematician to fall behind for want of
+supplies. So I telephoned one of our Sophomores to bring her last
+year’s books this morning. I am sorry to say they are somewhat abused,
+but the text is all here. You can have them for two dollars, and pay
+when you are ready. Would you care to take them?”
+
+Elnora sat suddenly, because she could not stand another instant. She
+reached both hands for the books, and said never a word. The professor
+was silent also.
+
+At last Elnora arose, hugging those books to her heart as a mother
+clasps a baby.
+
+“One thing more,” said the professor. “You may pay your tuition
+quarterly. You need not bother about the first instalment this month.
+Any time in October will do.”
+
+It seemed as if Elnora’s gasp of relief must have reached the soles of
+her brogans.
+
+“Did any one ever tell you how beautiful you are!” she cried.
+
+As the professor was lank, tow-haired and so near-sighted, that he
+peered at his pupils through spectacles, no one ever had.
+
+“No,” said Professor Henley, “I’ve waited some time for that; for which
+reason I shall appreciate it all the more. Come now, or we shall be
+late for opening exercises.”
+
+So Elnora entered the auditorium a second time. Her face was like the
+brightest dawn that ever broke over the Limberlost. No matter about the
+lumbering shoes and skimpy dress. No matter about anything, she had the
+books. She could take them home. In her garret she could commit them to
+memory, if need be. She could prove that clothes were not all. If the
+Bird Woman did not want any of the many different kinds of specimens
+she had collected, she was quite sure now she could sell ferns, nuts,
+and a great many things. Then, too, a girl made a place for her that
+morning, and several smiled and bowed. Elnora forgot everything save
+her books, and that she was where she could use them
+intelligently—everything except one little thing away back in her head.
+Her mother had known about the books and the tuition, and had not told
+her when she agreed to her coming.
+
+At noon Elnora took her little parcel of lunch and started to the home
+of the Bird Woman. She must know about the specimens first and then she
+would walk to the suburbs somewhere and eat a few bites. She dropped
+the heavy iron knocker on the door of a big red log cabin, and her
+heart thumped at the resounding stroke.
+
+“Is the Bird Woman at home?” she asked of the maid.
+
+“She is at lunch,” was the answer.
+
+“Please ask her if she will see a girl from the Limberlost about some
+moths?” inquired Elnora.
+
+“I never need ask, if it’s moths,” laughed the girl. “Orders are to
+bring any one with specimens right in. Come this way.”
+
+Elnora followed down the hall and entered a long room with high
+panelled wainscoting, old English fireplace with an overmantel and
+closets of peculiar china filling the corners. At a bare table of oak,
+yellow as gold, sat a woman Elnora often had watched and followed
+covertly around the Limberlost. The Bird Woman was holding out a hand
+of welcome.
+
+“I heard!” she laughed. “A little pasteboard box, or just the mere word
+‘specimen,’ passes you at my door. If it is moths I hope you have
+hundreds. I’ve been very busy all summer and unable to collect, and I
+need so many. Sit down and lunch with me, while we talk it over. From
+the Limberlost, did you say?”
+
+“I live near the swamp,” replied Elnora. “Since it’s so cleared I dare
+go around the edge in daytime, though we are all afraid at night.”
+
+“What have you collected?” asked the Bird Woman, as she helped Elnora
+to sandwiches unlike any she ever before had tasted, salad that seemed
+to be made of many familiar things, and a cup of hot chocolate that
+would have delighted any hungry schoolgirl.
+
+“I am afraid I am bothering you for nothing, and imposing on you,” she
+said. “That ‘collected’ frightens me. I’ve only gathered. I always
+loved everything outdoors, so I made friends and playmates of them.
+When I learned that the moths die so soon, I saved them especially,
+because there seemed no wickedness in it.”
+
+“I have thought the same thing,” said the Bird Woman encouragingly.
+Then because the girl could not eat until she learned about the moths,
+the Bird Woman asked Elnora if she knew what kinds she had.
+
+“Not all of them,” answered Elnora. “Before Mr. Duncan moved away he
+often saw me near the edge of the swamp and he showed me the box he had
+fixed for Freckles, and gave me the key. There were some books and
+things, so from that time on I studied and tried to take moths right,
+but I am afraid they are not what you want.”
+
+“Are they the big ones that fly mostly in June nights?” asked the Bird
+Woman.
+
+“Yes,” said Elnora. “Big gray ones with reddish markings, pale
+blue-green, yellow with lavender, and red and yellow.”
+
+“What do you mean by ‘red and yellow?’” asked the Bird Woman so quickly
+that the girl almost jumped.
+
+“Not exactly red,” explained Elnora, with tremulous voice. “A reddish,
+yellowish brown, with canary-coloured spots and gray lines on their
+wings.”
+
+“How many of them?” It was the same quick question.
+
+“I had over two hundred eggs,” said Elnora, “but some of them didn’t
+hatch, and some of the caterpillars died, but there must be at least a
+hundred perfect ones.”
+
+“Perfect! How perfect?” cried the Bird Woman.
+
+“I mean whole wings, no down gone, and all their legs and antennae,”
+faltered Elnora.
+
+“Young woman, that’s the rarest moth in America,” said the Bird Woman
+solemnly. “If you have a hundred of them, they are worth a hundred
+dollars according to my list. I can use all that are not damaged.”
+
+“What if they are not pinned right,” quavered Elnora.
+
+“If they are perfect, that does not make the slightest difference. I
+know how to soften them so that I can put them into any shape I choose.
+Where are they? When may I see them?”
+
+“They are in Freckles’s old case in the Limberlost,” said Elnora. “I
+couldn’t carry many for fear of breaking them, but I could bring a few
+after school.”
+
+“You come here at four,” said the Bird Woman, “and we will drive out
+with some specimen boxes, and a price list, and see what you have to
+sell. Are they your very own? Are you free to part with them?”
+
+“They are mine,” said Elnora. “No one but God knows I have them. Mr.
+Duncan gave me the books and the box. He told Freckles about me, and
+Freckles told him to give me all he left. He said for me to stick to
+the swamp and be brave, and my hour would come, and it has! I know most
+of them are all right, and oh, I do need the money!”
+
+“Could you tell me?” asked the Bird Woman softly.
+
+“You see the swamp and all the fields around it are so full,” explained
+Elnora. “Every day I felt smaller and smaller, and I wanted to know
+more and more, and pretty soon I grew desperate, just as Freckles did.
+But I am better off than he was, for I have his books, and I have a
+mother; even if she doesn’t care for me as other girls’ mothers do for
+them, it’s better than no one.”
+
+The Bird Woman’s glance fell, for the girl was not conscious of how
+much she was revealing. Her eyes were fixed on a black pitcher filled
+with goldenrod in the centre of the table and she was saying what she
+thought.
+
+“As long as I could go to the Brushwood school I was happy, but I
+couldn’t go further just when things were the most interesting, so I
+was determined I’d come to high school and mother wouldn’t consent. You
+see there’s plenty of land, but father was drowned when I was a baby,
+and mother and I can’t make money as men do. The taxes are higher every
+year, and she said it was too expensive. I wouldn’t give her any rest,
+until at last she bought me this dress, and these shoes and I came. It
+was awful!”
+
+“Do you live in that beautiful cabin at the northwest end of the
+swamp?” asked the Bird Woman.
+
+“Yes,” said Elnora.
+
+“I remember the place and a story about it, now. You entered the high
+school yesterday?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It was rather bad?”
+
+“Rather bad!” echoed Elnora.
+
+The Bird Woman laughed.
+
+“You can’t tell me anything about that,” she said. “I once entered a
+city school straight from the country. My dress was brown calico, and
+my shoes were heavy.”
+
+The tears began to roll down Elnora’s cheeks.
+
+“Did they——?” she faltered.
+
+“They did!” said the Bird Woman. “All of it. I am sure they did not
+miss one least little thing.”
+
+Then she wiped away some tears that began coursing her cheeks, and
+laughed at the same time.
+
+“Where are they now?” asked Elnora suddenly.
+
+“They are widely scattered, but none of them have attained heights out
+of range. Some of the rich are poor, and some of the poor are rich.
+Some of the brightest died insane, and some of the dullest worked out
+high positions; some of the very worst to bear have gone out, and I
+frequently hear from others. Now I am here, able to remember it, and
+mingle laughter with what used to be all tears; for every day I have my
+beautiful work, and almost every day God sends some one like you to
+help me. What is your name, my girl?”
+
+“Elnora Comstock,” answered Elnora. “Yesterday on the board it changed
+to Cornstock, and for a minute I thought I’d die, but I can laugh over
+that already.”
+
+The Bird Woman arose and kissed her. “Finish your lunch,” she said,
+“and I will bring my price lists, and make a memorandum of what you
+think you have, so I will know how many boxes to prepare. And remember
+this: What you are lies with you. If you are lazy, and accept your lot,
+you may live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name
+anywhere you choose, among the only ones who live beyond the grave in
+this world, the people who write books that help, make exquisite music,
+carve statues, paint pictures, and work for others. Never mind the
+calico dress, and the coarse shoes. Work at your books, and before long
+you will hear yesterday’s tormentors boasting that they were once
+classmates of yours. ‘I could a tale unfold’——!”
+
+She laughingly left the room and Elnora sat thinking, until she
+remembered how hungry she was, so she ate the food, drank the hot
+chocolate and began to feel better.
+
+Then the Bird Woman came back and showed Elnora a long printed slip
+giving a list of graduated prices for moths, butterflies, and
+dragonflies.
+
+“Oh, do you want them!” exulted Elnora. “I have a few and I can get
+more by the thousand, with every colour in the world on their wings.”
+
+“Yes,” said the Bird Woman, “I will buy them, also the big moth
+caterpillars that are creeping everywhere now, and the cocoons that
+they will spin just about this time. I have a sneaking impression that
+the mystery, wonder, and the urge of their pure beauty, are going to
+force me to picture and paint our moths and put them into a book for
+all the world to see and know. We Limberlost people must not be selfish
+with the wonders God has given to us. We must share with those poor
+cooped-up city people the best we can. To send them a beautiful book,
+that is the way, is it not, little new friend of mine?”
+
+“Yes, oh yes!” cried Elnora. “And please God they find a way to earn
+the money to buy the books, as I have those I need so badly.”
+
+“I will pay good prices for all the moths you can find,” said the Bird
+Woman, “because you see I exchange them with foreign collectors. I want
+a complete series of the moths of America to trade with a German
+scientist, another with a man in India, and another in Brazil. Others I
+can exchange with home collectors for those of California and Canada,
+so you see I can use all you can raise, or find. The banker will buy
+stone axes, arrow points, and Indian pipes. There was a teacher from
+the city grade schools here to-day for specimens. There is a fund to
+supply the ward buildings. I’ll help you get in touch with that. They
+want leaves of different trees, flowers, grasses, moths, insects,
+birds’ nests and anything about birds.”
+
+Elnora’s eyes were blazing. “Had I better go back to school or open a
+bank account and begin being a millionaire? Uncle Wesley and I have a
+bushel of arrow points gathered, a stack of axes, pipes, skin-dressing
+tools, tubes and mortars. I don’t know how I ever shall wait three
+hours.”
+
+“You must go, or you will be late,” said the Bird Woman. “I will be
+ready at four.”
+
+After school closed Elnora, seated beside the Bird Woman, drove to
+Freckles’s room in the Limberlost. One at a time the beautiful big
+moths were taken from the interior of the old black case. Not a fourth
+of them could be moved that night and it was almost dark when the last
+box was closed, the list figured, and into Elnora’s trembling fingers
+were paid fifty-nine dollars and sixteen cents. Elnora clasped the
+money closely.
+
+“Oh you beautiful stuff!” she cried. “You are going to buy the books,
+pay the tuition, and take me to high school.”
+
+Then because she was a woman, she sat on a log and looked at her shoes.
+Long after the Bird Woman drove away Elnora remained. She had her
+problem, and it was a big one. If she told her mother, would she take
+the money to pay the taxes? If she did not tell her, how could she
+account for the books, and things for which she would spend it. At last
+she counted out what she needed for the next day, placed the remainder
+in the farthest corner of the case, and locked the door. She then
+filled the front of her skirt from a heap of arrow points beneath the
+case and started home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WHEREIN THE SINTONS ARE DISAPPOINTED, AND MRS. COMSTOCK LEARNS THAT SHE
+CAN LAUGH
+
+
+With the first streak of red above the Limberlost Margaret Sinton was
+busy with the gingham and the intricate paper pattern she had
+purchased. Wesley cooked the breakfast and worked until he thought
+Elnora would be gone, then he started to bring her mother.
+
+“Now you be mighty careful,” cautioned Margaret. “I don’t know how she
+will take it.”
+
+“I don’t either,” said Wesley philosophically, “but she’s got to take
+it some way. That dress has to be finished by school time in the
+morning.”
+
+Wesley had not slept well that night. He had been so busy framing
+diplomatic speeches to make to Mrs. Comstock that sleep had little
+chance with him. Every step nearer to her he approached his position
+seemed less enviable. By the time he reached the front gate and started
+down the walk between the rows of asters and lady slippers he was
+perspiring, and every plausible and convincing speech had fled his
+brain. Mrs. Comstock helped him. She met him at the door.
+
+“Good morning,” she said. “Did Margaret send you for something?”
+
+“Yes,” said Wesley. “She’s got a job that’s too big for her, and she
+wants you to help.”
+
+“Of course I will,” said Mrs. Comstock. It was no one’s affair how
+lonely the previous day had been, or how the endless hours of the
+present would drag. “What is she doing in such a rush?”
+
+Now was his chance.
+
+“She’s making a dress for Elnora,” answered, Wesley. He saw Mrs.
+Comstock’s form straighten, and her face harden, so he continued
+hastily. “You see Elnora has been helping us at harvest time,
+butchering, and with unexpected visitors for years. We’ve made out that
+she’s saved us a considerable sum, and as she wouldn’t ever touch any
+pay for anything, we just went to town and got a few clothes we thought
+would fix her up a little for the high school. We want to get a dress
+done to-day mighty bad, but Margaret is slow about sewing, and she
+never can finish alone, so I came after you.”
+
+“And it’s such a simple little matter, so dead easy; and all so between
+old friends like, that you can’t look above your boots while you
+explain it,” sneered Mrs. Comstock. “Wesley Sinton, what put the idea
+into your head that Elnora would take things bought with money, when
+she wouldn’t take the money?”
+
+Then Sinton’s eyes came up straightly.
+
+“Finding her on the trail last night sobbing as hard as I ever saw any
+one at a funeral. She wasn’t complaining at all, but she’s come to me
+all her life with her little hurts, and she couldn’t hide how she’d
+been laughed at, twitted, and run face to face against the fact that
+there were books and tuition, unexpected, and nothing will ever make me
+believe you didn’t know that, Kate Comstock.”
+
+“If any doubts are troubling you on that subject, sure I knew it! She
+was so anxious to try the world, I thought I’d just let her take a few
+knocks and see how she liked them.”
+
+“As if she’d ever taken anything but knocks all her life!” cried Wesley
+Sinton. “Kate Comstock, you are a heartless, selfish woman. You’ve
+never shown Elnora any real love in her life. If ever she finds out
+that thing you’ll lose her, and it will serve you right.”
+
+“She knows it now,” said Mrs. Comstock icily, “and she’ll be home
+to-night just as usual.”
+
+“Well, you are a brave woman if you dared put a girl of Elnora’s make
+through what she suffered yesterday, and will suffer again to-day, and
+let her know you did it on purpose. I admire your nerve. But I’ve
+watched this since Elnora was born, and I got enough. Things have come
+to a pass where they go better for her, or I interfere.”
+
+“As if you’d ever done anything but interfere all her life! Think I
+haven’t watched you? Think I, with my heart raw in my breast, and too
+numb to resent it openly, haven’t seen you and Mag Sinton trying to
+turn Elnora against me day after day? When did you ever tell her what
+her father meant to me? When did you ever try to make her see the wreck
+of my life, and what I’ve suffered? No indeed! Always it’s been poor
+little abused Elnora, and cakes, kissing, extra clothes, and
+encouraging her to run to you with a pitiful mouth every time I tried
+to make a woman of her.”
+
+“Kate Comstock, that’s unjust,” cried Sinton. “Only last night I tried
+to show her the picture I saw the day she was born. I begged her to
+come to you and tell you pleasant what she needed, and ask you for what
+I happen to know you can well afford to give her.”
+
+“I can’t!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You know I can’t!”
+
+“Then get so you can!” said Wesley Sinton. “Any day you say the word
+you can sell six thousand worth of rare timber off this place easy.
+I’ll see to clearing and working the fields cheap as dirt, for Elnora’s
+sake. I’ll buy you more cattle to fatten. All you’ve got to do is sign
+a lease, to pull thousands from the ground in oil, as the rest of us
+are doing all around you!”
+
+“Cut down Robert’s trees!” shrieked Mrs. Comstock. “Tear up his land!
+Cover everything with horrid, greasy oil! I’ll die first.”
+
+“You mean you’ll let Elnora go like a beggar, and hurt and mortify her
+past bearing. I’ve got to the place where I tell you plain what I am
+going to do. Maggie and I went to town last night, and we bought what
+things Elnora needs most urgent to make her look a little like the rest
+of the high school girls. Now here it is in plain English. You can help
+get these things ready, and let us give them to her as we want——”
+
+“She won’t touch them!” cried Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“Then you can pay us, and she can take them as her right——”
+
+“I won’t!”
+
+“Then I will tell Elnora just what you are worth, what you can afford,
+and how much of this she owns. I’ll loan her the money to buy books and
+decent clothes, and when she is of age she can sell her share and pay
+me.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock gripped a chair-back and opened her lips, but no words
+came.
+
+“And,” Sinton continued, “if she is so much like you that she won’t do
+that, I’ll go to the county seat and lay complaint against you as her
+guardian before the judge. I’ll swear to what you are worth, and how
+you are raising her, and have you discharged, or have the judge appoint
+some man who will see that she is comfortable, educated, and decent
+looking!”
+
+“You—you wouldn’t!” gasped Kate Comstock.
+
+“I won’t need to, Kate!” said Sinton, his heart softening the instant
+the hard words were said. “You won’t show it, but you do love Elnora!
+You can’t help it! You must see how she needs things; come help us fix
+them, and be friends. Maggie and I couldn’t live without her, and you
+couldn’t either. You’ve got to love such a fine girl as she is; let it
+show a little!”
+
+“You can hardly expect me to love her,” said Mrs. Comstock coldly. “But
+for her a man would stand back of me now, who would beat the breath out
+of your sneaking body for the cowardly thing with which you threaten
+me. After all I’ve suffered you’d drag me to court and compel me to
+tear up Robert’s property. If I ever go they carry me. If they touch
+one tree, or put down one greasy old oil well, it will be over all I
+can shoot, before they begin. Now, see how quick you can clear out of
+here!”
+
+“You won’t come and help Maggie with the dress?”
+
+For answer Mrs. Comstock looked around swiftly for some object on which
+to lay her hands. Knowing her temper, Wesley Sinton left with all the
+haste consistent with dignity. But he did not go home. He crossed a
+field, and in an hour brought another neighbour who was skilful with
+her needle. With sinking heart Margaret saw them coming.
+
+“Kate is too busy to help to-day, she can’t sew before to-morrow,” said
+Wesley cheerfully as they entered.
+
+That quieted Margaret’s apprehension a little, though she had some
+doubts. Wesley prepared the lunch, and by four o’clock the dress was
+finished as far as it possibly could be until it was fitted on Elnora.
+If that did not entail too much work, it could be completed in two
+hours.
+
+Then Margaret packed their purchases into the big market basket. Wesley
+took the hat, umbrella, and raincoat, and they went to Mrs. Comstock’s.
+As they reached the step, Margaret spoke pleasantly to Mrs. Comstock,
+who sat reading just inside the door, but she did not answer and
+deliberately turned a leaf without looking up.
+
+Wesley Sinton opened the door and went in followed by Margaret.
+
+“Kate,” he said, “you needn’t take out your mad over our little racket
+on Maggie. I ain’t told her a word I said to you, or you said to me.
+She’s not so very strong, and she’s sewed since four o’clock this
+morning to get this dress ready for to-morrow. It’s done and we came
+down to try it on Elnora.”
+
+“Is that the truth, Mag Sinton?” demanded Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“You heard Wesley say so,” proudly affirmed Mrs. Sinton.
+
+“I want to make you a proposition,” said Wesley. “Wait till Elnora
+comes. Then we’ll show her the things and see what she says.”
+
+“How would it do to see what she says without bribing her,” sneered
+Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“If she can stand what she did yesterday, and will to-day, she can bear
+’most anything,” said Wesley. “Put away the clothes if you want to,
+till we tell her.”
+
+“Well, you don’t take this waist I’m working on,” said Margaret, “for I
+have to baste in the sleeves and set the collar. Put the rest out of
+sight if you like.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock picked up the basket and bundles, placed them inside her
+room and closed the door.
+
+Margaret threaded her needle and began to sew. Mrs. Comstock returned
+to her book, while Wesley fidgeted and raged inwardly. He could see
+that Margaret was nervous and almost in tears, but the lines in Mrs.
+Comstock’s impassive face were set and cold. So they sat while the
+clock ticked off the time—one hour, two, dusk, and no Elnora. Just when
+Margaret and Wesley were discussing whether he had not better go to
+town to meet Elnora, they heard her coming up the walk. Wesley dropped
+his tilted chair and squared himself. Margaret gripped her sewing, and
+turned pleading eyes toward the door. Mrs. Comstock closed her book and
+grimly smiled.
+
+“Mother, please open the door,” called Elnora.
+
+Mrs. Comstock arose, and swung back the screen. Elnora stepped in
+beside her, bent half double, the whole front of her dress gathered
+into a sort of bag filled with a heavy load, and one arm stacked high
+with books. In the dim light she did not see the Sintons.
+
+“Please hand me the empty bucket in the kitchen, mother,” she said. “I
+just had to bring these arrow points home, but I’m scared for fear I’ve
+spoiled my dress and will have to wash it. I’m to clean them, and take
+them to the banker in the morning, and oh, mother, I’ve sold enough
+stuff to pay for my books, my tuition, and maybe a dress and some
+lighter shoes besides. Oh, mother I’m so happy! Take the books and
+bring the bucket!”
+
+Then she saw Margaret and Wesley. “Oh, glory!” she exulted. “I was just
+wondering how I’d ever wait to tell you, and here you are! It’s too
+perfectly splendid to be true!”
+
+“Tell us, Elnora,” said Sinton.
+
+“Well sir,” said Elnora, doubling down on the floor and spreading out
+her skirt, “set the bucket here, mother. These points are brittle, and
+should be put in one at a time. If they are chipped I can’t sell them.
+Well sir! I’ve had a time! You know I just had to have books. I tried
+three stores, and they wouldn’t trust me, not even three days, I didn’t
+know what in this world I could do quickly enough. Just when I was
+almost frantic I saw a sign in a bank window asking for caterpillars,
+cocoons, butterflies, arrow points, and everything. I went in, and it
+was this Bird Woman who wants the insects, and the banker wants the
+stones. I had to go to school then, but, if you’ll believe it”—Elnora
+beamed on all of them in turn as she talked and slipped the arrow
+points from her dress to the pail—“if you’ll believe it—but you won’t,
+hardly, until you look at the books—there was the mathematics teacher,
+waiting at his door, and he had a set of books for me that he had
+telephoned a Sophomore to bring.”
+
+“How did he happen to do that, Elnora?” interrupted Sinton.
+
+Elnora blushed.
+
+“It was a fool mistake I made yesterday in thinking books were just
+handed out to one. There was a teachers’ meeting last night and the
+history teacher told about that. Professor Henley thought of me. You
+know I told you what he said about my algebra, mother. Ain’t I glad I
+studied out some of it myself this summer! So he telephoned and a girl
+brought the books. Because they are marked and abused some I get the
+whole outfit for two dollars. I can erase most of the marks, paste down
+the covers, and fix them so they look better. But I must hurry to the
+joy part. I didn’t stop to eat, at noon, I just ran to the Bird
+Woman’s, and I had lunch with her. It was salad, hot chocolate, and
+lovely things, and she wants to buy most every old scrap I ever
+gathered. She wants dragonflies, moths, butterflies, and he—the banker,
+I mean—wants everything Indian. This very night she came to the swamp
+with me and took away enough stuff to pay for the books and tuition,
+and to-morrow she is going to buy some more.”
+
+Elnora laid the last arrow point in the pail and arose, shaking leaves
+and bits of baked earth from her dress. She reached into her pocket,
+produced her money and waved it before their wondering eyes.
+
+“And that’s the joy part!” she exulted. “Put it up in the clock till
+morning, mother. That pays for the books and tuition and—” Elnora
+hesitated, for she saw the nervous grasp with which her mother’s
+fingers closed on the bills. Then she continued, but more slowly and
+thinking before she spoke.
+
+“What I get to-morrow pays for more books and tuition, and maybe a few,
+just a few, things to wear. These shoes are so dreadfully heavy and
+hot, and they make such a noise on the floor. There isn’t another
+calico dress in the whole building, not among hundreds of us. Why, what
+is that? Aunt Margaret, what are you hiding in your lap?”
+
+She snatched the waist and shook it out, and her face was beaming.
+“Have you taken to waists all fancy and buttoned in the back? I bet you
+this is mine!”
+
+“I bet you so too,” said Margaret Sinton. “You undress right away and
+try it on, and if it fits, it will be done for morning. There are some
+low shoes, too!”
+
+Elnora began to dance. “Oh, you dear people!” she cried. “I can pay for
+them to-morrow night! Isn’t it too splendid! I was just thinking on the
+way home that I certainly would be compelled to have cooler shoes until
+later, and I was wondering what I’d do when the fall rains begin.”
+
+“I meant to get you some heavy dress skirts and a coat then,” said Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+“I know you said so!” cried Elnora. “But you needn’t, now! I can buy
+every single stitch I need myself. Next summer I can gather up a lot
+more stuff, and all winter on the way to school. I am sure I can sell
+ferns, I know I can nuts, and the Bird Woman says the grade rooms want
+leaves, grasses, birds’ nests, and cocoons. Oh, isn’t this world
+lovely! I’ll be helping with the tax, next, mother!”
+
+Elnora waved the waist and started for the bedroom. When she opened the
+door she gave a little cry.
+
+“What have you people been doing?” she demanded. “I never saw so many
+interesting bundles in all my life. I’m ‘skeered’ to death for fear I
+can’t pay for them, and will have to give up something.”
+
+“Wouldn’t you take them, if you could not pay for them, Elnora?” asked
+her mother instantly.
+
+“Why, not unless you did,” answered Elnora. “People have no right to
+wear things they can’t afford, have they?”
+
+“But from such old friends as Maggie and Wesley!” Mrs. Comstock’s voice
+was oily with triumph.
+
+“From them least of all,” cried Elnora stoutly. “From a stranger sooner
+than from them, to whom I owe so much more than I ever can pay now.”
+
+“Well, you don’t have to,” said Mrs. Comstock. “Maggie just selected
+these things, because she is more in touch with the world, and has got
+such good taste. You can pay as long as your money holds out, and if
+there’s more necessary, maybe I can sell the butcher a calf, or if
+things are too costly for us, of course, they can take them back. Put
+on the waist now, and then you can look over the rest and see if they
+are suitable, and what you want.”
+
+Elnora stepped into the adjoining room and closed the door. Mrs.
+Comstock picked up the bucket and started for the well with it. At the
+bedroom she paused.
+
+“Elnora, were you going to wash these arrow points?”
+
+“Yes. The Bird Woman says they sell better if they are clean, so it can
+be seen that there are no defects in them.”
+
+“Of course,” said Mrs. Comstock. “Some of them seem quite baked. Shall
+I put them to soak? Do you want to take them in the morning?”
+
+“Yes, I do,” answered Elnora. “If you would just fill the pail with
+water.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock left the room. Wesley Sinton sat with his back to the
+window in the west end of the cabin which overlooked the well. A
+suppressed sound behind him caused him to turn quickly. Then he arose
+and leaned over Margaret.
+
+“She’s out there laughing like a blamed monkey!” he whispered
+indignantly.
+
+“Well, she can’t help it!” exclaimed Margaret.
+
+“I’m going home!” said Wesley.
+
+“Oh no, you are not!” retorted Margaret. “You are missing the point.
+The point is not how you look, or feel. It is to get these things in
+Elnora’s possession past dispute. You go now, and to-morrow Elnora will
+wear calico, and Kate Comstock will return these goods. Right here I
+stay until everything we bought is Elnora’s.”
+
+“What are you going to do?” asked Wesley.
+
+“I don’t know yet, myself,” said Margaret.
+
+Then she arose and peered from the window. At the well curb stood
+Katharine Comstock. The strain of the day was finding reaction. Her
+chin was in the air, she was heaving, shaking and strangling to
+suppress any sound. The word that slipped between Margaret Sinton’s
+lips shocked Wesley until he dropped on his chair, and recalled her to
+her senses. She was fairly composed as she turned to Elnora, and began
+the fitting. When she had pinched, pulled, and patted she called, “Come
+see if you think this fits, Kate.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock had gone around to the back door and answered from the
+kitchen. “You know more about it than I do. Go ahead! I’m getting
+supper. Don’t forget to allow for what it will shrink in washing!”
+
+“I set the colours and washed the goods last night; it can be made to
+fit right now,” answered Margaret.
+
+When she could find nothing more to alter she told Elnora to heat some
+water. After she had done that the girl began opening packages.
+
+The hat came first.
+
+“Mother!” cried Elnora. “Mother, of course, you have seen this, but you
+haven’t seen it on me. I must try it on.”
+
+“Don’t you dare put that on your head until your hair is washed and
+properly combed,” said Margaret.
+
+“Oh!” cried Elnora. “Is that water to wash my hair? I thought it was to
+set the colour in another dress.”
+
+“Well, you thought wrong,” said Margaret simply. “Your hair is going to
+be washed and brushed until it shines like copper. While it dries you
+can eat your supper, and this dress will be finished. Then you can put
+on your new ribbon, and your hat. You can try your shoes now, and if
+they don’t fit, you and Wesley can drive to town and change them. That
+little round bundle on the top of the basket is your stockings.”
+
+Margaret sat down and began sewing swiftly, and a little later opened
+the machine, and ran several long seams.
+
+Elnora returned in a few minutes holding up her skirts and stepping
+daintily in the new shoes.
+
+“Don’t soil them, honey, else you’re sure they fit,” cautioned Wesley.
+
+“They seem just a trifle large, maybe,” said Elnora dubiously, and
+Wesley knelt to feel. He and Margaret thought them a fit, and then
+Elnora appealed to her mother. Mrs. Comstock appeared wiping her hands
+on her apron. She examined the shoes critically.
+
+“They seem to fit,” she said, “but they are away too fine to walk
+country roads.”
+
+“I think so, too,” said Elnora instantly. “We had better take these
+back and get a cheaper pair.”
+
+“Oh, let them go for this time,” said Mrs. Comstock. “They are so
+pretty, I hate to part with them. You can get cheaper ones after this.”
+
+Wesley and Margaret scarcely breathed for a long time.
+
+When Wesley went to do the feeding. Elnora set the table. When the
+water was hot, Margaret pinned a big towel around Elnora’s shoulders
+and washed and dried the lovely hair according to the instructions she
+had been given the previous night. As the hair began to dry it billowed
+out in a sparkling sheen that caught the light and gleamed and flashed.
+
+“Now, the idea is to let it stand naturally, just as the curl will make
+it. Don’t you do any of that nasty, untidy snarling, Elnora,” cautioned
+Margaret. “Wash it this way every two weeks while you are in school,
+shake it out, and dry it. Then part it in the middle and turn a front
+quarter on each side from your face. You tie the back at your neck with
+a string—so, and the ribbon goes in a big, loose bow. I’ll show you.”
+One after another Margaret Sinton tied the ribbons, creasing each of
+them so they could not be returned, as she explained that she was
+trying to find the colour most becoming. Then she produced the raincoat
+which carried Elnora into transports.
+
+Mrs. Comstock objected. “That won’t be warm enough for cold weather,
+and you can’t afford it and a coat, too.”
+
+“I’ll tell you what I thought,” said Elnora. “I was planning on the way
+home. These coats are fine because they keep you dry. I thought I would
+get one, and a warm sweater to wear under it cold days. Then I always
+would be dry, and warm. The sweater only costs three dollars, so I
+could get it and the raincoat both for half the price of a heavy cloth
+coat.”
+
+“You are right about that,” said Mrs. Comstock. “You can change more
+with the weather, too. Keep the raincoat, Elnora.”
+
+“Wear it until you try the hat,” said Margaret. “It will have to do
+until the dress is finished.”
+
+Elnora picked up the hat dubiously. “Mother, may I wear my hair as it
+is now?” she asked.
+
+“Let me take a good look,” said Katharine Comstock.
+
+Heaven only knows what she saw. To Wesley and to Margaret the bright
+young face of Elnora, with its pink tints, its heavy dark brows, its
+bright blue-gray eyes, and its frame of curling reddish-brown hair was
+the sweetest sight on earth, and at that instant Elnora was radiant.
+
+“So long as it’s your own hair, and combed back as plain as it will go,
+I don’t suppose it cuts much ice whether it’s tied a little tighter or
+looser,” conceded Mrs. Comstock. “If you stop right there, you may let
+it go at that.”
+
+Elnora set the hat on her head. It was only a wide tan straw with three
+exquisite peacock quills at one side. Margaret Sinton cried out, Wesley
+slapped his knee and sighed deeply while Mrs. Comstock stood speechless
+for a second.
+
+“I wish you had asked the price before you put that on,” she said
+impatiently. “We never can afford it.”
+
+“It’s not so much as you think,” said Margaret. “Don’t you see what I
+did? I had them take off the quills, and put on some of those Phoebe
+Simms gave me from her peacocks. The hat will only cost you a dollar
+and a half.”
+
+She avoided Wesley’s eyes, and looked straight at Mrs. Comstock. Elnora
+removed the hat to examine it.
+
+“Why, they are those reddish-tan quills of yours!” she cried. “Mother,
+look how beautifully they are set on! I’d much rather have them than
+those from the store.”
+
+“So would I,” said Mrs. Comstock. “If Margaret wants to spare them,
+that will make you a beautiful hat; dirt cheap, too! You must go past
+Mrs. Simms and show her. She would be pleased to see them.”
+
+Elnora sank into a chair and contemplated her toe. “Landy, ain’t I a
+queen?” she murmured. “What else have I got?”
+
+“Just a belt, some handkerchiefs, and a pair of top shoes for rainy
+days and colder weather,” said Margaret.
+
+“About those high shoes, that was my idea,” said Wesley. “Soon as it
+rains, low shoes won’t do, and by taking two pairs at once I could get
+them some cheaper. The low ones are two and the high ones two fifty,
+together three seventy-five. Ain’t that cheap?”
+
+“That’s a real bargain,” said Mrs. Comstock, “if they are good shoes,
+and they look it.”
+
+“This,” said Wesley, producing the last package, “is your Christmas
+present from your Aunt Maggie. I got mine, too, but it’s at the house.
+I’ll bring it up in the morning.”
+
+He handed Margaret the umbrella, and she passed it over to Elnora who
+opened it and sat laughing under its shelter. Then she kissed both of
+them. She brought a pencil and a slip of paper to set down the prices
+they gave her of everything they had brought except the umbrella, added
+the sum, and said laughingly: “Will you please wait till to-morrow for
+the money? I will have it then, sure.”
+
+“Elnora,” said Wesley Sinton. “Wouldn’t you——”
+
+“Elnora, hustle here a minute!” called Mrs. Comstock from the kitchen.
+“I need you!”
+
+“One second, mother,” answered Elnora, throwing off the coat and hat,
+and closing the umbrella as she ran. There were several errands to do
+in a hurry, and then supper. Elnora chattered incessantly, Wesley and
+Margaret talked all they could, while Mrs. Comstock said a word now and
+then, which was all she ever did. But Wesley Sinton was watching her,
+and time and again he saw a peculiar little twist around her mouth. He
+knew that for the first time in sixteen years she really was laughing
+over something. She had all she could do to preserve her usually sober
+face. Wesley knew what she was thinking.
+
+After supper the dress was finished, the pattern for the next one
+discussed, and then the Sintons went home. Elnora gathered her
+treasures. When she started upstairs she stopped. “May I kiss you
+good-night, mother?” she asked lightly.
+
+“Never mind any slobbering,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I should think you’d
+lived with me long enough to know that I don’t care for it.”
+
+“Well, I’d love to show you in some way how happy I am, and how I thank
+you.”
+
+“I wonder what for?” said Mrs. Comstock. “Mag Sinton chose that stuff
+and brought it here and you pay for it.”
+
+“Yes, but you seemed willing for me to have it, and you said you would
+help me if I couldn’t pay all.”
+
+“Maybe I did,” said Mrs. Comstock. “Maybe I did. I meant to get you
+some heavy dress skirts about Thanksgiving, and I still can get them.
+Go to bed, and for any sake don’t begin mooning before a mirror, and
+make a dunce of yourself.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock picked up several papers and blew out the kitchen light.
+She stood in the middle of the sitting-room floor for a time and then
+went into her room and closed the door. Sitting on the edge of the bed
+she thought for a few minutes and then suddenly buried her face in the
+pillow and again heaved with laughter.
+
+Down the road plodded Margaret and Wesley Sinton. Neither of them had
+words to utter their united thought.
+
+“Done!” hissed Wesley at last. “Done brown! Did you ever feel like a
+bloomin’, confounded donkey? How did the woman do it?”
+
+“She didn’t do it!” gulped Margaret through her tears. “She didn’t do
+anything. She trusted to Elnora’s great big soul to bring her out
+right, and really she was right, and so it had to bring her. She’s a
+darling, Wesley! But she’s got a time before her. Did you see Kate
+Comstock grab that money? Before six months she’ll be out combing the
+Limberlost for bugs and arrow points to help pay the tax. I know her.”
+
+“Well, I don’t!” exclaimed Sinton, “she’s too many for me. But there is
+a laugh left in her yet! I didn’t s’pose there was. Bet you a dollar,
+if we could see her this minute, she’d be chuckling over the way we got
+left.”
+
+Both of them stopped in the road and looked back.
+
+“There’s Elnora’s light in her room,” said Margaret. “The poor child
+will feel those clothes, and pore over her books till morning, but
+she’ll look decent to go to school, anyway. Nothing is too big a price
+to pay for that.”
+
+“Yes, if Kate lets her wear them. Ten to one, she makes her finish the
+week with that old stuff!”
+
+“No, she won’t,” said Margaret. “She’ll hardly dare. Kate made some
+concessions, all right; big ones for her—if she did get her way in the
+main. She bent some, and if Elnora proves that she can walk out
+barehanded in the morning and come back with that much money in her
+pocket, an armful of books, and buy a turnout like that, she proves
+that she is of some consideration, and Kate’s smart enough. She’ll
+think twice before she’ll do that. Elnora won’t wear a calico dress to
+high school again. You watch and see if she does. She may have the best
+clothes she’ll get for a time, for the least money, but she won’t know
+it until she tries to buy goods herself at the same rates. Wesley, what
+about those prices? Didn’t they shrink considerable?”
+
+“You began it,” said Wesley. “Those prices were all right. We didn’t
+say what the goods cost us, we said what they would cost her. Surely,
+she’s mistaken about being able to pay all that. Can she pick up stuff
+of that value around the Limberlost? Didn’t the Bird Woman see her
+trouble, and just give her the money?”
+
+“I don’t think so,” said Margaret. “Seems to me I’ve heard of her
+paying, or offering to pay those who would take the money, for bugs and
+butterflies, and I’ve known people who sold that banker Indian stuff.
+Once I heard that his pipe collection beat that of the Government at
+the Philadelphia Centennial. Those things have come to have a value.”
+
+“Well, there’s about a bushel of that kind of valuables piled up in the
+woodshed, that belongs to Elnora. At least, I picked them up because
+she said she wanted them. Ain’t it queer that she’d take to stones,
+bugs, and butterflies, and save them. Now they are going to bring her
+the very thing she wants the worst. Lord, but this is a funny world
+when you get to studying! Looks like things didn’t all come by
+accident. Looks as if there was a plan back of it, and somebody driving
+that knows the road, and how to handle the lines. Anyhow, Elnora’s in
+the wagon, and when I get out in the night and the dark closes around
+me, and I see the stars, I don’t feel so cheap. Maggie, how the nation
+did Kate Comstock do that?”
+
+“You will keep on harping, Wesley. I told you she didn’t do it. Elnora
+did it! She walked in and took things right out of our hands. All Kate
+had to do was to enjoy having it go her way, and she was cute enough to
+put in a few questions that sort of guided Elnora. But I don’t know,
+Wesley. This thing makes me think, too. S’pose we’d taken Elnora when
+she was a baby, and we’d heaped on her all the love we can’t on our
+own, and we’d coddled, petted, and shielded her, would she have made
+the woman that living alone, learning to think for herself, and taking
+all the knocks Kate Comstock could give, have made of her?”
+
+“You bet your life!” cried Wesley, warmly. “Loving anybody don’t hurt
+them. We wouldn’t have done anything but love her. You can’t hurt a
+child loving it. She’d have learned to work, to study, and grown into a
+woman with us, without suffering like a poor homeless dog.”
+
+“But you don’t see the point, Wesley. She would have grown into a fine
+woman with us; but as we would have raised her, would her heart ever
+have known the world as it does now? Where’s the anguish, Wesley, that
+child can’t comprehend? Seeing what she’s seen of her mother hasn’t
+hardened her. She can understand any mother’s sorrow. Living life from
+the rough side has only broadened her. Where’s the girl or boy burning
+with shame, or struggling to find a way, that will cross Elnora’s path
+and not get a lift from her? She’s had the knocks, but there’ll never
+be any of the thing you call ‘false pride’ in her. I guess we better
+keep out. Maybe Kate Comstock knows what she’s doing. Sure as you live,
+Elnora has grown bigger on knocks than she would on love.”
+
+“I don’t s’pose there ever was a very fine point to anything but I
+missed it,” said Wesley, “because I am blunt, rough, and have no book
+learning to speak of. Since you put it into words I see what you mean,
+but it’s dinged hard on Elnora, just the same. And I don’t keep out. I
+keep watching closer than ever. I got my slap in the face, but if I
+don’t miss my guess, Kate Comstock learned her lesson, same as I did.
+She learned that I was in earnest, that I would haul her to court if
+she didn’t loosen up a bit, and she’ll loosen. You see if she doesn’t.
+It may come hard, and the hinges creak, but she’ll fix Elnora decent
+after this, if Elnora doesn’t prove that she can fix herself. As for
+me, I found out that what I was doing was as much for myself as for
+Elnora. I wanted her to take those things from us, and love us for
+giving them. It didn’t work, and but for you, I’d messed the whole
+thing and stuck like a pig in crossing a bridge. But you helped me out;
+Elnora’s got the clothes, and by morning, maybe I won’t grudge Kate the
+only laugh she’s had in sixteen years. You been showing me the way
+quite a spell now, ain’t you, Maggie?”
+
+In her attic Elnora lighted two candles, set them on her little table,
+stacked the books, and put away the precious clothes. How lovingly she
+hung the hat and umbrella, folded the raincoat, and spread the new
+dress over a chair. She fingered the ribbons, and tried to smooth the
+creases from them. She put away the hose neatly folded, touched the
+handkerchiefs, and tried the belt. Then she slipped into her white
+nightdress, shook down her hair that it might become thoroughly dry,
+set a chair before the table, and reverently opened one of the books. A
+stiff draught swept the attic, for it stretched the length of the
+cabin, and had a window in each end. Elnora arose and going to the east
+window closed it. She stood for a minute looking at the stars, the sky,
+and the dark outline of the straggling trees of the rapidly dismantling
+Limberlost. In the region of her case a tiny point of light flashed and
+disappeared. Elnora straightened and wondered. Was it wise to leave her
+precious money there? The light flashed once more, wavered a few
+seconds, and died out. The girl waited. She did not see it again, so
+she turned to her books.
+
+In the Limberlost the hulking figure of a man sneaked down the trail.
+
+“The Bird Woman was at Freckles’s room this evening,” he muttered.
+“Wonder what for?”
+
+He left the trail, entered the enclosure still distinctly outlined, and
+approached the case. The first point of light flashed from the tiny
+electric lamp on his vest. He took a duplicate key from his pocket,
+felt for the padlock and opened it. The door swung wide. The light
+flashed the second time. Swiftly his glance swept the interior.
+
+“’Bout a fourth of her moths gone. Elnora must have been with the Bird
+Woman and given them to her.” Then he stood tense. His keen eyes
+discovered the roll of bills hastily thrust back in the bottom of the
+case. He snatched them up, shut off the light, relocked the case by
+touch, and swiftly went down the trail. Every few seconds he paused and
+listened intently. Just as he reached the road, a second figure
+approached him.
+
+“Is it you, Pete?” came the whispered question.
+
+“Yes,” said the first man.
+
+“I was coming down to take a peep, when I saw your flash,” he said. “I
+heard the Bird Woman had been at the case to-day. Anything doing?”
+
+“Not a thing,” said Pete. “She just took away about a fourth of the
+moths. Probably had the Comstock girl getting them for her. Heard they
+were together. Likely she’ll get the rest to-morrow. Ain’t picking
+gettin’ bare these days?”
+
+“Well, I should say so,” said the second man, turning back in disgust.
+“Coming home, now?”
+
+“No, I am going down this way,” answered Pete, for his eyes caught the
+gleam from the window of the Comstock cabin, and he had a desire to
+learn why Elnora’s attic was lighted at that hour.
+
+He slouched down the road, occasionally feeling the size of the roll he
+had not taken time to count.
+
+The attic was too long, the light too near the other end, and the cabin
+stood much too far back from the road. He could see nothing although he
+climbed the fence and walked back opposite the window. He knew Mrs.
+Comstock was probably awake, and that she sometimes went to the swamp
+behind her home at night. At times a cry went up from that locality
+that paralyzed any one near, or sent them fleeing as if for life. He
+did not care to cross behind the cabin. He returned to the road,
+passed, and again climbed the fence. Opposite the west window he could
+see Elnora. She sat before a small table reading from a book between
+two candles. Her hair fell in a bright sheen around her, and with one
+hand she lightly shook, and tossed it as she studied. The man stood out
+in the night and watched.
+
+For a long time a leaf turned at intervals and the hair-drying went on.
+The man drew nearer. The picture grew more beautiful as he approached.
+He could not see so well as he desired, for the screen was of white
+mosquito netting, and it angered him. He cautiously crept closer. The
+elevation shut off his view. Then he remembered the large willow tree
+shading the well and branching across the window fit the west end of
+the cabin. From childhood Elnora had stepped from the sill to a limb
+and slid down the slanting trunk of the tree. He reached it and
+noiselessly swung himself up. Three steps out on the big limb the man
+shuddered. He was within a few feet of the girl.
+
+He could see the throb of her breast under its thin covering and smell
+the fragrance of the tossing hair. He could see the narrow bed with its
+pieced calico cover, the whitewashed walls with gay lithographs, and
+every crevice stuck full of twigs with dangling cocoons. There were
+pegs for the few clothes, the old chest, the little table, the two
+chairs, the uneven floor covered with rag rugs and braided corn husk.
+But nothing was worth a glance except the perfect face and form within
+reach by one spring through the rotten mosquito bar. He gripped the
+limb above that on which he stood, licked his lips, and breathed
+through his throat to be sure he was making no sound. Elnora closed the
+book and laid it aside. She picked up a towel, and turning the gathered
+ends of her hair rubbed them across it, and dropping the towel on her
+lap, tossed the hair again. Then she sat in deep thought. By and by
+words began to come softly. Near as he was the man could not hear at
+first. He bent closer and listened intently.
+
+“—ever could be so happy,” murmured the soft voice. “The dress is so
+pretty, such shoes, the coat, and everything. I won’t have to be
+ashamed again, not ever again, for the Limberlost is full of precious
+moths, and I always can collect them. The Bird Woman will buy more
+to-morrow, and the next day, and the next. When they are all gone, I
+can spend every minute gathering cocoons, and hunting other things I
+can sell. Oh, thank God, for my precious, precious money. Why, I didn’t
+pray in vain after all! I thought when I asked the Lord to hide me,
+there in that big hall, that He wasn’t doing it, because I wasn’t
+covered from sight that instant. But I’m hidden now, I feel that.”
+Elnora lifted her eyes to the beams above her. “I don’t know much about
+praying properly,” she muttered, “but I do thank you, Lord, for hiding
+me in your own time and way.”
+
+Her face was so bright that it shone with a white radiance. Two big
+tears welled from her eyes, and rolled down her smiling cheeks. “Oh, I
+do feel that you have hidden me,” she breathed. Then she blew out the
+lights, and the little wooden bed creaked under her weight.
+
+Pete Corson dropped from the limb and found his way to the road. He
+stood still a long time, then started back to the Limberlost. A tiny
+point of light flashed in the region of the case. He stopped with an
+oath.
+
+“Another hound trying to steal from a girl,” he exclaimed. “But it’s
+likely he thinks if he gets anything it will be from a woman who can
+afford it, as I did.”
+
+He went on, but beside the fences, and very cautiously.
+
+“Swamp seems to be alive to-night,” he muttered. “That’s three of us
+out.”
+
+He entered a deep place at the northwest corner, sat on the ground and
+taking a pencil from his pocket, he tore a leaf from a little notebook,
+and laboriously wrote a few lines by the light he carried. Then he went
+back to the region of the case and waited. Before his eyes swept the
+vision of the slender white creature with tossing hair. He smiled, and
+worshipped it, until a distant rooster faintly announced dawn.
+
+Then he unlocked the case again, and replaced the money, laid the note
+upon it, and went back to concealment, where he remained until Elnora
+came down the trail in the morning, appearing very lovely in her new
+dress and hat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA RECEIVES A WARNING, AND BILLY APPEARS ON THE SCENE
+
+
+It would be difficult to describe how happy Elnora was that morning as
+she hurried through her work, bathed and put on the neat, dainty
+gingham dress, and the tan shoes. She had a struggle with her hair. It
+crinkled, billowed, and shone, and she could not avoid seeing the
+becoming frame it made around her face. But in deference to her
+mother’s feelings the girl set her teeth, and bound her hair closely to
+her head with a shoe-string. “Not to be changed at the case,” she told
+herself.
+
+That her mother was watching she was unaware. Just as she picked up the
+beautiful brown ribbon Mrs. Comstock spoke.
+
+“You had better let me tie that. You can’t reach behind yourself and do
+it right.”
+
+Elnora gave a little gasp. Her mother never before had proposed to do
+anything for the girl that by any possibility she could do herself. Her
+heart quaked at the thought of how her mother would arrange that bow,
+but Elnora dared not refuse. The offer was too precious. It might never
+be made again.
+
+“Oh thank you!” said the girl, and sitting down she held out the
+ribbon.
+
+Her mother stood back and looked at her critically.
+
+“You haven’t got that like Mag Sinton had it last night,” she
+announced. “You little idiot! You’ve tried to plaster it down to suit
+me, and you missed it. I liked it away better as Mag fixed it, after I
+saw it. You didn’t look so peeled.”
+
+“Oh mother, mother!” laughed Elnora, with a half sob in her voice.
+
+“Hold still, will you?” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You’ll be late, and I
+haven’t packed your dinner yet.”
+
+She untied the string and shook out the hair. It rose with electricity
+and clung to her fingers and hands. Mrs. Comstock jumped back as if
+bitten. She knew that touch. Her face grew white, and her eyes angry.
+
+“Tie it yourself,” she said shortly, “and then I’ll put on the ribbon.
+But roll it back loose like Mag did. It looked so pretty that way.”
+
+Almost fainting Elnora stood before the glass, divided off the front
+parts of her hair, and rolled them as Mrs. Sinton had done; tied it at
+the nape of her neck, then sat while her mother arranged the ribbon.
+
+“If I pull it down till it comes tight in these creases where she had
+it, it will be just right, won’t it?” queried Mrs. Comstock, and the
+amazed Elnora stammered,
+
+“Yes.”
+
+When she looked in the glass the bow was perfectly tied, and how the
+gold tone of the brown did match the lustre of the shining hair!
+“That’s pretty,” commented Mrs. Comstock’s soul, but her stiff lips had
+said all that could be forced from them for once. Just then Wesley
+Sinton came to the door.
+
+“Good morning,” he cried heartily. “Elnora, you look a picture! My, but
+you’re sweet! If any of the city boys get sassy you tell your Uncle
+Wesley, and he’ll horsewhip them. Here’s your Christmas present from
+me.” He handed Elnora the leather lunch box, with her name carved
+across the strap in artistic lettering.
+
+“Oh Uncle Wesley!” was all Elnora could say.
+
+“Your Aunt Maggie filled it for me for a starter,” he said. “Now, if
+you are ready, I’m going to drive past your way and you can ride almost
+to Onabasha with me, and save the new shoes that much.”
+
+Elnora was staring at the box. “Oh I hope it isn’t impolite to open it
+before you,” she said. “I just feel as if I must see inside.”
+
+“Don’t you stand on formality with the neighbours,” laughed Sinton.
+“Look in your box if you want to!”
+
+Elnora slipped the strap and turned back the lid.
+
+This disclosed the knife, fork, napkin, and spoon, the milk flask, and
+the interior packed with dainty sandwiches wrapped in tissue paper, and
+the little compartments for meat, salad, and the custard cup.
+
+“Oh mother!” cried Elnora. “Oh mother, isn’t it fine? What made you
+think of it, Uncle Wesley? How will I ever thank you? No one will have
+a finer lunch box than I. Oh I do thank you! That’s the nicest gift I
+ever had. How I love Christmas in September!”
+
+“It’s a mighty handy thing,” assented Mrs. Comstock, taking in every
+detail with sharp eyes. “I guess you are glad now you went and helped
+Mag and Wesley when you could, Elnora?”
+
+“Deedy, yes,” laughed Elnora, “and I’m going again first time they have
+a big day if I stay from school to do it.”
+
+“You’ll do no such thing!” said the delighted Sinton. “Come now, if
+you’re going!”
+
+“If I ride, can you spare me time to run into the swamp to my box a
+minute?” asked Elnora.
+
+The light she had seen the previous night troubled her.
+
+“Sure,” said Wesley largely. So they drove away and left a white-faced
+woman watching them from the door, her heart a little sorer than usual.
+
+“I’d give a pretty to hear what he’ll say to her!” she commented
+bitterly. “Always sticking in, always doing things I can’t ever afford.
+Where on earth did he get that thing and what did it cost?”
+
+Then she entered the cabin and began the day’s work, but mingled with
+the brooding bitterness of her soul was the vision of a sweet young
+face, glad with a gladness never before seen on it, and over and over
+she repeated: “I wonder what he’ll say to her!”
+
+What he said was that she looked as fresh and sweet as a posy, and to
+be careful not to step in the mud or scratch her shoes when she went to
+the case.
+
+Elnora found her key and opened the door. Not where she had placed it,
+but conspicuously in front lay her little heap of bills, and a crude
+scrawl of writing beside it. Elnora picked up the note in astonishment.
+
+DERE ELNORY,
+
+the lord amighty is hiding you all right done you ever dout it this
+money of yourn was took for some time las nite but it is returned with
+intres for god sake done ever come to the swamp at nite or late evnin
+or mornin or far in any time sompin worse an you know could git you
+
+A FREND.
+
+Elnora began to tremble. She hastily glanced around. The damp earth
+before the case had been trodden by large, roughly shod feet. She
+caught up the money and the note, thrust them into her guimpe, locked
+the case, and ran to the road.
+
+She was so breathless and her face so white Sinton noticed it.
+
+“What in the world’s the matter, Elnora?” he asked.
+
+“I am half afraid!” she panted.
+
+“Tut, tut, child!” said Wesley Sinton. “Nothing in the world to be
+afraid of. What happened?”
+
+“Uncle Wesley,” said Elnora, “I had more money than I brought home last
+night, and I put it in my case. Some one has been there. The ground is
+all trampled, and they left this note.”
+
+“And took your money, I’ll wager,” said Sinton angrily.
+
+“No,” answered Elnora. “Read the note, and oh Uncle Wesley, tell me
+what it means!”
+
+Sinton’s face was a study. “I don’t know what it means,” he said. “Only
+one thing is clear. It means some beast who doesn’t really want to harm
+you has got his eye on you, and he is telling you plain as he can, not
+to give him a chance. You got to keep along the roads, in the open, and
+not let the biggest moth that ever flew toll you out of hearing of us,
+or your mother. It means that, plain and distinct.”
+
+“Just when I can sell them! Just when everything is so lovely on
+account of them! I can’t! I can’t stay away from the swamp. The
+Limberlost is going to buy the books, the clothes, pay the tuition, and
+even start a college fund. I just can’t!”
+
+“You’ve got to,” said Sinton. “This is plain enough. You go far in the
+swamp at your own risk, even in daytime.”
+
+“Uncle Wesley,” said the girl, “last night before I went to bed, I was
+so happy I tried to pray, and I thanked God for hiding me ‘under the
+shadow of His wing.’ But how in the world could any one know it?”
+
+Wesley Sinton’s heart leaped in his breast. His face was whiter than
+the girl’s now.
+
+“Were you praying out loud, honey?” he almost whispered.
+
+“I might have said words,” answered Elnora. “I know I do sometimes.
+I’ve never had any one to talk with, and I’ve played with and talked to
+myself all my life. You’ve caught me at it often, but it always makes
+mother angry when she does. She says it’s silly. I forget and do it,
+when I’m alone. But Uncle Wesley, if I said anything last night, you
+know it was the merest whisper, because I’d have been so afraid of
+waking mother. Don’t you see? I sat up late, and studied two lessons.”
+
+Sinton was steadying himself “I’ll stop and examine the case as I come
+back,” he said. “Maybe I can find some clue. That other—that was just
+accidental. It’s a common expression. All the preachers use it. If I
+tried to pray, that would be the very first thing I’d say.”
+
+The colour returned to Elnora’s face.
+
+“Did you tell your mother about this money, Elnora?” he asked.
+
+“No, I didn’t,” said Elnora. “It’s dreadful not to, but I was afraid.
+You see they are clearing the swamp so fast. Every year it grows more
+difficult to find things, and Indian stuff becomes scarcer. I want to
+graduate, and that’s four years unless I can double on the course. That
+means twenty dollars tuition each year, and new books, and clothes.
+There won’t ever be so much at one time again, that I know. I just got
+to hang to my money. I was afraid to tell her, for fear she would want
+it for taxes, and she really must sell a tree or some cattle for that,
+mustn’t she, Uncle Wesley?”
+
+“On your life, she must!” said Wesley. “You put your little wad in the
+bank all safe, and never mention it to a living soul. It doesn’t seem
+right, but your case is peculiar. Every word you say is a true word.
+Each year you will find less in the swamp, and things everywhere will
+be scarcer. If you ever get a few dollars ahead, that can start your
+college fund. You know you are going to college, Elnora!”
+
+“Of course I am,” said Elnora. “I settled that as soon as I knew what a
+college was. I will put all my money in the bank, except what I owe
+you. I’ll pay that now.”
+
+“If your arrows are heavy,” said Wesley, “I’ll drive on to Onabasha
+with you.”
+
+“But they are not. Half of them were nicked, and this little box held
+all the good ones. It’s so surprising how many are spoiled when you
+wash them.”
+
+“What does he pay?”
+
+“Ten cents for any common perfect one, fifty for revolvers, a dollar
+for obsidian, and whatever is right for enormous big ones.”
+
+“Well, that sounds fair,” said Sinton. “You can come down Saturday and
+wash the stuff at our house, and I’ll take it in when we go marketing
+in the afternoon.”
+
+Elnora jumped from the carriage. She soon found that with her books,
+her lunch box, and the points she had a heavy load. She had almost
+reached the bridge crossing the culvert when she heard distressed
+screams of a child. Across an orchard of the suburbs came a small boy,
+after him a big dog, urged by a man in the background. Elnora’s heart
+was with the small fleeing figure in any event whatever. She dropped
+her load on the bridge, and with practised hand flung a stone at the
+dog. The beast curled double with a howl. The boy reached the fence,
+and Elnora was there to help him over. As he touched the top she swung
+him to the ground, but he clung to her, clasping her tightly, sobbing
+with fear. Elnora helped him to the bridge, and sat with him in her
+arms. For a time his replies to her questions were indistinct, but at
+last he became quieter and she could understand.
+
+He was a mite of a boy, nothing but skin-covered bones, his burned,
+freckled face in a mortar of tears and dust, his clothing unspeakably
+dirty, one great toe in a festering mass from a broken nail, and sores
+all over the visible portions of the small body.
+
+“You won’t let the mean old thing make his dog get me!” he wailed.
+
+“Indeed no,” said Elnora, holding him closely.
+
+“You wouldn’t set a dog on a boy for just taking a few old apples when
+you fed ’em to pigs with a shovel every day, would you?”
+
+“No, I would not,” said Elnora hotly.
+
+“You’d give a boy all the apples he wanted, if he hadn’t any breakfast,
+and was so hungry he was all twisty inside, wouldn’t you?”
+
+“Yes, I would,” said Elnora.
+
+“If you had anything to eat you would give me something right now,
+wouldn’t you?”
+
+“Yes,” said Elnora. “There’s nothing but just stones in the package.
+But my dinner is in that case. I’ll gladly divide.”
+
+She opened the box. The famished child gave a little cry and reached
+both hands. Elnora caught them back.
+
+“Did you have any supper?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Any dinner yesterday?”
+
+“An apple and some grapes I stole.”
+
+“Whose boy are you?”
+
+“Old Tom Billings’s.”
+
+“Why doesn’t your father get you something to eat?”
+
+“He does most days, but he’s drunk now.”
+
+“Hush, you must not!” said Elnora. “He’s your father!”
+
+“He’s spent all the money to get drunk, too,” said the boy, “and Jimmy
+and Belle are both crying for breakfast. I’d a got out all right with
+an apple for myself, but I tried to get some for them and the dog got
+too close. Say, you can throw, can’t you?”
+
+“Yes,” admitted Elnora. She poured half the milk into the cup. “Drink
+this,” she said, holding it to him.
+
+The boy gulped the milk and swore joyously, gripping the cup with
+shaking fingers.
+
+“Hush!” cried Elnora. “That’s dreadful!”
+
+“What’s dreadful?”
+
+“To say such awful words.”
+
+“Huh! pa says worser ’an that every breath he draws.”
+
+Elnora saw that the child was older than she had thought. He might have
+been forty judging by his hard, unchildish expression.
+
+“Do you want to be like your father?”
+
+“No, I want to be like you. Couldn’t a angel be prettier ’an you. Can I
+have more milk?”
+
+Elnora emptied the flask. The boy drained the cup. He drew a breath of
+satisfaction as he gazed into her face.
+
+“You wouldn’t go off and leave your little boy, would you?” he asked.
+
+“Did some one go away and leave you?”
+
+“Yes, my mother went off and left me, and left Jimmy and Belle, too,”
+said the boy. “You wouldn’t leave your little boy, would you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+The boy looked eagerly at the box. Elnora lifted a sandwich and
+uncovered the fried chicken. The boy gasped with delight.
+
+“Say, I could eat the stuff in the glass and the other box and carry
+the bread and the chicken to Jimmy and Belle,” he offered.
+
+Elnora silently uncovered the custard with preserved cherries on top
+and handed it and the spoon to the child. Never did food disappear
+faster. The salad went next, and a sandwich and half a chicken breast
+followed.
+
+“I better leave the rest for Jimmy and Belle,” he said, “they’re ’ist
+fightin’ hungry.”
+
+Elnora gave him the remainder of the carefully prepared lunch. The boy
+clutched it and ran with a sidewise hop like a wild thing. She covered
+the dishes and cup, polished the spoon, replaced it, and closed the
+case. She caught her breath in a tremulous laugh.
+
+“If Aunt Margaret knew that, she’d never forgive me,” she said. “It
+seems as if secrecy is literally forced upon me, and I hate it. What
+shall I do for lunch? I’ll have to sell my arrows and keep enough money
+for a restaurant sandwich.”
+
+So she walked hurriedly into town, sold her points at a good price,
+deposited her funds, and went away with a neat little bank book and the
+note from the Limberlost carefully folded inside. Elnora passed down
+the hall that morning, and no one paid the slightest attention to her.
+The truth was she looked so like every one else that she was perfectly
+inconspicuous. But in the coat room there were members of her class.
+Surely no one intended it, but the whisper was too loud.
+
+“Look at the girl from the Limberlost in the clothes that woman gave
+her!”
+
+Elnora turned on them. “I beg your pardon,” she said unsteadily, “I
+couldn’t help hearing that! No one gave me these clothes. I paid for
+them myself.”
+
+Some one muttered, “Pardon me,” but incredulous faces greeted her.
+
+Elnora felt driven. “Aunt Margaret selected them, and she meant to give
+them to me,” she explained, “but I wouldn’t take them. I paid for them
+myself.” There was silence.
+
+“Don’t you believe me?” panted Elnora.
+
+“Really, it is none of our affair,” said another girl. “Come on, let’s
+go.”
+
+Elnora stepped before the girl who had spoken. “You have made this your
+affair,” she said, “because you told a thing which was not true. No one
+gave me what I am wearing. I paid for my clothes myself with money I
+earned selling moths to the Bird Woman. I just came from the bank where
+I deposited what I did not use. Here is my credit.” Elnora drew out and
+offered the little red book. “Surely you will believe that,” she said.
+
+“Why of course,” said the girl who first had spoken. “We met such a
+lovely woman in Brownlee’s store, and she said she wanted our help to
+buy some things for a girl, and that’s how we came to know.”
+
+“Dear Aunt Margaret,” said Elnora, “it was like her to ask you. Isn’t
+she splendid?”
+
+“She is indeed,” chorused the girls. Elnora set down her lunch box and
+books, unpinned her hat, hanging it beside the others, and taking up
+the books she reached to set the box in its place and dropped it. With
+a little cry she snatched at it and caught the strap on top. That
+pulled from the fastening, the cover unrolled, the box fell away as far
+as it could, two porcelain lids rattled on the floor, and the one
+sandwich rolled like a cartwheel across the room. Elnora lifted a
+ghastly face. For once no one laughed. She stood an instant staring.
+
+“It seems to be my luck to be crucified at every point of the compass,”
+she said at last. “First two days you thought I was a pauper, now you
+will think I’m a fraud. All of you will believe I bought an expensive
+box, and then was too poor to put anything but a restaurant sandwich in
+it. You must stop till I prove to you that I’m not.”
+
+Elnora gathered up the lids, and kicked the sandwich into a corner.
+
+“I had milk in that bottle, see! And custard in the cup. There was
+salad in the little box, fried chicken in the large one, and nut
+sandwiches in the tray. You can see the crumbs of all of them. A man
+set a dog on a child who was so starved he was stealing apples. I
+talked with him, and I thought I could bear hunger better, he was such
+a little boy, so I gave him my lunch, and got the sandwich at the
+restaurant.”
+
+Elnora held out the box. The girls were laughing by that time. “You
+goose,” said one, “why didn’t you give him the money, and save your
+lunch?”
+
+“He was such a little fellow, and he really was hungry,” said Elnora.
+“I often go without anything to eat at noon in the fields and woods,
+and never think of it.”
+
+She closed the box and set it beside the lunches of other country
+pupils. While her back was turned, into the room came the girl of her
+encounter on the first day, walked to the rack, and with an exclamation
+of approval took down Elnora’s hat.
+
+“Just the thing I have been wanting!” she said. “I never saw such
+beautiful quills in all my life. They match my new broadcloth to
+perfection. I’ve got to have that kind of quills for my hat. I never
+saw the like! Whose is it, and where did it come from?”
+
+No one said a word, for Elnora’s question, the reply, and her answer,
+had been repeated. Every one knew that the Limberlost girl had come out
+ahead and Sadie Reed had not been amiable, when the little flourish had
+been added to Elnora’s name in the algebra class. Elnora’s swift glance
+was pathetic, but no one helped her. Sadie Reed glanced from the hat to
+the faces around her and wondered.
+
+“Why, this is the Freshman section, whose hat is it?” she asked again,
+this time impatiently.
+
+“That’s the tassel of the cornstock,” said Elnora with a forced laugh.
+
+The response was genuine. Every one shouted. Sadie Reed blushed, but
+she laughed also.
+
+“Well, it’s beautiful,” she said, “especially the quills. They are
+exactly what I want. I know I don’t deserve any kindness from you, but
+I do wish you would tell me at whose store you found those quills.”
+
+“Gladly!” said Elnora. “You can’t buy quills like those at a store.
+They are from a living bird. Phoebe Simms gathers them in her orchard
+as her peacocks shed them. They are wing quills from the males.”
+
+Then there was perfect silence. How was Elnora to know that not a girl
+there would have told that?
+
+“I haven’t a doubt but I can get you some,” she offered. “She gave Aunt
+Margaret a large bunch, and those are part of them. I am quite sure she
+has more, and would spare some.”
+
+Sadie Reed laughed shortly. “You needn’t trouble,” she said, “I was
+fooled. I thought they were expensive quills. I wanted them for a
+twenty-dollar velvet toque to match my new suit. If they are gathered
+from the ground, really, I couldn’t use them.”
+
+“Only in spots!” said Elnora. “They don’t just cover the earth. Phoebe
+Simms’s peacocks are the only ones within miles of Onabasha, and they
+moult but once a year. If your hat cost only twenty dollars, it’s
+scarcely good enough for those quills. You see, the Almighty made and
+coloured those Himself; and He puts the same kind on Phoebe Simms’s
+peacocks that He put on the head of the family in the forests of
+Ceylon, away back in the beginning. Any old manufactured quill from New
+York or Chicago will do for your little twenty-dollar hat. You should
+have something infinitely better than that to be worthy of quills that
+are made by the Creator.”
+
+How those girls did laugh! One of them walked with Elnora to the
+auditorium, sat beside her during exercises, and tried to talk whenever
+she dared, to keep Elnora from seeing the curious and admiring looks
+bent upon her.
+
+For the brown-eyed boy whistled, and there was pantomime of all sorts
+going on behind Elnora’s back that day. Happy with her books, no one
+knew how much she saw, and from her absorption in her studies it was
+evident she cared too little to notice.
+
+After school she went again to the home of the Bird Woman, and together
+they visited the swamp and carried away more specimens. This time
+Elnora asked the Bird Woman to keep the money until noon of the next
+day, when she would call for it and have it added to her bank account.
+She slowly walked home, for the visit to the swamp had brought back
+full force the experience of the morning. Again and again she examined
+the crude little note, for she did not know what it meant, yet it bred
+vague fear. The only thing of which Elnora knew herself afraid was her
+mother; when with wild eyes and ears deaf to childish pleading, she
+sometimes lost control of herself in the night and visited the pool
+where her husband had sunk before her, calling his name in unearthly
+tones and begging of the swamp to give back its dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK INDULGES IN “FRILLS,” AND BILLY REAPPEARS
+
+
+It was Wesley Sinton who really wrestled with Elnora’s problem while he
+drove about his business. He was not forced to ask himself what it
+meant; he knew. The old Corson gang was still holding together. Elder
+members who had escaped the law had been joined by a younger brother of
+Jack’s, and they met in the thickest of the few remaining fast places
+of the swamp to drink, gamble, and loaf. Then suddenly, there would be
+a robbery in some country house where a farmer that day had sold his
+wheat or corn and not paid a visit to the bank; or in some neighbouring
+village.
+
+The home of Mrs. Comstock and Elnora adjoined the swamp. Sinton’s land
+lay next, and not another residence or man easy to reach in case of
+trouble. Whoever wrote that note had some human kindness in his breast,
+but the fact stood revealed that he feared his strength if Elnora were
+delivered into his hands. Where had he been the previous night when he
+heard that prayer? Was that the first time he had been in such
+proximity? Sinton drove fast, for he wished to reach the swamp before
+Elnora and the Bird Woman would go there.
+
+At almost four he came to the case, and dropping on his knees studied
+the ground, every sense alert. He found two or three little heel
+prints. Those were made by Elnora or the Bird Woman. What Sinton wanted
+to learn was whether all the remainder were the footprints of one man.
+It was easily seen, they were not. There were deep, even tracks made by
+fairly new shoes, and others where a well-worn heel cut deeper on the
+inside of the print than at the outer edge. Undoubtedly some of
+Corson’s old gang were watching the case, and the visits of the women
+to it. There was no danger that any one would attack the Bird Woman.
+She never went to the swamp at night, and on her trips in the daytime,
+every one knew that she carried a revolver, understood how to use it,
+and pursued her work in a fearless manner.
+
+Elnora, prowling around the swamp and lured into the interior by the
+flight of moths and butterflies; Elnora, without father, money, or
+friends save himself, to defend her—Elnora was a different proposition.
+For this to happen just when the Limberlost was bringing the very
+desire of her heart to the girl, it was too bad.
+
+Sinton was afraid for her, yet he did not want to add the burden of
+fear to Katharine Comstock’s trouble, or to disturb the joy of Elnora
+in her work. He stopped at the cabin and slowly went up the walk. Mrs.
+Comstock was sitting on the front steps with some sewing. The work
+seemed to Sinton as if she might be engaged in putting a tuck in a
+petticoat. He thought of how Margaret had shortened Elnora’s dress to
+the accepted length for girls of her age, and made a mental note of
+Mrs. Comstock’s occupation.
+
+She dropped her work on her lap, laid her hands on it and looked into
+his face with a sneer.
+
+“You didn’t let any grass grow under your feet,” she said.
+
+Sinton saw her white, drawn face and comprehended.
+
+“I went to pay a debt and see about this opening of the ditch, Kate.”
+
+“You said you were going to prosecute me.”
+
+“Good gracious, Kate!” cried Sinton. “Is that what you have been
+thinking all day? I told you before I left yesterday that I would not
+need do that. And I won’t! We can’t afford to quarrel over Elnora.
+She’s all we’ve got. Now that she has proved that if you don’t do just
+what I think you ought by way of clothes and schooling, she can take
+care of herself, I put that out of my head. What I came to see you
+about is a kind of scare I’ve had to-day. I want to ask you if you ever
+see anything about the swamp that makes you think the old Corson gang
+is still at work?”
+
+“Can’t say that I do,” said Mrs. Comstock. “There’s kind of dancing
+lights there sometimes, but I supposed it was just people passing along
+the road with lanterns. Folks hereabout are none too fond of the swamp.
+I hate it like death. I’ve never stayed here a night in my life without
+Robert’s revolver, clean and loaded, under my pillow, and the shotgun,
+same condition, by the bed. I can’t say that I’m afraid here at home.
+I’m not. I can take care of myself. But none of the swamp for me!”
+
+“Well, I’m glad you are not afraid, Kate, because I must tell you
+something. Elnora stopped at the case this morning, and somebody had
+been into it in the night.”
+
+“Broke the lock?”
+
+“No. Used a duplicate key. To-day I heard there was a man here last
+night. I want to nose around a little.”
+
+Sinton went to the east end of the cabin and looked up at the window.
+There was no way any one could have reached it without a ladder, for
+the logs were hewed and mortar filled the cracks even. Then he went to
+the west end, the willow faced him as he turned the corner. He examined
+the trunk carefully. There was no mistake about small particles of
+black swamp muck adhering to the sides of the tree. He reached the low
+branches and climbed the willow. There was earth on the large limb
+crossing Elnora’s window. He stood on it, holding the branch as had
+been done the night before, and looked into the room. He could see very
+little, but he knew that if it had been dark outside and sufficiently
+light for Elnora to study inside he could have seen vividly. He brought
+his face close to the netting, and he could see the bed with its head
+to the east, at its foot the table with the candles and the chair
+before it, and then he knew where the man had been who had heard
+Elnora’s prayer.
+
+Mrs. Comstock had followed around the corner and stood watching him.
+“Do you think some slinking hulk was up there peekin’ in at Elnora?”
+she demanded indignantly.
+
+“There is muck on the trunk, and plenty on the limb,” said Sinton.
+“Hadn’t you better get a saw and let me take this branch off?”
+
+“No, I hadn’t,” said Mrs. Comstock. “First place, Elnora’s climbed from
+that window on that limb all her life, and it’s hers. Second place, no
+one gets ahead of me after I’ve had warning. Any crow that perches on
+that roost again will get its feathers somewhat scattered. Look along
+the fence, there, and see if you can find where he came in.”
+
+The place was easy to find as was a trail leading for some distance
+west of the cabin.
+
+“You just go home, and don’t fret yourself,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I’ll
+take care of this. If you should hear the dinner bell at any time in
+the night you come down. But I wouldn’t say anything to Elnora. She
+better keep her mind on her studies, if she’s going to school.”
+
+When the work was finished that night Elnora took her books and went to
+her room to prepare some lessons, but every few minutes she looked
+toward the swamp to see if there were lights near the case. Mrs.
+Comstock raked together the coals in the cooking stove, got out the
+lunch box, and sitting down she studied it grimly. At last she arose.
+
+“Wonder how it would do to show Mag Sinton a frill or two,” she
+murmured.
+
+She went to her room, knelt before a big black-walnut chest and hunted
+through its contents until she found an old-fashioned cook book. She
+tended the fire as she read and presently was in action. She first
+sawed an end from a fragrant, juicy, sugar-cured ham and put it to
+cook. Then she set a couple of eggs boiling, and after long hesitation
+began creaming butter and sugar in a crock. An hour later the odour of
+the ham, mingled with some of the richest spices of “happy Araby,” in a
+combination that could mean nothing save spice cake, crept up to Elnora
+so strongly that she lifted her head and sniffed amazedly. She would
+have given all her precious money to have gone down and thrown her arms
+around her mother’s neck, but she did not dare move.
+
+Mrs. Comstock was up early, and without a word handed Elnora the case
+as she left the next morning.
+
+“Thank you, mother,” said Elnora, and went on her way.
+
+She walked down the road looking straight ahead until she came to the
+corner, where she usually entered the swamp. She paused, glanced that
+way and smiled. Then she turned and looked back. There was no one
+coming in any direction. She followed the road until well around the
+corner, then she stopped and sat on a grassy spot, laid her books
+beside her and opened the lunch box. Last night’s odours had in a
+measure prepared her for what she would see, but not quite. She
+scarcely could believe her senses. Half the bread compartment was
+filled with dainty sandwiches of bread and butter sprinkled with the
+yolk of egg and the remainder with three large slices of the most
+fragrant spice cake imaginable. The meat dish contained shaved cold
+ham, of which she knew the quality, the salad was tomatoes and celery,
+and the cup held preserved pear, clear as amber. There was milk in the
+bottle, two tissue-wrapped cucumber pickles in the folding
+drinking-cup, and a fresh napkin in the ring. No lunch was ever
+daintier or more palatable; of that Elnora was perfectly sure. And her
+mother had prepared it for her! “She does love me!” cried the happy
+girl. “Sure as you’re born she loves me; only she hasn’t found it out
+yet!”
+
+She touched the papers daintily, and smiled at the box as if it were a
+living thing. As she began closing it a breath of air swept by, lifting
+the covering of the cake. It was like an invitation, and breakfast was
+several hours away. Elnora picked up a piece and ate it. That cake
+tasted even better than it looked. Then she tried a sandwich. How did
+her mother come to think of making them that way. They never had any at
+home. She slipped out the fork, sampled the salad, and one-quarter of
+pear. Then she closed the box and started down the road nibbling one of
+the pickles and trying to decide exactly how happy she was, but she
+could find no standard high enough for a measure.
+
+She was to go to the Bird Woman’s after school for the last load from
+the case. Saturday she would take the arrow points and specimens to the
+bank. That would exhaust her present supplies and give her enough money
+ahead to pay for books, tuition, and clothes for at least two years.
+She would work early and late gathering nuts. In October she would sell
+all the ferns she could find. She must collect specimens of all tree
+leaves before they fell, gather nests and cocoons later, and keep her
+eyes wide open for anything the grades could use. She would see the
+superintendent that night about selling specimens to the ward
+buildings. She must be ahead of any one else if she wanted to furnish
+these things. So she approached the bridge.
+
+That it was occupied could be seen from a distance. As she came up she
+found the small boy of yesterday awaiting her with a confident smile.
+
+“We brought you something!” he announced without greeting. “This is
+Jimmy and Belle—and we brought you a present.”
+
+He offered a parcel wrapped in brown paper.
+
+“Why, how lovely of you!” said Elnora. “I supposed you had forgotten me
+when you ran away so fast yesterday.”
+
+“Naw, I didn’t forget you,” said the boy. “I wouldn’t forget you, not
+ever! Why, I was ist a-hurrying to take them things to Jimmy and Belle.
+My they was glad!”
+
+Elnora glanced at the children. They sat on the edge of the bridge,
+obviously clad in a garment each, very dirty and unkept, a little boy
+and a girl of about seven and nine. Elnora’s heart began to ache.
+
+“Say,” said the boy. “Ain’t you going to look what we have gave you?”
+
+“I thought it wasn’t polite to look before people,” answered Elnora.
+“Of course, I will, if you would like to have me.”
+
+Elnora opened the package. She had been presented with a quarter of a
+stale loaf of baker’s bread, and a big piece of ancient bologna.
+
+“But don’t you want this yourselves?” she asked in surprise.
+
+“Gosh, no! I mean ist no,” said the boy. “We always have it. We got
+stacks this morning. Pa’s come out of it now, and he’s so sorry he got
+more ’an ever we can eat. Have you had any before?”
+
+“No,” said Elnora, “I never did!”
+
+The boy’s eyes brightened and the girl moved restlessly.
+
+“We thought maybe you hadn’t,” said the boy. “First you ever have, you
+like it real well; but when you don’t have anything else for a long
+time, years an’ years, you git so tired.” He hitched at the string
+which held his trousers and watched Elnora speculatively.
+
+“I don’t s’pose you’d trade what you got in that box for ist old bread
+and bologna now, would you? Mebby you’d like it! And I know, I ist
+know, what you got would taste like heaven to Jimmy and Belle. They
+never had nothing like that! Not even Belle, and she’s most ten! No,
+sir-ee, they never tasted things like you got!”
+
+It was in Elnora’s heart to be thankful for even a taste in time, as
+she knelt on the bridge, opened the box and divided her lunch into
+three equal parts, the smaller boy getting most of the milk. Then she
+told them it was school time and she must go.
+
+“Why don’t you put your bread and bologna in the nice box?” asked the
+boy.
+
+“Of course,” said Elnora. “I didn’t think.”
+
+When the box was arranged to the children’s satisfaction all of them
+accompanied Elnora to the corner where she turned toward the high
+school.
+
+“Billy,” said Elnora, “I would like you much better if you were
+cleaner. Surely, you have water! Can’t you children get some soap and
+wash yourselves? Gentlemen are never dirty. You want to be a gentleman,
+don’t you?”
+
+“Is being clean all you have to do to be a gentleman?”
+
+“No,” said Elnora. “You must not say bad words, and you must be kind
+and polite to your sister.”
+
+“Must Belle be kind and polite to me, else she ain’t a lady?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then Belle’s no lady!” said Billy succinctly.
+
+Elnora could say nothing more just then, and she bade them good-bye and
+started them home.
+
+“The poor little souls!” she mused. “I think the Almighty put them in
+my way to show me real trouble. I won’t be likely to spend much time
+pitying myself while I can see them.” She glanced at the lunchbox.
+“What on earth do I carry this for? I never had anything that was so
+strictly ornamental! One sure thing! I can’t take this stuff to the
+high school. You never seem to know exactly what is going to happen to
+you while you are there.”
+
+As if to provide a way out of her difficulty a big dog arose from a
+lawn, and came toward the gate wagging his tail. “If those children ate
+the stuff, it can’t possibly kill him!” thought Elnora, so she offered
+the bologna. The dog accepted it graciously, and being a beast of
+pedigree he trotted around to a side porch and laid the bologna before
+his mistress. The woman snatched it, screaming: “Come, quick! Some one
+is trying to poison Pedro!” Her daughter came running from the house.
+“Go see who is on the street. Hurry!” cried the excited mother.
+
+Ellen Brownlee ran and looked. Elnora was half a block away, and no one
+nearer. Ellen called loudly, and Elnora stopped. Ellen came running
+toward her.
+
+“Did you see any one give our dog something?” she cried as she
+approached.
+
+Elnora saw no escape.
+
+“I gave it a piece of bologna myself,” she said. “It was fit to eat. It
+wouldn’t hurt the dog.”
+
+Ellen stood and looked at her. “Of course, I didn’t know it was your
+dog,” explained Elnora. “I had something I wanted to throw to some dog,
+and that one looked big enough to manage it.”
+
+Ellen had arrived at her conclusions. “Pass over that lunch box,” she
+demanded.
+
+“I will not!” said Elnora.
+
+“Then I will have you arrested for trying to poison our dog,” laughed
+the girl as she took the box.
+
+“One chunk of stale bread, one half mile of antique bologna contributed
+for dog feed; the remains of cake, salad and preserves in an otherwise
+empty lunch box. One ham sandwich yesterday. I think it’s lovely you
+have the box. Who ate your lunch to-day?”
+
+“Same,” confessed Elnora, “but there were three of them this time.”
+
+“Wait, until I run back and tell mother about the dog, and get my
+books.”
+
+Elnora waited. That morning she walked down the hall and into the
+auditorium beside one of the very nicest girls in Onabasha, and it was
+the fourth day. But the surprise came at noon when Ellen insisted upon
+Elnora lunching at the Brownlee home, and convulsed her parents and
+family, and overwhelmed Elnora with a greatly magnified, but moderately
+accurate history of her lunch box.
+
+“Gee! but it’s a box, daddy!” cried the laughing girl. “It’s carved
+leather and fastens with a strap that has her name on it. Inside are
+trays for things all complete, and it bears evidence of having enclosed
+delicious food, but Elnora never gets any. She’s carried it two days
+now, and both times it has been empty before she reached school. Isn’t
+that killing?”
+
+“It is, Ellen, in more ways than one. No girl is going to eat breakfast
+at six o’clock, walk three miles, and do good work without her lunch.
+You can’t tell me anything about that box. I sold it last Monday night
+to Wesley Sinton, one of my good country customers. He told me it was a
+present for a girl who was worthy of it, and I see he was right.”
+
+“He’s so good to me,” said Elnora. “Sometimes I look at him and wonder
+if a neighbour can be so kind to one, what a real father would be like.
+I envy a girl with a father unspeakably.”
+
+“You have cause,” said Ellen Brownlee. “A father is the very dearest
+person in the whole round world, except a mother, who is just a dear.”
+The girl, starting to pay tribute to her father, saw that she must
+include her mother, and said the thing before she remembered what Mrs.
+Sinton had told the girls in the store. She stopped in dismay. Elnora’s
+face paled a trifle, but she smiled bravely.
+
+“Then I’m fortunate in having a mother,” she said.
+
+Mr. Brownlee lingered at the table after the girls had excused
+themselves and returned to school.
+
+“There’s a girl Ellen can’t see too much of, in my opinion,” he said.
+“She is every inch a lady, and not a foolish notion or action about
+her. I can’t understand just what combination of circumstances produced
+her in this day.”
+
+“It has been an unusual case of repression, for one thing. She waits on
+her elders and thinks before she speaks,” said Mrs. Brownlee.
+
+“She’s mighty pretty. She looks so sound and wholesome, and she’s
+neatly dressed.”
+
+“Ellen says she was a fright the first two days. Long brown calico
+dress almost touching the floor, and big, lumbering shoes. Those Sinton
+people bought her clothes. Ellen was in the store, and the woman
+stopped her crowd and asked them about their dresses. She said the girl
+was not poor, but her mother was selfish and didn’t care for her. But
+Elnora showed a bank book the next day, and declared that she paid for
+the things herself, so the Sinton people must just have selected them.
+There’s something peculiar about it, but nothing wrong I am sure. I’ll
+encourage Ellen to ask her again.”
+
+“I should say so, especially if she is going to keep on giving away her
+lunch.”
+
+“She lunched with the Bird Woman one day this week.”
+
+“She did!”
+
+“Yes, she lives out by the Limberlost. You know the Bird Woman works
+there a great deal, and probably knows her that way. I think the girl
+gathers specimens for her. Ellen says she knows more than the teachers
+about any nature question that comes up, and she is going to lead all
+of them in mathematics, and make them work in any branch.”
+
+When Elnora entered the coat room after having had luncheon with Ellen
+Brownlee there was such a difference in the atmosphere that she could
+feel it.
+
+“I am almost sorry I have these clothes,” she said to Ellen.
+
+“In the name of sense, why?” cried the astonished girl.
+
+“Every one is so nice to me in them, it sets me to wondering if in time
+I could have made them be equally friendly in the others.”
+
+Ellen looked at her introspectively. “I believe you could,” she
+announced at last. “But it would have taken time and heartache, and
+your mind would have been less free to work on your studies. No one is
+happy without friends, and I just simply can’t study when I am
+unhappy.”
+
+That night the Bird Woman made the last trip to the swamp. Every
+specimen she possibly could use had been purchased at a fair price, and
+three additions had been made to the bank book, carrying the total a
+little past two hundred dollars. There remained the Indian relics to
+sell on Saturday, and Elnora had secured the order to furnish material
+for nature work for the grades. Life suddenly grew very full. There was
+the most excitingly interesting work for every hour, and that work was
+to pay high school expenses and start the college fund. There was one
+little rift in her joy. All of it would have been so much better if she
+could have told her mother, and given the money into her keeping; but
+the struggle to get a start had been so terrible, Elnora was afraid to
+take the risk. When she reached home, she only told her mother that the
+last of the things had been sold that evening.
+
+“I think,” said Mrs. Comstock, “that we will ask Wesley to move that
+box over here back of the garden for you. There you are apt to get
+tolled farther into the swamp than you intend to go, and you might mire
+or something. There ought to be just the same things in our woods, and
+along our swampy places, as there are in the Limberlost. Can’t you hunt
+your stuff here?”
+
+“I can try,” said Elnora. “I don’t know what I can find until I do. Our
+woods are undisturbed, and there is a possibility they might be even
+better hunting than the swamp. But I wouldn’t have Freckles’s case
+moved for the world. He might come back some day, and not like it. I’ve
+tried to keep his room the best I could, and taking out the box would
+make a big hole in one side of it. Store boxes don’t cost much. I will
+have Uncle Wesley buy me one, and set it up wherever hunting looks the
+best, early in the spring. I would feel safer at home.”
+
+“Shall we do the work or have supper first?”
+
+“Let’s do the work,” said Elnora. “I can’t say that I’m hungry now.
+Doesn’t seem as if I ever could be hungry again with such a lunch. I am
+quite sure no one carried more delicious things to eat than I.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock was pleased. “I put in a pretty good hunk of cake. Did
+you divide it with any one?”
+
+“Why, yes, I did,” admitted Elnora.
+
+“Who?”
+
+This was becoming uncomfortable. “I ate the biggest piece myself,” said
+Elnora, “and gave the rest to a couple of boys named Jimmy and Billy
+and a girl named Belle. They said it was the very best cake they ever
+tasted in all their lives.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock sat straight. “I used to be a master hand at spice cake,”
+she boasted. “But I’m a little out of practice. I must get to work
+again. With the very weeds growing higher than our heads, we should
+raise plenty of good stuff to eat on this land, if we can’t afford
+anything else but taxes.”
+
+Elnora laughed and hurried up stairs to change her dress. Margaret
+Sinton came that night bringing a beautiful blue one in its place, and
+carried away the other to launder.
+
+“Do you mean to say those dresses are to be washed every two days?”
+questioned Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“They have to be, to look fresh,” replied Margaret. “We want our girl
+sweet as a rose.”
+
+“Well, of all things!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “Every two days! Any girl
+who can’t keep a dress clean longer than that is a dirty girl. You’ll
+wear the goods out and fade the colours with so much washing.”
+
+“We’ll have a clean girl, anyway.”
+
+“Well, if you like the job you can have it,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I
+don’t mind the washing, but I’m so inconvenient with an iron.”
+
+Elnora sat late that night working over her lessons. The next morning
+she put on her blue dress and ribbon and in those she was a picture.
+Mrs. Comstock caught her breath with a queer stirring around her heart,
+and looked twice to be sure of what she saw. As Elnora gathered her
+books her mother silently gave her the lunch box.
+
+“Feels heavy,” said Elnora gaily. “And smelly! Like as not I’ll be
+called upon to divide again.”
+
+“Then you divide!” said Mrs. Comstock. “Eating is the one thing we
+don’t have to economize on, Elnora. Spite of all I can do food goes to
+waste in this soil every day. If you can give some of those city
+children a taste of the real thing, why, don’t be selfish.”
+
+Elnora went down the road thinking of the city children with whom she
+probably would divide. Of course, the bridge would be occupied again.
+So she stopped and opened the box.
+
+“I don’t want to be selfish,” murmured Elnora, “but it really seems as
+if I can’t give away this lunch. If mother did not put love into it,
+she’s substituted something that’s likely to fool me.”
+
+She almost felt her steps lagging as she approached the bridge. A very
+hungry dog had been added to the trio of children. Elnora loved all
+dogs, and as usual, this one came to her in friendliness. The children
+said “Good morning!” with alacrity, and another paper parcel lay
+conspicuous.
+
+“How are you this morning?” inquired Elnora.
+
+“All right!” cried the three, while the dog sniffed ravenously at the
+lunch box, and beat a perfect tattoo with his tail.
+
+“How did you like the bologna?” questioned Billy eagerly.
+
+“One of the girls took me to lunch at her home yesterday,” answered
+Elnora.
+
+Dawn broke beautifully over Billy’s streaked face. He caught the
+package and thrust it toward Elnora.
+
+“Then maybe you’d like to try the bologna to-day!”
+
+The dog leaped in glad apprehension of something, and Belle scrambled
+to her feet and took a step forward. The look of famished greed in her
+eyes was more than Elnora could endure. It was not that she cared for
+the food so much. Good things to eat had been in abundance all her
+life. She wanted with this lunch to try to absorb what she felt must be
+an expression of some sort from her mother, and if it were not a
+manifestation of love, she did not know what to think it. But it was
+her mother who had said “be generous.” She knelt on the bridge. “Keep
+back the dog!” she warned the elder boy.
+
+She opened the box and divided the milk between Billy and the girl. She
+gave each a piece of cake leaving one and a sandwich. Billy pressed
+forward eagerly, bitter disappointment on his face, and the elder boy
+forgot his charge.
+
+“Aw, I thought they’d be meat!” lamented Billy.
+
+Elnora could not endure that.
+
+“There is!” she said gladly. “There is a little pigeon bird. I want a
+teeny piece of the breast, for a sort of keepsake, just one bite, and
+you can have the rest among you.”
+
+Elnora drew the knife from its holder and cut off the wishbone. Then
+she held the bird toward the girl.
+
+“You can divide it,” she said. The dog made a bound and seizing the
+squab sprang from the bridge and ran for life. The girl and boy hurried
+after him. With awful eyes Billy stared and swore tempestuously. Elnora
+caught him and clapped her hand over the little mouth. A delivery wagon
+came tearing down the street, the horse running full speed, passed the
+fleeing dog with the girl and boy in pursuit, and stopped at the
+bridge. High school girls began to roll from all sides of it.
+
+“A rescue! A rescue!” they shouted.
+
+It was Ellen Brownlee and her crowd, and every girl of them carried a
+big parcel. They took in the scene as they approached. The fleeing dog
+with something in its mouth, the half-naked girl and boy chasing it
+told the story. Those girls screamed with laughter as they watched the
+pursuit.
+
+“Thank goodness, I saved the wishbone!” said Elnora. “As usual, I can
+prove that there was a bird.” She turned toward the box. Billy had
+improved the time. He had the last piece of cake in one hand, and the
+last bite of salad disappeared in one great gulp. Then the girls
+shouted again.
+
+“Let’s have a sample ourselves,” suggested one. She caught up the box
+and handed out the remaining sandwich. Another girl divided it into
+bites each little over an inch square, and then she lifted the cup lid
+and deposited a preserved strawberry on each bite. “One, two, three,
+altogether now!” she cried.
+
+“You old mean things!” screamed Billy.
+
+In an instant he was down in the road and handfuls of dust began to fly
+among them. The girls scattered before him.
+
+“Billy!” cried Elnora. “Billy! I’ll never give you another bite, if you
+throw dust on any one!”
+
+Then Billy dropped the dust, bored both fists into his eyes, and fled
+sobbing into Elnora’s new blue skirt. She stooped to meet him and
+consolation began. Those girls laughed on. They screamed and shouted
+until the little bridge shook.
+
+“To-morrow might as well be a clear day,” said Ellen, passing around
+and feeding the remaining berries to the girls as they could compose
+themselves enough to take them. “Billy, I admire your taste more than
+your temper.”
+
+Elnora looked up. “The little soul is nothing but skin and bones,” she
+said. “I never was really hungry myself; were any of you?”
+
+“Well, I should say so,” cried a plump, rosy girl. “I’m famished right
+now. Let’s have breakfast immediate!”
+
+“We got to refill this box first!” said Ellen Brownlee. “Who’s got the
+butter?” A girl advanced with a wooden tray.
+
+“Put it in the preserve cup, a little strawberry flavour won’t hurt it.
+Next!” called Ellen.
+
+A loaf of bread was produced and Ellen cut off a piece which filled the
+sandwich box.
+
+“Next!” A bottle of olives was unwrapped. The grocer’s boy who was
+waiting opened that, and Ellen filled the salad dish.
+
+“Next!”
+
+A bag of macaroons was produced and the cake compartment filled.
+
+“Next!”
+
+“I don’t suppose this will make quite as good dog feed as a bird,”
+laughed a girl holding open a bag of sliced ham while Ellen filled the
+meat dish.
+
+“Next!”
+
+A box of candy was handed her and she stuffed every corner of the lunch
+box with chocolates and nougat. Then it was closed and formally
+presented to Elnora. The girls each helped themselves to candy and
+olives, and gave Billy the remainder of the food. Billy took one bite
+of ham, and approved. Belle and Jimmy had given up chasing the dog, and
+angry and ashamed, stood waiting half a block away.
+
+“Come back!” cried Billy. “You great big dunces, come back! They’s a
+new kind of meat, and cake and candy.”
+
+The boy delayed, but the girl joined Billy. Ellen wiped her fingers,
+stepped to the cement abutment and began reciting “Horatio at the
+Bridge!” substituting Elnora wherever the hero appeared in the lines.
+
+Elnora gathered up the sacks, and gave them to Belle, telling her to
+take the food home, cut and spread the bread, set things on the table,
+and eat nicely.
+
+Then Elnora was taken into the wagon with the girls, and driven on the
+run to the high school. They sang a song beginning—
+
+“Elnora, please give me a sandwich.
+I’m ashamed to ask for cake!”
+
+
+as they went. Elnora did not know it, but that was her initiation. She
+belonged to “the crowd.” She only knew that she was happy, and vaguely
+wondered what her mother and Aunt Margaret would have said about the
+proceedings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK MANIPULATES MARGARET AND BILLY ACQUIRES A
+RESIDENCE
+
+
+Saturday morning Elnora helped her mother with the work. When she had
+finished Mrs. Comstock told her to go to Sintons’ and wash her Indian
+relics, so that she would be ready to accompany Wesley to town in the
+afternoon. Elnora hurried down the road and was soon at the cistern
+with a tub busily washing arrow points, stone axes, tubes, pipes, and
+skin-cleaning implements.
+
+Then she went home, dressed and was waiting when the carriage reached
+the gate. She stopped at the bank with the box, and Sinton went to do
+his marketing and some shopping for his wife.
+
+At the dry goods store Mr. Brownlee called to him, “Hello, Sinton! How
+do you like the fate of your lunch box?” Then he began to laugh—
+
+“I always hate to see a man laughing alone,” said Sinton. “It looks so
+selfish! Tell me the fun, and let me help you.”
+
+Mr. Brownlee wiped his eyes.
+
+“I supposed you knew, but I see she hasn’t told.”
+
+Then the three days’ history of the lunch box was repeated with
+particulars which included the dog.
+
+“Now laugh!” concluded Mr. Brownlee.
+
+“Blest if I see anything funny!” replied Wesley Sinton. “And if you had
+bought that box and furnished one of those lunches yourself, you
+wouldn’t either. I call such a work a shame! I’ll have it stopped.”
+
+“Some one must see to that, all right. They are little leeches. Their
+father earns enough to support them, but they have no mother, and they
+run wild. I suppose they are crazy for cooked food. But it is funny,
+and when you think it over you will see it, if you don’t now.”
+
+“About where would a body find that father?” inquired Wesley Sinton
+grimly. Mr. Brownlee told him and he started, locating the house with
+little difficulty. House was the proper word, for of home there was no
+sign. Just a small empty house with three unkept little children racing
+through and around it. The girl and the elder boy hung back, but dirty
+little Billy greeted Sinton with: “What you want here?”
+
+“I want to see your father,” said Sinton.
+
+“Well, he’s asleep,” said Billy.
+
+“Where?” asked Sinton.
+
+“In the house,” answered Billy, “and you can’t wake him.”
+
+“Well, I’ll try,” said Wesley.
+
+Billy led the way. “There he is!” he said. “He is drunk again.”
+
+On a dirty mattress in a corner lay a man who appeared to be strong and
+well. Billy was right. You could not awake him. He had gone the limit,
+and a little beyond.
+
+He was now facing eternity. Sinton went out and closed the door.
+
+“Your father is sick and needs help,” he said. “You stay here, and I
+will send a man to see him.”
+
+“If you just let him ’lone, he’ll sleep it off,” volunteered Billy.
+“He’s that way all the time, but he wakes up and gets us something to
+eat after awhile. Only waitin’ twists you up inside pretty bad.”
+
+The boy wore no air of complaint. He was merely stating facts.
+
+Wesley Sinton looked intently at Billy. “Are you twisted up inside
+now?” he asked.
+
+Billy laid a grimy hand on the region of his stomach and the filthy
+little waist sank close to the backbone. “Bet yer life, boss,” he said
+cheerfully.
+
+“How long have you been twisted?” asked Sinton.
+
+Billy appealed to the others. “When was it we had the stuff on the
+bridge?”
+
+“Yesterday morning,” said the girl.
+
+“Is that all gone?” asked Sinton.
+
+“She went and told us to take it home,” said Billy ruefully, “and ’cos
+she said to, we took it. Pa had come back, he was drinking some more,
+and he ate a lot of it—almost the whole thing, and it made him sick as
+a dog, and he went and wasted all of it. Then he got drunk some more,
+and now he’s asleep again. We didn’t get hardly none.”
+
+“You children sit on the steps until the man comes,” said Sinton. “I’ll
+send you some things to eat with him. What’s your name, sonny?”
+
+“Billy,” said the boy.
+
+“Well, Billy, I guess you better come with me. I’ll take care of him,”
+Sinton promised the others. He reached a hand to Billy.
+
+“I ain’t no baby, I’m a boy!” said Billy, as he shuffled along beside
+Sinton, taking a kick at every movable object without regard to his
+battered toes.
+
+Once they passed a Great Dane dog lolling after its master, and Billy
+ascended Sinton as if he were a tree, and clung to him with trembling
+hot hands.
+
+“I ain’t afraid of that dog,” scoffed Billy, as he was again placed on
+the walk, “but onc’t he took me for a rat or somepin’ and his teeth cut
+into my back. If I’d a done right, I’d a took the law on him.”
+
+Sinton looked down into the indignant little face. The child was bright
+enough, he had a good head, but oh, such a body!
+
+“I ’bout got enough of dogs,” said Billy. “I used to like ’em, but I’m
+getting pretty tired. You ought to seen the lickin’ Jimmy and Belle and
+me give our dog when we caught him, for taking a little bird she gave
+us. We waited ’till he was asleep ’nen laid a board on him and all of
+us jumped on it to onc’t. You could a heard him yell a mile. Belle said
+mebbe we could squeeze the bird out of him. But, squeeze nothing! He
+was holler as us, and that bird was lost long ’fore it got to his
+stummick. It was ist a little one, anyway. Belle said it wouldn’t ’a’
+made a bite apiece for three of us nohow, and the dog got one good
+swaller. We didn’t get much of the meat, either. Pa took most of that.
+Seems like pas and dogs gets everything.”
+
+Billy laughed dolefully. Involuntarily Wesley Sinton reached his hand.
+They were coming into the business part of Onabasha and the streets
+were crowded. Billy understood it to mean that he might lose his
+companion and took a grip. That little hot hand clinging tight to his,
+the sore feet recklessly scouring the walk, the hungry child panting
+for breath as he tried to keep even, the brave soul jesting in the face
+of hard luck, caught Sinton in a tender, empty spot.
+
+“Say, son,” he said. “How would you like to be washed clean, and have
+all the supper your skin could hold, and sleep in a good bed?”
+
+“Aw, gee!” said Billy. “I ain’t dead yet! Them things is in heaven!
+Poor folks can’t have them. Pa said so.”
+
+“Well, you can have them if you want to go with me and get them,”
+promised Sinton.
+
+“Honest?”
+
+“Yes, honest.”
+
+“Crost yer heart?”
+
+“Yes,” said Sinton.
+
+“Kin I take some to Jimmy and Belle?”
+
+“If you’ll come with me and be my boy, I’ll see that they have plenty.”
+
+“What will pa say?”
+
+“Your pa is in that kind of sleep now where he won’t wake up, Billy,”
+said Sinton. “I am pretty sure the law will give you to me, if you want
+to come.”
+
+“When people don’t ever wake up they’re dead,” announced Billy. “Is my
+pa dead?”
+
+“Yes, he is,” answered Sinton.
+
+“And you’ll take care of Jimmy and Belle, too?”
+
+“I can’t adopt all three of you,” said Sinton. “I’ll take you, and see
+that they are well provided for. Will you come?”
+
+“Yep, I’ll come,” said Billy. “Let’s eat, first thing we do.”
+
+“All right,” agreed Sinton. “Come into this restaurant.” He lifted
+Billy to the lunch counter and ordered the clerk to give him as many
+glasses of milk as he wanted, and a biscuit. “I think there’s going to
+be fried chicken when we get home, Billy,” he said, “so you just take
+the edge off now, and fill up later.”
+
+While Billy lunched Sinton called up the different departments and
+notified the proper authorities ending with the Women’s Relief
+Association. He sent a basket of food to Belle and Jimmy, bought Billy
+a pair of trousers, and a shirt, and went to bring Elnora.
+
+“Why, Uncle Wesley!” cried the girl. “Where did you find Billy?”
+
+“I’ve adopted him for the time being, if not longer,” replied Wesley
+Sinton.
+
+“Where did you get him?”
+
+“Well, young woman,” said Wesley Sinton, “Mr. Brownlee told me the
+history of your lunch box. It didn’t seem so funny to me as it does to
+the rest of them; so I went to look up the father of Billy’s family,
+and make him take care of them, or allow the law to do it for him. It
+will have to be the law.”
+
+“He’s deader than anything!” broke in Billy. “He can’t ever take all
+the meat any more.”
+
+“Billy!” gasped Elnora.
+
+“Never you mind!” said Sinton. “A child doesn’t say such things about a
+father who loved and raised him right. When it happens, the father
+alone is to blame. You won’t hear Billy talk like that about me when I
+cross over.”
+
+“You don’t mean you are going to take him to keep!”
+
+“I’ll soon need help,” said Wesley. “Billy will come in just about
+right ten years from now, and if I raise him I’ll have him the way I
+want him.”
+
+“But Aunt Margaret doesn’t like boys,” objected Elnora.
+
+“Well, she likes me, and I used to be a boy. Anyway, as I remember she
+has had her way about everything at our house ever since we were
+married. I am going to please myself about Billy. Hasn’t she always
+done just as she chose so far as you know? Honest, Elnora!”
+
+“Honest!” replied Elnora. “You are beautiful to all of us, Uncle
+Wesley; but Aunt Margaret won’t like Billy. She won’t want him in her
+home.”
+
+“In our home,” corrected Wesley.
+
+“What makes you want him?” marvelled Elnora.
+
+“God only knows,” said Sinton. “Billy ain’t so beautiful, and he ain’t
+so smart, I guess it’s because he’s so human. My heart goes out to
+him.”
+
+“So did mine,” said Elnora. “I love him. I’d rather see him eat my
+lunch than have it myself any time.”
+
+“What makes you like him?” asked Wesley.
+
+“Why, I don’t know,” pondered Elnora. “He’s so little, he needs so
+much, he’s got such splendid grit, and he’s perfectly unselfish with
+his brother and sister. But we must wash him before Aunt Margaret sees
+him. I wonder if mother——”
+
+“You needn’t bother. I’m going to take him home the way he is,” said
+Sinton. “I want Maggie to see the worst of it.”
+
+“I’m afraid——” began Elnora.
+
+“So am I,” said Wesley, “but I won’t give him up. He’s taken a sort of
+grip on my heart. I’ve always been crazy for a boy. Don’t let him hear
+us.”
+
+“Don’t let him be killed!” cried Elnora. During their talk Billy had
+wandered to the edge of the walk and barely escaped the wheels of a
+passing automobile in an effort to catch a stray kitten that seemed in
+danger.
+
+Wesley drew Billy back to the walk, and held his hand closely. “Are you
+ready, Elnora?”
+
+“Yes; you were gone a long time,” she said.
+
+Wesley glanced at a package she carried. “Have to have another book?”
+he asked.
+
+“No, I bought this for mother. I’ve had such splendid luck selling my
+specimens, I didn’t feel right about keeping all the money for myself,
+so I saved enough from the Indian relics to get a few things I wanted.
+I would have liked to have gotten her a dress, but I didn’t dare, so I
+compromised on a book.”
+
+“What did you select, Elnora?” asked Wesley wonderingly.
+
+“Well,” said she, “I have noticed mother always seemed interested in
+anything Mark Twain wrote in the newspapers, and I thought it would
+cheer her up a little, so I just got his ‘Innocents Abroad.’ I haven’t
+read it myself, but I’ve seen mention made of it all my life, and the
+critics say it’s genuine fun.”
+
+“Good!” cried Sinton. “Good! You’ve made a splendid choice. It will
+take her mind off herself a lot. But she will scold you.”
+
+“Of course,” assented Elnora. “But, possibly she will read it, and feel
+better. I’m going to serve her a trick. I am going to hide it until
+Monday, and set it on her little shelf of books the last thing before I
+go away. She must have all of them by heart. When she sees a new one
+she can’t help being glad, for she loves to read, and if she has all
+day to become interested, maybe she’ll like it so she won’t scold so
+much.”
+
+“We are both in for it, but I guess we are prepared. I don’t know what
+Margaret will say, but I’m going to take Billy home and see. Maybe he
+can win with her, as he did with us.”
+
+Elnora had doubts, but she did not say anything more. When they started
+home Billy sat on the front seat. He drove with the hitching strap tied
+to the railing of the dash-board, flourished the whip, and yelled with
+delight. At first Sinton laughed with him, but by the time he left
+Elnora with several packages at her gate, he was looking serious
+enough.
+
+Margaret was at the door as they drove up the lane. Wesley left Billy
+in the carriage, hitched the horses and went to explain to her. He had
+not reached her before she cried, “Look, Wesley, that child! You’ll
+have a runaway!”
+
+Wesley looked and ran. Billy was standing in the carriage slashing the
+mettlesome horses with the whip.
+
+“See me make ’em go!” he shouted as the whip fell a second time.
+
+He did make them go. They took the hitching post and a few fence
+palings, which scraped the paint from a wheel. Sinton missed the lines
+at the first effort, but the dragging post impeded the horses, and he
+soon caught them. He led them to the barn, and ordered Billy to remain
+in the carriage while he unhitched. Then leading Billy and carrying his
+packages he entered the yard.
+
+“You run play a few minutes, Billy,” he said. “I want to talk to the
+nice lady.”
+
+The nice lady was looking rather stupefied as Wesley approached her.
+
+“Where in the name of sense did you get that awful child?” she
+demanded.
+
+“He is a young gentleman who has been stopping Elnora and eating her
+lunch every day, part of the time with the assistance of his brother
+and sister, while our girl went hungry. Brownlee told me about it at
+the store. It’s happened three days running. The first time she went
+without anything, the second time Brownlee’s girl took her to lunch,
+and the third a crowd of high school girls bought a lot of stuff and
+met them at the bridge. The youngsters seemed to think they could rob
+her every day, so I went to see their father about having it stopped.”
+
+“Well, I should think so!” cried Margaret.
+
+“There were three of them, Margaret,” said Wesley, “that little
+fellow——”
+
+“Hyena, you mean,” interpolated Margaret.
+
+“Hyena,” corrected Wesley gravely, “and another boy and a girl, all
+equally dirty and hungry. The man was dead. They thought he was in a
+drunken sleep, but he was stone dead. I brought the little boy with me,
+and sent the officers and other help to the house. He’s half starved. I
+want to wash him, and put clean clothes on him, and give him some
+supper.”
+
+“Have you got anything to put on him?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Where did you get it?”
+
+“Bought it. It ain’t much. All I got didn’t cost a dollar.”
+
+“A dollar is a good deal when you work and save for it the way we do.”
+
+“Well, I don’t know a better place to put it. Have you got any hot
+water? I’ll use this tub at the cistern. Please give me some soap and
+towels.”
+
+Instead Margaret pushed by him with a shriek. Billy had played by
+producing a cord from his pocket, and having tied the tails of
+Margaret’s white kittens together, he had climbed on a box and hung
+them across the clothes line. Wild with fright the kittens were clawing
+each other to death, and the air was white with fur. The string had
+twisted and the frightened creatures could not recognize friends.
+Margaret stepped back with bleeding hands. Sinton cut the cord with his
+knife and the poor little cats raced under the house bleeding and
+disfigured. Margaret white with wrath faced Wesley.
+
+“If you don’t hitch up and take that animal back to town,” she said, “I
+will.”
+
+Billy threw himself on the grass and began to scream.
+
+“You said I could have fried chicken for supper,” he wailed. “You said
+she was a nice lady!”
+
+Wesley lifted him and something in his manner of handling the child
+infuriated Margaret. His touch was so gentle. She reached for Billy and
+gripped his shirt collar in the back. Wesley’s hand closed over hers.
+
+“Gently, girl!” he said. “This little body is covered with sores.”
+
+“Sores!” she ejaculated. “Sores? What kind of sores?”
+
+“Oh, they might be from bruises made by fists or boot toes, or they
+might be bad blood, from wrong eating, or they might be pure filth.
+Will you hand me some towels?”
+
+“No, I won’t!” said Margaret.
+
+“Well, give me some rags, then.”
+
+Margaret compromised on pieces of old tablecloth. Wesley led Billy to
+the cistern, pumped cold water into the tub, poured in a kettle of hot,
+and beginning at the head scoured him. The boy shut his little teeth,
+and said never a word though he twisted occasionally when the soap
+struck a raw spot. Margaret watched the process from the window in
+amazed and ever-increasing anger. Where did Wesley learn it? How could
+his big hands be so gentle? He came to the door.
+
+“Have you got any peroxide?” he asked.
+
+“A little,” she answered stiffly.
+
+“Well, I need about a pint, but I’ll begin on what you have.”
+
+Margaret handed him the bottle. Wesley took a cup, weakened the drug
+and said to Billy: “Man, these sores on you must be healed. Then you
+must eat the kind of food that’s fit for little men. I am going to put
+some medicine on you, and it is going to sting like fire. If it just
+runs off, I won’t use any more. If it boils, there is poison in these
+places, and they must be tied up, dosed every day, and you must be
+washed, and kept mighty clean. Now, hold still, because I am going to
+put it on.”
+
+“I think the one on my leg is the worst,” said the undaunted Billy,
+holding out a raw place. Sinton poured on the drug. Billy’s body
+twisted and writhed, but he did not run.
+
+“Gee, look at it boil!” he cried. “I guess they’s poison. You’ll have
+to do it to all of them.”
+
+Wesley’s teeth were set, as he watched the boy’s face. He poured the
+drug, strong enough to do effective work, on a dozen places over that
+little body and bandaged all he could. Billy’s lips quivered at times,
+and his chin jumped, but he did not shed a tear or utter a sound other
+than to take a deep interest in the boiling. As Wesley put the small
+shirt on the boy, and fastened the trousers, he was ready to reset the
+hitching post and mend the fence without a word.
+
+“Now am I clean?” asked Billy.
+
+“Yes, you are clean outside,” said Wesley. “There is some dirty blood
+in your body, and some bad words in your mouth, that we have to get
+out, but that takes time. If we put right things to eat into your
+stomach that will do away with the sores, and if you know that I don’t
+like bad words you won’t say them any oftener than you can help, will
+you Billy?”
+
+Billy leaned against Wesley in apparent indifference.
+
+“I want to see me!” he demanded.
+
+Wesley led the boy into the house, and lifted him to a mirror.
+
+“My, I’m purty good-looking, ain’t I?” bragged Billy. Then as Wesley
+stooped to set him on the floor Billy’s lips passed close to the big
+man’s ear and hastily whispered a vehement “No!” as he ran for the
+door.
+
+“How long until supper, Margaret?” asked Wesley as he followed.
+
+“You are going to keep him for supper?” she asked
+
+“Sure!” said Wesley. “That’s what I brought him for. It’s likely he
+never had a good square meal of decent food in his life. He’s starved
+to the bone.”
+
+Margaret arose deliberately, removed the white cloth from the supper
+table and substituted an old red one she used to wrap the bread. She
+put away the pretty dishes they commonly used and set the table with
+old plates for pies and kitchen utensils. But she fried the chicken,
+and was generous with milk and honey, snowy bread, gravy, potatoes, and
+fruit.
+
+Wesley repainted the scratched wheel. He mended the fence, with Billy
+holding the nails and handing the pickets. Then he filled the old hole,
+digged a new one and set the hitching post.
+
+Billy hopped on one foot at his task of holding the post steady as the
+earth was packed around it. There was not the shadow of a trouble on
+his little freckled face.
+
+Sinton threw in stones and pounded the earth solid around the post. The
+sound of a gulping sob attracted him to Billy. The tears were rolling
+down his cheeks. “If I’d a knowed you’d have to get down in a hole, and
+work so hard I wouldn’t ’a’ hit the horses,” he said.
+
+“Never you mind, Billy,” said Wesley. “You will know next time, so you
+can think over it, and make up your mind whether you really want to
+before you strike.”
+
+Wesley went to the barn to put away the tools. He thought Billy was at
+his heels, but the boy lagged on the way. A big snowy turkey gobbler
+resented the small intruder in his especial preserves, and with spread
+tail and dragging wings came toward him threateningly. If that turkey
+gobbler had known the sort of things with which Billy was accustomed to
+holding his own, he never would have issued the challenge. Billy
+accepted instantly. He danced around with stiff arms at his sides and
+imitated the gobbler. Then came his opportunity, and he jumped on the
+big turkey’s back. Wesley heard Margaret’s scream in time to see the
+flying leap and admire its dexterity. The turkey tucked its tail and
+scampered. Billy slid from its back and as he fell he clutched wildly,
+caught the folded tail, and instinctively clung to it. The turkey gave
+one scream and relaxed its muscles. Then it fled in disfigured defeat
+to the haystack. Billy scrambled to his feet holding the tail, while
+his eyes were bulging.
+
+“Why, the blasted old thing came off!” he said to Wesley, holding out
+the tail in amazed wonder.
+
+The man, caught suddenly, forgot everything and roared. Seeing which,
+Billy thought a turkey tail of no account and flung that one high above
+him shouting in wild childish laughter, when the feathers scattered and
+fell.
+
+Margaret, watching, began to cry. Wesley had gone mad. For the first
+time in her married life she wanted to tell her mother. When Wesley had
+waited until he was so hungry he could wait no longer he invaded the
+kitchen to find a cooked supper baking on the back of the stove, while
+Margaret with red eyes nursed a pair of demoralized white kittens.
+
+“Is supper ready?” he asked.
+
+“It has been for an hour,” answered Margaret.
+
+“Why didn’t you call us?”
+
+That “us” had too much comradeship in it. It irritated Margaret.
+
+“I supposed it would take you even longer than this to fix things
+decent again. As for my turkey, and my poor little kittens, they don’t
+matter.”
+
+“I am mighty sorry about them, Margaret, you know that. Billy is very
+bright, and he will soon learn——”
+
+“Soon learn!” cried Margaret. “Wesley Sinton, you don’t mean to say
+that you think of keeping that creature here for some time?”
+
+“No, I think of keeping a well-behaved little boy.”
+
+Margaret set the supper on the table. Seeing the old red cloth Wesley
+stared in amazement. Then he understood. Billy capered around in
+delight.
+
+“Ain’t that pretty?” he exulted. “I wish Jimmy and Belle could see. We,
+why we ist eat out of our hands or off a old dry goods box, and when we
+fix up a lot, we have newspaper. We ain’t ever had a nice red cloth
+like this.”
+
+Wesley looked straight at Margaret, so intently that she turned away,
+her face flushing. He stacked the dictionary and the geography of the
+world on a chair, and lifted Billy beside him. He heaped a plate
+generously, cut the food, put a fork into Billy’s little fist, and made
+him eat slowly and properly. Billy did his best. Occasionally greed
+overcame him, and he used his left hand to pop a bite into his mouth
+with his fingers. These lapses Wesley patiently overlooked, and went on
+with his general instructions. Luckily Billy did not spill anything on
+his clothing or the cloth. After supper Wesley took him to the barn
+while he finished the night work. Then he went and sat beside Margaret
+on the front porch. Billy appropriated the hammock, and swung by
+pulling a rope tied around a tree. The very energy with which he went
+at the work of swinging himself appealed to Wesley.
+
+“Mercy, but he’s an active little body,” he said. “There isn’t a lazy
+bone in him. See how he works to pay for his fun.”
+
+“There goes his foot through it!” cried Margaret. “Wesley, he shall not
+ruin my hammock.”
+
+“Of course he shan’t!” said Wesley. “Wait, Billy, let me show you.”
+
+Thereupon he explained to Billy that ladies wearing beautiful white
+dresses sat in hammocks, so little boys must not put their dusty feet
+in them. Billy immediately sat, and allowed his feet to swing.
+
+“Margaret,” said Wesley after a long silence on the porch, “isn’t it
+true that if Billy had been a half-starved sore cat, dog, or animal of
+any sort, that you would have pitied, and helped care for it, and been
+glad to see me get any pleasure out of it I could?”
+
+“Yes,” said Margaret coldly.
+
+“But because I brought a child with an immortal soul, there is no
+welcome.”
+
+“That isn’t a child, it’s an animal.”
+
+“You just said you would have welcomed an animal.”
+
+“Not a wild one. I meant a tame beast.”
+
+“Billy is not a beast!” said Wesley hotly. “He is a very dear little
+boy. Margaret, you’ve always done the church-going and Bible reading
+for this family. How do you reconcile that ‘Suffer little children to
+come unto Me’ with the way you are treating Billy?”
+
+Margaret arose. “I haven’t treated that child. I have only let him
+alone. I can barely hold myself. He needs the hide tanned about off
+him!”
+
+“If you’d cared to look at his body, you’d know that you couldn’t find
+a place to strike without cutting into a raw spot,” said Wesley.
+“Besides, Billy has not done a thing for which a child should be
+punished. He is only full of life, no training, and with a boy’s love
+of mischief. He did abuse your kittens, but an hour before I saw him
+risk his life to save one from being run over. He minds what you tell
+him, and doesn’t do anything he is told not to. He thinks of his
+brother and sister right away when anything pleases him. He took that
+stinging medicine with the grit of a bulldog. He is just a bully little
+chap, and I love him.”
+
+“Oh good heavens!” cried Margaret, going into the house as she spoke.
+
+Sinton sat still. At last Billy tired of the swing, came to him and
+leaned his slight body against the big knee.
+
+“Am I going to sleep here?” he asked.
+
+“Sure you are!” said Sinton.
+
+Billy swung his feet as he laid across Wesley’s knee. “Come on,” said
+Wesley, “I must clean you up for bed.”
+
+“You have to be just awful clean here,” announced Billy. “I like to be
+clean, you feel so good, after the hurt is over.”
+
+Sinton registered that remark, and worked with especial tenderness as
+he redressed the ailing places and washed the dust from Billy’s feet
+and hands.
+
+“Where can he sleep?” he asked Margaret.
+
+“I’m sure I don’t know,” she answered.
+
+“Oh, I can sleep ist any place,” said Billy. “On the floor or anywhere.
+Home, I sleep on pa’s coat on a store-box, and Jimmy and Belle they
+sleep on the storebox, too. I sleep between them, so’s I don’t roll off
+and crack my head. Ain’t you got a storebox and a old coat?”
+
+Wesley arose and opened a folding lounge. Then he brought an armload of
+clean horse blankets from a closet.
+
+“These don’t look like the nice white bed a little boy should have,
+Billy,” he said, “but we’ll make them do. This will beat a storebox all
+hollow.”
+
+Billy took a long leap for the lounge. When he found it bounced, he
+proceeded to bounce, until he was tired. By that time the blankets had
+to be refolded. Wesley had Billy take one end and help, while both of
+them seemed to enjoy the job. Then Billy lay down and curled up in his
+clothes like a small dog. But sleep would not come.
+
+Finally he sat up. He stared around restlessly. Then he arose, went to
+Wesley, and leaned against his knee. He picked up the boy and folded
+his arms around him. Billy sighed in rapturous content.
+
+“That bed feels so lost like,” he said. “Jimmy always jabbed me on one
+side, and Belle on the other, and so I knew I was there. Do you know
+where they are?”
+
+“They are with kind people who gave them a fine supper, a clean bed,
+and will always take good care of them.”
+
+“I wisht I was—” Billy hesitated and looked earnestly at Wesley. “I
+mean I wish they was here.”
+
+“You are about all I can manage, Billy,” said Wesley.
+
+Billy sat up. “Can’t she manage anything?” he asked, waving toward
+Margaret.
+
+“Indeed, yes,” said Wesley. “She has managed me for twenty years.”
+
+“My, but she made you nice!” said Billy. “I just love you. I wisht
+she’d take Jimmy and Belle and make them nice as you.”
+
+“She isn’t strong enough to do that, Billy. They will grow into a good
+boy and girl where they are.”
+
+Billy slid from Wesley’s arms and walked toward Margaret until he
+reached the middle of the room. Then he stopped, and at last sat on the
+floor. Finally he lay down and closed his eyes. “This feels more like
+my bed; if only Jimmy and Belle was here to crowd up a little, so it
+wasn’t so alone like.”
+
+“Won’t I do, Billy?” asked Wesley in a husky voice.
+
+Billy moved restlessly. “Seems like—seems like toward night as if a
+body got kind o’ lonesome for a woman person—like her.”
+
+Billy indicated Margaret and then closed his eyes so tight his small
+face wrinkled.
+
+Soon he was up again. “Wisht I had Snap,” he said. “Oh, I ist wisht I
+had Snap!”
+
+“I thought you laid a board on Snap and jumped on it,” said Wesley.
+
+“We did!” cried Billy—“oh, you ought to heard him squeal!” Billy
+laughed loudly, then his face clouded.
+
+“But I want Snap to lay beside me so bad now—that if he was here I’d
+give him a piece of my chicken, ’fore I ate any. Do you like dogs?”
+
+“Yes, I do,” said Wesley.
+
+Billy was up instantly. “Would you like Snap?”
+
+“I am sure I would,” said Wesley.
+
+“Would she?” Billy indicated Margaret. And then he answered his own
+question. “But of course, she wouldn’t, cos she likes cats, and dogs
+chases cats. Oh, dear, I thought for a minute maybe Snap could come
+here.” Billy lay down and closed his eyes resolutely.
+
+Suddenly they flew open. “Does it hurt to be dead?” he demanded.
+
+“Nothing hurts you after you are dead, Billy,” said Wesley.
+
+“Yes, but I mean does it hurt getting to be dead?”
+
+“Sometimes it does. It did not hurt your father, Billy. It came softly
+while he was asleep.”
+
+“It ist came softly?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I kind o’ wisht he wasn’t dead!” said Billy. “’Course I like to stay
+with you, and the fried chicken, and the nice soft bed, and—and
+everything, and I like to be clean, but he took us to the show, and he
+got us gum, and he never hurt us when he wasn’t drunk.”
+
+Billy drew a deep breath, and tightly closed his eyes. But very soon
+they opened. Then he sat up. He looked at Wesley pitifully, and then he
+glanced at Margaret. “You don’t like boys, do you?” he questioned.
+
+“I like good boys,” said Margaret.
+
+Billy was at her knee instantly. “Well say, I’m a good boy!” he
+announced joyously.
+
+“I do not think boys who hurt helpless kittens and pull out turkeys’
+tails are good boys.”
+
+“Yes, but I didn’t hurt the kittens,” explained Billy. “They got mad
+’bout ist a little fun and scratched each other. I didn’t s’pose they’d
+act like that. And I didn’t pull the turkey’s tail. I ist held on to
+the first thing I grabbed, and the turkey pulled. Honest, it was the
+turkey pulled.” He turned to Wesley. “You tell her! Didn’t the turkey
+pull? I didn’t know its tail was loose, did I?”
+
+“I don’t think you did, Billy,” said Wesley.
+
+Billy stared into Margaret’s cold face. “Sometimes at night, Belle sits
+on the floor, and I lay my head in her lap. I could pull up a chair and
+lay my head in your lap. Like this, I mean.” Billy pulled up a chair,
+climbed on it and laid his head on Margaret’s lap. Then he shut his
+eyes again. Margaret could have looked little more repulsed if he had
+been a snake. Billy was soon up.
+
+“My, but your lap is hard,” he said. “And you are a good deal fatter
+’an Belle, too!” He slid from the chair and came back to the middle of
+the room.
+
+“Oh but I wisht he wasn’t dead!” he cried. The flood broke and Billy
+screamed in desperation.
+
+Out of the night a soft, warm young figure flashed through the door and
+with a swoop caught him in her arms. She dropped into a chair, nestled
+him closely, drooped her fragrant brown head over his little
+bullet-eyed red one, and rocked softly while she crooned over him—
+
+“Billy, boy, where have you been?
+Oh, I have been to seek a wife,
+She’s the joy of my life,
+But then she’s a young thing and she can’t leave her mammy!”
+
+
+Billy clung to her frantically. Elnora wiped his eyes, kissed his face,
+swayed and sang.
+
+“Why aren’t you asleep?” she asked at last.
+
+“I don’t know,” said Billy. “I tried. I tried awful hard cos I thought
+he wanted me to, but it ist wouldn’t come. Please tell her I tried.” He
+appealed to Margaret.
+
+“He did try to go to sleep,” admitted Margaret.
+
+“Maybe he can’t sleep in his clothes,” suggested Elnora. “Haven’t you
+an old dressing sacque? I could roll the sleeves.”
+
+Margaret got an old sacque, and Elnora put it on Billy. Then she
+brought a basin of water and bathed his face and head. She gathered him
+up and began to rock again.
+
+“Have you got a pa?” asked Billy.
+
+“No,” said Elnora.
+
+“Is he dead like mine?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Did it hurt him to die?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+Billy was wide awake again. “It didn’t hurt my pa,” he boasted; “he ist
+died while he was asleep. He didn’t even know it was coming.”
+
+“I am glad of that,” said Elnora, pressing the small head against her
+breast again.
+
+Billy escaped her hand and sat up. “I guess I won’t go to sleep,” he
+said. “It might ’come softly’ and get me.”
+
+“It won’t get you, Billy,” said Elnora, rocking and singing between
+sentences. “It doesn’t get little boys. It just takes big people who
+are sick.”
+
+“Was my pa sick?”
+
+“Yes,” said Elnora. “He had a dreadful sickness inside him that burned,
+and made him drink things. That was why he would forget his little boys
+and girl. If he had been well, he would have gotten you good things to
+eat, clean clothes, and had the most fun with you.”
+
+Billy leaned against her and closed his eyes, and Elnora rocked
+hopefully.
+
+“If I was dead would you cry?” he was up again.
+
+“Yes, I would,” said Elnora, gripping him closer until Billy almost
+squealed with the embrace.
+
+“Do you love me tight as that?” he questioned blissfully.
+
+“Yes, bushels and bushels,” said Elnora. “Better than any little boy in
+the whole world.”
+
+Billy looked at Margaret. “She don’t!” he said. “She’d be glad if it
+would get me ‘softly,’ right now. She don’t want me here ’t all.”
+
+Elnora smothered his face against her breast and rocked.
+
+“You love me, don’t you?”
+
+“I will, if you will go to sleep.”
+
+“Every single day you will give me your dinner for the bologna, won’t
+you,” said Billy.
+
+“Yes, I will,” replied Elnora. “But you will have as good lunch as I do
+after this. You will have milk, eggs, chicken, all kinds of good
+things, little pies, and cakes, maybe.”
+
+Billy shook his head. “I am going back home soon as it is light,” he
+said, “she don’t want me. She thinks I’m a bad boy. She’s going to whip
+me—if he lets her. She said so. I heard her. Oh, I wish he hadn’t died!
+I want to go home.” Billy shrieked again.
+
+Mrs. Comstock had started to walk slowly to meet Elnora. The girl had
+been so late that her mother reached the Sinton gate and followed the
+path until the picture inside became visible. Elnora had told her about
+Wesley taking Billy home. Mrs. Comstock had some curiosity to see how
+Margaret bore the unexpected addition to her family. Billy’s voice,
+raised with excitement, was plainly audible. She could see Elnora
+holding him, and hear his excited wail. Wesley’s face was drawn and
+haggard, and Margaret’s set and defiant. A very imp of perversity
+entered the breast of Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“Hoity, toity!” she said as she suddenly appeared in the door. “Blest
+if I ever heard a man making sounds like that before!”
+
+Billy ceased suddenly. Mrs. Comstock was tall, angular, and her hair
+was prematurely white. She was only thirty-six, although she appeared
+fifty. But there was an expression on her usually cold face that was
+attractive just then, and Billy was in search of attractions.
+
+“Have I stayed too late, mother?” asked Elnora anxiously. “I truly
+intended to come straight back, but I thought I could rock Billy to
+sleep first. Everything is strange, and he’s so nervous.”
+
+“Is that your ma?” demanded Billy.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Does she love you?”
+
+“Of course!”
+
+“My mother didn’t love me,” said Billy. “She went away and left me, and
+never came back. She don’t care what happens to me. You wouldn’t go
+away and leave your little girl, would you?” questioned Billy.
+
+“No,” said Katharine Comstock, “and I wouldn’t leave a little boy,
+either.”
+
+Billy began sliding from Elnora’s knees.
+
+“Do you like boys?” he questioned.
+
+“If there is anything I love it is a boy,” said Mrs. Comstock
+assuringly. Billy was on the floor.
+
+“Do you like dogs?”
+
+“Yes. Almost as well as boys. I am going to buy a dog as soon as I can
+find a good one.”
+
+Billy swept toward her with a whoop.
+
+“Do you want a boy?” he shouted.
+
+Katharine Comstock stretched out her arms, and gathered him in.
+
+“Of course, I want a boy!” she rejoiced.
+
+“Maybe you’d like to have me?” offered Billy.
+
+“Sure I would,” triumphed Mrs. Comstock. “Any one would like to have
+you. You are just a real boy, Billy.”
+
+“Will you take Snap?”
+
+“I’d like to have Snap almost as well as you.”
+
+“Mother!” breathed Elnora imploringly. “Don’t! Oh, don’t! He thinks you
+mean it!”
+
+“And so I do mean it,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I’ll take him in a jiffy. I
+throw away enough to feed a little tyke like him every day. His chatter
+would be great company while you are gone. Blood soon can be purified
+with right food and baths, and as for Snap, I meant to buy a bulldog,
+but possibly Snap will serve just as well. All I ask of a dog is to
+bark at the right time. I’ll do the rest. Would you like to come and be
+my boy, Billy?”
+
+Billy leaned against Mrs. Comstock, reached his arms around her neck
+and gripped her with all his puny might. “You can whip me all you want
+to,” he said. “I won’t make a sound.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock held him closely and her hard face was softening; of that
+there could be no doubt.
+
+“Now, why would any one whip a nice little boy like you?” she asked
+wonderingly.
+
+“She”—Billy from his refuge waved toward Margaret—“she was going to
+whip me ’cause her cats fought, when I tied their tails together and
+hung them over the line to dry. How did I know her old cats would
+fight?”
+
+Mrs. Comstock began to laugh suddenly, and try as she would she could
+not stop so soon as she desired. Billy studied her.
+
+“Have you got turkeys?” he demanded.
+
+“Yes, flocks of them,” said Mrs. Comstock, vainly struggling to
+suppress her mirth, and settle her face in its accustomed lines.
+
+“Are their tails fast?” demanded Billy.
+
+“Why, I think so,” marvelled Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“Hers ain’t!” said Billy with the wave toward Margaret that was
+becoming familiar. “Her turkey pulled, and its tail comed right off.
+She’s going to whip me if he lets her. I didn’t know the turkey would
+pull. I didn’t know its tail would come off. I won’t ever touch one
+again, will I?”
+
+“Of course, you won’t,” said Mrs. Comstock. “And what’s more, I don’t
+care if you do! I’d rather have a fine little man like you than all the
+turkeys in the country. Let them lose their old tails if they want to,
+and let the cats fight. Cats and turkeys don’t compare with boys, who
+are going to be fine big men some of these days.”
+
+Then Billy and Mrs. Comstock hugged each other rapturously, while their
+audience stared in silent amazement.
+
+“You like boys!” exulted Billy, and his head dropped against Mrs.
+Comstock in unspeakable content.
+
+“Yes, and if I don’t have to carry you the whole way home, we must
+start right now,” said Mrs. Comstock. “You are going to be asleep
+before you know it.”
+
+Billy opened his eyes and braced himself. “I can walk,” he said
+proudly.
+
+“All right, we must start. Come, Elnora! Good-night, folks!” Mrs.
+Comstock set Billy on the floor, and arose gripping his hand. “You take
+the other side, Elnora, and we will help him as much as we can,” she
+said.
+
+Elnora stared piteously at Margaret, then at Wesley, and arose in
+white-faced bewilderment.
+
+“Billy, are you going to leave without even saying good-bye to me?”
+asked Wesley, with a gulp.
+
+Billy held tight to Mrs. Comstock and Elnora.
+
+“Good-bye!” he said casually. “I’ll come and see you some time.”
+
+Wesley Sinton gave a smothered sob, and strode from the room.
+
+Mrs. Comstock started toward the door, dragging at Billy while Elnora
+pulled back, but Mrs. Sinton was before them, her eyes flashing.
+
+“Kate Comstock, you think you are mighty smart, don’t you?” she cried.
+
+“I ain’t in the lunatic asylum, where you belong, anyway,” said Mrs.
+Comstock. “I am smart enough to tell a dandy boy when I see him, and
+I’m good and glad to get him. I’ll love to have him!”
+
+“Well, you won’t have him!” exclaimed Margaret Sinton. “That boy is
+Wesley’s! He found him, and brought him here. You can’t come in and
+take him like that! Let go of him!”
+
+“Not much, I won’t!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “Leave the poor sick little
+soul here for you to beat, because he didn’t know just how to handle
+things! Of course, he’ll make mistakes. He must have a lot of teaching,
+but not the kind he’ll get from you! Clear out of my way!”
+
+“You let go of our boy,” ordered Margaret.
+
+“Why? Do you want to whip him, before he can go to sleep?” jeered Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+“No, I don’t!” said Margaret. “He’s Wesley’s, and nobody shall touch
+him. Wesley!”
+
+Wesley Sinton appeared behind Margaret in the doorway, and she turned
+to him. “Make Kate Comstock let go of our boy!” she demanded.
+
+“Billy, she wants you now,” said Wesley Sinton. “She won’t whip you,
+and she won’t let any one else. You can have stacks of good things to
+eat, ride in the carriage, and have a great time. Won’t you stay with
+us?”
+
+Billy drew away from Mrs. Comstock and Elnora.
+
+He faced Margaret, his eyes shrewd with unchildish wisdom. Necessity
+had taught him to strike the hot iron, to drive the hard bargain.
+
+“Can I have Snap to live here always?” he demanded.
+
+“Yes, you can have all the dogs you want,” said Margaret Sinton.
+
+“Can I sleep close enough so’s I can touch you?”
+
+“Yes, you can move your lounge up so that you can hold my hand,” said
+Margaret.
+
+“Do you love me now?” questioned Billy.
+
+“I’ll try to love you, if you are a good boy,” said Margaret.
+
+“Then I guess I’ll stay,” said Billy, walking over to her.
+
+Out in the night Elnora and her mother went down the road in the
+moonlight; every few rods Mrs. Comstock laughed aloud.
+
+“Mother, I don’t understand you,” sobbed Elnora.
+
+“Well, maybe when you have gone to high school longer you will,” said
+Mrs. Comstock. “Anyway, you saw me bring Mag Sinton to her senses,
+didn’t you?”
+
+“Yes, I did,” answered Elnora, “but I thought you were in earnest. So
+did Billy, and Uncle Wesley, and Aunt Margaret.”
+
+“Well, wasn’t I?” inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“But you just said you brought Aunt Margaret to!”
+
+“Well, didn’t I?”
+
+“I don’t understand you.”
+
+“That’s the reason I am recommending more schooling!”
+
+Elnora took her candle and went to bed. Mrs. Comstock was feeling too
+good to sleep. Twice of late she really had enjoyed herself for the
+first in sixteen years, and greediness for more of the same feeling
+crept into her blood like intoxication. As she sat brooding alone she
+knew the truth. She would have loved to have taken Billy. She would not
+have minded his mischief, his chatter, or his dog. He would have meant
+a distraction from herself that she greatly needed; she was even
+sincere about the dog. She had intended to tell Wesley to buy her one
+at the very first opportunity. Her last thought was of Billy. She
+chuckled softly, for she was not saintly, and now she knew how she
+could even a long score with Margaret and Wesley in a manner that would
+fill her soul with grim satisfaction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST TEMPTS ELNORA, AND BILLY BURIES HIS FATHER
+
+
+Immediately after dinner on Sunday Wesley Sinton stopped at the
+Comstock gate to ask if Elnora wanted to go to town with them. Billy
+sat beside him and he did not appear as if he were on his way to a
+funeral. Elnora said she had to study and could not go, but she
+suggested that her mother take her place. Mrs. Comstock put on her hat
+and went at once, which surprised Elnora. She did not know that her
+mother was anxious for an opportunity to speak with Sinton alone.
+Elnora knew why she was repeatedly cautioned not to leave their land,
+if she went specimen hunting.
+
+She studied two hours and was several lessons ahead of her classes.
+There was no use to go further. She would take a walk and see if she
+could gather any caterpillars or find any freshly spun cocoons. She
+searched the bushes and low trees behind the garden and all around the
+edge of the woods on their land, and having little success, at last
+came to the road. Almost the first thorn bush she examined yielded a
+Polyphemus cocoon. Elnora lifted her head with the instinct of a hunter
+on the chase, and began work. She reached the swamp before she knew it,
+carrying five fine cocoons of different species as her reward. She
+pushed back her hair and gazed around longingly. A few rods inside she
+thought she saw cocoons on a bush, to which she went, and found
+several. Sense of caution was rapidly vanishing; she was in a fair way
+to forget everything and plunge into the swamp when she thought she
+heard footsteps coming down the trail. She went back, and came out
+almost facing Pete Corson.
+
+That ended her difficulty. She had known him since childhood. When she
+sat on the front bench of the Brushwood schoolhouse, Pete had been one
+of the big boys at the back of the room. He had been rough and wild,
+but she never had been afraid of him, and often he had given her pretty
+things from the swamp.
+
+“What luck!” she cried. “I promised mother I would not go inside the
+swamp alone, and will you look at the cocoons I’ve found! There are
+more just screaming for me to come get them, because the leaves will
+fall with the first frost, and then the jays and crows will begin to
+tear them open. I haven’t much time, since I’m going to school. You
+will go with me, Pete! Please say yes! Just a little way!”
+
+“What are those things?” asked the man, his keen black eyes staring at
+her.
+
+“They are the cases these big caterpillars spin for winter, and in the
+spring they come out great night moths, and I can sell them. Oh, Pete,
+I can sell them for enough to take me through high school and dress me
+so like the others that I don’t look different, and if I have very good
+luck I can save some for college. Pete, please go with me?”
+
+“Why don’t you go like you always have?”
+
+“Well, the truth is, I had a little scare,” said Elnora. “I never did
+mean to go alone; sometimes I sort of wandered inside farther than I
+intended, chasing things. You know Duncan gave me Freckles’s books, and
+I have been gathering moths like he did. Lately I found I could sell
+them. If I can make a complete collection, I can get three hundred
+dollars for it. Three such collections would take me almost through
+college, and I’ve four years in the high school yet. That’s a long
+time. I might collect them.”
+
+“Can every kind there is be found here?”
+
+“No, not all of them, but when I get more than I need of one kind, I
+can trade them with collectors farther north and west, so I can
+complete sets. It’s the only way I see to earn the money. Look what I
+have already. Big gray Cecropias come from this kind; brown Polyphemus
+from that, and green Lunas from these. You aren’t working on Sunday. Go
+with me only an hour, Pete!”
+
+The man looked at her narrowly. She was young, wholesome, and
+beautiful. She was innocent, intensely in earnest, and she needed the
+money, he knew that.
+
+“You didn’t tell me what scared you,” he said.
+
+“Oh, I thought I did! Why you know I had Freckles’s box packed full of
+moths and specimens, and one evening I sold some to the Bird Woman.
+Next morning I found a note telling me it wasn’t safe to go inside the
+swamp. That sort of scared me. I think I’ll go alone, rather than miss
+the chance, but I’d be so happy if you would take care of me. Then I
+could go anywhere I chose, because if I mired you could pull me out.
+You will take care of me, Pete?”
+
+“Yes, I’ll take care of you,” promised Pete Corson.
+
+“Goody!” said Elnora. “Let’s start quick! And Pete, you look at these
+closely, and when you are hunting or going along the road, if one
+dangles under your nose, you cut off the little twig and save it for
+me, will you?”
+
+“Yes, I’ll save you all I see,” promised Pete. He pushed back his hat
+and followed Elnora. She plunged fearlessly among bushes, over
+underbrush, and across dead logs. One minute she was crying wildly,
+that here was a big one, the next she was reaching for a limb above her
+head or on her knees overturning dead leaves under a hickory or oak
+tree, or working aside black muck with her bare hands as she searched
+for buried pupae cases. For the first hour Pete bent back bushes and
+followed, carrying what Elnora discovered. Then he found one.
+
+“Is this the kind of thing you are looking for?” he asked bashfully, as
+he presented a wild cherry twig.
+
+“Oh Pete, that’s a Promethea! I didn’t even hope to find one.”
+
+“What’s the bird like?” asked Pete.
+
+“Almost black wings,” said Elnora, “with clay-coloured edges, and the
+most wonderful wine-coloured flush over the under side if it’s a male,
+and stronger wine above and below if it’s a female. Oh, aren’t I
+happy!”
+
+“How would it do to make what you have into a bunch that we could leave
+here, and come back for them?”
+
+“That would be all right.”
+
+Relieved of his load Pete began work. First, he narrowly examined the
+cocoons Elnora had found. He questioned her as to what other kinds
+would be like. He began to use the eyes of a trained woodman and hunter
+in her behalf. He saw several so easily, and moved through the forest
+so softly, that Elnora forgot the moths in watching him. Presently she
+was carrying the specimens, and he was making the trips of
+investigation to see which was a cocoon and which a curled leaf, or he
+was on his knees digging around stumps. As he worked he kept asking
+questions. What kind of logs were best to look beside, what trees were
+pupae cases most likely to be under; on what bushes did caterpillars
+spin most frequently? Time passed, as it always does when one’s
+occupation is absorbing.
+
+When the Sintons took Mrs. Comstock home, they stopped to see Elnora.
+She was not there. Mrs. Comstock called at the edge of her woods and
+received no reply. Then Wesley turned and drove back to the Limberlost.
+He left Margaret and Mrs. Comstock holding the team and entertaining
+Billy, while he entered the swamp.
+
+Elnora and Pete had made a wide trail behind them. Before Sinton had
+thought of calling, he heard voices and approached with some caution.
+Soon he saw Elnora, her flushed face beaming as she bent with an
+armload of twigs and branches and talked to a kneeling man.
+
+“Now go cautiously!” she was saying. “I am just sure we will find an
+Imperialis here. It’s their very kind of a place. There! What did I
+tell you! Isn’t that splendid? Oh, I am so glad you came with me!”
+
+Wesley stood staring in speechless astonishment, for the man had
+arisen, brushed the dirt from his hands, and held out to Elnora a small
+shining dark pupa case. As his face came into view Sinton almost cried
+out, for he was the one man of all others Wesley knew with whom he most
+feared for Elnora’s safety. She had him on his knees digging pupae
+cases for her from the swamp.
+
+“Elnora!” called Sinton. “Elnora!”
+
+“Oh, Uncle Wesley!” cried the girl. “See what luck we’ve had! I know we
+have a dozen and a half cocoons and we have three pupae cases. It’s
+much harder to get the cases because you have to dig for them, and you
+can’t see where to look. But Pete is fine at it! He’s found three, and
+he says he will keep watch beside the roads, and through the woods
+while he hunts. Isn’t that splendid of him? Uncle Wesley, there is a
+college over there on the western edge of the swamp. Look closely, and
+you can see the great dome up among the clouds.”
+
+“I should say you have had luck,” said Wesley, striving to make his
+voice natural. “But I thought you were not coming to the swamp?”
+
+“Well, I wasn’t,” said Elnora, “but I couldn’t find many anywhere else,
+honest, I couldn’t, and just as soon as I came to the edge I began to
+see them here. I kept my promise. I didn’t come in alone. Pete came
+with me. He’s so strong, he isn’t afraid of anything, and he’s
+perfectly splendid to locate cocoons! He’s found half of these. Come
+on, Pete, it’s getting dark now, and we must go.”
+
+They started toward the trail, Pete carrying the cocoons. He left them
+at the case, while Elnora and Wesley went on to the carriage together.
+
+“Elnora Comstock, what does this mean?” demanded her mother.
+
+“It’s all right, one of the neighbours was with her, and she got
+several dollars’ worth of stuff,” interposed Wesley.
+
+“You oughter seen my pa,” shouted Billy. “He was ist all whited out,
+and he laid as still as anything. They put him away deep in the
+ground.”
+
+“Billy!” breathed Margaret in a prolonged groan.
+
+“Jimmy and Belle are going to be together in a nice place. They are
+coming to see me, and Snap is right down here by the wheel. Here, Snap!
+My, but he’ll be tickled to get something to eat! He’s ’most twisted as
+me. They get new clothes, and all they want to eat, too, but they’ll
+miss me. They couldn’t have got along without me. I took care of them.
+I had a lot of things give to me ’cause I was the littlest, and I
+always divided with them. But they won’t need me now.”
+
+When she left the carriage Mrs. Comstock gravely shook hands with
+Billy. “Remember,” she said to him, “I love boys, and I love dogs.
+Whenever you don’t have a good time up there, take your dog and come
+right down and be my little boy. We will just have loads of fun. You
+should hear the whistles I can make. If you aren’t treated right you
+come straight to me.”
+
+Billy wagged his head sagely. “You ist bet I will!” he said.
+
+“Mother, how could you?” asked Elnora as they walked up the path.
+
+“How could I, missy? You better ask how couldn’t I? I just couldn’t!
+Not for enough to pay my road tax! Not for enough to pay the road tax,
+and the dredge tax, too!”
+
+“Aunt Margaret always has been lovely to me, and I don’t think it’s
+fair to worry her.”
+
+“I choose to be lovely to Billy, and let her sweat out her own worries
+just as she has me, these sixteen years. There is nothing in all this
+world so good for people as taking a dose of their own medicine. The
+difference is that I am honest. I just say in plain English, ‘if they
+don’t treat you right, come to me.’ They have only said it in actions
+and inferences. I want to teach Mag Sinton how her own doses taste, but
+she begins to sputter before I fairly get the spoon to her lips. Just
+you wait!”
+
+“When I think what I owe her——” began Elnora.
+
+“Well, thank goodness, I don’t owe her anything, and so I’m perfectly
+free to do what I choose. Come on, and help me get supper. I’m hungry
+as Billy!”
+
+Margaret Sinton rocked slowly back and forth in her chair. On her
+breast lay Billy’s red head, one hand clutched her dress front with
+spasmodic grip, even after he was unconscious.
+
+“You mustn’t begin that, Margaret,” said Sinton. “He’s too heavy. And
+it’s bad for him. He’s better off to lie down and go to sleep alone.”
+
+“He’s very light, Wesley. He jumps and quivers so. He has to be
+stronger than he is now, before he will sleep soundly.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA DISCOVERS A VIOLIN, AND BILLY DISCIPLINES MARGARET
+
+
+Elnora missed the little figure at the bridge the following morning.
+She slowly walked up the street and turned in at the wide entrance to
+the school grounds. She scarcely could comprehend that only a week ago
+she had gone there friendless, alone, and so sick at heart that she was
+physically ill. To-day she had decent clothing, books, friends, and her
+mind was at ease to work on her studies.
+
+As she approached home that night the girl paused in amazement. Her
+mother had company, and she was laughing. Elnora entered the kitchen
+softly and peeped into the sitting-room. Mrs. Comstock sat in her chair
+holding a book and every few seconds a soft chuckle broke into a real
+laugh. Mark Twain was doing his work; while Mrs. Comstock was not
+lacking in a sense of humour. Elnora entered the room before her mother
+saw her. Mrs. Comstock looked up with flushed face.
+
+“Where did you get this?” she demanded.
+
+“I bought it,” said Elnora.
+
+“Bought it! With all the taxes due!”
+
+“I paid for it out of my Indian money, mother,” said Elnora. “I
+couldn’t bear to spend so much on myself and nothing at all on you. I
+was afraid to buy the dress I should have liked to, and I thought the
+book would be company, while I was gone. I haven’t read it, but I do
+hope it’s good.”
+
+“Good! It’s the biggest piece of foolishness I have read in all my
+life. I’ve laughed all day, ever since I found it. I had a notion to go
+out and read some of it to the cows and see if they wouldn’t laugh.”
+
+“If it made you laugh, it’s a wise book,” said Elnora.
+
+“Wise!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You can stake your life it’s a wise book.
+It takes the smartest man there is to do this kind of fooling,” and she
+began laughing again.
+
+Elnora, highly satisfied with her purchase, went to her room and put on
+her working clothes. Thereafter she made a point of bringing a book
+that she thought would interest her mother, from the library every
+week, and leaving it on the sitting-room table. Each night she carried
+home at least two school books and studied until she had mastered the
+points of her lessons. She did her share of the work faithfully, and
+every available minute she was in the fields searching for cocoons, for
+the moths promised to become her largest source of income.
+
+She gathered baskets of nests, flowers, mosses, insects, and all sorts
+of natural history specimens and sold them to the grade teachers. At
+first she tried to tell these instructors what to teach their pupils
+about the specimens; but recognizing how much more she knew than they,
+one after another begged her to study at home, and use her spare hours
+in school to exhibit and explain nature subjects to their pupils.
+Elnora loved the work, and she needed the money, for every few days
+some matter of expense arose that she had not expected.
+
+From the first week she had been received and invited with the crowd of
+girls in her class, and it was their custom in passing through the
+business part of the city to stop at the confectioners’ and take turns
+in treating to expensive candies, ice cream sodas, hot chocolate, or
+whatever they fancied. When first Elnora was asked she accepted without
+understanding. The second time she went because she seldom had tasted
+these things, and they were so delicious she could not resist. After
+that she went because she knew all about it, and had decided to go.
+
+She had spent half an hour on the log beside the trail in deep thought
+and had arrived at her conclusions. She worked harder than usual for
+the next week, but she seemed to thrive on work. It was October and the
+red leaves were falling when her first time came to treat. As the crowd
+flocked down the broad walk that night Elnora called, “Girls, it’s my
+treat to-night! Come on!”
+
+She led the way through the city to the grocery they patronized when
+they had a small spread, and entering came out with a basket, which she
+carried to the bridge on her home road. There she arranged the girls in
+two rows on the cement abutments and opening her basket she gravely
+offered each girl an exquisite little basket of bark, lined with red
+leaves, in one end of which nestled a juicy big red apple and in the
+other a spicy doughnut not an hour from Margaret Sinton’s frying
+basket.
+
+Another time she offered big balls of popped corn stuck together with
+maple sugar, and liberally sprinkled with beechnut kernels. Again it
+was hickory-nut kernels glazed with sugar, another time maple candy,
+and once a basket of warm pumpkin pies. She never made any apology, or
+offered any excuse. She simply gave what she could afford, and the
+change was as welcome to those city girls accustomed to sodas and
+French candy, as were these same things to Elnora surfeited on popcorn
+and pie. In her room was a little slip containing a record of the
+number of weeks in the school year, the times it would be her turn to
+treat and the dates on which such occasions would fall, with a number
+of suggestions beside each. Once the girls almost fought over a basket
+lined with yellow leaves, and filled with fat, very ripe red haws. In
+late October there was a riot over one which was lined with red leaves
+and contained big fragrant pawpaws frost-bitten to a perfect degree.
+Then hazel nuts were ripe, and once they served. One day Elnora at her
+wits’ end, explained to her mother that the girls had given her things
+and she wanted to treat them. Mrs. Comstock, with characteristic
+stubbornness, had said she would leave a basket at the grocery for her,
+but firmly declined to say what would be in it. All day Elnora
+struggled to keep her mind on her books. For hours she wavered in tense
+uncertainty. What would her mother do? Should she take the girls to the
+confectioner’s that night or risk the basket? Mrs. Comstock could make
+delicious things to eat, but would she?
+
+As they left the building Elnora made a final rapid mental calculation.
+She could not see her way clear to a decent treat for ten people for
+less than two dollars and if the basket proved to be nice, then the
+money would be wasted. She decided to risk it. As they went to the
+bridge the girls were betting on what the treat would be, and crowding
+near Elnora like spoiled small children. Elnora set down the basket.
+
+“Girls,” she said, “I don’t know what this is myself, so all of us are
+going to be surprised. Here goes!”
+
+She lifted the cover and perfumes from the land of spices rolled up. In
+one end of the basket lay ten enormous sugar cakes the tops of which
+had been liberally dotted with circles cut from stick candy. The candy
+had melted in baking and made small transparent wells of waxy sweetness
+and in the centre of each cake was a fat turtle made from a raisin with
+cloves for head and feet. The remainder of the basket was filled with
+big spiced pears that could be held by their stems while they were
+eaten. The girls shrieked and attacked the cookies, and of all the
+treats Elnora offered perhaps none was quite so long remembered as
+that.
+
+When Elnora took her basket, placed her books in it, and started home,
+all the girls went with her as far as the fence where she crossed the
+field to the swamp. At parting they kissed her good-bye. Elnora was a
+happy girl as she hurried home to thank her mother. She was happy over
+her books that night, and happy all the way to school the following
+morning.
+
+When the music swelled from the orchestra her heart almost broke with
+throbbing joy. For music always had affected her strangely, and since
+she had been comfortable enough in her surroundings to notice things,
+she had listened to every note to find what it was that literally hurt
+her heart, and at last she knew. It was the talking of the violins.
+They were human voices, and they spoke a language Elnora understood. It
+seemed to her that she must climb up on the stage, take the instruments
+from the fingers of the players and make them speak what was in her
+heart.
+
+That night she said to her mother, “I am perfectly crazy for a violin.
+I am sure I could play one, sure as I live. Did any one——” Elnora never
+completed that sentence.
+
+“Hush!” thundered Mrs. Comstock. “Be quiet! Never mention those things
+before me again—never as long as you live! I loathe them! They are a
+snare of the very devil himself! They were made to lure men and women
+from their homes and their honour. If ever I see you with one in your
+fingers I will smash it in pieces.”
+
+Naturally Elnora hushed, but she thought of nothing else after she had
+finished her lessons. At last there came a day when for some reason the
+leader of the orchestra left his violin on the grand piano. That
+morning Elnora made her first mistake in algebra. At noon, as soon as
+the building was empty, she slipped into the auditorium, found the side
+door which led to the stage, and going through the musicians’ entrance
+she took the violin. She carried it back into the little side room
+where the orchestra assembled, closed all the doors, opened the case
+and lifted out the instrument.
+
+She laid it on her breast, dropped her chin on it and drew the bow
+softly across the strings. One after another she tested the open notes.
+Gradually her stroke ceased to tremble and she drew the bow firmly.
+Then her fingers began to fall and softly, slowly she searched up and
+down those strings for sounds she knew. Standing in the middle of the
+floor, she tried over and over. It seemed scarcely a minute before the
+hall was filled with the sound of hurrying feet, and she was forced to
+put away the violin and go to her classes. The next day she prayed that
+the violin would be left again, but her petition was not answered. That
+night when she returned from the school she made an excuse to go down
+to see Billy. He was engaged in hulling walnuts by driving them through
+holes in a board. His hands were protected by a pair of Margaret’s old
+gloves, but he had speckled his face generously. He appeared well, and
+greeted Elnora hilariously.
+
+“Me an’ the squirrels are laying up our winter stores,” he shouted.
+“Cos the cold is coming, an’ the snow an’ if we have any nuts we have
+to fix ’em now. But I’m ahead, cos Uncle Wesley made me this board, and
+I can hull a big pile while the old squirrel does only ist one with his
+teeth.”
+
+Elnora picked him up and kissed him. “Billy, are you happy?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, and so’s Snap,” answered Billy. “You ought to see him make the
+dirt fly when he gets after a chipmunk. I bet you he could dig up pa,
+if anybody wanted him to.”
+
+“Billy!” gasped Margaret as she came out to them.
+
+“Well, me and Snap don’t want him up, and I bet you Jimmy and Belle
+don’t, either. I ain’t been twisty inside once since I been here, and I
+don’t want to go away, and Snap don’t, either. He told me so.”
+
+“Billy! That is not true. Dogs can’t talk,” cautioned Margaret.
+
+“Then what makes you open the door when he asks you to?” demanded
+Billy.
+
+“Scratching and whining isn’t talking.”
+
+“Anyway, it’s the best Snap can talk, and you get up and do things he
+wants done. Chipmunks can talk too. You ought to hear them damn things
+holler when Snap gets them!”
+
+“Billy! When you want a cooky for supper and I don’t give it to you it
+is because you said a wrong word.”
+
+“Well, for——” Billy clapped his hand over his mouth and stained his
+face in swipes. “Well, for—anything! Did I go an’ forget again! The
+cookies will get all hard, won’t they? I bet you ten dollars I don’t
+say that any more.”
+
+He espied Wesley and ran to show him a walnut too big to go through the
+holes, and Elnora and Margaret entered the house.
+
+They talked of many things for a time and then Elnora said suddenly:
+“Aunt Margaret, I like music.”
+
+“I’ve noticed that in you all your life,” answered Margaret.
+
+“If dogs can’t talk, I can make a violin talk,” announced Elnora, and
+then in amazement watched the face of Margaret Sinton grow pale.
+
+“A violin!” she wavered. “Where did you get a violin?”
+
+“They fairly seemed to speak to me in the orchestra. One day the
+conductor left his in the auditorium, and I took it, and Aunt Margaret,
+I can make it do the wind in the swamp, the birds, and the animals. I
+can make any sound I ever heard on it. If I had a chance to practise a
+little, I could make it do the orchestra music, too. I don’t know how I
+know, but I do.”
+
+“Did—did you ever mention it to your mother?” faltered Margaret.
+
+“Yes, and she seems prejudiced against them. But oh, Aunt Margaret, I
+never felt so about anything, not even going to school. I just feel as
+if I’d die if I didn’t have one. I could keep it at school, and
+practise at noon a whole hour. Soon they’d ask me to play in the
+orchestra. I could keep it in the case and practise in the woods in
+summer. You’d let me play over here Sunday. Oh, Aunt Margaret, what
+does one cost? Would it be wicked for me to take of my money, and buy a
+very cheap one? I could play on the least expensive one made.”
+
+“Oh, no you couldn’t! A cheap machine makes cheap music. You got to
+have a fine fiddle to make it sing. But there’s no sense in your buying
+one. There isn’t a decent reason on earth why you shouldn’t have your
+fa——”
+
+“My father’s!” cried Elnora. She caught Margaret Sinton by the arm. “My
+father had a violin! He played it. That’s why I can! Where is it! Is it
+in our house? Is it in mother’s room?”
+
+“Elnora!” panted Margaret. “Your mother will kill me! She always hated
+it.”
+
+“Mother dearly loves music,” said Elnora.
+
+“Not when it took the man she loved away from her to make it!”
+
+“Where is my father’s violin?”
+
+“Elnora!”
+
+“I’ve never seen a picture of my father. I’ve never heard his name
+mentioned. I’ve never had a scrap that belonged to him. Was he my
+father, or am I a charity child like Billy, and so she hates me?”
+
+“She has good pictures of him. Seems she just can’t bear to hear him
+talked about. Of course, he was your father. They lived right there
+when you were born. She doesn’t dislike you; she merely tries to make
+herself think she does. There’s no sense in the world in you not having
+his violin. I’ve a great notion——”
+
+“Has mother got it?”
+
+“No. I’ve never heard her mention it. It was not at home when he—when
+he died.”
+
+“Do you know where it is?”
+
+“Yes. I’m the only person on earth who does, except the one who has
+it.”
+
+“Who is that?”
+
+“I can’t tell you, but I will see if they have it yet, and get it if I
+can. But if your mother finds it out she will never forgive me.”
+
+“I can’t help it,” said Elnora. “I want that violin.”
+
+“I’ll go to-morrow, and see if it has been destroyed.”
+
+“Destroyed! Oh, Aunt Margaret! Would any one dare?”
+
+“I hardly think so. It was a good instrument. He played it like a
+master.”
+
+“Tell me!” breathed Elnora.
+
+“His hair was red and curled more than yours, and his eyes were blue.
+He was tall, slim, and the very imp of mischief. He joked and teased
+all day until he picked up that violin. Then his head bent over it, and
+his eyes got big and earnest. He seemed to listen as if he first heard
+the notes, and then copied them. Sometimes he drew the bow trembly,
+like he wasn’t sure it was right, and he might have to try again. He
+could almost drive you crazy when he wanted to, and no man that ever
+lived could make you dance as he could. He made it all up as he went.
+He seemed to listen for his dancing music, too. It appeared to come to
+him; he’d begin to play and you had to keep time. You couldn’t be
+still; he loved to sweep a crowd around with that bow of his. I think
+it was the thing you call inspiration. I can see him now, his handsome
+head bent, his cheeks red, his eyes snapping, and that bow going across
+the strings, and driving us like sheep. He always kept his body
+swinging, and he loved to play. He often slighted his work shamefully,
+and sometimes her a little; that is why she hated it—Elnora, what are
+you making me do?”
+
+The tears were rolling down Elnora’s cheeks. “Oh, Aunt Margaret,” she
+sobbed. “Why haven’t you told me about him sooner? I feel as if you had
+given my father to me living, so that I could touch him. I can see him,
+too! Why didn’t you ever tell me before? Go on! Go on!”
+
+“I can’t, Elnora! I’m scared silly. I never meant to say anything. If I
+hadn’t promised her not to talk of him to you she wouldn’t have let you
+come here. She made me swear it.”
+
+“But why? Why? Was he a shame? Was he disgraced?”
+
+“Maybe it was that unjust feeling that took possession of her when she
+couldn’t help him from the swamp. She had to blame some one, or go
+crazy, so she took it out on you. At times, those first ten years, if I
+had talked to you, and you had repeated anything to her, she might have
+struck you too hard. She was not master of herself. You must be patient
+with her, Elnora. God only knows what she has gone through, but I think
+she is a little better, lately.”
+
+“So do I,” said Elnora. “She seems more interested in my clothes, and
+she fixes me such delicious lunches that the girls bring fine candies
+and cake and beg to trade. I gave half my lunch for a box of candy one
+day, brought it home to her, and told her. Since, she has wanted me to
+carry a market basket and treat the crowd every day, she was so
+pleased. Life has been too monotonous for her. I think she enjoys even
+the little change made by my going and coming. She sits up half the
+night to read the library books I bring, but she is so stubborn she
+won’t even admit that she touches them. Tell me more about my father.”
+
+“Wait until I see if I can find the violin.”
+
+So Elnora went home in suspense, and that night she added to her
+prayers: “Dear Lord, be merciful to my father, and oh, do help Aunt
+Margaret to get his violin.”
+
+Wesley and Billy came in to supper tired and hungry. Billy ate
+heartily, but his eyes often rested on a plate of tempting cookies, and
+when Wesley offered them to the boy he reached for one. Margaret was
+compelled to explain that cookies were forbidden that night.
+
+“What!” said Wesley. “Wrong words been coming again. Oh Billy, I do
+wish you could remember! I can’t sit and eat cookies before a little
+boy who has none. I’ll have to put mine back, too.” Billy’s face
+twisted in despair.
+
+“Aw go on!” he said gruffly, but his chin was jumping, for Wesley was
+his idol.
+
+“Can’t do it,” said Wesley. “It would choke me.”
+
+Billy turned to Margaret. “You make him,” he appealed.
+
+“He can’t, Billy,” said Margaret. “I know how he feels. You see, I
+can’t myself.”
+
+Then Billy slid from his chair, ran to the couch, buried his face in
+the pillow and cried heart-brokenly. Wesley hurried to the barn, and
+Margaret to the kitchen. When the dishes were washed Billy slipped from
+the back door.
+
+Wesley piling hay into the mangers heard a sound behind him and
+inquired, “That you, Billy?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Billy, “and it’s all so dark you can’t see me now,
+isn’t it?”
+
+“Well, mighty near,” answered Wesley.
+
+“Then you stoop down and open your mouth.”
+
+Sinton had shared bites of apple and nuts for weeks, for Billy had not
+learned how to eat anything without dividing with Jimmy and Belle.
+Since he had been separated from them, he shared with Wesley and
+Margaret. So he bent over the boy and received an instalment of cooky
+that almost choked him.
+
+“Now you can eat it!” shouted Billy in delight. “It’s all dark! I can’t
+see what you’re doing at all!”
+
+Wesley picked up the small figure and set the boy on the back of a
+horse to bring his face level so that they could talk as men. He never
+towered from his height above Billy, but always lifted the little soul
+when important matters were to be discussed.
+
+“Now what a dandy scheme,” he commented. “Did you and Aunt Margaret fix
+it up?”
+
+“No. She ain’t had hers yet. But I got one for her. Ist as soon as you
+eat yours, I am going to take hers, and feed her first time I find her
+in the dark.”
+
+“But Billy, where did you get the cookies? You know Aunt Margaret said
+you were not to have any.”
+
+“I ist took them,” said Billy, “I didn’t take them for me. I ist took
+them for you and her.”
+
+Wesley thought fast. In the warm darkness of the barn the horses
+crunched their corn, a rat gnawed at a corner of the granary, and among
+the rafters the white pigeon cooed a soft sleepy note to his dusky
+mate.
+
+“Did—did—I steal?” wavered Billy.
+
+Wesley’s big hands closed until he almost hurt the boy.
+
+“No!” he said vehemently. “That is too big a word. You made a mistake.
+You were trying to be a fine little man, but you went at it the wrong
+way. You only made a mistake. All of us do that, Billy. The world grows
+that way. When we make mistakes we can see them; that teaches us to be
+more careful the next time, and so we learn.”
+
+“How wouldn’t it be a mistake?”
+
+“If you had told Aunt Margaret what you wanted to do, and asked her for
+the cookies she would have given them to you.”
+
+“But I was ’fraid she wouldn’t, and you ist had to have it.”
+
+“Not if it was wrong for me to have it, Billy. I don’t want it that
+much.”
+
+“Must I take it back?”
+
+“You think hard, and decide yourself.”
+
+“Lift me down,” said Billy, after a silence, “I got to put this in the
+jar, and tell her.”
+
+Wesley set the boy on the floor, but as he did so he paused one second
+and strained him close to his breast.
+
+Margaret sat in her chair sewing; Billy slipped in and crept beside
+her. The little face was lined with tragedy.
+
+“Why Billy, whatever is the matter?” she cried as she dropped her
+sewing and held out her arms. Billy stood back. He gripped his little
+fists tight and squared his shoulders. “I got to be shut up in the
+closet,” he said.
+
+“Oh Billy! What an unlucky day! What have you done now?”
+
+“I stold!” gulped Billy. “He said it was ist a mistake, but it was
+worser ’an that. I took something you told me I wasn’t to have.”
+
+“Stole!” Margaret was in despair. “What, Billy?”
+
+“Cookies!” answered Billy in equal trouble.
+
+“Billy!” wailed Margaret. “How could you?”
+
+“It was for him and you,” sobbed Billy. “He said he couldn’t eat it
+’fore me, but out in the barn it’s all dark and I couldn’t see. I
+thought maybe he could there. Then we might put out the light and you
+could have yours. He said I only made it worse, cos I mustn’t take
+things, so I got to go in the closet. Will you hold me tight a little
+bit first? He did.”
+
+Margaret opened her arms and Billy rushed in and clung to her a few
+seconds, with all the force of his being, then he slipped to the floor
+and marched to the closet. Margaret opened the door. Billy gave one
+glance at the light, clinched his fists and, walking inside, climbed on
+a box. Margaret closed the door.
+
+Then she sat and listened. Was the air pure enough? Possibly he might
+smother. She had read something once. Was it very dark? What if there
+should be a mouse in the closet and it should run across his foot and
+frighten him into spasms. Somewhere she had heard—Margaret leaned
+forward with tense face and listened. Something dreadful might happen.
+She could bear it no longer. She arose hurriedly and opened the door.
+Billy was drawn up on the box in a little heap, and he lifted a
+disapproving face to her.
+
+“Shut that door!” he said. “I ain’t been in here near long enough yet!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA HAS MORE FINANCIAL TROUBLES, AND MRS. COMSTOCK AGAIN
+HEARS THE SONG OF THE LIMBERLOST
+
+
+The following night Elnora hurried to Sintons’. She threw open the back
+door and with anxious eyes searched Margaret’s face.
+
+“You got it!” panted Elnora. “You got it! I can see by your face that
+you did. Oh, give it to me!”
+
+“Yes, I got it, honey, I got it all right, but don’t be so fast. It had
+been kept in such a damp place it needed glueing, it had to have
+strings, and a key was gone. I knew how much you wanted it, so I sent
+Wesley right to town with it. They said they could fix it good as new,
+but it should be varnished, and that it would take several days for the
+glue to set. You can have it Saturday.”
+
+“You found it where you thought it was? You know it’s his?”
+
+“Yes, it was just where I thought, and it’s the same violin I’ve seen
+him play hundreds of times. It’s all right, only laying so long it
+needs fixing.”
+
+“Oh Aunt Margaret! Can I ever wait?”
+
+“It does seem a long time, but how could I help it? You couldn’t do
+anything with it as it was. You see, it had been hidden away in a
+garret, and it needed cleaning and drying to make it fit to play again.
+You can have it Saturday sure. But Elnora, you’ve got to promise me
+that you will leave it here, or in town, and not let your mother get a
+hint of it. I don’t know what she’d do.”
+
+“Uncle Wesley can bring it here until Monday. Then I will take it to
+school so that I can practise at noon. Oh, I don’t know how to thank
+you. And there’s more than the violin for which to be thankful. You’ve
+given me my father. Last night I saw him plainly as life.”
+
+“Elnora you were dreaming!”
+
+“I know I was dreaming, but I saw him. I saw him so closely that a tiny
+white scar at the corner of his eyebrow showed. I was just reaching out
+to touch him when he disappeared.”
+
+“Who told you there was a scar on his forehead?”
+
+“No one ever did in all my life. I saw it last night as he went down.
+And oh, Aunt Margaret! I saw what she did, and I heard his cries! No
+matter what she does, I don’t believe I ever can be angry with her
+again. Her heart is broken, and she can’t help it. Oh, it was terrible,
+but I am glad I saw it. Now, I will always understand.”
+
+“I don’t know what to make of that,” said Margaret. “I don’t believe in
+such stuff at all, but you couldn’t make it up, for you didn’t know.”
+
+“I only know that I played the violin last night, as he played it, and
+while I played he came through the woods from the direction of
+Carneys’. It was summer and all the flowers were in bloom. He wore gray
+trousers and a blue shirt, his head was bare, and his face was
+beautiful. I could almost touch him when he sank.”
+
+Margaret stood perplexed. “I don’t know what to think of that!” she
+ejaculated. “I was next to the last person who saw him before he was
+drowned. It was late on a June afternoon, and he was dressed as you
+describe. He was bareheaded because he had found a quail’s nest before
+the bird began to brood, and he gathered the eggs in his hat and left
+it in a fence corner to get on his way home; they found it afterward.”
+
+“Was he coming from Carneys’?”
+
+“He was on that side of the quagmire. Why he ever skirted it so close
+as to get caught is a mystery you will have to dream out. I never could
+understand it.”
+
+“Was he doing something he didn’t want my mother to know?”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because if he had been, he might have cut close the swamp so he
+couldn’t be seen from the garden. You know, the whole path straight to
+the pool where he sank can be seen from our back door. It’s firm on our
+side. The danger is on the north and east. If he didn’t want mother to
+know, he might have tried to pass on either of those sides and gone too
+close. Was he in a hurry?”
+
+“Yes, he was,” said Margaret. “He had been away longer than he
+expected, and he almost ran when he started home.”
+
+“And he’d left his violin somewhere that you knew, and you went and got
+it. I’ll wager he was going to play, and didn’t want mother to find it
+out!”
+
+“It wouldn’t make any difference to you if you knew every little thing,
+so quit thinking about it, and just be glad you are to have what he
+loved best of anything.”
+
+“That’s true. Now I must hurry home. I am dreadfully late.”
+
+Elnora sprang up and ran down the road, but when she approached the
+cabin she climbed the fence, crossed the open woods pasture diagonally
+and entered at the back garden gate. As she often came that way when
+she had been looking for cocoons her mother asked no questions.
+
+Elnora lived by the minute until Saturday, when, contrary to his usual
+custom, Wesley went to town in the forenoon, taking her along to buy
+some groceries. Wesley drove straight to the music store, and asked for
+the violin he had left to be mended.
+
+In its new coat of varnish, with new keys and strings, it seemed much
+like any other violin to Sinton, but to Elnora it was the most
+beautiful instrument ever made, and a priceless treasure. She held it
+in her arms, touched the strings softly and then she drew the bow
+across them in whispering measure. She had no time to think what a
+remarkably good bow it was for sixteen years’ disuse. The tan leather
+case might have impressed her as being in fine condition also, had she
+been in a state to question anything. She did remember to ask for the
+bill and she was gravely presented with a slip calling for four
+strings, one key, and a coat of varnish, total, one dollar fifty. It
+seemed to Elnora she never could put the precious instrument in the
+case and start home. Wesley left her in the music store where the
+proprietor showed her all he could about tuning, and gave her several
+beginners’ sheets of notes and scales. She carried the violin in her
+arms as far as the crossroads at the corner of their land, then
+reluctantly put it under the carriage seat.
+
+As soon as her work was done she ran down to Sintons’ and began to
+play, and on Monday the violin went to school with her. She made
+arrangements with the superintendent to leave it in his office and
+scarcely took time for her food at noon, she was so eager to practise.
+Often one of the girls asked her to stay in town all night for some
+lecture or entertainment. She could take the violin with her, practise,
+and secure help. Her skill was so great that the leader of the
+orchestra offered to give her lessons if she would play to pay for
+them, so her progress was rapid in technical work. But from the first
+day the instrument became hers, with perfect faith that she could play
+as her father did, she spent half her practice time in imitating the
+sounds of all outdoors and improvising the songs her happy heart sang
+in those days.
+
+So the first year went, and the second and third were a repetition; but
+the fourth was different, for that was the close of the course, ending
+with graduation and all its attendant ceremonies and expenses. To
+Elnora these appeared mountain high. She had hoarded every cent,
+thinking twice before she parted with a penny, but teaching natural
+history in the grades had taken time from her studies in school which
+must be made up outside. She was a conscientious student, ranking first
+in most of her classes, and standing high in all branches. Her interest
+in her violin had grown with the years. She went to school early and
+practised half an hour in the little room adjoining the stage, while
+the orchestra gathered. She put in a full hour at noon, and remained
+another half hour at night. She carried the violin to Sintons’ on
+Saturday and practised all the time she could there, while Margaret
+watched the road to see that Mrs. Comstock was not coming. She had
+become so skilful that it was a delight to hear her play music of any
+composer, but when she played her own, that was joy inexpressible, for
+then the wind blew, the water rippled, the Limberlost sang her songs of
+sunshine, shadow, black storm, and white night.
+
+Since her dream Elnora had regarded her mother with peculiar
+tenderness. The girl realized, in a measure, what had happened. She
+avoided anything that possibly could stir bitter memories or draw
+deeper a line on the hard, white face. This cost many sacrifices, much
+work, and sometimes delayed progress, but the horror of that awful
+dream remained with Elnora. She worked her way cheerfully, doing all
+she could to interest her mother in things that happened in school, in
+the city, and by carrying books that were entertaining from the public
+library.
+
+Three years had changed Elnora from the girl of sixteen to the very
+verge of womanhood. She had grown tall, round, and her face had the
+loveliness of perfect complexion, beautiful eyes and hair and an added
+touch from within that might have been called comprehension. It was a
+compound of self-reliance, hard knocks, heart hunger, unceasing work,
+and generosity. There was no form of suffering with which the girl
+could not sympathize, no work she was afraid to attempt, no subject she
+had investigated she did not understand. These things combined to
+produce a breadth and depth of character altogether unusual. She was so
+absorbed in her classes and her music that she had not been able to
+gather many specimens. When she realized this and hunted assiduously,
+she soon found that changing natural conditions had affected such work.
+Men all around were clearing available land. The trees fell wherever
+corn would grow. The swamp was broken by several gravel roads, dotted
+in places around the edge with little frame houses, and the machinery
+of oil wells; one especially low place around the region of Freckles’s
+room was nearly all that remained of the original. Wherever the trees
+fell the moisture dried, the creeks ceased to flow, the river ran low,
+and at times the bed was dry. With unbroken sweep the winds of the west
+came, gathering force with every mile and howled and raved; threatening
+to tear the shingles from the roof, blowing the surface from the soil
+in clouds of fine dust and rapidly changing everything. From coming in
+with two or three dozen rare moths in a day, in three years’ time
+Elnora had grown to be delighted with finding two or three. Big pursy
+caterpillars could not be picked from their favourite bushes, when
+there were no bushes. Dragonflies would not hover over dry places, and
+butterflies became scarce in proportion to the flowers, while no land
+yields over three crops of Indian relics.
+
+All the time the expense of books, clothing and incidentals had
+continued. Elnora added to her bank account whenever she could, and
+drew out when she was compelled, but she omitted the important feature
+of calling for a balance. So, one early spring morning in the last
+quarter of the fourth year, she almost fainted when she learned that
+her funds were gone. Commencement with its extra expense was coming,
+she had no money, and very few cocoons to open in June, which would be
+too late. She had one collection for the Bird Woman complete to a pair
+of Imperialis moths, and that was her only asset. On the day she added
+these big Yellow Emperors she had been promised a check for three
+hundred dollars, but she would not get it until these specimens were
+secured. She remembered that she never had found an Emperor before
+June.
+
+Moreover, that sum was for her first year in college. Then she would be
+of age, and she meant to sell enough of her share of her father’s land
+to finish. She knew her mother would oppose her bitterly in that, for
+Mrs. Comstock had clung to every acre and tree that belonged to her
+husband. Her land was almost complete forest where her neighbours owned
+cleared farms, dotted with wells that every hour sucked oil from
+beneath her holdings, but she was too absorbed in the grief she nursed
+to know or care. The Brushwood road and the redredging of the big
+Limberlost ditch had been more than she could pay from her income, and
+she had trembled before the wicket as she asked the banker if she had
+funds to pay it, and wondered why he laughed when he assured her she
+had. For Mrs. Comstock had spent no time on compounding interest, and
+never added the sums she had been depositing through nearly twenty
+years. Now she thought her funds were almost gone, and every day she
+worried over expenses. She could see no reason in going through the
+forms of graduation when pupils had all in their heads that was
+required to graduate. Elnora knew she had to have her diploma in order
+to enter the college she wanted to attend, but she did not dare utter
+the word, until high school was finished, for, instead of softening as
+she hoped her mother had begun to do, she seemed to remain very much
+the same.
+
+When the girl reached the swamp she sat on a log and thought over the
+expense she was compelled to meet. Every member of her particular set
+was having a large photograph taken to exchange with the others. Elnora
+loved these girls and boys, and to say she could not have their
+pictures to keep was more than she could endure. Each one would give to
+all the others a handsome graduation present. She knew they would
+prepare gifts for her whether she could make a present in return or
+not. Then it was the custom for each graduating class to give a great
+entertainment and use the funds to present the school with a statue for
+the entrance hall. Elnora had been cast for and was practising a part
+in that performance. She was expected to furnish her dress and personal
+necessities. She had been told that she must have a green gauze dress,
+and where was it to come from?
+
+Every girl of the class would have three beautiful new frocks for
+Commencement: one for the baccalaureate sermon, another, which could be
+plain, for graduation exercises, and a handsome one for the banquet and
+ball. Elnora faced the past three years and wondered how she could have
+spent so much money and not kept account of it. She did not realize
+where it had gone. She did not know what she could do now. She thought
+over the photographs, and at last settled that question to her
+satisfaction. She studied longer over the gifts, ten handsome ones
+there must be, and at last decided she could arrange for them. The
+green dress came first. The lights would be dim in the scene, and the
+setting deep woods. She could manage that. She simply could not have
+three dresses. She would have to get a very simple one for the sermon
+and do the best she could for graduation. Whatever she got for that
+must be made with a guimpe that could be taken out to make it a little
+more festive for the ball. But where could she get even two pretty
+dresses?
+
+The only hope she could see was to break into the collection of the man
+from India, sell some moths, and try to replace them in June. But in
+her soul she knew that never would do. No June ever brought just the
+things she hoped it would. If she spent the college money she knew she
+could not replace it. If she did not, the only way was to secure a room
+in the grades and teach a year. Her work there had been so appreciated
+that Elnora felt with the recommendation she knew she could get from
+the superintendent and teachers she could secure a position. She was
+sure she could pass the examinations easily. She had once gone on
+Saturday, taken them and secured a license for a year before she left
+the Brushwood school.
+
+She wanted to start to college when the other girls were going. If she
+could make the first year alone, she could manage the remainder. But
+make that first year herself, she must. Instead of selling any of her
+collection, she must hunt as she never before had hunted and find a
+Yellow Emperor. She had to have it, that was all. Also, she had to have
+those dresses. She thought of Wesley and dismissed it. She thought of
+the Bird Woman, and knew she could not tell her. She thought of every
+way in which she ever had hoped to earn money and realized that with
+the play, committee meetings, practising, and final examinations she
+scarcely had time to live, much less to do more than the work required
+for her pictures and gifts. Again Elnora was in trouble, and this time
+it seemed the worst of all.
+
+It was dark when she arose and went home.
+
+“Mother,” she said, “I have a piece of news that is decidedly not
+cheerful.”
+
+“Then keep it to yourself!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I think I have enough
+to bear without a great girl like you piling trouble on me.”
+
+“My money is all gone!” said Elnora.
+
+“Well, did you think it would last forever? It’s been a marvel to me
+that it’s held out as well as it has, the way you’ve dressed and gone.”
+
+“I don’t think I’ve spent any that I was not compelled to,” said
+Elnora. “I’ve dressed on just as little as I possibly could to keep
+going. I am heartsick. I thought I had over fifty dollars to put me
+through Commencement, but they tell me it is all gone.”
+
+“Fifty dollars! To put you through Commencement! What on earth are you
+proposing to do?”
+
+“The same as the rest of them, in the very cheapest way possible.”
+
+“And what might that be?”
+
+Elnora omitted the photographs, the gifts and the play. She told only
+of the sermon, graduation exercises, and the ball.
+
+“Well, I wouldn’t trouble myself over that,” sniffed Mrs. Comstock. “If
+you want to go to a sermon, put on the dress you always use for
+meeting. If you need white for the exercises wear the new dress you got
+last spring. As for the ball, the best thing for you to do is to stay a
+mile away from such folly. In my opinion you’d best bring home your
+books, and quit right now. You can’t be fixed like the rest of them,
+don’t be so foolish as to run into it. Just stay here and let these
+last few days go. You can’t learn enough more to be of any account.”
+
+“But, mother,” gasped Elnora. “You don’t understand!”
+
+“Oh, yes, I do!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I understand perfectly. So long
+as the money lasted, you held up your head, and went sailing without
+even explaining how you got it from the stuff you gathered. Goodness
+knows I couldn’t see. But now it’s gone, you come whining to me. What
+have I got? Have you forgot that the ditch and the road completely
+strapped me? I haven’t any money. There’s nothing for you to do but get
+out of it.”
+
+“I can’t!” said Elnora desperately. “I’ve gone on too long. It would
+make a break in everything. They wouldn’t let me have my diploma!”
+
+“What’s the difference? You’ve got the stuff in your head. I wouldn’t
+give a rap for a scrap of paper. That don’t mean anything!”
+
+“But I’ve worked four years for it, and I can’t enter—I ought to have
+it to help me get a school, when I want to teach. If I don’t have my
+grades to show, people will think I quit because I couldn’t pass my
+examinations. I must have my diploma!”
+
+“Then get it!” said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“The only way is to graduate with the others.”
+
+“Well, graduate if you are bound to!”
+
+“But I can’t, unless I have things enough like the class, that I don’t
+look as I did that first day.”
+
+“Well, please remember I didn’t get you into this, and I can’t get you
+out. You are set on having your own way. Go on, and have it, and see
+how you like it!”
+
+Elnora went upstairs and did not come down again that night, which her
+mother called pouting.
+
+“I’ve thought all night,” said the girl at breakfast, “and I can’t see
+any way but to borrow the money of Uncle Wesley and pay it back from
+some that the Bird Woman will owe me, when I get one more specimen. But
+that means that I can’t go to—that I will have to teach this winter, if
+I can get a city grade or a country school.”
+
+“Just you dare go dinging after Wesley Sinton for money,” cried Mrs.
+Comstock. “You won’t do any such a thing!”
+
+“I can’t see any other way. I’ve got to have the money!”
+
+“Quit, I tell you!”
+
+“I can’t quit!—I’ve gone too far!”
+
+“Well then, let me get your clothes, and you can pay me back.”
+
+“But you said you had no money!”
+
+“Maybe I can borrow some at the bank. Then you can return it when the
+Bird Woman pays you.”
+
+“All right,” said Elnora. “I don’t need expensive things. Just some
+kind of a pretty cheap white dress for the sermon, and a white one a
+little better than I had last summer, for Commencement and the ball. I
+can use the white gloves and shoes I got myself for last year, and you
+can get my dress made at the same place you did that one. They have my
+measurements, and do perfect work. Don’t get expensive things. It will
+be warm so I can go bareheaded.”
+
+Then she started to school, but was so tired and discouraged she
+scarcely could walk. Four years’ plans going in one day! For she felt
+that if she did not start to college that fall she never would. Instead
+of feeling relieved at her mother’s offer, she was almost too ill to go
+on. For the thousandth time she groaned: “Oh, why didn’t I keep account
+of my money?”
+
+After that the days passed so swiftly she scarcely had time to think,
+but several trips her mother made to town, and the assurance that
+everything was all right, satisfied Elnora. She worked very hard to
+pass good final examinations and perfect herself for the play. For two
+days she had remained in town with the Bird Woman in order to spend
+more time practising and at her work.
+
+Often Margaret had asked about her dresses for graduation, and Elnora
+had replied that they were with a woman in the city who had made her a
+white dress for last year’s Commencement when she was a junior usher,
+and they would be all right. So Margaret, Wesley, and Billy concerned
+themselves over what they would give her for a present. Margaret
+suggested a beautiful dress. Wesley said that would look to every one
+as if she needed dresses. The thing was to get a handsome gift like all
+the others would have. Billy wanted to present her a five-dollar gold
+piece to buy music for her violin. He was positive Elnora would like
+that best of anything.
+
+It was toward the close of the term when they drove to town one evening
+to try to settle this important question. They knew Mrs. Comstock had
+been alone several days, so they asked her to accompany them. She had
+been more lonely than she would admit, filled with unusual unrest
+besides, and so she was glad to go. But before they had driven a mile
+Billy had told that they were going to buy Elnora a graduation present,
+and Mrs. Comstock devoutly wished that she had remained at home. She
+was prepared when Billy asked: “Aunt Kate, what are you going to give
+Elnora when she graduates?”
+
+“Plenty to eat, a good bed to sleep in, and do all the work while she
+trollops,” answered Mrs. Comstock dryly.
+
+Billy reflected. “I guess all of them have that,” he said. “I mean a
+present you buy at the store, like Christmas?”
+
+“It is only rich folks who buy presents at stores,” replied Mrs.
+Comstock. “I can’t afford it.”
+
+“Well, we ain’t rich,” he said, “but we are going to buy Elnora
+something as fine as the rest of them have if we sell a corner of the
+farm. Uncle Wesley said so.”
+
+“A fool and his land are soon parted,” said Mrs. Comstock tersely.
+Wesley and Billy laughed, but Margaret did not enjoy the remark.
+
+While they were searching the stores for something on which all of them
+could decide, and Margaret was holding Billy to keep him from saying
+anything before Mrs. Comstock about the music on which he was
+determined, Mr. Brownlee met Wesley and stopped to shake hands.
+
+“I see your boy came out finely,” he said.
+
+“I don’t allow any boy anywhere to be finer than Billy,” said Wesley.
+
+“I guess you don’t allow any girl to surpass Elnora,” said Mr.
+Brownlee. “She comes home with Ellen often, and my wife and I love her.
+Ellen says she is great in her part to-night. Best thing in the whole
+play! Of course, you are in to see it! If you haven’t reserved seats,
+you’d better start pretty soon, for the high school auditorium only
+seats a thousand. It’s always jammed at these home-talent plays. All of
+us want to see how our children perform.”
+
+“Why yes, of course,” said the bewildered Wesley. Then he hurried to
+Margaret. “Say,” he said, “there is going to be a play at the high
+school to-night; and Elnora is in it. Why hasn’t she told us?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Margaret, “but I’m going.”
+
+“So am I,” said Billy.
+
+“Me too!” said Wesley, “unless you think for some reason she doesn’t
+want us. Looks like she would have told us if she had. I’m going to ask
+her mother.”
+
+“Yes, that’s what’s she’s been staying in town for,” said Mrs.
+Comstock. “It’s some sort of a swindle to raise money for her class to
+buy some silly thing to stick up in the school house hall to remember
+them by. I don’t know whether it’s now or next week, but there’s
+something of the kind to be done.”
+
+“Well, it’s to-night,” said Wesley, “and we are going. It’s my treat,
+and we’ve got to hurry or we won’t get in. There are reserved seats,
+and we have none, so it’s the gallery for us, but I don’t care so I get
+to take one good peep at Elnora.”
+
+“S’pose she plays?” whispered Margaret in his ear.
+
+“Aw, tush! She couldn’t!” said Wesley.
+
+“Well, she’s been doing it three years in the orchestra, and working
+like a slave at it.”
+
+“Oh, well that’s different. She’s in the play to-night. Brownlee told
+me so. Come on, quick! We’ll drive and hitch closest place we can find
+to the building.”
+
+Margaret went in the excitement of the moment, but she was troubled.
+
+When they reached the building Wesley tied the team to a railing and
+Billy sprang out to help Margaret. Mrs. Comstock sat still.
+
+“Come on, Kate,” said Wesley, reaching his hand.
+
+“I’m not going anywhere,” said Mrs. Comstock, settling comfortably back
+against the cushions.
+
+All of them begged and pleaded, but it was no use. Not an inch would
+Mrs. Comstock budge. The night was warm and the carriage comfortable,
+the horses were securely hitched. She did not care to see what idiotic
+thing a pack of school children were doing, she would wait until the
+Sintons returned. Wesley told her it might be two hours, and she said
+she did not care if it were four, so they left her.
+
+“Did you ever see such——?”
+
+“Cookies!” cried Billy.
+
+“Such blamed stubbornness in all your life?” demanded Wesley. “Won’t
+come to see as fine a girl as Elnora in a stage performance. Why, I
+wouldn’t miss it for fifty dollars!
+
+“I think it’s a blessing she didn’t,” said Margaret placidly. “I begged
+unusually hard so she wouldn’t. I’m scared of my life for fear Elnora
+will play.”
+
+They found seats near the door where they could see fairly well. Billy
+stood at the back of the hall and had a good view. By and by, a great
+volume of sound welled from the orchestra, but Elnora was not playing.
+
+“Told you so!” said Sinton. “Got a notion to go out and see if Kate
+won’t come now. She can take my seat, and I’ll stand with Billy.”
+
+“You sit still!” said Margaret emphatically. “This is not over yet.”
+
+So Wesley remained in his seat. The play opened and progressed very
+much as all high school plays have gone for the past fifty years. But
+Elnora did not appear in any of the scenes.
+
+Out in the warm summer night a sour, grim woman nursed an aching heart
+and tried to justify herself. The effort irritated her intensely. She
+felt that she could not afford the things that were being done. The old
+fear of losing the land that she and Robert Comstock had purchased and
+started clearing was strong upon her. She was thinking of him, how she
+needed him, when the orchestra music poured from the open windows near
+her. Mrs. Comstock endured it as long as she could, and then slipped
+from the carriage and fled down the street.
+
+She did not know how far she went or how long she stayed, but
+everything was still, save an occasional raised voice when she wandered
+back. She stood looking at the building. Slowly she entered the wide
+gates and followed up the walk. Elnora had been coming here for almost
+four years. When Mrs. Comstock reached the door she looked inside. The
+wide hall was lighted with electricity, and the statuary and the
+decorations of the walls did not seem like pieces of foolishness. The
+marble appeared pure, white, and the big pictures most interesting. She
+walked the length of the hall and slowly read the titles of the statues
+and the names of the pupils who had donated them. She speculated on
+where the piece Elnora’s class would buy could be placed to advantage.
+
+Then she wondered if they were having a large enough audience to buy
+marble. She liked it better than the bronze, but it looked as if it
+cost more. How white the broad stairway was! Elnora had been climbing
+those stairs for years and never told her they were marble. Of course,
+she thought they were wood. Probably the upper hall was even grander
+than this. She went over to the fountain, took a drink, climbed to the
+first landing and looked around her, and then without thought to the
+second. There she came opposite the wide-open doors and the entrance to
+the auditorium packed with people and a crowd standing outside. When
+they noticed a tall woman with white face and hair and black dress, one
+by one they stepped a little aside, so that Mrs. Comstock could see the
+stage. It was covered with curtains, and no one was doing anything.
+Just as she turned to go a sound so faint that every one leaned forward
+and listened, drifted down the auditorium. It was difficult to tell
+just what it was; after one instant half the audience looked toward the
+windows, for it seemed only a breath of wind rustling freshly opened
+leaves; merely a hint of stirring air.
+
+Then the curtains were swept aside swiftly. The stage had been
+transformed into a lovely little corner of creation, where trees and
+flowers grew and moss carpeted the earth. A soft wind blew and it was
+the gray of dawn. Suddenly a robin began to sing, then a song sparrow
+joined him, and then several orioles began talking at once. The light
+grew stronger, the dew drops trembled, flower perfume began to creep
+out to the audience; the air moved the branches gently and a rooster
+crowed. Then all the scene was shaken with a babel of bird notes in
+which you could hear a cardinal whistling, and a blue finch piping.
+Back somewhere among the high branches a dove cooed and then a horse
+neighed shrilly. That set a blackbird crying, “T’check,” and a whole
+flock answered it. The crows began to caw and a lamb bleated. Then the
+grosbeaks, chats, and vireos had something to say, and the sun rose
+higher, the light grew stronger and the breeze rustled the treetops
+loudly; a cow bawled and the whole barnyard answered. The guineas were
+clucking, the turkey gobbler strutting, the hens calling, the chickens
+cheeping, the light streamed down straight overhead and the bees began
+to hum. The air stirred strongly, and away in an unseen field a reaper
+clacked and rattled through ripening wheat while the driver whistled.
+An uneasy mare whickered to her colt, the colt answered, and the light
+began to decline. Miles away a rooster crowed for twilight, and dusk
+was coming down. Then a catbird and a brown thrush sang against a
+grosbeak and a hermit thrush. The air was tremulous with heavenly
+notes, the lights went out in the hall, dusk swept across the stage, a
+cricket sang and a katydid answered, and a wood pewee wrung the heart
+with its lonesome cry. Then a night hawk screamed, a whip-poor-will
+complained, a belated killdeer swept the sky, and the night wind sang a
+louder song. A little screech owl tuned up in the distance, a barn owl
+replied, and a great horned owl drowned both their voices. The moon
+shone and the scene was warm with mellow light. The bird voices died
+and soft exquisite melody began to swell and roll. In the centre of the
+stage, piece by piece the grasses, mosses and leaves dropped from an
+embankment, the foliage softly blew away, while plainer and plainer
+came the outlines of a lovely girl figure draped in soft clinging
+green. In her shower of bright hair a few green leaves and white
+blossoms clung, and they fell over her robe down to her feet. Her white
+throat and arms were bare, she leaned forward a little and swayed with
+the melody, her eyes fast on the clouds above her, her lips parted, a
+pink tinge of exercise in her cheeks as she drew her bow. She played as
+only a peculiar chain of circumstances puts it in the power of a very
+few to play. All nature had grown still, the violin sobbed, sang,
+danced and quavered on alone, no voice in particular; the soul of the
+melody of all nature combined in one great outpouring.
+
+At the doorway, a white-faced woman endured it as long as she could and
+then fell senseless. The men nearest carried her down the hall to the
+fountain, revived her, and then placed her in the carriage to which she
+directed them. The girl played on and never knew. When she finished,
+the uproar of applause sounded a block down the street, but the
+half-senseless woman scarcely realized what it meant. Then the girl
+came to the front of the stage, bowed, and lifting the violin she
+played her conception of an invitation to dance. Every living soul
+within sound of her notes strained their nerves to sit still and let
+only their hearts dance with her. When that began the woman ran toward
+the country. She never stopped until the carriage overtook her half-way
+to her cabin. She said she had grown tired of sitting, and walked on
+ahead. That night she asked Billy to remain with her and sleep on
+Elnora’s bed. Then she pitched headlong upon her own, and suffered
+agony of soul such as she never before had known. The swamp had sent
+back the soul of her loved dead and put it into the body of the
+daughter she resented, and it was almost more than she could endure and
+live.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA GRADUATES, AND FRECKLES AND THE ANGEL SEND GIFTS
+
+
+That was Friday night. Elnora came home Saturday morning and began
+work. Mrs. Comstock asked no questions, and the girl only told her that
+the audience had been large enough to more than pay for the piece of
+statuary the class had selected for the hall. Then she inquired about
+her dresses and was told they would be ready for her. She had been
+invited to go to the Bird Woman’s to prepare for both the sermon and
+Commencement exercises. Since there was so much practising to do, it
+had been arranged that she should remain there from the night of the
+sermon until after she was graduated. If Mrs. Comstock decided to
+attend she was to drive in with the Sintons. When Elnora begged her to
+come she said she cared nothing about such silliness.
+
+It was almost time for Wesley to come to take Elnora to the city, when
+fresh from her bath, and dressed to her outer garment, she stood with
+expectant face before her mother and cried: “Now my dress, mother!”
+
+Mrs. Comstock was pale as she replied: “It’s on my bed. Help yourself.”
+
+Elnora opened the door and stepped into her mother’s room with never a
+misgiving. Since the night Margaret and Wesley had brought her
+clothing, when she first started to school, her mother had selected all
+of her dresses, with Mrs. Sinton’s help made most of them, and Elnora
+had paid the bills. The white dress of the previous spring was the
+first made at a dressmaker’s. She had worn that as junior usher at
+Commencement; but her mother had selected the material, had it made,
+and it had fitted perfectly and had been suitable in every way. So with
+her heart at rest on that point, Elnora hurried to the bed to find only
+her last summer’s white dress, freshly washed and ironed. For an
+instant she stared at it, then she picked up the garment, looked at the
+bed beneath it, and her gaze slowly swept the room.
+
+It was unfamiliar. Perhaps this was the third time she had been in it
+since she was a very small child. Her eyes ranged over the beautiful
+walnut dresser, the tall bureau, the big chest, inside which she never
+had seen, and the row of masculine attire hanging above it. Somewhere a
+dainty lawn or mull dress simply must be hanging: but it was not.
+Elnora dropped on the chest because she felt too weak to stand. In less
+than two hours she must be in the church, at Onabasha. She could not
+wear a last year’s washed dress. She had nothing else. She leaned
+against the wall and her father’s overcoat brushed her face. She caught
+the folds and clung to it with all her might.
+
+“Oh father! Father!” she moaned. “I need you! I don’t believe you would
+have done this!” At last she opened the door.
+
+“I can’t find my dress,” she said.
+
+“Well, as it’s the only one there I shouldn’t think it would be much
+trouble.”
+
+“You mean for me to wear an old washed dress to-night?”
+
+“It’s a good dress. There isn’t a hole in it! There’s no reason on
+earth why you shouldn’t wear it.”
+
+“Except that I will not,” said Elnora. “Didn’t you provide any dress
+for Commencement, either?”
+
+“If you soil that to-night, I’ve plenty of time to wash it again.”
+
+Wesley’s voice called from the gate.
+
+“In a minute,” answered Elnora.
+
+She ran upstairs and in an incredibly short time came down wearing one
+of her gingham school dresses. Her face cold and hard, she passed her
+mother and went into the night. Half an hour later Margaret and Billy
+stopped for Mrs. Comstock with the carriage. She had determined fully
+that she would not go before they called. With the sound of their
+voices a sort of horror of being left seized her, so she put on her
+hat, locked the door and went out to them.
+
+“How did Elnora look?” inquired Margaret anxiously.
+
+“Like she always does,” answered Mrs. Comstock curtly.
+
+“I do hope her dresses are as pretty as the others,” said Margaret.
+“None of them will have prettier faces or nicer ways.”
+
+Wesley was waiting before the big church to take care of the team. As
+they stood watching the people enter the building, Mrs. Comstock felt
+herself growing ill. When they went inside among the lights, saw the
+flower-decked stage, and the masses of finely dressed people, she grew
+no better. She could hear Margaret and Billy softly commenting on what
+was being done.
+
+“That first chair in the very front row is Elnora’s,” exulted Billy,
+“cos she’s got the highest grades, and so she gets to lead the
+procession to the platform.”
+
+“The first chair!” “Lead the procession!” Mrs. Comstock was
+dumbfounded. The notes of the pipe organ began to fill the building in
+a slow rolling march. Would Elnora lead the procession in a gingham
+dress? Or would she be absent and her chair vacant on this great
+occasion? For now, Mrs. Comstock could see that it was a great
+occasion. Every one would remember how Elnora had played a few nights
+before, and they would miss her and pity her. Pity? Because she had no
+one to care for her. Because she was worse off than if she had no
+mother. For the first time in her life, Mrs. Comstock began to study
+herself as she would appear to others. Every time a junior girl came
+fluttering down the aisle, leading some one to a seat, and Mrs.
+Comstock saw a beautiful white dress pass, a wave of positive illness
+swept over her. What had she done? What would become of Elnora?
+
+As Elnora rode to the city, she answered Wesley’s questions in
+monosyllables so that he thought she was nervous or rehearsing her
+speech and did not care to talk. Several times the girl tried to tell
+him and realized that if she said the first word it would bring
+uncontrollable tears. The Bird Woman opened the screen and stared
+unbelievingly.
+
+“Why, I thought you would be ready; you are so late!” she said. “If you
+have waited to dress here, we must hurry.”
+
+“I have nothing to put on,” said Elnora.
+
+In bewilderment the Bird Woman drew her inside.
+
+“Did—did—” she faltered. “Did you think you would wear that?”
+
+“No. I thought I would telephone Ellen that there had been an accident
+and I could not come. I don’t know yet how to explain. I’m too sick to
+think. Oh, do you suppose I can get something made by Tuesday, so that
+I can graduate?”
+
+“Yes; and you’ll get something on you to-night, so that you can lead
+your class, as you have done for four years. Go to my room and take off
+that gingham, quickly. Anna, drop everything, and come help me.”
+
+The Bird Woman ran to the telephone and called Ellen Brownlee.
+
+“Elnora has had an accident. She will be a little late,” she said. “You
+have got to make them wait. Have them play extra music before the
+march.”
+
+Then she turned to the maid. “Tell Benson to have the carriage at the
+gate, just as soon as he can get it there. Then come to my room. Bring
+the thread box from the sewing-room, that roll of wide white ribbon on
+the cutting table, and gather all the white pins from every dresser in
+the house. But first come with me a minute.”
+
+“I want that trunk with the Swamp Angel’s stuff in it, from the cedar
+closet,” she panted as they reached the top of the stairs.
+
+They hurried down the hall together and dragged the big trunk to the
+Bird Woman’s room. She opened it and began tossing out white stuff.
+
+“How lucky that she left these things!” she cried. “Here are white
+shoes, gloves, stockings, fans, everything!”
+
+“I am all ready but a dress,” said Elnora.
+
+The Bird Woman began opening closets and pulling out drawers and boxes.
+
+“I think I can make it this way,” she said.
+
+She snatched up a creamy lace yoke with long sleeves that recently had
+been made for her and held it out. Elnora slipped into it, and the Bird
+Woman began smoothing out wrinkles and sewing in pins. It fitted very
+well with a little lapping in the back. Next, from among the Angel’s
+clothing she caught up a white silk waist with low neck and elbow
+sleeves, and Elnora put it on. It was large enough, but distressingly
+short in the waist, for the Angel had worn it at a party when she was
+sixteen. The Bird Woman loosened the sleeves and pushed them to a puff
+on the shoulders, catching them in places with pins. She began on the
+wide draping of the yoke, fastening it front, back and at each
+shoulder. She pulled down the waist and pinned it. Next came a soft
+white dress skirt of her own. By pinning her waist band quite four
+inches above Elnora’s, the Bird Woman could secure a perfect Empire
+sweep, with the clinging silk. Then she began with the wide white
+ribbon that was to trim a new frock for herself, bound it three times
+around the high waist effect she had managed, tied the ends in a knot
+and let them fall to the floor in a beautiful sash.
+
+“I want four white roses, each with two or three leaves,” she cried.
+
+Anna ran to bring them, while the Bird Woman added pins.
+
+“Elnora,” she said, “forgive me, but tell me truly. Is your mother so
+poor as to make this necessary?”
+
+“No,” answered Elnora. “Next year I am heir to my share of over three
+hundred acres of land covered with almost as valuable timber as was in
+the Limberlost. We adjoin it. There could be thirty oil wells drilled
+that would yield to us the thousands our neighbours are draining from
+under us, and the bare land is worth over one hundred dollars an acre
+for farming. She is not poor, she is—I don’t know what she is. A great
+trouble soured and warped her. It made her peculiar. She does not in
+the least understand, but it is because she doesn’t care to, instead of
+ignorance. She does not——”
+
+Elnora stopped.
+
+“She is—is different,” finished the girl.
+
+Anna came with the roses. The Bird Woman set one on the front of the
+draped yoke, one on each shoulder and the last among the bright masses
+of brown hair. Then she turned the girl facing the tall mirror.
+
+“Oh!” panted Elnora. “You are a genius! Why, I will look as well as any
+of them.”
+
+“Thank goodness for that!” cried the Bird Woman. “If it wouldn’t do, I
+should have been ill. You are lovely; altogether lovely! Ordinarily I
+shouldn’t say that; but when I think of how you are carpentered, I’m
+admiring the result.”
+
+The organ began rolling out the march as they came in sight. Elnora
+took her place at the head of the procession, while every one wondered.
+Secretly they had hoped that she would be dressed well enough, that she
+would not appear poor and neglected. What this radiant young creature,
+gowned in the most recent style, her smooth skin flushed with
+excitement, and a rose-set coronet of red gold on her head, had to do
+with the girl they knew was difficult to decide. The signal was given
+and Elnora began the slow march across the vestry and down the aisle.
+The music welled softly, and Margaret began to sob without knowing why.
+
+Mrs. Comstock gripped her hands together and shut her eyes. It seemed
+an eternity to the suffering woman before Margaret caught her arm and
+whispered, “Oh, Kate! For any sake look at her! Here! The aisle
+across!”
+
+Mrs. Comstock opened her eyes and directing them where she was told,
+gazed intently, and slid down in her seat close to collapse. She was
+saved by Margaret’s tense clasp and her command: “Here! Idiot! Stop
+that!”
+
+In the blaze of light Elnora climbed the steps to the palm-embowered
+platform, crossed it and took her place. Sixty young men and women,
+each of them dressed the best possible, followed her. There were manly,
+fine-looking men in that class which Elnora led. There were girls of
+beauty and grace, but not one of them was handsomer or clothed in
+better taste than she.
+
+Billy thought the time never would come when Elnora would see him, but
+at last she met his eye, then Margaret and Wesley had faint signs of
+recognition in turn, but there was no softening of the girl’s face and
+no hint of a smile when she saw her mother.
+
+Heartsick, Katharine Comstock tried to prove to herself that she was
+justified in what she had done, but she could not. She tried to blame
+Elnora for not saying that she was to lead a procession and sit on a
+platform in the sight of hundreds of people; but that was impossible,
+for she realized that she would have scoffed and not understood if she
+had been told. Her heart pained until she suffered with every breath.
+
+When at last the exercises were over she climbed into the carriage and
+rode home without a word. She did not hear what Margaret and Billy were
+saying. She scarcely heard Wesley, who drove behind, when he told her
+that Elnora would not be home until Wednesday. Early the next morning
+Mrs. Comstock was on her way to Onabasha. She was waiting when the
+Brownlee store opened. She examined ready-made white dresses, but they
+had only one of the right size, and it was marked forty dollars. Mrs.
+Comstock did not hesitate over the price, but whether the dress would
+be suitable. She would have to ask Elnora. She inquired her way to the
+home of the Bird Woman and knocked.
+
+“Is Elnora Comstock here?” she asked the maid.
+
+“Yes, but she is still in bed. I was told to let her sleep as long as
+she would.”
+
+“Maybe I could sit here and wait,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I want to see
+about getting her a dress for to-morrow. I am her mother.”
+
+“Then you don’t need wait or worry,” said the girl cheerfully. “There
+are two women up in the sewing-room at work on a dress for her right
+now. It will be done in time, and it will be a beauty.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock turned and trudged back to the Limberlost. The bitterness
+in her soul became a physical actuality, which water would not wash
+from her lips. She was too late! She was not needed. Another woman was
+mothering her girl. Another woman would prepare a beautiful dress such
+as Elnora had worn the previous night. The girl’s love and gratitude
+would go to her. Mrs. Comstock tried the old process of blaming some
+one else, but she felt no better. She nursed her grief as closely as
+ever in the long days of the girl’s absence. She brooded over Elnora’s
+possession of the forbidden violin and her ability to play it until the
+performance could not have been told from her father’s. She tried every
+refuge her mind could conjure, to quiet her heart and remove the fear
+that the girl never would come home again, but it persisted. Mrs.
+Comstock could neither eat nor sleep. She wandered around the cabin and
+garden. She kept far from the pool where Robert Comstock had sunk from
+sight for she felt that it would entomb her also if Elnora did not come
+home Wednesday morning. The mother told herself that she would wait,
+but the waiting was as bitter as anything she ever had known.
+
+When Elnora awoke Monday another dress was in the hands of a seamstress
+and was soon fitted. It had belonged to the Angel, and was a soft white
+thing that with a little alteration would serve admirably for
+Commencement and the ball. All that day Elnora worked, helping prepare
+the auditorium for the exercises, rehearsing the march and the speech
+she was to make in behalf of the class. The following day was even
+busier. But her mind was at rest, for the dress was a soft delicate
+lace easy to change, and the marks of alteration impossible to detect.
+
+The Bird Woman had telephoned to Grand Rapids, explained the situation
+and asked the Angel if she might use it. The reply had been to give the
+girl the contents of the chest. When the Bird Woman told Elnora, tears
+filled her eyes.
+
+“I will write at once and thank her,” she said. “With all her beautiful
+gowns she does not need them, and I do. They will serve for me often,
+and be much finer than anything I could afford. It is lovely of her to
+give me the dress and of you to have it altered for me, as I never
+could.”
+
+The Bird Woman laughed. “I feel religious to-day,” she said. “You know
+the first and greatest rock of my salvation is ‘Do unto others.’ I’m
+only doing to you what there was no one to do for me when I was a girl
+very like you. Anna tells me your mother was here early this morning
+and that she came to see about getting you a dress.”
+
+“She is too late!” said Elnora coldly. “She had over a month to prepare
+my dresses, and I was to pay for them, so there is no excuse.”
+
+“Nevertheless, she is your mother,” said the Bird Woman, softly. “I
+think almost any kind of a mother must be better than none at all, and
+you say she has had great trouble.”
+
+“She loved my father and he died,” said Elnora. “The same thing, in
+quite as tragic a manner, has happened to thousands of other women, and
+they have gone on with calm faces and found happiness in life by loving
+others. There was something else I am afraid I never shall forget; this
+I know I shall not, but talking does not help. I must deliver my
+presents and photographs to the crowd. I have a picture and I made a
+present for you, too, if you would care for them.”
+
+“I shall love anything you give me,” said the Bird Woman. “I know you
+well enough to know that whatever you do will be beautiful.”
+
+Elnora was pleased over that, and as she tried on her dress for the
+last fitting she was really happy. She was lovely in the dainty gown:
+it would serve finely for the ball and many other like occasions, and
+it was her very own.
+
+The Bird Woman’s driver took Elnora in the carriage and she called on
+all the girls with whom she was especially intimate, and left her
+picture and the package containing her gift to them. By the time she
+returned parcels for her were arriving. Friends seemed to spring from
+everywhere. Almost every one she knew had some gift for her, while
+because they so loved her the members of her crowd had made her
+beautiful presents. There were books, vases, silver pieces,
+handkerchiefs, fans, boxes of flowers and candy. One big package
+settled the trouble at Sinton’s, for it contained a dainty dress from
+Margaret, a five-dollar gold piece, conspicuously labelled, “I earned
+this myself,” from Billy, with which to buy music; and a gorgeous
+cut-glass perfume bottle, it would have cost five dollars to fill with
+even a moderate-priced scent, from Wesley.
+
+In an expressed crate was a fine curly-maple dressing table, sent by
+Freckles. The drawers were filled with wonderful toilet articles from
+the Angel. The Bird Woman added an embroidered linen cover and a small
+silver vase for a few flowers, so no girl of the class had finer gifts.
+Elnora laid her head on the table sobbing happily, and the Bird Woman
+was almost crying herself. Professor Henley sent a butterfly book, the
+grade rooms in which Elnora had taught gave her a set of volumes
+covering every phase of life afield, in the woods, and water. Elnora
+had no time to read so she carried one of these books around with her
+hugging it as she went. After she had gone to dress a queer-looking
+package was brought by a small boy who hopped on one foot as he handed
+it in and said: “Tell Elnora that is from her ma.”
+
+“Who are you?” asked the Bird Woman as she took the bundle.
+
+“I’m Billy!” announced the boy. “I gave her the five dollars. I earned
+it myself dropping corn, sticking onions, and pulling weeds. My, but
+you got to drop, and stick, and pull a lot before it’s five dollars’
+worth.”
+
+“Would you like to come in and see Elnora’s gifts?”
+
+“Yes, ma’am!” said Billy, trying to stand quietly.
+
+“Gee-mentley!” he gasped. “Does Elnora get all this?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I bet you a thousand dollars I be first in my class when I graduate.
+Say, have the others got a lot more than Elnora?”
+
+“I think not.”
+
+“Well, Uncle Wesley said to find out if I could, and if she didn’t have
+as much as the rest, he’d buy till she did, if it took a hundred
+dollars. Say, you ought to know him! He’s just scrumptious! There ain’t
+anybody any where finer ’an he is. My, he’s grand!”
+
+“I’m very sure of it!” said the Bird Woman. “I’ve often heard Elnora
+say so.”
+
+“I bet you nobody can beat this!” he boasted. Then he stopped, thinking
+deeply. “I don’t know, though,” he began reflectively. “Some of them
+are awful rich; they got big families to give them things and wagon
+loads of friends, and I haven’t seen what they have. Now, maybe Elnora
+is getting left, after all!”
+
+“Don’t worry, Billy,” she said. “I will watch, and if I find Elnora is
+‘getting left’ I’ll buy her some more things myself. But I’m sure she
+is not. She has more beautiful gifts now than she will know what to do
+with, and others will come. Tell your Uncle Wesley his girl is
+bountifully remembered, very happy, and she sends her dearest love to
+all of you. Now you must go, so I can help her dress. You will be there
+to-night of course?”
+
+“Yes, sir-ee! She got me a seat, third row from the front, middle
+section, so I can see, and she’s going to wink at me, after she gets
+her speech off her mind. She kissed me, too! She’s a perfect lady,
+Elnora is. I’m going to marry her when I am big enough.”
+
+“Why isn’t that splendid!” laughed the Bird Woman as she hurried
+upstairs.
+
+“Dear!” she called. “Here is another gift for you.”
+
+Elnora was half disrobed as she took the package and, sitting on a
+couch, opened it. The Bird Woman bent over her and tested the fabric
+with her fingers.
+
+“Why, bless my soul!” she cried. “Hand-woven, hand-embroidered linen,
+fine as silk. It’s priceless! I haven’t seen such things in years. My
+mother had garments like those when I was a child, but my sisters had
+them cut up for collars, belts, and fancy waists while I was small.
+Look at the exquisite work!”
+
+“Where could it have come from?” cried Elnora.
+
+She shook out a petticoat, with a hand-wrought ruffle a foot deep, then
+an old-fashioned chemise the neck and sleeve work of which was
+elaborate and perfectly wrought. On the breast was pinned a note that
+she hastily opened.
+
+“I was married in these,” it read, “and I had intended to be buried in
+them, but perhaps it would be more sensible for you to graduate and get
+married in them yourself, if you like. Your mother.”
+
+“From my mother!” Wide-eyed, Elnora looked at the Bird Woman. “I never
+in my life saw the like. Mother does things I think I never can
+forgive, and when I feel hardest, she turns around and does something
+that makes me think she just must love me a little bit, after all. Any
+of the girls would give almost anything to graduate in hand-embroidered
+linen like that. Money can’t buy such things. And they came when I was
+thinking she didn’t care what became of me. Do you suppose she can be
+insane?”
+
+“Yes,” said the Bird Woman. “Wildly insane, if she does not love you
+and care what becomes of you.”
+
+Elnora arose and held the petticoat to her. “Will you look at it?” she
+cried. “Only imagine her not getting my dress ready, and then sending
+me such a petticoat as this! Ellen would pay fifty dollars for it and
+never blink. I suppose mother has had it all my life, and I never saw
+it before.”
+
+“Go take your bath and put on those things,” said the Bird Woman.
+“Forget everything and be happy. She is not insane. She is embittered.
+She did not understand how things would be. When she saw, she came at
+once to provide you a dress. This is her way of saying she is sorry she
+did not get the other. You notice she has not spent any money, so
+perhaps she is quite honest in saying she has none.”
+
+“Oh, she is honest!” said Elnora. “She wouldn’t care enough to tell an
+untruth. She’d say just how things were, no matter what happened.”
+
+Soon Elnora was ready for her dress. She never had looked so well as
+when she again headed the processional across the flower and palm
+decked stage of the high school auditorium. As she sat there she could
+have reached over and dropped a rose she carried into the seat she had
+occupied that September morning when she entered the high school. She
+spoke the few words she had to say in behalf of the class beautifully,
+had the tiny wink ready for Billy, and the smile and nod of recognition
+for Wesley and Margaret. When at last she looked into the eyes of a
+white-faced woman next them, she slipped a hand to her side and raised
+her skirt the fraction of an inch, just enough to let the embroidered
+edge of a petticoat show a trifle. When she saw the look of relief
+which flooded her mother’s face, Elnora knew that forgiveness was in
+her heart, and that she would go home in the morning.
+
+It was late afternoon before she arrived, and a dray followed with a
+load of packages. Mrs. Comstock was overwhelmed. She sat half dazed and
+made Elnora show her each costly and beautiful or simple and useful
+gift, tell her carefully what it was and from where it came. She
+studied the faces of Elnora’s particular friends. The gifts from them
+had to be set in a group. Several times she started to speak and then
+stopped. At last, between her dry lips, came a harsh whisper.
+
+“Elnora, what did you give back for these things?”
+
+“I’ll show you,” said Elnora cheerfully. “I made the same gifts for the
+Bird Woman, Aunt Margaret and you if you care for it. But I have to run
+upstairs to get it.”
+
+When she returned she handed her mother an oblong frame, hand carved,
+enclosing Elnora’s picture, taken by a schoolmate’s camera. She wore
+her storm-coat and carried a dripping umbrella. From under it looked
+her bright face; her books and lunchbox were on her arm, and across the
+bottom of the frame was carved, “Your Country Classmate.”
+
+Then she offered another frame.
+
+“I am strong on frames,” she said. “They seemed to be the best I could
+do without money. I located the maple and the black walnut myself, in a
+little corner that had been overlooked between the river and the ditch.
+They didn’t seem to belong to any one so I just took them. Uncle Wesley
+said it was all right, and he cut and hauled them for me. I gave the
+mill half of each tree for sawing and curing the remainder. Then I gave
+the wood-carver half of that for making my frames. A photographer gave
+me a lot of spoiled plates, and I boiled off the emulsion, and took the
+specimens I framed from my stuff. The man said the white frames were
+worth three and a half, and the black ones five. I exchanged those
+little framed pictures for the photographs of the others. For presents,
+I gave each one of my crowd one like this, only a different moth. The
+Bird Woman gave me the birch bark. She got it up north last summer.”
+
+Elnora handed her mother a handsome black-walnut frame a foot and a
+half wide by two long. It finished a small, shallow glass-covered box
+of birch bark, to the bottom of which clung a big night moth with
+delicate pale green wings and long exquisite trailers.
+
+“So you see I did not have to be ashamed of my gifts,” said Elnora. “I
+made them myself and raised and mounted the moths.”
+
+“Moth, you call it,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I’ve seen a few of the things
+before.”
+
+“They are numerous around us every June night, or at least they used to
+be,” said Elnora. “I’ve sold hundreds of them, with butterflies,
+dragonflies, and other specimens. Now, I must put away these and get to
+work, for it is almost June and there are a few more I want dreadfully.
+If I find them I will be paid some money for which I have been
+working.”
+
+She was afraid to say college at that time. She thought it would be
+better to wait a few days and see if an opportunity would not come when
+it would work in more naturally. Besides, unless she could secure the
+Yellow Emperor she needed to complete her collection, she could not
+talk college until she was of age, for she would have no money.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+WHEREIN MARGARET SINTON REVEALS A SECRET, AND MRS. COMSTOCK POSSESSES
+THE LIMBERLOST
+
+
+“Elnora, bring me the towel, quick!” cried Mrs Comstock.
+
+“In a minute, mother,” mumbled Elnora.
+
+She was standing before the kitchen mirror, tying the back part of her
+hair, while the front turned over her face.
+
+“Hurry! There’s a varmint of some kind!”
+
+Elnora ran into the sitting-room and thrust the heavy kitchen towel
+into her mother’s hand. Mrs. Comstock swung open the screen door and
+struck at some object, Elnora tossed the hair from her face so that she
+could see past her mother. The girl screamed wildly.
+
+“Don’t! Mother, don’t!”
+
+Mrs. Comstock struck again. Elnora caught her arm. “It’s the one I
+want! It’s worth a lot of money! Don’t! Oh, you shall not!”
+
+“Shan’t, missy?” blazed Mrs. Comstock. “When did you get to bossing
+me?”
+
+The hand that held the screen swept a half-circle and stopped at
+Elnora’s cheek. She staggered with the blow, and across her face, paled
+with excitement, a red mark arose rapidly. The screen slammed shut,
+throwing the creature on the floor before them. Instantly Mrs. Comstock
+crushed it with her foot. Elnora stepped back. Excepting the red mark,
+her face was very white.
+
+“That was the last moth I needed,” she said, “to complete a collection
+worth three hundred dollars. You’ve ruined it before my eyes!”
+
+“Moth!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You say that because you are mad. Moths
+have big wings. I know a moth!”
+
+“I’ve kept things from you,” said Elnora, “because I didn’t dare
+confide in you. You had no sympathy with me. But you know I never told
+you untruths in all my life.”
+
+“It’s no moth!” reiterated Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“It is!” cried Elnora. “It’s from a case in the ground. Its wings take
+two or three hours to expand and harden.”
+
+“If I had known it was a moth——” Mrs. Comstock wavered.
+
+“You did know! I told you! I begged you to stop! It meant just three
+hundred dollars to me.”
+
+“Bah! Three hundred fiddlesticks!”
+
+“They are what have paid for books, tuition, and clothes for the past
+four years. They are what I could have started on to college. You’ve
+ruined the very one I needed. You never made any pretence of loving me.
+At last I’ll be equally frank with you. I hate you! You are a selfish,
+wicked woman! I hate you!”
+
+Elnora turned, went through the kitchen and from the back door. She
+followed the garden path to the gate and walked toward the swamp a
+short distance when reaction overtook her. She dropped on the ground
+and leaned against a big log. When a little child, desperate as now,
+she had tried to die by holding her breath. She had thought in that way
+to make her mother sorry, but she had learned that life was a thing
+thrust upon her and she could not leave it at her wish.
+
+She was so stunned over the loss of that moth, which she had childishly
+named the Yellow Emperor, that she scarcely remembered the blow. She
+had thought no luck in all the world would be so rare as to complete
+her collection; now she had been forced to see a splendid Imperialis
+destroyed before her. There was a possibility that she could find
+another, but she was facing the certainty that the one she might have
+had and with which she undoubtedly could have attracted others, was
+spoiled by her mother. How long she sat there Elnora did not know or
+care. She simply suffered in dumb, abject misery, an occasional dry sob
+shaking her. Aunt Margaret was right. Elnora felt that morning that her
+mother never would be any different. The girl had reached the place
+where she realized that she could endure it no longer.
+
+As Elnora left the room, Mrs. Comstock took one step after her.
+
+“You little huzzy!” she gasped.
+
+But Elnora was gone. Her mother stood staring.
+
+“She never did lie to me,” she muttered. “I guess it was a moth. And
+the only one she needed to get three hundred dollars, she said. I wish
+I hadn’t been so fast! I never saw anything like it. I thought it was
+some deadly, stinging, biting thing. A body does have to be mighty
+careful here. But likely I’ve spilt the milk now. Pshaw! She can find
+another! There’s no use to be foolish. Maybe moths are like snakes,
+where there’s one, there are two.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock took the broom and swept the moth out of the door. Then
+she got down on her knees and carefully examined the steps, logs and
+the earth of the flower beds at each side. She found the place where
+the creature had emerged from the ground, and the hard, dark-brown case
+which had enclosed it, still wet inside. Then she knew Elnora had been
+right. It was a moth. Its wings had been damp and not expanded. Mrs.
+Comstock never before had seen one in that state, and she did not know
+how they originated. She had thought all of them came from cases spun
+on trees or against walls or boards. She had seen only enough to know
+that there were such things; as a flash of white told her that an
+ermine was on her premises, or a sharp “buzzzzz” warned her of a
+rattler.
+
+So it was from creatures like that Elnora had secured her school money.
+In one sickening sweep there rushed into the heart of the woman a full
+realization of the width of the gulf that separated her from her child.
+Lately many things had pointed toward it, none more plainly than when
+Elnora, like a reincarnation of her father, had stood fearlessly before
+a large city audience and played with even greater skill than he, on
+what Mrs. Comstock felt very certain was his violin. But that little
+crawling creature of earth, crushed by her before its splendid yellow
+and lavender wings could spread and carry it into the mystery of night,
+had performed a miracle.
+
+“We are nearer strangers to each other than we are with any of the
+neighbours,” she muttered.
+
+So one of the Almighty’s most delicate and beautiful creations was
+sacrificed without fulfilling the law, yet none of its species ever
+served so glorious a cause, for at last Mrs. Comstock’s inner vision
+had cleared. She went through the cabin mechanically. Every few minutes
+she glanced toward the back walk to see if Elnora were coming. She knew
+arrangements had been made with Margaret to go to the city some time
+that day, so she grew more nervous and uneasy every moment. She was
+haunted by the fear that the blow might discolour Elnora’s cheek; that
+she would tell Margaret. She went down the back walk, looking intently
+in all directions, left the garden and followed the swamp path. Her
+step was noiseless on the soft, black earth, and soon she came close
+enough to see Elnora. Mrs. Comstock stood looking at the girl in
+troubled uncertainty. Not knowing what to say, at last she turned and
+went back to the cabin.
+
+Noon came and she prepared dinner, calling, as she always did, when
+Elnora was in the garden, but she got no response, and the girl did not
+come. A little after one o’clock Margaret stopped at the gate.
+
+“Elnora has changed her mind. She is not going,” called Mrs. Comstock.
+
+She felt that she hated Margaret as she hitched her horse and came up
+the walk instead of driving on.
+
+“You must be mistaken,” said Margaret. “I was going on purpose for her.
+She asked me to take her. I had no errand. Where is she?”
+
+“I will call her,” said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+She followed the path again, and this time found Elnora sitting on the
+log. Her face was swollen and discoloured, and her eyes red with
+crying. She paid no attention to her mother.
+
+“Mag Sinton is here,” said Mrs. Comstock harshly. “I told her you had
+changed your mind, but she said you asked her to go with you, and she
+had nothing to go for herself.”
+
+Elnora arose, recklessly waded through the deep swamp grasses and so
+reached the path ahead of her mother. Mrs. Comstock followed as far as
+the garden, but she could not enter the cabin. She busied herself among
+the vegetables, barely looking up when the back-door screen slammed
+noisily. Margaret Sinton approached colourless, her eyes so angry that
+Mrs. Comstock shrank back.
+
+“What’s the matter with Elnora’s face?” demanded Margaret.
+
+Mrs. Comstock made no reply.
+
+“You struck her, did you?”
+
+“I thought you wasn’t blind!”
+
+“I have been, for twenty long years now, Kate Comstock,” said Margaret
+Sinton, “but my eyes are open at last. What I see is that I’ve done you
+no good and Elnora a big wrong. I had an idea that it would kill you to
+know, but I guess you are tough enough to stand anything. Kill or cure,
+you get it now!”
+
+“What are you frothing about?” coolly asked Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“You!” cried Margaret. “You! The woman who doesn’t pretend to love her
+only child. Who lets her grow to a woman, as you have let Elnora, and
+can’t be satisfied with every sort of neglect, but must add abuse yet;
+and all for a fool idea about a man who wasn’t worth his salt!”
+
+Mrs. Comstock picked up a hoe.
+
+“Go right on!” she said. “Empty yourself. It’s the last thing you’ll
+ever do!”
+
+“Then I’ll make a tidy job of it,” said Margaret. “You’ll not touch me.
+You’ll stand there and hear the truth at last, and because I dare face
+you and tell it, you will know in your soul it is truth. When Robert
+Comstock shaved that quagmire out there so close he went in, he wanted
+to keep you from knowing where he was coming from. He’d been to see
+Elvira Carney. They had plans to go to a dance that night——”
+
+“Close your lips!” said Mrs. Comstock in a voice of deadly quiet.
+
+“You know I wouldn’t dare open them if I wasn’t telling you the truth.
+I can prove what I say. I was coming from Reeds. It was hot in the
+woods and I stopped at Carney’s as I passed for a drink. Elvira’s
+bedridden old mother heard me, and she was so crazy for some one to
+talk with, I stepped in a minute. I saw Robert come down the path.
+Elvira saw him, too, so she ran out of the house to head him off. It
+looked funny, and I just deliberately moved where I could see and hear.
+He brought her his violin, and told her to get ready and meet him in
+the woods with it that night, and they would go to a dance. She took it
+and hid it in the loft to the well-house and promised she’d go.”
+
+“Are you done?” demanded Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“No. I am going to tell you the whole story. You don’t spare Elnora
+anything. I shan’t spare you. I hadn’t been here that day, but I can
+tell you just how he was dressed, which way he went and every word they
+said, though they thought I was busy with her mother and wouldn’t
+notice them. Put down your hoe, Kate. I went to Elvira, told her what I
+knew and made her give me Comstock’s violin for Elnora over three years
+ago. She’s been playing it ever since. I won’t see her slighted and
+abused another day on account of a man who would have broken your heart
+if he had lived. Six months more would have showed you what everybody
+else knew. He was one of those men who couldn’t trust himself, and so
+no woman was safe with him. Now, will you drop grieving over him, and
+do Elnora justice?”
+
+Mrs. Comstock grasped the hoe tighter and turning she went down the
+walk, and started across the woods to the home of Elvira Carney. With
+averted head she passed the pool, steadily pursuing her way. Elvira
+Carney, hanging towels across the back fence, saw her coming and went
+toward the gate to meet her. Twenty years she had dreaded that visit.
+Since Margaret Sinton had compelled her to produce the violin she had
+hidden so long, because she was afraid to destroy it, she had come
+closer expectation than dread. The wages of sin are the hardest debts
+on earth to pay, and they are always collected at inconvenient times
+and unexpected places. Mrs. Comstock’s face and hair were so white,
+that her dark eyes seemed burned into their setting. Silently she
+stared at the woman before her a long time.
+
+“I might have saved myself the trouble of coming,” she said at last, “I
+see you are guilty as sin!”
+
+“What has Mag Sinton been telling you?” panted the miserable woman,
+gripping the fence.
+
+“The truth!” answered Mrs. Comstock succinctly. “Guilt is in every line
+of your face, in your eyes, all over your wretched body. If I’d taken a
+good look at you any time in all these past years, no doubt I could
+have seen it just as plain as I can now. No woman or man can do what
+you’ve done, and not get a mark set on them for every one to read.”
+
+“Mercy!” gasped weak little Elvira Carney. “Have mercy!”
+
+“Mercy?” scoffed Mrs. Comstock. “Mercy! That’s a nice word from you!
+How much mercy did you have on me? Where’s the mercy that sent Comstock
+to the slime of the bottomless quagmire, and left me to see it, and
+then struggle on in agony all these years? How about the mercy of
+letting me neglect my baby all the days of her life? Mercy! Do you
+really dare use the word to me?”
+
+“If you knew what I’ve suffered!”
+
+“Suffered?” jeered Mrs. Comstock. “That’s interesting. And pray, what
+have you suffered?”
+
+“All the neighbours have suspected and been down on me. I ain’t had a
+friend. I’ve always felt guilty of his death! I’ve seen him go down a
+thousand times, plain as ever you did. Many’s the night I’ve stood on
+the other bank of that pool and listened to you, and I tried to throw
+myself in to keep from hearing you, but I didn’t dare. I knew God would
+send me to burn forever, but I’d better done it; for now, He has set
+the burning on my body, and every hour it is slowly eating the life out
+of me. The doctor says it’s a cancer——”
+
+Mrs. Comstock exhaled a long breath. Her grip on the hoe relaxed and
+her stature lifted to towering height.
+
+“I didn’t know, or care, when I came here, just what I did,” she said.
+“But my way is beginning to clear. If the guilt of your soul has come
+to a head, in a cancer on your body, it looks as if the Almighty didn’t
+need any of my help in meting out His punishments. I really couldn’t
+fix up anything to come anywhere near that. If you are going to burn
+until your life goes out with that sort of fire, you don’t owe me
+anything!”
+
+“Oh, Katharine Comstock!” groaned Elvira Carney, clinging to the fence
+for support.
+
+“Looks as if the Bible is right when it says, ‘The wages of sin is
+death,’ doesn’t it?” asked Mrs. Comstock. “Instead of doing a woman’s
+work in life, you chose the smile of invitation, and the dress of
+unearned cloth. Now you tell me you are marked to burn to death with
+the unquenchable fire. And him! It was shorter with him, but let me
+tell you he got his share! He left me with an untruth on his lips, for
+he told me he was going to take his violin to Onabasha for a new key,
+when he carried it to you. Every vow of love and constancy he ever made
+me was a lie, after he touched your lips, so when he tried the wrong
+side of the quagmire, to hide from me the direction in which he was
+coming, it reached out for him, and it got him. It didn’t hurry,
+either! It sucked him down, slow and deliberate.”
+
+“Mercy!” groaned Elvira Carney. “Mercy!”
+
+“I don’t know the word,” said Mrs. Comstock. “You took all that out of
+me long ago. The past twenty years haven’t been of the sort that taught
+mercy. I’ve never had any on myself and none on my child. Why in the
+name of justice, should I have mercy on you, or on him? You were both
+older than I, both strong, sane people, you deliberately chose your
+course when you lured him, and he, when he was unfaithful to me. When a
+Loose Man and a Light Woman face the end the Almighty ordained for
+them, why should they shout at me for mercy? What did I have to do with
+it?”
+
+Elvira Carney sobbed in panting gasps.
+
+“You’ve got tears, have you?” marvelled Mrs. Comstock. “Mine all dried
+long ago. I’ve none left to shed over my wasted life, my disfigured
+face and hair, my years of struggle with a man’s work, my wreck of land
+among the tilled fields of my neighbours, or the final knowledge that
+the man I so gladly would have died to save, wasn’t worth the sacrifice
+of a rattlesnake. If anything yet could wring a tear from me, it would
+be the thought of the awful injustice I always have done my girl. If
+I’d lay hand on you for anything, it would be for that.”
+
+“Kill me if you want to,” sobbed Elvira Carney. “I know that I deserve
+it, and I don’t care.”
+
+“You are getting your killing fast enough to suit me,” said Mrs.
+Comstock. “I wouldn’t touch you, any more than I would him, if I could.
+Once is all any man or woman deceives me about the holiest things of
+life. I wouldn’t touch you any more than I would the black plague. I am
+going back to my girl.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock turned and started swiftly through the woods, but she had
+gone only a few rods when she stopped, and leaning on the hoe, she
+stood thinking deeply. Then she turned back. Elvira still clung to the
+fence, sobbing bitterly.
+
+“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Comstock, “but I left a wrong impression with
+you. I don’t want you to think that I believe the Almighty set a cancer
+to burning you as a punishment for your sins. I don’t! I think a lot
+more of the Almighty. With a whole sky-full of worlds on His hands to
+manage, I’m not believing that He has time to look down on ours, and
+pick you out of all the millions of us sinners, and set a special kind
+of torture to eating you. It wouldn’t be a gentlemanly thing to do, and
+first of all, the Almighty is bound to be a gentleman. I think likely a
+bruise and bad blood is what caused your trouble. Anyway, I’ve got to
+tell you that the cleanest housekeeper I ever knew, and one of the
+noblest Christian women, was slowly eaten up by a cancer. She got hers
+from the careless work of a poor doctor. The Almighty is to forgive sin
+and heal disease, not to invent and spread it.”
+
+She had gone only a few steps when she again turned back.
+
+“If you will gather a lot of red clover bloom, make a tea strong as lye
+of it, and drink quarts, I think likely it will help you, if you are
+not too far gone. Anyway, it will cool your blood and make the burning
+easier to bear.”
+
+Then she swiftly went home. Enter the lonely cabin she could not,
+neither could she sit outside and think. She attacked a bed of beets
+and hoed until the perspiration ran from her face and body, then she
+began on the potatoes. When she was too tired to take another stroke
+she bathed and put on dry clothing. In securing her dress she noticed
+her husband’s carefully preserved clothing lining one wall. She
+gathered it in an armload and carried it to the swamp. Piece by piece
+she pitched into the green maw of the quagmire all those articles she
+had dusted carefully and fought moths from for years, and stood
+watching as it slowly sucked them down. She went back to her room and
+gathered every scrap that had in any way belonged to Robert Comstock,
+excepting his gun and revolver, and threw it into the swamp. Then for
+the first time she set her door wide open.
+
+She was too weary now to do more, but an urging unrest drove her. She
+wanted Elnora. It seemed to her she never could wait until the girl
+came and delivered her judgment. At last in an effort to get nearer to
+her, Mrs. Comstock climbed the stairs and stood looking around Elnora’s
+room. It was very unfamiliar. The pictures were strange to her.
+Commencement had filled it with packages and bundles. The walls were
+covered with cocoons; moths and dragonflies were pinned everywhere.
+Under the bed she could see half a dozen large white boxes. She pulled
+out one and lifted the lid. The bottom was covered with a sheet of thin
+cork, and on long pins sticking in it were large, velvet-winged moths.
+Each one was labelled, always there were two of a kind, in many cases
+four, showing under and upper wings of both male and female. They were
+of every colour and shape.
+
+Mrs. Comstock caught her breath sharply. When and where had Elnora
+found them? They were the most exquisite sight the woman ever had seen,
+so she opened all the boxes to feast on their beautiful contents. As
+she did so there came more fully a sense of the distance between her
+and her child. She could not understand how Elnora had gone to school,
+and performed so much work secretly. When it was finished, to the last
+moth, she, the mother who should have been the first confidant and
+helper, had been the one to bring disappointment. Small wonder Elnora
+had come to hate her.
+
+Mrs. Comstock carefully closed and replaced the boxes; and again stood
+looking around the room. This time her eyes rested on some books she
+did not remember having seen before, so she picked up one and found
+that it was a moth book. She glanced over the first pages and was soon
+eagerly reading. When the text reached the classification of species,
+she laid it down, took up another and read the introductory chapters.
+By that time her brain was in a confused jumble of ideas about
+capturing moths with differing baits and bright lights.
+
+She went down stairs thinking deeply. Being unable to sit still and
+having nothing else to do she glanced at the clock and began preparing
+supper. The work dragged. A chicken was snatched up and dressed
+hurriedly. A spice cake sprang into being. Strawberries that had been
+intended for preserves went into shortcake. Delicious odours crept from
+the cabin. She put many extra touches on the table and then commenced
+watching the road. Everything was ready, but Elnora did not come. Then
+began the anxious process of trying to keep cooked food warm and not
+spoil it. The birds went to bed and dusk came. Mrs. Comstock gave up
+the fire and set the supper on the table. Then she went out and sat on
+the front-door step watching night creep around her. She started
+eagerly as the gate creaked, but it was only Wesley Sinton coming.
+
+“Katharine, Margaret and Elnora passed where I was working this
+afternoon, and Margaret got out of the carriage and called me to the
+fence. She told me what she had done. I’ve come to say to you that I am
+sorry. She has heard me threaten to do it a good many times, but I
+never would have got it done. I’d give a good deal if I could undo it,
+but I can’t, so I’ve come to tell you how sorry I am.”
+
+“You’ve got something to be sorry for,” said Mrs. Comstock, “but likely
+we ain’t thinking of the same thing. It hurts me less to know the
+truth, than to live in ignorance. If Mag had the sense of a pewee,
+she’d told me long ago. That’s what hurts me, to think that both of you
+knew Robert was not worth an hour of honest grief, yet you’d let me
+mourn him all these years and neglect Elnora while I did it. If I have
+anything to forgive you, that is what it is.”
+
+Wesley removed his hat and sat on a bench.
+
+“Katharine,” he said solemnly, “nobody ever knows how to take you.”
+
+“Would it be asking too much to take me for having a few grains of
+plain common sense?” she inquired. “You’ve known all this time that
+Comstock got what he deserved, when he undertook to sneak in an unused
+way across a swamp, with which he was none too familiar. Now I should
+have thought that you’d figure that knowing the same thing would be the
+best method to cure me of pining for him, and slighting my child.”
+
+“Heaven only knows we have thought of that, and talked of it often, but
+we were both too big cowards. We didn’t dare tell you.”
+
+“So you have gone on year after year, watching me show indifference to
+Elnora, and yet a little horse-sense would have pointed out to you that
+she was my salvation. Why look at it! Not married quite a year. All his
+vows of love and fidelity made to me before the Almighty forgotten in a
+few months, and a dance and a Light Woman so alluring he had to lie and
+sneak for them. What kind of a prospect is that for a life? I know men
+and women. An honourable man is an honourable man, and a liar is a
+liar; both are born and not made. One cannot change to the other any
+more than that same old leopard can change its spots. After a man tells
+a woman the first untruth of that sort, the others come piling thick,
+fast, and mountain high. The desolation they bring in their wake
+overshadows anything I have suffered completely. If he had lived six
+months more I should have known him for what he was born to be. It was
+in the blood of him. His father and grandfather before him were
+fiddling, dancing people; but I was certain of him. I thought we could
+leave Ohio and come out here alone, and I could so love him and
+interest him in his work, that he would be a man. Of all the fool,
+fruitless jobs, making anything of a creature that begins by deceiving
+her, is the foolest a sane woman ever undertook. I am more than sorry
+you and Margaret didn’t see your way clear to tell me long ago. I’d
+have found it out in a few more months if he had lived, and I wouldn’t
+have borne it a day. The man who breaks his vows to me once, doesn’t
+get the second chance. I give truth and honour. I have a right to ask
+it in return. I am glad I understand at last. Now, if Elnora will
+forgive me, we will take a new start and see what we can make out of
+what is left of life. If she won’t, then it will be my time to learn
+what suffering really means.”
+
+“But she will,” said Wesley. “She must! She can’t help it when things
+are explained.”
+
+“I notice she isn’t hurrying any about coming home. Do you know where
+she is or what she is doing?”
+
+“I do not. But likely she will be along soon. I must go help Billy with
+the night work. Good-bye, Katharine. Thank the Lord you have come to
+yourself at last!”
+
+They shook hands and Wesley went down the road while Mrs. Comstock
+entered the cabin. She could not swallow food. She stood in the back
+door watching the sky for moths, but they did not seem to be very
+numerous. Her spirits sank and she breathed unevenly. Then she heard
+the front screen. She reached the middle door as Elnora touched the
+foot of the stairs.
+
+“Hurry, and get ready, Elnora,” she said. “Your supper is almost
+spoiled now.”
+
+Elnora closed the stair door behind her, and for the first time in her
+life, threw the heavy lever which barred out anyone from down stairs.
+Mrs. Comstock heard the thud, and knew what it meant. She reeled
+slightly and caught the doorpost for support. For a few minutes she
+clung there, then sank to the nearest chair. After a long time she
+arose and stumbling half blindly, she put the food in the cupboard and
+covered the table. She took the lamp in one hand, the butter in the
+other, and started to the spring house. Something brushed close by her
+face, and she looked just in time to see a winged creature rise above
+the cabin and sail away.
+
+“That was a night bird,” she muttered. As she stopped to set the butter
+in the water, came another thought. “Perhaps it was a moth!” Mrs.
+Comstock dropped the butter and hurried out with the lamp; she held it
+high above her head and waited until her arms ached. Small insects of
+night gathered, and at last a little dusty miller, but nothing came of
+any size.
+
+“I must go where they are, if I get them,” muttered Mrs. Comstock.
+
+She went to the barn after the stout pair of high boots she used in
+feeding stock in deep snow. Throwing these beside the back door she
+climbed to the loft over the spring house, and hunted an old lard oil
+lantern and one of first manufacture for oil. Both these she cleaned
+and filled. She listened until everything up stairs had been still for
+over half an hour. By that time it was past eleven o’clock. Then she
+took the lantern from the kitchen, the two old ones, a handful of
+matches, a ball of twine, and went from the cabin, softly closing the
+door.
+
+Sitting on the back steps, she put on the boots, and then stood gazing
+into the perfumed June night, first in the direction of the woods on
+her land, then toward the Limberlost. Its outline was so dark and
+forbidding she shuddered and went down the garden, following the path
+toward the woods, but as she neared the pool her knees wavered and her
+courage fled. The knowledge that in her soul she was now glad Robert
+Comstock was at the bottom of it made a coward of her, who fearlessly
+had mourned him there, nights untold. She could not go on. She skirted
+the back of the garden, crossed a field, and came out on the road. Soon
+she reached the Limberlost. She hunted until she found the old trail,
+then followed it stumbling over logs and through clinging vines and
+grasses. The heavy boots clumped on her feet, overhanging branches
+whipped her face and pulled her hair. But her eyes were on the sky as
+she went straining into the night, hoping to find signs of a living
+creature on wing.
+
+By and by she began to see the wavering flight of something she thought
+near the right size. She had no idea where she was, but she stopped,
+lighted a lantern and hung it as high as she could reach. A little
+distance away she placed the second and then the third. The objects
+came nearer and sick with disappointment she saw that they were bats.
+Crouching in the damp swamp grasses, without a thought of snakes or
+venomous insects, she waited, her eyes roving from lantern to lantern.
+Once she thought a creature of high flight dropped near the lard oil
+light, so she arose breathlessly waiting, but either it passed or it
+was an illusion. She glanced at the old lantern, then at the new, and
+was on her feet in an instant creeping close. Something large as a
+small bird was fluttering around. Mrs. Comstock began to perspire,
+while her hand shook wildly. Closer she crept and just as she reached
+for it, something similar swept past and both flew away together.
+
+Mrs. Comstock set her teeth and stood shivering. For a long time the
+locusts rasped, the whip-poor-wills cried and a steady hum of night
+life throbbed in her ears. Away in the sky she saw something coming
+when it was no larger than a falling leaf. Straight toward the light it
+flew. Mrs. Comstock began to pray aloud.
+
+“This way, O Lord! Make it come this way! Please! O Lord, send it
+lower!”
+
+The moth hesitated at the first light, then slowly, easily it came
+toward the second, as if following a path of air. It touched a leaf
+near the lantern and settled. As Mrs. Comstock reached for it a thin
+yellow spray wet her hand and the surrounding leaves. When its wings
+raised above its back, her fingers came together. She held the moth to
+the light. It was nearer brown than yellow, and she remembered having
+seen some like it in the boxes that afternoon. It was not the one
+needed to complete the collection, but Elnora might want it, so Mrs.
+Comstock held on. Then the Almighty was kind, or nature was sufficient,
+as you look at it, for following the law of its being when disturbed,
+the moth again threw the spray by which some suppose it attracts its
+kind, and liberally sprinkled Mrs. Comstock’s dress front and arms.
+From that instant, she became the best moth bait ever invented. Every
+Polyphemus in range hastened to her, and other fluttering creatures of
+night followed. The influx came her way. She snatched wildly here and
+there until she had one in each hand and no place to put them. She
+could see more coming, and her aching heart, swollen with the strain of
+long excitement, hurt pitifully. She prayed in broken exclamations that
+did not always sound reverent, but never was human soul in more intense
+earnest.
+
+Moths were coming. She had one in each hand. They were not yellow, and
+she did not know what to do. She glanced around to try to discover some
+way to keep what she had, and her throbbing heart stopped and every
+muscle stiffened. There was the dim outline of a crouching figure not
+two yards away, and a pair of eyes their owner thought hidden, caught
+the light in a cold stream. Her first impulse was to scream and fly for
+life. Before her lips could open a big moth alighted on her breast
+while she felt another walking over her hair. All sense of caution
+deserted her. She did not care to live if she could not replace the
+yellow moth she had killed. She turned her eyes to those among the
+leaves.
+
+“Here, you!” she cried hoarsely. “I need you! Get yourself out here,
+and help me. These critters are going to get away from me. Hustle!”
+
+Pete Corson parted the bushes and stepped into the light.
+
+“Oh, it’s you!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I might have known! But you gave
+me a start. Here, hold these until I make some sort of bag for them. Go
+easy! If you break them I don’t guarantee what will happen to you!”
+
+“Pretty fierce, ain’t you!” laughed Pete, but he advanced and held out
+his hands. “For Elnora, I s’pose?”
+
+“Yes,” said Mrs. Comstock. “In a mad fit, I trampled one this morning,
+and by the luck of the old boy himself it was the last moth she needed
+to complete a collection. I got to get another one or die.”
+
+“Then I guess it’s your funeral,” said Pete. “There ain’t a chance in a
+dozen the right one will come. What colour was it?”
+
+“Yellow, and big as a bird.”
+
+“The Emperor, likely,” said Pete. “You dig for that kind, and they are
+not numerous, so’s ’at you can smash ’em for fun.”
+
+“Well, I can try to get one, anyway,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I forgot all
+about bringing anything to put them in. You take a pinch on their wings
+until I make a poke.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock removed her apron, tearing off the strings. She
+unfastened and stepped from the skirt of her calico dress. With one
+apron string she tied shut the band and placket. She pulled a wire pin
+from her hair, stuck it through the other string, and using it as a
+bodkin ran it around the hem of her skirt, so shortly she had a large
+bag. She put several branches inside to which the moths could cling,
+closed the mouth partially and held it toward Pete.
+
+“Put your hand well down and let the things go!” she ordered. “But be
+careful, man! Don’t run into the twigs! Easy! That’s one. Now the
+other. Is the one on my head gone? There was one on my dress, but I
+guess it flew. Here comes a kind of a gray-looking one.”
+
+Pete slipped several more moths into the bag.
+
+“Now, that’s five, Mrs. Comstock,” he said. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have
+to make that do. You must get out of here lively. Your lights will be
+taken for hurry calls, and inside the next hour a couple of men will
+ride here like fury. They won’t be nice Sunday-school men, and they
+won’t hold bags and catch moths for you. You must go quick!”
+
+Mrs. Comstock laid down the bag and pulled one of the lanterns lower.
+
+“I won’t budge a step,” she said. “This land doesn’t belong to you. You
+have no right to order me off it. Here I stay until I get a Yellow
+Emperor, and no little petering thieves of this neighbourhood can scare
+me away.”
+
+“You don’t understand,” said Pete. “I’m willing to help Elnora, and I’d
+take care of you, if I could, but there will be too many for me, and
+they will be mad at being called out for nothing.”
+
+“Well, who’s calling them out?” demanded Mrs. Comstock. “I’m catching
+moths. If a lot of good-for-nothings get fooled into losing some sleep,
+why let them, they can’t hurt me, or stop my work.”
+
+“They can, and they’ll do both.”
+
+“Well, I’ll see them do it!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I’ve got Robert’s
+revolver in my dress, and I can shoot as straight as any man, if I’m
+mad enough. Any one who interferes with me to-night will find me mad
+a-plenty. There goes another!”
+
+She stepped into the light and waited until a big brown moth settled on
+her and was easily taken. Then in light, airy flight came a delicate
+pale green thing, and Mrs. Comstock started in pursuit. But the scent
+was not right. The moth fluttered high, then dropped lower, still
+lower, and sailed away. With outstretched hands Mrs. Comstock pursued
+it. She hurried one way and another, then ran over an object which
+tripped her and she fell. She regained her feet in an instant, but she
+had lost sight of the moth. With livid face she turned to the crouching
+man.
+
+“You nasty, sneaking son of Satan!” she cried. “Why are you hiding
+there? You made me lose the one I wanted most of any I’ve had a chance
+at yet. Get out of here! Go this minute, or I’ll fill your worthless
+carcass so full of holes you’ll do to sift cornmeal. Go, I say! I’m
+using the Limberlost to-night, and I won’t be stopped by the devil
+himself! Cut like fury, and tell the rest of them they can just go
+home. Pete is going to help me, and he is all of you I need. Now go!”
+
+The man turned and went. Pete leaned against a tree, held his mouth
+shut and shook inwardly. Mrs. Comstock came back panting.
+
+“The old scoundrel made me lose that!” she said. “If any one else comes
+snooping around here I’ll just blow them up to start with. I haven’t
+time to talk. Suppose that had been yellow! I’d have killed that man,
+sure! The Limberlost isn’t safe to-night, and the sooner those whelps
+find it out, the better it will be for them.”
+
+Pete stopped laughing to look at her. He saw that she was speaking the
+truth. She was quite past reason, sense, or fear. The soft night air
+stirred the wet hair around her temples, the flickering lanterns made
+her face a ghastly green. She would stop at nothing, that was evident.
+Pete suddenly began catching moths with exemplary industry. In putting
+one into the bag, another escaped.
+
+“We must not try that again,” said Mrs. Comstock. “Now, what will we
+do?”
+
+“We are close to the old case,” said Pete. “I think I can get into it.
+Maybe we could slip the rest in there.”
+
+“That’s a fine idea!” said Mrs. Comstock. “They’ll have so much room
+there they won’t be likely to hurt themselves, and the books say they
+don’t fly in daytime unless they are disturbed, so they will settle
+when it’s light, and I can come with Elnora to get them.”
+
+They captured two more, and then Pete carried them to the case.
+
+“Here comes a big one!” he cried as he returned.
+
+Mrs. Comstock looked up and stepped out with a prayer on her lips. She
+could not tell the colour at that distance, but the moth appeared
+different from the others. On it came, dropping lower and darting from
+light to light. As it swept near her, “O Heavenly Father!” exulted Mrs.
+Comstock, “it’s yellow! Careful Pete! Your hat, maybe!”
+
+Pete made a long sweep. The moth wavered above the hat and sailed away.
+Mrs. Comstock leaned against a tree and covered her face with her
+shaking hands.
+
+“That is my punishment!” she cried. “Oh, Lord, if you will give a moth
+like that into my possession, I’ll always be a better woman!”
+
+The Emperor again came in sight. Pete stood tense and ready. Mrs.
+Comstock stepped into the light and watched the mothh’s course. Then a
+second appeared in pursuit of the first. The larger one wavered into
+the radius of light once more. The perspiration rolled down the man’s
+face. He half lifted the hat.
+
+“Pray, woman! Pray now!” he panted.
+
+“I guess I best get over by that lard oil light and go to work,”
+breathed Mrs. Comstock. “The Lord knows this is all in prayer, but it’s
+no time for words just now. Ready, Pete! You are going to get a chance
+first!”
+
+Pete made another long, steady sweep, but the moth darted beneath the
+hat. In its flight it came straight toward Mrs. Comstock. She snatched
+off the remnant of apron she had tucked into her petticoat band and
+held the calico before her. The moth struck full against it and clung
+to the goods. Pete crept up stealthily. The second moth followed the
+first, and the spray showered the apron.
+
+“Wait!” gasped Mrs. Comstock. “I think they have settled. The books say
+they won’t leave now.”
+
+The big pale yellow creature clung firmly, lowering and raising its
+wings. The other came nearer. Mrs. Comstock held the cloth with rigid
+hands, while Pete could hear her breathing in short gusts.
+
+“Shall I try now?” he implored.
+
+“Wait!” whispered the woman. “Something seems to say wait!”
+
+The night breeze stiffened and gently waved the apron. Locusts rasped,
+mosquitoes hummed and frogs sang uninterruptedly. A musky odour slowly
+filled the air.
+
+“Now shall I?” questioned Pete.
+
+“No. Leave them alone. They are safe now. They are mine. They are my
+salvation. God and the Limberlost gave them to me! They won’t move for
+hours. The books all say so. O Heavenly Father, I am thankful to You,
+and you, too, Pete Corson! You are a good man to help me. Now, I can go
+home and face my girl.”
+
+Instead, Mrs. Comstock dropped suddenly. She spread the apron across
+her knees. The moths remained undisturbed. Then her tired white head
+dropped, the tears she had thought forever dried gushed forth, and she
+sobbed for pure joy.
+
+“Oh, I wouldn’t do that now, you know!” comforted Pete. “Think of
+getting two! That’s more than you ever could have expected. A body
+would think you would cry, if you hadn’t got any. Come on, now. It’s
+almost morning. Let me help you home.”
+
+Pete took the bag and the two old lanterns. Mrs. Comstock carried her
+moths and the best lantern and went ahead to light the way.
+
+Elnora had sat beside her window far into the night. At last she
+undressed and went to bed, but sleep would not come. She had gone to
+the city to talk with members of the School Board about a room in the
+grades. There was a possibility that she might secure the moth, and so
+be able to start to college that fall, but if she did not, then she
+wanted the school. She had been given some encouragement, but she was
+so unhappy that nothing mattered. She could not see the way open to
+anything in life, save a long series of disappointments, while she
+remained with her mother. Yet Margaret Sinton had advised her to go
+home and try once more. Margaret had seemed so sure there would be a
+change for the better, that Elnora had consented, although she had no
+hope herself. So strong is the bond of blood, she could not make up her
+mind to seek a home elsewhere, even after the day that had passed.
+Unable to sleep she arose at last, and the room being warm, she sat on
+the floor close the window. The lights in the swamp caught her eye. She
+was very uneasy, for quite a hundred of her best moths were in the
+case. However, there was no money, and no one ever had touched a book
+or any of her apparatus. Watching the lights set her thinking, and
+before she realized it, she was in a panic of fear.
+
+She hurried down the stairway softly calling her mother. There was no
+answer. She lightly stepped across the sitting-room and looked in at
+the open door. There was no one, and the bed had not been used. Her
+first thought was that her mother had gone to the pool; and the
+Limberlost was alive with signals. Pity and fear mingled in the heart
+of the girl. She opened the kitchen door, crossed the garden and ran
+back to the swamp. As she neared it she listened, but she could hear
+only the usual voices of night.
+
+“Mother!” she called softly. Then louder, “Mother!”
+
+There was not a sound. Chilled with fright she hurried back to the
+cabin. She did not know what to do. She understood what the lights in
+the Limberlost meant. Where was her mother? She was afraid to enter,
+while she was growing very cold and still more fearful about remaining
+outside. At last she went to her mother’s room, picked up the gun,
+carried it into the kitchen, and crowding in a little corner behind the
+stove, she waited in trembling anxiety. The time was dreadfully long
+before she heard her mother’s voice. Then she decided some one had been
+ill and sent for her, so she took courage, and stepping swiftly across
+the kitchen she unbarred the door and drew back from sight beside the
+table.
+
+Mrs. Comstock entered dragging her heavy feet. Her dress skirt was
+gone, her petticoat wet and drabbled, and the waist of her dress was
+almost torn from her body. Her hair hung in damp strings; her eyes were
+red with crying. In one hand she held the lantern, and in the other
+stiffly extended before her, on a wad of calico reposed a magnificent
+pair of Yellow Emperors. Elnora stared, her lips parted.
+
+“Shall I put these others in the kitchen?” inquired a man’s voice.
+
+The girl shrank back to the shadows.
+
+“Yes, anywhere inside the door,” replied Mrs. Comstock as she moved a
+few steps to make way for him. Pete’s head appeared. He set down the
+moths and was gone.
+
+“Thank you, Pete, more than ever woman thanked you before!” said Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+She placed the lantern on the table and barred the door. As she turned
+Elnora came into view. Mrs. Comstock leaned toward her, and held out
+the moths. In a voice vibrant with tones never before heard she said:
+“Elnora, my girl, mother’s found you another moth!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHEREIN MOTHER LOVE IS BESTOWED ON ELNORA, AND SHE FINDS AN ASSISTANT
+IN MOTH HUNTING
+
+
+Elnora awoke at dawn and lay gazing around the unfamiliar room. She
+noticed that every vestige of masculine attire and belongings was gone,
+and knew, without any explanation, what that meant. For some reason
+every tangible evidence of her father was banished, and she was at last
+to be allowed to take his place. She turned to look at her mother. Mrs.
+Comstock’s face was white and haggard, but on it rested an expression
+of profound peace Elnora never before had seen. As she studied the
+features on the pillow beside her, the heart of the girl throbbed in
+tenderness. She realized as fully as any one else could what her mother
+had suffered. Thoughts of the night brought shuddering fear. She softly
+slipped from the bed, went to her room, dressed and entered the kitchen
+to attend the Emperors and prepare breakfast. The pair had been left
+clinging to the piece of calico. The calico was there and a few pieces
+of beautiful wing. A mouse had eaten the moths!
+
+“Well, of all the horrible luck!” gasped Elnora.
+
+With the first thought of her mother, she caught up the remnants of the
+moths, burying them in the ashes of the stove. She took the bag to her
+room, hurriedly releasing its contents, but there was not another
+yellow one. Her mother had said some had been confined in the case in
+the Limberlost. There was still a hope that an Emperor might be among
+them. She peeped at her mother, who still slept soundly.
+
+Elnora took a large piece of mosquito netting, and ran to the swamp.
+Throwing it over the top of the case, she unlocked the door. She
+reeled, faint with distress. The living moths that had been confined
+there in their fluttering to escape to night and the mates they sought
+not only had wrecked the other specimens of the case, but torn
+themselves to fringes on the pins. A third of the rarest moths of the
+collection for the man of India were antennaless, legless, wingless,
+and often headless. Elnora sobbed aloud.
+
+“This is overwhelming,” she said at last. “It is making a fatalist of
+me. I am beginning to think things happen as they are ordained from the
+beginning, this plainly indicating that there is to be no college, at
+least, this year, for me. My life is all mountain-top or canon. I wish
+some one would lead me into a few days of ‘green pastures.’ Last night
+I went to sleep on mother’s arm, the moths all secured, love and
+college, certainties. This morning I wake to find all my hopes wrecked.
+I simply don’t dare let mother know that instead of helping me, she has
+ruined my collection. Everything is gone—unless the love lasts. That
+actually seemed true. I believe I will go see.”
+
+The love remained. Indeed, in the overflow of the long-hardened,
+pent-up heart, the girl was almost suffocated with tempestuous caresses
+and generous offerings. Before the day was over, Elnora realized that
+she never had known her mother. The woman who now busily went through
+the cabin, her eyes bright, eager, alert, constantly planning, was a
+stranger. Her very face was different, while it did not seem possible
+that during one night the acid of twenty years could disappear from a
+voice and leave it sweet and pleasant.
+
+For the next few days Elnora worked at mounting the moths her mother
+had taken. She had to go to the Bird Woman and tell about the disaster,
+but Mrs. Comstock was allowed to think that Elnora delivered the moths
+when she made the trip. If she had told her what actually happened, the
+chances were that Mrs. Comstock again would have taken possession of
+the Limberlost, hunting there until she replaced all the moths that had
+been destroyed. But Elnora knew from experience what it meant to
+collect such a list in pairs. It would require steady work for at least
+two summers to replace the lost moths. When she left the Bird Woman she
+went to the president of the Onabasha schools and asked him to do all
+in his power to secure her a room in one of the ward buildings.
+
+The next morning the last moth was mounted, and the housework finished.
+Elnora said to her mother, “If you don’t mind, I believe I will go into
+the woods pasture beside Sleepy Snake Creek and see if I can catch some
+dragonflies or moths.”
+
+“Wait until I get a knife and a pail and I will go along,” answered
+Mrs. Comstock. “The dandelions are plenty tender for greens among the
+deep grasses, and I might just happen to see something myself. My eyes
+are pretty sharp.”
+
+“I wish you could realize how young you are,” said Elnora. “I know
+women in Onabasha who are ten years older than you, yet they look
+twenty years younger. So could you, if you would dress your hair
+becomingly, and wear appropriate clothes.”
+
+“I think my hair puts me in the old woman class permanently,” said Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+“Well, it doesn’t!” cried Elnora. “There is a woman of twenty-eight who
+has hair as white as yours from sick headaches, but her face is young
+and beautiful. If your face would grow a little fuller and those lines
+would go away, you’d be lovely!”
+
+“You little pig!” laughed Mrs. Comstock. “Any one would think you would
+be satisfied with having a splinter new mother, without setting up a
+kick on her looks, first thing. Greedy!”
+
+“That is a good word,” said Elnora. “I admit the charge. I am greedy
+over every wasted year. I want you young, lovely, suitably dressed and
+enjoying life like the other girls’ mothers.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock laughed softly as she pushed back her sunbonnet so that
+shrubs and bushes beside the way could be scanned closely. Elnora
+walked ahead with a case over her shoulder, a net in her hand. Her head
+was bare, the rolling collar of her lavender gingham dress was cut in a
+V at the throat, the sleeves only reached the elbows. Every few steps
+she paused and examined the shrubbery carefully, while Mrs. Comstock
+was watching until her eyes ached, but there were no dandelions in the
+pail she carried.
+
+Early June was rioting in fresh grasses, bright flowers, bird songs,
+and gay-winged creatures of air. Down the footpath the two went through
+the perfect morning, the love of God and all nature in their hearts. At
+last they reached the creek, following it toward the bridge. Here Mrs.
+Comstock found a large bed of tender dandelions and stopped to fill her
+pail. Then she sat on the bank, picking over the greens, while she
+listened to the creek softly singing its June song.
+
+Elnora remained within calling distance, and was having good success.
+At last she crossed the creek, following it up to a bridge. There she
+began a careful examination of the under sides of the sleepers and
+flooring for cocoons. Mrs. Comstock could see her and the creek for
+several rods above. The mother sat beating the long green leaves across
+her hand, carefully picking out the white buds, because Elnora liked
+them, when a splash up the creek attracted her attention.
+
+Around the bend came a man. He was bareheaded, dressed in a white
+sweater, and waders which reached his waist. He walked on the bank,
+only entering the water when forced. He had a queer basket strapped on
+his hip, and with a small rod he sent a long line spinning before him
+down the creek, deftly manipulating with it a little floating object.
+He was closer Elnora than her mother, but Mrs. Comstock thought
+possibly by hurrying she could remain unseen and yet warn the girl that
+a stranger was coming. As she approached the bridge, she caught a
+sapling and leaned over the water to call Elnora. With her lips parted
+to speak she hesitated a second to watch a sort of insect that flashed
+past on the water, when a splash from the man attracted the girl.
+
+She was under the bridge, one knee planted in the embankment and a foot
+braced to support her. Her hair was tousled by wind and bushes, her
+face flushed, and she lifted her arms above her head, working to loosen
+a cocoon she had found. The call Mrs. Comstock had intended to utter
+never found voice, for as Elnora looked down at the sound, “Possibly I
+could get that for you,” suggested the man.
+
+Mrs. Comstock drew back. He was a young man with a wonderfully
+attractive face, although it was too white for robust health, broad
+shoulders, and slender, upright frame.
+
+“Oh, I do hope you can!” answered Elnora. “It’s quite a find! It’s one
+of those lovely pale red cocoons described in the books. I suspect it
+comes from having been in a dark place and screened from the weather.”
+
+“Is that so?” cried the man. “Wait a minute. I’ve never seen one. I
+suppose it’s a Cecropia, from the location.”
+
+“Of course,” said Elnora. “It’s so cool here the moth hasn’t emerged.
+The cocoon is a big, baggy one, and it is as red as fox tail.”
+
+“What luck!” he cried. “Are you making a collection?”
+
+He reeled in his line, laid his rod across a bush and climbed the
+embankment to Elnora’s side, produced a knife and began the work of
+whittling a deep groove around the cocoon.
+
+“Yes. I paid my way through the high school in Onabasha with them. Now
+I am starting a collection which means college.”
+
+“Onabasha!” said the man. “That is where I am visiting. Possibly you
+know my people—Dr. Ammon’s? The doctor is my uncle. My home is in
+Chicago. I’ve been having typhoid fever, something fierce. In the
+hospital six weeks. Didn’t gain strength right, so Uncle Doc sent for
+me. I am to live out of doors all summer, and exercise until I get in
+condition again. Do you know my uncle?”
+
+“Yes. He is Aunt Margaret’s doctor, and he would be ours, only we are
+never ill.”
+
+“Well, you look it!” said the man, appraising Elnora at a glance.
+
+“Strangers always mention it,” sighed Elnora. “I wonder how it would
+seem to be a pale, languid lady and ride in a carriage.”
+
+“Ask me!” laughed the man. “It feels like the—dickens! I’m so proud of
+my feet. It’s quite a trick to stand on them now. I have to keep out of
+the water all I can and stop to baby every half-mile. But with
+interesting outdoor work I’ll be myself in a week.”
+
+“Do you call that work?” Elnora indicated the creek.
+
+“I do, indeed! Nearly three miles, banks too soft to brag on and never
+a strike. Wouldn’t you call that hard labour?”
+
+“Yes,” laughed Elnora. “Work at which you might kill yourself and never
+get a fish. Did any one tell you there were trout in Sleepy Snake
+Creek?”
+
+“Uncle said I could try.”
+
+“Oh, you can,” said Elnora. “You can try no end, but you’ll never get a
+trout. This is too far south and too warm for them. If you sit on the
+bank and use worms you might catch some perch or catfish.”
+
+“But that isn’t exercise.”
+
+“Well, if you only want exercise, go right on fishing. You will have a
+creel full of invisible results every night.”
+
+“I object,” said the man emphatically. He stopped work again and
+studied Elnora. Even the watching mother could not blame him. In the
+shade of the bridge Elnora’s bright head and her lavender dress made a
+picture worthy of much contemplation.
+
+“I object!” repeated the man. “When I work I want to see results. I’d
+rather exercise sawing wood, making one pile grow little and the other
+big than to cast all day and catch nothing because there is not a fish
+to take. Work for work’s sake doesn’t appeal to me.”
+
+He digged the groove around the cocoon with skilled hand. “Now there is
+some fun in this!” he said. “It’s going to be a fair job to cut it out,
+but when it comes, it is not only beautiful, but worth a price; it will
+help you on your way. I think I’ll put up my rod and hunt moths. That
+would be something like! Don’t you want help?”
+
+Elnora parried the question. “Have you ever hunted moths, Mr. Ammon?”
+
+“Enough to know the ropes in taking them and to distinguish the
+commonest ones. I go wild on Catocalæ. There’s too many of them, all
+too much alike for Philip, but I know all these fellows. One flew into
+my room when I was about ten years old, and we thought it a miracle.
+None of us ever had seen one so we took it over to the museum to Dr.
+Dorsey. He said they were common enough, but we didn’t see them because
+they flew at night. He showed me the museum collection, and I was so
+interested I took mine back home and started to hunt them. Every year
+after that we went to our cottage a month earlier, so I could find
+them, and all my family helped. I stuck to it until I went to college.
+Then, keeping the little moths out of the big ones was too much for the
+mater, so father advised that I donate mine to the museum. He bought a
+fine case for them with my name on it, which constitutes my sole
+contribution to science. I know enough to help you all right.”
+
+“Aren’t you going north this year?”
+
+“All depends on how this fever leaves me. Uncle says the nights are too
+cold and the days too hot there for me. He thinks I had better stay in
+an even temperature until I am strong again. I am going to stick pretty
+close to him until I know I am. I wouldn’t admit it to any one at home,
+but I was almost gone. I don’t believe anything can eat up nerve much
+faster than the burning of a slow fever. No, thanks, I have enough. I
+stay with Uncle Doc, so if I feel it coming again he can do something
+quickly.”
+
+“I don’t blame you,” said Elnora. “I never have been sick, but it must
+be dreadful. I am afraid you are tiring yourself over that. Let me take
+the knife awhile.”
+
+“Oh, it isn’t so bad as that! I wouldn’t be wading creeks if it were. I
+only need a few more days to get steady on my feet again. I’ll soon
+have this out.”
+
+“It is kind of you to get it,” said Elnora. “I should have had to peel
+it, which would spoil the cocoon for a specimen and ruin the moth.”
+
+“You haven’t said yet whether I may help you while I am here.”
+
+Elnora hesitated.
+
+“You better say ‘yes,’” he persisted. “It would be a real kindness. It
+would keep me outdoors all day and give an incentive to work. I’m good
+at it. I’ll show you if I am not in a week or so. I can ‘sugar,’
+manipulate lights, and mirrors, and all the expert methods. I’ll wager,
+moths are numerous in the old swamp over there.”
+
+“They are,” said Elnora. “Most I have I took there. A few nights ago my
+mother caught a number, but we don’t dare go alone.”
+
+“All the more reason why you need me. Where do you live? I can’t get an
+answer from you, I’ll go tell your mother who I am and ask her if I may
+help you. I warn you, young lady, I have a very effective way with
+mothers. They almost never turn me down.”
+
+“Then it’s probable you will have a new experience when you meet mine,”
+said Elnora. “She never was known to do what any one expected she
+surely would.”
+
+The cocoon came loose. Philip Ammon stepped down the embankment turning
+to offer his hand to Elnora. She ran down as she would have done alone,
+and taking the cocoon turned it end for end to learn if the imago it
+contained were alive. Then Ammon took back the cocoon to smooth the
+edges. Mrs. Comstock gave them one long look as they stood there, and
+returned to her dandelions. While she worked she paused occasionally,
+listening intently. Presently they came down the creek, the man
+carrying the cocoon as if it were a jewel, while Elnora made her way
+along the bank, taking a lesson in casting. Her face was flushed with
+excitement, her eyes shining, the bushes taking liberties with her
+hair. For a picture of perfect loveliness she scarcely could have been
+surpassed, and the eyes of Philip Ammon seemed to be in working order.
+
+“Moth-er!” called Elnora.
+
+There was an undulant, caressing sweetness in the girl’s voice, as she
+sung out the call in perfect confidence that it would bring a loving
+answer, that struck deep in Mrs. Comstock’s heart. She never had heard
+that word so pronounced before and a lump arose in her throat.
+
+“Here!” she answered, still cleaning dandelions.
+
+“Mother, this is Mr. Philip Ammon, of Chicago,” said Elnora. “He has
+been ill and he is staying with Dr. Ammon in Onabasha. He came down the
+creek fishing and cut this cocoon from under the bridge for me. He
+feels that it would be better to hunt moths than to fish, until he is
+well. What do you think about it?”
+
+Philip Ammon extended his hand. “I am glad to know you,” he said.
+
+“You may take the hand-shaking for granted,” replied Mrs. Comstock.
+“Dandelions have a way of making fingers sticky, and I like to know a
+man before I take his hand, anyway. That introduction seems mighty
+comprehensive on your part, but it still leaves me unclassified. My
+name is Comstock.”
+
+Philip Ammon bowed.
+
+“I am sorry to hear you have been sick,” said Mrs. Comstock. “But if
+people will live where they have such vile water as they do in Chicago,
+I don’t see what else they are to expect.”
+
+Philip studied her intently.
+
+“I am sure I didn’t have a fever on purpose,” he said.
+
+“You do seem a little wobbly on your legs,” she observed. “Maybe you
+had better sit and rest while I finish these greens. It’s late for the
+genuine article, but in the shade, among long grass they are still
+tender.”
+
+“May I have a leaf?” he asked, reaching for one as he sat on the bank,
+looking from the little creek at his feet, away through the dim cool
+spaces of the June forest on the opposite side. He drew a deep breath.
+“Glory, but this is good after almost two months inside hospital
+walls!”
+
+He stretched on the grass and lay gazing up at the leaves, occasionally
+asking the interpretation of a bird note or the origin of an unfamiliar
+forest voice. Elnora began helping with the dandelions.
+
+“Another, please,” said the young man, holding out his hand.
+
+“Do you suppose this is the kind of grass Nebuchadnezzar ate?” Elnora
+asked, giving the leaf.
+
+“He knew a good thing if it is.”
+
+“Oh, you should taste dandelions boiled with bacon and served with
+mother’s cornbread.”
+
+“Don’t! My appetite is twice my size now. While it is—how far is it to
+Onabasha, shortest cut?”
+
+“Three miles.”
+
+The man lay in perfect content, nibbling leaves.
+
+“This surely is a treat,” he said. “No wonder you find good hunting
+here. There seems to be foliage for almost every kind of caterpillar.
+But I suppose you have to exchange for northern species and Pacific
+Coast kinds?”
+
+“Yes. And every one wants Regalis in trade. I never saw the like. They
+consider a Cecropia or a Polyphemus an insult, and a Luna is barely
+acceptable.”
+
+“What authorities have you?”
+
+Elnora began to name text-books which started a discussion. Mrs.
+Comstock listened. She cleaned dandelions with greater deliberation
+than they ever before were examined. In reality she was taking stock of
+the young man’s long, well-proportioned frame, his strong hands, his
+smooth, fine-textured skin, his thick shock of dark hair, and making
+mental notes of his simple manly speech and the fact that he evidently
+did know much about moths. It pleased her to think that if he had been
+a neighbour boy who had lain beside her every day of his life while she
+worked, he could have been no more at home. She liked the things he
+said, but she was proud that Elnora had a ready answer which always
+seemed appropriate.
+
+At last Mrs. Comstock finished the greens.
+
+“You are three miles from the city and less than a mile from where we
+live,” she said. “If you will tell me what you dare eat, I suspect you
+had best go home with us and rest until the cool of the day before you
+start back. Probably some one that you can ride in with will be passing
+before evening.”
+
+“That is mighty kind of you,” said Philip. “I think I will. It doesn’t
+matter so much what I eat, the point is that I must be moderate. I am
+hungry all the time.”
+
+“Then we will go,” said Mrs. Comstock, “and we will not allow you to
+make yourself sick with us.”
+
+Philip Ammon arose: picking up the pail of greens and his fishing rod,
+he stood waiting. Elnora led the way. Mrs. Comstock motioned Philip to
+follow and she walked in the rear. The girl carried the cocoon and the
+box of moths she had taken, searching every step for more. The young
+man frequently set down his load to join in the pursuit of a dragonfly
+or moth, while Mrs. Comstock watched the proceedings with sharp eyes.
+Every time Philip picked up the pail of greens she struggled to
+suppress a smile.
+
+Elnora proceeded slowly, chattering about everything beside the trail.
+Philip was interested in all the objects she pointed out, noticing
+several things which escaped her. He carried the greens as casually
+when they took a short cut down the roadway as on the trail. When
+Elnora turned toward the gate of her home Philip Ammon stopped, took a
+long look at the big hewed log cabin, the vines which clambered over
+it, the flower garden ablaze with beds of bright bloom interspersed
+with strawberries and tomatoes, the trees of the forest rising north
+and west like a green wall and exclaimed: “How beautiful!”
+
+Mrs. Comstock was pleased. “If you think that,” she said, “perhaps you
+will understand how, in all this present-day rush to be modern, I have
+preferred to remain as I began. My husband and I took up this land, and
+enough trees to build the cabin, stable, and outbuildings are nearly
+all we ever cut. Of course, if he had lived, I suppose we should have
+kept up with our neighbours. I hear considerable about the value of the
+land, the trees which are on it, and the oil which is supposed to be
+under it, but as yet I haven’t brought myself to change anything. So we
+stand for one of the few remaining homes of first settlers in this
+region. Come in. You are very welcome to what we have.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock stepped forward and took the lead. She had a bowl of soft
+water and a pair of boots to offer for the heavy waders, for outer
+comfort, a glass of cold buttermilk and a bench on which to rest, in
+the circular arbour until dinner was ready. Philip Ammon splashed in
+the water. He followed to the stable and exchanged boots there. He was
+ravenous for the buttermilk, and when he stretched on the bench in the
+arbour the flickering patches of sunlight so tantalized his tired eyes,
+while the bees made such splendid music, he was soon sound asleep. When
+Elnora and her mother came out with a table they stood a short time
+looking at him. It is probable Mrs. Comstock voiced a united thought
+when she said: “What a refined, decent looking young man! How proud his
+mother must be of him! We must be careful what we let him eat.”
+
+Then they returned to the kitchen where Mrs. Comstock proceeded to be
+careful. She broiled ham of her own sugar-curing, creamed potatoes,
+served asparagus on toast, and made a delicious strawberry shortcake.
+As she cooked dandelions with bacon, she feared to serve them to him,
+so she made an excuse that it took too long to prepare them, blanched
+some and made a salad. When everything was ready she touched Philip’s
+sleeve.
+
+“Best have something to eat, lad, before you get too hungry,” she said.
+
+“Please hurry!” he begged laughingly as he held a plate toward her to
+be filled. “I thought I had enough self-restraint to start out alone,
+but I see I was mistaken. If you would allow me, just now, I am afraid
+I should start a fever again. I never did smell food so good as this.
+It’s mighty kind of you to take me in. I hope I will be man enough in a
+few days to do something worth while in return.”
+
+Spots of sunshine fell on the white cloth and blue china, the bees and
+an occasional stray butterfly came searching for food. A rose-breasted
+grosbeak, released from a three hours’ siege of brooding, while his
+independent mate took her bath and recreation, mounted the top branch
+of a maple in the west woods from which he serenaded the dinner party
+with a joyful chorus in celebration of his freedom. Philip’s eyes
+strayed to the beautiful cabin, to the mixture of flowers and
+vegetables stretching down to the road, and to the singing bird with
+his red-splotched breast of white and he said: “I can’t realize now
+that I ever lay in ice packs in a hospital. How I wish all the sick
+folks could come here to grow strong!”
+
+The grosbeak sang on, a big Turnus butterfly sailed through the arbour
+and poised over the table. Elnora held up a lump of sugar and the
+butterfly, clinging to her fingers, tasted daintily. With eager eyes
+and parted lips, the girl held steadily. When at last it wavered away,
+“That made a picture!” said Philip. “Ask me some other time how I lost
+my illusions concerning butterflies. I always thought of them in
+connection with sunshine, flower pollen, and fruit nectar, until one
+sad day.”
+
+“I know!” laughed Elnora. “I’ve seen that, too, but it didn’t destroy
+any illusion for me. I think quite as much of the butterflies as ever.”
+
+Then they talked of flowers, moths, dragonflies, Indian relics, and all
+the natural wonders the swamp afforded, straying from those subjects to
+books and school work. When they cleared the table Philip assisted,
+carrying several tray loads to the kitchen. He and Elnora mounted
+specimens while Mrs Comstock washed the dishes. Then she came out with
+a ruffle she was embroidering.
+
+“I wonder if I did not see a picture of you in Onabasha last night,”
+Philip said to Elnora. “Aunt Anna took me to call on Miss Brownlee. She
+was showing me her crowd—of course, it was you! But it didn’t half do
+you justice, although it was the nearest human of any of them. Miss
+Brownlee is very fond of you. She said the finest things.”
+
+Then they talked of Commencement, and at last Philip said he must go or
+his friends would become anxious about him.
+
+Mrs. Comstock brought him a blue bowl of creamy milk and a plate of
+bread. She stopped a passing team and secured a ride to the city for
+him, as his exercise of the morning had been too violent, and he was
+forced to admit he was tired.
+
+“May I come to-morrow afternoon and hunt moths awhile?” he asked Mrs.
+Comstock as he arose. “We will ‘sugar’ a tree and put a light beside
+it, if I can get stuff to make the preparation. Possibly we can take
+some that way. I always enjoy moth hunting, I’d like to help Miss
+Elnora, and it would be a charity to me. I’ve got to remain outdoors
+some place, and I’m quite sure I’d get well faster here than anywhere
+else. Please say I may come.”
+
+“I have no objections, if Elnora really would like help,” said Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+In her heart she wished he would not come. She wanted her newly found
+treasure all to herself, for a time, at least. But Elnora’s were eager,
+shining eyes. She thought it would be splendid to have help, and great
+fun to try book methods for taking moths, so it was arranged. As Philip
+rode away, Mrs. Comstock’s eyes followed him. “What a nice young man!”
+she said.
+
+“He seems fine,” agreed Elnora.
+
+“He comes of a good family, too. I’ve often heard of his father. He is
+a great lawyer.”
+
+“I am glad he likes it here. I need help. Possibly——”
+
+“Possibly what?”
+
+“We can find many moths.”
+
+“What did he mean about the butterflies?”
+
+“That he always had connected them with sunshine, flowers, and fruits,
+and thought of them as the most exquisite of creations; then one day he
+found some clustering thickly over carrion.”
+
+“Come to think of it, I have seen butterflies——”
+
+“So had he,” laughed Elnora. “And that is what he meant.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+WHEREIN A NEW POSITION IS TENDERED ELNORA, AND PHILIP AMMON IS SHOWN
+LIMBERLOST VIOLETS
+
+
+The next morning Mrs. Comstock called to Elnora, “The mail carrier
+stopped at our box.”
+
+Elnora ran down the walk and came back carrying an official letter. She
+tore it open and read:
+
+MY DEAR MISS COMSTOCK:
+
+At the weekly meeting of the Onabasha School Board last night, it was
+decided to add the position of Lecturer on Natural History to our corps
+of city teachers. It will be the duty of this person to spend two hours
+a week in each of the grade schools exhibiting and explaining specimens
+of the most prominent objects in nature: animals, birds, insects,
+flowers, vines, shrubs, bushes, and trees. These specimens and lectures
+should be appropriate to the seasons and the comprehension of the
+grades. This position was unanimously voted to you. I think you will
+find the work delightful and much easier than the routine grind of the
+other teachers. It is my advice that you accept and begin to prepare
+yourself at once. Your salary will be $750 a year, and you will be
+allowed $200 for expenses in procuring specimens and books. Let us know
+at once if you want the position, as it is going to be difficult to
+fill satisfactorily if you do not.
+
+Very truly yours,
+
+DAVID THOMPSON, President, Onabasha Schools.
+
+“I hardly understand,” marvelled Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“It is a new position. They never have had anything like it before. I
+suspect it arose from the help I’ve been giving the grade teachers in
+their nature work. They are trying to teach the children something, and
+half the instructors don’t know a blue jay from a king-fisher, a beech
+leaf from an elm, or a wasp from a hornet.”
+
+“Well, do you?” anxiously inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“Indeed, I do!” laughed Elnora, “and several other things beside. When
+Freckles bequeathed me the swamp, he gave me a bigger inheritance than
+he knew. While you have thought I was wandering aimlessly, I have been
+following a definite plan, studying hard, and storing up the stuff that
+will earn these seven hundred and fifty dollars. Mother dear, I am
+going to accept this, of course. The work will be a delight. I’d love
+it most of anything in teaching. You must help me. We must find nests,
+eggs, leaves, queer formations in plants and rare flowers. I must have
+flower boxes made for each of the rooms and filled with wild things. I
+should begin to gather specimens this very day.”
+
+Elnora’s face was flushed and her eyes bright.
+
+“Oh, what great work that will be!” she cried. “You must go with me so
+you can see the little faces when I tell them how the goldfinch builds
+its nest, and how the bees make honey.”
+
+So Elnora and her mother went into the woods behind the cabin to study
+nature.
+
+“I think,” said Elnora, “the idea is to begin with fall things in the
+fall, keeping to the seasons throughout the year.”
+
+“What are fall things?” inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“Oh, fringed gentians, asters, ironwort, every fall flower, leaves from
+every tree and vine, what makes them change colour, abandoned bird
+nests, winter quarters of caterpillars and insects, what becomes of the
+butterflies and grasshoppers—myriads of stuff. I shall have to be very
+wise to select the things it will be most beneficial for the children
+to learn.”
+
+“Can I really help you?” Mrs. Comstock’s strong face was pathetic.
+
+“Indeed, yes!” cried Elnora. “I never can get through it alone. There
+will be an immense amount of work connected with securing and preparing
+specimens.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock lifted her head proudly and began doing business at once.
+Her sharp eyes ranged from earth to heaven. She investigated
+everything, asking innumerable questions. At noon Mrs. Comstock took
+the specimens they had collected, and went to prepare dinner, while
+Elnora followed the woods down to the Sintons’ to show her letter.
+
+She had to explain what became of her moths, and why college would have
+to be abandoned for that year, but Margaret and Wesley vowed not to
+tell. Wesley waved the letter excitedly, explaining it to Margaret as
+if it were a personal possession. Margaret was deeply impressed, while
+Billy volunteered first aid in gathering material.
+
+“Now anything you want in the ground, Snap can dig it out,” he said.
+“Uncle Wesley and I found a hole three times as big as Snap, that he
+dug at the roots of a tree.”
+
+“We will train him to hunt pupae cases,” said Elnora.
+
+“Are you going to the woods this afternoon?” asked Billy.
+
+“Yes,” answered Elnora. “Dr. Ammon’s nephew from Chicago is visiting in
+Onabasha. He is going to show me how men put some sort of compound on a
+tree, hang a light beside it, and take moths that way. It will be
+interesting to watch and learn.”
+
+“May I come?” asked Billy.
+
+“Of course you may come!” answered Elnora.
+
+“Is this nephew of Dr. Ammon a young man?” inquired Margaret.
+
+“About twenty-six, I should think,” said Elnora. “He said he had been
+out of college and at work in his father’s law office three years.”
+
+“Does he seem nice?” asked Margaret, and Wesley smiled.
+
+“Finest kind of a person,” said Elnora. “He can teach me so much. It is
+very interesting to hear him talk. He knows considerable about moths
+that will be a help to me. He had a fever and he has to stay outdoors
+until he grows strong again.”
+
+“Billy, I guess you better help me this afternoon,” said Margaret.
+“Maybe Elnora had rather not bother with you.”
+
+“There’s no reason on earth why Billy should not come!” cried Elnora,
+and Wesley smiled again.
+
+“I must hurry home or I won’t be ready,” she added.
+
+Hastening down the road she entered the cabin, her face glowing.
+
+“I thought you never would come,” said Mrs. Comstock. “If you don’t
+hurry Mr. Ammon will be here before you are dressed.”
+
+“I forgot about him until just now,” said Elnora. “I am not going to
+dress. He’s not coming to visit. We are only going to the woods for
+more specimens. I can’t wear anything that requires care. The limbs
+take the most dreadful liberties with hair and clothing.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock opened her lips, looked at Elnora and closed them. In her
+heart she was pleased that the girl was so interested in her work that
+she had forgotten Philip Ammon’s coming. But it did seem to her that
+such a pleasant young man should have been greeted by a girl in a fresh
+dress. “If she isn’t disposed to primp at the coming of a man, heaven
+forbid that I should be the one to start her,” thought Mrs. Comstock.
+
+Philip came whistling down the walk between the cinnamon pinks,
+pansies, and strawberries. He carried several packages, while his face
+flushed with more colour than on the previous day.
+
+“Only see what has happened to me!” cried Elnora, offering her letter.
+
+“I’ll wager I know!” answered Philip. “Isn’t it great! Every one in
+Onabasha is talking about it. At last there is something new under the
+sun. All of them are pleased. They think you’ll make a big success.
+This will give an incentive to work. In a few days more I’ll be myself
+again, and we’ll overturn the fields and woods around here.”
+
+He went on to congratulate Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“Aren’t you proud of her, though?” he asked. “You should hear what
+folks are saying! They say she created the necessity for the position,
+and every one seems to feel that it is a necessity. Now, if she
+succeeds, and she will, all of the other city schools will have such
+departments, and first thing you know she will have made the whole
+world a little better. Let me rest a few seconds; my feet are acting up
+again. Then we will cook the moth compound and put it to cool.”
+
+He laughed as he sat breathing shortly.
+
+“It doesn’t seem possible that a fellow could lose his strength like
+this. My knees are actually trembling, but I’ll be all right in a
+minute. Uncle Doc said I could come. I told him how you took care of
+me, and he said I would be safe here.”
+
+Then he began unwrapping packages and explaining to Mrs. Comstock how
+to cook the compound to attract the moths. He followed her into the
+kitchen, kindled the fire, and stirred the preparation as he talked.
+While the mixture cooled, he and Elnora walked through the vegetable
+garden behind the cabin and strayed from there into the woods.
+
+“What about college?” he asked. “Miss Brownlee said you were going.”
+
+“I had hoped to,” replied Elnora, “but I had a streak of dreadful luck,
+so I’ll have to wait until next year. If you won’t speak of it, I’ll
+tell you.”
+
+Philip promised, so Elnora recited the history of the Yellow Emperor.
+She was so interested in doing the Emperor justice she did not notice
+how many personalities went into the story. A few pertinent questions
+told him the remainder. He looked at the girl in wonder. In face and
+form she was as lovely as any one of her age and type he ever had seen.
+Her school work far surpassed that of most girls of her age he knew.
+She differed in other ways. This vast store of learning she had
+gathered from field and forest was a wealth of attraction no other girl
+possessed. Her frank, matter-of-fact manner was an inheritance from her
+mother, but there was something more. Once, as they talked he thought
+“sympathy” was the word to describe it and again “comprehension.” She
+seemed to possess a large sense of brotherhood for all human and
+animate creatures. She spoke to him as if she had known him all her
+life. She talked to the grosbeak in exactly the same manner, as she
+laid strawberries and potato bugs on the fence for his family. She did
+not swerve an inch from her way when a snake slid past her, while the
+squirrels came down from the trees and took corn from her fingers. She
+might as well have been a boy, so lacking was she in any touch of
+feminine coquetry toward him. He studied her wonderingly. As they went
+along the path they reached a large slime-covered pool surrounded by
+decaying stumps and logs thickly covered with water hyacinths and blue
+flags. Philip stopped.
+
+“Is that the place?” he asked.
+
+Elnora assented. “The doctor told you?”
+
+“Yes. It was tragic. Is that pool really bottomless?”
+
+“So far as we ever have been able to discover.”
+
+Philip stood looking at the water, while the long, sweet grasses,
+thickly sprinkled with blue flag bloom, over which wild bees clambered,
+swayed around his feet. Then he turned to the girl. She had worked
+hard. The same lavender dress she had worn the previous day clung to
+her in limp condition. But she was as evenly coloured and of as fine
+grain as a wild rose petal, her hair was really brown, but never was
+such hair touched with a redder glory, while her heavy arching brows
+added a look of strength to her big gray-blue eyes.
+
+“And you were born here?”
+
+He had not intended to voice that thought.
+
+“Yes,” she said, looking into his eyes. “Just in time to prevent my
+mother from saving the life of my father. She came near never forgiving
+me.”
+
+“Ah, cruel!” cried Philip.
+
+“I find much in life that is cruel, from our standpoints,” said Elnora.
+“It takes the large wisdom of the Unfathomable, the philosophy of the
+Almighty, to endure some of it. But there is always right somewhere,
+and at last it seems to come.”
+
+“Will it come to you?” asked Philip, who found himself deeply affected.
+
+“It has come,” said the girl serenely. “It came a week ago. It came in
+fullest measure when my mother ceased to regret that I had been born.
+Now, work that I love has come—that should constitute happiness. A
+little farther along is my violet bed. I want you to see it.”
+
+As Philip Ammon followed he definitely settled upon the name of the
+unusual feature of Elnora’s face. It should be called “experience.” She
+had known bitter experiences early in life. Suffering had been her
+familiar more than joy. He watched her earnestly, his heart deeply
+moved. She led him into a swampy half-open space in the woods, stopped
+and stepped aside. He uttered a cry of surprised delight.
+
+A few decaying logs were scattered around, the grass grew in tufts long
+and fine. Blue flags waved, clusters of cowslips nodded gold heads, but
+the whole earth was purple with a thick blanket of violets nodding from
+stems a foot in length. Elnora knelt and slipping her fingers between
+the leaves and grasses to the roots, gathered a few violets and gave
+them to Philip.
+
+“Can your city greenhouses surpass them?” she asked.
+
+He sat on a log to examine the blooms.
+
+“They are superb!” he said. “I never saw such length of stem or such
+rank leaves, while the flowers are the deepest blue, the truest violet
+I ever saw growing wild. They are coloured exactly like the eyes of the
+girl I am going to marry.”
+
+Elnora handed him several others to add to those he held. “She must
+have wonderful eyes,” she commented.
+
+“No other blue eyes are quite so beautiful,” he said. “In fact, she is
+altogether lovely.”
+
+“Is it customary for a man to think the girl he is going to marry
+lovely? I wonder if I should find her so.”
+
+“You would,” said Philip. “No one ever fails to. She is tall as you,
+very slender, but perfectly rounded; you know about her eyes; her hair
+is black and wavy—while her complexion is clear and flushed with red.”
+
+“Why, she must be the most beautiful girl in the whole world!” she
+cried.
+
+“No, indeed!” he said. “She is not a particle better looking in her way
+than you are in yours. She is a type of dark beauty, but you are
+equally as perfect. She is unusual in her combination of black hair and
+violet eyes, although every one thinks them black at a little distance.
+You are quite as unusual with your fair face, black brows, and brown
+hair; indeed, I know many people who would prefer your bright head to
+her dark one. It’s all a question of taste—and being engaged to the
+girl,” he added.
+
+“That would be likely to prejudice one,” laughed Elnora.
+
+“Edith has a birthday soon; if these last will you let me have a box of
+them to send her?”
+
+“I will help gather and pack them for you, so they will carry nicely.
+Does she hunt moths with you?”
+
+Back went Philip Ammon’s head in a gale of laughter.
+
+“No!” he cried. “She says they are ‘creepy.’ She would go into a spasm
+if she were compelled to touch those caterpillars I saw you handling
+yesterday.”
+
+“Why would she?” marvelled Elnora. “Haven’t you told her that they are
+perfectly clean, helpless, and harmless as so much animate velvet?”
+
+“No, I have not told her. She wouldn’t care enough about caterpillars
+to listen.”
+
+“In what is she interested?”
+
+“What interests Edith Carr? Let me think! First, I believe she takes
+pride in being a little handsomer and better dressed than any girl of
+her set. She is interested in having a beautiful home, fine
+appointments, in being petted, praised, and the acknowledged leader of
+society.
+
+“She likes to find new things which amuse her, and to always and in all
+circumstances have her own way about everything.”
+
+“Good gracious!” cried Elnora, staring at him. “But what does she do?
+How does she spend her time?”
+
+“Spend her time!” repeated Philip. “Well, she would call that a joke.
+Her days are never long enough. There is endless shopping, to find the
+pretty things; regular visits to the dressmakers, calls, parties,
+theatres, entertainments. She is always rushed. I never am able to be
+with her half as much as I would like.”
+
+“But I mean work,” persisted Elnora. “In what is she interested that is
+useful to the world?”
+
+“Me!” cried Philip promptly.
+
+“I can understand that,” laughed Elnora. “What I can’t understand is
+how you can be in——” She stopped in confusion, but she saw that he had
+finished the sentence as she had intended. “I beg your pardon!” she
+cried. “I didn’t intend to say that. But I cannot understand these
+people I hear about who live only for their own amusement. Perhaps it
+is very great; I’ll never have a chance to know. To me, it seems the
+only pleasure in this world worth having is the joy we derive from
+living for those we love, and those we can help. I hope you are not
+angry with me.”
+
+Philip sat silently looking far away, with deep thought in his eyes.
+
+“You are angry,” faltered Elnora.
+
+His look came back to her as she knelt before him among the flowers and
+he gazed at her steadily.
+
+“No doubt I should be,” he said, “but the fact is I am not. I cannot
+understand a life purely for personal pleasure myself. But she is only
+a girl, and this is her playtime. When she is a woman in her own home,
+then she will be different, will she not?”
+
+Elnora never resembled her mother so closely as when she answered that
+question.
+
+“I would have to be well acquainted with her to know, but I should hope
+so. To make a real home for a tired business man is a very different
+kind of work from that required to be a leader of society. It demands
+different talent and education. Of course, she means to change, or she
+would not have promised to make a home for you. I suspect our dope is
+cool now, let’s go try for some butterflies.”
+
+As they went along the path together Elnora talked of many things but
+Philip answered absently. Evidently he was thinking of something else.
+But the moth bait recalled him and he was ready for work as they made
+their way back to the woods. He wanted to try the Limberlost, but
+Elnora was firm about remaining on home ground. She did not tell him
+that lights hung in the swamp would be a signal to call up a band of
+men whose presence she dreaded. So they started, Ammon carrying the
+dope, Elnora the net, Billy and Mrs. Comstock following with cyanide
+boxes and lanterns.
+
+First they tried for butterflies and captured several fine ones without
+trouble. They also called swarms of ants, bees, beetles, and flies.
+When it grew dusk, Mrs. Comstock and Philip went to prepare supper.
+Elnora and Billy remained until the butterflies disappeared. Then they
+lighted the lanterns, repainted the trees and followed the home trail.
+
+“Do you ’spec you’ll get just a lot of moths?” asked Billy, as he
+walked beside Elnora.
+
+“I am sure I hardly know,” said the girl. “This is a new way for me.
+Perhaps they will come to the lights, but few moths eat; and I have
+some doubt about those which the lights attract settling on the right
+trees. Maybe the smell of that dope will draw them. Between us, Billy,
+I think I like my old way best. If I can find a hidden moth, slip up
+and catch it unawares, or take it in full flight, it’s my captive, and
+I can keep it until it dies naturally. But this way you seem to get it
+under false pretences, it has no chance, and it will probably ruin its
+wings struggling for freedom before morning.”
+
+“Well, any moth ought to be proud to be taken anyway, by you,” said
+Billy. “Just look what you do! You can make everybody love them. People
+even quit hating caterpillars when they see you handle them and hear
+you tell all about them. You must have some to show people how they
+are. It’s not like killing things to see if you can, or because you
+want to eat them, the way most men kill birds. I think it is right for
+you to take enough for collections, to show city people, and to
+illustrate the Bird Woman’s books. You go on and take them! The moths
+don’t care. They’re glad to have you. They like it!”
+
+“Billy, I see your future,” said Elnora. “We will educate you and send
+you up to Mr. Ammon to make a great lawyer. You’d beat the world as a
+special pleader. You actually make me feel that I am doing the moths a
+kindness to take them.”
+
+“And so you are!” cried Billy. “Why, just from what you have taught
+them Uncle Wesley and Aunt Margaret never think of killing a
+caterpillar until they look whether it’s the beautiful June moth kind,
+or the horrid tent ones. That’s what you can do. You go straight
+ahead!”
+
+“Billy, you are a jewel!” cried Elnora, throwing her arm across his
+shoulders as they came down the path.
+
+“My, I was scared!” said Billy with a deep breath.
+
+“Scared?” questioned Elnora.
+
+“Yes sir-ee! Aunt Margaret scared me. May I ask you a question?”
+
+“Of course, you may!”
+
+“Is that man going to be your beau?”
+
+“Billy! No! What made you think such a thing?”
+
+“Aunt Margaret said likely he would fall in love with you, and you
+wouldn’t want me around any more. Oh, but I was scared! It isn’t so, is
+it?”
+
+“Indeed, no!”
+
+“I am your beau, ain’t I?”
+
+“Surely you are!” said Elnora, tightening her arm.
+
+“I do hope Aunt Kate has ginger cookies,” said Billy with a little skip
+of delight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK FACES THE ALMIGHTY, AND PHILIP AMMON WRITES A
+LETTER
+
+
+Mrs. Comstock and Elnora were finishing breakfast the following morning
+when they heard a cheery whistle down the road. Elnora with surprised
+eyes looked at her mother.
+
+“Could that be Mr. Ammon?” she questioned.
+
+“I did not expect him so soon,” commented Mrs. Comstock.
+
+It was sunrise, but the musician was Philip Ammon. He appeared stronger
+than on yesterday.
+
+“I hope I am not too early,” he said. “I am consumed with anxiety to
+learn if we have made a catch. If we have, we should beat the birds to
+it. I promised Uncle Doc to put on my waders and keep dry for a few
+days yet, when I go to the woods. Let’s hurry! I am afraid of crows.
+There might be a rare moth.”
+
+The sun was topping the Limberlost when they started. As they neared
+the place Philip stopped.
+
+“Now we must use great caution,” he said. “The lights and the odours
+always attract numbers that don’t settle on the baited trees. Every
+bush, shrub, and limb may hide a specimen we want.”
+
+So they approached with much care.
+
+“There is something, anyway!” cried Philip.
+
+“There are moths! I can see them!” exulted Elnora.
+
+“Those you see are fast enough. It’s the ones for which you must search
+that will escape. The grasses are dripping, and I have boots, so you
+look beside the path while I take the outside,” suggested Ammon.
+
+Mrs. Comstock wanted to hunt moths, but she was timid about making a
+wrong movement, so she wisely sat on a log and watched Philip and
+Elnora to learn how they proceeded. Back in the deep woods a hermit
+thrush was singing his chant to the rising sun. Orioles were sowing the
+pure, sweet air with notes of gold, poured out while on wing. The
+robins were only chirping now, for their morning songs had awakened all
+the other birds an hour ago. Scolding red-wings tilted on half the
+bushes. Excepting late species of haws, tree bloom was almost gone, but
+wild flowers made the path border and all the wood floor a riot of
+colour. Elnora, born among such scenes, worked eagerly, but to the city
+man, recently from a hospital, they seemed too good to miss. He
+frequently stooped to examine a flower face, paused to listen intently
+to the thrush or lifted his head to see the gold flash which
+accompanied the oriole’s trailing notes. So Elnora uttered the first
+cry, as she softly lifted branches and peered among the grasses.
+
+“My find!” she called. “Bring the box, mother!”
+
+Philip came hurrying also. When they reached her she stood on the path
+holding a pair of moths. Her eyes were wide with excitement, her cheeks
+pink, her red lips parted, and on the hand she held out to them clung a
+pair of delicate blue-green moths, with white bodies, and touches of
+lavender and straw colour. All around her lay flower-brocaded grasses,
+behind the deep green background of the forest, while the sun slowly
+sifted gold from heaven to burnish her hair. Mrs. Comstock heard a
+sharp breath behind her.
+
+“Oh, what a picture!” exulted Philip at her shoulder. “She is
+absolutely and altogether lovely! I’d give a small fortune for that
+faithfully set on canvas!”
+
+He picked the box from Mrs. Comstock’s fingers and slowly advanced with
+it. Elnora held down her hand and transferred the moths. Philip closed
+the box carefully, but the watching mother saw that his eyes were
+following the girl’s face. He was not making the slightest attempt to
+conceal his admiration.
+
+“I wonder if a woman ever did anything lovelier than to find a pair of
+Luna moths on a forest path, early on a perfect June morning,” he said
+to Mrs. Comstock, when he returned the box.
+
+She glanced at Elnora who was intently searching the bushes.
+
+“Look here, young man,” said Mrs. Comstock. “You seem to find that girl
+of mine about right.”
+
+“I could suggest no improvement,” said Philip. “I never saw a more
+attractive girl anywhere. She seems absolutely perfect to me.”
+
+“Then suppose you don’t start any scheme calculated to spoil her!”
+proposed Mrs. Comstock dryly. “I don’t think you can, or that any man
+could, but I’m not taking any risks. You asked to come here to help in
+this work. We are both glad to have you, if you confine yourself to
+work; but it’s the least you can do to leave us as you find us.”
+
+“I beg your pardon!” said Philip. “I intended no offence. I admire her
+as I admire any perfect creation.”
+
+“And nothing in all this world spoils the average girl so quickly and
+so surely,” said Mrs. Comstock. She raised her voice. “Elnora, fasten
+up that tag of hair over your left ear. These bushes muss you so you
+remind me of a sheep poking its nose through a hedge fence.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock started down the path toward the log again, when she
+reached it she called sharply: “Elnora, come here! I believe I have
+found something myself.”
+
+The “something” was a Citheronia Regalis which had emerged from its
+case on the soft earth under the log. It climbed up the wood, its stout
+legs dragging a big pursy body, while it wildly flapped tiny wings the
+size of a man’s thumb-nail. Elnora gave one look and a cry which
+brought Philip.
+
+“That’s the rarest moth in America!” he announced. “Mrs. Comstock,
+you’ve gone up head. You can put that in a box with a screen cover
+to-night, and attract half a dozen, possibly.”
+
+“Is it rare, Elnora?” inquired Mrs. Comstock, as if no one else knew.
+
+“It surely is,” answered Elnora. “If we can find it a mate to-night, it
+will lay from two hundred and fifty to three hundred eggs to-morrow.
+With any luck at all I can raise two hundred caterpillars from them. I
+did once before. And they are worth a dollar apiece.”
+
+“Was the one I killed like that?”
+
+“No. That was a different moth, but its life processes were the same as
+this. The Bird Woman calls this the King of the Poets.”
+
+“Why does she?”
+
+“Because it is named for Citheron who was a poet, and regalis refers to
+a king. You mustn’t touch it or you may stunt wing development. You
+watch and don’t let that moth out of sight, or anything touch it. When
+the wings are expanded and hardened we will put it in a box.”
+
+“I am afraid it will race itself to death,” objected Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“That’s a part of the game,” said Philip. “It is starting circulation
+now. When the right moment comes, it will stop and expand its wings. If
+you watch closely you can see them expand.”
+
+Presently the moth found a rough projection of bark and clung with its
+feet, back down, its wings hanging. The body was an unusual orange red,
+the tiny wings were gray, striped with the red and splotched here and
+there with markings of canary yellow. Mrs. Comstock watched
+breathlessly. Presently she slipped from the log and knelt to secure a
+better view.
+
+“Are its wings developing?” called Elnora.
+
+“They are growing larger and the markings coming stronger every
+minute.”
+
+“Let’s watch, too,” said Elnora to Philip.
+
+They came and looked over Mrs. Comstock’s shoulder. Lower drooped the
+gay wings, wider they spread, brighter grew the markings as if laid off
+in geometrical patterns. They could hear Mrs. Comstock’s tense breath
+and see her absorbed expression.
+
+“Young people,” she said solemnly, “if your studying science and the
+elements has ever led you to feel that things just happen, kind of
+evolve by chance, as it were, this sight will be good for you. Maybe
+earth and air accumulate, but it takes the wisdom of the Almighty God
+to devise the wing of a moth. If there ever was a miracle, this whole
+process is one. Now, as I understand it, this creature is going to keep
+on spreading those wings, until they grow to size and harden to
+strength sufficient to bear its body. Then it flies away, mates with
+its kind, lays its eggs on the leaves of a certain tree, and the eggs
+hatch tiny caterpillars which eat just that kind of leaves, and the
+worms grow and grow, and take on different forms and colours until at
+last they are big caterpillars six inches long, with large horns. Then
+they burrow into the earth, build a water-proof house around themselves
+from material which is inside them, and lie through rain and freezing
+cold for months. A year from egg laying they come out like this, and
+begin the process all over again. They don’t eat, they don’t see
+distinctly, they live but a few days, and fly only at night; then they
+drop off easy, but the process goes on.”
+
+A shivering movement went over the moth. The wings drooped and spread
+wider. Mrs. Comstock sank into soft awed tones.
+
+“There never was a moment in my life,” she said, “when I felt so in the
+Presence, as I do now. I feel as if the Almighty were so real, and so
+near, that I could reach out and touch Him, as I could this wonderful
+work of His, if I dared. I feel like saying to Him: ‘To the extent of
+my brain power I realize Your presence, and all it is in me to
+comprehend of Your power. Help me to learn, even this late, the lessons
+of Your wonderful creations. Help me to unshackle and expand my soul to
+the fullest realization of Your wonders. Almighty God, make me bigger,
+make me broader!’”
+
+The moth climbed to the end of the projection, up it a little way, then
+suddenly reversed its wings, turned the hidden sides out and dropped
+them beside its abdomen, like a large fly. The upper side of the wings,
+thus exposed, was far richer colour, more exquisite texture than the
+under, and they slowly half lifted and drooped again. Mrs. Comstock
+turned her face to Philip.
+
+“Am I an old fool, or do you feel it, too?” she half whispered.
+
+“You are wiser than you ever have been before,” answered he. “I feel
+it, also.”
+
+“And I,” breathed Elnora.
+
+The moth spread its wings, shivered them tremulously, opening and
+closing them rapidly. Philip handed the box to Elnora.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“I can’t take that one,” she said. “Give her freedom.”
+
+“But, Elnora,” protested Mrs. Comstock, “I don’t want to let her go.
+She’s mine. She’s the first one I ever found this way. Can’t you put
+her in a big box, and let her live, without hurting her? I can’t bear
+to let her go. I want to learn all about her.”
+
+“Then watch while we gather these on the trees,” said Elnora. “We will
+take her home until night and then decide what to do. She won’t fly for
+a long time yet.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock settled on the ground, gazing at the moth. Elnora and
+Philip went to the baited trees, placing several large moths and a
+number of smaller ones in the cyanide jar, and searching the bushes
+beyond where they found several paired specimens of differing families.
+When they returned Elnora showed her mother how to hold her hand before
+the moth so that it would climb upon her fingers. Then they started
+back to the cabin, Elnora and Philip leading the way; Mrs. Comstock
+followed slowly, stepping with great care lest she stumble and injure
+the moth. Her face wore a look of comprehension, in her eyes was an
+exalted light. On she came to the blue-bordered pool lying beside her
+path.
+
+A turtle scrambled from a log and splashed into the water, while a
+red-wing shouted, “O-ka-lee!” to her. Mrs. Comstock paused and looked
+intently at the slime-covered quagmire, framed in a flower riot and
+homed over by sweet-voiced birds. Then she gazed at the thing of
+incomparable beauty clinging to her fingers and said softly: “If you
+had known about wonders like these in the days of your youth, Robert
+Comstock, could you ever have done what you did?”
+
+Elnora missed her mother, and turning to look for her, saw her standing
+beside the pool. Would the old fascination return? A panic of fear
+seized the girl. She went back swiftly.
+
+“Are you afraid she is going?” Elnora asked. “If you are, cup your
+other hand over her for shelter. Carrying her through this air and in
+the hot sunshine will dry her wings and make them ready for flight very
+quickly. You can’t trust her in such air and light as you can in the
+cool dark woods.”
+
+While she talked she took hold of her mother’s sleeve, anxiously
+smiling a pitiful little smile that Mrs. Comstock understood. Philip
+set his load at the back door, returning to hold open the garden gate
+for Elnora and Mrs. Comstock. He reached it in time to see them
+standing together beside the pool. The mother bent swiftly and kissed
+the girl on the lips. Philip turned and was busily hunting moths on the
+raspberry bushes when they reached the gate. And so excellent are the
+rewards of attending your own business, that he found a Promethea on a
+lilac in a corner; a moth of such rare wine-coloured, velvety shades
+that it almost sent Mrs. Comstock to her knees again. But this one was
+fully developed, able to fly, and had to be taken into the cabin
+hurriedly. Mrs. Comstock stood in the middle of the room holding up her
+Regalis.
+
+“Now what must I do?” she asked.
+
+Elnora glanced at Philip Ammon. Their eyes met and both of them smiled;
+he with amusement at the tall, spare figure, with dark eyes and white
+crown, asking the childish question so confidingly; and Elnora with
+pride. She was beginning to appreciate the character of her mother.
+
+“How would you like to sit and see her finish development? I’ll get
+dinner,” proposed the girl.
+
+After they had dined, Philip and Elnora carried the dishes to the
+kitchen, brought out boxes, sheets of cork, pins, ink, paper slips and
+everything necessary for mounting and classifying the moths they had
+taken. When the housework was finished Mrs. Comstock with her ruffle
+sat near, watching and listening. She remembered all they said that she
+understood, and when uncertain she asked questions. Occasionally she
+laid down her work to straighten some flower which needed attention or
+to search the garden for a bug for the grosbeak. In one of these
+absences Elnora said to Philip: “These replace quite a number of the
+moths I lost for the man of India. With a week of such luck, I could
+almost begin to talk college again.”
+
+“There is no reason why you should not have the week and the luck,”
+said he. “I have taken moths until the middle of August, though I
+suspect one is more likely to find late ones in the north where it is
+colder than here. The next week is hay-time, but we can count on a few
+double-brooders and strays, and by working the exchange method for all
+it is worth, I think we can complete the collection again.”
+
+“You almost make me hope,” said Elnora, “but I must not allow myself. I
+don’t truly think I can replace all I lost, not even with your help. If
+I could, I scarcely see my way clear to leave mother this winter. I
+have found her so recently, and she is so precious, I can’t risk losing
+her again. I am going to take the nature position in the Onabasha
+schools, and I shall be most happy doing the work. Only, these are a
+temptation.”
+
+“I wish you might go to college this fall with the other girls,” said
+Philip. “I feel that if you don’t you never will. Isn’t there some
+way?”
+
+“I can’t see it if there is, and I really don’t want to leave mother.”
+
+“Well, mother is mighty glad to hear it,” said Mrs. Comstock, entering
+the arbour.
+
+Philip noticed that her face was pale, her lips quivering, her voice
+cold.
+
+“I was telling your daughter that she should go to college this
+winter,” he explained, “but she says she doesn’t want to leave you.”
+
+“If she wants to go, I wish she could,” said Mrs. Comstock, a look of
+relief spreading over her face.
+
+“Oh, all girls want to go to college,” said Philip. “It’s the only
+proper place to learn bridge and embroidery; not to mention midnight
+lunches of mixed pickles and fruit cake, and all the delights of the
+sororities.”
+
+“I have thought for years of going to college,” said Elnora, “but I
+never thought of any of those things.”
+
+“That is because your education in fudge and bridge has been sadly
+neglected,” said Philip. “You should hear my sister Polly! This was her
+final year! Lunches and sororities were all I heard her mention, until
+Tom Levering came on deck; now he is the leading subject. I can’t see
+from her daily conversation that she knows half as much really worth
+knowing as you do, but she’s ahead of you miles on fun.”
+
+“Oh, we had some good times in the high school,” said Elnora. “Life
+hasn’t been all work and study. Is Edith Carr a college girl?”
+
+“No. She is the very selectest kind of a private boarding-school girl.”
+
+“Who is she?” asked Mrs. Comstock.
+
+Philip opened his lips.
+
+“She is a girl in Chicago, that Mr. Ammon knows very well,” said
+Elnora. “She is beautiful and rich, and a friend of his sister’s. Or,
+didn’t you say that?”
+
+“I don’t remember, but she is,” said Philip. “This moth needs an
+alcohol bath to remove the dope.”
+
+“Won’t the down come, too?” asked Elnora anxiously.
+
+“No. You watch and you will see it come out, as Polly would say, ‘a
+perfectly good’ moth.”
+
+“Is your sister younger than you?” inquired Elnora.
+
+“Yes,” said Philip, “but she is three years older than you. She is the
+dearest sister in all the world. I’d love to see her now.”
+
+“Why don’t you send for her,” suggested Elnora. “Perhaps she’d like to
+help us catch moths.”
+
+“Yes, I think Polly in a Virot hat, Picot embroidered frock and
+three-inch heels would take more moths than any one who ever tried the
+Limberlost,” laughed Philip.
+
+“Well, you find many of them, and you are her brother.”
+
+“Yes, but that is different. Father was reared in Onabasha, and he
+loved the country. He trained me his way and mother took charge of
+Polly. I don’t quite understand it. Mother is a great home body
+herself, but she did succeed in making Polly strictly ornamental.”
+
+“Does Tom Levering need a ‘strictly ornamental’ girl?”
+
+“You are too matter of fact! Too ‘strictly’ material. He needs a
+darling girl who will love him plenty, and Polly is that.”
+
+“Well, then, does the Limberlost need a ‘strictly ornamental’ girl?”
+
+“No!” cried Philip. “You are ornament enough for the Limberlost. I have
+changed my mind. I don’t want Polly here. She would not enjoy catching
+moths, or anything we do.”
+
+“She might,” persisted Elnora. “You are her brother, and surely you
+care for these things.”
+
+“The argument does not hold,” said Philip. “Polly and I do not like the
+same things when we are at home, but we are very fond of each other.
+The member of my family who would go crazy about this is my father. I
+wish he could come, if only for a week. I’d send for him, but he is
+tied up in preparing some papers for a great corporation case this
+summer. He likes the country. It was his vote that brought me here.”
+
+Philip leaned back against the arbour, watching the grosbeak as it
+hunted food between a tomato vine and a day lily. Elnora set him to
+making labels, and when he finished them he asked permission to write a
+letter. He took no pains to conceal his page, and from where she sat
+opposite him, Elnora could not look his way without reading: “My
+dearest Edith.” He wrote busily for a time and then sat staring across
+the garden.
+
+“Have you run out of material so quickly?” asked Elnora.
+
+“That’s about it,” said Philip. “I have said that I am getting well as
+rapidly as possible, that the air is fine, the folks at Uncle Doc’s all
+well, and entirely too good to me; that I am spending most of my time
+in the country helping catch moths for a collection, which is splendid
+exercise; now I can’t think of another thing that will be interesting.”
+
+There was a burst of exquisite notes in the maple.
+
+“Put in the grosbeak,” suggested Elnora. “Tell her you are so friendly
+with him you feed him potato bugs.”
+
+Philip lowered the pen to the sheet, bent forward, then hesitated.
+
+“Blest if I do!” he cried. “She’d think a grosbeak was a depraved
+person with a large nose. She’d never dream that it was a black-robed
+lover, with a breast of snow and a crimson heart. She doesn’t care for
+hungry babies and potato bugs. I shall write that to father. He will
+find it delightful.”
+
+Elnora deftly picked up a moth, pinned it and placed its wings. She
+straightened the antennae, drew each leg into position and set it in
+perfectly lifelike manner. As she lifted her work to see if she had it
+right, she glanced at Philip. He was still frowning and hesitating over
+the paper.
+
+“I dare you to let me dictate a couple of paragraphs.”
+
+“Done!” cried Philip. “Go slowly enough that I can write it.”
+
+Elnora laughed gleefully.
+
+“I am writing this,” she began, “in an old grape arbour in the country,
+near a log cabin where I had my dinner. From where I sit I can see
+directly into the home of the next-door neighbour on the west. His name
+is R. B. Grosbeak. From all I have seen of him, he is a gentleman of
+the old school; the oldest school there is, no doubt. He always wears a
+black suit and cap and a white vest, decorated with one large red
+heart, which I think must be the emblem of some ancient order. I have
+been here a number of times, and I never have seen him wear anything
+else, or his wife appear in other than a brown dress with touches of
+white.
+
+“It has appealed to me at times that she was a shade neglectful of her
+home duties, but he does not seem to feel that way. He cheerfully stays
+in the sitting-room, while she is away having a good time, and sings
+while he cares for the four small children. I must tell you about his
+music. I am sure he never saw inside a conservatory. I think he merely
+picked up what he knows by ear and without vocal training, but there is
+a tenderness in his tones, a depth of pure melody, that I never have
+heard surpassed. It may be that I think more of his music than that of
+some other good vocalists hereabout, because I see more of him and
+appreciate his devotion to his home life.
+
+“I just had an encounter with him at the west fence, and induced him to
+carry a small gift to his children. When I see the perfect harmony in
+which he lives, and the depth of content he and the brown lady find in
+life, I am almost persuaded to— Now this is going to be poetry,” said
+Elnora. “Move your pen over here and begin with a quote and a cap.”
+
+Philip’s face had been an interesting study while he wrote her
+sentences. Now he gravely set the pen where she indicated, and Elnora
+dictated—
+
+“Buy a nice little home in the country,
+And settle down there for life.”
+
+
+“That’s the truth!” cried Philip. “It’s as big a temptation as I ever
+had. Go on!”
+
+“That’s all,” said Elnora. “You can finish. The moths are done. I am
+going hunting for whatever I can find for the grades.”
+
+“Wait a minute,” begged Philip. “I am going, too.”
+
+“No. You stay with mother and finish your letter.”
+
+“It is done. I couldn’t add anything to that.”
+
+“Very well! Sign your name and come on. But I forgot to tell you all
+the bargain. Maybe you won’t send the letter when you hear that. The
+remainder is that you show me the reply to my part of it.”
+
+“Oh, that’s easy! I wouldn’t have the slightest objection to showing
+you the whole letter.”
+
+He signed his name, folded the sheets and slipped them into his pocket.
+
+“Where are we going and what do we take?”
+
+“Will you go, mother?” asked Elnora.
+
+“I have a little work that should be done,” said Mrs. Comstock. “Could
+you spare me? Where do you want to go?”
+
+“We will go down to Aunt Margaret’s and see her a few minutes and get
+Billy. We will be back in time for supper.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock smiled as she watched them down the road. What a
+splendid-looking pair of young creatures they were! How finely
+proportioned, how full of vitality! Then her face grew troubled as she
+saw them in earnest conversation. Just as she was wishing she had not
+trusted her precious girl with so much of a stranger, she saw Elnora
+stoop to lift a branch and peer under. The mother grew content. Elnora
+was thinking only of her work. She was to be trusted utterly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST SINGS FOR PHILIP, AND THE TALKING TREES TELL
+GREAT SECRETS
+
+
+A few days later Philip handed Elnora a sheet of paper and she read:
+“In your condition I should think the moth hunting and life at that
+cabin would be very good for you, but for any sake keep away from that
+Grosbeak person, and don’t come home with your head full of granger
+ideas. No doubt he has a remarkable voice, but I can’t bear untrained
+singers, and don’t you get the idea that a June song is perennial. You
+are not hearing the music he will make when the four babies have the
+scarlet fever and the measles, and the gadding wife leaves him at home
+to care for them then. Poor soul, I pity her! How she exists where
+rampant cows bellow at you, frogs croak, mosquitoes consume you, the
+butter goes to oil in summer and bricks in winter, while the pump
+freezes every day, and there is no earthly amusement, and no society!
+Poor things! Can’t you influence him to move? No wonder she gads when
+she has a chance! I should die. If you are thinking of settling in the
+country, think also of a woman who is satisfied with white and brown to
+accompany you! Brown! Of all deadly colours! I should go mad in brown.”
+
+Elnora laughed while she read. Her face was dimpling, as she returned
+the sheet. “Who’s ahead?” she asked.
+
+“Who do you think?” he parried.
+
+“She is,” said Elnora. “Are you going to tell her in your next that R.
+B. Grosbeak is a bird, and that he probably will spend the winter in a
+wild plum thicket in Tennessee?”
+
+“No,” said Philip. “I shall tell her that I understand her ideas of
+life perfectly, and, of course, I never shall ask her to deal with oily
+butter and frozen pumps—”
+
+“—and measley babies,” interpolated Elnora.
+
+“Exactly!” said Philip. “At the same time I find so much to
+counterbalance those things, that I should not object to bearing them
+myself, in view of the recompense. Where do we go and what do we do
+to-day?”
+
+“We will have to hunt beside the roads and around the edge of the
+Limberlost to-day,” said Elnora. “Mother is making strawberry
+preserves, and she can’t come until she finishes. Suppose we go down to
+the swamp and I’ll show you what is left of the flower-room that
+Terence O’More, the big lumber man of Great Rapids, made when he was a
+homeless boy here. Of course, you have heard the story?”
+
+“Yes, and I’ve met the O’Mores who are frequently in Chicago society.
+They have friends there. I think them one ideal couple.”
+
+“That sounds as if they might be the only one,” said Elnora, “and,
+indeed, they are not. I know dozens. Aunt Margaret and Uncle Wesley are
+another, the Brownlees another, and my mathematics professor and his
+wife. The world is full of happy people, but no one ever hears of them.
+You must fight and make a scandal to get into the papers. No one knows
+about all the happy people. I am happy myself, and look how perfectly
+inconspicuous I am.”
+
+“You only need go where you will be seen,” began Philip, when he
+remembered and finished. “What do we take to-day?”
+
+“Ourselves,” said Elnora. “I have a vagabond streak in my blood and
+it’s in evidence. I am going to show you where real flowers grow, real
+birds sing, and if I feel quite right about it, perhaps I shall raise a
+note or two myself.”
+
+“Oh, do you sing?” asked Philip politely.
+
+“At times,” answered Elnora. “‘As do the birds; because I must,’ but
+don’t be scared. The mood does not possess me often. Perhaps I shan’t
+raise a note.”
+
+They went down the road to the swamp, climbed the snake fence, followed
+the path to the old trail and then turned south upon it. Elnora
+indicated to Philip the trail with remnants of sagging barbed wire.
+
+“It was ten years ago,” she said. “I was a little school girl, but I
+wandered widely even then, and no one cared. I saw him often. He had
+been in a city institution all his life, when he took the job of
+keeping timber thieves out of this swamp, before many trees had been
+cut. It was a strong man’s work, and he was a frail boy, but he grew
+hardier as he lived out of doors. This trail we are on is the path his
+feet first wore, in those days when he was insane with fear and eaten
+up with loneliness, but he stuck to his work and won out. I used to
+come down to the road and creep among the bushes as far as I dared, to
+watch him pass. He walked mostly, at times he rode a wheel.
+
+“Some days his face was dreadfully sad, others it was so determined a
+little child could see the force in it, and once he was radiant. That
+day the Swamp Angel was with him. I can’t tell you what she was like. I
+never saw any one who resembled her. He stopped close here to show her
+a bird’s nest. Then they went on to a sort of flower-room he had made,
+and he sang for her. By the time he left, I had gotten bold enough to
+come out on the trail, and I met the big Scotchman Freckles lived with.
+He saw me catching moths and butterflies, so he took me to the
+flower-room and gave me everything there. I don’t dare come alone
+often, so I can’t keep it up as he did, but you can see something of
+how it was.”
+
+Elnora led the way and Philip followed. The outlines of the room were
+not distinct, because many of the trees were gone, but Elnora showed
+how it had been as nearly as she could.
+
+“The swamp is almost ruined now,” she said. “The maples, walnuts, and
+cherries are all gone. The talking trees are the only things left worth
+while.”
+
+“The ‘talking trees!’ I don’t understand,” commented Philip.
+
+“No wonder!” laughed Elnora. “They are my discovery. You know all trees
+whisper and talk during the summer, but there are two that have so much
+to say they keep on the whole winter, when the others are silent. The
+beeches and oaks so love to talk, they cling to their dead, dry leaves.
+In the winter the winds are stiffest and blow most, so these trees
+whisper, chatter, sob, laugh, and at times roar until the sound is
+deafening. They never cease until new leaves come out in the spring to
+push off the old ones. I love to stand beneath them with my ear to the
+trunks, interpreting what they say to fit my moods. The beeches branch
+low, and their leaves are small so they only know common earthly
+things; but the oaks run straight above almost all other trees before
+they branch, their arms are mighty, their leaves large. They meet the
+winds that travel around the globe, and from them learn the big
+things.”
+
+Philip studied the girls face. “What do the beeches tell you, Elnora?”
+he asked gently.
+
+“To be patient, to be unselfish, to do unto others as I would have them
+do to me.”
+
+“And the oaks?”
+
+“They say ‘be true,’ ‘live a clean life,’ ‘send your soul up here and
+the winds of the world will teach it what honour achieves.’”
+
+“Wonderful secrets, those!” marvelled Philip. “Are they telling them
+now? Could I hear?”
+
+“No. They are only gossiping now. This is play-time. They tell the big
+secrets to a white world, when the music inspires them.”
+
+“The music?”
+
+“All other trees are harps in the winter. Their trunks are the frames,
+their branches the strings, the winds the musicians. When the air is
+cold and clear, the world very white, and the harp music swelling, then
+the talking trees tell the strengthening, uplifting things.”
+
+“You wonderful girl!” cried Philip. “What a woman you will be!”
+
+“If I am a woman at all worth while, it will be because I have had such
+wonderful opportunities,” said Elnora. “Not every girl is driven to the
+forest to learn what God has to say there. Here are the remains of
+Freckles’s room. The time the Angel came here he sang to her, and I
+listened. I never heard music like that. No wonder she loved him. Every
+one who knew him did, and they do yet. Try that log, it makes a fairly
+good seat. This old store box was his treasure house, just as it’s now
+mine. I will show you my dearest possession. I do not dare take it home
+because mother can’t overcome her dislike for it. It was my father’s,
+and in some ways I am like him. This is the strongest.”
+
+Elnora lifted the violin and began to play. She wore a school dress of
+green gingham, with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. She seemed a part
+of the setting all around her. Her head shone like a small dark sun,
+and her face never had seemed so rose-flushed and fair. From the
+instant she drew the bow, her lips parted and her eyes turned toward
+something far away in the swamp, and never did she give more of that
+impression of feeling for her notes and repeating something audible
+only to her. Philip was too close to get the best effect. He arose and
+stepped back several yards, leaning against a large tree, looking and
+listening intently.
+
+As he changed positions he saw that Mrs. Comstock had followed them,
+and was standing on the trail, where she could not have helped hearing
+everything Elnora had said.
+
+So to Philip before her and the mother watching on the trail, Elnora
+played the Song of the Limberlost. It seemed as if the swamp hushed all
+its other voices and spoke only through her dancing bow. The mother out
+on the trail had heard it all, once before from the girl, many times
+from her father. To the man it was a revelation. He stood so stunned he
+forgot Mrs. Comstock. He tried to realize what a city audience would
+say to that music, from such a player, with a similar background, and
+he could not imagine.
+
+He was wondering what he dared say, how much he might express, when the
+last note fell and the girl laid the violin in the case, closed the
+door, locked it and hid the key in the rotting wood at the end of a
+log. Then she came to him. Philip stood looking at her curiously.
+
+“I wonder,” he said, “what people would say to that?”
+
+“I played that in public once,” said Elnora. “I think they liked it,
+fairly well. I had a note yesterday offering me the leadership of the
+high school orchestra in Onabasha. I can take it as well as not. None
+of my talks to the grades come the first thing in the morning. I can
+play a few minutes in the orchestra and reach the rooms in plenty of
+time. It will be more work that I love, and like finding the money. I
+would gladly play for nothing, merely to be able to express myself.”
+
+“With some people it makes a regular battlefield of the human
+heart—this struggle for self-expression,” said Philip. “You are going
+to do beautiful work in the world, and do it well. When I realize that
+your violin belonged to your father, that he played it before you were
+born, and it no doubt affected your mother strongly, and then couple
+with that the years you have roamed these fields and swamps finding in
+nature all you had to lavish your heart upon, I can see how you
+evolved. I understand what you mean by self-expression. I know
+something of what you have to express. The world never so wanted your
+message as it does now. It is hungry for the things you know. I can see
+easily how your position came to you. What you have to give is taught
+in no college, and I am not sure but you would spoil yourself if you
+tried to run your mind through a set groove with hundreds of others. I
+never thought I should say such a thing to any one, but I do say to
+you, and I honestly believe it; give up the college idea. Your mind
+does not need that sort of development. Stick close to your work in the
+woods. You are becoming so infinitely greater on it, than the best
+college girl I ever knew, that there is no comparison. When you have
+money to spend, take that violin and go to one of the world’s great
+masters and let the Limberlost sing to him; if he thinks he can improve
+it, very well. I have my doubts.”
+
+“Do you really mean that you would give up all idea of going to
+college, in my place?”
+
+“I really mean it,” said Philip. “If I now held the money in my hands
+to send you, and could give it to you in some way you would accept I
+would not. I do not know why it is the fate of the world always to want
+something different from what life gives them. If you only could
+realize it, my girl, you are in college, and have been always. You are
+in the school of experience, and it has taught you to think, and given
+you a heart. God knows I envy the man who wins it! You have been in the
+college of the Limberlost all your life, and I never met a graduate
+from any other institution who could begin to compare with you in
+sanity, clarity, and interesting knowledge. I wouldn’t even advise you
+to read too many books on your lines. You acquire your material first
+hand, and you know that you are right. What you should do is to begin
+early to practise self-expression. Don’t wait too long to tell us about
+the woods as you know them.”
+
+“Follow the course of the Bird Woman, you mean?” asked Elnora.
+
+“In your own way; with your own light. She won’t live forever. You are
+younger, and you will be ready to begin where she ends. The swamp has
+given you all you need so far; now you give it to the world in payment.
+College be confounded! Go to work and show people what there is in
+you!”
+
+Not until then did he remember Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“Should we go out to the trail and see if your mother is coming?” he
+asked.
+
+“Here she is now,” said Elnora. “Gracious, it’s a mercy I got that
+violin put away in time! I didn’t expect her so soon,” whispered the
+girl as she turned and went toward her mother. Mrs. Comstock’s
+expression was peculiar as she looked at Elnora.
+
+“I forgot that you were making sun-preserves and they didn’t require
+much cooking,” she said. “We should have waited for you.”
+
+“Not at all!” answered Mrs. Comstock. “Have you found anything yet?”
+
+“Nothing that I can show you,” said Elnora. “I am almost sure I have
+found an idea that will revolutionize the whole course of my work,
+thought, and ambitions.”
+
+“‘Ambitions!’ My, what a hefty word!” laughed Mrs. Comstock. “Now who
+would suspect a little red-haired country girl of harbouring such a
+deadly germ in her body? Can you tell mother about it?”
+
+“Not if you talk to me that way, I can’t,” said Elnora.
+
+“Well, I guess we better let ambition lie. I’ve always heard it was
+safest asleep. If you ever get a bona fide attack, it will be time to
+attend it. Let’s hunt specimens. It is June. Philip and I are in the
+grades. You have an hour to put an idea into our heads that will stick
+for a lifetime, and grow for good. That’s the way I look at your job.
+Now, what are you going to give us? We don’t want any old silly stuff
+that has been hashed over and over, we want a big new idea to plant in
+our hearts. Come on, Miss Teacher, what is the boiled-down,
+double-distilled essence of June? Give it to us strong. We are large
+enough to furnish it developing ground. Hurry up! Time is short and we
+are waiting. What is the miracle of June? What one thing epitomizes the
+whole month, and makes it just a little different from any other?”
+
+“The birth of these big night moths,” said Elnora promptly.
+
+Philip clapped his hands. The tears started to Mrs. Comstock’s eyes.
+She took Elnora in her arms, and kissed her forehead.
+
+“You’ll do!” she said. “June is June, not because it has bloom, bird,
+fruit, or flower, exclusive to it alone.
+
+“It’s half May and half July in all of them. But to me, it’s just June,
+when it comes to these great, velvet-winged night moths which sweep its
+moonlit skies, consummating their scheme of creation, and dropping like
+a bloomed-out flower. Give them moths for June. Then make that the
+basis of your year’s work. Find the distinctive feature of each month,
+the one thing which marks it a time apart, and hit them squarely
+between the eyes with it. Even the babies of the lowest grades can
+comprehend moths when they see a few emerge, and learn their history,
+as it can be lived before them. You should show your specimens in
+pairs, then their eggs, the growing caterpillars, and then the cocoons.
+You want to dig out the red heart of every month in the year, and hold
+it pulsing before them.
+
+“I can’t name all of them off-hand, but I think of one more right now.
+February belongs to our winter birds. It is then the great horned owl
+of the swamp courts his mate, the big hawks pair, and even the crows
+begin to take notice. These are truly our birds. Like the poor we have
+them always with us. You should hear the musicians of this swamp in
+February, Philip, on a mellow night. Oh, but they are in earnest! For
+twenty-one years I’ve listened by night to the great owls, all the
+smaller sizes, the foxes, coons, and every resident left in these
+woods, and by day to the hawks, yellow-hammers, sap-suckers, titmice,
+crows, and other winter birds. Only just now it’s come to me that the
+distinctive feature of February is not linen bleaching, nor sugar
+making; it’s the love month of our very own birds. Give them hawks and
+owls for February, Elnora.”
+
+With flashing eyes the girl looked at Philip. “How’s that?” she said.
+“Don’t you think I will succeed, with such help? You should hear the
+concert she is talking about! It is simply indescribable when the
+ground is covered with snow, and the moonlight white.”
+
+“It’s about the best music we have,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I wonder if
+you couldn’t copy that and make a strong, original piece out of it for
+your violin, Elnora?”
+
+There was one tense breath, then—— “I could try,” said Elnora simply.
+
+Philip rushed to the rescue. “We must go to work,” he said, and began
+examining a walnut branch for Luna moth eggs. Elnora joined him while
+Mrs. Comstock drew her embroidery from her pocket and sat on a log. She
+said she was tired, they could come for her when they were ready to go.
+She could hear their voices around her until she called them at supper
+time. When they came to her she stood waiting on the trail, the sewing
+in one hand, the violin in the other. Elnora became very white, but
+followed the trail without a word. Philip, unable to see a woman carry
+a heavier load than he, reached for the instrument. Mrs. Comstock shook
+her head. She carried the violin home, took it into her room and closed
+the door. Elnora turned to Philip.
+
+“If she destroys that, I shall die!” cried the girl.
+
+“She won’t!” said Philip. “You misunderstand her. She wouldn’t have
+said what she did about the owls, if she had meant to. She is your
+mother. No one loves you as she does. Trust her! Myself—I think she’s
+simply great!”
+
+Mrs. Comstock returned with serene face, and all of them helped with
+the supper. When it was over Philip and Elnora sorted and classified
+the afternoon’s specimens, and made a trip to the woods to paint and
+light several trees for moths. When they came back Mrs. Comstock sat in
+the arbour, and they joined her. The moonlight was so intense, print
+could have been read by it. The damp night air held odours near to
+earth, making flower and tree perfume strong. A thousand insects were
+serenading, and in the maple the grosbeak occasionally said a
+reassuring word to his wife, while she answered that all was well. A
+whip-poor-will wailed in the swamp and beside the blue-bordered pool a
+chat complained disconsolately. Mrs. Comstock went into the cabin, but
+she returned immediately, laying the violin and bow across Elnora’s
+lap. “I wish you would give us a little music,” she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK DANCES IN THE MOONLIGHT, AND ELNORA MAKES A
+CONFESSION
+
+
+Billy was swinging in the hammock, at peace with himself and all the
+world, when he thought he heard something. He sat bolt upright, his
+eyes staring. Once he opened his lips, then thought again and closed
+them. The sound persisted. Billy vaulted the fence, and ran down the
+road with his queer sidewise hop. When he neared the Comstock cabin, he
+left the warm dust of the highway and stepped softly at slower pace
+over the rank grasses of the roadside. He had heard aright. The violin
+was in the grape arbour, singing a perfect jumble of everything, poured
+out in an exultant tumult. The strings were voicing the joy of a happy
+girl heart.
+
+Billy climbed the fence enclosing the west woods and crept toward the
+arbour. He was not a spy and not a sneak. He merely wanted to satisfy
+his child-heart as to whether Mrs. Comstock was at home, and Elnora at
+last playing her loved violin with her mother’s consent. One peep
+sufficed. Mrs. Comstock sat in the moonlight, her head leaning against
+the arbour; on her face was a look of perfect peace and contentment. As
+he stared at her the bow hesitated a second and Mrs. Comstock spoke:
+
+“That’s all very melodious and sweet,” she said, “but I do wish you
+could play Money Musk and some of the tunes I danced as a girl.”
+
+Elnora had been carefully avoiding every note that might be reminiscent
+of her father. At the words she laughed softly and began “Turkey in the
+Straw.” An instant later Mrs. Comstock was dancing in the moon light.
+Ammon sprang to her side, caught her in his arms, while to Elnora’s
+laughter and the violin’s impetus they danced until they dropped
+panting on the arbour bench.
+
+Billy scarcely knew when he reached the road. His light feet barely
+touched the soft way, so swiftly he flew. He vaulted the fence and
+burst into the house.
+
+“Aunt Margaret! Uncle Wesley!” he screamed. “Listen! Listen! She’s
+playing it! Elnora’s playing her violin at home! And Aunt Kate is
+dancing like anything before the arbour! I saw her in the moonlight! I
+ran down! Oh, Aunt Margaret!”
+
+Billy fled sobbing to Margaret’s breast.
+
+“Why Billy!” she chided. “Don’t cry, you little dunce! That’s what
+we’ve all prayed for these many years; but you must be mistaken about
+Kate. I can’t believe it.”
+
+Billy lifted his head. “Well, you just have to!” he said. “When I say I
+saw anything, Uncle Wesley knows I did. The city man was dancing with
+her. They danced together and Elnora laughed. But it didn’t look funny
+to me; I was scared.”
+
+“Who was it said ‘wonders never cease,’” asked Wesley. “You mark my
+word, once you get Kate Comstock started, you can’t stop her. There’s a
+wagon load of penned-up force in her. Dancing in the moonlight! Well,
+I’ll be hanged!”
+
+Billy was at his side instantly. “Whoever does it will have to hang me,
+too,” he cried.
+
+Sinton threw his arm around Billy and drew him closely. “Tell us all
+about it, son,” he said. Billy told. “And when Elnora just stopped a
+breath, ‘Can’t you play some of the old things I knew when I was a
+girl?’ said her ma. Then Elnora began to do a thing that made you want
+to whirl round and round, and quicker ’an scat there was her ma
+a-whirling. The city man, he ups and grabs her and whirls, too, and
+back in the woods I was going just like they did. Elnora begins to
+laugh, and I ran to tell you, cos I knew you’d like to know. Now, all
+the world is right, ain’t it?” ended Billy in supreme satisfaction.
+
+“You just bet it is!” said Wesley.
+
+Billy looked steadily at Margaret. “Is it, Aunt Margaret?”
+
+Margaret Sinton smiled at him bravely.
+
+An hour later when Billy was ready to climb the stairs to his room, he
+went to Margaret to say good night. He leaned against her an instant,
+then brought his lips to her ear. “Wish I could get your little girls
+back for you!” he whispered and dashed toward the stairs.
+
+Down at the Comstock cabin the violin played on until Elnora was so
+tired she scarcely could lift the bow. Then Philip went home. The women
+walked to the gate with him, and stood watching him from sight.
+
+“That’s what I call one decent young man!” said Mrs. Comstock. “To see
+him fit in with us, you’d think he’d been brought up in a cabin; but
+it’s likely he’s always had the very cream o’ the pot.”
+
+“Yes, I think so,” laughed Elnora, “but it hasn’t hurt him. I’ve never
+seen anything I could criticise. He’s teaching me so much,
+unconsciously. You know he graduated from Harvard, and has several
+degrees in law. He’s coming in the morning, and we are going to put in
+a big day on Catocalæ.”
+
+“Which is——?”
+
+“Those gray moths with wings that fold back like big flies, and they
+appear as if they had been carved from old wood. Then, when they fly,
+the lower wings flash out and they are red and black, or gold and
+black, or pink and black, or dozens of bright, beautiful colours
+combined with black. No one ever has classified all of them and written
+their complete history, unless the Bird Woman is doing it now. She
+wants everything she can get about them.”
+
+“I remember,” said Mrs. Comstock. “They are mighty pretty things. I’ve
+started up slews of them from the vines covering the logs, all my life.
+I must be cautious and catch them after this, but they seem powerful
+spry. I might get hold of something rare.” She thought intently and
+added, “And wouldn’t know it if I did. It would just be my luck. I’ve
+had the rarest thing on earth in reach this many a day and only had the
+wit to cinch it just as it was going. I’ll bet I don’t let anything
+else escape me.”
+
+Next morning Philip came early, and he and Elnora went at once to the
+fields and woods. Mrs. Comstock had come to believe so implicitly in
+him that she now stayed at home to complete the work before she joined
+them, and when she did she often sat sewing, leaving them wandering
+hours at a time. It was noon before she finished, and then she packed a
+basket of lunch. She found Elnora and Philip near the violet patch,
+which was still in its prime. They all lunched together in the shade of
+a wild crab thicket, with flowers spread at their feet, and the gold
+orioles streaking the air with flashes of light and trailing ecstasy
+behind them, while the red-wings, as always, asked the most impertinent
+questions. Then Mrs. Comstock carried the basket back to the cabin, and
+Philip and Elnora sat on a log, resting a few minutes. They had
+unexpected luck, and both were eager to continue the search.
+
+“Do you remember your promise about these violets?” asked he.
+“To-morrow is Edith’s birthday, and if I’d put them special delivery on
+the morning train, she’d get them in the late afternoon. They ought to
+keep that long. She leaves for the North next day.”
+
+“Of course, you may have them,” said Elnora. “We will quit long enough
+before supper to gather a large bunch. They can be packed so they will
+carry all right. They should be perfectly fresh, especially if we
+gather them this evening and let them drink all night.”
+
+Then they went back to hunt Catocalæ. It was a long and a happy search.
+It led them into new, unexplored nooks of the woods, past a red-poll
+nest, and where goldfinches prospected for thistledown for the cradles
+they would line a little later. It led them into real forest, where
+deep, dark pools lay, where the hermit thrush and the wood robin
+extracted the essence from all other bird melody, and poured it out in
+their pure bell-tone notes. It seemed as if every old gray tree-trunk,
+slab of loose bark, and prostrate log yielded the flashing gray
+treasures; while of all others they seemed to take alarm most easily,
+and be most difficult to capture.
+
+Philip came to Elnora at dusk, daintily holding one by the body, its
+dark wings showing and its long slender legs trying to clasp his
+fingers and creep from his hold.
+
+“Oh for mercy’s sake!” cried Elnora, staring at him.
+
+“I half believe it!” exulted Ammon.
+
+“Did you ever see one?”
+
+“Only in collections, and very seldom there.”
+
+Elnora studied the black wings intently. “I surely believe that’s
+Sappho,” she marvelled. “The Bird Woman will be overjoyed.”
+
+“We must get the cyanide jar quickly,” said Philip.
+
+“I wouldn’t lose her for anything. Such a chase as she led me!”
+
+Elnora brought the jar and began gathering up paraphernalia.
+
+“When you make a find like that,” she said, “it’s the right time to
+quit and feel glorious all the rest of that day. I tell you I’m proud!
+We will go now. We have barely time to carry out our plans before
+supper. Won’t mother be pleased to see that we have a rare one?”
+
+“I’d like to see any one more pleased than I am!” said Philip Ammon. “I
+feel as if I’d earned my supper to-night. Let’s go.”
+
+He took the greater part of the load and stepped aside for Elnora to
+precede him. She followed the path, broken by the grazing cattle,
+toward the cabin and nearest the violet patch she stopped, laid down
+her net, and the things she carried. Philip passed her and hurried
+straight toward the back gate.
+
+“Aren’t you going to——?” began Elnora.
+
+“I’m going to get this moth home in a hurry,” he said. “This cyanide
+has lost its strength, and it’s not working well. We need some fresh in
+the jar.”
+
+He had forgotten the violets! Elnora stood looking after him, a curious
+expression on her face. One second so—then she picked up the net and
+followed. At the blue-bordered pool she paused and half turned back,
+then she closed her lips firmly and went on. It was nine o’clock when
+Philip said good-bye, and started to town. His gay whistle floated to
+them from the farthest corner of the Limberlost. Elnora complained of
+being tired, so she went to her room and to bed. But sleep would not
+come. Thought was racing in her brain and the longer she lay the wider
+awake she grew. At last she softly slipped from bed, lighted her lamp
+and began opening boxes. Then she went to work. Two hours later a
+beautiful birch bark basket, strongly and artistically made, stood on
+her table. She set a tiny alarm clock at three, returned to bed and
+fell asleep instantly with a smile on her lips.
+
+She was on the floor with the first tinkle of the alarm, and hastily
+dressing, she picked up the basket and a box to fit it, crept down the
+stairs, and out to the violet patch. She was unafraid as it was growing
+light, and lining the basket with damp mosses she swiftly began
+picking, with practised hands, the best of the flowers. She scarcely
+could tell which were freshest at times, but day soon came creeping
+over the Limberlost and peeped at her. The robins awoke all their
+neighbours, and a babel of bird notes filled the air. The dew was
+dripping, while the first strong rays of light fell on a world in which
+Elnora worshipped. When the basket was filled to overflowing, she set
+it in the stout pasteboard box, packed it solid with mosses, tied it
+firmly and slipped under the cord a note she had written the previous
+night.
+
+Then she took a short cut across the woods and walked swiftly to
+Onabasha. It was after six o’clock, but all of the city she wished to
+avoid were asleep. She had no trouble in finding a small boy out, and
+she stood at a distance waiting while he rang Dr. Ammon’s bell and
+delivered the package for Philip to a maid, with the note which was to
+be given him at once.
+
+On the way home through the woods passing some baited trees she
+collected the captive moths. She entered the kitchen with them so
+naturally that Mrs. Comstock made no comment. After breakfast Elnora
+went to her room, cleared away all trace of the night’s work and was
+out in the arbour mounting moths when Philip came down the road. “I am
+tired sitting,” she said to her mother. “I think I will walk a few rods
+and meet him.”
+
+“Who’s a trump?” he called from afar.
+
+“Not you!” retorted Elnora. “Confess that you forgot!”
+
+“Completely!” said Philip. “But luckily it would not have been fatal. I
+wrote Polly last week to send Edith something appropriate to-day, with
+my card. But that touch from the woods will be very effective. Thank
+you more than I can say. Aunt Anna and I unpacked it to see the basket,
+and it was a beauty. She says you are always doing such things.”
+
+“Well, I hope not!” laughed Elnora. “If you’d seen me sneaking out
+before dawn, not to awaken mother and coming in with moths to make her
+think I’d been to the trees, you’d know it was a most especial
+occasion.”
+
+Then Philip understood two things: Elnora’s mother did not know of the
+early morning trip to the city, and the girl had come to meet him to
+tell him so.
+
+“You were a brick to do it!” he whispered as he closed the gate behind
+them. “I’ll never forget you for it. Thank you ever so much.”
+
+“I did not do that for you,” said Elnora tersely. “I did it mostly to
+preserve my own self-respect. I saw you were forgetting. If I did it
+for anything besides that, I did it for her.”
+
+“Just look what I’ve brought!” said Philip, entering the arbour and
+greeting Mrs. Comstock. “Borrowed it of the Bird Woman. And it isn’t
+hers. A rare edition of Catocalæ with coloured plates. I told her the
+best I could, and she said to try for Sappho here. I suspect the Bird
+Woman will be out presently. She was all excitement.”
+
+Then they bent over the book together and with the mounted moth before
+them determined her family. The Bird Woman did come later, and carried
+the moth away, to put into a book and Elnora and Philip were freshly
+filled with enthusiasm.
+
+So these days were the beginning of the weeks that followed. Six of
+them flying on Time’s wings, each filled to the brim with interest.
+After June, the moth hunts grew less frequent; the fields and woods
+were searched for material for Elnora’s grade work. The most absorbing
+occupation they found was in carrying out Mrs. Comstock’s suggestion to
+learn the vital thing for which each month was distinctive, and make
+that the key to the nature work. They wrote out a list of the months,
+opposite each the things all of them could suggest which seemed to
+pertain to that month alone, and then tried to sift until they found
+something typical. Mrs. Comstock was a great help. Her mother had been
+Dutch and had brought from Holland numerous quaint sayings and
+superstitions easily traceable to Pliny’s Natural History; and in Mrs.
+Comstock’s early years in Ohio she had heard much Indian talk among her
+elders, so she knew the signs of each season, and sometimes they
+helped. Always her practical thought and sterling common sense were
+useful. When they were afield until exhausted they came back to the
+cabin for food, to prepare specimens and classify them, and to talk
+over the day. Sometimes Philip brought books and read while Elnora and
+her mother worked, and every night Mrs. Comstock asked for the violin.
+Her perfect hunger for music was sufficient evidence of how she had
+suffered without it. So the days crept by, golden, filled with useful
+work and pure pleasure.
+
+The grosbeak had led the family in the maple abroad and a second brood,
+in a wild grape vine clambering over the well, was almost ready for
+flight. The dust lay thick on the country roads, the days grew warmer;
+summer was just poising to slip into fall, and Philip remained, coming
+each day as if he had belonged there always.
+
+One warm August afternoon Mrs. Comstock looked up from the ruffle on
+which she was engaged to see a blue-coated messenger enter the gate.
+
+“Is Philip Ammon here?” asked the boy.
+
+“He is,” said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“I have a message for him.”
+
+“He is in the woods back of the cabin. I will ring the bell. Do you
+know if it is important?”
+
+“Urgent,” said the boy; “I rode hard.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock stepped to the back door and clanged the dinner bell
+sharply, paused a second, and rang again. In a short time Philip and
+Elnora ran down the path.
+
+“Are you ill, mother?” cried Elnora.
+
+Mrs. Comstock indicated the boy. “There is an important message for
+Philip,” she said.
+
+He muttered an excuse and tore open the telegram. His colour faded
+slightly. “I have to take the first train,” he said. “My father is ill
+and I am needed.”
+
+He handed the sheet to Elnora. “I have about two hours, as I remember
+the trains north, but my things are all over Uncle Doc’s house, so I
+must go at once.”
+
+“Certainly,” said Elnora, giving back the message. “Is there anything I
+can do to help? Mother, bring Philip a glass of buttermilk to start on.
+I will gather what you have here.”
+
+“Never mind. There is nothing of importance. I don’t want to be
+hampered. I’ll send for it if I miss anything I need.”
+
+Philip drank the milk, said good-bye to Mrs. Comstock; thanked her for
+all her kindness, and turned to Elnora.
+
+“Will you walk to the edge of the Limberlost with me?” he asked. Elnora
+assented. Mrs. Comstock followed to the gate, urged him to come again
+soon, and repeated her good-bye. Then she went back to the arbour to
+await Elnora’s return. As she watched down the road she smiled softly.
+
+“I had an idea he would speak to me first,” she thought, “but this may
+change things some. He hasn’t time. Elnora will come back a happy girl,
+and she has good reason. He is a model young man. Her lot will be very
+different from mine.”
+
+She picked up her embroidery and began setting dainty precise little
+stitches, possible only to certain women.
+
+On the road Elnora spoke first. “I do hope it is nothing serious,” she
+said. “Is he usually strong?”
+
+“Quite strong,” said Philip. “I am not at all alarmed but I am very
+much ashamed. I have been well enough for the past month to have gone
+home and helped him with some critical cases that were keeping him at
+work in this heat. I was enjoying myself so I wouldn’t offer to go, and
+he would not ask me to come, so long as he could help it. I have
+allowed him to overtax himself until he is down, and mother and Polly
+are north at our cottage. He’s never been sick before, and it’s
+probable I am to blame that he is now.”
+
+“He intended you to stay this long when you came,” urged Elnora.
+
+“Yes, but it’s hot in Chicago. I should have remembered him. He is
+always thinking of me. Possibly he has needed me for days. I am ashamed
+to go to him in splendid condition and admit that I was having such a
+fine time I forgot to come home.”
+
+“You have had a fine time, then?” asked Elnora.
+
+They had reached the fence. Philip vaulted over to take a short cut
+across the fields. He turned and looked at her.
+
+“The best, the sweetest, and most wholesome time any man ever had in
+this world,” he said. “Elnora, if I talked hours I couldn’t make you
+understand what a girl I think you are. I never in all my life hated
+anything as I hate leaving you. It seems to me that I have not strength
+to do it.”
+
+“If you have learned anything worth while from me,” said Elnora, “that
+should be it. Just to have strength to go to your duty, and to go
+quickly.”
+
+He caught the hand she held out to him in both his. “Elnora, these days
+we have had together, have they been sweet to you?”
+
+“Beautiful days!” said Elnora. “Each like a perfect dream to be thought
+over and over all my life. Oh, they have been the only really happy
+days I’ve ever known; these days rich with mother’s love, and doing
+useful work with your help. Good-bye! You must hurry!”
+
+Philip gazed at her. He tried to drop her hand, only clutched it
+closer. Suddenly he drew her toward him. “Elnora,” he whispered, “will
+you kiss me good-bye?”
+
+Elnora drew back and stared at him with wide eyes. “I’d strike you
+sooner!” she said. “Have I ever said or done anything in your presence
+that made you feel free to ask that, Philip Ammon?”
+
+“No!” panted Philip. “No! I think so much of you I wanted to touch your
+lips once before I left you. You know, Elnora——”
+
+“Don’t distress yourself,” said Elnora calmly. “I am broad enough to
+judge you sanely. I know what you mean. It would be no harm to you. It
+would not matter to me, but here we will think of some one else. Edith
+Carr would not want your lips to-morrow if she knew they had touched
+mine to-day. I was wise to say: ‘Go quickly!’”
+
+Philip still clung to her. “Will you write me?” he begged.
+
+“No,” said Elnora. “There is nothing to say, save good-bye. We can do
+that now.”
+
+He held on. “Promise that you will write me only one letter,” he urged.
+“I want just one message from you to lock in my desk, and keep always.
+Promise you will write once, Elnora.”
+
+She looked into his eyes, and smiled serenely. “If the talking trees
+tell me this winter, the secret of how a man may grow perfect, I will
+write you what it is, Philip. In all the time I have known you, I never
+have liked you so little. Good-bye.”
+
+She drew away her hand and swiftly turned back to the road. Philip
+Ammon, wordless, started toward Onabasha on a run.
+
+Elnora crossed the road, climbed the fence and sought the shelter of
+their own woods. She chose a diagonal course and followed it until she
+came to the path leading past the violet patch. She went down this
+hurriedly. Her hands were clenched at her side, her eyes dry and
+bright, her cheeks red-flushed, and her breath coming fast. When she
+reached the patch she turned into it and stood looking around her.
+
+The mosses were dry, the flowers gone, weeds a foot high covered it.
+She turned away and went on down the path until she was almost in sight
+of the cabin.
+
+Mrs. Comstock smiled and waited in the arbour until it occurred to her
+that Elnora was a long time coming, so she went to the gate. The road
+stretched away toward the Limberlost empty and lonely. Then she knew
+that Elnora had gone into their own woods and would come in the back
+way. She could not understand why the girl did not hurry to her with
+what she would have to tell. She went out and wandered around the
+garden. Then she stepped into the path and started along the way
+leading to the woods, past the pool now framed in a thick setting of
+yellow lilies. Then she saw, and stopped, gasping for breath. Her hands
+flew up and her lined face grew ghastly. She stared at the sky and then
+at the prostrate girl figure. Over and over she tried to speak, but
+only a dry breath came. She turned and fled back to the garden.
+
+In the familiar enclosure she gazed around her like a caged animal
+seeking escape. The sun beat down on her bare head mercilessly, and
+mechanically she moved to the shade of a half-grown hickory tree that
+voluntarily had sprouted beside the milk house. At her feet lay an axe
+with which she made kindlings for fires. She stooped and picked it up.
+The memory of that prone figure sobbing in the grass caught her with a
+renewed spasm. She shut her eyes as if to close it out. That made
+hearing so acute she felt certain she heard Elnora moaning beside the
+path. The eyes flew open. They looked straight at a few spindling
+tomato plants set too near the tree and stunted by its shade. Mrs.
+Comstock whirled on the hickory and swung the axe. Her hair shook down,
+her clothing became disarranged, in the heat the perspiration streamed,
+but stroke fell on stroke until the tree crashed over, grazing a corner
+of the milk house and smashing the garden fence on the east.
+
+At the sound Elnora sprang to her feet and came running down the garden
+walk. “Mother!” she cried. “Mother! What in the world are you doing?”
+
+Mrs. Comstock wiped her ghastly face on her apron. “I’ve laid out to
+cut that tree for years,” she said. “It shades the beets in the
+morning, and the tomatoes in the afternoon!”
+
+Elnora uttered one wild little cry and fled into her mother’s arms. “Oh
+mother!” she sobbed. “Will you ever forgive me?”
+
+Mrs. Comstock’s arms swept together in a tight grip around Elnora.
+
+“There isn’t a thing on God’s footstool from a to izzard I won’t
+forgive you, my precious girl!” she said. “Tell mother what it is!”
+
+Elnora lifted her wet face. “He told me,” she panted, “just as soon as
+he decently could—that second day he told me. Almost all his life he’s
+been engaged to a girl at home. He never cared anything about me. He
+was only interested in the moths and growing strong.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock’s arms tightened. With a shaking hand she stroked the
+bright hair.
+
+“Tell me, honey,” she said. “Is he to blame for a single one of these
+tears?”
+
+“Not one!” sobbed Elnora. “Oh mother, I won’t forgive you if you don’t
+believe that. Not one! He never said, or looked, or did anything all
+the world might not have known. He likes me very much as a friend. He
+hated to go dreadfully!”
+
+“Elnora!” the mother’s head bent until the white hair mingled with the
+brown. “Elnora, why didn’t you tell me at first?”
+
+Elnora caught her breath in a sharp snatch. “I know I should!” she
+sobbed. “I will bear any punishment for not, but I didn’t feel as if I
+possibly could. I was afraid.”
+
+“Afraid of what?” the shaking hand was on the hair again.
+
+“Afraid you wouldn’t let him come!” panted Elnora. “And oh, mother, I
+wanted him so!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK EXPERIMENTS WITH REJUVENATION, AND ELNORA TEACHES
+NATURAL HISTORY
+
+
+For the following week Mrs. Comstock and Elnora worked so hard there
+was no time to talk, and they were compelled to sleep from physical
+exhaustion. Neither of them made any pretence of eating, for they could
+not swallow without an effort, so they drank milk and worked. Elnora
+kept on setting bait for Catacolae and Sphinginae, which, unlike the
+big moths of June, live several months. She took all the dragonflies
+and butterflies she could, and when she went over the list for the man
+of India, she found, to her amazement, that with Philip’s help she once
+more had it complete save a pair of Yellow Emperors.
+
+This circumstance was so surprising she had a fleeting thought of
+writing Philip and asking him to see if he could not secure her a pair.
+She did tell the Bird Woman, who from every source at her command tried
+to complete the series with these moths, but could not find any for
+sale.
+
+“I think the mills of the Gods are grinding this grist,” said Elnora,
+“and we might as well wait patiently until they choose to send a Yellow
+Emperor.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock invented work. When she had nothing more to do, she hoed
+in the garden although the earth was hard and dry and there were no
+plants that really needed attention. Then came a notification that
+Elnora would be compelled to attend a week’s session of the Teachers’
+Institute held at the county seat twenty miles north of Onabasha the
+following week. That gave them something of which to think and real
+work to do. Elnora was requested to bring her violin. As she was on the
+programme of one of the most important sessions for a talk on nature
+work in grade schools, she was driven to prepare her speech, also to
+select and practise some music. Her mother turned her attention to
+clothing.
+
+They went to Onabasha together and purchased a simple and appropriate
+fall suit and hat, goods for a dainty little coloured frock, and a
+dress skirt and several fancy waists. Margaret Sinton came down and the
+sewing began. When everything was finished and packed, Elnora kissed
+her mother good-bye at the depot, and entered the train. Mrs. Comstock
+went into the waiting-room and dropped into a seat to rest. Her heart
+was so sore her whole left side felt tender. She was half starved for
+the food she had no appetite to take. She had worked in dogged
+determination until she was exhausted. For a time she simply sat and
+rested. Then she began to think. She was glad Elnora had gone where she
+would be compelled to fix her mind on other matters for a few days. She
+remembered the girl had said she wanted to go.
+
+School would begin the following week. She thought over what Elnora
+would have to do to accomplish her work successfully. She would be
+compelled to arise at six o’clock, walk three miles through varying
+weather, lead the high school orchestra, and then put in the remainder
+of the day travelling from building to building over the city, teaching
+a specified length of time every week in each room. She must have her
+object lessons ready, and she must do a certain amount of practising
+with the orchestra. Then a cold lunch at noon, and a three-mile walk at
+night.
+
+“Humph!” said Mrs. Comstock, “to get through that the girl would have
+to be made of cast-iron. I wonder how I can help her best?”
+
+She thought deeply.
+
+“The less she sees of what she’s been having all summer, the sooner
+she’ll feel better about it,” she muttered.
+
+She arose, went to the bank and inquired for the cashier.
+
+“I want to know just how I am fixed here,” she said.
+
+The cashier laughed. “You haven’t been in a hurry,” he replied. “We
+have been ready for you any time these twenty years, but you didn’t
+seem to pay much attention. Your account is rather flourishing.
+Interest, when it gets to compounding, is quite a money breeder. Come
+back here to a table and I will show you your balances.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock sank into a chair and waited while the cashier read a
+jumble of figures to her. It meant that her deposits had exceeded her
+expenses from one to three hundred dollars a year, according to the
+cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, butter, and eggs she had sold. The
+aggregate of these sums had been compounding interest throughout the
+years. Mrs. Comstock stared at the total with dazed and unbelieving
+eyes. Through her sick heart rushed the realization, that if she merely
+had stood before that wicket and asked one question, she would have
+known that all those bitter years of skimping for Elnora and herself
+had been unnecessary. She arose and went back to the depot.
+
+“I want to send a message,” she said. She picked up the pencil, and
+with rash extravagance, wrote, “Found money at bank didn’t know about.
+If you want to go to college, come on first train and get ready.” She
+hesitated a second and then she said to herself grimly, “Yes, I’ll pay
+for that, too,” and recklessly added, “With love, Mother.” Then she sat
+waiting for the answer. It came in less than an hour. “Will teach this
+winter. With dearest love, Elnora.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock held the message a long time. When she arose she was
+ravenously hungry, but the pain in her heart was a little easier. She
+went to a restaurant and ate some food, then to a dressmaker where she
+ordered four dresses: two very plain every-day ones, a serviceable dark
+gray cloth suit, and a soft light gray silk with touches of lavender
+and lace. She made a heavy list of purchases at Brownlee’s, and the
+remainder of the day she did business in her direct and spirited way.
+At night she was so tired she scarcely could walk home, but she built a
+fire and cooked and ate a hearty meal.
+
+Later she went out beside the west fence and gathered an armful of
+tansy which she boiled to a thick green tea. Then she stirred in
+oatmeal until it was a stiff paste. She spread a sheet over her bed and
+began tearing strips of old muslin. She bandaged each hand and arm with
+the mixture and plastered the soggy, evil-smelling stuff in a thick
+poultice over her face and neck. She was so tired she went to sleep,
+and when she awoke she was half skinned. She bathed her face and hands,
+did the work and went back to town, coming home at night to go through
+the same process.
+
+By the third morning she was a raw even red, the fourth she had faded
+to a brilliant pink under the soothing influence of a cream
+recommended. That day came a letter from Elnora saying that she would
+remain where she was until Saturday morning, and then come to Ellen
+Brownlee’s at Onabasha and stay for the Saturday’s session of teachers
+to arrange their year’s work. Sunday was Ellen’s last day at home, and
+she wanted Elnora very much. She had to call together the orchestra and
+practise them Sunday; and could not come home until after school Monday
+night. Mrs. Comstock at once answered the letter saying those
+arrangements suited her.
+
+The following day she was a pale pink, later a delicate porcelain
+white. Then she went to a hairdresser and had the rope of snowy hair
+which covered her scalp washed, dressed, and fastened with such pins
+and combs as were decided to be most becoming. She took samples of her
+dresses, went to a milliner, and bought a street hat to match her suit,
+and a gray satin with lavender orchids to wear with the silk dress. Her
+last investment was a loose coat of soft gray broadcloth with white
+lining, and touches of lavender on the embroidered collar, and gray
+gloves to match.
+
+Then she went home, rested and worked by turns until Monday. When
+school closed on that evening, Elnora, so tired she almost trembled,
+came down the long walk after a late session of teachers’ meeting, to
+be stopped by a messenger boy.
+
+“There’s a lady wants to see you most important. I am to take you to
+the place,” he said.
+
+Elnora groaned. She could not imagine who wanted her, but there was
+nothing to do but find out; tired and anxious to see her mother as she
+was.
+
+“This is the place,” said the boy, and went his way whistling. Elnora
+was three blocks from the high school building on the same street. She
+was before a quaint old house, fresh with paint and covered with vines.
+There was a long wide lot, grass-covered, closely set with trees, and a
+barn and chicken park at the back that seemed to be occupied. Elnora
+stepped on the veranda which was furnished with straw rugs,
+bent-hickory chairs, hanging baskets, and a table with a work-box and
+magazines, and knocked at the screen door.
+
+Inside she could see polished floors, walls freshly papered in
+low-toned harmonious colours, straw rugs and madras curtains. It seemed
+to be a restful, homelike place to which she had come. A second later
+down an open stairway came a tall, dark-eyed woman with cheeks faintly
+pink and a crown of fluffy snow-white hair. She wore a lavender gingham
+dress with white collar and cuffs, and she called as she advanced:
+“That screen isn’t latched! Open it and come see your brand-new mother,
+my girl.”
+
+Elnora stepped inside the door. “Mother!” she cried. “You my mother! I
+don’t believe it!”
+
+“Well, you better!” said Mrs. Comstock, “because it’s true! You said
+you wished I were like the other girls’ mothers, and I’ve shot as close
+the mark as I could without any practice. I thought that walk would be
+too much for you this winter, so I just rented this house and moved in,
+to be near you, and help more in case I’m needed. I’ve only lived here
+a day, but I like it so well I’ve a mortal big notion to buy the
+place.”
+
+“But mother!” protested Elnora, clinging to her wonderingly. “You are
+perfectly beautiful, and this house is a little paradise, but how will
+we ever pay for it? We can’t afford it!”
+
+“Humph! Have you forgotten I telegraphed you I’d found some money I
+didn’t know about? All I’ve done is paid for, and plenty more to settle
+for all I propose to do.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock glanced around with satisfaction.
+
+“I may get homesick as a pup before spring,” she said, “but if I do I
+can go back. If I don’t, I’ll sell some timber and put a few oil wells
+where they don’t show much. I can have land enough cleared for a few
+fields and put a tenant on our farm, and we will buy this and settle
+here. It’s for sale.”
+
+“You don’t look it, but you’ve surely gone mad!”
+
+“Just the reverse, my girl,” said Mrs. Comstock, “I’ve gone sane. If
+you are going to undertake this work, you must be convenient to it. And
+your mother should be where she can see that you are properly dressed,
+fed, and cared for. This is our—let me think—reception-room. How do you
+like it? This door leads to your workroom and study. I didn’t do much
+there because I wasn’t sure of my way. But I knew you would want a rug,
+curtains, table, shelves for books, and a case for your specimens, so I
+had a carpenter shelve and enclose that end of it. Looks pretty neat to
+me. The dining-room and kitchen are back, one of the cows in the barn,
+and some chickens in the coop. I understand that none of the other
+girls’ mothers milk a cow, so a neighbour boy will tend to ours for a
+third of the milk. There are three bedrooms, and a bath upstairs. Go
+take one, put on some fresh clothes, and come to supper. You can find
+your room because your things are in it.”
+
+Elnora kissed her mother over and over, and hurried upstairs. She
+identified her room by the dressing-case. There were a pretty rug, and
+curtains, white iron bed, plain and rocking chairs to match her case, a
+shirtwaist chest, and the big closet was filled with her old clothing
+and several new dresses. She found the bathroom, bathed, dressed in
+fresh linen and went down to a supper that was an evidence of Mrs.
+Comstock’s highest art in cooking. Elnora was so hungry she ate her
+first real meal in two weeks. But the bites went down slowly because
+she forgot about them in watching her mother.
+
+“How on earth did you do it?” she asked at last. “I always thought you
+were naturally brown as a nut.”
+
+“Oh, that was tan and sunburn!” explained Mrs. Comstock. “I always knew
+I was white underneath it. I hated to shade my face because I hadn’t
+anything but a sunbonnet, and I couldn’t stand for it to touch my ears,
+so I went bareheaded and took all the colour I accumulated. But when I
+began to think of moving you in to your work, I saw I must put up an
+appearance that wouldn’t disgrace you, so I thought I’d best remove the
+crust. It took some time, and I hope I may die before I ever endure the
+feel and the smell of the stuff I used again, but it skinned me nicely.
+What you now see is my own with a little dust of rice powder, for
+protection. I’m sort of tender yet.”
+
+“And your lovely, lovely hair?” breathed Elnora.
+
+“Hairdresser did that!” said Mrs. Comstock. “It cost like smoke. But I
+watched her, and with a little help from you I can wash it alone next
+time, though it will be hard work. I let her monkey with it until she
+said she had found ‘my style.’ Then I tore it down and had her show me
+how to build it up again three times. I thought my arms would drop.
+When I paid the bill for her work, the time I’d taken, the pins, and
+combs she’d used, I nearly had heart failure, but I didn’t turn a hair
+before her. I just smiled at her sweetly and said, ‘How reasonable you
+are!’ Come to think of it, she was! She might have charged me ten
+dollars for what she did quite as well as nine seventy-five. I couldn’t
+have helped myself. I had made no bargain to begin on.”
+
+Then Elnora leaned back in her chair and shouted, in a gust of hearty
+laughter, so a little of the ache ceased in her breast. There was no
+time to think, the remainder of that evening, she was so tired she had
+to sleep, while her mother did not awaken her until she barely had time
+to dress, breakfast and reach school. There was nothing in the new life
+to remind her of the old. It seemed as if there never came a minute for
+retrospection, but her mother appeared on the scene with more work, or
+some entertaining thing to do.
+
+Mrs. Comstock invited Elnora’s friends to visit her, and proved herself
+a bright and interesting hostess. She digested a subject before she
+spoke; and when she advanced a view, her point was sure to be original
+and tersely expressed. Before three months people waited to hear what
+she had to say. She kept her appearance so in mind that she made a
+handsome and a distinguished figure.
+
+Elnora never mentioned Philip Ammon, neither did Mrs. Comstock. Early
+in December came a note and a big box from him. It contained several
+books on nature subjects which would be of much help in school work, a
+number of conveniences Elnora could not afford, and a pair of
+glass-covered plaster casts, for each large moth she had. In these the
+upper and underwings of male and female showed. He explained that she
+would break her specimens easily, carrying them around in boxes. He had
+seen these and thought they would be of use. Elnora was delighted with
+them, and at once began the tedious process of softening the mounted
+moths and fitting them to the casts moulded to receive them. Her time
+was so taken in school, she progressed slowly, so her mother undertook
+this work. After trying one or two very common ones she learned to
+handle the most delicate with ease. She took keen pride in relaxing the
+tense moths, fitting them to the cases, polishing the glass covers to
+the last degree and sealing them. The results were beautiful to behold.
+
+Soon after Elnora wrote to Philip:
+
+DEAR FRIEND:
+
+I am writing to thank you for the books, and the box of conveniences
+sent me for my work. I can use everything with fine results. Hope I am
+giving good satisfaction in my position. You will be interested to
+learn that when the summer’s work was classified and pinned, I again
+had my complete collection for the man of India, save a Yellow Emperor.
+I have tried everywhere I know, so has the Bird Woman. We cannot find a
+pair for sale. Fate is against me, at least this season. I shall have
+to wait until next year and try again.
+
+Thank you very much for helping me with my collection and for the books
+and cases.
+
+Sincerely yours,
+
+ELNORA COMSTOCK.
+
+Philip was disappointed over that note and instead of keeping it he
+tore it into bits and dropped them into the waste basket.
+
+That was precisely what Elnora had intended he should do. Christmas
+brought beautiful cards of greeting to Mrs. Comstock and Elnora, Easter
+others, and the year ran rapidly toward spring. Elnora’s position had
+been intensely absorbing, while she had worked with all her power. She
+had made a wonderful success and won new friends. Mrs. Comstock had
+helped in every way she could, so she was very popular also.
+
+Throughout the winter they had enjoyed the city thoroughly, and the
+change of life it afforded, but signs of spring did wonderful things to
+the hearts of the country-bred women. A restlessness began on bright
+February days, calmed during March storms and attacked full force in
+April. When neither could bear it any longer they were forced to
+discuss the matter and admit they were growing ill with pure
+homesickness. They decided to keep the city house during the summer,
+but to return to the farm to live as soon as school closed.
+
+So Mrs. Comstock would prepare breakfast and lunch and then slip away
+to the farm to make up beds in her ploughed garden, plant seeds, trim
+and tend her flowers, and prepare the cabin for occupancy. Then she
+would go home and make the evening as cheerful as possible for Elnora;
+in these days she lived only for the girl.
+
+Both of them were glad when the last of May came and the schools
+closed. They packed the books and clothing they wished to take into a
+wagon and walked across the fields to the old cabin. As they approached
+it, Mrs. Comstock said to Elnora: “You are sure you won’t be lonely
+here?”
+
+Elnora knew what she really meant.
+
+“Quite sure,” she said. “For a time last fall I was glad to be away,
+but that all wore out with the winter. Spring made me homesick as I
+could be. I can scarcely wait until we get back again.”
+
+So they began that summer as they had begun all others—with work. But
+both of them took a new joy in everything, and the violin sang by the
+hour in the twilight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON GIVES A BALL IN HONOUR OF EDITH CARR, AND HART
+HENDERSON APPEARS ON THE SCENE
+
+
+Edith Carr stood in a vine-enclosed side veranda of the Lake Shore Club
+House waiting while Philip Ammon gave some important orders. In a few
+days she would sail for Paris to select a wonderful trousseau she had
+planned for her marriage in October. To-night Philip was giving a club
+dance in her honour. He had spent days in devising new and exquisite
+effects in decorations, entertainment, and supper. Weeks before the
+favoured guests had been notified. Days before they had received the
+invitations asking them to participate in this entertainment by Philip
+Ammon in honour of Miss Carr. They spoke of it as “Phil’s dance for
+Edith!”
+
+She could hear the rumble of carriages and the panting of automobiles
+as in a steady stream they rolled to the front entrance. She could
+catch glimpses of floating draperies of gauze and lace, the flash of
+jewels, and the passing of exquisite colour. Every one was newly
+arrayed in her honour in the loveliest clothing, and the most expensive
+jewels they could command. As she thought of it she lifted her head a
+trifle higher and her eyes flashed proudly.
+
+She was robed in a French creation suggested and designed by Philip. He
+had said to her: “I know a competent judge who says the distinctive
+feature of June is her exquisite big night moths. I want you to be the
+very essence of June that night, as you will be the embodiment of love.
+Be a moth. The most beautiful of them is either the pale-green Luna or
+the Yellow Imperialis. Be my moon lady, or my gold Empress.”
+
+He took her to the museum and showed her the moths. She instantly
+decided on the yellow. Because she knew the shades would make her more
+startlingly beautiful than any other colour. To him she said: “A moon
+lady seems so far away and cold. I would be of earth and very near on
+that night. I choose the Empress.”
+
+So she matched the colours exactly, wrote out the idea and forwarded
+the order to Paquin. To-night when Philip Ammon came for her, he stood
+speechless a minute and then silently kissed her hands.
+
+For she stood tall, lithe, of grace inborn, her dark waving hair high
+piled and crossed by gold bands studded with amethyst and at one side
+an enamelled lavender orchid rimmed with diamonds, which flashed and
+sparkled. The soft yellow robe of lightest weight velvet fitted her
+form perfectly, while from each shoulder fell a great velvet wing lined
+with lavender, and flecked with embroidery of that colour in imitation
+of the moth. Around her throat was a wonderful necklace and on her arms
+were bracelets of gold set with amethyst and rimmed with diamonds.
+Philip had said that her gloves, fan, and slippers must be lavender,
+because the feet of the moth were that colour. These accessories had
+been made to order and embroidered with gold. It had been arranged that
+her mother, Philip’s, and a few best friends should receive his guests.
+She was to appear when she led the grand march with Philip Ammon. Miss
+Carr was positive that she would be the most beautiful, and most
+exquisitely gowned woman present. In her heart she thought of herself
+as “Imperialis Regalis,” as the Yellow Empress. In a few moments she
+would stun her world into feeling it as Philip Ammon had done, for she
+had taken pains that the history of her costume should be whispered to
+a few who would give it circulation. She lifted her head proudly and
+waited, for was not Philip planning something unusual and unsurpassed
+in her honour? Then she smiled.
+
+But of all the fragmentary thoughts crossing her brain the one that
+never came was that of Philip Ammon as the Emperor. Philip the king of
+her heart; at least her equal in all things. She was the Empress—yes,
+Philip was but a mere man, to devise entertainments, to provide
+luxuries, to humour whims, to kiss hands!
+
+“Ah, my luck!” cried a voice behind her.
+
+Edith Carr turned and smiled.
+
+“I thought you were on the ocean,” she said.
+
+“I only reached the dock,” replied the man, “when I had a letter that
+recalled me by the first limited.”
+
+“Oh! Important business?”
+
+“The only business of any importance in all the world to me. I’m
+triumphant that I came. Edith, you are the most superb woman in every
+respect that I have ever seen. One glimpse is worth the whole journey.”
+
+“You like my dress?” She moved toward him and turned, lifting her arms.
+“Do you know what it is intended to represent?”
+
+“Yes, Polly Ammon told me. I knew when I heard about it how you would
+look, so I started a sleuth hunt, to get the first peep. Edith, I can
+become intoxicated merely with looking at you to-night.”
+
+He half-closed his eyes and smilingly stared straight at her. He was
+taller than she, a lean man, with close-cropped light hair, steel-gray
+eyes, a square chin and “man of the world” written all over him.
+
+Edith Carr flushed. “I thought you realized when you went away that you
+were to stop that, Hart Henderson,” she cried.
+
+“I did, but this letter of which I tell you called me back to start it
+all over again.”
+
+She came a step closer. “Who wrote that letter, and what did it contain
+concerning me?” she demanded.
+
+“One of your most intimate chums wrote it. It contained the hazard that
+possibly I had given up too soon. It said that in a fit of petulance
+you had broken your engagement with Ammon twice this winter, and he had
+come back because he knew you did not really mean it. I thought deeply
+there on the dock when I read that, and my boat sailed without me. I
+argued that anything so weak as an engagement twice broken and patched
+up again was a mighty frail affair indeed, and likely to smash
+completely at any time, so I came on the run. I said once I would not
+see you marry any other man. Because I could not bear it, I planned to
+go into exile of any sort to escape that. I have changed my mind. I
+have come back to haunt you until the ceremony is over. Then I go, not
+before. I was insane!”
+
+The girl laughed merrily. “Not half so insane as you are now, Hart!”
+she cried gaily. “You know that Philip Ammon has been devoted to me all
+my life. Now I’ll tell you something else, because this looks serious
+for you. I love him with all my heart. Not while he lives shall he know
+it, and I will laugh at him if you tell him, but the fact remains: I
+intend to marry him, but no doubt I shall tease him constantly. It’s
+good for a man to be uncertain. If you could see Philip’s face at the
+quarterly return of his ring, you would understand the fun of it. You
+had better have taken your boat.”
+
+“Possibly,” said Henderson calmly. “But you are the only woman in the
+world for me, and while you are free, as I now see my light, I remain
+near you. You know the old adage.”
+
+“But I’m not ‘free!’” cried Edith Carr. “I’m telling you I am not. This
+night is my public acknowledgment that Phil and I are promised, as our
+world has surmised since we were children. That promise is an actual
+fact, because of what I just have told you. My little fits of temper
+don’t count with Phil. He’s been reared on them. In fact, I often
+invent one in a perfect calm to see him perform. He is the most amusing
+spectacle. But, please, please, do understand that I love him, and
+always shall, and that we shall be married.”
+
+“Just the same, I’ll wait and see it an accomplished fact,” said
+Henderson. “And Edith, because I love you, with the sort of love it is
+worth a woman’s while to inspire, I want your happiness before my own.
+So I am going to say this to you, for I never dreamed you were capable
+of the feeling you have displayed for Phil. If you do love him, and
+have loved him always, a disappointment would cut you deeper than you
+know. Go careful from now on! Don’t strain that patched engagement of
+yours any further. I’ve known Philip all my life. I’ve known him
+through boyhood, in college, and since. All men respect him. Where the
+rest of us confess our sins, he stands clean. You can go to his arms
+with nothing to forgive. Mark this thing! I have heard him say, ‘Edith
+is my slogan,’ and I have seen him march home strong in the strength of
+his love for you, in the face of temptations before which every other
+man of us fell. Before the gods! that ought to be worth something to a
+girl, if she really is the delicate, sensitive, refined thing she would
+have man believe. It would take a woman with the organism of an ostrich
+to endure some of the men here to-night, if she knew them as I do; but
+Phil is sound to the core. So this is what I would say to you: first,
+your instincts are right in loving him, why not let him feel it in the
+ways a woman knows? Second, don’t break your engagement again. As men
+know the man, any of us would be afraid to the soul. He loves you, yes!
+He is long-suffering for you, yes! But men know he has a limit. When
+the limit is reached, he will stand fast, and all the powers can’t move
+him. You don’t seem to think it, but you can go too far!”
+
+“Is that all?” laughed Edith Carr sarcastically.
+
+“No, there is one thing more,” said Henderson. “Here or here-after, now
+and so long as I breathe, I am your slave. You can do anything you
+choose and know that I will kneel before you again. So carry this in
+the depths of your heart; now or at any time, in any place or
+condition, merely lift your hand, and I will come. Anything you want of
+me, that thing will I do. I am going to wait; if you need me, it is not
+necessary to speak; only give me the faintest sign. All your life I
+will be somewhere near you waiting for it.”
+
+“Idjit! You rave!” laughed Edith Carr. “How you would frighten me! What
+a bugbear you would raise! Be sensible and go find what keeps Phil. I
+was waiting patiently, but my patience is going. I won’t look nearly so
+well as I do now when it is gone.”
+
+At that instant Philip Ammon entered. He was in full evening dress and
+exceptionally handsome. “Everything is ready,” he said; “they are
+waiting for us to lead the march. It is formed.”
+
+Edith Carr smiled entrancingly. “Do you think I am ready?”
+
+Philip looked what he thought, and offered his arm. Edith Carr nodded
+carelessly to Hart Henderson, and moved away. Attendants parted the
+curtains and the Yellow Empress bowing right and left, swept the length
+of the ballroom and took her place at the head of the formed
+procession. The large open dancing pavilion was draped with yellow silk
+caught up with lilac flowers. Every corner was filled with bloom of
+those colours. The music was played by harpers dressed in yellow and
+violet, so the ball opened.
+
+The midnight supper was served with the same colours and the last half
+of the programme was being danced. Never had girl been more
+complimented and petted in the same length of time than Edith Carr.
+Every minute she seemed to grow more worthy of praise. A partners’
+dance was called and the floor was filled with couples waiting for the
+music. Philip stood whispering delightful things to Edith facing him.
+From out of the night, in at the wide front entrance to the pavilion,
+there swept in slow wavering flight a large yellow moth and fluttered
+toward the centre cluster of glaring electric lights. Philip Ammon and
+Edith Carr saw it at the same instant.
+
+“Why, isn’t that——?” she began excitedly.
+
+“It’s a Yellow Emperor! This is fate!” cried Philip. “The last one
+Elnora needs for her collection. I must have it! Excuse me!”
+
+He ran toward the light. “Hats! Handkerchiefs! Fans! Anything!” he
+panted. “Every one hold up something and stop that! It’s a moth; I’ve
+got to catch it!”
+
+“It’s yellow! He wants it for Edith!” ran in a murmur around the hall.
+The girl’s face flushed, while she bit her lips in vexation.
+
+Instantly every one began holding up something to keep the moth from
+flying back into the night. One fan held straight before it served, and
+the moth gently settled on it.
+
+“Hold steady!” cried Philip. “Don’t move for your life!” He rushed
+toward the moth, made a quick sweep and held it up between his fingers.
+“All right!” he called. “Thanks, every one! Excuse me a minute.”
+
+He ran to the office.
+
+“An ounce of gasolene, quick!” he ordered. “A cigar box, a cork, and
+the glue bottle.”
+
+He poured some glue into the bottom of the box, set the cork in it
+firmly, dashed the gasolene over the moth repeatedly, pinned it to the
+cork, poured the remainder of the liquid over it, closed the box, and
+fastened it. Then he laid a bill on the counter.
+
+“Pack that box with cork around it, in one twice its size, tie securely
+and express to this address at once.”
+
+He scribbled on a sheet of paper and shoved it over.
+
+“On your honour, will you do that faithfully as I say?” he asked the
+clerk.
+
+“Certainly,” was the reply.
+
+“Then keep the change,” called Philip as he ran back to the pavilion.
+
+Edith Carr stood where he left her, thinking rapidly. She heard the
+murmur that arose when Philip started to capture the exquisite golden
+creature she was impersonating. She saw the flash of surprise that went
+over unrestrained faces when he ran from the room, without even showing
+it to her. “The last one Elnora needs,” rang in her ears. He had told
+her that he helped collect moths the previous summer, but she had
+understood that the Bird Woman, with whose work Miss Carr was familiar,
+wanted them to put in a book.
+
+He had spoken of a country girl he had met who played the violin
+wonderfully, and at times, he had shown a disposition to exalt her as a
+standard of womanhood. Miss Carr had ignored what he said, and talked
+of something else. But that girl’s name had been Elnora. It was she who
+was collecting moths! No doubt she was the competent judge who was
+responsible for the yellow costume Philip had devised. Had Edith Carr
+been in her room, she would have torn off the dress at the thought.
+
+Being in a circle of her best friends, which to her meant her keenest
+rivals and harshest critics, she grew rigid with anger. Her breath hurt
+her paining chest. No one thought to speak to the musicians, and seeing
+the floor filled, they began the waltz. Only part of the guests could
+see what had happened, and at once the others formed and commenced to
+dance. Gay couples came whirling past her.
+
+Edith Carr grew very white as she stood alone. Her lips turned pale,
+while her dark eyes flamed with anger. She stood perfectly still where
+Philip had left her, and the approaching men guided their partners
+around her, while the girls, looking back, could be seen making
+exclamations of surprise.
+
+The idolized only daughter of the Carr family hoped that she would drop
+dead from mortification, but nothing happened. She was too perverse to
+step aside and say that she was waiting for Philip. Then came Tom
+Levering dancing with Polly Ammon. Being in the scales with the Ammon
+family, Tom scented trouble from afar, so he whispered to Polly: “Edith
+is standing in the middle of the floor, and she’s awful mad about
+something.”
+
+“That won’t hurt her,” laughed Polly. “It’s an old pose of hers. She
+knows she looks superb when she is angry, so she keeps herself furious
+half the time on purpose.”
+
+“She looks like the mischief!” answered Tom. “Hadn’t we better steer
+over and wait with her? She’s the ugliest sight I ever saw!”
+
+“Why, Tom!” cried Polly. “Stop, quickly!”
+
+They hurried to Edith.
+
+“Come dear,” said Polly. “We are going to wait with you until Phil
+returns. Let’s go after a drink. I am so thirsty!”
+
+“Yes, do!” begged Tom, offering his arm. “Let’s get out of here until
+Phil comes.”
+
+There was the opportunity to laugh and walk away, but Edith Carr would
+not accept it.
+
+“My betrothed left me here,” she said. “Here I shall remain until he
+returns for me, and then—he will be my betrothed no longer!”
+
+Polly grasped Edith’s arm.
+
+“Oh, Edith!” she implored. “Don’t make a scene here, and to-night.
+Edith, this has been the loveliest dance ever given at the club house.
+Every one is saying so. Edith! Darling, do come! Phil will be back in a
+second. He can explain! It’s only a breath since I saw him go out. I
+thought he had returned.”
+
+As Polly panted these disjointed ejaculations, Tom Levering began to
+grow angry on her account.
+
+“He has been gone just long enough to show every one of his guests that
+he will leave me standing alone, like a neglected fool, for any passing
+whim of his. Explain! His explanation would sound well! Do you know for
+whom he caught that moth? It is being sent to a girl he flirted with
+all last summer. It has just occurred to me that the dress I am wearing
+is her suggestion. Let him try to explain!”
+
+Speech unloosed the fountain. She stripped off her gloves to free her
+hands. At that instant the dancers parted to admit Philip.
+Instinctively they stopped as they approached and with wondering faces
+walled in Edith and Philip, Polly and Tom.
+
+“Mighty good of you to wait!” cried Philip, his face showing his
+delight over his success in capturing the Yellow Emperor. “I thought
+when I heard the music you were going on.”
+
+“How did you think I was going on?” demanded Edith Carr in frigid
+tones.
+
+“I thought you would step aside and wait a few seconds for me, or dance
+with Henderson. It was most important to have that moth. It completes a
+valuable collection for a person who needs the money. Come!”
+
+He held out his arms.
+
+“I ‘step aside’ for no one!” stormed Edith Carr. “I await no other
+girl’s pleasure! You may ‘complete the collection’ with that!”
+
+She drew her engagement ring from her finger and reached to place it on
+one of Philip’s outstretched hands. He saw and drew back. Instantly
+Edith dropped the ring. As it fell, almost instinctively Philip caught
+it in air. With amazed face he looked closely at Edith Carr. Her
+distorted features were scarcely recognizable. He held the ring toward
+her.
+
+“Edith, for the love of mercy, wait until I can explain,” he begged.
+“Put on your ring and let me tell you how it is.”
+
+“I know perfectly ‘how it is,’” she answered. “I never shall wear that
+ring again.”
+
+“You won’t even hear what I have to say? You won’t take back your
+ring?” he cried.
+
+“Never! Your conduct is infamous!”
+
+“Come to think of it,” said Philip deliberately, “it is ‘infamous’ to
+cut a girl, who has danced all her life, out of a few measures of a
+waltz. As for asking forgiveness for so black a sin as picking up a
+moth, and starting it to a friend who lives by collecting them, I don’t
+see how I could! I have not been gone three minutes by the clock,
+Edith. Put on your ring and finish the dance like a dear girl.”
+
+He thrust the glittering ruby into her fingers and again held out his
+arms. She dropped the ring, and it rolled some distance from them. Hart
+Henderson followed its shining course, and caught it before it was
+lost.
+
+“You really mean it?” demanded Philip in a voice as cold as hers ever
+had been.
+
+“You know I mean it!” cried Edith Carr.
+
+“I accept your decision in the presence of these witnesses,” said
+Philip Ammon. “Where is my father?” The elder Ammon with a distressed
+face hurried to him. “Father, take my place,” said Philip. “Excuse me
+to my guests. Ask all my friends to forgive me. I am going away for
+awhile.”
+
+He turned and walked from the pavilion. As he went Hart Henderson
+rushed to Edith Carr and forced the ring into her fingers. “Edith,
+quick. Come, quick!” he implored. “There’s just time to catch him. If
+you let him go that way, he never will return in this world. Remember
+what I told you.”
+
+“Great prophet! aren’t you, Hart?” she sneered. “Who wants him to
+return? If that ring is thrust upon me again I shall fling it into the
+lake. Signal the musicians to begin, and dance with me.”
+
+Henderson put the ring into his pocket, and began the dance. He could
+feel the muscular spasms of the girl in his arms, her face was cold and
+hard, but her breath burned with the scorch of fever. She finished the
+dance and all others, taking Phil’s numbers with Henderson, who had
+arrived too late to arrange a programme. She left with the others,
+merely inclining her head as she passed Ammon’s father taking his
+place, and entered the big touring car for which Henderson had
+telephoned. She sank limply into a seat and moaned softly.
+
+“Shall I drive awhile in the night air?” asked Henderson.
+
+She nodded. He instructed the chauffeur.
+
+She raised her head in a few seconds. “Hart, I’m going to pieces,” she
+said. “Won’t you put your arm around me a little while?”
+
+Henderson gathered her into his arms and her head fell on his shoulder.
+“Closer!” she cried.
+
+Henderson held her until his arms were numb, but he did not know it.
+The tricks of fate are cruel enough, but there scarcely could have been
+a worse one than that: To care for a woman as he loved Edith Carr and
+have her given into his arms because she was so numb with misery over
+her trouble with another man that she did not know or care what she
+did. Dawn was streaking the east when he spoke to her.
+
+“Edith, it is growing light.”
+
+“Take me home,” she said.
+
+Henderson helped her up the steps and rang the bell.
+
+“Miss Carr is ill,” he said to the footman. “Arouse her maid instantly,
+and have her prepare something hot as quickly as possible.”
+
+“Edith,” he cried, “just a word. I have been thinking. It isn’t too
+late yet. Take your ring and put it on. I will go find Phil at once and
+tell him you have, that you are expecting him, and he will come.”
+
+“Think what he said!” she cried. “He accepted my decision as final, ‘in
+the presence of witnesses,’ as if it were court. He can return it to
+me, if I ever wear it again.”
+
+“You think that now, but in a few days you will find that you feel very
+differently. Living a life of heartache is no joke, and no job for a
+woman. Put on your ring and send me to tell him to come.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Edith, there was not a soul who saw that, but sympathized with Phil.
+It was ridiculous for you to get so angry over a thing which was never
+intended for the slightest offence, and by no logical reasoning could
+have been so considered.”
+
+“Do you think that?” she demanded.
+
+“I do!” said Henderson. “If you had laughed and stepped aside an
+instant, or laughed and stayed where you were, Phil would have been
+back; or, if he needed punishment in your eyes, to have found me having
+one of his dances would have been enough. I was waiting. You could have
+called me with one look. But to publicly do and say what you did, my
+lady—I know Phil, and I know you went too far. Put on that ring, and
+send him word you are sorry, before it is too late.”
+
+“I will not! He shall come to me.”
+
+“Then God help you!” said Henderson, “for you are plunging into misery
+whose depth you do not dream. Edith, I beg of you——”
+
+She swayed where she stood. Her maid opened the door and caught her.
+Henderson went down the hall and out to his car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+WHEREIN THE ELDER AMMON OFFERS ADVICE, AND EDITH CARR EXPERIENCES
+REGRETS
+
+
+Philip Ammon walked from among his friends a humiliated and a wounded
+man. Never before had Edith Carr appeared quite so beautiful. All
+evening she had treated him with unusual consideration. Never had he
+loved her so deeply. Then in a few seconds everything was different.
+Seeing the change in her face, and hearing her meaningless accusations,
+killed something in his heart. Warmth went out and a cold weight took
+its place. But even after that, he had offered the ring to her again,
+and asked her before others to reconsider. The answer had been further
+insult.
+
+He walked, paying no heed to where he went. He had traversed many miles
+when he became aware that his feet had chosen familiar streets. He was
+passing his home. Dawn was near, but the first floor was lighted. He
+staggered up the steps and was instantly admitted. The library door
+stood open, while his father sat with a book pretending to read. At
+Philip’s entrance the father scarcely glanced up.
+
+“Come on!” he called. “I have just told Banks to bring me a cup of
+coffee before I turn in. Have one with me!”
+
+Philip sat beside the table and leaned his head on his hands, but he
+drank a cup of steaming coffee and felt better.
+
+“Father,” he said, “father, may I talk with you a little while?”
+
+“Of course,” answered Mr. Ammon. “I am not at all tired. I think I must
+have been waiting in the hope that you would come. I want no one’s
+version of this but yours. Tell me the straight of the thing, Phil.”
+
+Philip told all he knew, while his father sat in deep thought.
+
+“On my life I can’t see any occasion for such a display of temper,
+Phil. It passed all bounds of reason and breeding. Can’t you think of
+anything more?”
+
+“I cannot!”
+
+“Polly says every one expected you to carry the moth you caught to
+Edith. Why didn’t you?”
+
+“She screams if a thing of that kind comes near her. She never has
+taken the slightest interest in them. I was in a big hurry. I didn’t
+want to miss one minute of my dance with her. The moth was not so
+uncommon, but by a combination of bad luck it had become the rarest in
+America for a friend of mine, who is making a collection to pay college
+expenses. For an instant last June the series was completed; when a
+woman’s uncontrolled temper ruined this specimen and the search for it
+began over. A few days later a pair was secured, and again the money
+was in sight for several hours. Then an accident wrecked one-fourth of
+the collection. I helped replace those last June, all but this Yellow
+Emperor which we could not secure, and we haven’t been able to find,
+buy or trade for one since. So my friend was compelled to teach this
+past winter instead of going to college. When that moth came flying in
+there to-night, it seemed to me like fate. All I thought of was, that
+to secure it would complete the collection and secure the money. So I
+caught the Emperor and started it to Elnora. I declare to you that I
+was not out of the pavilion over three minutes at a liberal estimate.
+If I only had thought to speak to the orchestra! I was sure I would be
+back before enough couples gathered and formed for the dance.”
+
+The eyes of the father were very bright.
+
+“The friend for whom you wanted the moth is a girl?” he asked
+indifferently, as he ran the book leaves through his fingers.
+
+“The girl of whom I wrote you last summer, and told you about in the
+fall. I helped her all the time I was away.”
+
+“Did Edith know of her?”
+
+“I tried many times to tell her, to interest her, but she was so
+indifferent that it was insulting. She would not hear me.”
+
+“We are neither one in any condition to sleep. Why don’t you begin at
+the first and tell me about this girl? To think of other matters for a
+time may clear our vision for a sane solution of this. Who is she, just
+what is she doing, and what is she like? You know I was reared among
+those Limberlost people, I can understand readily. What is her name and
+where does she live?”
+
+Philip gave a man’s version of the previous summer, while his father
+played with the book industriously.
+
+“You are very sure as to her refinement and education?”
+
+“In almost two months’ daily association, could a man be mistaken? She
+can far and away surpass Polly, Edith, or any girl of our set on any
+common, high school, or supplementary branch, and you know high schools
+have French, German, and physics now. Besides, she is a graduate of two
+other institutions. All her life she has been in the school of Hard
+Knocks. She has the biggest, tenderest, most human heart I ever knew in
+a girl. She has known life in its most cruel phases, and instead of
+hardening her, it has set her trying to save other people suffering.
+Then this nature position of which I told you; she graduated in the
+School of the Woods, before she secured that. The Bird Woman, whose
+work you know, helped her there. Elnora knows more interesting things
+in a minute than any other girl I ever met knew in an hour, provided
+you are a person who cares to understand plant and animal life.”
+
+The book leaves slid rapidly through his fingers as the father drawled:
+“What sort of looking girl is she?”
+
+“Tall as Edith, a little heavier, pink, even complexion, wide open
+blue-gray eyes with heavy black brows, and lashes so long they touch
+her cheeks. She has a rope of waving, shining hair that makes a real
+crown on her head, and it appears almost red in the light. She is as
+handsome as any fair woman I ever saw, but she doesn’t know it. Every
+time any one pays her a compliment, her mother, who is a caution,
+discovers that, for some reason, the girl is a fright, so she has no
+appreciation of her looks.”
+
+“And you were in daily association two months with a girl like that!
+How about it, Phil?”
+
+“If you mean, did I trifle with her, no!” cried Philip hotly. “I told
+her the second time I met her all about Edith. Almost every day I wrote
+to Edith in her presence. Elnora gathered violets and made a fancy
+basket to put them in for Edith’s birthday. I started to err in too
+open admiration for Elnora, but her mother brought me up with a whirl I
+never forgot. Fifty times a day in the swamps and forests Elnora made a
+perfect picture, but I neither looked nor said anything. I never met
+any girl so downright noble in bearing and actions. I never hated
+anything as I hated leaving her, for we were dear friends, like two
+wholly congenial men. Her mother was almost always with us. She knew
+how much I admired Elnora, but so long as I concealed it from the girl,
+the mother did not care.”
+
+“Yet you left such a girl and came back whole-hearted to Edith Carr!”
+
+“Surely! You know how it has been with me about Edith all my life.”
+
+“Yet the girl you picture is far her superior to an unprejudiced
+person, when thinking what a man would require in a wife to be happy.”
+
+“I never have thought what I would ‘require’ to be happy! I only
+thought whether I could make Edith happy. I have been an idiot! What
+I’ve borne you’ll never know! To-night is only one of many outbursts
+like that, in varying and lesser degrees.”
+
+“Phil, I love you, when you say you have thought only of Edith! I
+happen to know that it is true. You are my only son, and I have had a
+right to watch you closely. I believe you utterly. Any one who cares
+for you as I do, and has had my years of experience in this world over
+yours, knows that in some ways, to-night would be a blessed release, if
+you could take it; but you cannot! Go to bed now, and rest. To-morrow,
+go back to her and fix it up.”
+
+“You heard what I said when I left her! I said it because something in
+my heart died a minute before that, and I realized that it was my love
+for Edith Carr. Never again will I voluntarily face such a scene. If
+she can act like that at a ball, before hundreds, over a thing of which
+I thought nothing at all, she would go into actual physical fits and
+spasms, over some of the household crises I’ve seen the mater meet with
+a smile. Sir, it is truth that I have thought only of her up to the
+present. Now, I will admit I am thinking about myself. Father, did you
+see her? Life is too short, and it can be too sweet, to throw it away
+in a battle with an unrestrained woman. I am no fighter—where a girl is
+concerned, anyway. I respect and love her or I do nothing. Never again
+is either respect or love possible between me and Edith Carr. Whenever
+I think of her in the future, I will see her as she was to-night. But I
+can’t face the crowd just yet. Could you spare me a few days?”
+
+“It is only ten days until you were to go north for the summer, go
+now.”
+
+“I don’t want to go north. I don’t want to meet people I know. There,
+the story would precede me. I do not need pitying glances or rough
+condolences. I wonder if I could not hide at Uncle Ed’s in Wisconsin
+for awhile?”
+
+The book closed suddenly. The father leaned across the table and looked
+into the son’s eyes.
+
+“Phil, are you sure of what you just have said?”
+
+“Perfectly sure!”
+
+“Do you think you are in any condition to decide to-night?”
+
+“Death cannot return to life, father. My love for Edith Carr is dead. I
+hope never to see her again.”
+
+“If I thought you could be certain so soon! But, come to think of it,
+you are very like me in many ways. I am with you in this. Public scenes
+and disgraces I would not endure. It would be over with me, were I in
+your position, that I know.”
+
+“It is done for all time,” said Philip Ammon. “Let us not speak of it
+further.”
+
+“Then, Phil,” the father leaned closer and looked at the son tenderly,
+“Phil, why don’t you go to the Limberlost?”
+
+“Father!”
+
+“Why not? No one can comfort a hurt heart like a tender woman; and,
+Phil, have you ever stopped to think that you may have a duty in the
+Limberlost, if you are free? I don’t know! I only suggest it. But, for
+a country schoolgirl, unaccustomed to men, two months with a man like
+you might well awaken feelings of which you do not think. Because you
+were safe-guarded is no sign the girl was. She might care to see you.
+You can soon tell. With you, she comes next to Edith, and you have made
+it clear to me that you appreciate her in many ways above. So I repeat
+it, why not go to the Limberlost?”
+
+A long time Philip Ammon sat in deep thought. At last he raised his
+head.
+
+“Well, why not!” he said. “Years could make me no surer than I am now,
+and life is short. Please ask Banks to get me some coffee and toast,
+and I will bathe and dress so I can take the early train.”
+
+“Go to your bath. I will attend to your packing and everything. And
+Phil, if I were you, I would leave no addresses.”
+
+“Not an address!” said Philip. “Not even Polly.”
+
+When the train pulled out, the elder Ammon went home to find Hart
+Henderson waiting.
+
+“Where is Phil?” he demanded.
+
+“He did not feel like facing his friends at present, and I am just back
+from driving him to the station. He said he might go to Siam, or
+Patagonia. He would leave no address.”
+
+Henderson almost staggered. “He’s not gone? And left no address? You
+don’t mean it! He’ll never forgive her!”
+
+“Never is a long time, Hart,” said Mr. Ammon. “And it seems even longer
+to those of us who are well acquainted with Phil. Last night was not
+the last straw. It was the whole straw-stack. It crushed Phil so far as
+she is concerned. He will not see her again voluntarily, and he will
+not forget if he does. You can take it from him, and from me, we have
+accepted the lady’s decision. Will you have a cup of coffee?”
+
+Twice Henderson opened his lips to speak of Edith Carr’s despair. Twice
+he looked into the stern, inflexible face of Mr. Ammon and could not
+betray her. He held out the ring.
+
+“I have no instructions as to that,” said the elder Ammon, drawing
+back. “Possibly Miss Carr would have it as a keepsake.”
+
+“I am sure not,” said Henderson curtly.
+
+“Then suppose you return it to Peacock. I will phone him. He will give
+you the price of it, and you might add it to the children’s Fresh Air
+Fund. We would be obliged if you would do that. No one here cares to
+handle the object.”
+
+“As you choose,” said Henderson. “Good morning!”
+
+Then he went to his home, but he could not think of sleep. He ordered
+breakfast, but he could not eat. He paced the library for a time, but
+it was too small. Going on the streets he walked until exhausted, then
+he called a hansom and was driven to his club. He had thought himself
+familiar with every depth of suffering; that night had taught him that
+what he felt for himself was not to be compared with the anguish which
+wrung his heart over the agony of Edith Carr. He tried to blame Philip
+Ammon, but being an honest man, Henderson knew that was unjust. The
+fault lay wholly with her, but that only made it harder for him, as he
+realized it would in time for her.
+
+As he sauntered into the room an attendant hurried to him.
+
+“You are wanted most urgently at the ’phone, Mr. Henderson,” he said.
+“You have had three calls from Main 5770.”
+
+Henderson shivered as he picked down the receiver and gave the call.
+
+“Is that you, Hart?” came Edith’s voice.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Did you find Phil?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Did you try?”
+
+“Yes. As soon as I left you I went straight there.”
+
+“Wasn’t he home yet?”
+
+“He has been home and gone again.”
+
+“Gone!”
+
+The cry tore Henderson’s heart.
+
+“Shall I come and tell you, Edith?”
+
+“No! Tell me now.”
+
+“When I reached the house Banks said Mr. Ammon and Phil were out in the
+motor, so I waited. Mr. Ammon came back soon. Edith, are you alone?”
+
+“Yes. Go on!”
+
+“Call your maid. I can’t tell you until some one is with you.”
+
+“Tell me instantly!”
+
+“Edith, he said he had been to the station. He said Phil had started to
+Siam or Patagonia, he didn’t know which, and left no address. He
+said——”
+
+Distinctly Henderson heard her fall. He set the buzzer ringing, and in
+a few seconds heard voices, so he knew she had been found. Then he
+crept into a private den and shook with a hard, nervous chill.
+
+The next day Edith Carr started on her trip to Europe. Henderson felt
+certain she hoped to meet Philip there. He was sure she would be
+disappointed, though he had no idea where Ammon could have gone. But
+after much thought he decided he would see Edith soonest by remaining
+at home, so he spent the summer in Chicago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON RETURNS TO THE LIMBERLOST, AND ELNORA STUDIES THE
+SITUATION
+
+
+“We must be thinking about supper, mother,” said Elnora, while she set
+the wings of a Cecropia with much care. “It seems as if I can’t get
+enough to eat, or enough of being at home. I enjoyed that city house. I
+don’t believe I could have done my work if I had been compelled to walk
+back and forth. I thought at first I never wanted to come here again.
+Now, I feel as if I could not live anywhere else.”
+
+“Elnora,” said Mrs. Comstock, “there’s some one coming down the road.”
+
+“Coming here, do you think?”
+
+“Yes, coming here, I suspect.”
+
+Elnora glanced quickly at her mother and then turned to the road as
+Philip Ammon reached the gate.
+
+“Careful, mother!” the girl instantly warned. “If you change your
+treatment of him a hair’s breadth, he will suspect. Come with me to
+meet him.”
+
+She dropped her work and sprang up.
+
+“Well, of all the delightful surprises!” she cried.
+
+She was a trifle thinner than during the previous summer. On her face
+there was a more mature, patient look, but the sun struck her bare head
+with the same ray of red gold. She wore one of the old blue gingham
+dresses, open at the throat and rolled to the elbows. Mrs. Comstock did
+not appear at all the same woman, but Philip saw only Elnora; heard
+only her greeting. He caught both hands where she offered but one.
+
+“Elnora,” he cried, “if you were engaged to me, and we were at a ball,
+among hundreds, where I offended you very much, and didn’t even know I
+had done anything, and if I asked you before all of them to allow me to
+explain, to forgive me, to wait, would your face grow distorted and
+unfamiliar with anger? Would you drop my ring on the floor and insult
+me repeatedly? Oh Elnora, would you?”
+
+Elnora’s big eyes seemed to leap, while her face grew very white. She
+drew away her hands.
+
+“Hush, Phil! Hush!” she protested. “That fever has you again! You are
+dreadfully ill. You don’t know what you are saying.”
+
+“I am sleepless and exhausted; I’m heartsick; but I am well as I ever
+was. Answer me, Elnora, would you?”
+
+“Answer nothing!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “Answer nothing! Hang your coat
+there on your nail, Phil, and come split some kindling. Elnora, clean
+away that stuff, and set the table. Can’t you see the boy is starved
+and tired? He’s come home to rest and eat a decent meal. Come on,
+Phil!”
+
+Mrs. Comstock marched away, and Philip hung his coat in its old place
+and followed. Out of sight and hearing she turned on him.
+
+“Do you call yourself a man or a hound?” she flared.
+
+“I beg your pardon——” stammered Philip Ammon.
+
+“I should think you would!” she ejaculated. “I’ll admit you did the
+square thing and was a man last summer, though I’d liked it better if
+you’d faced up and told me you were promised; but to come back here
+babying, and take hold of Elnora like that, and talk that way because
+you have had a fuss with your girl, I don’t tolerate. Split that
+kindling and I’ll get your supper, and then you better go. I won’t have
+you working on Elnora’s big heart, because you have quarrelled with
+some one else. You’ll have it patched up in a week and be gone again,
+so you can go right away.”
+
+“Mrs. Comstock, I came to ask Elnora to marry me.”
+
+“The more fool you, then!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “This time yesterday
+you were engaged to another woman, no doubt. Now, for some little
+flare-up you come racing here to use Elnora as a tool to spite the
+other girl. A week of sane living, and you will be sorry and ready to
+go back to Chicago, or, if you really are man enough to be sure of
+yourself, she will come to claim you. She has her rights. An engagement
+of years is a serious matter, and not broken for a whim. If you don’t
+go, she’ll come. Then, when you patch up your affairs and go sailing
+away together, where does my girl come in?”
+
+“I am a lawyer, Mrs. Comstock,” said Philip. “It appeals to me as
+beneath your ordinary sense of justice to decide a case without hearing
+the evidence. It is due me that you hear me first.”
+
+“Hear your side!” flashed Mrs. Comstock. “I’d a heap sight rather hear
+the girl!”
+
+“I wish to my soul that you had heard and seen her last night, Mrs.
+Comstock,” said Ammon. “Then, my way would be clear. I never even
+thought of coming here to-day. I’ll admit I would have come in time,
+but not for many months. My father sent me.”
+
+“Your father sent you! Why?”
+
+“Father, mother, and Polly were present last night. They, and all my
+friends, saw me insulted and disgraced in the worst exhibition of
+uncontrolled temper any of us ever witnessed. All of them knew it was
+the end. Father liked what I had told him of Elnora, and he advised me
+to come here, so I came. If she does not want me, I can leave
+instantly, but, oh I hoped she would understand!”
+
+“You people are not splitting wood,” called Elnora.
+
+“Oh yes we are!” answered Mrs. Comstock. “You set out the things for
+biscuit, and lay the table.” She turned again to Philip. “I know
+considerable about your father,” she said. “I have met your Uncle’s
+family frequently this winter. I’ve heard your Aunt Anna say that she
+didn’t at all like Miss Carr, and that she and all your family secretly
+hoped that something would happen to prevent your marrying her. That
+chimes right in with your saying that your father sent you here. I
+guess you better speak your piece.”
+
+Philip gave his version of the previous night.
+
+“Do you believe me?” he finished.
+
+“Yes,” said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“May I stay?”
+
+“Oh, it looks all right for you, but what about her?”
+
+“Nothing, so far as I am concerned. Her plans were all made to start to
+Europe to-day. I suspect she is on the way by this time. Elnora is very
+sensible, Mrs. Comstock. Hadn’t you better let her decide this?”
+
+“The final decision rests with her, of course,” admitted Mrs. Comstock.
+“But look you one thing! She’s all I have. As Solomon says, ‘she is the
+one child, the only child of her mother.’ I’ve suffered enough in this
+world that I fight against any suffering which threatens her. So far as
+I know you’ve always been a man, and you may stay. But if you bring
+tears and heartache to her, don’t have the assurance to think I’ll bear
+it tamely. I’ll get right up and fight like a catamount, if things go
+wrong for Elnora!”
+
+“I have no doubt but you will,” replied Philip, “and I don’t blame you
+in the least if you do. I have the utmost devotion to offer Elnora, a
+good home, fair social position, and my family will love her dearly.
+Think it over. I know it is sudden, but my father advised it.”
+
+“Yes, I reckon he did!” said Mrs. Comstock dryly. “I guess instead of
+me being the catamount, you had the genuine article up in Chicago,
+masquerading in peacock feathers, and posing as a fine lady, until her
+time came to scratch. Human nature seems to be the same the world over.
+But I’d give a pretty to know that secret thing you say you don’t, that
+set her raving over your just catching a moth for Elnora. You might get
+that crock of strawberries in the spring house.”
+
+They prepared and ate supper. Afterward they sat in the arbour and
+talked, or Elnora played until time for Philip to go.
+
+“Will you walk to the gate with me?” he asked Elnora as he arose.
+
+“Not to-night,” she answered lightly. “Come early in the morning if you
+like, and we will go over to Sleepy Snake Creek and hunt moths and
+gather dandelions for dinner.”
+
+Philip leaned toward her. “May I tell you to-morrow why I came?” he
+asked.
+
+“I think not,” replied Elnora. “The fact is, I don’t care why you came.
+It is enough for me that we are your very good friends, and that in
+trouble, you have found us a refuge. I fancy we had better live a week
+or two before you say anything. There is a possibility that what you
+have to say may change in that length of time.
+
+“It will not change one iota!” cried Philip.
+
+“Then it will have the grace of that much age to give it some small
+touch of flavour,” said the girl. “Come early in the morning.”
+
+She lifted the violin and began to play.
+
+“Well bless my soul!” ejaculated the astounded Mrs. Comstock. “To think
+I was worrying for fear you couldn’t take care of yourself!”
+
+Elnora laughed while she played.
+
+“Shall I tell you what he said?”
+
+“Nope! I don’t want to hear it!” said Elnora. “He is only six hours
+from Chicago. I’ll give her a week to find him and fix it up, if he
+stays that long. If she doesn’t put in an appearance then, he can tell
+me what he wants to say, and I’ll take my time to think it over. Time
+in plenty, too! There are three of us in this, and one must be left
+with a sore heart for life. If the decision rests with me I propose to
+be very sure that it is the one who deserves such hard luck.”
+
+The next morning Philip came early, dressed in the outing clothing he
+had worn the previous summer, and aside from a slight paleness seemed
+very much the same as when he left. Elnora met him on the old footing,
+and for a week life went on exactly as it had the previous summer. Mrs.
+Comstock made mental notes and watched in silence. She could see that
+Elnora was on a strain, though she hoped Philip would not. The girl
+grew restless as the week drew to a close. Once when the gate clicked
+she suddenly lost colour and moved nervously. Billy came down the walk.
+
+Philip leaned toward Mrs. Comstock and said: “I am expressly forbidden
+to speak to Elnora as I would like. Would you mind telling her for me
+that I had a letter from my father this morning saying that Miss Carr
+is on her way to Europe for the summer?”
+
+“Elnora,” said Mrs. Comstock promptly, “I have just heard that Carr
+woman is on her way to Europe, and I wish to my gracious stars she’d
+stay there!”
+
+Philip Ammon shouted, but Elnora arose hastily and went to meet Billy.
+They came into the arbour together and after speaking to Mrs. Comstock
+and Philip, Billy said: “Uncle Wesley and I found something funny, and
+we thought you’d like to see.”
+
+“I don’t know what I should do without you and Uncle Wesley to help
+me,” said Elnora. “What have you found now?”
+
+“Something I couldn’t bring. You have to come to it. I tried to get one
+and I killed it. They are a kind of insecty things, and they got a long
+tail that is three fine hairs. They stick those hairs right into the
+hard bark of trees, and if you pull, the hairs stay fast and it kills
+the bug.”
+
+“We will come at once,” laughed Elnora. “I know what they are, and I
+can use some in my work.”
+
+“Billy, have you been crying?” inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+Billy lifted a chastened face. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “This has been
+the worst day.”
+
+“What’s the matter with the day?”
+
+“The day is all right,” admitted Billy. “I mean every single thing has
+gone wrong with me.”
+
+“Now that is too bad!” sympathized Mrs. Comstock.
+
+“Began early this morning,” said Billy. “All Snap’s fault, too.”
+
+“What has poor Snap been doing?” demanded Mrs. Comstock, her eyes
+beginning to twinkle.
+
+“Digging for woodchucks, like he always does. He gets up at two o’clock
+to dig for them. He was coming in from the woods all tired and covered
+thick with dirt. I was going to the barn with the pail of water for
+Uncle Wesley to use in milking. I had to set down the pail to shut the
+gate so the chickens wouldn’t get into the flower beds, and old Snap
+stuck his dirty nose into the water and began to lap it down. I knew
+Uncle Wesley wouldn’t use that, so I had to go ‘way back to the cistern
+for more, and it pumps awful hard. Made me mad, so I threw the water on
+Snap.”
+
+“Well, what of it?”
+
+“Nothing, if he’d stood still. But it scared him awful, and when he’s
+afraid he goes a-humping for Aunt Margaret. When he got right up
+against her he stiffened out and gave a big shake. You oughter seen the
+nice blue dress she had put on to go to Onabasha!”
+
+Mrs. Comstock and Philip laughed, but Elnora put her arms around the
+boy. “Oh Billy!” she cried. “That was too bad!”
+
+“She got up early and ironed that dress to wear because it was cool.
+Then, when it was all dirty, she wouldn’t go, and she wanted to real
+bad.” Billy wiped his eyes. “That ain’t all, either,” he added.
+
+“We’d like to know about it, Billy,” suggested Mrs. Comstock,
+struggling with her face.
+
+“Cos she couldn’t go to the city, she’s most worked herself to death.
+She’s done all the dirty, hard jobs she could find. She’s fixing her
+grape juice now.”
+
+“Sure!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “When a woman is disappointed she always
+works like a dog to gain sympathy!”
+
+“Well, Uncle Wesley and I are sympathizing all we know how, without her
+working so. I’ve squeezed until I almost busted to get the juice out
+from the seeds and skins. That’s the hard part. Now, she has to strain
+it through white flannel and seal it in bottles, and it’s good for sick
+folks. Most wish I’d get sick myself, so I could have a glass. It’s so
+good!”
+
+Elnora glanced swiftly at her mother.
+
+“I worked so hard,” continued Billy, “that she said if I would throw
+the leavings in the woods, then I could come after you to see about the
+bugs. Do you want to go?”
+
+“We will all go,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I am mightily interested in
+those bugs myself.”
+
+From afar commotion could be seen at the Sinton home. Wesley and
+Margaret were running around wildly and peculiar sounds filled the air.
+
+“What’s the trouble?” asked Philip, hurrying to Wesley.
+
+“Cholera!” groaned Sinton. “My hogs are dying like flies.”
+
+Margaret was softly crying. “Wesley, can’t I fix something hot? Can’t
+we do anything? It means several hundred dollars and our winter meat.”
+
+“I never saw stock taken so suddenly and so hard,” said Wesley. “I have
+’phoned for the veterinary to come as soon as he can get here.”
+
+All of them hurried to the feeding pen into which the pigs seemed to be
+gathering from the woods. Among the common stock were big white beasts
+of pedigree which were Wesley’s pride at county fairs. Several of these
+rolled on their backs, pawing the air feebly and emitting little
+squeaks. A huge Berkshire sat on his haunches, slowly shaking his head,
+the water dropping from his eyes, until he, too, rolled over with faint
+grunts. A pair crossing the yard on wavering legs collided, and
+attacked each other in anger, only to fall, so weak they scarcely could
+squeal. A fine snowy Plymouth Rock rooster, after several attempts,
+flew to the fence, balanced with great effort, wildly flapped his wings
+and started a guttural crow, but fell sprawling among the pigs, too
+helpless to stand.
+
+“Did you ever see such a dreadful sight?” sobbed Margaret.
+
+Billy climbed on the fence, took one long look and turned an astounded
+face to Wesley.
+
+“Why them pigs is drunk!” he cried. “They act just like my pa!”
+
+Wesley turned to Margaret.
+
+“Where did you put the leavings from that grape juice?” he demanded.
+
+“I sent Billy to throw it in the woods.”
+
+“Billy——” began Wesley.
+
+“Threw it just where she told me to,” cried Billy. “But some of the
+pigs came by there coming into the pen, and some were close in the
+fence corners.”
+
+“Did they eat it?” demanded Wesley.
+
+“They just chanked into it,” replied Billy graphically. “They pushed,
+and squealed, and fought over it. You couldn’t blame ’em! It was the
+best stuff I ever tasted!”
+
+“Margaret,” said Wesley, “run ’phone that doctor he won’t be needed.
+Billy, take Elnora and Mr. Ammon to see the bugs. Katharine, suppose
+you help me a minute.”
+
+Wesley took the clothes basket from the back porch and started in the
+direction of the cellar. Margaret returned from the telephone.
+
+“I just caught him,” she said. “There’s that much saved. Why Wesley,
+what are you going to do?”
+
+“You go sit on the front porch a little while,” said Wesley. “You will
+feel better if you don’t see this.”
+
+“Wesley,” cried Margaret aghast. “Some of that wine is ten years old.
+There are days and days of hard work in it, and I couldn’t say how much
+sugar. Dr. Ammon keeps people alive with it when nothing else will stay
+on their stomachs.”
+
+“Let ’em die, then!” said Wesley. “You heard the boy, didn’t you?”
+
+“It’s a cold process. There’s not a particle of fermentation about it.”
+
+“Not a particle of fermentation! Great day, Margaret! Look at those
+pigs!”
+
+Margaret took a long look. “Leave me a few bottles for mince-meat,” she
+wavered.
+
+“Not a smell for any use on this earth! You heard the boy! He shan’t
+say, when he grows to manhood, that he learned to like it here!”
+
+Wesley threw away the wine, Mrs. Comstock cheerfully assisting. Then
+they walked to the woods to see and learn about the wonderful insects.
+The day ended with a big supper at Sintons’, and then they went to the
+Comstock cabin for a concert. Elnora played beautifully that night.
+When the Sintons left she kissed Billy with particular tenderness. She
+was so moved that she was kinder to Philip than she had intended to be,
+and Elnora as an antidote to a disappointed lover was a decided success
+in any mood.
+
+However strong the attractions of Edith Carr had been, once the bond
+was finally broken, Philip Ammon could not help realizing that Elnora
+was the superior woman, and that he was fortunate to have escaped, when
+he regarded his ties strongest. Every day, while working with Elnora,
+he saw more to admire. He grew very thankful that he was free to try to
+win her, and impatient to justify himself to her.
+
+Elnora did not evince the slightest haste to hear what he had to say,
+but waited the week she had set, in spite of Philip’s hourly manifest
+impatience. When she did consent to listen, Philip felt before he had
+talked five minutes, that she was putting herself in Edith Carr’s
+place, and judging him from what the other girl’s standpoint would be.
+That was so disconcerting, he did not plead his cause nearly so well as
+he had hoped, for when he ceased Elnora sat in silence.
+
+“You are my judge,” he said at last. “What is your verdict?”
+
+“If I could hear her speak from her heart as I just have heard you,
+then I could decide,” answered Elnora.
+
+“She is on the ocean,” said Philip. “She went because she knew she was
+wholly in the wrong. She had nothing to say, or she would have
+remained.”
+
+“That sounds plausible,” reasoned Elnora, “but it is pretty difficult
+to find a woman in an affair that involves her heart with nothing at
+all to say. I fancy if I could meet her, she would say several things.
+I should love to hear them. If I could talk with her three minutes, I
+could tell what answer to make you.”
+
+“Don’t you believe me, Elnora?”
+
+“Unquestioningly,” answered Elnora. “But I would believe her also. If
+only I could meet her I soon would know.”
+
+“I don’t see how that is to be accomplished,” said Philip, “but I am
+perfectly willing. There is no reason why you should not meet her,
+except that she probably would lose her temper and insult you.”
+
+“Not to any extent,” said Elnora calmly. “I have a tongue of my own,
+while I am not without some small sense of personal values.”
+
+Philip glanced at her and began to laugh. Very different of facial
+formation and colouring, Elnora at times closely resembled her mother.
+She joined in his laugh ruefully.
+
+“The point is this,” she said. “Some one is going to be hurt, most
+dreadfully. If the decision as to whom it shall be rests with me, I
+must know it is the right one. Of course, no one ever hinted it to you,
+but you are a very attractive man, Philip. You are mighty good to look
+at, and you have a trained, refined mind, that makes you most
+interesting. For years Edith Carr has felt that you were hers. Now, how
+is she going to change? I have been thinking—thinking deep and long,
+Phil. If I were in her place, I simply could not give you up, unless
+you had made yourself unworthy of love. Undoubtedly, you never seemed
+so desirable to her as just now, when she is told she can’t have you.
+What I think is that she will come to claim you yet.”
+
+“You overlook the fact that it is not in a woman’s power to throw away
+a man and pick him up at pleasure,” said Philip with some warmth. “She
+publicly and repeatedly cast me off. I accepted her decision as
+publicly as it was made. You have done all your thinking from a wrong
+viewpoint. You seem to have an idea that it lies with you to decide
+what I shall do, that if you say the word, I shall return to Edith. Put
+that thought out of your head! Now, and for all time to come, she is a
+matter of indifference to me. She killed all feeling in my heart for
+her so completely that I do not even dread meeting her.
+
+“If I hated her, or was angry with her, I could not be sure the feeling
+would not die. As it is, she has deadened me into a creature of
+indifference. So you just revise your viewpoint a little, Elnora. Cease
+thinking it is for you to decide what I shall do, and that I will obey
+you. I make my own decisions in reference to any woman, save you. The
+question you are to decide is whether I may remain here, associating
+with you as I did last summer; but with the difference that it is
+understood that I am free; that it is my intention to care for you all
+I please, to make you return my feeling for you if I can. There is just
+one question for you to decide, and it is not triangular. It is between
+us. May I remain? May I love you? Will you give me the chance to prove
+what I think of you?”
+
+“You speak very plainly,” said Elnora.
+
+“This is the time to speak plainly,” said Philip Ammon. “There is no
+use in allowing you to go on threshing out a problem which does not
+exist. If you do not want me here, say so and I will go. Of course, I
+warn you before I start, that I will come back. I won’t yield without
+the stiffest fight it is in me to make. But drop thinking it lies in
+your power to send me back to Edith Carr. If she were the last woman in
+the world, and I the last man, I’d jump off the planet before I would
+give her further opportunity to exercise her temper on me. Narrow this
+to us, Elnora. Will you take the place she vacated? Will you take the
+heart she threw away? I’d give my right hand and not flinch, if I could
+offer you my life, free from any contact with hers, but that is not
+possible. I can’t undo things which are done. I can only profit by
+experience and build better in the future.”
+
+“I don’t see how you can be sure of yourself,” said Elnora. “I don’t
+see how I could be sure of you. You loved her first, you never can care
+for me anything like that. Always I’d have to be afraid you were
+thinking of her and regretting.”
+
+“Folly!” cried Philip. “Regretting what? That I was not married to a
+woman who was liable to rave at me any time or place, without my being
+conscious of having given offence? A man does relish that! I am likely
+to pine for more!”
+
+“You’d be thinking she’d learned a lesson. You would think it wouldn’t
+happen again.”
+
+“No, I wouldn’t be ‘thinking,’” said, Philip. “I’d be everlastingly
+sure! I wouldn’t risk what I went through that night again, not to save
+my life! Just you and me, Elnora. Decide for us.”
+
+“I can’t!” cried Elnora. “I am afraid!”
+
+“Very well,” said Philip. “We will wait until you feel that you can.
+Wait until fear vanishes. Just decide now whether you would rather have
+me go for a few months, or remain with you. Which shall it be, Elnora?”
+
+“You can never love me as you did her,” wailed Elnora.
+
+“I am happy to say I cannot,” replied he. “I’ve cut my matrimonial
+teeth. I’m cured of wanting to swell in society. I’m over being proud
+of a woman for her looks alone. I have no further use for lavishing
+myself on a beautiful, elegantly dressed creature, who thinks only of
+self. I have learned that I am a common man. I admire beauty and
+beautiful clothing quite as much as I ever did; but, first, I want an
+understanding, deep as the lowest recess of my soul, with the woman I
+marry. I want to work for you, to plan for you, to build you a home
+with every comfort, to give you all good things I can, to shield you
+from every evil. I want to interpose my body between yours and fire,
+flood, or famine. I want to give you everything; but I hate the idea of
+getting nothing at all on which I can depend in return. Edith Carr had
+only good looks to offer, and when anger overtook her, beauty went out
+like a snuffed candle.
+
+“I want you to love me. I want some consideration. I even crave
+respect. I’ve kept myself clean. So far as I know how to be, I am
+honest and scrupulous. It wouldn’t hurt me to feel that you took some
+interest in these things. Rather fierce temptations strike a man, every
+few days, in this world. I can keep decent, for a woman who cares for
+decency, but when I do, I’d like to have the fact recognized, by just
+enough of a show of appreciation that I could see it. I am tired of
+this one-sided business. After this, I want to get a little in return
+for what I give. Elnora, you have love, tenderness, and honest
+appreciation of the finest in life. Take what I offer, and give what I
+ask.”
+
+“You do not ask much,” said Elnora.
+
+“As for not loving you as I did Edith,” continued Philip, “as I said
+before, I hope not! I have a newer and a better idea of loving. The
+feeling I offer you was inspired by you. It is a Limberlost product. It
+is as much bigger, cleaner, and more wholesome than any feeling I ever
+had for Edith Carr, as you are bigger than she, when you stand before
+your classes and in calm dignity explain the marvels of the Almighty,
+while she stands on a ballroom floor, and gives way to uncontrolled
+temper. Ye gods, Elnora, if you could look into my soul, you would see
+it leap and rejoice over my escape! Perhaps it isn’t decent, but it’s
+human; and I’m only a common human being. I’m the gladdest man alive
+that I’m free! I would turn somersaults and yell if I dared. What an
+escape! Stop straining after Edith Carr’s viewpoint and take a look
+from mine. Put yourself in my place and try to study out how I feel.
+
+“I am so happy I grow religious over it. Fifty times a day I catch
+myself whispering, ‘My soul is escaped!’ As for you, take all the time
+you want. If you prefer to be alone, I’ll take the next train and stay
+away as long as I can bear it, but I’ll come back. You can be most sure
+of that. Straight as your pigeons to their loft, I’ll come back to you,
+Elnora. Shall I go?”
+
+“Oh, what’s the use to be extravagant?” murmured Elnora.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON KNEELS TO ELNORA, AND STRANGERS COME TO THE
+LIMBERLOST
+
+
+The month which followed was a reproduction of the previous June. There
+were long moth hunts, days of specimen gathering, wonderful hours with
+great books, big dinners all of them helped to prepare, and perfect
+nights filled with music. Everything was as it had been, with the
+difference that Philip was now an avowed suitor. He missed no
+opportunity to advance himself in Elnora’s graces. At the end of the
+month he was no nearer any sort of understanding with her than he had
+been at the beginning. He revelled in the privilege of loving her, but
+he got no response. Elnora believed in his love, yet she hesitated to
+accept him, because she could not forget Edith Carr.
+
+One afternoon early in July, Philip came across the fields, through the
+Comstock woods, and entered the garden. He inquired for Elnora at the
+back door and was told that she was reading under the willow. He went
+around the west end of the cabin to her. She sat on a rustic bench they
+had made and placed beneath a drooping branch. He had not seen her
+before in the dress she was wearing. It was clinging mull of pale
+green, trimmed with narrow ruffles and touched with knots of black
+velvet; a simple dress, but vastly becoming. Every tint of her bright
+hair, her luminous eyes, her red lips, and her rose-flushed face, neck,
+and arms grew a little more vivid with the delicate green setting.
+
+He stopped short. She was so near, so temptingly sweet, he lost
+control. He went to her with a half-smothered cry after that first long
+look, dropped on one knee beside her and reached an arm behind her to
+the bench back, so that he was very near. He caught her hands.
+
+“Elnora!” he cried tensely, “end it now! Say this strain is over. I
+pledge you that you will be happy. You don’t know! If you only would
+say the word, you would awake to new life and great joy! Won’t you
+promise me now, Elnora?”
+
+The girl sat staring into the west woods, while strong in her eyes was
+her father’s look of seeing something invisible to others. Philip’s arm
+slipped from the bench around her. His fingers closed firmly over hers.
+“Elnora,” he pleaded, “you know me well enough. You have had time in
+plenty. End it now. Say you will be mine!” He gathered her closer,
+pressing his face against hers, his breath on her cheek. “Can’t you
+quite promise yet, my girl of the Limberlost?”
+
+Elnora shook her head. Instantly he released her.
+
+“Forgive me,” he begged. “I had no intention of thrusting myself upon
+you, but, Elnora, you are the veriest Queen of Love this afternoon.
+From the tips of your toes to your shining crown, I worship you. I want
+no woman save you. You are so wonderful this afternoon, I couldn’t help
+urging. Forgive me. Perhaps it was something that came this morning for
+you. I wrote Polly to send it. May we try if it fits? Will you tell me
+if you like it?”
+
+He drew a little white velvet box from his pocket and showed her a
+splendid emerald ring.
+
+“It may not be right,” he said. “The inside of a glove finger is not
+very accurate for a measure, but it was the best I could do. I wrote
+Polly to get it, because she and mother are home from the East this
+week, but next they will go on to our cottage in the north, and no one
+knows what is right quite so well as Polly.” He laid the ring in
+Elnora’s hand. “Dearest,” he said, “don’t slip that on your finger; put
+your arms around my neck and promise me, all at once and abruptly, or
+I’ll keel over and die of sheer joy.”
+
+Elnora smiled.
+
+“I won’t! Not all those venturesome things at once; but, Phil, I’m
+ashamed to confess that ring simply fascinates me. It is the most
+beautiful one I ever saw, and do you know that I never owned a ring of
+any kind in my life? Would you think me unwomanly if I slip it on for a
+second, before I can say for sure? Phil, you know I care! I care very
+much! You know I will tell you the instant I feel right about it.”
+
+“Certainly you will,” agreed Philip promptly. “It is your right to take
+all the time you choose. I can’t put that ring on you until it means a
+bond between us. I’ll shut my eyes and you try it on, so we can see if
+it fits.” Philip turned his face toward the west woods and tightly
+closed his eyes. It was a boyish thing to do, and it caught the
+hesitating girl in the depths of her heart as the boy element in a man
+ever appeals to a motherly woman. Before she quite realized what she
+was doing, the ring slid on her finger. With both arms she caught
+Philip and drew him to her breast, holding him closely. Her head
+drooped over his, her lips were on his hair. So an instant, then her
+arms dropped. He lifted a convulsed, white face.
+
+“Dear Lord!” he whispered. “You—you didn’t mean that, Elnora! You——
+What made you do it?”
+
+“You—you looked so boyish!” panted Elnora. “I didn’t mean it! I—I
+forgot that you were older than Billy. Look—look at the ring!”
+
+“‘The Queen can do no wrong,’” quoted Philip between his set teeth.
+“But don’t you do that again, Elnora, unless you do mean it. Kings are
+not so good as queens, and there is a limit with all men. As you say,
+we will look at your ring. It seems very lovely to me. Suppose you
+leave it on until time for me to go. Please do! I have heard of mute
+appeals; perhaps it will plead for me. I am wild for your lips this
+afternoon. I am going to take your hands.”
+
+He caught both of them and covered them with kisses.
+
+“Elnora,” he said, “Will you be my wife?”
+
+“I must have a little more time,” she whispered. “I must be absolutely
+certain, for when I say yes, and give myself to you, only death shall
+part us. I would not give you up. So I want a little more time—but, I
+think I will.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Philip. “If at any time you feel that you have
+reached a decision, will you tell me? Will you promise me to tell me
+instantly, or shall I keep asking you until the time comes?”
+
+“You make it difficult,” said Elnora. “But I will promise you that.
+Whenever the last doubt vanishes, I will let you know instantly—if I
+can.”
+
+“Would it be difficult for you?” whispered Ammon.
+
+“I—I don’t know,” faltered Elnora.
+
+“It seems as if I can’t be man enough to put this thought aside and
+give up this afternoon,” said Philip. “I am ashamed of myself, but I
+can’t help it. I am going to ask God to make that last doubt vanish
+before I go this night. I am going to believe that ring will plead for
+me. I am going to hope that doubt will disappear suddenly. I will be
+watching. Every second I will be watching. If it happens and you can’t
+speak, give me your hand. Just the least movement toward me, I will
+understand. Would it help you to talk this over with your mother? Shall
+I call her? Shall I——?”
+
+Honk! Honk! Honk! Hart Henderson set the horn of the big automobile
+going as it shot from behind the trees lining the Brushwood road. The
+picture of a vine-covered cabin, a large drooping tree, a green-clad
+girl and a man bending over her very closely flashed into view. Edith
+Carr caught her breath with a snap. Polly Ammon gave Tom Levering a
+quick touch and wickedly winked at him.
+
+Several days before, Edith had returned from Europe suddenly. She and
+Henderson had called at the Ammon residence saying that they were going
+to motor down to the Limberlost to see Philip a few hours, and urged
+that Polly and Tom accompany them. Mrs. Ammon knew that her husband
+would disapprove of the trip, but it was easy to see that Edith Carr
+had determined on going. So the mother thought it better to have Polly
+along to support Philip than to allow him to confront Edith
+unexpectedly and alone. Polly was full of spirit. She did not relish
+the thought of Edith as a sister. Always they had been in the same set,
+always Edith, because of greater beauty and wealth, had patronized
+Polly. Although it had rankled, she had borne it sweetly. But two days
+before, her father had extracted a promise of secrecy, given her
+Philip’s address and told her to send him the finest emerald ring she
+could select. Polly knew how that ring would be used. What she did not
+know was that the girl who accompanied her went back to the store
+afterward, made an excuse to the clerk that she had been sent to be
+absolutely sure that the address was right, and so secured it for Edith
+Carr.
+
+Two days later Edith had induced Hart Henderson to take her to
+Onabasha. By the aid of maps they located the Comstock land and passed
+it, merely to see the place. Henderson hated that trip, and implored
+Edith not to take it, but she made no effort to conceal from him what
+she suffered, and it was more than he could endure. He pointed out that
+Philip had gone away without leaving an address, because he did not
+wish to see her, or any of them. But Edith was so sure of her power,
+she felt certain Philip needed only to see her to succumb to her beauty
+as he always had done, while now she was ready to plead for
+forgiveness. So they came down the Brushwood road, and Henderson had
+just said to Edith beside him: “This should be the Comstock land on our
+left.”
+
+A minute later the wood ended, while the sunlight, as always pitiless,
+etched with distinctness the scene at the west end of the cabin.
+Instinctively, to save Edith, Henderson set the horn blowing. He had
+thought to drive to the city, but Polly Ammon arose crying: “Phil!
+Phil!” Tom Levering was on his feet shouting and waving, while Edith in
+her most imperial manner ordered him to turn into the lane leading
+through the woods beside the cabin.
+
+“Find some way for me to have a minute alone with her,” she commanded
+as he stopped the car.
+
+“That is my sister Polly, her fiance Tom Levering, a friend of mine
+named Henderson, and——” began Philip,
+
+“—and Edith Carr,” volunteered Elnora.
+
+“And Edith Carr,” repeated Philip Ammon. “Elnora, be brave, for my
+sake. Their coming can make no difference in any way. I won’t let them
+stay but a few minutes. Come with me!”
+
+“Do I seem scared?” inquired Elnora serenely. “This is why you haven’t
+had your answer. I have been waiting just six weeks for that motor. You
+may bring them to me at the arbour.”
+
+Philip glanced at her and broke into a laugh. She had not lost colour.
+Her self-possession was perfect. She deliberately turned and walked
+toward the grape arbour, while he sprang over the west fence and ran to
+the car.
+
+Elnora standing in the arbour entrance made a perfect picture, framed
+in green leaves and tendrils. No matter how her heart ached, it was
+good to her, for it pumped steadily, and kept her cheeks and lips
+suffused with colour. She saw Philip reach the car and gather his
+sister into his arms. Past her he reached a hand to Levering, then to
+Edith Carr and Henderson. He lifted his sister to the ground, and
+assisted Edith to alight. Instantly, she stepped beside him, and
+Elnora’s heart played its first trick.
+
+She could see that Miss Carr was splendidly beautiful, while she moved
+with the hauteur and grace supposed to be the prerogatives of royalty.
+And she had instantly taken possession of Philip. But he also had a
+brain which was working with rapidity. He knew Elnora was watching, so
+he turned to the others.
+
+“Give her up, Tom!” he cried. “I didn’t know I wanted to see the little
+nuisance so badly, but I do. How are father and mother? Polly, didn’t
+the mater send me something?”
+
+“She did!” said Polly Ammon, stopping on the path and lifting her chin
+as a little child, while she drew away her veil.
+
+Philip caught her in his arms and stooped for his mother’s kiss.
+
+“Be good to Elnora!” he whispered.
+
+“Umhu!” assented Polly. And aloud—“Look at that ripping green and gold
+symphony! I never saw such a beauty! Thomas Asquith Levering, you come
+straight here and take my hand!”
+
+Edith’s move to compel Philip to approach Elnora beside her had been
+easy to see; also its failure. Henderson stepped into Philip’s place as
+he turned to his sister. Instead of taking Polly’s hand Levering ran to
+open the gate. Edith passed through first, but Polly darted in front of
+her on the run, with Phil holding her arm, and swept up to Elnora.
+Polly looked for the ring and saw it. That settled matters with her.
+
+“You lovely, lovely, darling girl!” she cried, throwing her arms around
+Elnora and kissing her. With her lips close Elnora’s ear, Polly
+whispered, “Sister! Dear, dear sister!”
+
+Elnora drew back, staring at Polly in confused amazement. She was a
+beautiful girl, her eyes were sparkling and dancing, and as she turned
+to make way for the others, she kept one of Elnora’s hands in hers.
+Polly would have dropped dead in that instant if Edith Carr could have
+killed with a look, for not until then did she realize that Polly would
+even many a slight, and that it had been a great mistake to bring her.
+
+Edith bowed low, muttered something and touched Elnora’s fingers. Tom
+took his cue from Polly.
+
+“I always follow a good example,” he said, and before any one could
+divine his intention he kissed Elnora as he gripped her hand and cried:
+“Mighty glad to meet you! Like to meet you a dozen times a day, you
+know!”
+
+Elnora laughed and her heart pumped smoothly. They had accomplished
+their purpose. They had let her know they were there through
+compulsion, but on her side. In that instant only pity was in Elnora’s
+breast for the flashing dark beauty, standing with smiling face while
+her heart must have been filled with exceeding bitterness. Elnora
+stepped back from the entrance.
+
+“Come into the shade,” she urged. “You must have found it warm on these
+country roads. Won’t you lay aside your dust-coats and have a cool
+drink? Philip, would you ask mother to come, and bring that pitcher
+from the spring house?”
+
+They entered the arbour exclaiming at the dim, green coolness. There
+was plenty of room and wide seats around the sides, a table in the
+centre, on which lay a piece of embroidery, magazines, books, the moth
+apparatus, and the cyanide jar containing several specimens. Polly
+rejoiced in the cooling shade, slipped off her duster, removed her hat,
+rumpled her pretty hair and seated herself to indulge in the delightful
+occupation of paying off old scores. Tom Levering followed her example.
+Edith took a seat but refused to remove her hat and coat, while
+Henderson stood in the entrance.
+
+“There goes something with wings! Should you have that?” cried
+Levering.
+
+He seized a net from the table and raced across the garden after a
+butterfly. He caught it and came back mightily pleased with himself. As
+the creature struggled in the net, Elnora noted a repulsed look on
+Edith Carr’s face. Levering helped the situation beautifully.
+
+“Now what have I got?” he demanded. “Is it just a common one that every
+one knows and you don’t keep, or is it the rarest bird off the perch?”
+
+“You must have had practice, you took that so perfectly,” said Elnora.
+“I am sorry, but it is quite common and not of a kind I keep. Suppose
+all of you see how beautiful it is and then it may go nectar hunting
+again.”
+
+She held the butterfly where all of them could see, showed its upper
+and under wing colours, answered Polly’s questions as to what it ate,
+how long it lived, and how it died. Then she put it into Polly’s hand
+saying: “Stand there in the light and loosen your hold slowly and
+easily.”
+
+Elnora caught a brush from the table and began softly stroking the
+creature’s sides and wings. Delighted with the sensation the butterfly
+opened and closed its wings, clinging to Polly’s soft little fingers,
+while every one cried out in surprise. Elnora laid aside the brush, and
+the butterfly sailed away.
+
+“Why, you are a wizard! You charm them!” marvelled Levering.
+
+“I learned that from the Bird Woman,” said Elnora. “She takes soft
+brushes and coaxes butterflies and moths into the positions she wants
+for the illustrations of a book she is writing. I have helped her
+often. Most of the rare ones I find go to her.”
+
+“Then you don’t keep all you take?” questioned Levering.
+
+“Oh, dear, no!” cried Elnora. “Not a tenth! For myself, a pair of each
+kind to use in illustrating the lectures I give in the city schools in
+the winter, and one pair for each collection I make. One might as well
+keep the big night moths of June, for they only live four or five days
+anyway. For the Bird Woman, I only save rare ones she has not yet
+secured. Sometimes I think it is cruel to take such creatures from
+freedom, even for an hour, but it is the only way to teach the masses
+of people how to distinguish the pests they should destroy, from the
+harmless ones of great beauty. Here comes mother with something cool to
+drink.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock came deliberately, talking to Philip as she approached.
+Elnora gave her one searching look, but could discover only an extreme
+brightness of eye to denote any unusual feeling. She wore one of her
+lavender dresses, while her snowy hair was high piled. She had taken
+care of her complexion, and her face had grown fuller during the
+winter. She might have been any one’s mother with pride, and she was
+perfectly at ease.
+
+Polly instantly went to her and held up her face to be kissed. Mrs.
+Comstock’s eyes twinkled and she made the greeting hearty.
+
+The drink was compounded of the juices of oranges and berries from the
+garden. It was cool enough to frost glasses and pitcher and delicious
+to dusty tired travellers. Soon the pitcher was empty, and Elnora
+picked it up and went to refill it. While she was gone Henderson asked
+Philip about some trouble he was having with his car. They went to the
+woods and began a minute examination to find a defect which did not
+exist. Polly and Levering were having an animated conversation with
+Mrs. Comstock. Henderson saw Edith arise, follow the garden path next
+the woods and stand waiting under the willow which Elnora would pass on
+her return. It was for that meeting he had made the trip. He got down
+on the ground, tore up the car, worked, asked for help, and kept Philip
+busy screwing bolts and applying the oil can. All the time Henderson
+kept an eye on Edith and Elnora under the willow. But he took pains to
+lay the work he asked Philip to do where that scene would be out of his
+sight. When Elnora came around the corner with the pitcher, she found
+herself facing Edith Carr.
+
+“I want a minute with you,” said Miss Carr.
+
+“Very well,” replied Elnora, walking on.
+
+“Set the pitcher on the bench there,” commanded Edith Carr, as if
+speaking to a servant.
+
+“I prefer not to offer my visitors a warm drink,” said Elnora. “I’ll
+come back if you really wish to speak with me.”
+
+“I came solely for that,” said Edith Carr.
+
+“It would be a pity to travel so far in this dust and heat for nothing.
+I’ll only be gone a second.”
+
+Elnora placed the pitcher before her mother. “Please serve this,” she
+said. “Miss Carr wishes to speak with me.”
+
+“Don’t you pay the least attention to anything she says,” cried Polly.
+“Tom and I didn’t come here because we wanted to. We only came to
+checkmate her. I hoped I’d get the opportunity to say a word to you,
+and now she has given it to me. I just want to tell you that she threw
+Phil over in perfectly horrid way. She hasn’t any right to lay the
+ghost of a claim to him, has she, Tom?”
+
+“Nary a claim,” said Tom Levering earnestly. “Why, even you, Polly,
+couldn’t serve me as she did Phil, and ever get me back again. If I
+were you, Miss Comstock, I’d send my mother to talk with her and I’d
+stay here.”
+
+Tom had gauged Mrs. Comstock rightly. Polly put her arms around Elnora.
+“Let me go with you, dear,” she begged.
+
+“I promised I would speak with her alone,” said Elnora, “and she must
+be considered. But thank you, very much.”
+
+“How I shall love you!” exulted Polly, giving Elnora a parting hug.
+
+The girl slowly and gravely walked back to the willow. She could not
+imagine what was coming, but she was promising herself that she would
+be very patient and control her temper.
+
+“Will you be seated?” she asked politely.
+
+Edith Carr glanced at the bench, while a shudder shook her.
+
+“No. I prefer to stand,” she said. “Did Mr. Ammon give you the ring you
+are wearing, and do you consider yourself engaged to him?”
+
+“By what right do you ask such personal questions as those?” inquired
+Elnora.
+
+“By the right of a betrothed wife. I have been promised to Philip Ammon
+ever since I wore short skirts. All our lives we have expected to
+marry. An agreement of years cannot be broken in one insane moment.
+Always he has loved me devotedly. Give me ten minutes with him and he
+will be mine for all time.”
+
+“I seriously doubt that,” said Elnora. “But I am willing that you
+should make the test. I will call him.”
+
+“Stop!” commanded Edith Carr. “I told you that it was you I came to
+see.”
+
+“I remember,” said Elnora.
+
+“Mr. Ammon is my betrothed,” continued Edith Carr. “I expect to take
+him back to Chicago with me.”
+
+“You expect considerable,” murmured Elnora. “I will raise no objection
+to your taking him, if you can—but, I tell you frankly, I don’t think
+it possible.”
+
+“You are so sure of yourself as that,” scoffed Edith Carr. “One hour in
+my presence will bring back the old spell, full force. We belong to
+each other. I will not give him up.”
+
+“Then it is untrue that you twice rejected his ring, repeatedly
+insulted him, and publicly renounced him?”
+
+“That was through you!” cried Edith Carr. “Phil and I never had been so
+near and so happy as we were on that night. It was your clinging to him
+for things that caused him to desert me among his guests, while he
+tried to make me await your pleasure. I realize the spell of this
+place, for a summer season. I understand what you and your mother have
+done to inveigle him. I know that your hold on him is quite real. I can
+see just how you have worked to ensnare him!”
+
+“Men would call that lying,” said Elnora calmly. “The second time I met
+Philip Ammon he told me of his engagement to you, and I respected it. I
+did by you as I would want you to do by me. He was here parts of each
+day, almost daily last summer. The Almighty is my witness that never
+once, by word or look, did I ever make the slightest attempt to
+interest him in my person or personality. He wrote you frequently in my
+presence. He forgot the violets for which he asked to send you. I
+gathered them and carried them to him. I sent him back to you in
+unswerving devotion, and the Almighty is also my witness that I could
+have changed his heart last summer, if I had tried. I wisely left that
+work for you. All my life I shall be glad that I lived and worked on
+the square. That he ever would come back to me free, by your act, I
+never dreamed. When he left me I did not hope or expect to see him
+again,” Elnora’s voice fell soft and low, “and, behold! You sent
+him—and free!”
+
+“You exult in that!” cried Edith Carr. “Let me tell you he is not free!
+We have belonged for years. We always shall. If you cling to him, and
+hold him to rash things he has said and done, because he thought me
+still angry and unforgiving with him, you will ruin all our lives. If
+he married you, before a month you would read heart-hunger for me in
+his eyes. He could not love me as he has done, and give me up for a
+little scene like that!”
+
+“There is a great poem,” said Elnora, “one line of which reads, ‘For
+each man kills the thing he loves.’ Let me tell you that a woman can do
+that also. He did love you—that I concede. But you killed his love
+everlastingly, when you disgraced him in public. Killed it so
+completely he does not even feel resentment toward you. To-day, he
+would do you a favour, if he could; but love you, no! That is over!”
+
+Edith Carr stood truly regal and filled with scorn. “You are mistaken!
+Nothing on earth could kill that!” she cried, and Elnora saw that the
+girl really believed what she said.
+
+“You are very sure of yourself!” said Elnora.
+
+“I have reason to be sure,” answered Edith Carr.
+
+“We have lived and loved too long. I have had years with him to match
+against your days. He is mine! His work, his ambitions, his friends,
+his place in society are with me. You may have a summer charm for a
+sick man in the country; if he tried placing you in society, he soon
+would see you as others will. It takes birth to position, schooling,
+and endless practice to meet social demands gracefully. You would put
+him to shame in a week.”
+
+“I scarcely think I should follow your example so far,” said Elnora
+dryly. “I have a feeling for Philip that would prevent my hurting him
+purposely, either in public or private. As for managing a social career
+for him he never mentioned that he desired such a thing. What he asked
+of me was that I should be his wife. I understood that to mean that he
+desired me to keep him a clean house, serve him digestible food, mother
+his children, and give him loving sympathy and tenderness.”
+
+“Shameless!” cried Edith Carr.
+
+“To which of us do you intend that adjective to apply?” inquired
+Elnora. “I never was less ashamed in all my life. Please remember I am
+in my own home, and your presence here is not on my invitation.”
+
+Miss Carr lifted her head and struggled with her veil. She was very
+pale and trembling violently, while Elnora stood serene, a faint smile
+on her lips.
+
+“Such vulgarity!” panted Edith Carr. “How can a man like Philip endure
+it?”
+
+“Why don’t you ask him?” inquired Elnora. “I can call him with one
+breath; but, if he judged us as we stand, I should not be the one to
+tremble at his decision. Miss Carr, you have been quite plain. You have
+told me in carefully selected words what you think of me. You insult my
+birth, education, appearance, and home. I assure you I am legitimate. I
+will pass a test examination with you on any high school or
+supplementary branch, or French or German. I will take a physical
+examination beside you. I will face any social emergency you can
+mention with you. I am acquainted with a whole world in which Philip
+Ammon is keenly interested, that you scarcely know exists. I am not
+afraid to face any audience you can get together anywhere with my
+violin. I am not repulsive to look at, and I have a wholesome regard
+for the proprieties and civilities of life. Philip Ammon never asked
+anything more of me, why should you?”
+
+“It is plain to see,” cried Edith Carr, “that you took him when he was
+hurt and angry and kept his wound wide open. Oh, what have you not done
+against me?”
+
+“I did not promise to marry him when an hour ago he asked me, and
+offered me this ring, because there was so much feeling in my heart for
+you, that I knew I never could be happy, if I felt that in any way I
+had failed in doing justice to your interests. I did slip on this ring,
+which he had just brought, because I never owned one, and it is very
+beautiful, but I made him no promise, nor shall I make any, until I am
+quite, quite sure, that you fully realize he never would marry you if I
+sent him away this hour.”
+
+“You know perfectly that if your puny hold on him were broken, if he
+were back in his home, among his friends, and where he was meeting me,
+in one short week he would be mine again, as he always has been. In
+your heart you don’t believe what you say. You don’t dare trust him in
+my presence. You are afraid to allow him out of your sight, because you
+know what the results would be. Right or wrong, you have made up your
+mind to ruin him and me, and you are going to be selfish enough to do
+it. But——”
+
+“That will do!” said Elnora. “Spare me the enumeration of how I will
+regret it. I shall regret nothing. I shall not act until I know there
+will be nothing to regret. I have decided on my course. You may return
+to your friends.”
+
+“What do you mean?” demanded Edith Carr.
+
+“That is my affair,” replied Elnora. “Only this! When your opportunity
+comes, seize it! Any time you are in Philip Ammon’s presence, exert the
+charms of which you boast, and take him. I grant you are justified in
+doing it if you can. I want nothing more than I want to see you marry
+Philip if he wants you. He is just across the fence under that
+automobile. Go spread your meshes and exert your wiles. I won’t stir to
+stop you. Take him to Onabasha, and to Chicago with you. Use every art
+you possess. If the old charm can be revived I will be the first to
+wish both of you well. Now, I must return to my visitors. Kindly excuse
+me.”
+
+Elnora turned and went back to the arbour. Edith Carr followed the
+fence and passed through the gate into the west woods where she asked
+Henderson about the car. As she stood near him she whispered: “Take
+Phil back to Onabasha with us.”
+
+“I say, Ammon, can’t you go to the city with us and help me find a shop
+where I can get this pinion fixed?” asked Henderson. “We want to lunch
+and start back by five. That will get us home about midnight. Why don’t
+you bring your automobile here?”
+
+“I am a working man,” said Philip. “I have no time to be out motoring.
+I can’t see anything the matter with your car, myself; but, of course
+you don’t want to break down in the night, on strange roads, with women
+on your hands. I’ll see.”
+
+Philip went into the arbour, where Polly took possession of his lap,
+fingered his hair, and kissed his forehead and lips.
+
+“When are you coming to the cottage, Phil?” she asked. “Come soon, and
+bring Miss Comstock for a visit. All of us will be so glad to have
+her.”
+
+Philip beamed on Polly. “I’ll see about that,” he said. “Sounds pretty
+good. Elnora, Henderson is in trouble with his automobile. He wants me
+to go to Onabasha with him to show him where the doctor lives, and make
+repairs so he can start back this evening. It will take about two
+hours. May I go?”
+
+“Of course, you must go,” she said, laughing lightly. “You can’t leave
+your sister. Why don’t you return to Chicago with them? There is plenty
+of room, and you could have a fine visit.”
+
+“I’ll be back in just two hours,” said Philip. “While I am gone, you be
+thinking over what we were talking of when the folks came.”
+
+“Miss Comstock can go with us as well as not,” said Polly. “That back
+seat was made for three, and I can sit on your lap.”
+
+“Come on! Do come!” urged Philip instantly, and Tom Levering joined
+him, but Henderson and Edith silently waited at the gate.
+
+“No, thank you,” laughed Elnora. “That would crowd you, and it’s warm
+and dusty. We will say good-bye here.”
+
+She offered her hand to all of them, and when she came to Philip she
+gave him one long steady look in the eyes, then shook hands with him
+also.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA REACHES A DECISION, AND FRECKLES AND THE ANGEL APPEAR
+
+
+“Well, she came, didn’t she?” remarked Mrs. Comstock to Elnora as they
+watched the automobile speed down the road. As it turned the Limberlost
+corner, Philip arose and waved to them.
+
+“She hasn’t got him yet, anyway,” said Mrs. Comstock, taking heart.
+“What’s that on your finger, and what did she say to you?”
+
+Elnora explained about the ring as she drew it off.
+
+“I have several letters to write, then I am going to change my dress
+and walk down toward Aunt Margaret’s for a little exercise. I may meet
+some of them, and I don’t want them to see this ring. You keep it until
+Philip comes,” said Elnora. “As for what Miss Carr said to me, many
+things, two of importance: one, that I lacked every social requirement
+necessary for the happiness of Philip Ammon, and that if I married him
+I would see inside a month that he was ashamed of me——”
+
+“Aw, shockins!” scorned Mrs. Comstock. “Go on!”
+
+“The other was that she has been engaged to him for years, that he
+belongs to her, and she refuses to give him up. She said that if he
+were in her presence one hour, she would have him under a mysterious
+thing she calls ‘her spell’ again; if he were where she could see him
+for one week, everything would be made up. It is her opinion that he is
+suffering from wounded pride, and that the slightest concession on her
+part will bring him to his knees before her.”
+
+Mrs. Comstock giggled. “I do hope the boy isn’t weak-kneed,” she said.
+“I just happened to be passing the west window this afternoon——”
+
+Elnora laughed. “Nothing save actual knowledge ever would have made me
+believe there was a girl in all this world so infatuated with herself.
+She speaks casually of her power over men, and boasts of ‘bringing a
+man to his knees’ as complacently as I would pick up a net and say: ‘I
+am going to take a butterfly.’ She honestly believes that if Philip
+were with her a short time she could rekindle his love for her and
+awaken in him every particle of the old devotion. Mother, the girl is
+honest! She is absolutely sincere! She so believes in herself and the
+strength of Phil’s love for her, that all her life she will believe in
+and brood over that thought, unless she is taught differently. So long
+as she thinks that, she will nurse wrong ideas and pine over her
+blighted life. She must be taught that Phil is absolutely free, and yet
+he will not go to her.”
+
+“But how on earth are you proposing to teach her that?”
+
+“The way will open.”
+
+“Lookey here, Elnora!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “That Carr girl is the
+handsomest dark woman I ever saw. She’s got to the place where she
+won’t stop at anything. Her coming here proves that. I don’t believe
+there was a thing the matter with that automobile. I think that was a
+scheme she fixed up to get Phil where she could see him alone, as she
+worked to see you. If you are going deliberately to put Philip under
+her influence again, you’ve got to brace yourself for the possibility
+that she may win. A man is a weak mortal, where a lovely woman is
+concerned, and he never denied that he loved her once. You may make
+yourself downright miserable.”
+
+“But mother, if she won, it wouldn’t make me half so miserable as to
+marry Phil myself, and then read hunger for her in his eyes! Some one
+has got to suffer over this. If it proves to be me, I’ll bear it, and
+you’ll never hear a whisper of complaint from me. I know the real
+Philip Ammon better in our months of work in the fields than she knows
+him in all her years of society engagements. So she shall have the hour
+she asked, many, many of them, enough to make her acknowledge that she
+is wrong. Now I am going to write my letters and take my walk.”
+
+Elnora threw her arms around her mother and kissed her repeatedly.
+“Don’t you worry about me,” she said. “I will get along all right, and
+whatever happens, I always will be your girl and you my darling
+mother.”
+
+She left two sealed notes on her desk. Then she changed her dress,
+packed a small bundle which she dropped with her hat from the window
+beside the willow, and softly went down stairs. Mrs. Comstock was in
+the garden. Elnora picked up the hat and bundle, hurried down the road
+a few rods, then climbed the fence and entered the woods. She took a
+diagonal course, and after a long walk reached a road two miles west
+and one south. There she straightened her clothing, put on her hat and
+a thin dark veil and waited the passing of the next trolley. She left
+it at the first town and took a train for Fort Wayne. She made that
+point just in time to climb on the evening train north, as it pulled
+from the station. It was after midnight when she left the car at Grand
+Rapids, and went into the depot to await the coming of day.
+
+Tired out, she laid her head on her bundle and fell asleep on a seat in
+the women’s waiting-room. Long after light she was awakened by the roar
+and rattle of trains. She washed, re-arranged her hair and clothing,
+and went into the general waiting-room to find her way to the street.
+She saw him as he entered the door. There was no mistaking the tall,
+lithe figure, the bright hair, the lean, brown-splotched face, the
+steady gray eyes. He was dressed for travelling, and carried a light
+overcoat and a bag. Straight to him Elnora went speeding.
+
+“Oh, I was just starting to find you!” she cried.
+
+“Thank you!” he said.
+
+“You are going away?” she panted.
+
+“Not if I am needed. I have a few minutes. Can you be telling me
+briefly?”
+
+“I am the Limberlost girl to whom your wife gave the dress for
+Commencement last spring, and both of you sent lovely gifts. There is a
+reason, a very good reason, why I must be hidden for a time, and I came
+straight to you—as if I had a right.”
+
+“You have!” answered Freckles. “Any boy or girl who ever suffered one
+pang in the Limberlost has a claim to the best drop of blood in my
+heart. You needn’t be telling me anything more. The Angel is at our
+cottage on Mackinac. You shall tell her and play with the babies while
+you want shelter. This way!”
+
+They breakfasted in a luxurious car, talked over the swamp, the work of
+the Bird Woman; Elnora told of her nature lectures in the schools, and
+soon they were good friends. In the evening they left the train at
+Mackinaw City and crossed the Straits by boat. Sheets of white
+moonlight flooded the water and paved a molten path across the breast
+of it straight to the face of the moon.
+
+The island lay a dark spot on the silver surface, its tall trees
+sharply outlined on the summit, and a million lights blinked around the
+shore. The night guns boomed from the white fort and a dark sentinel
+paced the ramparts above the little city tucked down close to the
+water. A great tenor summering in the north came out on the upper deck
+of the big boat, and baring his head, faced the moon and sang: “Oh, the
+moon shines bright on my old Kentucky home!” Elnora thought of the
+Limberlost, of Philip, and her mother, and almost choked with the sobs
+that would arise in her throat. On the dock a woman of exquisite beauty
+swept into the arms of Terence O’More.
+
+“Oh, Freckles!” she cried. “You’ve been gone a month!”
+
+“Four days, Angel, only four days by the clock,” remonstrated Freckles.
+“Where are the children?”
+
+“Asleep! Thank goodness! I’m worn to a thread. I never saw such
+inventive, active children. I can’t keep track of them!”
+
+“I have brought you help,” said Freckles. “Here is the Limberlost girl
+in whom the Bird Woman is interested. Miss Comstock needs a rest before
+beginning her school work for next year, so she came to us.”
+
+“You dear thing! How good of you!” cried the Angel. “We shall be so
+happy to have you!”
+
+In her room that night, in a beautiful cottage furnished with every
+luxury, Elnora lifted a tired face to the Angel.
+
+“Of course, you understand there is something back of this?” she said.
+“I must tell you.”
+
+“Yes,” agreed the Angel. “Tell me! If you get it out of your system,
+you will stand a better chance of sleeping.”
+
+Elnora stood brushing the copper-bright masses of her hair as she
+talked. When she finished the Angel was almost hysterical.
+
+“You insane creature!” she cried. “How crazy of you to leave him to
+her! I know both of them. I have met them often. She may be able to
+make good her boast. But it is perfectly splendid of you! And, after
+all, really it is the only way. I can see that. I think it is what I
+should have done myself, or tried to do. I don’t know that I could have
+done it! When I think of walking away and leaving Freckles with a woman
+he once loved, to let her see if she can make him love her again, oh,
+it gives me a graveyard heart. No, I never could have done it! You are
+bigger than I ever was. I should have turned coward, sure.”
+
+“I am a coward,” admitted Elnora. “I am soul-sick! I am afraid I shall
+lose my senses before this is over. I didn’t want to come! I wanted to
+stay, to go straight into his arms, to bind myself with his ring, to
+love him with all my heart. It wasn’t my fault that I came. There was
+something inside that just pushed me. She is beautiful——”
+
+“I quite agree with you!”
+
+“You can imagine how fascinating she can be. She used no arts on me.
+Her purpose was to cower me. She found she could not do that, but she
+did a thing which helped her more: she proved that she was honest,
+perfectly sincere in what she thought. She believes that if she merely
+beckons to Philip, he will go to her. So I am giving her the
+opportunity to learn from him what he will do. She never will believe
+it from any one else. When she is satisfied, I shall be also.”
+
+“But, child! Suppose she wins him back!”
+
+“That is the supposition with which I shall eat and sleep for the
+coming few weeks. Would one dare ask for a peep at the babies before
+going to bed?”
+
+“Now, you are perfect!” announced the Angel. “I never should have liked
+you all I can, if you had been content to go to sleep in this house
+without asking to see the babies. Come this way. We named the first boy
+for his father, of course, and the girl for Aunt Alice. The next boy is
+named for my father, and the baby for the Bird Woman. After this we are
+going to branch out.”
+
+Elnora began to laugh.
+
+“Oh, I suspect there will be quite a number of them,” said the Angel
+serenely. “I am told the more there are the less trouble they make. The
+big ones take care of the little ones. We want a large family. This is
+our start.”
+
+She entered a dark room and held aloft a candle. She went to the side
+of a small white iron bed in which lay a boy of eight and another of
+three. They were perfectly formed, rosy children, the elder a replica
+of his mother, the other very like. Then they came to a cradle where a
+baby girl of almost two slept soundly, and made a picture.
+
+“But just see here!” said the Angel. She threw the light on a sleeping
+girl of six. A mass of red curls swept the pillow. Line and feature the
+face was that of Freckles. Without asking, Elnora knew the colour and
+expression of the closed eyes. The Angel handed Elnora the candle, and
+stooping, straightened the child’s body. She ran her fingers through
+the bright curls, and lightly touched the aristocratic little nose.
+
+“The supply of freckles holds out in my family, you see!” she said.
+“Both of the girls will have them, and the second boy a few.”
+
+She stood an instant longer, then bending, ran her hand caressingly
+down a rosy bare leg, while she kissed the babyish red mouth. There had
+been some reason for touching all of them, the kiss fell on the lips
+which were like Freckles’s.
+
+To Elnora she said a tender good-night, whispering brave words of
+encouragement and making plans to fill the days to come. Then she went
+away. An hour later there was a light tap on the girl’s door.
+
+“Come!” she called as she lay staring into the dark.
+
+The Angel felt her way to the bedside, sat down and took Elnora’s
+hands.
+
+“I just had to come back to you,” she said. “I have been telling
+Freckles, and he is almost hurting himself with laughing. I didn’t
+think it was funny, but he does. He thinks it’s the funniest thing that
+ever happened. He says that to run away from Mr. Ammon, when you had
+made him no promise at all, when he wasn’t sure of you, won’t send him
+home to her; it will set him hunting you! He says if you had combined
+the wisdom of Solomon, Socrates, and all the remainder of the wise men,
+you couldn’t have chosen any course that would have sealed him to you
+so surely. He feels that now Mr. Ammon will perfectly hate her for
+coming down there and driving you away. And you went to give her the
+chance she wanted. Oh, Elnora! It is becoming funny! I see it, too!”
+
+The Angel rocked on the bedside. Elnora faced the dark in silence.
+
+“Forgive me,” gulped the Angel. “I didn’t mean to laugh. I didn’t think
+it was funny, until all at once it came to me. Oh, dear! Elnora, it
+_is_ funny! I’ve got to laugh!”
+
+“Maybe it is,” admitted Elnora “to others; but it isn’t very funny to
+me. And it won’t be to Philip, or to mother.”
+
+That was very true. Mrs. Comstock had been slightly prepared for
+stringent action of some kind, by what Elnora had said. The mother
+instantly had guessed where the girl would go, but nothing was said to
+Philip. That would have been to invalidate Elnora’s test in the
+beginning, and Mrs. Comstock knew her child well enough to know that
+she never would marry Philip unless she felt it right that she should.
+The only way was to find out, and Elnora had gone to seek the
+information. There was nothing to do but wait until she came back, and
+her mother was not in the least uneasy but that the girl would return
+brave and self-reliant, as always.
+
+Philip Ammon hurried back to the Limberlost, strong in the hope that
+now he might take Elnora into his arms and receive her promise to
+become his wife. His first shock of disappointment came when he found
+her gone. In talking with Mrs. Comstock he learned that Edith Carr had
+made an opportunity to speak with Elnora alone. He hastened down the
+road to meet her, coming back alone, an agitated man. Then search
+revealed the notes. His read:
+
+DEAR PHILIP:
+
+I find that I am never going to be able to answer your question of this
+afternoon fairly to all of us, when you are with me. So I am going away
+a few weeks to think over matters alone. I shall not tell you, or even
+mother, where I am going, but I shall be safe, well cared for, and
+happy. Please go back home and live among your friends, just as you
+always have done, and on or before the first of September, I will write
+you where I am, and what I have decided. Please do not blame Edith Carr
+for this, and do not avoid her. I hope you will call on her and be
+friends. I think she is very sorry, and covets your friendship at
+least. Until September, then, as ever,
+
+ELNORA.
+
+Mrs. Comstock’s note was much the same. Philip was ill with
+disappointment. In the arbour he laid his head on the table, among the
+implements of Elnora’s loved work, and gulped down dry sobs he could
+not restrain. Mrs. Comstock never had liked him so well. Her hand
+involuntarily crept toward his dark head, then she drew back. Elnora
+would not want her to do anything whatever to influence him.
+
+“What am I going to do to convince Edith Carr that I do not love her,
+and Elnora that I am hers?” he demanded.
+
+“I guess you have to figure that out yourself,” said Mrs. Comstock.
+“I’d be glad to help you if I could, but it seems to be up to you.”
+
+Philip sat a long time in silence. “Well, I have decided!” he said
+abruptly. “Are you perfectly sure Elnora had plenty of money and a safe
+place to go?”
+
+“Absolutely!” answered Mrs. Comstock. “She has been taking care of
+herself ever since she was born, and she always has come out all right,
+so far; I’ll stake all I’m worth on it, that she always will. I don’t
+know where she is, but I’m not going to worry about her safety.”
+
+“I can’t help worrying!” cried Philip. “I can think of fifty things
+that may happen to her when she thinks she is safe. This is
+distracting! First, I am going to run up to see my father. Then, I’ll
+let you know what we have decided. Is there anything I can do for you?”
+
+“Nothing!” said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+But the desire to do something for him was so strong with her she
+scarcely could keep her lips closed or her hands quiet. She longed to
+tell him what Edith Carr had said, how it had affected Elnora, and to
+comfort him as she felt she could. But loyalty to the girl held her. If
+Elnora truly felt that she could not decide until Edith Carr was
+convinced, then Edith Carr would have to yield or triumph. It rested
+with Philip. So Mrs. Comstock kept silent, while Philip took the night
+limited, a bitterly disappointed man.
+
+By noon the next day he was in his father’s offices. They had a long
+conference, but did not arrive at much until the elder Ammon suggested
+sending for Polly. Anything that might have happened could be explained
+after Polly had told of the private conference between Edith and
+Elnora.
+
+“Talk about lovely woman!” cried Philip Ammon. “One would think that
+after such a dose as Edith gave me, she would be satisfied to let me go
+my way, but no! Not caring for me enough herself to save me from public
+disgrace, she must now pursue me to keep any other woman from loving
+me. I call that too much! I am going to see her, and I want you to go
+with me, father.”
+
+“Very well,” said Mr. Ammon, “I will go.”
+
+When Edith Carr came into her reception-room that afternoon, gowned for
+conquest, she expected only Philip, and him penitent. She came hurrying
+toward him, smiling, radiant, ready to use every allurement she
+possessed, and paused in dismay when she saw his cold face and his
+father. “Why, Phil!” she cried. “When did you come home?”
+
+“I am not at home,” answered Philip. “I merely ran up to see my father
+on business, and to inquire of you what it was you said to Miss
+Comstock yesterday that caused her to disappear before I could return
+to the Limberlost.”
+
+“Miss Comstock disappear! Impossible!” cried Edith Carr. “Where could
+she go?”
+
+“I thought perhaps you could answer that, since it was through you that
+she went.”
+
+“Phil, I haven’t the faintest idea where she is,” said the girl gently.
+
+“But you know perfectly why she went! Kindly tell me that.”
+
+“Let me see you alone, and I will.”
+
+“Here and now, or not at all.”
+
+“Phil!”
+
+“What did you say to the girl I love?”
+
+Then Edith Carr stretched out her arms.
+
+“Phil, I am the girl you love!” she cried. “All your life you have
+loved me. Surely it cannot be all gone in a few weeks of
+misunderstanding. I was jealous of her! I did not want you to leave me
+an instant that night for any other girl living. That was the moth I
+was representing. Every one knew it! I wanted you to bring it to me.
+When you did not, I knew instantly it had been for her that you worked
+last summer, she who suggested my dress, she who had power to take you
+from me, when I wanted you most. The thought drove me mad, and I said
+and did those insane things. Phil, I beg your pardon! I ask your
+forgiveness. Yesterday she said that you had told her of me at once.
+She vowed both of you had been true to me and Phil, I couldn’t look
+into her eyes and not see that it was the truth. Oh, Phil, if you
+understood how I have suffered you would forgive me. Phil, I never knew
+how much I cared for you! I will do anything—anything!”
+
+“Then tell me what you said to Elnora yesterday that drove her, alone
+and friendless, into the night, heaven knows where!”
+
+“You have no thought for any one save her?”
+
+“Yes,” said Philip. “I have. Because I once loved you, and believed in
+you, my heart aches for you. I will gladly forgive anything you ask. I
+will do anything you want, except to resume our former relations. That
+is impossible. It is hopeless and useless to ask it.”
+
+“You truly mean that!”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then find out from her what I said!”
+
+“Come, father,” said Philip, rising.
+
+“You were going to show Miss Comstock’s letter to Edith!” suggested Mr.
+Ammon.
+
+“I have not the slightest interest in Miss Comstock’s letter,” said
+Edith Carr.
+
+“You are not even interested in the fact that she says you are not
+responsible for her going, and that I am to call on you and be friends
+with you?”
+
+“That is interesting, indeed!” sneered Miss Carr.
+
+She took the letter, read and returned it.
+
+“She has done what she could for my cause, it seems,” she said coldly.
+“How very generous of her! Do you propose calling out Pinkertons and
+instituting a general search?”
+
+“No,” replied Philip. “I simply propose to go back to the Limberlost
+and live with her mother, until Elnora becomes convinced that I am not
+courting you, and never shall be. Then, perhaps, she will come home to
+us. Good-bye. Good luck to you always!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+WHEREIN EDITH CARR WAGES A BATTLE, AND HART HENDERSON STANDS GUARD
+
+
+Many people looked, a few followed, when Edith Carr slowly came down
+the main street of Mackinac, pausing here and there to note the glow of
+colour in one small booth after another, overflowing with gay curios.
+That street of packed white sand, winding with the curves of the shore,
+outlined with brilliant shops, and thronged with laughing, bare-headed
+people in outing costumes was a picturesque and fascinating sight.
+Thousands annually made long journeys and paid exorbitant prices to
+take part in that pageant.
+
+As Edith Carr passed, she was the most distinguished figure of the old
+street. Her clinging black gown was sufficiently elaborate for a dinner
+dress. On her head was a large, wide, drooping-brimmed black hat, with
+immense floating black plumes, while on the brim, and among the laces
+on her breast glowed velvety, deep red roses. Some way these made up
+for the lack of colour in her cheeks and lips, and while her eyes
+seemed unnaturally bright, to a close observer they appeared weary.
+Despite the effort she made to move lightly she was very tired, and
+dragged her heavy feet with an effort.
+
+She turned at the little street leading to the dock, and went to meet
+the big lake steamer ploughing up the Straits from Chicago. Past the
+landing place, on to the very end of the pier she went, then sat down,
+leaned against a dock support and closed her tired eyes. When the
+steamer came very close she languidly watched the people lining the
+railing. Instantly she marked one lean anxious face turned toward hers,
+and with a throb of pity she lifted a hand and waved to Hart Henderson.
+He was the first man to leave the boat, coming to her instantly. She
+spread her trailing skirts and motioned him to sit beside her. Silently
+they looked across the softly lapping water. At last she forced herself
+to speak to him.
+
+“Did you have a successful trip?”
+
+“I accomplished my purpose.”
+
+“You didn’t lose any time getting back.”
+
+“I never do when I am coming to you.”
+
+“Do you want to go to the cottage for anything?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then let us sit here and wait until the Petoskey steamer comes in. I
+like to watch the boats. Sometimes I study the faces, if I am not too
+tired.”
+
+“Have you seen any new types to-day?”
+
+She shook her head. “This has not been an easy day, Hart.”
+
+“And it’s going to be worse,” said Henderson bitterly. “There’s no use
+putting it off. Edith, I saw some one to-day.”
+
+“You should have seen thousands,” she said lightly.
+
+“I did. But of them all, only one will be of interest to you.”
+
+“Man or woman?”
+
+“Man.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Lake Shore private hospital.”
+
+“An accident?”
+
+“No. Nervous and physical breakdown.”
+
+“Phil said he was going back to the Limberlost.”
+
+“He went. He was there three weeks, but the strain broke him. He has an
+old letter in his hands that he has handled until it is ragged. He held
+it up to me and said: ‘You can see for yourself that she says she will
+be well and happy, but we can’t know until we see her again, and that
+may never be. She may have gone too near that place her father went
+down, some of that Limberlost gang may have found her in the forest,
+she may lie dead in some city morgue this instant, waiting for me to
+find her body.’”
+
+“Hart! For pity sake stop!”
+
+“I can’t,” cried Henderson desperately. “I am forced to tell you. They
+are fighting brain fever. He did go back to the swamp and he prowled it
+night and day. The days down there are hot now, and the nights wet with
+dew and cold. He paid no attention and forgot his food. A fever started
+and his uncle brought him home. They’ve never had a word from her, or
+found a trace of her. Mrs. Comstock thought she had gone to O’Mores’ at
+Great Rapids, so when Phil broke down she telegraphed there. They had
+been gone all summer, so her mother is as anxious as Phil.”
+
+“The O’Mores are here,” said Edith. “I haven’t seen any of them,
+because I haven’t gone out much in the few days since we came, but this
+is their summer home.”
+
+“Edith, they say at the hospital that it will take careful nursing to
+save Phil. He is surrounded by stacks of maps and railroad guides. He
+is trying to frame up a plan to set the entire detective agency of the
+country to work. He says he will stay there just two days longer. The
+doctors say he will kill himself when he goes. He is a sick man, Edith.
+His hands are burning and shaky and his breath was hot against my
+face.”
+
+“Why are you telling me?” It was a cry of acute anguish.
+
+“He thinks you know where she is.”
+
+“I do not! I haven’t an idea! I never dreamed she would go away when
+she had him in her hand! I should not have done it!”
+
+“He said it was something you said to her that made her go.”
+
+“That may be, but it doesn’t prove that I know where she went.”
+
+Henderson looked across the water and suffered keenly. At last he
+turned to Edith and laid a firm, strong hand over hers.
+
+“Edith,” he said, “do you realize how serious this is?”
+
+“I suppose I do.”
+
+“Do you want as fine a fellow as Philip driven any further? If he
+leaves that hospital now, and goes out to the exposure and anxiety of a
+search for her, there will be a tragedy that no after regrets can
+avert. Edith, what did you say to Miss Comstock that made her run away
+from Phil?”
+
+The girl turned her face from him and sat still, but the man gripping
+her hands and waiting in agony could see that she was shaken by the
+jolting of the heart in her breast.
+
+“Edith, what did you say?”
+
+“What difference can it make?”
+
+“It might furnish some clue to her action.”
+
+“It could not possibly.”
+
+“Phil thinks so. He has thought so until his brain is worn enough to
+give way. Tell me, Edith!”
+
+“I told her Phil was mine! That if he were away from her an hour and
+back in my presence, he would be to me as he always has been.”
+
+“Edith, did you believe that?”
+
+“I would have staked my life, my soul on it!”
+
+“Do you believe it now?”
+
+There was no answer. Henderson took her other hand and holding both of
+them firmly he said softly: “Don’t mind me, dear. I don’t count! I’m
+just old Hart! You can tell me anything. Do you still believe that?”
+
+The beautiful head barely moved in negation. Henderson gathered both
+her hands in one of his and stretched an arm across her shoulders to
+the post to support her. She dragged her hands from him and twisted
+them together.
+
+“Oh, Hart!” she cried. “It isn’t fair! There is a limit! I have
+suffered my share. Can’t you see? Can’t you understand?”
+
+“Yes,” he panted. “Yes, my girl! Tell me just this one thing yet, and
+I’ll cheerfully kill any one who annoys you further. Tell me, Edith!”
+
+Then she lifted her big, dull, pain-filled eyes to his and cried: “No!
+I do not believe it now! I know it is not true! I killed his love for
+me. It is dead and gone forever. Nothing will revive it! Nothing in all
+this world. And that is not all. I did not know how to touch the depths
+of his nature. I never developed in him those things he was made to
+enjoy. He admired me. He was proud to be with me. He thought, and I
+thought, that he worshipped me; but I know now that he never did care
+for me as he cares for her. Never! I can see it! I planned to lead
+society, to make his home a place sought for my beauty and popularity.
+She plans to advance his political ambitions, to make him comfortable
+physically, to stimulate his intellect, to bear him a brood of
+red-faced children. He likes her and her plans as he never did me and
+mine. Oh, my soul! Now, are you satisfied?”
+
+She dropped back against his arm exhausted. Henderson held her and
+learned what suffering truly means. He fanned her with his hat, rubbed
+her cold hands and murmured broken, incoherent things. By and by slow
+tears slipped from under her closed lids, but when she opened them her
+eyes were dull and hard.
+
+“What a rag one is when the last secret of the soul is torn out and
+laid bare!” she cried.
+
+Henderson thrust his handkerchief into her fingers and whispered,
+“Edith, the boat has been creeping up. It’s very close. Maybe some of
+our crowd are on it. Hadn’t we better slip away from here before it
+lands?”
+
+“If I can walk,” she said. “Oh, I am so dead tired, Hart!
+
+“Yes, dear,” said Henderson soothingly. “Just try to pass the landing
+before the boat anchors. If I only dared carry you!”
+
+They struggled through the waiting masses, but directly opposite the
+landing there was a backward movement in the happy, laughing crowd, the
+gang-plank came down with a slam, and people began hurrying from the
+boat. Crowded against the fish house on the dock, Henderson could only
+advance a few steps at a time. He was straining every nerve to protect
+and assist Edith. He saw no one he recognized near them, so he slipped
+his arm across her back to help support her. He felt her stiffen
+against him and catch her breath. At the same instant, the clearest,
+sweetest male voice he ever had heard called: “Be careful there, little
+men!”
+
+Henderson sent a swift glance toward the boat. Terence O’More had
+stepped from the gang-plank, leading a little daughter, so like him, it
+was comical. There followed a picture not easy to describe. The Angel
+in the full flower of her beauty, richly dressed, a laugh on her cameo
+face, the setting sun glinting on her gold hair, escorted by her eldest
+son, who held her hand tightly and carefully watched her steps. Next
+came Elnora, dressed with equal richness, a trifle taller and
+slenderer, almost the same type of colouring, but with different eyes
+and hair, facial lines and expression. She was led by the second O’More
+boy who convulsed the crowd by saying: “Tareful, Elnora! Don’t ’oo be
+’teppin’ in de water!”
+
+People surged around them, purposely closing them in.
+
+“What lovely women! Who are they? It’s the O’Mores. The lightest one is
+his wife. Is that her sister? No, it is his! They say he has a title in
+England.”
+
+Whispers ran fast and audible. As the crowd pressed around the party an
+opening was left beside the fish sheds. Edith ran down the dock.
+Henderson sprang after her, catching her arm and assisting her to the
+street.
+
+“Up the shore! This way!” she panted. “Every one will go to dinner the
+first thing they do.”
+
+They left the street and started around the beach, but Edith was
+breathless from running, while the yielding sand made difficult
+walking.
+
+“Help me!” she cried, clinging to Henderson. He put his arm around her,
+almost carrying her from sight into a little cove walled by high rocks
+at the back, while there was a clean floor of white sand, and logs
+washed from the lake for seats. He found one of these with a back rest,
+and hurrying down to the water he soaked his handkerchief and carried
+it to her. She passed it across her lips, over her eyes, and then
+pressed the palms of her hands upon it. Henderson removed the heavy
+hat, fanned her with his, and wet the handkerchief again.
+
+“Hart, what makes you?” she said wearily. “My mother doesn’t care. She
+says this is good for me. Do you think this is good for me, Hart?”
+
+“Edith, you know I would give my life if I could save you this,” he
+said, and could not speak further.
+
+She leaned against him, closed her eyes and lay silent so long the man
+fell into panic.
+
+“Edith, you are not unconscious?” he whispered, touching her.
+
+“No, just resting. Please don’t leave me.”
+
+He held her carefully, gently fanning her. She was suffering almost
+more than either of them could endure.
+
+“I wish you had your boat,” she said at last. “I want to sail with the
+wind in my face.”
+
+“There is no wind. I can bring my motor around in a few minutes.”
+
+“Then get it.”
+
+“Lie on the sand. I can ’phone from the first booth. It won’t take but
+a little while.”
+
+Edith lay on the white sand, and Henderson covered her face with her
+hat. Then he ran to the nearest booth and talked imperatively.
+Presently he was back bringing a hot drink that was stimulating.
+Shortly the motor ran close to the beach and stopped. Henderson’s
+servant brought a row-boat ashore and took them to the launch. It was
+filled with cushions and wraps. Henderson made a couch and soon, warmly
+covered, Edith sped out over the water in search of peace.
+
+Hour after hour the boat ran up and down the shore. The moon arose and
+the night air grew very chilly. Henderson put on an overcoat and piled
+more covers on Edith.
+
+“You must take me home,” she said at last. “The folks will be uneasy.”
+
+He was compelled to take her to the cottage with the battle still
+raging. He went back early the next morning, but already she had
+wandered out over the island. Instinctively Henderson felt that the
+shore would attract her. There was something in the tumult of rough
+little Huron’s waves that called to him. It was there he found her,
+crouching so close the water the foam was dampening her skirts.
+
+“May I stay?” he asked.
+
+“I have been hoping you would come,” she answered. “It’s bad enough
+when you are here, but it is a little easier than bearing it alone.”
+
+“Thank God for that!” said Henderson sitting beside her. “Shall I talk
+to you?”
+
+She shook her head. So they sat by the hour. At last she spoke: “Of
+course, you know there is something I have got to do, Hart!”
+
+“You have not!” cried Henderson, violently. “That’s all nonsense! Give
+me just one word of permission. That is all that is required of you.”
+
+“‘Required?’ You grant, then, that there is something ‘required?’”
+
+“One word. Nothing more.”
+
+“Did you ever know one word could be so big, so black, so desperately
+bitter? Oh, Hart!”
+
+“No.”
+
+“But you know it now, Hart!”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And still you say that it is ‘required?’”
+
+Henderson suffered unspeakably. At last he said: “If you had seen and
+heard him, Edith, you, too, would feel that it is ‘required.’
+Remember——”
+
+“No! No! No!” she cried. “Don’t ask me to remember even the least of my
+pride and folly. Let me forget!”
+
+She sat silent for a long time.
+
+“Will you go with me?” she whispered.
+
+“Of course.”
+
+At last she arose.
+
+“I might as well give up and have it over,” she faltered.
+
+That was the first time in her life that Edith Carr ever had proposed
+to give up anything she wanted.
+
+“Help me, Hart!”
+
+Henderson started around the beach assisting her all he could. Finally
+he stopped.
+
+“Edith, there is no sense in this! You are too tired to go. You know
+you can trust me. You wait in any of these lovely places and send me.
+You will be safe, and I’ll run. One word is all that is necessary.”
+
+“But I’ve got to say that word myself, Hart!”
+
+“Then write it, and let me carry it. The message is not going to prove
+who went to the office and sent it.”
+
+“That is quite true,” she said, dropping wearily, but she made no
+movement to take the pen and paper he offered.
+
+“Hart, you write it,” she said at last.
+
+Henderson turned away his face. He gripped the pen, while his breath
+sucked between his dry teeth.
+
+“Certainly!” he said when he could speak. “Mackinac, August 27, 1908.
+Philip Ammon, Lake Shore Hospital, Chicago.” He paused with suspended
+pen and glanced at Edith. Her white lips were working, but no sound
+came. “Miss Comstock is with the Terence O’Mores, on Mackinac Island,”
+prompted Henderson.
+
+Edith nodded.
+
+“Signed, Henderson,” continued the big man.
+
+Edith shook her head.
+
+“Say, ‘She is well and happy,’ and sign, Edith Carr!” she panted.
+
+“Not on your life!” flashed Henderson.
+
+“For the love of mercy, Hart, don’t make this any harder! It is the
+least I can do, and it takes every ounce of strength in me to do it.”
+
+“Will you wait for me here?” he asked.
+
+She nodded, and, pulling his hat lower over his eyes, Henderson ran
+around the shore. In less than an hour he was back. He helped her a
+little farther to where the Devil’s Kitchen lay cut into the rocks; it
+furnished places to rest, and cool water. Before long his man came with
+the boat. From it they spread blankets on the sand for her, and made
+chafing-dish tea. She tried to refuse it, but the fragrance overcame
+her for she drank ravenously. Then Henderson cooked several dishes and
+spread an appetizing lunch. She was young, strong, and almost famished
+for food. She was forced to eat. That made her feel much better. Then
+Henderson helped her into the boat and ran it through shady coves of
+the shore, where there were refreshing breezes. When she fell asleep
+the girl did not know, but the man did. Sadly in need of rest himself,
+he ran that boat for five hours through quiet bays, away from noisy
+parties, and where the shade was cool and deep. When she awoke he took
+her home, and as they went she knew that she had been mistaken. She
+would not die. Her heart was not even broken. She had suffered
+horribly; she would suffer more; but eventually the pain must wear out.
+Into her head crept a few lines of an old opera:
+
+“Hearts do not break, they sting and ache,
+For old love’s sake, but do not die,
+As witnesseth the living I.”
+
+
+That evening they were sailing down the Straits before a stiff breeze
+and Henderson was busy with the tiller when she said to him: “Hart, I
+want you to do something more for me.”
+
+“You have only to tell me,” he said.
+
+“Have I only to tell you, Hart?” she asked softly.
+
+“Haven’t you learned that yet, Edith?”
+
+“I want you to go away.”
+
+“Very well,” he said quietly, but his face whitened visibly.
+
+“You say that as if you had been expecting it.”
+
+“I have. I knew from the beginning that when this was over you would
+dislike me for having seen you suffer. I have grown my Gethsemane in a
+full realization of what was coming, but I could not leave you, Edith,
+so long as it seemed to me that I was serving you. Does it make any
+difference to you where I go?”
+
+“I want you where you will be loved, and good care taken of you.”
+
+“Thank you!” said Henderson, smiling grimly. “Have you any idea where
+such a spot might be found?”
+
+“It should be with your sister at Los Angeles. She always has seemed
+very fond of you.”
+
+“That is quite true,” said Henderson, his eyes brightening a little. “I
+will go to her. When shall I start?”
+
+“At once.”
+
+Henderson began to tack for the landing, but his hands shook until he
+scarcely could manage the boat. Edith Carr sat watching him
+indifferently, but her heart was throbbing painfully. “Why is there so
+much suffering in the world?” she kept whispering to herself. Inside
+her door Henderson took her by the shoulders almost roughly.
+
+“For how long is this, Edith, and how are you going to say good-bye to
+me?”
+
+She raised tired, pain-filled eyes to his.
+
+“I don’t know for how long it is,” she said. “It seems now as if it had
+been a slow eternity. I wish to my soul that God would be merciful to
+me and make something ‘snap’ in my heart, as there did in Phil’s, that
+would give me rest. I don’t know for how long, but I’m perfectly
+shameless with you, Hart. If peace ever comes and I want you, I won’t
+wait for you to find it out yourself, I’ll cable, Marconigraph,
+anything. As for how I say good-bye; any way you please, I don’t care
+in the least what happens to me.”
+
+Henderson studied her intently.
+
+“In that case, we will shake hands,” he said. “Good-bye, Edith. Don’t
+forget that every hour I am thinking of you and hoping all good things
+will come to you soon.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP FINDS ELNORA, AND EDITH CARR OFFERS A YELLOW EMPEROR
+
+
+“Oh, I need my own violin,” cried Elnora. “This one may be a thousand
+times more expensive, and much older than mine; but it wasn’t inspired
+and taught to sing by a man who knew how. It doesn’t know ‘beans,’ as
+mother would say, about the Limberlost.”
+
+The guests in the O’More music-room laughed appreciatively.
+
+“Why don’t you write your mother to come for a visit and bring yours?”
+suggested Freckles.
+
+“I did that three days ago,” acknowledged Elnora. “I am half expecting
+her on the noon boat. That is one reason why this violin grows worse
+every minute. There is nothing at all the matter with me.”
+
+“Splendid!” cried the Angel. “I’ve begged and begged her to do it. I
+know how anxious these mothers become. When did you send? What made
+you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
+
+“‘When?’ Three days ago. ‘What made me?’ You. ‘Why didn’t I tell you?’
+Because I can’t be sure in the least that she will come. Mother is the
+most individual person. She never does what every one expects she will.
+She may not come, and I didn’t want you to be disappointed.”
+
+“How did I make you?” asked the Angel.
+
+“Loving Alice. It made me realize that if you cared for your girl like
+that, with Mr. O’More and three other children, possibly my mother,
+with no one, might like to see me. I know I want to see her, and you
+had told me to so often, I just sent for her. Oh, I do hope she comes!
+I want her to see this lovely place.”
+
+“I have been wondering what you thought of Mackinac,” said Freckles.
+
+“Oh, it is a perfect picture, all of it! I should like to hang it on
+the wall, so I could see it whenever I wanted to; but it isn’t real, of
+course; it’s nothing but a picture.”
+
+“These people won’t agree with you,” smiled Freckles.
+
+“That isn’t necessary,” retorted Elnora. “They know this, and they love
+it; but you and I are acquainted with something different. The
+Limberlost is life. Here it is a carefully kept park. You motor, sail,
+and golf, all so secure and fine. But what I like is the excitement of
+choosing a path carefully, in the fear that the quagmire may reach out
+and suck me down; to go into the swamp naked-handed and wrest from it
+treasures that bring me books and clothing, and I like enough of a
+fight for things that I always remember how I got them. I even enjoy
+seeing a canny old vulture eyeing me as if it were saying: ’Ware the
+sting of the rattler, lest I pick your bones as I did old Limber’s.’ I
+like sufficient danger to put an edge on life. This is so tame. I
+should have loved it when all the homes were cabins, and watchers for
+the stealthy Indian canoes patrolled the shores. You wait until mother
+comes, and if my violin isn’t angry with me for leaving it, to-night we
+shall sing you the Song of the Limberlost. You shall hear the big gold
+bees over the red, yellow, and purple flowers, bird song, wind talk,
+and the whispers of Sleepy Snake Creek, as it goes past you. You will
+know!” Elnora turned to Freckles.
+
+He nodded. “Who better?” he asked. “This is secure while the children
+are so small, but when they grow larger, we are going farther north,
+into real forest, where they can learn self-reliance and develop
+backbone.”
+
+Elnora laid away the violin. “Come along, children,” she said. “We must
+get at that backbone business at once. Let’s race to the playhouse.”
+
+With the brood at her heels Elnora ran, and for an hour lively sounds
+stole from the remaining spot of forest on the Island, which lay beside
+the O’More cottage. Then Terry went to the playroom to bring Alice her
+doll. He came racing back, dragging it by one leg, and crying: “There’s
+company! Someone has come that mamma and papa are just tearing down the
+house over. I saw through the window.”
+
+“It could not be my mother, yet,” mused Elnora. “Her boat is not due
+until twelve. Terry, give Alice that doll——”
+
+“It’s a man-person, and I don’t know him, but my father is shaking his
+hand right straight along, and my mother is running for a hot drink and
+a cushion. It’s a kind of a sick person, but they are going to make him
+well right away, any one can see that. This is the best place.
+
+“I’ll go tell him to come lie on the pine needles in the sun and watch
+the sails go by. That will fix him!”
+
+“Watch sails go by,” chanted Little Brother. “‘A fix him! Elnora fix
+him, won’t you?”
+
+“I don’t know about that,” answered Elnora. “What sort of person is he,
+Terry?”
+
+“A beautiful white person; but my father is going to ‘colour him up,’ I
+heard him say so. He’s just out of the hospital, and he is a bad
+person, ’cause he ran away from the doctors and made them awful angry.
+But father and mother are going to doctor him better. I didn’t know
+they could make sick people well.”
+
+“’Ey do anyfing!” boasted Little Brother.
+
+Before Elnora missed her, Alice, who had gone to investigate, came
+flying across the shadows and through the sunshine waving a paper. She
+thurst it into Elnora’s hand.
+
+“There is a man-person—a stranger-person!” she shouted. “But he knows
+you! He sent you that! You are to be the doctor! He said so! Oh, do
+hurry! I like him heaps!”
+
+Elnora read Edith Carr’s telegram to Philip Ammon and understood that
+he had been ill, that she had been located by Edith who had notified
+him. In so doing she had acknowledged defeat. At last Philip was free.
+Elnora looked up with a radiant face.
+
+“I like him ‘heaps’ myself!” she cried. “Come on children, we will go
+tell him so.”
+
+Terry and Alice ran, but Elnora had to suit her steps to Little
+Brother, who was her loyal esquire, and would have been heartbroken
+over desertion and insulted at being carried. He was rather dragged,
+but he was arriving, and the emergency was great, he could see that.
+
+“She’s coming!” shouted Alice.
+
+“She’s going to be the doctor!” cried Terry.
+
+“She looked just like she’d seen angels when she read the letter,”
+explained Alice.
+
+“She likes you ‘heaps!’ She said so!” danced Terry. “Be waiting! Here
+she is!”
+
+Elnora helped Little Brother up the steps, then deserted him and came
+at a rush. The stranger-person stood holding out trembling arms.
+
+“Are you sure, at last, runaway?” asked Philip Ammon.
+
+“Perfectly sure!” cried Elnora.
+
+“Will you marry me now?”
+
+“This instant! That is, any time after the noon boat comes in.”
+
+“Why such unnecessary delay?” demanded Ammon.
+
+“It is almost September,” explained Elnora. “I sent for mother three
+days ago. We must wait until she comes, and we either have to send for
+Uncle Wesley and Aunt Margaret, or go to them. I couldn’t possibly be
+married properly without those dear people.”
+
+“We will send,” decided Ammon. “The trip will be a treat for them.
+O’More, would you get off a message at once?”
+
+Every one met the noon boat. They went in the motor because Philip was
+too weak to walk so far. As soon as people could be distinguished at
+all Elnora and Philip sighted an erect figure, with a head like a
+snowdrift. When the gang-plank fell the first person across it was a
+lean, red-haired boy of eleven, carrying a violin in one hand and an
+enormous bouquet of yellow marigolds and purple asters in the other. He
+was beaming with broad smiles until he saw Philip. Then his expression
+changed.
+
+“Aw, say!” he exclaimed reproachfully. “I bet you Aunt Margaret is
+right. He is going to be your beau!”
+
+Elnora stooped to kiss Billy as she caught her mother.
+
+“There, there!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “Don’t knock my headgear into my
+eye. I’m not sure I’ve got either hat or hair. The wind blew like
+bizzem coming up the river.”
+
+She shook out her skirts, straightened her hat, and came forward to
+meet Philip, who took her into his arms and kissed her repeatedly. Then
+he passed her along to Freckles and the Angel to whom her greetings
+were mingled with scolding and laughter over her wind-blown hair.
+
+“No doubt I’m a precious spectacle!” she said to the Angel. “I saw your
+pa a little before I started, and he sent you a note. It’s in my
+satchel. He said he was coming up next week. What a lot of people there
+are in this world! And what on earth are all of them laughing about?
+Did none of them ever hear of sickness, or sorrow, or death? Billy,
+don’t you go to playing Indian or chasing woodchucks until you get out
+of those clothes. I promised Margaret I’d bring back that suit good as
+new.”
+
+Then the O’More children came crowding to meet Elnora’s mother.
+
+“Merry Christmas!” cried Mrs. Comstock, gathering them in. “Got
+everything right here but the tree, and there seems to be plenty of
+them a little higher up. If this wind would stiffen just enough more to
+blow away the people, so one could see this place, I believe it would
+be right decent looking.”
+
+“See here,” whispered Elnora to Philip. “You must fix this with Billy.
+I can’t have his trip spoiled.”
+
+“Now, here is where I dust the rest of ’em!” complacently remarked Mrs.
+Comstock, as she climbed into the motor car for her first ride, in
+company with Philip and Little Brother. “I have been the one to trudge
+the roads and hop out of the way of these things for quite a spell.”
+
+She sat very erect as the car rolled into the broad main avenue, where
+only stray couples were walking. Her eyes began to twinkle and gleam.
+Suddenly she leaned forward and touched the driver on the shoulder.
+
+“Young man,” she said, “just you toot that horn suddenly and shave
+close enough a few of those people, so that I can see how I look when I
+leap for ragweed and snake fences.”
+
+The amazed chauffeur glanced questioningly at Philip who slightly
+nodded. A second later there was a quick “honk!” and a swerve at a
+corner. A man engrossed in conversation grabbed the woman to whom he
+was talking and dashed for the safety of a lawn. The woman tripped in
+her skirts, and as she fell the man caught and dragged her. Both of
+them turned red faces to the car and berated the driver. Mrs. Comstock
+laughed in unrestrained enjoyment. Then she touched the chauffeur
+again.
+
+“That’s enough,” she said. “It seems a mite risky.” A minute later she
+added to Philip, “If only they had been carrying six pounds of butter
+and ten dozen eggs apiece, wouldn’t that have been just perfect?”
+
+Billy had wavered between Elnora and the motor, but his loyal little
+soul had been true to her, so the walk to the cottage began with him at
+her side. Long before they arrived the little O’Mores had crowded
+around and captured Billy, and he was giving them an expurgated version
+of Mrs. Comstock’s tales of Big Foot and Adam Poe, boasting that Uncle
+Wesley had been in the camps of Me-shin-go-me-sia and knew Wa-ca-co-nah
+before he got religion and dressed like white men; while the mighty
+prowess of Snap as a woodchuck hunter was done full justice. When they
+reached the cottage Philip took Billy aside, showed him the emerald
+ring and gravely asked his permission to marry Elnora. Billy struggled
+to be just, but it was going hard with him, when Alice, who kept close
+enough to hear, intervened.
+
+“Why don’t you let them get married?” she asked. “You are much too
+small for her. You wait for me!”
+
+Billy studied her intently. At last he turned to Ammon. “Aw, well! Go
+on, then!” he said gruffly. “I’ll marry Alice!”
+
+Alice reached her hand. “If you got that settled let’s put on our
+Indian clothes, call the boys, and go to the playhouse.”
+
+“I haven’t got any Indian clothes,” said Billy ruefully.
+
+“Yes, you have,” explained Alice. “Father bought you some coming from
+the dock. You can put them on in the playhouse. The boys do.”
+
+Billy examined the playhouse with gleaming eyes.
+
+Never had he encountered such possibilities. He could see a hundred
+amusing things to try, and he could not decide which to do first. The
+most immediate attraction seemed to be a dead pine, held
+perpendicularly by its fellows, while its bark had decayed and fallen,
+leaving a bare, smooth trunk.
+
+“If we just had some grease that would make the dandiest pole to play
+Fourth of July with!” he shouted.
+
+The children remembered the Fourth. It had been great fun.
+
+“Butter is grease. There is plenty in the ’frigerator,” suggested
+Alice, speeding away.
+
+Billy caught the cold roll and began to rub it against the tree
+excitedly.
+
+“How are you going to get it greased to the top?” inquired Terry.
+
+Billy’s face lengthened. “That’s so!” he said. “The thing is to begin
+at the top and grease down. I’ll show you!”
+
+Billy put the butter in his handkerchief and took the corners between
+his teeth. He climbed the pole, greasing it as he slid down.
+
+“Now, I got to try first,” he said, “because I’m the biggest and so I
+have the best chance; only the one that goes first hasn’t hardly any
+chance at all, because he has to wipe off the grease on himself, so the
+others can get up at last. See?”
+
+“All right!” said Terry. “You go first and then I will and then Alice.
+Phew! It’s slick. He’ll never get up.”
+
+Billy wrestled manfully, and when he was exhausted he boosted Terry,
+and then both of them helped Alice, to whom they awarded a prize of her
+own doll. As they rested Billy remembered.
+
+“Do your folks keep cows?” he asked.
+
+“No, we buy milk,” said Terry.
+
+“Gee! Then what about the butter? Maybe your ma needs it for dinner!”
+
+“No, she doesn’t!” cried Alice. “There’s stacks of it! I can have all
+the butter I want.”
+
+“Well, I’m mighty glad of it!” said Billy. “I didn’t just think. I’m
+afraid we’ve greased our clothes, too.”
+
+“That’s no difference,” said Terry. “We can play what we please in
+these things.”
+
+“Well, we ought to be all dirty, and bloody, and have feathers on us to
+be real Indians,” said Billy.
+
+Alice tried a handful of dirt on her sleeve and it streaked
+beautifully. Instantly all of them began smearing themselves.
+
+“If we only had feathers,” lamented Billy.
+
+Terry disappeared and shortly returned from the garage with a feather
+duster. Billy fell on it with a shriek. Around each one’s head he
+firmly tied a twisted handkerchief, and stuck inside it a row of
+stiffly upstanding feathers.
+
+“Now, if we just only had some pokeberries to paint us red, we’d be
+real, for sure enough Indians, and we could go on the warpath and fight
+all the other tribes and burn a lot of them at the stake.”
+
+Alice sidled up to him. “Would huckleberries do?” she asked softly.
+
+“Yes!” shouted Terry, wild with excitement. “Anything that’s a colour.”
+
+Alice made another trip to the refrigerator. Billy crushed the berries
+in his hands and smeared and streaked all their faces liberally.
+
+“Now are we ready?” asked Alice.
+
+Billy collapsed. “I forgot the ponies! You got to ride ponies to go on
+the warpath!”
+
+“You ain’t neither!” contradicted Terry. “It’s the very latest style to
+go on the warpath in a motor. Everybody does! They go everywhere in
+them. They are much faster and better than any old ponies.”
+
+Billy gave one genuine whoop. “Can we take your motor?”
+
+Terry hesitated.
+
+“I suppose you are too little to run it?” said Billy.
+
+“I am not!” flashed Terry. “I know how to start and stop it, and I
+drive lots for Stephens. It is hard to turn over the engine when you
+start.”
+
+“I’ll turn it,” volunteered Billy. “I’m strong as anything.”
+
+“Maybe it will start without. If Stephens has just been running it,
+sometimes it will. Come on, let’s try.”
+
+Billy straightened up, lifted his chin and cried: “Houpe! Houpe!
+Houpe!”
+
+The little O’Mores stared in amazement.
+
+“Why don’t you come on and whoop?” demanded Billy. “Don’t you know how?
+You are great Indians! You got to whoop before you go on the warpath.
+You ought to kill a bat, too, and see if the wind is right. But maybe
+the engine won’t run if we wait to do that. You can whoop, anyway. All
+together now!”
+
+They did whoop, and after several efforts the cry satisfied Billy, so
+he led the way to the big motor, and took the front seat with Terry.
+Alice and Little Brother climbed into the back.
+
+“Will it go?” asked Billy, “or do we have to turn it?”
+
+“It will go,” said Terry as the machine gently slid out into the avenue
+and started under his guidance.
+
+“This is no warpath!” scoffed Billy. “We got to go a lot faster than
+this, and we got to whoop. Alice, why don’t you whoop?”
+
+Alice arose, took hold of the seat in front and whooped.
+
+“If I open the throttle, I can’t squeeze the bulb to scare people out
+of our way,” said Terry. “I can’t steer and squeeze, too.”
+
+“We’ll whoop enough to get them out of the way. Go faster!” urged
+Billy.
+
+Billy also stood, lifted his chin and whooped like the wildest little
+savage that ever came out of the West. Alice and Little Brother added
+their voices, and when he was not absorbed with the steering gear,
+Terry joined in.
+
+“Faster!” shouted Billy.
+
+Intoxicated with the speed and excitement, Terry threw the throttle
+wider and the big car leaped forward and sped down the avenue. In it
+four black, feather-bedecked children whooped in wild glee until
+suddenly Terry’s war cry changed to a scream of panic.
+
+“The lake is coming!”
+
+“Stop!” cried Billy. “Stop! Why don’t you stop?”
+
+Paralyzed with fear Terry clung to the steering gear and the car sped
+onward.
+
+“You little fool! Why don’t you stop?” screamed Billy, catching Terry’s
+arm. “Tell me how to stop!”
+
+A bicycle shot beside them and Freckles standing on the pedals shouted:
+“Pull out the pin in that little circle at your feet!”
+
+Billy fell on his knees and tugged and the pin yielded at last. Just as
+the wheels struck the white sand the bicycle sheered close, Freckles
+caught the lever and with one strong shove set the brake. The water
+flew as the car struck Huron, but luckily it was shallow and the beach
+smooth. Hub deep the big motor stood quivering as Freckles climbed in
+and backed it to dry sand.
+
+Then he drew a deep breath and stared at his brood.
+
+“Terence, would you kindly be explaining?” he said at last.
+
+Billy looked at the panting little figure of Terry.
+
+“I guess I better,” he said. “We were playing Indians on the warpath,
+and we hadn’t any ponies, and Terry said it was all the style to go in
+automobiles now, so we——”
+
+Freckles’s head went back, and he did some whooping himself.
+
+“I wonder if you realize how nearly you came to being four drowned
+children?” he said gravely, after a time.
+
+“Oh, I think I could swim enough to get most of us out,” said Billy.
+“Anyway, we need washing.”
+
+“You do indeed,” said Freckles. “I will head this procession to the
+garage, and there we will remove the first coat.” For the remainder of
+Billy’s visit the nurse, chauffeur, and every servant of the O’More
+household had something of importance on their minds, and Billy’s every
+step was shadowed.
+
+“I have Billy’s consent,” said Philip to Elnora, “and all the other
+consent you have stipulated. Before you think of something more, give
+me your left hand, please.”
+
+Elnora gave it gladly, and the emerald slipped on her finger. Then they
+went together into the forest to tell each other all about it, and talk
+it over.
+
+“Have you seen Edith?” asked Philip.
+
+“No,” answered Elnora. “But she must be here, or she may have seen me
+when we went to Petoskey a few days ago. Her people have a cottage over
+on the bluff, but the Angel never told me until to-day. I didn’t want
+to make that trip, but the folks were so anxious to entertain me, and
+it was only a few days until I intended to let you know myself where I
+was.”
+
+“And I was going to wait just that long, and if I didn’t hear then I
+was getting ready to turn over the country. I can scarcely realize yet
+that Edith sent me that telegram.”
+
+“No wonder! It’s a difficult thing to believe. I can’t express how I
+feel for her.”
+
+“Let us never speak of it again,” said Philip. “I came nearer feeling
+sorry for her last night than I have yet. I couldn’t sleep on that boat
+coming over, and I couldn’t put away the thought of what sending that
+message cost her. I never would have believed it possible that she
+would do it. But it is done. We will forget it.”
+
+“I scarcely think I shall,” said Elnora. “It is something I like to
+remember. How suffering must have changed her! I would give anything to
+bring her peace.”
+
+“Henderson came to see me at the hospital a few days ago. He’s gone a
+rather wild pace, but if he had been held from youth by the love of a
+good woman he might have lived differently. There are things about him
+one cannot help admiring.”
+
+“I think he loves her,” said Elnora softly.
+
+“He does! He always has! He never made any secret of it. He will cut in
+now and do his level best, but he told me that he thought she would
+send him away. He understands her thoroughly.”
+
+Edith Carr did not understand herself. She went to her room after her
+good-bye to Henderson, lay on her bed and tried to think why she was
+suffering as she was.
+
+“It is all my selfishness, my unrestrained temper, my pride in my
+looks, my ambition to be first,” she said. “That is what has caused
+this trouble.”
+
+Then she went deeper.
+
+“How does it happen that I am so selfish, that I never controlled my
+temper, that I thought beauty and social position the vital things of
+life?” she muttered. “I think that goes a little past me. I think a
+mother who allows a child to grow up as I did, who educates it only for
+the frivolities of life, has a share in that child’s ending. I think my
+mother has some responsibility in this,” Edith Carr whispered to the
+night. “But she will recognize none. She would laugh at me if I tried
+to tell her what I have suffered and the bitter, bitter lesson I have
+learned. No one really cares, but Hart. I’ve sent him away, so there is
+no one! No one!”
+
+Edith pressed her fingers across her burning eyes and lay still.
+
+“He is gone!” she whispered at last. “He would go at once. He would not
+see me again. I should think he never would want to see me any more.
+But I will want to see him! My soul! I want him now! I want him every
+minute! He is all I have. And I’ve sent him away. Oh, these dreadful
+days to come, alone! I can’t bear it. Hart! Hart!” she cried aloud. “I
+want you! No one cares but you. No one understands but you. Oh, I want
+you!”
+
+She sprang from her bed and felt her way to her desk.
+
+“Get me some one at the Henderson cottage,” she said to Central, and
+waited shivering.
+
+“They don’t answer.”
+
+“They are there! You must get them. Turn on the buzzer.”
+
+After a time the sleepy voice of Mrs. Henderson answered.
+
+“Has Hart gone?” panted Edith Carr.
+
+“No! He came in late and began to talk about starting to California. He
+hasn’t slept in weeks to amount to anything. I put him to bed. There is
+time enough to start to California when he awakens. Edith, what are you
+planning to do next with that boy of mine?”
+
+“Will you tell him I want to see him before he goes?”
+
+“Yes, but I won’t wake him.”
+
+“I don’t want you to. Just tell him in the morning.”
+
+“Very well.”
+
+“You will be sure?”
+
+“Sure!”
+
+Hart was not gone. Edith fell asleep. She arose at noon the next day,
+took a cold bath, ate her breakfast, dressed carefully, and leaving
+word that she had gone to the forest, she walked slowly across the
+leaves. It was cool and quiet there, so she sat where she could see him
+coming, and waited. She was thinking deep and fast.
+
+Henderson came swiftly down the path. A long sleep, food, and Edith’s
+message had done him good. He had dressed in new light flannels that
+were becoming. Edith arose and went to meet him.
+
+“Let us walk in the forest,” she said.
+
+They passed the old Catholic graveyard, and entered the deepest wood of
+the Island, where all shadows were green, all voices of humanity
+ceased, and there was no sound save the whispering of the trees, a few
+bird notes and squirrel rustle. There Edith seated herself on a mossy
+old log, and Henderson studied her. He could detect a change. She was
+still pale and her eyes tired, but the dull, strained look was gone. He
+wanted to hope, but he did not dare. Any other man would have forced
+her to speak. The mighty tenderness in Henderson’s heart shielded her
+in every way.
+
+“What have you thought of that you wanted yet, Edith?” he asked lightly
+as he stretched himself at her feet.
+
+“You!”
+
+Henderson lay tense and very still.
+
+“Well, I am here!”
+
+“Thank Heaven for that!”
+
+Henderson sat up suddenly, leaning toward her with questioning eyes.
+Not knowing what he dared say, afraid of the hope which found birth in
+his heart, he tried to shield her and at the same time to feel his way.
+
+“I am more thankful than I can express that you feel so,” he said. “I
+would be of use, of comfort, to you if I knew how, Edith.”
+
+“You are my only comfort,” she said. “I tried to send you away. I
+thought I didn’t want you. I thought I couldn’t bear the sight of you,
+because of what you have seen me suffer. But I went to the root of this
+thing last night, Hart, and with self in mind, as usual, I found that I
+could not live without you.”
+
+Henderson began breathing lightly. He was afraid to speak or move.
+
+“I faced the fact that all this is my own fault,” continued Edith, “and
+came through my own selfishness. Then I went farther back and realized
+that I am as I was reared. I don’t want to blame my parents, but I was
+carefully trained into what I am. If Elnora Comstock had been like me,
+Phil would have come back to me. I can see how selfish I seem to him,
+and how I appear to you, if you would admit it.”
+
+“Edith,” said Henderson desperately, “there is no use to try to deceive
+you. You have known from the first that I found you wrong in this. But
+it’s the first time in your life I ever thought you wrong about
+anything—and it’s the only time I ever shall. Understand, I think you
+the bravest, most beautiful woman on earth, the one most worth loving.”
+
+“I’m not to be considered in the same class with her.”
+
+“I don’t grant that, but if I did, you, must remember how I compare
+with Phil. He’s my superior at every point. There’s no use in
+discussing that. You wanted to see me, Edith. What did you want?”
+
+“I wanted you to not go away.”
+
+“Not at all?”
+
+“Not at all! Not ever! Not unless you take me with you, Hart.”
+
+She slightly extended one hand to him. Henderson took that hand,
+kissing it again and again.
+
+“Anything you want, Edith,” he said brokenly. “Just as you wish it. Do
+you want me to stay here, and go on as we have been?”
+
+“Yes, only with a difference.”
+
+“Can you tell me, Edith?”
+
+“First, I want you to know that you are the dearest thing on earth to
+me, right now. I would give up everything else, before I would you. I
+can’t honestly say that I love you with the love you deserve. My heart
+is too sore. It’s too soon to know. But I love you some way. You are
+necessary to me. You are my comfort, my shield. If you want me, as you
+know me to be, Hart, you may consider me yours. I give you my word of
+honour I will try to be as you would have me, just as soon as I can.”
+
+Henderson kissed her hand passionately. “Don’t, Edith,” he begged.
+“Don’t say those things. I can’t bear it. I understand. Everything will
+come right in time. Love like mine must bring a reward. You will love
+me some day. I can wait. I am the most patient fellow.”
+
+“But I must say it,” cried Edith. “I—I think, Hart, that I have been on
+the wrong road to find happiness. I planned to finish life as I started
+it with Phil; and you see how glad he was to change. He wanted the
+other sort of girl far more than he ever wanted me. And you, Hart,
+honest, now—I’ll know if you don’t tell me the truth! Would you rather
+have a wife as I planned to live life with Phil, or would you rather
+have her as Elnora Comstock intends to live with him?”
+
+“Edith!” cried the man, “Edith!”
+
+“Of course, you can’t say it in plain English,” said the girl. “You are
+far too chivalrous for that. You needn’t say anything. I am answered.
+If you could have your choice you wouldn’t have a society wife, either.
+In your heart you’d like the smaller home of comfort, the furtherance
+of your ambitions, the palatable meals regularly served, and little
+children around you. I am sick of all we have grown up to, Hart. When
+your hour of trouble comes, there is no comfort for you. I am tired to
+death. You find out what you want to do, and be, that is a man’s work
+in the world, and I will plan our home, with no thought save your
+comfort. I’ll be the other kind of a girl, as fast as I can learn. I
+can’t correct all my faults in one day, but I’ll change as rapidly as I
+can.”
+
+“God knows, I will be different, too, Edith. You shall not be the only
+generous one. I will make all the rest of life worthy of you. I will
+change, too!”
+
+“Don’t you dare!” said Edith Carr, taking his head between her hands
+and holding it against her knees, while the tears slid down her cheeks.
+“Don’t you dare change, you big-hearted, splendid lover! I am little
+and selfish. You are the very finest, just as you are!”
+
+Henderson was not talking then, so they sat through a long silence. At
+last he heard Edith draw a quick breath, and lifting his head he looked
+where she pointed. Up a fern stalk climbed a curious looking object.
+They watched breathlessly. By lavender feet clung a big, pursy,
+lavender-splotched, yellow body. Yellow and lavender wings began to
+expand and take on colour. Every instant great beauty became more
+apparent. It was one of those double-brooded freaks, which do occur on
+rare occasions, or merely an Eacles Imperialis moth that in the cool
+damp northern forest had failed to emerge in June. Edith Carr drew back
+with a long, shivering breath. Henderson caught her hands and gripped
+them firmly. Steadily she looked the thought of her heart into his
+eyes.
+
+“By all the powers, you shall not!” swore the man. “You have done
+enough. I will smash that thing!”
+
+“Oh no you won’t!” cried the girl, clinging to his hands. “I am not big
+enough yet, Hart, but before I leave this forest I shall have grown to
+breadth and strength to carry that to her. She needs two of each kind.
+Phil only sent her one!”
+
+“Edith I can’t bear it! That’s not demanded! Let me take it!”
+
+“You may go with me. I know where the O’More cottage is. I have been
+there often.”
+
+“I’ll say you sent it!”
+
+“You may watch me deliver it!”
+
+“Phil may be there by now.”
+
+“I hope he is! I should like him to see me do one decent thing by which
+to remember me.”
+
+“I tell you that is not necessary!”
+
+“‘Not necessary!’” cried the girl, her big eyes shining. “Not
+necessary? Then what on earth is the thing doing here? I just have
+boasted that I would change, that I would be like her, that I would
+grow bigger and broader. As the words are spoken God gives me the
+opportunity to prove whether I am sincere. This is my test, Hart! Don’t
+you see it? If I am big enough to carry that to her, you will believe
+that there is some good in me. You will not be loving me in vain. This
+is an especial Providence, man! Be my strength! Help me, as you always
+have done!”
+
+Henderson arose and shook the leaves from his clothing. He drew Edith
+Carr to her feet and carefully picked the mosses from her skirts. He
+went to the water and moistened his handkerchief to bathe her face.
+
+“Now a dust of powder,” he said when the tears were washed away.
+
+From a tiny book Edith tore leaves that she passed over her face.
+
+“All gone!” cried Henderson, critically studying her. “You look almost
+half as lovely as you really are!”
+
+Edith Carr drew a wavering breath. She stretched one hand to him.
+
+“Hold tight, Hart!” she said. “I know they handle these things, but I
+would quite as soon touch a snake.”
+
+Henderson clenched his teeth and held steadily. The moth had emerged
+too recently to be troublesome. It climbed on her fingers quietly and
+obligingly clung there without moving. So hand in hand they went down
+the dark forest path. When they came to the avenue, the first person
+they met paused with an ejaculation of wonder. The next stopped also,
+and every one following. They could make little progress on account of
+marvelling, interested people. A strange excitement took possession of
+Edith. She began to feel proud of the moth.
+
+“Do you know,” she said to Henderson, “this is growing easier every
+step. Its clinging is not disagreeable as I thought it would be. I feel
+as if I were saving it, protecting it. I am proud that we are taking it
+to be put into a collection or a book. It seems like doing a thing
+worth while. Oh, Hart, I wish we could work together at something for
+which people would care as they seem to for this. Hear what they say!
+See them lift their little children to look at it!”
+
+“Edith, if you don’t stop,” said Henderson, “I will take you in my arms
+here on the avenue. You are adorable!”
+
+“Don’t you dare!” laughed Edith Carr. The colour rushed to her cheeks
+and a new light leaped in her eyes.
+
+“Oh, Hart!” she cried. “Let’s work! Let’s do something! That’s the way
+she makes people love her so. There’s the place, and thank goodness,
+there is a crowd.”
+
+“You darling!” whispered Henderson as they passed up the walk. Her face
+was rose-flushed with excitement and her eyes shone.
+
+“Hello, everyone!” she cried as she came on the wide veranda. “Only see
+what we found up in the forest! We thought you might like to have it
+for some of your collections.”
+
+She held out the moth as she walked straight to Elnora, who arose to
+meet her, crying: “How perfectly splendid! I don’t even know how to
+begin to thank you.”
+
+Elnora took the moth. Edith shook hands with all of them and asked
+Philip if he were improving. She said a few polite words to Freckles
+and the Angel, declined to remain on account of an engagement, and went
+away, gracefully.
+
+“Well bully for her!” said Mrs. Comstock. “She’s a little thoroughbred
+after all!”
+
+“That was a mighty big thing for her to be doing,” said Freckles in a
+hushed voice.
+
+“If you knew her as well as I do,” said Philip Ammon, “you would have a
+better conception of what that cost.”
+
+“It was a terror!” cried the Angel. “I never could have done it.”
+
+“‘Never could have done it!’” echoed Freckles. “Why, Angel, dear, that
+is the one thing of all the world you would have done!”
+
+“I have to take care of this,” faltered Elnora, hurrying toward the
+door to hide the tears which were rolling down her cheeks.
+
+“I must help,” said Philip, disappearing also. “Elnora,” he called,
+catching up with her, “take me where I may cry, too. Wasn’t she great?”
+
+“Superb!” exclaimed Elnora. “I have no words. I feel so humbled!”
+
+“So do I,” said Philip. “I think a brave deed like that always makes
+one feel so. Now are you happy?”
+
+“Unspeakably happy!” answered Elnora.
+
+
+
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Girl Of The Limberlost, by Gene Stratton-Porter</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
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+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: A Girl Of The Limberlost</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Gene Stratton-Porter</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April, 1994 [eBook #125]<br />
+[Most recently updated: March 17, 2023]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Judith Boss</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST ***</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:55%;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">By Gene Stratton-Porter</h2>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h4>To All Girls Of The Limberlost<br/>
+In General<br/>
+And One<br/>
+Jeanette Helen Porter<br/>
+In Particular</h4>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3>CHARACTERS:</h3>
+
+<p class="letter">
+ELNORA, who collects moths to pay for her education, and lives the Golden Rule.<br/>
+PHILIP AMMON, who assists in moth hunting, and gains a new conception of love.<br/>
+MRS. COMSTOCK, who lost a delusion and found a treasure.<br/>
+WESLEY SINTON, who always did his best.<br/>
+MARGARET SINTON, who “mothers” Elnora.<br/>
+BILLY, a boy from real life.<br/>
+EDITH CARR, who discovers herself.<br/>
+HART HENDERSON, to whom love means all things.<br/>
+POLLY AMMON, who pays an old score.<br/>
+TOM LEVERING, engaged to Polly.<br/>
+TERENCE O’MORE, Freckles grown tall.<br/>
+MRS. O’MORE, who remained the Angel.<br/>
+TERENCE, ALICE and LITTLE BROTHER, the O’MORE children.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0001">A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2H_4_0001"></a>
+A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0001"></a>
+CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN ELNORA GOES TO HIGH SCHOOL AND LEARNS MANY LESSONS NOT FOUND IN HER
+BOOKS</h3>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora Comstock, have you lost your senses?” demanded the angry voice of
+Katharine Comstock while she glared at her daughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why mother!” faltered the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you ‘why mother’ me!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You know very well what I
+mean. You’ve given me no peace until you’ve had your way about this going to
+school business; I’ve fixed you good enough, and you’re ready to start. But no
+child of mine walks the streets of Onabasha looking like a play-actress woman.
+You wet your hair and comb it down modest and decent and then be off, or you’ll
+have no time to find where you belong.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora gave one despairing glance at the white face, framed in a most becoming
+riot of reddish-brown hair, which she saw in the little kitchen mirror. Then
+she untied the narrow black ribbon, wet the comb and plastered the waving curls
+close to her head, bound them fast, pinned on the skimpy black hat and opened
+the back door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve gone so plumb daffy you are forgetting your dinner,” jeered her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want anything to eat,” replied Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll take your dinner or you’ll not go one step. Are you crazy? Walk almost
+three miles and no food from six in the morning until six at night. A pretty
+figure you’d cut if you had your way! And after I’ve gone and bought you this
+nice new pail and filled it especial to start on!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora came back with a face still whiter and picked up the lunch. “Thank you,
+mother! Good-bye!” she said. Mrs. Comstock did not reply. She watched the girl
+follow the long walk to the gate and go from sight on the road, in the bright
+sunshine of the first Monday of September.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I bet a dollar she gets enough of it by night!” commented Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora walked by instinct, for her eyes were blinded with tears. She left the
+road where it turned south, at the corner of the Limberlost, climbed a snake
+fence and entered a path worn by her own feet. Dodging under willow and scrub
+oak branches she came at last to the faint outline of an old trail made in the
+days when the precious timber of the swamp was guarded by armed men. This path
+she followed until she reached a thick clump of bushes. From the debris in the
+end of a hollow log she took a key that unlocked the padlock of a large
+weatherbeaten old box, inside of which lay several books, a butterfly
+apparatus, and a small cracked mirror. The walls were lined thickly with gaudy
+butterflies, dragonflies, and moths. She set up the mirror and once more
+pulling the ribbon from her hair, she shook the bright mass over her shoulders,
+tossing it dry in the sunshine. Then she straightened it, bound it loosely, and
+replaced her hat. She tugged vainly at the low brown calico collar and gazed
+despairingly at the generous length of the narrow skirt. She lifted it as she
+would have cut it if possible. That disclosed the heavy high leather shoes, at
+sight of which she seemed positively ill, and hastily dropped the skirt. She
+opened the pail, removed the lunch, wrapped it in the napkin, and placed it in
+a small pasteboard box. Locking the case again she hid the key and hurried down
+the trail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She followed it around the north end of the swamp and then entered a footpath
+crossing a farm leading in the direction of the spires of the city to the
+northeast. Again she climbed a fence and was on the open road. For an instant
+she leaned against the fence staring before her, then turned and looked back.
+Behind her lay the land on which she had been born to drudgery and a mother who
+made no pretence of loving her; before her lay the city through whose schools
+she hoped to find means of escape and the way to reach the things for which she
+cared. When she thought of how she appeared she leaned more heavily against the
+fence and groaned; when she thought of turning back and wearing such clothing
+in ignorance all the days of her life she set her teeth firmly and went hastily
+toward Onabasha.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the bridge crossing a deep culvert at the suburbs she glanced around, and
+then kneeling she thrust the lunch box between the foundation and the flooring.
+This left her empty-handed as she approached the big stone high school
+building. She entered bravely and inquired her way to the office of the
+superintendent. There she learned that she should have come the previous week
+and arranged about her classes. There were many things incident to the opening
+of school, and one man unable to cope with all of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where have you been attending school?” he asked, while he advised the teacher
+of Domestic Science not to telephone for groceries until she knew how many she
+would have in her classes; wrote an order for chemicals for the students of
+science; and advised the leader of the orchestra to hire a professional to take
+the place of the bass violist, reported suddenly ill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I finished last spring at Brushwood school, district number nine,” said
+Elnora. “I have been studying all summer. I am quite sure I can do the first
+year work, if I have a few days to get started.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, of course,” assented the superintendent. “Almost invariably country
+pupils do good work. You may enter first year, and if it is too difficult, we
+will find it out speedily. Your teachers will tell you the list of books you
+must have, and if you will come with me I will show you the way to the
+auditorium. It is now time for opening exercises. Take any seat you find
+vacant.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora stood before the entrance and stared into the largest room she ever had
+seen. The floor sloped to a yawning stage on which a band of musicians, grouped
+around a grand piano, were tuning their instruments. She had two fleeting
+impressions. That it was all a mistake; this was no school, but a grand display
+of enormous ribbon bows; and the second, that she was sinking, and had
+forgotten how to walk. Then a burst from the orchestra nerved her while a bevy
+of daintily clad, sweet-smelling things that might have been birds, or flowers,
+or possibly gaily dressed, happy young girls, pushed her forward. She found
+herself plodding across the back of the auditorium, praying for guidance, to an
+empty seat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the girls passed her, vacancies seemed to open to meet them. Their friends
+were moving over, beckoning and whispering invitations. Every one else was
+seated, but no one paid any attention to the white-faced girl stumbling
+half-blindly down the aisle next the farthest wall. So she went on to the very
+end facing the stage. No one moved, and she could not summon courage to crowd
+past others to several empty seats she saw. At the end of the aisle she paused
+in desperation, while she stared back at the whole forest of faces most of
+which were now turned upon her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a flash came the full realization of her scanty dress, her pitiful little
+hat and ribbon, her big, heavy shoes, her ignorance of where to go or what to
+do; and from a sickening wave which crept over her, she felt she was going to
+become very ill. Then out of the mass she saw a pair of big, brown boy eyes,
+three seats from her, and there was a message in them. Without moving his body
+he reached forward and with a pencil touched the back of the seat before him.
+Instantly Elnora took another step which brought her to a row of vacant front
+seats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She heard laughter behind her; the knowledge that she wore the only hat in the
+room burned her; every matter of moment, and some of none at all, cut and
+stung. She had no books. Where should she go when this was over? What would she
+give to be on the trail going home! She was shaking with a nervous chill when
+the music ceased, and the superintendent arose, and coming down to the front of
+the flower-decked platform, opened a Bible and began to read. Elnora did not
+know what he was reading, and she felt that she did not care. Wildly she was
+racking her brain to decide whether she should sit still when the others left
+the room or follow, and ask some one where the Freshmen went first.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the midst of the struggle one sentence fell on her ear. “Hide me under the
+shadow of Thy wings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora began to pray frantically. “Hide me, O God, hide me, under the shadow of
+Thy wings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again and again she implored that prayer, and before she realized what was
+coming, every one had arisen and the room was emptying rapidly. Elnora hurried
+after the nearest girl and in the press at the door touched her sleeve timidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you please tell me where the Freshmen go?” she asked huskily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl gave her one surprised glance, and drew away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Same place as the fresh women,” she answered, and those nearest her laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora stopped praying suddenly and the colour crept into her face. “I’ll wager
+you are the first person I meet when I find it,” she said and stopped short.
+“Not that! Oh, I must not do that!” she thought in dismay. “Make an enemy the
+first thing I do. Oh, not that!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She followed with her eyes as the young people separated in the hall, some
+climbing stairs, some disappearing down side halls, some entering adjoining
+doors. She saw the girl overtake the brown-eyed boy and speak to him. He
+glanced back at Elnora with a scowl on his face. Then she stood alone in the
+hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently a door opened and a young woman came out and entered another room.
+Elnora waited until she returned, and hurried to her. “Would you tell me where
+the Freshmen are?” she panted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Straight down the hall, three doors to your left,” was the answer, as the girl
+passed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One minute please, oh please,” begged Elnora: “Should I knock or just open the
+door?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go in and take a seat,” replied the teacher.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What if there aren’t any seats?” gasped Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Classrooms are never half-filled, there will be plenty,” was the answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora removed her hat. There was no place to put it, so she carried it in her
+hand. She looked infinitely better without it. After several efforts she at
+last opened the door and stepping inside faced a smaller and more concentrated
+battery of eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The superintendent sent me. He thinks I belong here,” she said to the
+professor in charge of the class, but she never before heard the voice with
+which she spoke. As she stood waiting, the girl of the hall passed on her way
+to the blackboard, and suppressed laughter told Elnora that her thrust had been
+repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Be seated,” said the professor, and then because he saw Elnora was desperately
+embarrassed he proceeded to lend her a book and to ask her if she had studied
+algebra. She said she had a little, but not the same book they were using. He
+asked her if she felt that she could do the work they were beginning, and she
+said she did.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was how it happened, that three minutes after entering the room she was
+told to take her place beside the girl who had gone last to the board, and
+whose flushed face and angry eyes avoided meeting Elnora’s. Being compelled to
+concentrate on her proposition she forgot herself. When the professor asked
+that all pupils sign their work she firmly wrote “Elnora Comstock” under her
+demonstration. Then she took her seat and waited with white lips and trembling
+limbs, as one after another professor called the names on the board, while
+their owners arose and explained their propositions, or “flunked” if they had
+not found a correct solution. She was so eager to catch their forms of
+expression and prepare herself for her recitation, that she never looked from
+the work on the board, until clearly and distinctly, “Elnora Cornstock,” called
+the professor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dazed girl stared at the board. One tiny curl added to the top of the first
+curve of the m in her name, had transformed it from a good old English
+patronymic that any girl might bear proudly, to Cornstock. Elnora sat
+speechless. When and how did it happen? She could feel the wave of smothered
+laughter in the air around her. A rush of anger turned her face scarlet and her
+soul sick. The voice of the professor addressed her directly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This proposition seems to be beautifully demonstrated, Miss Cornstalk,” he
+said. “Surely, you can tell us how you did it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That word of praise saved her. She could do good work. They might wear their
+pretty clothes, have their friends and make life a greater misery than it ever
+before had been for her, but not one of them should do better work or be more
+womanly. That lay with her. She was tall, straight, and handsome as she arose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course I can explain my work,” she said in natural tones. “What I can’t
+explain is how I happened to be so stupid as to make a mistake in writing my
+own name. I must have been a little nervous. Please excuse me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went to the board, swept off the signature with one stroke, then rewrote it
+plainly. “My name is Comstock,” she said distinctly. She returned to her seat
+and following the formula used by the others made her first high school
+recitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Elnora resumed her seat Professor Henley looked at her steadily. “It puzzles
+me,” he said deliberately, “how you can write as beautiful a demonstration, and
+explain it as clearly as ever has been done in any of my classes and still be
+so disturbed as to make a mistake in your own name. Are you very sure you did
+that yourself, Miss Comstock?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is impossible that any one else should have done it,” answered Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am very glad you think so,” said the professor. “Being Freshmen, all of you
+are strangers to me. I should dislike to begin the year with you feeling there
+was one among you small enough to do a trick like that. The next proposition,
+please.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the hour had gone the class filed back to the study room and Elnora
+followed in desperation, because she did not know where else to go. She could
+not study as she had no books, and when the class again left the room to go to
+another professor for the next recitation, she went also. At least they could
+put her out if she did not belong there. Noon came at last, and she kept with
+the others until they dispersed on the sidewalk. She was so abnormally
+self-conscious she fancied all the hundreds of that laughing, throng saw and
+jested at her. When she passed the brown-eyed boy walking with the girl of her
+encounter, she knew, for she heard him say: “Did you really let that gawky
+piece of calico get ahead of you?” The answer was indistinct.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora hurried from the city. She intended to get her lunch, eat it in the
+shade of the first tree, and then decide whether she would go back or go home.
+She knelt on the bridge and reached for her box, but it was so very light that
+she was prepared for the fact that it was empty, before opening it. There was
+one thing for which to be thankful. The boy or tramp who had seen her hide it,
+had left the napkin. She would not have to face her mother and account for its
+loss. She put it in her pocket, and threw the box into the ditch. Then she sat
+on the bridge and tried to think, but her brain was confused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps the worst is over,” she said at last. “I will go back. What would
+mother say to me if I came home now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So she returned to the high school, followed some other pupils to the coat
+room, hung her hat, and found her way to the study where she had been in the
+morning. Twice that afternoon, with aching head and empty stomach, she faced
+strange professors, in different branches. Once she escaped notice; the second
+time the worst happened. She was asked a question she could not answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you not decided on your course, and secured your books?” inquired the
+professor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have decided on my course,” replied Elnora, “I do not know where to ask for
+my books.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ask?” the professor was bewildered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I understood the books were furnished,” faltered Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Only to those bringing an order from the township trustee,” replied the
+Professor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No! Oh no!” cried Elnora. “I will have them to-morrow,” and gripped her desk
+for support for she knew that was not true. Four books, ranging perhaps at a
+dollar and a half apiece; would her mother buy them? Of course she would
+not&mdash;could not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Did not Elnora know the story of old. There was enough land, but no one to do
+clearing and farm. Tax on all those acres, recently the new gravel road tax
+added, the expense of living and only the work of two women to meet all of it.
+She was insane to think she could come to the city to school. Her mother had
+been right. The girl decided that if only she lived to reach home, she would
+stay there and lead any sort of life to avoid more of this torture. Bad as what
+she wished to escape had been, it was nothing like this. She never could live
+down the movement that went through the class when she inadvertently revealed
+the fact that she had expected books to be furnished. Her mother would not
+secure them; that settled the question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the end of misery is never in a hurry to come; before the day was over the
+superintendent entered the room and explained that pupils from the country were
+charged a tuition of twenty dollars a year. That really was the end. Previously
+Elnora had canvassed a dozen methods for securing the money for books, ranging
+all the way from offering to wash the superintendent’s dishes to breaking into
+the bank. This additional expense made her plans so wildly impossible, there
+was nothing to do but hold up her head until she was from sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down the long corridor alone among hundreds, down the long street alone among
+thousands, out into the country she came at last. Across the fence and field,
+along the old trail once trodden by a boy’s bitter agony, now stumbled a
+white-faced girl, sick at heart. She sat on a log and began to sob in spite of
+her efforts at self-control. At first it was physical breakdown, later, thought
+came crowding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh the shame, the mortification! Why had she not known of the tuition? How did
+she happen to think that in the city books were furnished? Perhaps it was
+because she had read they were in several states. But why did she not know? Why
+did not her mother go with her? Other mothers&mdash;but when had her mother
+ever been or done anything at all like other mothers? Because she never had
+been it was useless to blame her now. Elnora realized she should have gone to
+town the week before, called on some one and learned all these things herself.
+She should have remembered how her clothing would look, before she wore it in
+public places. Now she knew, and her dreams were over. She must go home to feed
+chickens, calves, and pigs, wear calico and coarse shoes, and with averted
+head, pass a library all her life. She sobbed again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For pity’s sake, honey, what’s the matter?” asked the voice of the nearest
+neighbour, Wesley Sinton, as he seated himself beside Elnora. “There, there,”
+he continued, smearing tears all over her face in an effort to dry them. “Was
+it as bad as that, now? Maggie has been just wild over you all day. She’s got
+nervouser every minute. She said we were foolish to let you go. She said your
+clothes were not right, you ought not to carry that tin pail, and that they
+would laugh at you. By gum, I see they did!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Uncle Wesley,” sobbed the girl, “why didn’t she tell me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you see, Elnora, she didn’t like to. You got such a way of holding up
+your head, and going through with things. She thought some way that you’d make
+it, till you got started, and then she begun to see a hundred things we should
+have done. I reckon you hadn’t reached that building before she remembered that
+your skirt should have been pleated instead of gathered, your shoes been low,
+and lighter for hot September weather, and a new hat. Were your clothes right,
+Elnora?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl broke into hysterical laughter. “Right!” she cried. “Right! Uncle
+Wesley, you should have seen me among them! I was a picture! They’ll never
+forget me. No, they won’t get the chance, for they’ll see me again to-morrow!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now that is what I call spunk, Elnora! Downright grit,” said Wesley Sinton.
+“Don’t you let them laugh you out. You’ve helped Margaret and me for years at
+harvest and busy times, what you’ve earned must amount to quite a sum. You can
+get yourself a good many clothes with it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t mention clothes, Uncle Wesley,” sobbed Elnora, “I don’t care now how I
+look. If I don’t go back all of them will know it’s because I am so poor I
+can’t buy my books.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I don’t know as you are so dratted poor,” said Sinton meditatively. “There
+are three hundred acres of good land, with fine timber as ever grew on it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It takes all we can earn to pay the tax, and mother wouldn’t cut a tree for
+her life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well then, maybe, I’ll be compelled to cut one for her,” suggested Sinton.
+“Anyway, stop tearing yourself to pieces and tell me. If it isn’t clothes, what
+is it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s books and tuition. Over twenty dollars in all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Humph! First time I ever knew you to be stumped by twenty dollars, Elnora,”
+said Sinton, patting her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s the first time you ever knew me to want money,” answered Elnora. “This is
+different from anything that ever happened to me. Oh, how can I get it, Uncle
+Wesley?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Drive to town with me in the morning and I’ll draw it from the bank for you. I
+owe you every cent of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know you don’t owe me a penny, and I wouldn’t touch one from you, unless I
+really could earn it. For anything that’s past I owe you and Aunt Margaret for
+all the home life and love I’ve ever known. I know how you work, and I’ll not
+take your money.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just a loan, Elnora, just a loan for a little while until you can earn it. You
+can be proud with all the rest of the world, but there are no secrets between
+us, are there, Elnora?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Elnora, “there are none. You and Aunt Margaret have given me all the
+love there has been in my life. That is the one reason above all others why you
+shall not give me charity. Hand me money because you find me crying for it!
+This isn’t the first time this old trail has known tears and heartache. All of
+us know that story. Freckles stuck to what he undertook and won out. I stick,
+too. When Duncan moved away he gave me all Freckles left in the swamp, and as I
+have inherited his property maybe his luck will come with it. I won’t touch
+your money, but I’ll win some way. First, I’m going home and try mother. It’s
+just possible I could find second-hand books, and perhaps all the tuition need
+not be paid at once. Maybe they would accept it quarterly. But oh, Uncle
+Wesley, you and Aunt Margaret keep on loving me! I’m so lonely, and no one else
+cares!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley Sinton’s jaws met with a click. He swallowed hard on bitter words and
+changed what he would have liked to say three times before it became
+articulate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora,” he said at last, “if it hadn’t been for one thing I’d have tried to
+take legal steps to make you ours when you were three years old. Maggie said
+then it wasn’t any use, but I’ve always held on. You see, I was the first man
+there, honey, and there are things you see, that you can’t ever make anybody
+else understand. She loved him Elnora, she just made an idol of him. There was
+that oozy green hole, with the thick scum broke, and two or three big bubbles
+slowly rising that were the breath of his body. There she was in spasms of
+agony, and beside her the great heavy log she’d tried to throw him. I can’t
+ever forgive her for turning against you, and spoiling your childhood as she
+has, but I couldn’t forgive anybody else for abusing her. Maggie has got no
+mercy on her, but Maggie didn’t see what I did, and I’ve never tried to make it
+very clear to her. It’s been a little too plain for me ever since. Whenever I
+look at your mother’s face, I see what she saw, so I hold my tongue and say, in
+my heart, ‘Give her a mite more time.’ Some day it will come. She does love
+you, Elnora. Everybody does, honey. It’s just that she’s feeling so much, she
+can’t express herself. You be a patient girl and wait a little longer. After
+all, she’s your mother, and you’re all she’s got, but a memory, and it might do
+her good to let her know that she was fooled in that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It would kill her!” cried the girl swiftly. “Uncle Wesley, it would kill her!
+What do you mean?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing,” said Wesley Sinton soothingly. “Nothing, honey. That was just one of
+them fool things a man says, when he is trying his best to be wise. You see,
+she loved him mightily, and they’d been married only a year, and what she was
+loving was what she thought he was. She hadn’t really got acquainted with the
+man yet. If it had been even one more year, she could have borne it, and you’d
+have got justice. Having been a teacher she was better educated and smarter
+than the rest of us, and so she was more sensitive like. She can’t understand
+she was loving a dream. So I say it might do her good if somebody that knew,
+could tell her, but I swear to gracious, I never could. I’ve heard her out at
+the edge of that quagmire calling in them wild spells of hers off and on for
+the last sixteen years, and imploring the swamp to give him back to her, and
+I’ve got out of bed when I was pretty tired, and come down to see she didn’t go
+in herself, or harm you. What she feels is too deep for me. I’ve got to
+respectin’ her grief, and I can’t get over it. Go home and tell your ma, honey,
+and ask her nice and kind to help you. If she won’t, then you got to swallow
+that little lump of pride in your neck, and come to Aunt Maggie, like you been
+a-coming all your life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll ask mother, but I can’t take your money, Uncle Wesley, indeed I can’t.
+I’ll wait a year, and earn some, and enter next year.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s one thing you don’t consider, Elnora,” said the man earnestly. “And
+that’s what you are to Maggie. She’s a little like your ma. She hasn’t given up
+to it, and she’s struggling on brave, but when we buried our second little girl
+the light went out of Maggie’s eyes, and it’s not come back. The only time I
+ever see a hint of it is when she thinks she’s done something that makes you
+happy, Elnora. Now, you go easy about refusing her anything she wants to do for
+you. There’s times in this world when it’s our bounden duty to forget
+ourselves, and think what will help other people. Young woman, you owe me and
+Maggie all the comfort we can get out of you. There’s the two of our own we
+can’t ever do anything for. Don’t you get the idea into your head that a fool
+thing you call pride is going to cut us out of all the pleasure we have in life
+beside ourselves.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Uncle Wesley, you are a dear,” said Elnora. “Just a dear! If I can’t possibly
+get that money any way else on earth, I’ll come and borrow it of you, and then
+I’ll pay it back if I must dig ferns from the swamp and sell them from door to
+door in the city. I’ll even plant them, so that they will be sure to come up in
+the spring. I have been sort of panic stricken all day and couldn’t think. I
+can gather nuts and sell them. Freckles sold moths and butterflies, and I’ve a
+lot collected. Of course, I am going back to-morrow! I can find a way to get
+the books. Don’t you worry about me. I am all right!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, what do you think of that?” inquired Wesley Sinton of the swamp in
+general. “Here’s our Elnora come back to stay. Head high and right as a trivet!
+You’ve named three ways in three minutes that you could earn ten dollars, which
+I figure would be enough, to start you. Let’s go to supper and stop worrying!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora unlocked the case, took out the pail, put the napkin in it, pulled the
+ribbon from her hair, binding it down tightly again and followed to the road.
+From afar she could see her mother in the doorway. She blinked her eyes, and
+tried to smile as she answered Wesley Sinton, and indeed she did feel better.
+She knew now what she had to expect, where to go, and what to do. Get the books
+she must; when she had them, she would show those city girls and boys how to
+prepare and recite lessons, how to walk with a brave heart; and they could show
+her how to wear pretty clothes and have good times.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she neared the door her mother reached for the pail. “I forgot to tell you
+to bring home your scraps for the chickens,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora entered. “There weren’t any scraps, and I’m hungry again as I ever was
+in my life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought likely you would be,” said Mrs. Comstock, “and so I got supper
+ready. We can eat first, and do the work afterward. What kept you so? I
+expected you an hour ago.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora looked into her mother’s face and smiled. It was a queer sort of a
+little smile, and would have reached the depths with any normal mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I see you’ve been bawling,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I thought you’d get your fill
+in a hurry. That’s why I wouldn’t go to any expense. If we keep out of the
+poor-house we have to cut the corners close. It’s likely this Brushwood road
+tax will eat up all we’ve saved in years. Where the land tax is to come from I
+don’t know. It gets bigger every year. If they are going to dredge the swamp
+ditch again they’ll just have to take the land to pay for it. I can’t, that’s
+all! We’ll get up early in the morning and gather and hull the beans for
+winter, and put in the rest of the day hoeing the turnips.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora again smiled that pitiful smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you think I didn’t know that I was funny and would be laughed at?” she
+asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Funny?” cried Mrs. Comstock hotly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, funny! A regular caricature,” answered Elnora. “No one else wore calico,
+not even one other. No one else wore high heavy shoes, not even one. No one
+else had such a funny little old hat; my hair was not right, my ribbon
+invisible compared with the others, I did not know where to go, or what to do,
+and I had no books. What a spectacle I made for them!” Elnora laughed nervously
+at her own picture. “But there are always two sides! The professor said in the
+algebra class that he never had a better solution and explanation than mine of
+the proposition he gave me, which scored one for me in spite of my clothes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I wouldn’t brag on myself!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was poor taste,” admitted Elnora. “But, you see, it is a case of
+whistling to keep up my courage. I honestly could see that I would have looked
+just as well as the rest of them if I had been dressed as they were. We can’t
+afford that, so I have to find something else to brace me. It was rather bad,
+mother!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’m glad you got enough of it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, but I haven’t,” hurried in Elnora. “I just got a start. The hardest is
+over. To-morrow they won’t be surprised. They will know what to expect. I am
+sorry to hear about the dredge. Is it really going through?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. I got my notification today. The tax will be something enormous. I don’t
+know as I can spare you, even if you are willing to be a laughing-stock for the
+town.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With every bite Elnora’s courage returned, for she was a healthy young thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve heard about doing evil that good might come from it,” she said. “Well,
+mother mine, it’s something like that with me. I’m willing to bear the hard
+part to pay for what I’ll learn. Already I have selected the ward building in
+which I shall teach in about four years. I am going to ask for a room with a
+south exposure so that the flowers and moths I take in from the swamp to show
+the children will do well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You little idiot!” said Mrs. Comstock. “How are you going to pay your
+expenses?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now that is just what I was going to ask you!” said Elnora. “You see, I have
+had two startling pieces of news to-day. I did not know I would need any money.
+I thought the city furnished the books, and there is an out-of-town tuition,
+also. I need ten dollars in the morning. Will you please let me have it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ten dollars!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “Ten dollars! Why don’t you say a hundred
+and be done with it! I could get one as easy as the other. I told you! I told
+you I couldn’t raise a cent. Every year expenses grow bigger and bigger. I told
+you not to ask for money!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never meant to,” replied Elnora. “I thought clothes were all I needed and I
+could bear them. I never knew about buying books and tuition.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I did!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I knew what you would run into! But you are
+so bull-dog stubborn, and so set in your way, I thought I would just let you
+try the world a little and see how you liked it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora pushed back her chair and looked at her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you mean to say,” she demanded, “that you knew, when you let me go into a
+city classroom and reveal the fact before all of them that I expected to have
+my books handed out to me; do you mean to say that you knew I had to pay for
+them?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock evaded the direct question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anybody but an idiot mooning over a book or wasting time prowling the woods
+would have known you had to pay. Everybody has to pay for everything. Life is
+made up of pay, pay, pay! It’s always and forever pay! If you don’t pay one way
+you do another! Of course, I knew you had to pay. Of course, I knew you would
+come home blubbering! But you don’t get a penny! I haven’t one cent, and can’t
+get one! Have your way if you are determined, but I think you will find the
+road somewhat rocky.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Swampy, you mean, mother,” corrected Elnora. She arose white and trembling.
+“Perhaps some day God will teach me how to understand you. He knows I do not
+now. You can’t possibly realize just what you let me go through to-day, or how
+you let me go, but I’ll tell you this: You understand enough that if you had
+the money, and would offer it to me, I wouldn’t touch it now. And I’ll tell you
+this much more. I’ll get it myself. I’ll raise it, and do it some honest way. I
+am going back to-morrow, the next day, and the next. You need not come out,
+I’ll do the night work, and hoe the turnips.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was ten o’clock when the chickens, pigs, and cattle were fed, the turnips
+hoed, and a heap of bean vines was stacked beside the back door.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0002"></a>
+CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN WESLEY AND MARGARET GO SHOPPING, AND ELNORA’S WARDROBE IS
+REPLENISHED</h3>
+
+<p>
+Wesley Sinton walked down the road half a mile and turned at the lane leading
+to his home. His heart was hot and filled with indignation. He had told Elnora
+he did not blame her mother, but he did. His wife met him at the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you see anything of Elnora?” she questioned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Most too much, Maggie,” he answered. “What do you say to going to town?
+There’s a few things has to be got right away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where did you see her, Wesley?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Along the old Limberlost trail, my girl, torn to pieces sobbing. Her courage
+always has been fine, but the thing she met to-day was too much for her. We
+ought to have known better than to let her go that way. It wasn’t only clothes;
+there were books, and entrance fees for out-of-town people, that she didn’t
+know about; while there must have been jeers, whispers, and laughing. Maggie, I
+feel as if I’d been a traitor to those girls of ours. I ought to have gone in
+and seen about this school business. Don’t cry, Maggie. Get me some supper, and
+I’ll hitch up and see what we can do now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What can we do, Wesley?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t just know. But we’ve got to do something. Kate Comstock will be a
+handful, while Elnora will be two, but between us we must see that the girl is
+not too hard pressed about money, and that she is dressed so she is not
+ridiculous. She’s saved us the wages of a woman many a day, can’t you make her
+some decent dresses?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’m not just what you call expert, but I could beat Kate Comstock all to
+pieces. I know that skirts should be pleated to the band instead of gathered,
+and full enough to sit in, and short enough to walk in. I could try. There are
+patterns for sale. Let’s go right away, Wesley.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Set me a bit of supper, while I hitch up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret built a fire, made coffee, and fried ham and eggs. She set out pie and
+cake and had enough for a hungry man by the time the carriage was at the door,
+but she had no appetite. She dressed while Wesley ate, put away the food while
+he dressed, and then they drove toward the city through the beautiful September
+evening, and as they went they planned for Elnora. The trouble was, not whether
+they were generous enough to buy what she needed, but whether she would accept
+their purchases, and what her mother would say.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went to a drygoods store and when a clerk asked what they wanted to see
+neither of them knew, so they stepped aside and held a whispered consultation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What had we better get, Wesley?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dresses,” said Wesley promptly,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But how many dresses, and what kind?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Blest if I know!” exclaimed Wesley. “I thought you would manage that. I know
+about some things I’m going to get.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that instant several high school girls came into the store and approached
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There!” exclaimed Wesley breathlessly. “There, Maggie! Like them! That’s what
+she needs! Buy like they have!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret stared. What did they wear? They were rapidly passing; they seemed to
+have so much, and she could not decide so quickly. Before she knew it she was
+among them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I beg your pardon, but won’t you wait one minute?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girls stopped with wondering faces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s your clothes,” explained Mrs. Sinton. “You look just beautiful to me. You
+look exactly as I should have wanted to see my girls. They both died of
+diphtheria when they were little, but they had yellow hair, dark eyes and pink
+cheeks, and everybody thought they were lovely. If they had lived, they’d been
+near your age now, and I’d want them to look like you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was sympathy on every girl face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why thank you!” said one of them. “We are very sorry for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course you are,” said Margaret. “Everybody always has been. And because I
+can’t ever have the joy of a mother in thinking for my girls and buying pretty
+things for them, there is nothing left for me, but to do what I can for some
+one who has no mother to care for her. I know a girl, who would be just as
+pretty as any of you, if she had the clothes, but her mother does not think
+about her, so I mother her some myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She must be a lucky girl,” said another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, she loves me,” said Margaret, “and I love her. I want her to look just
+like you do. Please tell me about your clothes. Are these the dresses and hats
+you wear to school? What kind of goods are they, and where do you buy them?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girls began to laugh and cluster around Margaret. Wesley strode down the
+store with his head high through pride in her, but his heart was sore over the
+memory of two little faces under Brushwood sod. He inquired his way to the shoe
+department.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, every one of us have on gingham or linen dresses,” they said, “and they
+are our school clothes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a few moments there was a babel of laughing voices explaining to the
+delighted Margaret that school dresses should be bright and pretty, but simple
+and plain, and until cold weather they should wash.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll tell you,” said Ellen Brownlee, “my father owns this store, I know all
+the clerks. I’ll take you to Miss Hartley. You tell her just how much you want
+to spend, and what you want to buy, and she will know how to get the most for
+your money. I’ve heard papa say she was the best clerk in the store for people
+who didn’t know precisely what they wanted.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the very thing,” agreed Margaret. “But before you go, tell me about
+your hair. Elnora’s hair is bright and wavy, but yours is silky as hackled
+flax. How do you do it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora?” asked four girls in concert.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, Elnora is the name of the girl I want these things for.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did she come to the high school to-day?” questioned one of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was she in your classes?” demanded Margaret without reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Four girls stood silent and thought fast. Had there been a strange girl among
+them, and had she been overlooked and passed by with indifference, because she
+was so very shabby? If she had appeared as much better than they, as she had
+looked worse, would her reception have been the same?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There was a strange girl from the country in the Freshman class to-day,” said
+Ellen Brownlee, “and her name was Elnora.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was the girl,” said Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are her people so very poor?” questioned Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, not poor at all, come to think of it,” answered Margaret. “It’s a peculiar
+case. Mrs. Comstock had a great trouble and she let it change her whole life
+and make a different woman of her. She used to be lovely; now she is forever
+saving and scared to death for fear they will go to the poorhouse; but there is
+a big farm, covered with lots of good timber. The taxes are high for women who
+can’t manage to clear and work the land. There ought to be enough to keep two
+of them in good shape all their lives, if they only knew how to do it. But no
+one ever told Kate Comstock anything, and never will, for she won’t listen. All
+she does is droop all day, and walk the edge of the swamp half the night, and
+neglect Elnora. If you girls would make life just a little easier for her it
+would be the finest thing you ever did.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All of them promised they would.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now tell me about your hair,” persisted Margaret Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So they took her to a toilet counter, and she bought the proper hair soap, also
+a nail file, and cold cream, for use after windy days. Then they left her with
+the experienced clerk, and when at last Wesley found her she was loaded with
+bundles and the light of other days was in her beautiful eyes. Wesley also
+carried some packages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you get any stockings?” he whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I didn’t,” she said. “I was so interested in dresses and hair ribbons and
+a&mdash;a hat&mdash;&mdash;” she hesitated and glanced at Wesley. “Of course, a
+hat!” prompted Wesley. “That I forgot all about those horrible shoes. She’s got
+to have decent shoes, Wesley.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure!” said Wesley. “She’s got decent shoes. But the man said some brown
+stockings ought to go with them. Take a peep, will you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley opened a box and displayed a pair of thick-soled, beautifully shaped
+brown walking shoes of low cut. Margaret cried out with pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But do you suppose they are the right size, Wesley? What did you get?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I just said for a girl of sixteen with a slender foot.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, that’s about as near as I could come. If they don’t fit when she tries
+them, we will drive straight in and change them. Come on now, let’s get home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the way they discussed how they should give Elnora their purchases and what
+Mrs. Comstock would say.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am afraid she will be awful mad,” said Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’ll just rip!” replied Wesley graphically. “But if she wants to leave the
+raising of her girl to the neighbours, she needn’t get fractious if they take
+some pride in doing a good job. From now on I calculate Elnora shall go to
+school; and she shall have all the clothes and books she needs, if I go around
+on the back of Kate Comstock’s land and cut a tree, or drive off a calf to pay
+for them. Why I know one tree she owns that would put Elnora in heaven for a
+year. Just think of it, Margaret! It’s not fair. One-third of what is there
+belongs to Elnora by law, and if Kate Comstock raises a row I’ll tell her so,
+and see that the girl gets it. You go to see Kate in the morning, and I’ll go
+with you. Tell her you want Elnora’s pattern, that you are going to make her a
+dress, for helping us. And sort of hint at a few more things. If Kate balks,
+I’ll take a hand and settle her. I’ll go to law for Elnora’s share of that land
+and sell enough to educate her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, Wesley Sinton, you’re perfectly wild.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not! Did you ever stop to think that such cases are so frequent there have
+been laws made to provide for them? I can bring it up in court and force Kate
+to educate Elnora, and board and clothe her till she’s of age, and then she can
+take her share.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wesley, Kate would go crazy!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s crazy now. The idea of any mother living with as sweet a girl as Elnora
+and letting her suffer till I find her crying like a funeral. It makes me
+fighting mad. All uncalled for. Not a grain of sense in it. I’ve offered and
+offered to oversee clearing her land and working her fields. Let her sell a
+good tree, or a few acres. Something is going to be done, right now. Elnora’s
+been fairly happy up to this, but to spoil the school life she’s planned, is to
+ruin all her life. I won’t have it! If Elnora won’t take these things, so help
+me, I’ll tell her what she is worth, and loan her the money and she can pay me
+back when she comes of age. I am going to have it out with Kate Comstock in the
+morning. Here we are! You open up what you got while I put away the horses, and
+then I’ll show you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Wesley came from the barn Margaret had four pieces of crisp gingham, a
+pale blue, a pink, a gray with green stripes and a rich brown and blue plaid.
+On each of them lay a yard and a half of wide ribbon to match. There were
+handkerchiefs and a brown leather belt. In her hands she held a wide-brimmed
+tan straw hat, having a high crown banded with velvet strips each of which
+fastened with a tiny gold buckle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It looks kind of bare now,” she explained. “It had three quills on it here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you have them taken off?” asked Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I did. The price was two and a half for the hat, and those things were a
+dollar and a half apiece. I couldn’t pay that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It does seem considerable,” admitted Wesley, “but will it look right without
+them?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, it won’t!” said Margaret. “It’s going to have quills on it. Do you
+remember those beautiful peacock wing feathers that Phoebe Simms gave me? Three
+of them go on just where those came off, and nobody will ever know the
+difference. They match the hat to a moral, and they are just a little longer
+and richer than the ones that I had taken off. I was wondering whether I better
+sew them on to-night while I remember how they set, or wait till morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t risk it!” exclaimed Wesley anxiously. “Don’t you risk it! Sew them on
+right now!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Open your bundles, while I get the thread,” said Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley unwrapped the shoes. Margaret took them up and pinched the leather and
+stroked them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My, but they are fine!” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley picked up one and slowly turned it in his big hands. He glanced at his
+foot and back to the shoe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a little bit of a thing, Margaret,” he said softly. “Like as not I’ll
+have to take it back. It seems as if it couldn’t fit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It seems as if it didn’t dare do anything else,” said Margaret. “That’s a
+happy little shoe to get the chance to carry as fine a girl as Elnora to high
+school. Now what’s in the other box?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley looked at Margaret doubtfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why,” he said, “you know there’s going to be rainy days, and those things she
+has now ain’t fit for anything but to drive up the cows&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wesley, did you get high shoes, too?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, she ought to have them! The man said he would make them cheaper if I
+took both pairs at once.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret laughed aloud. “Those will do her past Christmas,” she exulted. “What
+else did you buy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well sir,” said Wesley, “I saw something to-day. You told me about Kate
+getting that tin pail for Elnora to carry to high school and you said you told
+her it was a shame. I guess Elnora was ashamed all right, for to-night she
+stopped at the old case Duncan gave her, and took out that pail, where it had
+been all day, and put a napkin inside it. Coming home she confessed she was
+half starved because she hid her dinner under a culvert, and a tramp took it.
+She hadn’t had a bite to eat the whole day. But she never complained at all,
+she was pleased that she hadn’t lost the napkin. So I just inquired around till
+I found this, and I think it’s about the ticket.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley opened the package and laid a brown leather lunch box on the table.
+“Might be a couple of books, or drawing tools or most anything that’s neat and
+genteel. You see, it opens this way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It did open, and inside was a space for sandwiches, a little porcelain box for
+cold meat or fried chicken, another for salad, a glass with a lid which screwed
+on, held by a ring in a corner, for custard or jelly, a flask for tea or milk,
+a beautiful little knife, fork, and spoon fastened in holders, and a place for
+a napkin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret was almost crying over it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How I’d love to fill it!” she exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do it the first time, just to show Kate Comstock what love is!” said Wesley.
+“Get up early in the morning and make one of those dresses to-morrow. Can’t you
+make a plain gingham dress in a day? I’ll pick a chicken, and you fry it and
+fix a little custard for the cup, and do it up brown. Go on, Maggie, you do
+it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never can,” said Margaret. “I am slow as the itch about sewing, and these
+are not going to be plain dresses when it comes to making them. There are going
+to be edgings of plain green, pink, and brown to the bias strips, and tucks and
+pleats around the hips, fancy belts and collars, and all of it takes time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then Kate Comstock’s got to help,” said Wesley. “Can the two of you make one,
+and get that lunch to-morrow?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Easy, but she’ll never do it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You see if she doesn’t!” said Wesley. “You get up and cut it out, and soon as
+Elnora is gone I’ll go after Kate myself. She’ll take what I’ll say better
+alone. But she’ll come, and she’ll help make the dress. These other things are
+our Christmas gifts to Elnora. She’ll no doubt need them more now than she will
+then, and we can give them just as well. That’s yours, and this is mine, or
+whichever way you choose.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley untied a good brown umbrella and shook out the folds of a long, brown
+raincoat. Margaret dropped the hat, arose and took the coat. She tried it on,
+felt it, cooed over it and matched it with the umbrella.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did it look anything like rain to-night?” she inquired so anxiously that
+Wesley laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And this last bundle?” she said, dropping back in her chair, the coat still
+over her shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I couldn’t buy this much stuff for any other woman and nothing for my own,”
+said Wesley. “It’s Christmas for you, too, Margaret!” He shook out fold after
+fold of soft gray satiny goods that would look lovely against Margaret’s pink
+cheeks and whitening hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, you old darling!” she exclaimed, and fled sobbing into his arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she soon dried her eyes, raked together the coals in the cooking stove and
+boiled one of the dress patterns in salt water for half an hour. Wesley held
+the lamp while she hung the goods on the line to dry. Then she set the irons on
+the stove so they would be hot the first thing in the morning.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0003"></a>
+CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN ELNORA VISITS THE BIRD WOMAN, AND OPENS A BANK ACCOUNT</h3>
+
+<p>
+Four o’clock the following morning Elnora was shelling beans. At six she fed
+the chickens and pigs, swept two of the rooms of the cabin, built a fire, and
+put on the kettle for breakfast. Then she climbed the narrow stairs to the
+attic she had occupied since a very small child, and dressed in the hated shoes
+and brown calico, plastered down her crisp curls, ate what breakfast she could,
+and pinning on her hat started for town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is no sense in your going for an hour yet,” said her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I must try to discover some way to earn those books,” replied Elnora. “I am
+perfectly positive I shall not find them lying beside the road wrapped in
+tissue paper, and tagged with my name.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went toward the city as on yesterday. Her perplexity as to where tuition
+and books were to come from was worse but she did not feel quite so badly. She
+never again would have to face all of it for the first time. There had been
+times yesterday when she had prayed to be hidden, or to drop dead, and neither
+had happened. “I believe the best way to get an answer to prayer is to work for
+it,” muttered Elnora grimly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again she followed the trail to the swamp, rearranged her hair and left the tin
+pail. This time she folded a couple of sandwiches in the napkin, and tied them
+in a neat light paper parcel which she carried in her hand. Then she hurried
+along the road to Onabasha and found a book-store. There she asked the prices
+of the list of books that she needed, and learned that six dollars would not
+quite supply them. She anxiously inquired for second-hand books, but was told
+that the only way to secure them was from the last year’s Freshmen. Just then
+Elnora felt that she positively could not approach any of those she supposed to
+be Sophomores and ask to buy their old books. The only balm the girl could see
+for the humiliation of yesterday was to appear that day with a set of new
+books.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you wish these?” asked the clerk hurriedly, for the store was rapidly
+filling with school children wanting anything from a dictionary to a pen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” gasped Elnora, “Oh, yes! But I cannot pay for them just now. Please let
+me take them, and I will pay for them on Friday, or return them as perfect as
+they are. Please trust me for them a few days.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll ask the proprietor,” he said. When he came back Elnora knew the answer
+before he spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m sorry,” he said, “but Mr. Hann doesn’t recognize your name. You are not a
+customer of ours, and he feels that he can’t take the risk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora clumped out of the store, the thump of her heavy shoes beating as a
+hammer on her brain. She tried two other dealers with the same result, and then
+in sick despair came into the street. What could she do? She was too frightened
+to think. Should she stay from school that day and canvass the homes appearing
+to belong to the wealthy, and try to sell beds of wild ferns, as she had
+suggested to Wesley Sinton? What would she dare ask for bringing in and
+planting a clump of ferns? How could she carry them? Would people buy them? She
+slowly moved past the hotel and then glanced around to see if there were a
+clock anywhere, for she felt sure the young people passing her constantly were
+on their way to school.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There it stood in a bank window in big black letters staring straight at her:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WANTED: CATERPILLARS, COCOONS, CHRYSALIDES, PUPAE CASES, BUTTERFLIES, MOTHS,
+INDIAN RELICS OF ALL KINDS. HIGHEST SCALE OF PRICES PAID IN CASH
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora caught the wicket at the cashier’s desk with both hands to brace herself
+against disappointment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who is it wants to buy cocoons, butterflies, and moths?” she panted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The Bird Woman,” answered the cashier. “Have you some for sale?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have some, I do not know if they are what she would want.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you had better see her,” said the cashier. “Do you know where she
+lives?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Elnora. “Would you tell me the time?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Twenty-one after eight,” was the answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had nine minutes to reach the auditorium or be late. Should she go to
+school, or to the Bird Woman? Several girls passed her walking swiftly and she
+remembered their faces. They were hurrying to school. Elnora caught the
+infection. She would see the Bird Woman at noon. Algebra came first, and that
+professor was kind. Perhaps she could slip to the superintendent and ask him
+for a book for the next lesson, and at noon&mdash;“Oh, dear Lord make it come
+true,” prayed Elnora, at noon possibly she could sell some of those wonderful
+shining-winged things she had been collecting all her life around the outskirts
+of the Limberlost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she went down the long hall she noticed the professor of mathematics
+standing in the door of his recitation room. When she passed him he smiled and
+spoke to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have been watching for you,” he said, and Elnora stopped bewildered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For me?” she questioned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Professor Henley. “Step inside.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora followed him into the room and closed the door behind them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At teachers’ meeting last evening, one of the professors mentioned that a
+pupil had betrayed in class that she had expected her books to be furnished by
+the city. I thought possibly it was you. Was it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” breathed Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That being the case,” said Professor Henley, “it just occurred to me as you
+had expected that, you might require a little time to secure them, and you are
+too fine a mathematician to fall behind for want of supplies. So I telephoned
+one of our Sophomores to bring her last year’s books this morning. I am sorry
+to say they are somewhat abused, but the text is all here. You can have them
+for two dollars, and pay when you are ready. Would you care to take them?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora sat suddenly, because she could not stand another instant. She reached
+both hands for the books, and said never a word. The professor was silent also.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last Elnora arose, hugging those books to her heart as a mother clasps a
+baby.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One thing more,” said the professor. “You may pay your tuition quarterly. You
+need not bother about the first instalment this month. Any time in October will
+do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed as if Elnora’s gasp of relief must have reached the soles of her
+brogans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did any one ever tell you how beautiful you are!” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the professor was lank, tow-haired and so near-sighted, that he peered at
+his pupils through spectacles, no one ever had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Professor Henley, “I’ve waited some time for that; for which reason
+I shall appreciate it all the more. Come now, or we shall be late for opening
+exercises.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Elnora entered the auditorium a second time. Her face was like the brightest
+dawn that ever broke over the Limberlost. No matter about the lumbering shoes
+and skimpy dress. No matter about anything, she had the books. She could take
+them home. In her garret she could commit them to memory, if need be. She could
+prove that clothes were not all. If the Bird Woman did not want any of the many
+different kinds of specimens she had collected, she was quite sure now she
+could sell ferns, nuts, and a great many things. Then, too, a girl made a place
+for her that morning, and several smiled and bowed. Elnora forgot everything
+save her books, and that she was where she could use them
+intelligently&mdash;everything except one little thing away back in her head.
+Her mother had known about the books and the tuition, and had not told her when
+she agreed to her coming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At noon Elnora took her little parcel of lunch and started to the home of the
+Bird Woman. She must know about the specimens first and then she would walk to
+the suburbs somewhere and eat a few bites. She dropped the heavy iron knocker
+on the door of a big red log cabin, and her heart thumped at the resounding
+stroke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is the Bird Woman at home?” she asked of the maid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She is at lunch,” was the answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please ask her if she will see a girl from the Limberlost about some moths?”
+inquired Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never need ask, if it’s moths,” laughed the girl. “Orders are to bring any
+one with specimens right in. Come this way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora followed down the hall and entered a long room with high panelled
+wainscoting, old English fireplace with an overmantel and closets of peculiar
+china filling the corners. At a bare table of oak, yellow as gold, sat a woman
+Elnora often had watched and followed covertly around the Limberlost. The Bird
+Woman was holding out a hand of welcome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I heard!” she laughed. “A little pasteboard box, or just the mere word
+‘specimen,’ passes you at my door. If it is moths I hope you have hundreds.
+I’ve been very busy all summer and unable to collect, and I need so many. Sit
+down and lunch with me, while we talk it over. From the Limberlost, did you
+say?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I live near the swamp,” replied Elnora. “Since it’s so cleared I dare go
+around the edge in daytime, though we are all afraid at night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What have you collected?” asked the Bird Woman, as she helped Elnora to
+sandwiches unlike any she ever before had tasted, salad that seemed to be made
+of many familiar things, and a cup of hot chocolate that would have delighted
+any hungry schoolgirl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am afraid I am bothering you for nothing, and imposing on you,” she said.
+“That ‘collected’ frightens me. I’ve only gathered. I always loved everything
+outdoors, so I made friends and playmates of them. When I learned that the
+moths die so soon, I saved them especially, because there seemed no wickedness
+in it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have thought the same thing,” said the Bird Woman encouragingly. Then
+because the girl could not eat until she learned about the moths, the Bird
+Woman asked Elnora if she knew what kinds she had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not all of them,” answered Elnora. “Before Mr. Duncan moved away he often saw
+me near the edge of the swamp and he showed me the box he had fixed for
+Freckles, and gave me the key. There were some books and things, so from that
+time on I studied and tried to take moths right, but I am afraid they are not
+what you want.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are they the big ones that fly mostly in June nights?” asked the Bird Woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Elnora. “Big gray ones with reddish markings, pale blue-green,
+yellow with lavender, and red and yellow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you mean by ‘red and yellow?’” asked the Bird Woman so quickly that
+the girl almost jumped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not exactly red,” explained Elnora, with tremulous voice. “A reddish,
+yellowish brown, with canary-coloured spots and gray lines on their wings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How many of them?” It was the same quick question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had over two hundred eggs,” said Elnora, “but some of them didn’t hatch, and
+some of the caterpillars died, but there must be at least a hundred perfect
+ones.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perfect! How perfect?” cried the Bird Woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I mean whole wings, no down gone, and all their legs and antennae,” faltered
+Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Young woman, that’s the rarest moth in America,” said the Bird Woman solemnly.
+“If you have a hundred of them, they are worth a hundred dollars according to
+my list. I can use all that are not damaged.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What if they are not pinned right,” quavered Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If they are perfect, that does not make the slightest difference. I know how
+to soften them so that I can put them into any shape I choose. Where are they?
+When may I see them?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are in Freckles’s old case in the Limberlost,” said Elnora. “I couldn’t
+carry many for fear of breaking them, but I could bring a few after school.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You come here at four,” said the Bird Woman, “and we will drive out with some
+specimen boxes, and a price list, and see what you have to sell. Are they your
+very own? Are you free to part with them?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are mine,” said Elnora. “No one but God knows I have them. Mr. Duncan
+gave me the books and the box. He told Freckles about me, and Freckles told him
+to give me all he left. He said for me to stick to the swamp and be brave, and
+my hour would come, and it has! I know most of them are all right, and oh, I do
+need the money!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Could you tell me?” asked the Bird Woman softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You see the swamp and all the fields around it are so full,” explained Elnora.
+“Every day I felt smaller and smaller, and I wanted to know more and more, and
+pretty soon I grew desperate, just as Freckles did. But I am better off than he
+was, for I have his books, and I have a mother; even if she doesn’t care for me
+as other girls’ mothers do for them, it’s better than no one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bird Woman’s glance fell, for the girl was not conscious of how much she
+was revealing. Her eyes were fixed on a black pitcher filled with goldenrod in
+the centre of the table and she was saying what she thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As long as I could go to the Brushwood school I was happy, but I couldn’t go
+further just when things were the most interesting, so I was determined I’d
+come to high school and mother wouldn’t consent. You see there’s plenty of
+land, but father was drowned when I was a baby, and mother and I can’t make
+money as men do. The taxes are higher every year, and she said it was too
+expensive. I wouldn’t give her any rest, until at last she bought me this
+dress, and these shoes and I came. It was awful!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you live in that beautiful cabin at the northwest end of the swamp?” asked
+the Bird Woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I remember the place and a story about it, now. You entered the high school
+yesterday?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was rather bad?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Rather bad!” echoed Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bird Woman laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can’t tell me anything about that,” she said. “I once entered a city
+school straight from the country. My dress was brown calico, and my shoes were
+heavy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tears began to roll down Elnora’s cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did they&mdash;&mdash;?” she faltered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They did!” said the Bird Woman. “All of it. I am sure they did not miss one
+least little thing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she wiped away some tears that began coursing her cheeks, and laughed at
+the same time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where are they now?” asked Elnora suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are widely scattered, but none of them have attained heights out of
+range. Some of the rich are poor, and some of the poor are rich. Some of the
+brightest died insane, and some of the dullest worked out high positions; some
+of the very worst to bear have gone out, and I frequently hear from others. Now
+I am here, able to remember it, and mingle laughter with what used to be all
+tears; for every day I have my beautiful work, and almost every day God sends
+some one like you to help me. What is your name, my girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora Comstock,” answered Elnora. “Yesterday on the board it changed to
+Cornstock, and for a minute I thought I’d die, but I can laugh over that
+already.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bird Woman arose and kissed her. “Finish your lunch,” she said, “and I will
+bring my price lists, and make a memorandum of what you think you have, so I
+will know how many boxes to prepare. And remember this: What you are lies with
+you. If you are lazy, and accept your lot, you may live in it. If you are
+willing to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose, among the only
+ones who live beyond the grave in this world, the people who write books that
+help, make exquisite music, carve statues, paint pictures, and work for others.
+Never mind the calico dress, and the coarse shoes. Work at your books, and
+before long you will hear yesterday’s tormentors boasting that they were once
+classmates of yours. ‘I could a tale unfold’&mdash;&mdash;!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She laughingly left the room and Elnora sat thinking, until she remembered how
+hungry she was, so she ate the food, drank the hot chocolate and began to feel
+better.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the Bird Woman came back and showed Elnora a long printed slip giving a
+list of graduated prices for moths, butterflies, and dragonflies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, do you want them!” exulted Elnora. “I have a few and I can get more by the
+thousand, with every colour in the world on their wings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said the Bird Woman, “I will buy them, also the big moth caterpillars
+that are creeping everywhere now, and the cocoons that they will spin just
+about this time. I have a sneaking impression that the mystery, wonder, and the
+urge of their pure beauty, are going to force me to picture and paint our moths
+and put them into a book for all the world to see and know. We Limberlost
+people must not be selfish with the wonders God has given to us. We must share
+with those poor cooped-up city people the best we can. To send them a beautiful
+book, that is the way, is it not, little new friend of mine?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, oh yes!” cried Elnora. “And please God they find a way to earn the money
+to buy the books, as I have those I need so badly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will pay good prices for all the moths you can find,” said the Bird Woman,
+“because you see I exchange them with foreign collectors. I want a complete
+series of the moths of America to trade with a German scientist, another with a
+man in India, and another in Brazil. Others I can exchange with home collectors
+for those of California and Canada, so you see I can use all you can raise, or
+find. The banker will buy stone axes, arrow points, and Indian pipes. There was
+a teacher from the city grade schools here to-day for specimens. There is a
+fund to supply the ward buildings. I’ll help you get in touch with that. They
+want leaves of different trees, flowers, grasses, moths, insects, birds’ nests
+and anything about birds.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora’s eyes were blazing. “Had I better go back to school or open a bank
+account and begin being a millionaire? Uncle Wesley and I have a bushel of
+arrow points gathered, a stack of axes, pipes, skin-dressing tools, tubes and
+mortars. I don’t know how I ever shall wait three hours.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must go, or you will be late,” said the Bird Woman. “I will be ready at
+four.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After school closed Elnora, seated beside the Bird Woman, drove to Freckles’s
+room in the Limberlost. One at a time the beautiful big moths were taken from
+the interior of the old black case. Not a fourth of them could be moved that
+night and it was almost dark when the last box was closed, the list figured,
+and into Elnora’s trembling fingers were paid fifty-nine dollars and sixteen
+cents. Elnora clasped the money closely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh you beautiful stuff!” she cried. “You are going to buy the books, pay the
+tuition, and take me to high school.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then because she was a woman, she sat on a log and looked at her shoes. Long
+after the Bird Woman drove away Elnora remained. She had her problem, and it
+was a big one. If she told her mother, would she take the money to pay the
+taxes? If she did not tell her, how could she account for the books, and things
+for which she would spend it. At last she counted out what she needed for the
+next day, placed the remainder in the farthest corner of the case, and locked
+the door. She then filled the front of her skirt from a heap of arrow points
+beneath the case and started home.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0004"></a>
+CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN THE SINTONS ARE DISAPPOINTED, AND MRS. COMSTOCK LEARNS THAT SHE CAN
+LAUGH</h3>
+
+<p>
+With the first streak of red above the Limberlost Margaret Sinton was busy with
+the gingham and the intricate paper pattern she had purchased. Wesley cooked
+the breakfast and worked until he thought Elnora would be gone, then he started
+to bring her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now you be mighty careful,” cautioned Margaret. “I don’t know how she will
+take it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t either,” said Wesley philosophically, “but she’s got to take it some
+way. That dress has to be finished by school time in the morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley had not slept well that night. He had been so busy framing diplomatic
+speeches to make to Mrs. Comstock that sleep had little chance with him. Every
+step nearer to her he approached his position seemed less enviable. By the time
+he reached the front gate and started down the walk between the rows of asters
+and lady slippers he was perspiring, and every plausible and convincing speech
+had fled his brain. Mrs. Comstock helped him. She met him at the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good morning,” she said. “Did Margaret send you for something?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Wesley. “She’s got a job that’s too big for her, and she wants you
+to help.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course I will,” said Mrs. Comstock. It was no one’s affair how lonely the
+previous day had been, or how the endless hours of the present would drag.
+“What is she doing in such a rush?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now was his chance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s making a dress for Elnora,” answered, Wesley. He saw Mrs. Comstock’s
+form straighten, and her face harden, so he continued hastily. “You see Elnora
+has been helping us at harvest time, butchering, and with unexpected visitors
+for years. We’ve made out that she’s saved us a considerable sum, and as she
+wouldn’t ever touch any pay for anything, we just went to town and got a few
+clothes we thought would fix her up a little for the high school. We want to
+get a dress done to-day mighty bad, but Margaret is slow about sewing, and she
+never can finish alone, so I came after you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And it’s such a simple little matter, so dead easy; and all so between old
+friends like, that you can’t look above your boots while you explain it,”
+sneered Mrs. Comstock. “Wesley Sinton, what put the idea into your head that
+Elnora would take things bought with money, when she wouldn’t take the money?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Sinton’s eyes came up straightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Finding her on the trail last night sobbing as hard as I ever saw any one at a
+funeral. She wasn’t complaining at all, but she’s come to me all her life with
+her little hurts, and she couldn’t hide how she’d been laughed at, twitted, and
+run face to face against the fact that there were books and tuition,
+unexpected, and nothing will ever make me believe you didn’t know that, Kate
+Comstock.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If any doubts are troubling you on that subject, sure I knew it! She was so
+anxious to try the world, I thought I’d just let her take a few knocks and see
+how she liked them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As if she’d ever taken anything but knocks all her life!” cried Wesley Sinton.
+“Kate Comstock, you are a heartless, selfish woman. You’ve never shown Elnora
+any real love in her life. If ever she finds out that thing you’ll lose her,
+and it will serve you right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She knows it now,” said Mrs. Comstock icily, “and she’ll be home to-night just
+as usual.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you are a brave woman if you dared put a girl of Elnora’s make through
+what she suffered yesterday, and will suffer again to-day, and let her know you
+did it on purpose. I admire your nerve. But I’ve watched this since Elnora was
+born, and I got enough. Things have come to a pass where they go better for
+her, or I interfere.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As if you’d ever done anything but interfere all her life! Think I haven’t
+watched you? Think I, with my heart raw in my breast, and too numb to resent it
+openly, haven’t seen you and Mag Sinton trying to turn Elnora against me day
+after day? When did you ever tell her what her father meant to me? When did you
+ever try to make her see the wreck of my life, and what I’ve suffered? No
+indeed! Always it’s been poor little abused Elnora, and cakes, kissing, extra
+clothes, and encouraging her to run to you with a pitiful mouth every time I
+tried to make a woman of her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kate Comstock, that’s unjust,” cried Sinton. “Only last night I tried to show
+her the picture I saw the day she was born. I begged her to come to you and
+tell you pleasant what she needed, and ask you for what I happen to know you
+can well afford to give her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You know I can’t!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then get so you can!” said Wesley Sinton. “Any day you say the word you can
+sell six thousand worth of rare timber off this place easy. I’ll see to
+clearing and working the fields cheap as dirt, for Elnora’s sake. I’ll buy you
+more cattle to fatten. All you’ve got to do is sign a lease, to pull thousands
+from the ground in oil, as the rest of us are doing all around you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cut down Robert’s trees!” shrieked Mrs. Comstock. “Tear up his land! Cover
+everything with horrid, greasy oil! I’ll die first.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean you’ll let Elnora go like a beggar, and hurt and mortify her past
+bearing. I’ve got to the place where I tell you plain what I am going to do.
+Maggie and I went to town last night, and we bought what things Elnora needs
+most urgent to make her look a little like the rest of the high school girls.
+Now here it is in plain English. You can help get these things ready, and let
+us give them to her as we want&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She won’t touch them!” cried Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then you can pay us, and she can take them as her right&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I will tell Elnora just what you are worth, what you can afford, and how
+much of this she owns. I’ll loan her the money to buy books and decent clothes,
+and when she is of age she can sell her share and pay me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock gripped a chair-back and opened her lips, but no words came.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And,” Sinton continued, “if she is so much like you that she won’t do that,
+I’ll go to the county seat and lay complaint against you as her guardian before
+the judge. I’ll swear to what you are worth, and how you are raising her, and
+have you discharged, or have the judge appoint some man who will see that she
+is comfortable, educated, and decent looking!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You&mdash;you wouldn’t!” gasped Kate Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t need to, Kate!” said Sinton, his heart softening the instant the hard
+words were said. “You won’t show it, but you do love Elnora! You can’t help it!
+You must see how she needs things; come help us fix them, and be friends.
+Maggie and I couldn’t live without her, and you couldn’t either. You’ve got to
+love such a fine girl as she is; let it show a little!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can hardly expect me to love her,” said Mrs. Comstock coldly. “But for her
+a man would stand back of me now, who would beat the breath out of your
+sneaking body for the cowardly thing with which you threaten me. After all I’ve
+suffered you’d drag me to court and compel me to tear up Robert’s property. If
+I ever go they carry me. If they touch one tree, or put down one greasy old oil
+well, it will be over all I can shoot, before they begin. Now, see how quick
+you can clear out of here!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You won’t come and help Maggie with the dress?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For answer Mrs. Comstock looked around swiftly for some object on which to lay
+her hands. Knowing her temper, Wesley Sinton left with all the haste consistent
+with dignity. But he did not go home. He crossed a field, and in an hour
+brought another neighbour who was skilful with her needle. With sinking heart
+Margaret saw them coming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kate is too busy to help to-day, she can’t sew before to-morrow,” said Wesley
+cheerfully as they entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That quieted Margaret’s apprehension a little, though she had some doubts.
+Wesley prepared the lunch, and by four o’clock the dress was finished as far as
+it possibly could be until it was fitted on Elnora. If that did not entail too
+much work, it could be completed in two hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Margaret packed their purchases into the big market basket. Wesley took
+the hat, umbrella, and raincoat, and they went to Mrs. Comstock’s. As they
+reached the step, Margaret spoke pleasantly to Mrs. Comstock, who sat reading
+just inside the door, but she did not answer and deliberately turned a leaf
+without looking up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley Sinton opened the door and went in followed by Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kate,” he said, “you needn’t take out your mad over our little racket on
+Maggie. I ain’t told her a word I said to you, or you said to me. She’s not so
+very strong, and she’s sewed since four o’clock this morning to get this dress
+ready for to-morrow. It’s done and we came down to try it on Elnora.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that the truth, Mag Sinton?” demanded Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You heard Wesley say so,” proudly affirmed Mrs. Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to make you a proposition,” said Wesley. “Wait till Elnora comes. Then
+we’ll show her the things and see what she says.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How would it do to see what she says without bribing her,” sneered Mrs.
+Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If she can stand what she did yesterday, and will to-day, she can bear ’most
+anything,” said Wesley. “Put away the clothes if you want to, till we tell
+her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you don’t take this waist I’m working on,” said Margaret, “for I have to
+baste in the sleeves and set the collar. Put the rest out of sight if you
+like.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock picked up the basket and bundles, placed them inside her room and
+closed the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret threaded her needle and began to sew. Mrs. Comstock returned to her
+book, while Wesley fidgeted and raged inwardly. He could see that Margaret was
+nervous and almost in tears, but the lines in Mrs. Comstock’s impassive face
+were set and cold. So they sat while the clock ticked off the time&mdash;one
+hour, two, dusk, and no Elnora. Just when Margaret and Wesley were discussing
+whether he had not better go to town to meet Elnora, they heard her coming up
+the walk. Wesley dropped his tilted chair and squared himself. Margaret gripped
+her sewing, and turned pleading eyes toward the door. Mrs. Comstock closed her
+book and grimly smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother, please open the door,” called Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock arose, and swung back the screen. Elnora stepped in beside her,
+bent half double, the whole front of her dress gathered into a sort of bag
+filled with a heavy load, and one arm stacked high with books. In the dim light
+she did not see the Sintons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please hand me the empty bucket in the kitchen, mother,” she said. “I just had
+to bring these arrow points home, but I’m scared for fear I’ve spoiled my dress
+and will have to wash it. I’m to clean them, and take them to the banker in the
+morning, and oh, mother, I’ve sold enough stuff to pay for my books, my
+tuition, and maybe a dress and some lighter shoes besides. Oh, mother I’m so
+happy! Take the books and bring the bucket!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she saw Margaret and Wesley. “Oh, glory!” she exulted. “I was just
+wondering how I’d ever wait to tell you, and here you are! It’s too perfectly
+splendid to be true!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell us, Elnora,” said Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well sir,” said Elnora, doubling down on the floor and spreading out her
+skirt, “set the bucket here, mother. These points are brittle, and should be
+put in one at a time. If they are chipped I can’t sell them. Well sir! I’ve had
+a time! You know I just had to have books. I tried three stores, and they
+wouldn’t trust me, not even three days, I didn’t know what in this world I
+could do quickly enough. Just when I was almost frantic I saw a sign in a bank
+window asking for caterpillars, cocoons, butterflies, arrow points, and
+everything. I went in, and it was this Bird Woman who wants the insects, and
+the banker wants the stones. I had to go to school then, but, if you’ll believe
+it”&mdash;Elnora beamed on all of them in turn as she talked and slipped the
+arrow points from her dress to the pail&mdash;“if you’ll believe it&mdash;but
+you won’t, hardly, until you look at the books&mdash;there was the mathematics
+teacher, waiting at his door, and he had a set of books for me that he had
+telephoned a Sophomore to bring.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How did he happen to do that, Elnora?” interrupted Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora blushed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was a fool mistake I made yesterday in thinking books were just handed out
+to one. There was a teachers’ meeting last night and the history teacher told
+about that. Professor Henley thought of me. You know I told you what he said
+about my algebra, mother. Ain’t I glad I studied out some of it myself this
+summer! So he telephoned and a girl brought the books. Because they are marked
+and abused some I get the whole outfit for two dollars. I can erase most of the
+marks, paste down the covers, and fix them so they look better. But I must
+hurry to the joy part. I didn’t stop to eat, at noon, I just ran to the Bird
+Woman’s, and I had lunch with her. It was salad, hot chocolate, and lovely
+things, and she wants to buy most every old scrap I ever gathered. She wants
+dragonflies, moths, butterflies, and he&mdash;the banker, I mean&mdash;wants
+everything Indian. This very night she came to the swamp with me and took away
+enough stuff to pay for the books and tuition, and to-morrow she is going to
+buy some more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora laid the last arrow point in the pail and arose, shaking leaves and bits
+of baked earth from her dress. She reached into her pocket, produced her money
+and waved it before their wondering eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And that’s the joy part!” she exulted. “Put it up in the clock till morning,
+mother. That pays for the books and tuition and&mdash;” Elnora hesitated, for
+she saw the nervous grasp with which her mother’s fingers closed on the bills.
+Then she continued, but more slowly and thinking before she spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What I get to-morrow pays for more books and tuition, and maybe a few, just a
+few, things to wear. These shoes are so dreadfully heavy and hot, and they make
+such a noise on the floor. There isn’t another calico dress in the whole
+building, not among hundreds of us. Why, what is that? Aunt Margaret, what are
+you hiding in your lap?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She snatched the waist and shook it out, and her face was beaming. “Have you
+taken to waists all fancy and buttoned in the back? I bet you this is mine!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I bet you so too,” said Margaret Sinton. “You undress right away and try it
+on, and if it fits, it will be done for morning. There are some low shoes,
+too!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora began to dance. “Oh, you dear people!” she cried. “I can pay for them
+to-morrow night! Isn’t it too splendid! I was just thinking on the way home
+that I certainly would be compelled to have cooler shoes until later, and I was
+wondering what I’d do when the fall rains begin.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I meant to get you some heavy dress skirts and a coat then,” said Mrs.
+Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know you said so!” cried Elnora. “But you needn’t, now! I can buy every
+single stitch I need myself. Next summer I can gather up a lot more stuff, and
+all winter on the way to school. I am sure I can sell ferns, I know I can nuts,
+and the Bird Woman says the grade rooms want leaves, grasses, birds’ nests, and
+cocoons. Oh, isn’t this world lovely! I’ll be helping with the tax, next,
+mother!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora waved the waist and started for the bedroom. When she opened the door
+she gave a little cry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What have you people been doing?” she demanded. “I never saw so many
+interesting bundles in all my life. I’m ‘skeered’ to death for fear I can’t pay
+for them, and will have to give up something.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wouldn’t you take them, if you could not pay for them, Elnora?” asked her
+mother instantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, not unless you did,” answered Elnora. “People have no right to wear
+things they can’t afford, have they?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But from such old friends as Maggie and Wesley!” Mrs. Comstock’s voice was
+oily with triumph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“From them least of all,” cried Elnora stoutly. “From a stranger sooner than
+from them, to whom I owe so much more than I ever can pay now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you don’t have to,” said Mrs. Comstock. “Maggie just selected these
+things, because she is more in touch with the world, and has got such good
+taste. You can pay as long as your money holds out, and if there’s more
+necessary, maybe I can sell the butcher a calf, or if things are too costly for
+us, of course, they can take them back. Put on the waist now, and then you can
+look over the rest and see if they are suitable, and what you want.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora stepped into the adjoining room and closed the door. Mrs. Comstock
+picked up the bucket and started for the well with it. At the bedroom she
+paused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora, were you going to wash these arrow points?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. The Bird Woman says they sell better if they are clean, so it can be seen
+that there are no defects in them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course,” said Mrs. Comstock. “Some of them seem quite baked. Shall I put
+them to soak? Do you want to take them in the morning?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I do,” answered Elnora. “If you would just fill the pail with water.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock left the room. Wesley Sinton sat with his back to the window in
+the west end of the cabin which overlooked the well. A suppressed sound behind
+him caused him to turn quickly. Then he arose and leaned over Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s out there laughing like a blamed monkey!” he whispered indignantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, she can’t help it!” exclaimed Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going home!” said Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh no, you are not!” retorted Margaret. “You are missing the point. The point
+is not how you look, or feel. It is to get these things in Elnora’s possession
+past dispute. You go now, and to-morrow Elnora will wear calico, and Kate
+Comstock will return these goods. Right here I stay until everything we bought
+is Elnora’s.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you going to do?” asked Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know yet, myself,” said Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she arose and peered from the window. At the well curb stood Katharine
+Comstock. The strain of the day was finding reaction. Her chin was in the air,
+she was heaving, shaking and strangling to suppress any sound. The word that
+slipped between Margaret Sinton’s lips shocked Wesley until he dropped on his
+chair, and recalled her to her senses. She was fairly composed as she turned to
+Elnora, and began the fitting. When she had pinched, pulled, and patted she
+called, “Come see if you think this fits, Kate.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock had gone around to the back door and answered from the kitchen.
+“You know more about it than I do. Go ahead! I’m getting supper. Don’t forget
+to allow for what it will shrink in washing!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I set the colours and washed the goods last night; it can be made to fit right
+now,” answered Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she could find nothing more to alter she told Elnora to heat some water.
+After she had done that the girl began opening packages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hat came first.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother!” cried Elnora. “Mother, of course, you have seen this, but you haven’t
+seen it on me. I must try it on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you dare put that on your head until your hair is washed and properly
+combed,” said Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh!” cried Elnora. “Is that water to wash my hair? I thought it was to set the
+colour in another dress.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you thought wrong,” said Margaret simply. “Your hair is going to be
+washed and brushed until it shines like copper. While it dries you can eat your
+supper, and this dress will be finished. Then you can put on your new ribbon,
+and your hat. You can try your shoes now, and if they don’t fit, you and Wesley
+can drive to town and change them. That little round bundle on the top of the
+basket is your stockings.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret sat down and began sewing swiftly, and a little later opened the
+machine, and ran several long seams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora returned in a few minutes holding up her skirts and stepping daintily in
+the new shoes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t soil them, honey, else you’re sure they fit,” cautioned Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They seem just a trifle large, maybe,” said Elnora dubiously, and Wesley knelt
+to feel. He and Margaret thought them a fit, and then Elnora appealed to her
+mother. Mrs. Comstock appeared wiping her hands on her apron. She examined the
+shoes critically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They seem to fit,” she said, “but they are away too fine to walk country
+roads.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think so, too,” said Elnora instantly. “We had better take these back and
+get a cheaper pair.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, let them go for this time,” said Mrs. Comstock. “They are so pretty, I
+hate to part with them. You can get cheaper ones after this.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley and Margaret scarcely breathed for a long time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Wesley went to do the feeding. Elnora set the table. When the water was
+hot, Margaret pinned a big towel around Elnora’s shoulders and washed and dried
+the lovely hair according to the instructions she had been given the previous
+night. As the hair began to dry it billowed out in a sparkling sheen that
+caught the light and gleamed and flashed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, the idea is to let it stand naturally, just as the curl will make it.
+Don’t you do any of that nasty, untidy snarling, Elnora,” cautioned Margaret.
+“Wash it this way every two weeks while you are in school, shake it out, and
+dry it. Then part it in the middle and turn a front quarter on each side from
+your face. You tie the back at your neck with a string&mdash;so, and the ribbon
+goes in a big, loose bow. I’ll show you.” One after another Margaret Sinton
+tied the ribbons, creasing each of them so they could not be returned, as she
+explained that she was trying to find the colour most becoming. Then she
+produced the raincoat which carried Elnora into transports.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock objected. “That won’t be warm enough for cold weather, and you
+can’t afford it and a coat, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll tell you what I thought,” said Elnora. “I was planning on the way home.
+These coats are fine because they keep you dry. I thought I would get one, and
+a warm sweater to wear under it cold days. Then I always would be dry, and
+warm. The sweater only costs three dollars, so I could get it and the raincoat
+both for half the price of a heavy cloth coat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are right about that,” said Mrs. Comstock. “You can change more with the
+weather, too. Keep the raincoat, Elnora.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wear it until you try the hat,” said Margaret. “It will have to do until the
+dress is finished.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora picked up the hat dubiously. “Mother, may I wear my hair as it is now?”
+she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let me take a good look,” said Katharine Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Heaven only knows what she saw. To Wesley and to Margaret the bright young face
+of Elnora, with its pink tints, its heavy dark brows, its bright blue-gray
+eyes, and its frame of curling reddish-brown hair was the sweetest sight on
+earth, and at that instant Elnora was radiant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So long as it’s your own hair, and combed back as plain as it will go, I don’t
+suppose it cuts much ice whether it’s tied a little tighter or looser,”
+conceded Mrs. Comstock. “If you stop right there, you may let it go at that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora set the hat on her head. It was only a wide tan straw with three
+exquisite peacock quills at one side. Margaret Sinton cried out, Wesley slapped
+his knee and sighed deeply while Mrs. Comstock stood speechless for a second.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish you had asked the price before you put that on,” she said impatiently.
+“We never can afford it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s not so much as you think,” said Margaret. “Don’t you see what I did? I
+had them take off the quills, and put on some of those Phoebe Simms gave me
+from her peacocks. The hat will only cost you a dollar and a half.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She avoided Wesley’s eyes, and looked straight at Mrs. Comstock. Elnora removed
+the hat to examine it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, they are those reddish-tan quills of yours!” she cried. “Mother, look how
+beautifully they are set on! I’d much rather have them than those from the
+store.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So would I,” said Mrs. Comstock. “If Margaret wants to spare them, that will
+make you a beautiful hat; dirt cheap, too! You must go past Mrs. Simms and show
+her. She would be pleased to see them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora sank into a chair and contemplated her toe. “Landy, ain’t I a queen?”
+she murmured. “What else have I got?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just a belt, some handkerchiefs, and a pair of top shoes for rainy days and
+colder weather,” said Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“About those high shoes, that was my idea,” said Wesley. “Soon as it rains, low
+shoes won’t do, and by taking two pairs at once I could get them some cheaper.
+The low ones are two and the high ones two fifty, together three seventy-five.
+Ain’t that cheap?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a real bargain,” said Mrs. Comstock, “if they are good shoes, and they
+look it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This,” said Wesley, producing the last package, “is your Christmas present
+from your Aunt Maggie. I got mine, too, but it’s at the house. I’ll bring it up
+in the morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He handed Margaret the umbrella, and she passed it over to Elnora who opened it
+and sat laughing under its shelter. Then she kissed both of them. She brought a
+pencil and a slip of paper to set down the prices they gave her of everything
+they had brought except the umbrella, added the sum, and said laughingly: “Will
+you please wait till to-morrow for the money? I will have it then, sure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora,” said Wesley Sinton. “Wouldn’t you&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora, hustle here a minute!” called Mrs. Comstock from the kitchen. “I need
+you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One second, mother,” answered Elnora, throwing off the coat and hat, and
+closing the umbrella as she ran. There were several errands to do in a hurry,
+and then supper. Elnora chattered incessantly, Wesley and Margaret talked all
+they could, while Mrs. Comstock said a word now and then, which was all she
+ever did. But Wesley Sinton was watching her, and time and again he saw a
+peculiar little twist around her mouth. He knew that for the first time in
+sixteen years she really was laughing over something. She had all she could do
+to preserve her usually sober face. Wesley knew what she was thinking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After supper the dress was finished, the pattern for the next one discussed,
+and then the Sintons went home. Elnora gathered her treasures. When she started
+upstairs she stopped. “May I kiss you good-night, mother?” she asked lightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never mind any slobbering,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I should think you’d lived
+with me long enough to know that I don’t care for it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’d love to show you in some way how happy I am, and how I thank you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wonder what for?” said Mrs. Comstock. “Mag Sinton chose that stuff and
+brought it here and you pay for it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, but you seemed willing for me to have it, and you said you would help me
+if I couldn’t pay all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe I did,” said Mrs. Comstock. “Maybe I did. I meant to get you some heavy
+dress skirts about Thanksgiving, and I still can get them. Go to bed, and for
+any sake don’t begin mooning before a mirror, and make a dunce of yourself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock picked up several papers and blew out the kitchen light. She
+stood in the middle of the sitting-room floor for a time and then went into her
+room and closed the door. Sitting on the edge of the bed she thought for a few
+minutes and then suddenly buried her face in the pillow and again heaved with
+laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down the road plodded Margaret and Wesley Sinton. Neither of them had words to
+utter their united thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Done!” hissed Wesley at last. “Done brown! Did you ever feel like a bloomin’,
+confounded donkey? How did the woman do it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She didn’t do it!” gulped Margaret through her tears. “She didn’t do anything.
+She trusted to Elnora’s great big soul to bring her out right, and really she
+was right, and so it had to bring her. She’s a darling, Wesley! But she’s got a
+time before her. Did you see Kate Comstock grab that money? Before six months
+she’ll be out combing the Limberlost for bugs and arrow points to help pay the
+tax. I know her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I don’t!” exclaimed Sinton, “she’s too many for me. But there is a laugh
+left in her yet! I didn’t s’pose there was. Bet you a dollar, if we could see
+her this minute, she’d be chuckling over the way we got left.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Both of them stopped in the road and looked back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s Elnora’s light in her room,” said Margaret. “The poor child will feel
+those clothes, and pore over her books till morning, but she’ll look decent to
+go to school, anyway. Nothing is too big a price to pay for that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, if Kate lets her wear them. Ten to one, she makes her finish the week
+with that old stuff!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, she won’t,” said Margaret. “She’ll hardly dare. Kate made some
+concessions, all right; big ones for her&mdash;if she did get her way in the
+main. She bent some, and if Elnora proves that she can walk out barehanded in
+the morning and come back with that much money in her pocket, an armful of
+books, and buy a turnout like that, she proves that she is of some
+consideration, and Kate’s smart enough. She’ll think twice before she’ll do
+that. Elnora won’t wear a calico dress to high school again. You watch and see
+if she does. She may have the best clothes she’ll get for a time, for the least
+money, but she won’t know it until she tries to buy goods herself at the same
+rates. Wesley, what about those prices? Didn’t they shrink considerable?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You began it,” said Wesley. “Those prices were all right. We didn’t say what
+the goods cost us, we said what they would cost her. Surely, she’s mistaken
+about being able to pay all that. Can she pick up stuff of that value around
+the Limberlost? Didn’t the Bird Woman see her trouble, and just give her the
+money?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t think so,” said Margaret. “Seems to me I’ve heard of her paying, or
+offering to pay those who would take the money, for bugs and butterflies, and
+I’ve known people who sold that banker Indian stuff. Once I heard that his pipe
+collection beat that of the Government at the Philadelphia Centennial. Those
+things have come to have a value.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, there’s about a bushel of that kind of valuables piled up in the
+woodshed, that belongs to Elnora. At least, I picked them up because she said
+she wanted them. Ain’t it queer that she’d take to stones, bugs, and
+butterflies, and save them. Now they are going to bring her the very thing she
+wants the worst. Lord, but this is a funny world when you get to studying!
+Looks like things didn’t all come by accident. Looks as if there was a plan
+back of it, and somebody driving that knows the road, and how to handle the
+lines. Anyhow, Elnora’s in the wagon, and when I get out in the night and the
+dark closes around me, and I see the stars, I don’t feel so cheap. Maggie, how
+the nation did Kate Comstock do that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will keep on harping, Wesley. I told you she didn’t do it. Elnora did it!
+She walked in and took things right out of our hands. All Kate had to do was to
+enjoy having it go her way, and she was cute enough to put in a few questions
+that sort of guided Elnora. But I don’t know, Wesley. This thing makes me
+think, too. S’pose we’d taken Elnora when she was a baby, and we’d heaped on
+her all the love we can’t on our own, and we’d coddled, petted, and shielded
+her, would she have made the woman that living alone, learning to think for
+herself, and taking all the knocks Kate Comstock could give, have made of her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You bet your life!” cried Wesley, warmly. “Loving anybody don’t hurt them. We
+wouldn’t have done anything but love her. You can’t hurt a child loving it.
+She’d have learned to work, to study, and grown into a woman with us, without
+suffering like a poor homeless dog.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you don’t see the point, Wesley. She would have grown into a fine woman
+with us; but as we would have raised her, would her heart ever have known the
+world as it does now? Where’s the anguish, Wesley, that child can’t comprehend?
+Seeing what she’s seen of her mother hasn’t hardened her. She can understand
+any mother’s sorrow. Living life from the rough side has only broadened her.
+Where’s the girl or boy burning with shame, or struggling to find a way, that
+will cross Elnora’s path and not get a lift from her? She’s had the knocks, but
+there’ll never be any of the thing you call ‘false pride’ in her. I guess we
+better keep out. Maybe Kate Comstock knows what she’s doing. Sure as you live,
+Elnora has grown bigger on knocks than she would on love.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t s’pose there ever was a very fine point to anything but I missed it,”
+said Wesley, “because I am blunt, rough, and have no book learning to speak of.
+Since you put it into words I see what you mean, but it’s dinged hard on
+Elnora, just the same. And I don’t keep out. I keep watching closer than ever.
+I got my slap in the face, but if I don’t miss my guess, Kate Comstock learned
+her lesson, same as I did. She learned that I was in earnest, that I would haul
+her to court if she didn’t loosen up a bit, and she’ll loosen. You see if she
+doesn’t. It may come hard, and the hinges creak, but she’ll fix Elnora decent
+after this, if Elnora doesn’t prove that she can fix herself. As for me, I
+found out that what I was doing was as much for myself as for Elnora. I wanted
+her to take those things from us, and love us for giving them. It didn’t work,
+and but for you, I’d messed the whole thing and stuck like a pig in crossing a
+bridge. But you helped me out; Elnora’s got the clothes, and by morning, maybe
+I won’t grudge Kate the only laugh she’s had in sixteen years. You been showing
+me the way quite a spell now, ain’t you, Maggie?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In her attic Elnora lighted two candles, set them on her little table, stacked
+the books, and put away the precious clothes. How lovingly she hung the hat and
+umbrella, folded the raincoat, and spread the new dress over a chair. She
+fingered the ribbons, and tried to smooth the creases from them. She put away
+the hose neatly folded, touched the handkerchiefs, and tried the belt. Then she
+slipped into her white nightdress, shook down her hair that it might become
+thoroughly dry, set a chair before the table, and reverently opened one of the
+books. A stiff draught swept the attic, for it stretched the length of the
+cabin, and had a window in each end. Elnora arose and going to the east window
+closed it. She stood for a minute looking at the stars, the sky, and the dark
+outline of the straggling trees of the rapidly dismantling Limberlost. In the
+region of her case a tiny point of light flashed and disappeared. Elnora
+straightened and wondered. Was it wise to leave her precious money there? The
+light flashed once more, wavered a few seconds, and died out. The girl waited.
+She did not see it again, so she turned to her books.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the Limberlost the hulking figure of a man sneaked down the trail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The Bird Woman was at Freckles’s room this evening,” he muttered. “Wonder what
+for?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He left the trail, entered the enclosure still distinctly outlined, and
+approached the case. The first point of light flashed from the tiny electric
+lamp on his vest. He took a duplicate key from his pocket, felt for the padlock
+and opened it. The door swung wide. The light flashed the second time. Swiftly
+his glance swept the interior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“’Bout a fourth of her moths gone. Elnora must have been with the Bird Woman
+and given them to her.” Then he stood tense. His keen eyes discovered the roll
+of bills hastily thrust back in the bottom of the case. He snatched them up,
+shut off the light, relocked the case by touch, and swiftly went down the
+trail. Every few seconds he paused and listened intently. Just as he reached
+the road, a second figure approached him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is it you, Pete?” came the whispered question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said the first man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was coming down to take a peep, when I saw your flash,” he said. “I heard
+the Bird Woman had been at the case to-day. Anything doing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not a thing,” said Pete. “She just took away about a fourth of the moths.
+Probably had the Comstock girl getting them for her. Heard they were together.
+Likely she’ll get the rest to-morrow. Ain’t picking gettin’ bare these days?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I should say so,” said the second man, turning back in disgust. “Coming
+home, now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I am going down this way,” answered Pete, for his eyes caught the gleam
+from the window of the Comstock cabin, and he had a desire to learn why
+Elnora’s attic was lighted at that hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He slouched down the road, occasionally feeling the size of the roll he had not
+taken time to count.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The attic was too long, the light too near the other end, and the cabin stood
+much too far back from the road. He could see nothing although he climbed the
+fence and walked back opposite the window. He knew Mrs. Comstock was probably
+awake, and that she sometimes went to the swamp behind her home at night. At
+times a cry went up from that locality that paralyzed any one near, or sent
+them fleeing as if for life. He did not care to cross behind the cabin. He
+returned to the road, passed, and again climbed the fence. Opposite the west
+window he could see Elnora. She sat before a small table reading from a book
+between two candles. Her hair fell in a bright sheen around her, and with one
+hand she lightly shook, and tossed it as she studied. The man stood out in the
+night and watched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a long time a leaf turned at intervals and the hair-drying went on. The man
+drew nearer. The picture grew more beautiful as he approached. He could not see
+so well as he desired, for the screen was of white mosquito netting, and it
+angered him. He cautiously crept closer. The elevation shut off his view. Then
+he remembered the large willow tree shading the well and branching across the
+window fit the west end of the cabin. From childhood Elnora had stepped from
+the sill to a limb and slid down the slanting trunk of the tree. He reached it
+and noiselessly swung himself up. Three steps out on the big limb the man
+shuddered. He was within a few feet of the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He could see the throb of her breast under its thin covering and smell the
+fragrance of the tossing hair. He could see the narrow bed with its pieced
+calico cover, the whitewashed walls with gay lithographs, and every crevice
+stuck full of twigs with dangling cocoons. There were pegs for the few clothes,
+the old chest, the little table, the two chairs, the uneven floor covered with
+rag rugs and braided corn husk. But nothing was worth a glance except the
+perfect face and form within reach by one spring through the rotten mosquito
+bar. He gripped the limb above that on which he stood, licked his lips, and
+breathed through his throat to be sure he was making no sound. Elnora closed
+the book and laid it aside. She picked up a towel, and turning the gathered
+ends of her hair rubbed them across it, and dropping the towel on her lap,
+tossed the hair again. Then she sat in deep thought. By and by words began to
+come softly. Near as he was the man could not hear at first. He bent closer and
+listened intently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&mdash;ever could be so happy,” murmured the soft voice. “The dress is so
+pretty, such shoes, the coat, and everything. I won’t have to be ashamed again,
+not ever again, for the Limberlost is full of precious moths, and I always can
+collect them. The Bird Woman will buy more to-morrow, and the next day, and the
+next. When they are all gone, I can spend every minute gathering cocoons, and
+hunting other things I can sell. Oh, thank God, for my precious, precious
+money. Why, I didn’t pray in vain after all! I thought when I asked the Lord to
+hide me, there in that big hall, that He wasn’t doing it, because I wasn’t
+covered from sight that instant. But I’m hidden now, I feel that.” Elnora
+lifted her eyes to the beams above her. “I don’t know much about praying
+properly,” she muttered, “but I do thank you, Lord, for hiding me in your own
+time and way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her face was so bright that it shone with a white radiance. Two big tears
+welled from her eyes, and rolled down her smiling cheeks. “Oh, I do feel that
+you have hidden me,” she breathed. Then she blew out the lights, and the little
+wooden bed creaked under her weight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pete Corson dropped from the limb and found his way to the road. He stood still
+a long time, then started back to the Limberlost. A tiny point of light flashed
+in the region of the case. He stopped with an oath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Another hound trying to steal from a girl,” he exclaimed. “But it’s likely he
+thinks if he gets anything it will be from a woman who can afford it, as I
+did.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went on, but beside the fences, and very cautiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Swamp seems to be alive to-night,” he muttered. “That’s three of us out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He entered a deep place at the northwest corner, sat on the ground and taking a
+pencil from his pocket, he tore a leaf from a little notebook, and laboriously
+wrote a few lines by the light he carried. Then he went back to the region of
+the case and waited. Before his eyes swept the vision of the slender white
+creature with tossing hair. He smiled, and worshipped it, until a distant
+rooster faintly announced dawn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he unlocked the case again, and replaced the money, laid the note upon it,
+and went back to concealment, where he remained until Elnora came down the
+trail in the morning, appearing very lovely in her new dress and hat.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0005"></a>
+CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN ELNORA RECEIVES A WARNING, AND BILLY APPEARS ON THE SCENE</h3>
+
+<p>
+It would be difficult to describe how happy Elnora was that morning as she
+hurried through her work, bathed and put on the neat, dainty gingham dress, and
+the tan shoes. She had a struggle with her hair. It crinkled, billowed, and
+shone, and she could not avoid seeing the becoming frame it made around her
+face. But in deference to her mother’s feelings the girl set her teeth, and
+bound her hair closely to her head with a shoe-string. “Not to be changed at
+the case,” she told herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That her mother was watching she was unaware. Just as she picked up the
+beautiful brown ribbon Mrs. Comstock spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You had better let me tie that. You can’t reach behind yourself and do it
+right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora gave a little gasp. Her mother never before had proposed to do anything
+for the girl that by any possibility she could do herself. Her heart quaked at
+the thought of how her mother would arrange that bow, but Elnora dared not
+refuse. The offer was too precious. It might never be made again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh thank you!” said the girl, and sitting down she held out the ribbon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her mother stood back and looked at her critically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You haven’t got that like Mag Sinton had it last night,” she announced. “You
+little idiot! You’ve tried to plaster it down to suit me, and you missed it. I
+liked it away better as Mag fixed it, after I saw it. You didn’t look so
+peeled.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh mother, mother!” laughed Elnora, with a half sob in her voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hold still, will you?” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You’ll be late, and I haven’t
+packed your dinner yet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She untied the string and shook out the hair. It rose with electricity and
+clung to her fingers and hands. Mrs. Comstock jumped back as if bitten. She
+knew that touch. Her face grew white, and her eyes angry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tie it yourself,” she said shortly, “and then I’ll put on the ribbon. But roll
+it back loose like Mag did. It looked so pretty that way.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost fainting Elnora stood before the glass, divided off the front parts of
+her hair, and rolled them as Mrs. Sinton had done; tied it at the nape of her
+neck, then sat while her mother arranged the ribbon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I pull it down till it comes tight in these creases where she had it, it
+will be just right, won’t it?” queried Mrs. Comstock, and the amazed Elnora
+stammered,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she looked in the glass the bow was perfectly tied, and how the gold tone
+of the brown did match the lustre of the shining hair! “That’s pretty,”
+commented Mrs. Comstock’s soul, but her stiff lips had said all that could be
+forced from them for once. Just then Wesley Sinton came to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good morning,” he cried heartily. “Elnora, you look a picture! My, but you’re
+sweet! If any of the city boys get sassy you tell your Uncle Wesley, and he’ll
+horsewhip them. Here’s your Christmas present from me.” He handed Elnora the
+leather lunch box, with her name carved across the strap in artistic lettering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Uncle Wesley!” was all Elnora could say.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your Aunt Maggie filled it for me for a starter,” he said. “Now, if you are
+ready, I’m going to drive past your way and you can ride almost to Onabasha
+with me, and save the new shoes that much.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora was staring at the box. “Oh I hope it isn’t impolite to open it before
+you,” she said. “I just feel as if I must see inside.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you stand on formality with the neighbours,” laughed Sinton. “Look in
+your box if you want to!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora slipped the strap and turned back the lid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This disclosed the knife, fork, napkin, and spoon, the milk flask, and the
+interior packed with dainty sandwiches wrapped in tissue paper, and the little
+compartments for meat, salad, and the custard cup.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh mother!” cried Elnora. “Oh mother, isn’t it fine? What made you think of
+it, Uncle Wesley? How will I ever thank you? No one will have a finer lunch box
+than I. Oh I do thank you! That’s the nicest gift I ever had. How I love
+Christmas in September!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a mighty handy thing,” assented Mrs. Comstock, taking in every detail
+with sharp eyes. “I guess you are glad now you went and helped Mag and Wesley
+when you could, Elnora?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Deedy, yes,” laughed Elnora, “and I’m going again first time they have a big
+day if I stay from school to do it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll do no such thing!” said the delighted Sinton. “Come now, if you’re
+going!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I ride, can you spare me time to run into the swamp to my box a minute?”
+asked Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The light she had seen the previous night troubled her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure,” said Wesley largely. So they drove away and left a white-faced woman
+watching them from the door, her heart a little sorer than usual.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d give a pretty to hear what he’ll say to her!” she commented bitterly.
+“Always sticking in, always doing things I can’t ever afford. Where on earth
+did he get that thing and what did it cost?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she entered the cabin and began the day’s work, but mingled with the
+brooding bitterness of her soul was the vision of a sweet young face, glad with
+a gladness never before seen on it, and over and over she repeated: “I wonder
+what he’ll say to her!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What he said was that she looked as fresh and sweet as a posy, and to be
+careful not to step in the mud or scratch her shoes when she went to the case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora found her key and opened the door. Not where she had placed it, but
+conspicuously in front lay her little heap of bills, and a crude scrawl of
+writing beside it. Elnora picked up the note in astonishment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DERE ELNORY,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+the lord amighty is hiding you all right done you ever dout it this money of
+yourn was took for some time las nite but it is returned with intres for god
+sake done ever come to the swamp at nite or late evnin or mornin or far in any
+time sompin worse an you know could git you
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A FREND.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora began to tremble. She hastily glanced around. The damp earth before the
+case had been trodden by large, roughly shod feet. She caught up the money and
+the note, thrust them into her guimpe, locked the case, and ran to the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was so breathless and her face so white Sinton noticed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What in the world’s the matter, Elnora?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am half afraid!” she panted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tut, tut, child!” said Wesley Sinton. “Nothing in the world to be afraid of.
+What happened?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Uncle Wesley,” said Elnora, “I had more money than I brought home last night,
+and I put it in my case. Some one has been there. The ground is all trampled,
+and they left this note.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And took your money, I’ll wager,” said Sinton angrily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” answered Elnora. “Read the note, and oh Uncle Wesley, tell me what it
+means!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sinton’s face was a study. “I don’t know what it means,” he said. “Only one
+thing is clear. It means some beast who doesn’t really want to harm you has got
+his eye on you, and he is telling you plain as he can, not to give him a
+chance. You got to keep along the roads, in the open, and not let the biggest
+moth that ever flew toll you out of hearing of us, or your mother. It means
+that, plain and distinct.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just when I can sell them! Just when everything is so lovely on account of
+them! I can’t! I can’t stay away from the swamp. The Limberlost is going to buy
+the books, the clothes, pay the tuition, and even start a college fund. I just
+can’t!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve got to,” said Sinton. “This is plain enough. You go far in the swamp at
+your own risk, even in daytime.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Uncle Wesley,” said the girl, “last night before I went to bed, I was so happy
+I tried to pray, and I thanked God for hiding me ‘under the shadow of His
+wing.’ But how in the world could any one know it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley Sinton’s heart leaped in his breast. His face was whiter than the girl’s
+now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Were you praying out loud, honey?” he almost whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I might have said words,” answered Elnora. “I know I do sometimes. I’ve never
+had any one to talk with, and I’ve played with and talked to myself all my
+life. You’ve caught me at it often, but it always makes mother angry when she
+does. She says it’s silly. I forget and do it, when I’m alone. But Uncle
+Wesley, if I said anything last night, you know it was the merest whisper,
+because I’d have been so afraid of waking mother. Don’t you see? I sat up late,
+and studied two lessons.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sinton was steadying himself “I’ll stop and examine the case as I come back,”
+he said. “Maybe I can find some clue. That other&mdash;that was just
+accidental. It’s a common expression. All the preachers use it. If I tried to
+pray, that would be the very first thing I’d say.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The colour returned to Elnora’s face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you tell your mother about this money, Elnora?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I didn’t,” said Elnora. “It’s dreadful not to, but I was afraid. You see
+they are clearing the swamp so fast. Every year it grows more difficult to find
+things, and Indian stuff becomes scarcer. I want to graduate, and that’s four
+years unless I can double on the course. That means twenty dollars tuition each
+year, and new books, and clothes. There won’t ever be so much at one time
+again, that I know. I just got to hang to my money. I was afraid to tell her,
+for fear she would want it for taxes, and she really must sell a tree or some
+cattle for that, mustn’t she, Uncle Wesley?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On your life, she must!” said Wesley. “You put your little wad in the bank all
+safe, and never mention it to a living soul. It doesn’t seem right, but your
+case is peculiar. Every word you say is a true word. Each year you will find
+less in the swamp, and things everywhere will be scarcer. If you ever get a few
+dollars ahead, that can start your college fund. You know you are going to
+college, Elnora!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course I am,” said Elnora. “I settled that as soon as I knew what a college
+was. I will put all my money in the bank, except what I owe you. I’ll pay that
+now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If your arrows are heavy,” said Wesley, “I’ll drive on to Onabasha with you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But they are not. Half of them were nicked, and this little box held all the
+good ones. It’s so surprising how many are spoiled when you wash them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What does he pay?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ten cents for any common perfect one, fifty for revolvers, a dollar for
+obsidian, and whatever is right for enormous big ones.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, that sounds fair,” said Sinton. “You can come down Saturday and wash the
+stuff at our house, and I’ll take it in when we go marketing in the afternoon.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora jumped from the carriage. She soon found that with her books, her lunch
+box, and the points she had a heavy load. She had almost reached the bridge
+crossing the culvert when she heard distressed screams of a child. Across an
+orchard of the suburbs came a small boy, after him a big dog, urged by a man in
+the background. Elnora’s heart was with the small fleeing figure in any event
+whatever. She dropped her load on the bridge, and with practised hand flung a
+stone at the dog. The beast curled double with a howl. The boy reached the
+fence, and Elnora was there to help him over. As he touched the top she swung
+him to the ground, but he clung to her, clasping her tightly, sobbing with
+fear. Elnora helped him to the bridge, and sat with him in her arms. For a time
+his replies to her questions were indistinct, but at last he became quieter and
+she could understand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was a mite of a boy, nothing but skin-covered bones, his burned, freckled
+face in a mortar of tears and dust, his clothing unspeakably dirty, one great
+toe in a festering mass from a broken nail, and sores all over the visible
+portions of the small body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You won’t let the mean old thing make his dog get me!” he wailed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed no,” said Elnora, holding him closely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You wouldn’t set a dog on a boy for just taking a few old apples when you fed
+’em to pigs with a shovel every day, would you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I would not,” said Elnora hotly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’d give a boy all the apples he wanted, if he hadn’t any breakfast, and was
+so hungry he was all twisty inside, wouldn’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I would,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you had anything to eat you would give me something right now, wouldn’t
+you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Elnora. “There’s nothing but just stones in the package. But my
+dinner is in that case. I’ll gladly divide.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She opened the box. The famished child gave a little cry and reached both
+hands. Elnora caught them back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you have any supper?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Any dinner yesterday?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“An apple and some grapes I stole.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whose boy are you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Old Tom Billings’s.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why doesn’t your father get you something to eat?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He does most days, but he’s drunk now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush, you must not!” said Elnora. “He’s your father!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s spent all the money to get drunk, too,” said the boy, “and Jimmy and
+Belle are both crying for breakfast. I’d a got out all right with an apple for
+myself, but I tried to get some for them and the dog got too close. Say, you
+can throw, can’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” admitted Elnora. She poured half the milk into the cup. “Drink this,”
+she said, holding it to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy gulped the milk and swore joyously, gripping the cup with shaking
+fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush!” cried Elnora. “That’s dreadful!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s dreadful?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To say such awful words.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Huh! pa says worser ’an that every breath he draws.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora saw that the child was older than she had thought. He might have been
+forty judging by his hard, unchildish expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you want to be like your father?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I want to be like you. Couldn’t a angel be prettier ’an you. Can I have
+more milk?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora emptied the flask. The boy drained the cup. He drew a breath of
+satisfaction as he gazed into her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You wouldn’t go off and leave your little boy, would you?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did some one go away and leave you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, my mother went off and left me, and left Jimmy and Belle, too,” said the
+boy. “You wouldn’t leave your little boy, would you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy looked eagerly at the box. Elnora lifted a sandwich and uncovered the
+fried chicken. The boy gasped with delight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, I could eat the stuff in the glass and the other box and carry the bread
+and the chicken to Jimmy and Belle,” he offered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora silently uncovered the custard with preserved cherries on top and handed
+it and the spoon to the child. Never did food disappear faster. The salad went
+next, and a sandwich and half a chicken breast followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I better leave the rest for Jimmy and Belle,” he said, “they’re ’ist fightin’
+hungry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora gave him the remainder of the carefully prepared lunch. The boy clutched
+it and ran with a sidewise hop like a wild thing. She covered the dishes and
+cup, polished the spoon, replaced it, and closed the case. She caught her
+breath in a tremulous laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If Aunt Margaret knew that, she’d never forgive me,” she said. “It seems as if
+secrecy is literally forced upon me, and I hate it. What shall I do for lunch?
+I’ll have to sell my arrows and keep enough money for a restaurant sandwich.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So she walked hurriedly into town, sold her points at a good price, deposited
+her funds, and went away with a neat little bank book and the note from the
+Limberlost carefully folded inside. Elnora passed down the hall that morning,
+and no one paid the slightest attention to her. The truth was she looked so
+like every one else that she was perfectly inconspicuous. But in the coat room
+there were members of her class. Surely no one intended it, but the whisper was
+too loud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look at the girl from the Limberlost in the clothes that woman gave her!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora turned on them. “I beg your pardon,” she said unsteadily, “I couldn’t
+help hearing that! No one gave me these clothes. I paid for them myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some one muttered, “Pardon me,” but incredulous faces greeted her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora felt driven. “Aunt Margaret selected them, and she meant to give them to
+me,” she explained, “but I wouldn’t take them. I paid for them myself.” There
+was silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you believe me?” panted Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Really, it is none of our affair,” said another girl. “Come on, let’s go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora stepped before the girl who had spoken. “You have made this your
+affair,” she said, “because you told a thing which was not true. No one gave me
+what I am wearing. I paid for my clothes myself with money I earned selling
+moths to the Bird Woman. I just came from the bank where I deposited what I did
+not use. Here is my credit.” Elnora drew out and offered the little red book.
+“Surely you will believe that,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why of course,” said the girl who first had spoken. “We met such a lovely
+woman in Brownlee’s store, and she said she wanted our help to buy some things
+for a girl, and that’s how we came to know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dear Aunt Margaret,” said Elnora, “it was like her to ask you. Isn’t she
+splendid?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She is indeed,” chorused the girls. Elnora set down her lunch box and books,
+unpinned her hat, hanging it beside the others, and taking up the books she
+reached to set the box in its place and dropped it. With a little cry she
+snatched at it and caught the strap on top. That pulled from the fastening, the
+cover unrolled, the box fell away as far as it could, two porcelain lids
+rattled on the floor, and the one sandwich rolled like a cartwheel across the
+room. Elnora lifted a ghastly face. For once no one laughed. She stood an
+instant staring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It seems to be my luck to be crucified at every point of the compass,” she
+said at last. “First two days you thought I was a pauper, now you will think
+I’m a fraud. All of you will believe I bought an expensive box, and then was
+too poor to put anything but a restaurant sandwich in it. You must stop till I
+prove to you that I’m not.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora gathered up the lids, and kicked the sandwich into a corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had milk in that bottle, see! And custard in the cup. There was salad in the
+little box, fried chicken in the large one, and nut sandwiches in the tray. You
+can see the crumbs of all of them. A man set a dog on a child who was so
+starved he was stealing apples. I talked with him, and I thought I could bear
+hunger better, he was such a little boy, so I gave him my lunch, and got the
+sandwich at the restaurant.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora held out the box. The girls were laughing by that time. “You goose,”
+said one, “why didn’t you give him the money, and save your lunch?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was such a little fellow, and he really was hungry,” said Elnora. “I often
+go without anything to eat at noon in the fields and woods, and never think of
+it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She closed the box and set it beside the lunches of other country pupils. While
+her back was turned, into the room came the girl of her encounter on the first
+day, walked to the rack, and with an exclamation of approval took down Elnora’s
+hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just the thing I have been wanting!” she said. “I never saw such beautiful
+quills in all my life. They match my new broadcloth to perfection. I’ve got to
+have that kind of quills for my hat. I never saw the like! Whose is it, and
+where did it come from?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No one said a word, for Elnora’s question, the reply, and her answer, had been
+repeated. Every one knew that the Limberlost girl had come out ahead and Sadie
+Reed had not been amiable, when the little flourish had been added to Elnora’s
+name in the algebra class. Elnora’s swift glance was pathetic, but no one
+helped her. Sadie Reed glanced from the hat to the faces around her and
+wondered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, this is the Freshman section, whose hat is it?” she asked again, this
+time impatiently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the tassel of the cornstock,” said Elnora with a forced laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The response was genuine. Every one shouted. Sadie Reed blushed, but she
+laughed also.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, it’s beautiful,” she said, “especially the quills. They are exactly what
+I want. I know I don’t deserve any kindness from you, but I do wish you would
+tell me at whose store you found those quills.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gladly!” said Elnora. “You can’t buy quills like those at a store. They are
+from a living bird. Phoebe Simms gathers them in her orchard as her peacocks
+shed them. They are wing quills from the males.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there was perfect silence. How was Elnora to know that not a girl there
+would have told that?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I haven’t a doubt but I can get you some,” she offered. “She gave Aunt
+Margaret a large bunch, and those are part of them. I am quite sure she has
+more, and would spare some.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sadie Reed laughed shortly. “You needn’t trouble,” she said, “I was fooled. I
+thought they were expensive quills. I wanted them for a twenty-dollar velvet
+toque to match my new suit. If they are gathered from the ground, really, I
+couldn’t use them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Only in spots!” said Elnora. “They don’t just cover the earth. Phoebe Simms’s
+peacocks are the only ones within miles of Onabasha, and they moult but once a
+year. If your hat cost only twenty dollars, it’s scarcely good enough for those
+quills. You see, the Almighty made and coloured those Himself; and He puts the
+same kind on Phoebe Simms’s peacocks that He put on the head of the family in
+the forests of Ceylon, away back in the beginning. Any old manufactured quill
+from New York or Chicago will do for your little twenty-dollar hat. You should
+have something infinitely better than that to be worthy of quills that are made
+by the Creator.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How those girls did laugh! One of them walked with Elnora to the auditorium,
+sat beside her during exercises, and tried to talk whenever she dared, to keep
+Elnora from seeing the curious and admiring looks bent upon her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the brown-eyed boy whistled, and there was pantomime of all sorts going on
+behind Elnora’s back that day. Happy with her books, no one knew how much she
+saw, and from her absorption in her studies it was evident she cared too little
+to notice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After school she went again to the home of the Bird Woman, and together they
+visited the swamp and carried away more specimens. This time Elnora asked the
+Bird Woman to keep the money until noon of the next day, when she would call
+for it and have it added to her bank account. She slowly walked home, for the
+visit to the swamp had brought back full force the experience of the morning.
+Again and again she examined the crude little note, for she did not know what
+it meant, yet it bred vague fear. The only thing of which Elnora knew herself
+afraid was her mother; when with wild eyes and ears deaf to childish pleading,
+she sometimes lost control of herself in the night and visited the pool where
+her husband had sunk before her, calling his name in unearthly tones and
+begging of the swamp to give back its dead.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0006"></a>
+CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK INDULGES IN “FRILLS,” AND BILLY REAPPEARS</h3>
+
+<p>
+It was Wesley Sinton who really wrestled with Elnora’s problem while he drove
+about his business. He was not forced to ask himself what it meant; he knew.
+The old Corson gang was still holding together. Elder members who had escaped
+the law had been joined by a younger brother of Jack’s, and they met in the
+thickest of the few remaining fast places of the swamp to drink, gamble, and
+loaf. Then suddenly, there would be a robbery in some country house where a
+farmer that day had sold his wheat or corn and not paid a visit to the bank; or
+in some neighbouring village.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The home of Mrs. Comstock and Elnora adjoined the swamp. Sinton’s land lay
+next, and not another residence or man easy to reach in case of trouble.
+Whoever wrote that note had some human kindness in his breast, but the fact
+stood revealed that he feared his strength if Elnora were delivered into his
+hands. Where had he been the previous night when he heard that prayer? Was that
+the first time he had been in such proximity? Sinton drove fast, for he wished
+to reach the swamp before Elnora and the Bird Woman would go there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At almost four he came to the case, and dropping on his knees studied the
+ground, every sense alert. He found two or three little heel prints. Those were
+made by Elnora or the Bird Woman. What Sinton wanted to learn was whether all
+the remainder were the footprints of one man. It was easily seen, they were
+not. There were deep, even tracks made by fairly new shoes, and others where a
+well-worn heel cut deeper on the inside of the print than at the outer edge.
+Undoubtedly some of Corson’s old gang were watching the case, and the visits of
+the women to it. There was no danger that any one would attack the Bird Woman.
+She never went to the swamp at night, and on her trips in the daytime, every
+one knew that she carried a revolver, understood how to use it, and pursued her
+work in a fearless manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora, prowling around the swamp and lured into the interior by the flight of
+moths and butterflies; Elnora, without father, money, or friends save himself,
+to defend her&mdash;Elnora was a different proposition. For this to happen just
+when the Limberlost was bringing the very desire of her heart to the girl, it
+was too bad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sinton was afraid for her, yet he did not want to add the burden of fear to
+Katharine Comstock’s trouble, or to disturb the joy of Elnora in her work. He
+stopped at the cabin and slowly went up the walk. Mrs. Comstock was sitting on
+the front steps with some sewing. The work seemed to Sinton as if she might be
+engaged in putting a tuck in a petticoat. He thought of how Margaret had
+shortened Elnora’s dress to the accepted length for girls of her age, and made
+a mental note of Mrs. Comstock’s occupation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She dropped her work on her lap, laid her hands on it and looked into his face
+with a sneer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You didn’t let any grass grow under your feet,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sinton saw her white, drawn face and comprehended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I went to pay a debt and see about this opening of the ditch, Kate.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You said you were going to prosecute me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good gracious, Kate!” cried Sinton. “Is that what you have been thinking all
+day? I told you before I left yesterday that I would not need do that. And I
+won’t! We can’t afford to quarrel over Elnora. She’s all we’ve got. Now that
+she has proved that if you don’t do just what I think you ought by way of
+clothes and schooling, she can take care of herself, I put that out of my head.
+What I came to see you about is a kind of scare I’ve had to-day. I want to ask
+you if you ever see anything about the swamp that makes you think the old
+Corson gang is still at work?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can’t say that I do,” said Mrs. Comstock. “There’s kind of dancing lights
+there sometimes, but I supposed it was just people passing along the road with
+lanterns. Folks hereabout are none too fond of the swamp. I hate it like death.
+I’ve never stayed here a night in my life without Robert’s revolver, clean and
+loaded, under my pillow, and the shotgun, same condition, by the bed. I can’t
+say that I’m afraid here at home. I’m not. I can take care of myself. But none
+of the swamp for me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’m glad you are not afraid, Kate, because I must tell you something.
+Elnora stopped at the case this morning, and somebody had been into it in the
+night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Broke the lock?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Used a duplicate key. To-day I heard there was a man here last night. I
+want to nose around a little.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sinton went to the east end of the cabin and looked up at the window. There was
+no way any one could have reached it without a ladder, for the logs were hewed
+and mortar filled the cracks even. Then he went to the west end, the willow
+faced him as he turned the corner. He examined the trunk carefully. There was
+no mistake about small particles of black swamp muck adhering to the sides of
+the tree. He reached the low branches and climbed the willow. There was earth
+on the large limb crossing Elnora’s window. He stood on it, holding the branch
+as had been done the night before, and looked into the room. He could see very
+little, but he knew that if it had been dark outside and sufficiently light for
+Elnora to study inside he could have seen vividly. He brought his face close to
+the netting, and he could see the bed with its head to the east, at its foot
+the table with the candles and the chair before it, and then he knew where the
+man had been who had heard Elnora’s prayer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock had followed around the corner and stood watching him. “Do you
+think some slinking hulk was up there peekin’ in at Elnora?” she demanded
+indignantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is muck on the trunk, and plenty on the limb,” said Sinton. “Hadn’t you
+better get a saw and let me take this branch off?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I hadn’t,” said Mrs. Comstock. “First place, Elnora’s climbed from that
+window on that limb all her life, and it’s hers. Second place, no one gets
+ahead of me after I’ve had warning. Any crow that perches on that roost again
+will get its feathers somewhat scattered. Look along the fence, there, and see
+if you can find where he came in.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The place was easy to find as was a trail leading for some distance west of the
+cabin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You just go home, and don’t fret yourself,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I’ll take
+care of this. If you should hear the dinner bell at any time in the night you
+come down. But I wouldn’t say anything to Elnora. She better keep her mind on
+her studies, if she’s going to school.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the work was finished that night Elnora took her books and went to her
+room to prepare some lessons, but every few minutes she looked toward the swamp
+to see if there were lights near the case. Mrs. Comstock raked together the
+coals in the cooking stove, got out the lunch box, and sitting down she studied
+it grimly. At last she arose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wonder how it would do to show Mag Sinton a frill or two,” she murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went to her room, knelt before a big black-walnut chest and hunted through
+its contents until she found an old-fashioned cook book. She tended the fire as
+she read and presently was in action. She first sawed an end from a fragrant,
+juicy, sugar-cured ham and put it to cook. Then she set a couple of eggs
+boiling, and after long hesitation began creaming butter and sugar in a crock.
+An hour later the odour of the ham, mingled with some of the richest spices of
+“happy Araby,” in a combination that could mean nothing save spice cake, crept
+up to Elnora so strongly that she lifted her head and sniffed amazedly. She
+would have given all her precious money to have gone down and thrown her arms
+around her mother’s neck, but she did not dare move.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock was up early, and without a word handed Elnora the case as she
+left the next morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you, mother,” said Elnora, and went on her way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She walked down the road looking straight ahead until she came to the corner,
+where she usually entered the swamp. She paused, glanced that way and smiled.
+Then she turned and looked back. There was no one coming in any direction. She
+followed the road until well around the corner, then she stopped and sat on a
+grassy spot, laid her books beside her and opened the lunch box. Last night’s
+odours had in a measure prepared her for what she would see, but not quite. She
+scarcely could believe her senses. Half the bread compartment was filled with
+dainty sandwiches of bread and butter sprinkled with the yolk of egg and the
+remainder with three large slices of the most fragrant spice cake imaginable.
+The meat dish contained shaved cold ham, of which she knew the quality, the
+salad was tomatoes and celery, and the cup held preserved pear, clear as amber.
+There was milk in the bottle, two tissue-wrapped cucumber pickles in the
+folding drinking-cup, and a fresh napkin in the ring. No lunch was ever
+daintier or more palatable; of that Elnora was perfectly sure. And her mother
+had prepared it for her! “She does love me!” cried the happy girl. “Sure as
+you’re born she loves me; only she hasn’t found it out yet!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She touched the papers daintily, and smiled at the box as if it were a living
+thing. As she began closing it a breath of air swept by, lifting the covering
+of the cake. It was like an invitation, and breakfast was several hours away.
+Elnora picked up a piece and ate it. That cake tasted even better than it
+looked. Then she tried a sandwich. How did her mother come to think of making
+them that way. They never had any at home. She slipped out the fork, sampled
+the salad, and one-quarter of pear. Then she closed the box and started down
+the road nibbling one of the pickles and trying to decide exactly how happy she
+was, but she could find no standard high enough for a measure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was to go to the Bird Woman’s after school for the last load from the case.
+Saturday she would take the arrow points and specimens to the bank. That would
+exhaust her present supplies and give her enough money ahead to pay for books,
+tuition, and clothes for at least two years. She would work early and late
+gathering nuts. In October she would sell all the ferns she could find. She
+must collect specimens of all tree leaves before they fell, gather nests and
+cocoons later, and keep her eyes wide open for anything the grades could use.
+She would see the superintendent that night about selling specimens to the ward
+buildings. She must be ahead of any one else if she wanted to furnish these
+things. So she approached the bridge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That it was occupied could be seen from a distance. As she came up she found
+the small boy of yesterday awaiting her with a confident smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We brought you something!” he announced without greeting. “This is Jimmy and
+Belle&mdash;and we brought you a present.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He offered a parcel wrapped in brown paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, how lovely of you!” said Elnora. “I supposed you had forgotten me when
+you ran away so fast yesterday.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Naw, I didn’t forget you,” said the boy. “I wouldn’t forget you, not ever!
+Why, I was ist a-hurrying to take them things to Jimmy and Belle. My they was
+glad!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora glanced at the children. They sat on the edge of the bridge, obviously
+clad in a garment each, very dirty and unkept, a little boy and a girl of about
+seven and nine. Elnora’s heart began to ache.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say,” said the boy. “Ain’t you going to look what we have gave you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought it wasn’t polite to look before people,” answered Elnora. “Of
+course, I will, if you would like to have me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora opened the package. She had been presented with a quarter of a stale
+loaf of baker’s bread, and a big piece of ancient bologna.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But don’t you want this yourselves?” she asked in surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gosh, no! I mean ist no,” said the boy. “We always have it. We got stacks this
+morning. Pa’s come out of it now, and he’s so sorry he got more ’an ever we can
+eat. Have you had any before?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Elnora, “I never did!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy’s eyes brightened and the girl moved restlessly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We thought maybe you hadn’t,” said the boy. “First you ever have, you like it
+real well; but when you don’t have anything else for a long time, years an’
+years, you git so tired.” He hitched at the string which held his trousers and
+watched Elnora speculatively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t s’pose you’d trade what you got in that box for ist old bread and
+bologna now, would you? Mebby you’d like it! And I know, I ist know, what you
+got would taste like heaven to Jimmy and Belle. They never had nothing like
+that! Not even Belle, and she’s most ten! No, sir-ee, they never tasted things
+like you got!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was in Elnora’s heart to be thankful for even a taste in time, as she knelt
+on the bridge, opened the box and divided her lunch into three equal parts, the
+smaller boy getting most of the milk. Then she told them it was school time and
+she must go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you put your bread and bologna in the nice box?” asked the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course,” said Elnora. “I didn’t think.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the box was arranged to the children’s satisfaction all of them
+accompanied Elnora to the corner where she turned toward the high school.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy,” said Elnora, “I would like you much better if you were cleaner.
+Surely, you have water! Can’t you children get some soap and wash yourselves?
+Gentlemen are never dirty. You want to be a gentleman, don’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is being clean all you have to do to be a gentleman?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Elnora. “You must not say bad words, and you must be kind and polite
+to your sister.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Must Belle be kind and polite to me, else she ain’t a lady?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then Belle’s no lady!” said Billy succinctly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora could say nothing more just then, and she bade them good-bye and started
+them home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The poor little souls!” she mused. “I think the Almighty put them in my way to
+show me real trouble. I won’t be likely to spend much time pitying myself while
+I can see them.” She glanced at the lunchbox. “What on earth do I carry this
+for? I never had anything that was so strictly ornamental! One sure thing! I
+can’t take this stuff to the high school. You never seem to know exactly what
+is going to happen to you while you are there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As if to provide a way out of her difficulty a big dog arose from a lawn, and
+came toward the gate wagging his tail. “If those children ate the stuff, it
+can’t possibly kill him!” thought Elnora, so she offered the bologna. The dog
+accepted it graciously, and being a beast of pedigree he trotted around to a
+side porch and laid the bologna before his mistress. The woman snatched it,
+screaming: “Come, quick! Some one is trying to poison Pedro!” Her daughter came
+running from the house. “Go see who is on the street. Hurry!” cried the excited
+mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen Brownlee ran and looked. Elnora was half a block away, and no one nearer.
+Ellen called loudly, and Elnora stopped. Ellen came running toward her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you see any one give our dog something?” she cried as she approached.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora saw no escape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I gave it a piece of bologna myself,” she said. “It was fit to eat. It
+wouldn’t hurt the dog.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen stood and looked at her. “Of course, I didn’t know it was your dog,”
+explained Elnora. “I had something I wanted to throw to some dog, and that one
+looked big enough to manage it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen had arrived at her conclusions. “Pass over that lunch box,” she demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will not!” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I will have you arrested for trying to poison our dog,” laughed the girl
+as she took the box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One chunk of stale bread, one half mile of antique bologna contributed for dog
+feed; the remains of cake, salad and preserves in an otherwise empty lunch box.
+One ham sandwich yesterday. I think it’s lovely you have the box. Who ate your
+lunch to-day?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Same,” confessed Elnora, “but there were three of them this time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait, until I run back and tell mother about the dog, and get my books.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora waited. That morning she walked down the hall and into the auditorium
+beside one of the very nicest girls in Onabasha, and it was the fourth day. But
+the surprise came at noon when Ellen insisted upon Elnora lunching at the
+Brownlee home, and convulsed her parents and family, and overwhelmed Elnora
+with a greatly magnified, but moderately accurate history of her lunch box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gee! but it’s a box, daddy!” cried the laughing girl. “It’s carved leather and
+fastens with a strap that has her name on it. Inside are trays for things all
+complete, and it bears evidence of having enclosed delicious food, but Elnora
+never gets any. She’s carried it two days now, and both times it has been empty
+before she reached school. Isn’t that killing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is, Ellen, in more ways than one. No girl is going to eat breakfast at six
+o’clock, walk three miles, and do good work without her lunch. You can’t tell
+me anything about that box. I sold it last Monday night to Wesley Sinton, one
+of my good country customers. He told me it was a present for a girl who was
+worthy of it, and I see he was right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s so good to me,” said Elnora. “Sometimes I look at him and wonder if a
+neighbour can be so kind to one, what a real father would be like. I envy a
+girl with a father unspeakably.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have cause,” said Ellen Brownlee. “A father is the very dearest person in
+the whole round world, except a mother, who is just a dear.” The girl, starting
+to pay tribute to her father, saw that she must include her mother, and said
+the thing before she remembered what Mrs. Sinton had told the girls in the
+store. She stopped in dismay. Elnora’s face paled a trifle, but she smiled
+bravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I’m fortunate in having a mother,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brownlee lingered at the table after the girls had excused themselves and
+returned to school.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s a girl Ellen can’t see too much of, in my opinion,” he said. “She is
+every inch a lady, and not a foolish notion or action about her. I can’t
+understand just what combination of circumstances produced her in this day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It has been an unusual case of repression, for one thing. She waits on her
+elders and thinks before she speaks,” said Mrs. Brownlee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s mighty pretty. She looks so sound and wholesome, and she’s neatly
+dressed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ellen says she was a fright the first two days. Long brown calico dress almost
+touching the floor, and big, lumbering shoes. Those Sinton people bought her
+clothes. Ellen was in the store, and the woman stopped her crowd and asked them
+about their dresses. She said the girl was not poor, but her mother was selfish
+and didn’t care for her. But Elnora showed a bank book the next day, and
+declared that she paid for the things herself, so the Sinton people must just
+have selected them. There’s something peculiar about it, but nothing wrong I am
+sure. I’ll encourage Ellen to ask her again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I should say so, especially if she is going to keep on giving away her lunch.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She lunched with the Bird Woman one day this week.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She did!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, she lives out by the Limberlost. You know the Bird Woman works there a
+great deal, and probably knows her that way. I think the girl gathers specimens
+for her. Ellen says she knows more than the teachers about any nature question
+that comes up, and she is going to lead all of them in mathematics, and make
+them work in any branch.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Elnora entered the coat room after having had luncheon with Ellen Brownlee
+there was such a difference in the atmosphere that she could feel it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am almost sorry I have these clothes,” she said to Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In the name of sense, why?” cried the astonished girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Every one is so nice to me in them, it sets me to wondering if in time I could
+have made them be equally friendly in the others.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ellen looked at her introspectively. “I believe you could,” she announced at
+last. “But it would have taken time and heartache, and your mind would have
+been less free to work on your studies. No one is happy without friends, and I
+just simply can’t study when I am unhappy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night the Bird Woman made the last trip to the swamp. Every specimen she
+possibly could use had been purchased at a fair price, and three additions had
+been made to the bank book, carrying the total a little past two hundred
+dollars. There remained the Indian relics to sell on Saturday, and Elnora had
+secured the order to furnish material for nature work for the grades. Life
+suddenly grew very full. There was the most excitingly interesting work for
+every hour, and that work was to pay high school expenses and start the college
+fund. There was one little rift in her joy. All of it would have been so much
+better if she could have told her mother, and given the money into her keeping;
+but the struggle to get a start had been so terrible, Elnora was afraid to take
+the risk. When she reached home, she only told her mother that the last of the
+things had been sold that evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think,” said Mrs. Comstock, “that we will ask Wesley to move that box over
+here back of the garden for you. There you are apt to get tolled farther into
+the swamp than you intend to go, and you might mire or something. There ought
+to be just the same things in our woods, and along our swampy places, as there
+are in the Limberlost. Can’t you hunt your stuff here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can try,” said Elnora. “I don’t know what I can find until I do. Our woods
+are undisturbed, and there is a possibility they might be even better hunting
+than the swamp. But I wouldn’t have Freckles’s case moved for the world. He
+might come back some day, and not like it. I’ve tried to keep his room the best
+I could, and taking out the box would make a big hole in one side of it. Store
+boxes don’t cost much. I will have Uncle Wesley buy me one, and set it up
+wherever hunting looks the best, early in the spring. I would feel safer at
+home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall we do the work or have supper first?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s do the work,” said Elnora. “I can’t say that I’m hungry now. Doesn’t
+seem as if I ever could be hungry again with such a lunch. I am quite sure no
+one carried more delicious things to eat than I.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock was pleased. “I put in a pretty good hunk of cake. Did you divide
+it with any one?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, yes, I did,” admitted Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was becoming uncomfortable. “I ate the biggest piece myself,” said Elnora,
+“and gave the rest to a couple of boys named Jimmy and Billy and a girl named
+Belle. They said it was the very best cake they ever tasted in all their
+lives.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock sat straight. “I used to be a master hand at spice cake,” she
+boasted. “But I’m a little out of practice. I must get to work again. With the
+very weeds growing higher than our heads, we should raise plenty of good stuff
+to eat on this land, if we can’t afford anything else but taxes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora laughed and hurried up stairs to change her dress. Margaret Sinton came
+that night bringing a beautiful blue one in its place, and carried away the
+other to launder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you mean to say those dresses are to be washed every two days?” questioned
+Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They have to be, to look fresh,” replied Margaret. “We want our girl sweet as
+a rose.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, of all things!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “Every two days! Any girl who can’t
+keep a dress clean longer than that is a dirty girl. You’ll wear the goods out
+and fade the colours with so much washing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll have a clean girl, anyway.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, if you like the job you can have it,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I don’t mind
+the washing, but I’m so inconvenient with an iron.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora sat late that night working over her lessons. The next morning she put
+on her blue dress and ribbon and in those she was a picture. Mrs. Comstock
+caught her breath with a queer stirring around her heart, and looked twice to
+be sure of what she saw. As Elnora gathered her books her mother silently gave
+her the lunch box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Feels heavy,” said Elnora gaily. “And smelly! Like as not I’ll be called upon
+to divide again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then you divide!” said Mrs. Comstock. “Eating is the one thing we don’t have
+to economize on, Elnora. Spite of all I can do food goes to waste in this soil
+every day. If you can give some of those city children a taste of the real
+thing, why, don’t be selfish.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora went down the road thinking of the city children with whom she probably
+would divide. Of course, the bridge would be occupied again. So she stopped and
+opened the box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want to be selfish,” murmured Elnora, “but it really seems as if I
+can’t give away this lunch. If mother did not put love into it, she’s
+substituted something that’s likely to fool me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She almost felt her steps lagging as she approached the bridge. A very hungry
+dog had been added to the trio of children. Elnora loved all dogs, and as
+usual, this one came to her in friendliness. The children said “Good morning!”
+with alacrity, and another paper parcel lay conspicuous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How are you this morning?” inquired Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right!” cried the three, while the dog sniffed ravenously at the lunch
+box, and beat a perfect tattoo with his tail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How did you like the bologna?” questioned Billy eagerly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One of the girls took me to lunch at her home yesterday,” answered Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dawn broke beautifully over Billy’s streaked face. He caught the package and
+thrust it toward Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then maybe you’d like to try the bologna to-day!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dog leaped in glad apprehension of something, and Belle scrambled to her
+feet and took a step forward. The look of famished greed in her eyes was more
+than Elnora could endure. It was not that she cared for the food so much. Good
+things to eat had been in abundance all her life. She wanted with this lunch to
+try to absorb what she felt must be an expression of some sort from her mother,
+and if it were not a manifestation of love, she did not know what to think it.
+But it was her mother who had said “be generous.” She knelt on the bridge.
+“Keep back the dog!” she warned the elder boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She opened the box and divided the milk between Billy and the girl. She gave
+each a piece of cake leaving one and a sandwich. Billy pressed forward eagerly,
+bitter disappointment on his face, and the elder boy forgot his charge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aw, I thought they’d be meat!” lamented Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora could not endure that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is!” she said gladly. “There is a little pigeon bird. I want a teeny
+piece of the breast, for a sort of keepsake, just one bite, and you can have
+the rest among you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora drew the knife from its holder and cut off the wishbone. Then she held
+the bird toward the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can divide it,” she said. The dog made a bound and seizing the squab
+sprang from the bridge and ran for life. The girl and boy hurried after him.
+With awful eyes Billy stared and swore tempestuously. Elnora caught him and
+clapped her hand over the little mouth. A delivery wagon came tearing down the
+street, the horse running full speed, passed the fleeing dog with the girl and
+boy in pursuit, and stopped at the bridge. High school girls began to roll from
+all sides of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A rescue! A rescue!” they shouted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Ellen Brownlee and her crowd, and every girl of them carried a big
+parcel. They took in the scene as they approached. The fleeing dog with
+something in its mouth, the half-naked girl and boy chasing it told the story.
+Those girls screamed with laughter as they watched the pursuit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank goodness, I saved the wishbone!” said Elnora. “As usual, I can prove
+that there was a bird.” She turned toward the box. Billy had improved the time.
+He had the last piece of cake in one hand, and the last bite of salad
+disappeared in one great gulp. Then the girls shouted again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s have a sample ourselves,” suggested one. She caught up the box and
+handed out the remaining sandwich. Another girl divided it into bites each
+little over an inch square, and then she lifted the cup lid and deposited a
+preserved strawberry on each bite. “One, two, three, altogether now!” she
+cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You old mean things!” screamed Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In an instant he was down in the road and handfuls of dust began to fly among
+them. The girls scattered before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy!” cried Elnora. “Billy! I’ll never give you another bite, if you throw
+dust on any one!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Billy dropped the dust, bored both fists into his eyes, and fled sobbing
+into Elnora’s new blue skirt. She stooped to meet him and consolation began.
+Those girls laughed on. They screamed and shouted until the little bridge
+shook.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To-morrow might as well be a clear day,” said Ellen, passing around and
+feeding the remaining berries to the girls as they could compose themselves
+enough to take them. “Billy, I admire your taste more than your temper.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora looked up. “The little soul is nothing but skin and bones,” she said. “I
+never was really hungry myself; were any of you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I should say so,” cried a plump, rosy girl. “I’m famished right now.
+Let’s have breakfast immediate!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We got to refill this box first!” said Ellen Brownlee. “Who’s got the butter?”
+A girl advanced with a wooden tray.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Put it in the preserve cup, a little strawberry flavour won’t hurt it. Next!”
+called Ellen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A loaf of bread was produced and Ellen cut off a piece which filled the
+sandwich box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Next!” A bottle of olives was unwrapped. The grocer’s boy who was waiting
+opened that, and Ellen filled the salad dish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Next!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A bag of macaroons was produced and the cake compartment filled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Next!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t suppose this will make quite as good dog feed as a bird,” laughed a
+girl holding open a bag of sliced ham while Ellen filled the meat dish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Next!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A box of candy was handed her and she stuffed every corner of the lunch box
+with chocolates and nougat. Then it was closed and formally presented to
+Elnora. The girls each helped themselves to candy and olives, and gave Billy
+the remainder of the food. Billy took one bite of ham, and approved. Belle and
+Jimmy had given up chasing the dog, and angry and ashamed, stood waiting half a
+block away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come back!” cried Billy. “You great big dunces, come back! They’s a new kind
+of meat, and cake and candy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy delayed, but the girl joined Billy. Ellen wiped her fingers, stepped to
+the cement abutment and began reciting “Horatio at the Bridge!” substituting
+Elnora wherever the hero appeared in the lines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora gathered up the sacks, and gave them to Belle, telling her to take the
+food home, cut and spread the bread, set things on the table, and eat nicely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Elnora was taken into the wagon with the girls, and driven on the run to
+the high school. They sang a song beginning&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+“Elnora, please give me a sandwich.<br/>
+I’m ashamed to ask for cake!”
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+as they went. Elnora did not know it, but that was her initiation. She belonged
+to “the crowd.” She only knew that she was happy, and vaguely wondered what her
+mother and Aunt Margaret would have said about the proceedings.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0007"></a>
+CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK MANIPULATES MARGARET AND BILLY ACQUIRES A
+RESIDENCE</h3>
+
+<p>
+Saturday morning Elnora helped her mother with the work. When she had finished
+Mrs. Comstock told her to go to Sintons’ and wash her Indian relics, so that
+she would be ready to accompany Wesley to town in the afternoon. Elnora hurried
+down the road and was soon at the cistern with a tub busily washing arrow
+points, stone axes, tubes, pipes, and skin-cleaning implements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she went home, dressed and was waiting when the carriage reached the gate.
+She stopped at the bank with the box, and Sinton went to do his marketing and
+some shopping for his wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the dry goods store Mr. Brownlee called to him, “Hello, Sinton! How do you
+like the fate of your lunch box?” Then he began to laugh&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I always hate to see a man laughing alone,” said Sinton. “It looks so selfish!
+Tell me the fun, and let me help you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Brownlee wiped his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I supposed you knew, but I see she hasn’t told.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the three days’ history of the lunch box was repeated with particulars
+which included the dog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now laugh!” concluded Mr. Brownlee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Blest if I see anything funny!” replied Wesley Sinton. “And if you had bought
+that box and furnished one of those lunches yourself, you wouldn’t either. I
+call such a work a shame! I’ll have it stopped.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Some one must see to that, all right. They are little leeches. Their father
+earns enough to support them, but they have no mother, and they run wild. I
+suppose they are crazy for cooked food. But it is funny, and when you think it
+over you will see it, if you don’t now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“About where would a body find that father?” inquired Wesley Sinton grimly. Mr.
+Brownlee told him and he started, locating the house with little difficulty.
+House was the proper word, for of home there was no sign. Just a small empty
+house with three unkept little children racing through and around it. The girl
+and the elder boy hung back, but dirty little Billy greeted Sinton with: “What
+you want here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to see your father,” said Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, he’s asleep,” said Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where?” asked Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In the house,” answered Billy, “and you can’t wake him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’ll try,” said Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy led the way. “There he is!” he said. “He is drunk again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On a dirty mattress in a corner lay a man who appeared to be strong and well.
+Billy was right. You could not awake him. He had gone the limit, and a little
+beyond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was now facing eternity. Sinton went out and closed the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your father is sick and needs help,” he said. “You stay here, and I will send
+a man to see him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you just let him ’lone, he’ll sleep it off,” volunteered Billy. “He’s that
+way all the time, but he wakes up and gets us something to eat after awhile.
+Only waitin’ twists you up inside pretty bad.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy wore no air of complaint. He was merely stating facts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley Sinton looked intently at Billy. “Are you twisted up inside now?” he
+asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy laid a grimy hand on the region of his stomach and the filthy little
+waist sank close to the backbone. “Bet yer life, boss,” he said cheerfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How long have you been twisted?” asked Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy appealed to the others. “When was it we had the stuff on the bridge?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yesterday morning,” said the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that all gone?” asked Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She went and told us to take it home,” said Billy ruefully, “and ’cos she said
+to, we took it. Pa had come back, he was drinking some more, and he ate a lot
+of it&mdash;almost the whole thing, and it made him sick as a dog, and he went
+and wasted all of it. Then he got drunk some more, and now he’s asleep again.
+We didn’t get hardly none.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You children sit on the steps until the man comes,” said Sinton. “I’ll send
+you some things to eat with him. What’s your name, sonny?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy,” said the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Billy, I guess you better come with me. I’ll take care of him,” Sinton
+promised the others. He reached a hand to Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ain’t no baby, I’m a boy!” said Billy, as he shuffled along beside Sinton,
+taking a kick at every movable object without regard to his battered toes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once they passed a Great Dane dog lolling after its master, and Billy ascended
+Sinton as if he were a tree, and clung to him with trembling hot hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ain’t afraid of that dog,” scoffed Billy, as he was again placed on the
+walk, “but onc’t he took me for a rat or somepin’ and his teeth cut into my
+back. If I’d a done right, I’d a took the law on him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sinton looked down into the indignant little face. The child was bright enough,
+he had a good head, but oh, such a body!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ’bout got enough of dogs,” said Billy. “I used to like ’em, but I’m getting
+pretty tired. You ought to seen the lickin’ Jimmy and Belle and me give our dog
+when we caught him, for taking a little bird she gave us. We waited ’till he
+was asleep ’nen laid a board on him and all of us jumped on it to onc’t. You
+could a heard him yell a mile. Belle said mebbe we could squeeze the bird out
+of him. But, squeeze nothing! He was holler as us, and that bird was lost long
+’fore it got to his stummick. It was ist a little one, anyway. Belle said it
+wouldn’t ’a’ made a bite apiece for three of us nohow, and the dog got one good
+swaller. We didn’t get much of the meat, either. Pa took most of that. Seems
+like pas and dogs gets everything.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy laughed dolefully. Involuntarily Wesley Sinton reached his hand. They
+were coming into the business part of Onabasha and the streets were crowded.
+Billy understood it to mean that he might lose his companion and took a grip.
+That little hot hand clinging tight to his, the sore feet recklessly scouring
+the walk, the hungry child panting for breath as he tried to keep even, the
+brave soul jesting in the face of hard luck, caught Sinton in a tender, empty
+spot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, son,” he said. “How would you like to be washed clean, and have all the
+supper your skin could hold, and sleep in a good bed?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aw, gee!” said Billy. “I ain’t dead yet! Them things is in heaven! Poor folks
+can’t have them. Pa said so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you can have them if you want to go with me and get them,” promised
+Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Honest?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, honest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Crost yer heart?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kin I take some to Jimmy and Belle?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you’ll come with me and be my boy, I’ll see that they have plenty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What will pa say?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your pa is in that kind of sleep now where he won’t wake up, Billy,” said
+Sinton. “I am pretty sure the law will give you to me, if you want to come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When people don’t ever wake up they’re dead,” announced Billy. “Is my pa
+dead?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, he is,” answered Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you’ll take care of Jimmy and Belle, too?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t adopt all three of you,” said Sinton. “I’ll take you, and see that
+they are well provided for. Will you come?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yep, I’ll come,” said Billy. “Let’s eat, first thing we do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right,” agreed Sinton. “Come into this restaurant.” He lifted Billy to the
+lunch counter and ordered the clerk to give him as many glasses of milk as he
+wanted, and a biscuit. “I think there’s going to be fried chicken when we get
+home, Billy,” he said, “so you just take the edge off now, and fill up later.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While Billy lunched Sinton called up the different departments and notified the
+proper authorities ending with the Women’s Relief Association. He sent a basket
+of food to Belle and Jimmy, bought Billy a pair of trousers, and a shirt, and
+went to bring Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, Uncle Wesley!” cried the girl. “Where did you find Billy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve adopted him for the time being, if not longer,” replied Wesley Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where did you get him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, young woman,” said Wesley Sinton, “Mr. Brownlee told me the history of
+your lunch box. It didn’t seem so funny to me as it does to the rest of them;
+so I went to look up the father of Billy’s family, and make him take care of
+them, or allow the law to do it for him. It will have to be the law.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s deader than anything!” broke in Billy. “He can’t ever take all the meat
+any more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy!” gasped Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never you mind!” said Sinton. “A child doesn’t say such things about a father
+who loved and raised him right. When it happens, the father alone is to blame.
+You won’t hear Billy talk like that about me when I cross over.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t mean you are going to take him to keep!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll soon need help,” said Wesley. “Billy will come in just about right ten
+years from now, and if I raise him I’ll have him the way I want him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But Aunt Margaret doesn’t like boys,” objected Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, she likes me, and I used to be a boy. Anyway, as I remember she has had
+her way about everything at our house ever since we were married. I am going to
+please myself about Billy. Hasn’t she always done just as she chose so far as
+you know? Honest, Elnora!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Honest!” replied Elnora. “You are beautiful to all of us, Uncle Wesley; but
+Aunt Margaret won’t like Billy. She won’t want him in her home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In our home,” corrected Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What makes you want him?” marvelled Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God only knows,” said Sinton. “Billy ain’t so beautiful, and he ain’t so
+smart, I guess it’s because he’s so human. My heart goes out to him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So did mine,” said Elnora. “I love him. I’d rather see him eat my lunch than
+have it myself any time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What makes you like him?” asked Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, I don’t know,” pondered Elnora. “He’s so little, he needs so much, he’s
+got such splendid grit, and he’s perfectly unselfish with his brother and
+sister. But we must wash him before Aunt Margaret sees him. I wonder if
+mother&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You needn’t bother. I’m going to take him home the way he is,” said Sinton. “I
+want Maggie to see the worst of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m afraid&mdash;&mdash;” began Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So am I,” said Wesley, “but I won’t give him up. He’s taken a sort of grip on
+my heart. I’ve always been crazy for a boy. Don’t let him hear us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t let him be killed!” cried Elnora. During their talk Billy had wandered
+to the edge of the walk and barely escaped the wheels of a passing automobile
+in an effort to catch a stray kitten that seemed in danger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley drew Billy back to the walk, and held his hand closely. “Are you ready,
+Elnora?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes; you were gone a long time,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley glanced at a package she carried. “Have to have another book?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I bought this for mother. I’ve had such splendid luck selling my
+specimens, I didn’t feel right about keeping all the money for myself, so I
+saved enough from the Indian relics to get a few things I wanted. I would have
+liked to have gotten her a dress, but I didn’t dare, so I compromised on a
+book.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did you select, Elnora?” asked Wesley wonderingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well,” said she, “I have noticed mother always seemed interested in anything
+Mark Twain wrote in the newspapers, and I thought it would cheer her up a
+little, so I just got his ‘Innocents Abroad.’ I haven’t read it myself, but
+I’ve seen mention made of it all my life, and the critics say it’s genuine
+fun.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good!” cried Sinton. “Good! You’ve made a splendid choice. It will take her
+mind off herself a lot. But she will scold you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course,” assented Elnora. “But, possibly she will read it, and feel better.
+I’m going to serve her a trick. I am going to hide it until Monday, and set it
+on her little shelf of books the last thing before I go away. She must have all
+of them by heart. When she sees a new one she can’t help being glad, for she
+loves to read, and if she has all day to become interested, maybe she’ll like
+it so she won’t scold so much.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We are both in for it, but I guess we are prepared. I don’t know what Margaret
+will say, but I’m going to take Billy home and see. Maybe he can win with her,
+as he did with us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora had doubts, but she did not say anything more. When they started home
+Billy sat on the front seat. He drove with the hitching strap tied to the
+railing of the dash-board, flourished the whip, and yelled with delight. At
+first Sinton laughed with him, but by the time he left Elnora with several
+packages at her gate, he was looking serious enough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret was at the door as they drove up the lane. Wesley left Billy in the
+carriage, hitched the horses and went to explain to her. He had not reached her
+before she cried, “Look, Wesley, that child! You’ll have a runaway!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley looked and ran. Billy was standing in the carriage slashing the
+mettlesome horses with the whip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“See me make ’em go!” he shouted as the whip fell a second time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did make them go. They took the hitching post and a few fence palings, which
+scraped the paint from a wheel. Sinton missed the lines at the first effort,
+but the dragging post impeded the horses, and he soon caught them. He led them
+to the barn, and ordered Billy to remain in the carriage while he unhitched.
+Then leading Billy and carrying his packages he entered the yard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You run play a few minutes, Billy,” he said. “I want to talk to the nice
+lady.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The nice lady was looking rather stupefied as Wesley approached her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where in the name of sense did you get that awful child?” she demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He is a young gentleman who has been stopping Elnora and eating her lunch
+every day, part of the time with the assistance of his brother and sister,
+while our girl went hungry. Brownlee told me about it at the store. It’s
+happened three days running. The first time she went without anything, the
+second time Brownlee’s girl took her to lunch, and the third a crowd of high
+school girls bought a lot of stuff and met them at the bridge. The youngsters
+seemed to think they could rob her every day, so I went to see their father
+about having it stopped.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I should think so!” cried Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There were three of them, Margaret,” said Wesley, “that little
+fellow&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hyena, you mean,” interpolated Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hyena,” corrected Wesley gravely, “and another boy and a girl, all equally
+dirty and hungry. The man was dead. They thought he was in a drunken sleep, but
+he was stone dead. I brought the little boy with me, and sent the officers and
+other help to the house. He’s half starved. I want to wash him, and put clean
+clothes on him, and give him some supper.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you got anything to put on him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where did you get it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bought it. It ain’t much. All I got didn’t cost a dollar.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A dollar is a good deal when you work and save for it the way we do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I don’t know a better place to put it. Have you got any hot water? I’ll
+use this tub at the cistern. Please give me some soap and towels.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead Margaret pushed by him with a shriek. Billy had played by producing a
+cord from his pocket, and having tied the tails of Margaret’s white kittens
+together, he had climbed on a box and hung them across the clothes line. Wild
+with fright the kittens were clawing each other to death, and the air was white
+with fur. The string had twisted and the frightened creatures could not
+recognize friends. Margaret stepped back with bleeding hands. Sinton cut the
+cord with his knife and the poor little cats raced under the house bleeding and
+disfigured. Margaret white with wrath faced Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you don’t hitch up and take that animal back to town,” she said, “I will.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy threw himself on the grass and began to scream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You said I could have fried chicken for supper,” he wailed. “You said she was
+a nice lady!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley lifted him and something in his manner of handling the child infuriated
+Margaret. His touch was so gentle. She reached for Billy and gripped his shirt
+collar in the back. Wesley’s hand closed over hers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gently, girl!” he said. “This little body is covered with sores.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sores!” she ejaculated. “Sores? What kind of sores?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, they might be from bruises made by fists or boot toes, or they might be
+bad blood, from wrong eating, or they might be pure filth. Will you hand me
+some towels?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I won’t!” said Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, give me some rags, then.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret compromised on pieces of old tablecloth. Wesley led Billy to the
+cistern, pumped cold water into the tub, poured in a kettle of hot, and
+beginning at the head scoured him. The boy shut his little teeth, and said
+never a word though he twisted occasionally when the soap struck a raw spot.
+Margaret watched the process from the window in amazed and ever-increasing
+anger. Where did Wesley learn it? How could his big hands be so gentle? He came
+to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you got any peroxide?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A little,” she answered stiffly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I need about a pint, but I’ll begin on what you have.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret handed him the bottle. Wesley took a cup, weakened the drug and said
+to Billy: “Man, these sores on you must be healed. Then you must eat the kind
+of food that’s fit for little men. I am going to put some medicine on you, and
+it is going to sting like fire. If it just runs off, I won’t use any more. If
+it boils, there is poison in these places, and they must be tied up, dosed
+every day, and you must be washed, and kept mighty clean. Now, hold still,
+because I am going to put it on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think the one on my leg is the worst,” said the undaunted Billy, holding out
+a raw place. Sinton poured on the drug. Billy’s body twisted and writhed, but
+he did not run.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gee, look at it boil!” he cried. “I guess they’s poison. You’ll have to do it
+to all of them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley’s teeth were set, as he watched the boy’s face. He poured the drug,
+strong enough to do effective work, on a dozen places over that little body and
+bandaged all he could. Billy’s lips quivered at times, and his chin jumped, but
+he did not shed a tear or utter a sound other than to take a deep interest in
+the boiling. As Wesley put the small shirt on the boy, and fastened the
+trousers, he was ready to reset the hitching post and mend the fence without a
+word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now am I clean?” asked Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, you are clean outside,” said Wesley. “There is some dirty blood in your
+body, and some bad words in your mouth, that we have to get out, but that takes
+time. If we put right things to eat into your stomach that will do away with
+the sores, and if you know that I don’t like bad words you won’t say them any
+oftener than you can help, will you Billy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy leaned against Wesley in apparent indifference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to see me!” he demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley led the boy into the house, and lifted him to a mirror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My, I’m purty good-looking, ain’t I?” bragged Billy. Then as Wesley stooped to
+set him on the floor Billy’s lips passed close to the big man’s ear and hastily
+whispered a vehement “No!” as he ran for the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How long until supper, Margaret?” asked Wesley as he followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are going to keep him for supper?” she asked
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure!” said Wesley. “That’s what I brought him for. It’s likely he never had a
+good square meal of decent food in his life. He’s starved to the bone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret arose deliberately, removed the white cloth from the supper table and
+substituted an old red one she used to wrap the bread. She put away the pretty
+dishes they commonly used and set the table with old plates for pies and
+kitchen utensils. But she fried the chicken, and was generous with milk and
+honey, snowy bread, gravy, potatoes, and fruit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley repainted the scratched wheel. He mended the fence, with Billy holding
+the nails and handing the pickets. Then he filled the old hole, digged a new
+one and set the hitching post.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy hopped on one foot at his task of holding the post steady as the earth
+was packed around it. There was not the shadow of a trouble on his little
+freckled face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sinton threw in stones and pounded the earth solid around the post. The sound
+of a gulping sob attracted him to Billy. The tears were rolling down his
+cheeks. “If I’d a knowed you’d have to get down in a hole, and work so hard I
+wouldn’t ’a’ hit the horses,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never you mind, Billy,” said Wesley. “You will know next time, so you can
+think over it, and make up your mind whether you really want to before you
+strike.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley went to the barn to put away the tools. He thought Billy was at his
+heels, but the boy lagged on the way. A big snowy turkey gobbler resented the
+small intruder in his especial preserves, and with spread tail and dragging
+wings came toward him threateningly. If that turkey gobbler had known the sort
+of things with which Billy was accustomed to holding his own, he never would
+have issued the challenge. Billy accepted instantly. He danced around with
+stiff arms at his sides and imitated the gobbler. Then came his opportunity,
+and he jumped on the big turkey’s back. Wesley heard Margaret’s scream in time
+to see the flying leap and admire its dexterity. The turkey tucked its tail and
+scampered. Billy slid from its back and as he fell he clutched wildly, caught
+the folded tail, and instinctively clung to it. The turkey gave one scream and
+relaxed its muscles. Then it fled in disfigured defeat to the haystack. Billy
+scrambled to his feet holding the tail, while his eyes were bulging.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, the blasted old thing came off!” he said to Wesley, holding out the tail
+in amazed wonder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man, caught suddenly, forgot everything and roared. Seeing which, Billy
+thought a turkey tail of no account and flung that one high above him shouting
+in wild childish laughter, when the feathers scattered and fell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret, watching, began to cry. Wesley had gone mad. For the first time in
+her married life she wanted to tell her mother. When Wesley had waited until he
+was so hungry he could wait no longer he invaded the kitchen to find a cooked
+supper baking on the back of the stove, while Margaret with red eyes nursed a
+pair of demoralized white kittens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is supper ready?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It has been for an hour,” answered Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why didn’t you call us?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That “us” had too much comradeship in it. It irritated Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I supposed it would take you even longer than this to fix things decent again.
+As for my turkey, and my poor little kittens, they don’t matter.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am mighty sorry about them, Margaret, you know that. Billy is very bright,
+and he will soon learn&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Soon learn!” cried Margaret. “Wesley Sinton, you don’t mean to say that you
+think of keeping that creature here for some time?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I think of keeping a well-behaved little boy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret set the supper on the table. Seeing the old red cloth Wesley stared in
+amazement. Then he understood. Billy capered around in delight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ain’t that pretty?” he exulted. “I wish Jimmy and Belle could see. We, why we
+ist eat out of our hands or off a old dry goods box, and when we fix up a lot,
+we have newspaper. We ain’t ever had a nice red cloth like this.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley looked straight at Margaret, so intently that she turned away, her face
+flushing. He stacked the dictionary and the geography of the world on a chair,
+and lifted Billy beside him. He heaped a plate generously, cut the food, put a
+fork into Billy’s little fist, and made him eat slowly and properly. Billy did
+his best. Occasionally greed overcame him, and he used his left hand to pop a
+bite into his mouth with his fingers. These lapses Wesley patiently overlooked,
+and went on with his general instructions. Luckily Billy did not spill anything
+on his clothing or the cloth. After supper Wesley took him to the barn while he
+finished the night work. Then he went and sat beside Margaret on the front
+porch. Billy appropriated the hammock, and swung by pulling a rope tied around
+a tree. The very energy with which he went at the work of swinging himself
+appealed to Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mercy, but he’s an active little body,” he said. “There isn’t a lazy bone in
+him. See how he works to pay for his fun.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There goes his foot through it!” cried Margaret. “Wesley, he shall not ruin my
+hammock.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course he shan’t!” said Wesley. “Wait, Billy, let me show you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thereupon he explained to Billy that ladies wearing beautiful white dresses sat
+in hammocks, so little boys must not put their dusty feet in them. Billy
+immediately sat, and allowed his feet to swing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Margaret,” said Wesley after a long silence on the porch, “isn’t it true that
+if Billy had been a half-starved sore cat, dog, or animal of any sort, that you
+would have pitied, and helped care for it, and been glad to see me get any
+pleasure out of it I could?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Margaret coldly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But because I brought a child with an immortal soul, there is no welcome.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That isn’t a child, it’s an animal.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You just said you would have welcomed an animal.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not a wild one. I meant a tame beast.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy is not a beast!” said Wesley hotly. “He is a very dear little boy.
+Margaret, you’ve always done the church-going and Bible reading for this
+family. How do you reconcile that ‘Suffer little children to come unto Me’ with
+the way you are treating Billy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret arose. “I haven’t treated that child. I have only let him alone. I can
+barely hold myself. He needs the hide tanned about off him!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you’d cared to look at his body, you’d know that you couldn’t find a place
+to strike without cutting into a raw spot,” said Wesley. “Besides, Billy has
+not done a thing for which a child should be punished. He is only full of life,
+no training, and with a boy’s love of mischief. He did abuse your kittens, but
+an hour before I saw him risk his life to save one from being run over. He
+minds what you tell him, and doesn’t do anything he is told not to. He thinks
+of his brother and sister right away when anything pleases him. He took that
+stinging medicine with the grit of a bulldog. He is just a bully little chap,
+and I love him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh good heavens!” cried Margaret, going into the house as she spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sinton sat still. At last Billy tired of the swing, came to him and leaned his
+slight body against the big knee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Am I going to sleep here?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure you are!” said Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy swung his feet as he laid across Wesley’s knee. “Come on,” said Wesley,
+“I must clean you up for bed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have to be just awful clean here,” announced Billy. “I like to be clean,
+you feel so good, after the hurt is over.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sinton registered that remark, and worked with especial tenderness as he
+redressed the ailing places and washed the dust from Billy’s feet and hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where can he sleep?” he asked Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m sure I don’t know,” she answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I can sleep ist any place,” said Billy. “On the floor or anywhere. Home, I
+sleep on pa’s coat on a store-box, and Jimmy and Belle they sleep on the
+storebox, too. I sleep between them, so’s I don’t roll off and crack my head.
+Ain’t you got a storebox and a old coat?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley arose and opened a folding lounge. Then he brought an armload of clean
+horse blankets from a closet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“These don’t look like the nice white bed a little boy should have, Billy,” he
+said, “but we’ll make them do. This will beat a storebox all hollow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy took a long leap for the lounge. When he found it bounced, he proceeded
+to bounce, until he was tired. By that time the blankets had to be refolded.
+Wesley had Billy take one end and help, while both of them seemed to enjoy the
+job. Then Billy lay down and curled up in his clothes like a small dog. But
+sleep would not come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally he sat up. He stared around restlessly. Then he arose, went to Wesley,
+and leaned against his knee. He picked up the boy and folded his arms around
+him. Billy sighed in rapturous content.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That bed feels so lost like,” he said. “Jimmy always jabbed me on one side,
+and Belle on the other, and so I knew I was there. Do you know where they are?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are with kind people who gave them a fine supper, a clean bed, and will
+always take good care of them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wisht I was&mdash;” Billy hesitated and looked earnestly at Wesley. “I mean
+I wish they was here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are about all I can manage, Billy,” said Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy sat up. “Can’t she manage anything?” he asked, waving toward Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed, yes,” said Wesley. “She has managed me for twenty years.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My, but she made you nice!” said Billy. “I just love you. I wisht she’d take
+Jimmy and Belle and make them nice as you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She isn’t strong enough to do that, Billy. They will grow into a good boy and
+girl where they are.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy slid from Wesley’s arms and walked toward Margaret until he reached the
+middle of the room. Then he stopped, and at last sat on the floor. Finally he
+lay down and closed his eyes. “This feels more like my bed; if only Jimmy and
+Belle was here to crowd up a little, so it wasn’t so alone like.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Won’t I do, Billy?” asked Wesley in a husky voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy moved restlessly. “Seems like&mdash;seems like toward night as if a body
+got kind o’ lonesome for a woman person&mdash;like her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy indicated Margaret and then closed his eyes so tight his small face
+wrinkled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon he was up again. “Wisht I had Snap,” he said. “Oh, I ist wisht I had
+Snap!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought you laid a board on Snap and jumped on it,” said Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We did!” cried Billy&mdash;“oh, you ought to heard him squeal!” Billy laughed
+loudly, then his face clouded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I want Snap to lay beside me so bad now&mdash;that if he was here I’d give
+him a piece of my chicken, ’fore I ate any. Do you like dogs?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I do,” said Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy was up instantly. “Would you like Snap?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am sure I would,” said Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would she?” Billy indicated Margaret. And then he answered his own question.
+“But of course, she wouldn’t, cos she likes cats, and dogs chases cats. Oh,
+dear, I thought for a minute maybe Snap could come here.” Billy lay down and
+closed his eyes resolutely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly they flew open. “Does it hurt to be dead?” he demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing hurts you after you are dead, Billy,” said Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, but I mean does it hurt getting to be dead?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sometimes it does. It did not hurt your father, Billy. It came softly while he
+was asleep.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It ist came softly?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I kind o’ wisht he wasn’t dead!” said Billy. “’Course I like to stay with you,
+and the fried chicken, and the nice soft bed, and&mdash;and everything, and I
+like to be clean, but he took us to the show, and he got us gum, and he never
+hurt us when he wasn’t drunk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy drew a deep breath, and tightly closed his eyes. But very soon they
+opened. Then he sat up. He looked at Wesley pitifully, and then he glanced at
+Margaret. “You don’t like boys, do you?” he questioned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like good boys,” said Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy was at her knee instantly. “Well say, I’m a good boy!” he announced
+joyously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do not think boys who hurt helpless kittens and pull out turkeys’ tails are
+good boys.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, but I didn’t hurt the kittens,” explained Billy. “They got mad ’bout ist
+a little fun and scratched each other. I didn’t s’pose they’d act like that.
+And I didn’t pull the turkey’s tail. I ist held on to the first thing I
+grabbed, and the turkey pulled. Honest, it was the turkey pulled.” He turned to
+Wesley. “You tell her! Didn’t the turkey pull? I didn’t know its tail was
+loose, did I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t think you did, Billy,” said Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy stared into Margaret’s cold face. “Sometimes at night, Belle sits on the
+floor, and I lay my head in her lap. I could pull up a chair and lay my head in
+your lap. Like this, I mean.” Billy pulled up a chair, climbed on it and laid
+his head on Margaret’s lap. Then he shut his eyes again. Margaret could have
+looked little more repulsed if he had been a snake. Billy was soon up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My, but your lap is hard,” he said. “And you are a good deal fatter ’an Belle,
+too!” He slid from the chair and came back to the middle of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh but I wisht he wasn’t dead!” he cried. The flood broke and Billy screamed
+in desperation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Out of the night a soft, warm young figure flashed through the door and with a
+swoop caught him in her arms. She dropped into a chair, nestled him closely,
+drooped her fragrant brown head over his little bullet-eyed red one, and rocked
+softly while she crooned over him&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+“Billy, boy, where have you been?<br/>
+Oh, I have been to seek a wife,<br/>
+She’s the joy of my life,<br/>
+But then she’s a young thing and she can’t leave her mammy!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy clung to her frantically. Elnora wiped his eyes, kissed his face, swayed
+and sang.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why aren’t you asleep?” she asked at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” said Billy. “I tried. I tried awful hard cos I thought he
+wanted me to, but it ist wouldn’t come. Please tell her I tried.” He appealed
+to Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He did try to go to sleep,” admitted Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe he can’t sleep in his clothes,” suggested Elnora. “Haven’t you an old
+dressing sacque? I could roll the sleeves.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret got an old sacque, and Elnora put it on Billy. Then she brought a
+basin of water and bathed his face and head. She gathered him up and began to
+rock again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you got a pa?” asked Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is he dead like mine?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did it hurt him to die?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy was wide awake again. “It didn’t hurt my pa,” he boasted; “he ist died
+while he was asleep. He didn’t even know it was coming.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am glad of that,” said Elnora, pressing the small head against her breast
+again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy escaped her hand and sat up. “I guess I won’t go to sleep,” he said. “It
+might ’come softly’ and get me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It won’t get you, Billy,” said Elnora, rocking and singing between sentences.
+“It doesn’t get little boys. It just takes big people who are sick.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was my pa sick?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Elnora. “He had a dreadful sickness inside him that burned, and
+made him drink things. That was why he would forget his little boys and girl.
+If he had been well, he would have gotten you good things to eat, clean
+clothes, and had the most fun with you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy leaned against her and closed his eyes, and Elnora rocked hopefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I was dead would you cry?” he was up again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I would,” said Elnora, gripping him closer until Billy almost squealed
+with the embrace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you love me tight as that?” he questioned blissfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, bushels and bushels,” said Elnora. “Better than any little boy in the
+whole world.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy looked at Margaret. “She don’t!” he said. “She’d be glad if it would get
+me ‘softly,’ right now. She don’t want me here ’t all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora smothered his face against her breast and rocked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You love me, don’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will, if you will go to sleep.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Every single day you will give me your dinner for the bologna, won’t you,”
+said Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I will,” replied Elnora. “But you will have as good lunch as I do after
+this. You will have milk, eggs, chicken, all kinds of good things, little pies,
+and cakes, maybe.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy shook his head. “I am going back home soon as it is light,” he said, “she
+don’t want me. She thinks I’m a bad boy. She’s going to whip me&mdash;if he
+lets her. She said so. I heard her. Oh, I wish he hadn’t died! I want to go
+home.” Billy shrieked again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock had started to walk slowly to meet Elnora. The girl had been so
+late that her mother reached the Sinton gate and followed the path until the
+picture inside became visible. Elnora had told her about Wesley taking Billy
+home. Mrs. Comstock had some curiosity to see how Margaret bore the unexpected
+addition to her family. Billy’s voice, raised with excitement, was plainly
+audible. She could see Elnora holding him, and hear his excited wail. Wesley’s
+face was drawn and haggard, and Margaret’s set and defiant. A very imp of
+perversity entered the breast of Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hoity, toity!” she said as she suddenly appeared in the door. “Blest if I ever
+heard a man making sounds like that before!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy ceased suddenly. Mrs. Comstock was tall, angular, and her hair was
+prematurely white. She was only thirty-six, although she appeared fifty. But
+there was an expression on her usually cold face that was attractive just then,
+and Billy was in search of attractions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have I stayed too late, mother?” asked Elnora anxiously. “I truly intended to
+come straight back, but I thought I could rock Billy to sleep first. Everything
+is strange, and he’s so nervous.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that your ma?” demanded Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does she love you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My mother didn’t love me,” said Billy. “She went away and left me, and never
+came back. She don’t care what happens to me. You wouldn’t go away and leave
+your little girl, would you?” questioned Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Katharine Comstock, “and I wouldn’t leave a little boy, either.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy began sliding from Elnora’s knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you like boys?” he questioned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If there is anything I love it is a boy,” said Mrs. Comstock assuringly. Billy
+was on the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you like dogs?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. Almost as well as boys. I am going to buy a dog as soon as I can find a
+good one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy swept toward her with a whoop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you want a boy?” he shouted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Katharine Comstock stretched out her arms, and gathered him in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, I want a boy!” she rejoiced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe you’d like to have me?” offered Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure I would,” triumphed Mrs. Comstock. “Any one would like to have you. You
+are just a real boy, Billy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you take Snap?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d like to have Snap almost as well as you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother!” breathed Elnora imploringly. “Don’t! Oh, don’t! He thinks you mean
+it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And so I do mean it,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I’ll take him in a jiffy. I throw
+away enough to feed a little tyke like him every day. His chatter would be
+great company while you are gone. Blood soon can be purified with right food
+and baths, and as for Snap, I meant to buy a bulldog, but possibly Snap will
+serve just as well. All I ask of a dog is to bark at the right time. I’ll do
+the rest. Would you like to come and be my boy, Billy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy leaned against Mrs. Comstock, reached his arms around her neck and
+gripped her with all his puny might. “You can whip me all you want to,” he
+said. “I won’t make a sound.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock held him closely and her hard face was softening; of that there
+could be no doubt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, why would any one whip a nice little boy like you?” she asked
+wonderingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She”&mdash;Billy from his refuge waved toward Margaret&mdash;“she was going to
+whip me ’cause her cats fought, when I tied their tails together and hung them
+over the line to dry. How did I know her old cats would fight?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock began to laugh suddenly, and try as she would she could not stop
+so soon as she desired. Billy studied her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you got turkeys?” he demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, flocks of them,” said Mrs. Comstock, vainly struggling to suppress her
+mirth, and settle her face in its accustomed lines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are their tails fast?” demanded Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, I think so,” marvelled Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hers ain’t!” said Billy with the wave toward Margaret that was becoming
+familiar. “Her turkey pulled, and its tail comed right off. She’s going to whip
+me if he lets her. I didn’t know the turkey would pull. I didn’t know its tail
+would come off. I won’t ever touch one again, will I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, you won’t,” said Mrs. Comstock. “And what’s more, I don’t care if
+you do! I’d rather have a fine little man like you than all the turkeys in the
+country. Let them lose their old tails if they want to, and let the cats fight.
+Cats and turkeys don’t compare with boys, who are going to be fine big men some
+of these days.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Billy and Mrs. Comstock hugged each other rapturously, while their
+audience stared in silent amazement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You like boys!” exulted Billy, and his head dropped against Mrs. Comstock in
+unspeakable content.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, and if I don’t have to carry you the whole way home, we must start right
+now,” said Mrs. Comstock. “You are going to be asleep before you know it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy opened his eyes and braced himself. “I can walk,” he said proudly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right, we must start. Come, Elnora! Good-night, folks!” Mrs. Comstock set
+Billy on the floor, and arose gripping his hand. “You take the other side,
+Elnora, and we will help him as much as we can,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora stared piteously at Margaret, then at Wesley, and arose in white-faced
+bewilderment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy, are you going to leave without even saying good-bye to me?” asked
+Wesley, with a gulp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy held tight to Mrs. Comstock and Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good-bye!” he said casually. “I’ll come and see you some time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley Sinton gave a smothered sob, and strode from the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock started toward the door, dragging at Billy while Elnora pulled
+back, but Mrs. Sinton was before them, her eyes flashing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kate Comstock, you think you are mighty smart, don’t you?” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ain’t in the lunatic asylum, where you belong, anyway,” said Mrs. Comstock.
+“I am smart enough to tell a dandy boy when I see him, and I’m good and glad to
+get him. I’ll love to have him!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you won’t have him!” exclaimed Margaret Sinton. “That boy is Wesley’s!
+He found him, and brought him here. You can’t come in and take him like that!
+Let go of him!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not much, I won’t!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “Leave the poor sick little soul here
+for you to beat, because he didn’t know just how to handle things! Of course,
+he’ll make mistakes. He must have a lot of teaching, but not the kind he’ll get
+from you! Clear out of my way!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You let go of our boy,” ordered Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why? Do you want to whip him, before he can go to sleep?” jeered Mrs.
+Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I don’t!” said Margaret. “He’s Wesley’s, and nobody shall touch him.
+Wesley!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley Sinton appeared behind Margaret in the doorway, and she turned to him.
+“Make Kate Comstock let go of our boy!” she demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy, she wants you now,” said Wesley Sinton. “She won’t whip you, and she
+won’t let any one else. You can have stacks of good things to eat, ride in the
+carriage, and have a great time. Won’t you stay with us?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy drew away from Mrs. Comstock and Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He faced Margaret, his eyes shrewd with unchildish wisdom. Necessity had taught
+him to strike the hot iron, to drive the hard bargain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can I have Snap to live here always?” he demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, you can have all the dogs you want,” said Margaret Sinton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can I sleep close enough so’s I can touch you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, you can move your lounge up so that you can hold my hand,” said Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you love me now?” questioned Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll try to love you, if you are a good boy,” said Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I guess I’ll stay,” said Billy, walking over to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Out in the night Elnora and her mother went down the road in the moonlight;
+every few rods Mrs. Comstock laughed aloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother, I don’t understand you,” sobbed Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, maybe when you have gone to high school longer you will,” said Mrs.
+Comstock. “Anyway, you saw me bring Mag Sinton to her senses, didn’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I did,” answered Elnora, “but I thought you were in earnest. So did
+Billy, and Uncle Wesley, and Aunt Margaret.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, wasn’t I?” inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you just said you brought Aunt Margaret to!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, didn’t I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t understand you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the reason I am recommending more schooling!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora took her candle and went to bed. Mrs. Comstock was feeling too good to
+sleep. Twice of late she really had enjoyed herself for the first in sixteen
+years, and greediness for more of the same feeling crept into her blood like
+intoxication. As she sat brooding alone she knew the truth. She would have
+loved to have taken Billy. She would not have minded his mischief, his chatter,
+or his dog. He would have meant a distraction from herself that she greatly
+needed; she was even sincere about the dog. She had intended to tell Wesley to
+buy her one at the very first opportunity. Her last thought was of Billy. She
+chuckled softly, for she was not saintly, and now she knew how she could even a
+long score with Margaret and Wesley in a manner that would fill her soul with
+grim satisfaction.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0008"></a>
+CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST TEMPTS ELNORA, AND BILLY BURIES HIS FATHER</h3>
+
+<p>
+Immediately after dinner on Sunday Wesley Sinton stopped at the Comstock gate
+to ask if Elnora wanted to go to town with them. Billy sat beside him and he
+did not appear as if he were on his way to a funeral. Elnora said she had to
+study and could not go, but she suggested that her mother take her place. Mrs.
+Comstock put on her hat and went at once, which surprised Elnora. She did not
+know that her mother was anxious for an opportunity to speak with Sinton alone.
+Elnora knew why she was repeatedly cautioned not to leave their land, if she
+went specimen hunting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She studied two hours and was several lessons ahead of her classes. There was
+no use to go further. She would take a walk and see if she could gather any
+caterpillars or find any freshly spun cocoons. She searched the bushes and low
+trees behind the garden and all around the edge of the woods on their land, and
+having little success, at last came to the road. Almost the first thorn bush
+she examined yielded a Polyphemus cocoon. Elnora lifted her head with the
+instinct of a hunter on the chase, and began work. She reached the swamp before
+she knew it, carrying five fine cocoons of different species as her reward. She
+pushed back her hair and gazed around longingly. A few rods inside she thought
+she saw cocoons on a bush, to which she went, and found several. Sense of
+caution was rapidly vanishing; she was in a fair way to forget everything and
+plunge into the swamp when she thought she heard footsteps coming down the
+trail. She went back, and came out almost facing Pete Corson.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That ended her difficulty. She had known him since childhood. When she sat on
+the front bench of the Brushwood schoolhouse, Pete had been one of the big boys
+at the back of the room. He had been rough and wild, but she never had been
+afraid of him, and often he had given her pretty things from the swamp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What luck!” she cried. “I promised mother I would not go inside the swamp
+alone, and will you look at the cocoons I’ve found! There are more just
+screaming for me to come get them, because the leaves will fall with the first
+frost, and then the jays and crows will begin to tear them open. I haven’t much
+time, since I’m going to school. You will go with me, Pete! Please say yes!
+Just a little way!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are those things?” asked the man, his keen black eyes staring at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are the cases these big caterpillars spin for winter, and in the spring
+they come out great night moths, and I can sell them. Oh, Pete, I can sell them
+for enough to take me through high school and dress me so like the others that
+I don’t look different, and if I have very good luck I can save some for
+college. Pete, please go with me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you go like you always have?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, the truth is, I had a little scare,” said Elnora. “I never did mean to
+go alone; sometimes I sort of wandered inside farther than I intended, chasing
+things. You know Duncan gave me Freckles’s books, and I have been gathering
+moths like he did. Lately I found I could sell them. If I can make a complete
+collection, I can get three hundred dollars for it. Three such collections
+would take me almost through college, and I’ve four years in the high school
+yet. That’s a long time. I might collect them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can every kind there is be found here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, not all of them, but when I get more than I need of one kind, I can trade
+them with collectors farther north and west, so I can complete sets. It’s the
+only way I see to earn the money. Look what I have already. Big gray Cecropias
+come from this kind; brown Polyphemus from that, and green Lunas from these.
+You aren’t working on Sunday. Go with me only an hour, Pete!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man looked at her narrowly. She was young, wholesome, and beautiful. She
+was innocent, intensely in earnest, and she needed the money, he knew that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You didn’t tell me what scared you,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I thought I did! Why you know I had Freckles’s box packed full of moths
+and specimens, and one evening I sold some to the Bird Woman. Next morning I
+found a note telling me it wasn’t safe to go inside the swamp. That sort of
+scared me. I think I’ll go alone, rather than miss the chance, but I’d be so
+happy if you would take care of me. Then I could go anywhere I chose, because
+if I mired you could pull me out. You will take care of me, Pete?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I’ll take care of you,” promised Pete Corson.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Goody!” said Elnora. “Let’s start quick! And Pete, you look at these closely,
+and when you are hunting or going along the road, if one dangles under your
+nose, you cut off the little twig and save it for me, will you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I’ll save you all I see,” promised Pete. He pushed back his hat and
+followed Elnora. She plunged fearlessly among bushes, over underbrush, and
+across dead logs. One minute she was crying wildly, that here was a big one,
+the next she was reaching for a limb above her head or on her knees overturning
+dead leaves under a hickory or oak tree, or working aside black muck with her
+bare hands as she searched for buried pupae cases. For the first hour Pete bent
+back bushes and followed, carrying what Elnora discovered. Then he found one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is this the kind of thing you are looking for?” he asked bashfully, as he
+presented a wild cherry twig.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Pete, that’s a Promethea! I didn’t even hope to find one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s the bird like?” asked Pete.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Almost black wings,” said Elnora, “with clay-coloured edges, and the most
+wonderful wine-coloured flush over the under side if it’s a male, and stronger
+wine above and below if it’s a female. Oh, aren’t I happy!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How would it do to make what you have into a bunch that we could leave here,
+and come back for them?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That would be all right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Relieved of his load Pete began work. First, he narrowly examined the cocoons
+Elnora had found. He questioned her as to what other kinds would be like. He
+began to use the eyes of a trained woodman and hunter in her behalf. He saw
+several so easily, and moved through the forest so softly, that Elnora forgot
+the moths in watching him. Presently she was carrying the specimens, and he was
+making the trips of investigation to see which was a cocoon and which a curled
+leaf, or he was on his knees digging around stumps. As he worked he kept asking
+questions. What kind of logs were best to look beside, what trees were pupae
+cases most likely to be under; on what bushes did caterpillars spin most
+frequently? Time passed, as it always does when one’s occupation is absorbing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the Sintons took Mrs. Comstock home, they stopped to see Elnora. She was
+not there. Mrs. Comstock called at the edge of her woods and received no reply.
+Then Wesley turned and drove back to the Limberlost. He left Margaret and Mrs.
+Comstock holding the team and entertaining Billy, while he entered the swamp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora and Pete had made a wide trail behind them. Before Sinton had thought of
+calling, he heard voices and approached with some caution. Soon he saw Elnora,
+her flushed face beaming as she bent with an armload of twigs and branches and
+talked to a kneeling man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now go cautiously!” she was saying. “I am just sure we will find an Imperialis
+here. It’s their very kind of a place. There! What did I tell you! Isn’t that
+splendid? Oh, I am so glad you came with me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley stood staring in speechless astonishment, for the man had arisen,
+brushed the dirt from his hands, and held out to Elnora a small shining dark
+pupa case. As his face came into view Sinton almost cried out, for he was the
+one man of all others Wesley knew with whom he most feared for Elnora’s safety.
+She had him on his knees digging pupae cases for her from the swamp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora!” called Sinton. “Elnora!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Uncle Wesley!” cried the girl. “See what luck we’ve had! I know we have a
+dozen and a half cocoons and we have three pupae cases. It’s much harder to get
+the cases because you have to dig for them, and you can’t see where to look.
+But Pete is fine at it! He’s found three, and he says he will keep watch beside
+the roads, and through the woods while he hunts. Isn’t that splendid of him?
+Uncle Wesley, there is a college over there on the western edge of the swamp.
+Look closely, and you can see the great dome up among the clouds.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I should say you have had luck,” said Wesley, striving to make his voice
+natural. “But I thought you were not coming to the swamp?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I wasn’t,” said Elnora, “but I couldn’t find many anywhere else, honest,
+I couldn’t, and just as soon as I came to the edge I began to see them here. I
+kept my promise. I didn’t come in alone. Pete came with me. He’s so strong, he
+isn’t afraid of anything, and he’s perfectly splendid to locate cocoons! He’s
+found half of these. Come on, Pete, it’s getting dark now, and we must go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They started toward the trail, Pete carrying the cocoons. He left them at the
+case, while Elnora and Wesley went on to the carriage together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora Comstock, what does this mean?” demanded her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s all right, one of the neighbours was with her, and she got several
+dollars’ worth of stuff,” interposed Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You oughter seen my pa,” shouted Billy. “He was ist all whited out, and he
+laid as still as anything. They put him away deep in the ground.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy!” breathed Margaret in a prolonged groan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Jimmy and Belle are going to be together in a nice place. They are coming to
+see me, and Snap is right down here by the wheel. Here, Snap! My, but he’ll be
+tickled to get something to eat! He’s ’most twisted as me. They get new
+clothes, and all they want to eat, too, but they’ll miss me. They couldn’t have
+got along without me. I took care of them. I had a lot of things give to me
+’cause I was the littlest, and I always divided with them. But they won’t need
+me now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she left the carriage Mrs. Comstock gravely shook hands with Billy.
+“Remember,” she said to him, “I love boys, and I love dogs. Whenever you don’t
+have a good time up there, take your dog and come right down and be my little
+boy. We will just have loads of fun. You should hear the whistles I can make.
+If you aren’t treated right you come straight to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy wagged his head sagely. “You ist bet I will!” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother, how could you?” asked Elnora as they walked up the path.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How could I, missy? You better ask how couldn’t I? I just couldn’t! Not for
+enough to pay my road tax! Not for enough to pay the road tax, and the dredge
+tax, too!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aunt Margaret always has been lovely to me, and I don’t think it’s fair to
+worry her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I choose to be lovely to Billy, and let her sweat out her own worries just as
+she has me, these sixteen years. There is nothing in all this world so good for
+people as taking a dose of their own medicine. The difference is that I am
+honest. I just say in plain English, ‘if they don’t treat you right, come to
+me.’ They have only said it in actions and inferences. I want to teach Mag
+Sinton how her own doses taste, but she begins to sputter before I fairly get
+the spoon to her lips. Just you wait!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When I think what I owe her&mdash;&mdash;” began Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, thank goodness, I don’t owe her anything, and so I’m perfectly free to
+do what I choose. Come on, and help me get supper. I’m hungry as Billy!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret Sinton rocked slowly back and forth in her chair. On her breast lay
+Billy’s red head, one hand clutched her dress front with spasmodic grip, even
+after he was unconscious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mustn’t begin that, Margaret,” said Sinton. “He’s too heavy. And it’s bad
+for him. He’s better off to lie down and go to sleep alone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He’s very light, Wesley. He jumps and quivers so. He has to be stronger than
+he is now, before he will sleep soundly.”
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0009"></a>
+CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN ELNORA DISCOVERS A VIOLIN, AND BILLY DISCIPLINES MARGARET</h3>
+
+<p>
+Elnora missed the little figure at the bridge the following morning. She slowly
+walked up the street and turned in at the wide entrance to the school grounds.
+She scarcely could comprehend that only a week ago she had gone there
+friendless, alone, and so sick at heart that she was physically ill. To-day she
+had decent clothing, books, friends, and her mind was at ease to work on her
+studies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she approached home that night the girl paused in amazement. Her mother had
+company, and she was laughing. Elnora entered the kitchen softly and peeped
+into the sitting-room. Mrs. Comstock sat in her chair holding a book and every
+few seconds a soft chuckle broke into a real laugh. Mark Twain was doing his
+work; while Mrs. Comstock was not lacking in a sense of humour. Elnora entered
+the room before her mother saw her. Mrs. Comstock looked up with flushed face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where did you get this?” she demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I bought it,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bought it! With all the taxes due!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I paid for it out of my Indian money, mother,” said Elnora. “I couldn’t bear
+to spend so much on myself and nothing at all on you. I was afraid to buy the
+dress I should have liked to, and I thought the book would be company, while I
+was gone. I haven’t read it, but I do hope it’s good.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good! It’s the biggest piece of foolishness I have read in all my life. I’ve
+laughed all day, ever since I found it. I had a notion to go out and read some
+of it to the cows and see if they wouldn’t laugh.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If it made you laugh, it’s a wise book,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wise!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You can stake your life it’s a wise book. It
+takes the smartest man there is to do this kind of fooling,” and she began
+laughing again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora, highly satisfied with her purchase, went to her room and put on her
+working clothes. Thereafter she made a point of bringing a book that she
+thought would interest her mother, from the library every week, and leaving it
+on the sitting-room table. Each night she carried home at least two school
+books and studied until she had mastered the points of her lessons. She did her
+share of the work faithfully, and every available minute she was in the fields
+searching for cocoons, for the moths promised to become her largest source of
+income.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She gathered baskets of nests, flowers, mosses, insects, and all sorts of
+natural history specimens and sold them to the grade teachers. At first she
+tried to tell these instructors what to teach their pupils about the specimens;
+but recognizing how much more she knew than they, one after another begged her
+to study at home, and use her spare hours in school to exhibit and explain
+nature subjects to their pupils. Elnora loved the work, and she needed the
+money, for every few days some matter of expense arose that she had not
+expected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the first week she had been received and invited with the crowd of girls
+in her class, and it was their custom in passing through the business part of
+the city to stop at the confectioners’ and take turns in treating to expensive
+candies, ice cream sodas, hot chocolate, or whatever they fancied. When first
+Elnora was asked she accepted without understanding. The second time she went
+because she seldom had tasted these things, and they were so delicious she
+could not resist. After that she went because she knew all about it, and had
+decided to go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had spent half an hour on the log beside the trail in deep thought and had
+arrived at her conclusions. She worked harder than usual for the next week, but
+she seemed to thrive on work. It was October and the red leaves were falling
+when her first time came to treat. As the crowd flocked down the broad walk
+that night Elnora called, “Girls, it’s my treat to-night! Come on!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She led the way through the city to the grocery they patronized when they had a
+small spread, and entering came out with a basket, which she carried to the
+bridge on her home road. There she arranged the girls in two rows on the cement
+abutments and opening her basket she gravely offered each girl an exquisite
+little basket of bark, lined with red leaves, in one end of which nestled a
+juicy big red apple and in the other a spicy doughnut not an hour from Margaret
+Sinton’s frying basket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another time she offered big balls of popped corn stuck together with maple
+sugar, and liberally sprinkled with beechnut kernels. Again it was hickory-nut
+kernels glazed with sugar, another time maple candy, and once a basket of warm
+pumpkin pies. She never made any apology, or offered any excuse. She simply
+gave what she could afford, and the change was as welcome to those city girls
+accustomed to sodas and French candy, as were these same things to Elnora
+surfeited on popcorn and pie. In her room was a little slip containing a record
+of the number of weeks in the school year, the times it would be her turn to
+treat and the dates on which such occasions would fall, with a number of
+suggestions beside each. Once the girls almost fought over a basket lined with
+yellow leaves, and filled with fat, very ripe red haws. In late October there
+was a riot over one which was lined with red leaves and contained big fragrant
+pawpaws frost-bitten to a perfect degree. Then hazel nuts were ripe, and once
+they served. One day Elnora at her wits’ end, explained to her mother that the
+girls had given her things and she wanted to treat them. Mrs. Comstock, with
+characteristic stubbornness, had said she would leave a basket at the grocery
+for her, but firmly declined to say what would be in it. All day Elnora
+struggled to keep her mind on her books. For hours she wavered in tense
+uncertainty. What would her mother do? Should she take the girls to the
+confectioner’s that night or risk the basket? Mrs. Comstock could make
+delicious things to eat, but would she?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As they left the building Elnora made a final rapid mental calculation. She
+could not see her way clear to a decent treat for ten people for less than two
+dollars and if the basket proved to be nice, then the money would be wasted.
+She decided to risk it. As they went to the bridge the girls were betting on
+what the treat would be, and crowding near Elnora like spoiled small children.
+Elnora set down the basket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Girls,” she said, “I don’t know what this is myself, so all of us are going to
+be surprised. Here goes!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She lifted the cover and perfumes from the land of spices rolled up. In one end
+of the basket lay ten enormous sugar cakes the tops of which had been liberally
+dotted with circles cut from stick candy. The candy had melted in baking and
+made small transparent wells of waxy sweetness and in the centre of each cake
+was a fat turtle made from a raisin with cloves for head and feet. The
+remainder of the basket was filled with big spiced pears that could be held by
+their stems while they were eaten. The girls shrieked and attacked the cookies,
+and of all the treats Elnora offered perhaps none was quite so long remembered
+as that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Elnora took her basket, placed her books in it, and started home, all the
+girls went with her as far as the fence where she crossed the field to the
+swamp. At parting they kissed her good-bye. Elnora was a happy girl as she
+hurried home to thank her mother. She was happy over her books that night, and
+happy all the way to school the following morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the music swelled from the orchestra her heart almost broke with throbbing
+joy. For music always had affected her strangely, and since she had been
+comfortable enough in her surroundings to notice things, she had listened to
+every note to find what it was that literally hurt her heart, and at last she
+knew. It was the talking of the violins. They were human voices, and they spoke
+a language Elnora understood. It seemed to her that she must climb up on the
+stage, take the instruments from the fingers of the players and make them speak
+what was in her heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night she said to her mother, “I am perfectly crazy for a violin. I am
+sure I could play one, sure as I live. Did any one&mdash;&mdash;” Elnora never
+completed that sentence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush!” thundered Mrs. Comstock. “Be quiet! Never mention those things before
+me again&mdash;never as long as you live! I loathe them! They are a snare of
+the very devil himself! They were made to lure men and women from their homes
+and their honour. If ever I see you with one in your fingers I will smash it in
+pieces.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naturally Elnora hushed, but she thought of nothing else after she had finished
+her lessons. At last there came a day when for some reason the leader of the
+orchestra left his violin on the grand piano. That morning Elnora made her
+first mistake in algebra. At noon, as soon as the building was empty, she
+slipped into the auditorium, found the side door which led to the stage, and
+going through the musicians’ entrance she took the violin. She carried it back
+into the little side room where the orchestra assembled, closed all the doors,
+opened the case and lifted out the instrument.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She laid it on her breast, dropped her chin on it and drew the bow softly
+across the strings. One after another she tested the open notes. Gradually her
+stroke ceased to tremble and she drew the bow firmly. Then her fingers began to
+fall and softly, slowly she searched up and down those strings for sounds she
+knew. Standing in the middle of the floor, she tried over and over. It seemed
+scarcely a minute before the hall was filled with the sound of hurrying feet,
+and she was forced to put away the violin and go to her classes. The next day
+she prayed that the violin would be left again, but her petition was not
+answered. That night when she returned from the school she made an excuse to go
+down to see Billy. He was engaged in hulling walnuts by driving them through
+holes in a board. His hands were protected by a pair of Margaret’s old gloves,
+but he had speckled his face generously. He appeared well, and greeted Elnora
+hilariously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Me an’ the squirrels are laying up our winter stores,” he shouted. “Cos the
+cold is coming, an’ the snow an’ if we have any nuts we have to fix ’em now.
+But I’m ahead, cos Uncle Wesley made me this board, and I can hull a big pile
+while the old squirrel does only ist one with his teeth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora picked him up and kissed him. “Billy, are you happy?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, and so’s Snap,” answered Billy. “You ought to see him make the dirt fly
+when he gets after a chipmunk. I bet you he could dig up pa, if anybody wanted
+him to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy!” gasped Margaret as she came out to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, me and Snap don’t want him up, and I bet you Jimmy and Belle don’t,
+either. I ain’t been twisty inside once since I been here, and I don’t want to
+go away, and Snap don’t, either. He told me so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy! That is not true. Dogs can’t talk,” cautioned Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then what makes you open the door when he asks you to?” demanded Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Scratching and whining isn’t talking.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anyway, it’s the best Snap can talk, and you get up and do things he wants
+done. Chipmunks can talk too. You ought to hear them damn things holler when
+Snap gets them!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy! When you want a cooky for supper and I don’t give it to you it is
+because you said a wrong word.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, for&mdash;&mdash;” Billy clapped his hand over his mouth and stained his
+face in swipes. “Well, for&mdash;anything! Did I go an’ forget again! The
+cookies will get all hard, won’t they? I bet you ten dollars I don’t say that
+any more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He espied Wesley and ran to show him a walnut too big to go through the holes,
+and Elnora and Margaret entered the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They talked of many things for a time and then Elnora said suddenly: “Aunt
+Margaret, I like music.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve noticed that in you all your life,” answered Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If dogs can’t talk, I can make a violin talk,” announced Elnora, and then in
+amazement watched the face of Margaret Sinton grow pale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A violin!” she wavered. “Where did you get a violin?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They fairly seemed to speak to me in the orchestra. One day the conductor left
+his in the auditorium, and I took it, and Aunt Margaret, I can make it do the
+wind in the swamp, the birds, and the animals. I can make any sound I ever
+heard on it. If I had a chance to practise a little, I could make it do the
+orchestra music, too. I don’t know how I know, but I do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did&mdash;did you ever mention it to your mother?” faltered Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, and she seems prejudiced against them. But oh, Aunt Margaret, I never
+felt so about anything, not even going to school. I just feel as if I’d die if
+I didn’t have one. I could keep it at school, and practise at noon a whole
+hour. Soon they’d ask me to play in the orchestra. I could keep it in the case
+and practise in the woods in summer. You’d let me play over here Sunday. Oh,
+Aunt Margaret, what does one cost? Would it be wicked for me to take of my
+money, and buy a very cheap one? I could play on the least expensive one made.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, no you couldn’t! A cheap machine makes cheap music. You got to have a fine
+fiddle to make it sing. But there’s no sense in your buying one. There isn’t a
+decent reason on earth why you shouldn’t have your fa&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My father’s!” cried Elnora. She caught Margaret Sinton by the arm. “My father
+had a violin! He played it. That’s why I can! Where is it! Is it in our house?
+Is it in mother’s room?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora!” panted Margaret. “Your mother will kill me! She always hated it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother dearly loves music,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not when it took the man she loved away from her to make it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where is my father’s violin?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve never seen a picture of my father. I’ve never heard his name mentioned.
+I’ve never had a scrap that belonged to him. Was he my father, or am I a
+charity child like Billy, and so she hates me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She has good pictures of him. Seems she just can’t bear to hear him talked
+about. Of course, he was your father. They lived right there when you were
+born. She doesn’t dislike you; she merely tries to make herself think she does.
+There’s no sense in the world in you not having his violin. I’ve a great
+notion&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Has mother got it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. I’ve never heard her mention it. It was not at home when he&mdash;when he
+died.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you know where it is?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. I’m the only person on earth who does, except the one who has it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who is that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t tell you, but I will see if they have it yet, and get it if I can. But
+if your mother finds it out she will never forgive me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t help it,” said Elnora. “I want that violin.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll go to-morrow, and see if it has been destroyed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Destroyed! Oh, Aunt Margaret! Would any one dare?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hardly think so. It was a good instrument. He played it like a master.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me!” breathed Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“His hair was red and curled more than yours, and his eyes were blue. He was
+tall, slim, and the very imp of mischief. He joked and teased all day until he
+picked up that violin. Then his head bent over it, and his eyes got big and
+earnest. He seemed to listen as if he first heard the notes, and then copied
+them. Sometimes he drew the bow trembly, like he wasn’t sure it was right, and
+he might have to try again. He could almost drive you crazy when he wanted to,
+and no man that ever lived could make you dance as he could. He made it all up
+as he went. He seemed to listen for his dancing music, too. It appeared to come
+to him; he’d begin to play and you had to keep time. You couldn’t be still; he
+loved to sweep a crowd around with that bow of his. I think it was the thing
+you call inspiration. I can see him now, his handsome head bent, his cheeks
+red, his eyes snapping, and that bow going across the strings, and driving us
+like sheep. He always kept his body swinging, and he loved to play. He often
+slighted his work shamefully, and sometimes her a little; that is why she hated
+it&mdash;Elnora, what are you making me do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tears were rolling down Elnora’s cheeks. “Oh, Aunt Margaret,” she sobbed.
+“Why haven’t you told me about him sooner? I feel as if you had given my father
+to me living, so that I could touch him. I can see him, too! Why didn’t you
+ever tell me before? Go on! Go on!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t, Elnora! I’m scared silly. I never meant to say anything. If I hadn’t
+promised her not to talk of him to you she wouldn’t have let you come here. She
+made me swear it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But why? Why? Was he a shame? Was he disgraced?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe it was that unjust feeling that took possession of her when she couldn’t
+help him from the swamp. She had to blame some one, or go crazy, so she took it
+out on you. At times, those first ten years, if I had talked to you, and you
+had repeated anything to her, she might have struck you too hard. She was not
+master of herself. You must be patient with her, Elnora. God only knows what
+she has gone through, but I think she is a little better, lately.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So do I,” said Elnora. “She seems more interested in my clothes, and she fixes
+me such delicious lunches that the girls bring fine candies and cake and beg to
+trade. I gave half my lunch for a box of candy one day, brought it home to her,
+and told her. Since, she has wanted me to carry a market basket and treat the
+crowd every day, she was so pleased. Life has been too monotonous for her. I
+think she enjoys even the little change made by my going and coming. She sits
+up half the night to read the library books I bring, but she is so stubborn she
+won’t even admit that she touches them. Tell me more about my father.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait until I see if I can find the violin.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Elnora went home in suspense, and that night she added to her prayers: “Dear
+Lord, be merciful to my father, and oh, do help Aunt Margaret to get his
+violin.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley and Billy came in to supper tired and hungry. Billy ate heartily, but
+his eyes often rested on a plate of tempting cookies, and when Wesley offered
+them to the boy he reached for one. Margaret was compelled to explain that
+cookies were forbidden that night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What!” said Wesley. “Wrong words been coming again. Oh Billy, I do wish you
+could remember! I can’t sit and eat cookies before a little boy who has none.
+I’ll have to put mine back, too.” Billy’s face twisted in despair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aw go on!” he said gruffly, but his chin was jumping, for Wesley was his idol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can’t do it,” said Wesley. “It would choke me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy turned to Margaret. “You make him,” he appealed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He can’t, Billy,” said Margaret. “I know how he feels. You see, I can’t
+myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Billy slid from his chair, ran to the couch, buried his face in the pillow
+and cried heart-brokenly. Wesley hurried to the barn, and Margaret to the
+kitchen. When the dishes were washed Billy slipped from the back door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley piling hay into the mangers heard a sound behind him and inquired, “That
+you, Billy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” answered Billy, “and it’s all so dark you can’t see me now, isn’t it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, mighty near,” answered Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then you stoop down and open your mouth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sinton had shared bites of apple and nuts for weeks, for Billy had not learned
+how to eat anything without dividing with Jimmy and Belle. Since he had been
+separated from them, he shared with Wesley and Margaret. So he bent over the
+boy and received an instalment of cooky that almost choked him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now you can eat it!” shouted Billy in delight. “It’s all dark! I can’t see
+what you’re doing at all!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley picked up the small figure and set the boy on the back of a horse to
+bring his face level so that they could talk as men. He never towered from his
+height above Billy, but always lifted the little soul when important matters
+were to be discussed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now what a dandy scheme,” he commented. “Did you and Aunt Margaret fix it up?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. She ain’t had hers yet. But I got one for her. Ist as soon as you eat
+yours, I am going to take hers, and feed her first time I find her in the
+dark.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But Billy, where did you get the cookies? You know Aunt Margaret said you were
+not to have any.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ist took them,” said Billy, “I didn’t take them for me. I ist took them for
+you and her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley thought fast. In the warm darkness of the barn the horses crunched their
+corn, a rat gnawed at a corner of the granary, and among the rafters the white
+pigeon cooed a soft sleepy note to his dusky mate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did&mdash;did&mdash;I steal?” wavered Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley’s big hands closed until he almost hurt the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!” he said vehemently. “That is too big a word. You made a mistake. You were
+trying to be a fine little man, but you went at it the wrong way. You only made
+a mistake. All of us do that, Billy. The world grows that way. When we make
+mistakes we can see them; that teaches us to be more careful the next time, and
+so we learn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How wouldn’t it be a mistake?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you had told Aunt Margaret what you wanted to do, and asked her for the
+cookies she would have given them to you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I was ’fraid she wouldn’t, and you ist had to have it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not if it was wrong for me to have it, Billy. I don’t want it that much.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Must I take it back?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think hard, and decide yourself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lift me down,” said Billy, after a silence, “I got to put this in the jar, and
+tell her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley set the boy on the floor, but as he did so he paused one second and
+strained him close to his breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret sat in her chair sewing; Billy slipped in and crept beside her. The
+little face was lined with tragedy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why Billy, whatever is the matter?” she cried as she dropped her sewing and
+held out her arms. Billy stood back. He gripped his little fists tight and
+squared his shoulders. “I got to be shut up in the closet,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Billy! What an unlucky day! What have you done now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I stold!” gulped Billy. “He said it was ist a mistake, but it was worser ’an
+that. I took something you told me I wasn’t to have.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stole!” Margaret was in despair. “What, Billy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cookies!” answered Billy in equal trouble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy!” wailed Margaret. “How could you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was for him and you,” sobbed Billy. “He said he couldn’t eat it ’fore me,
+but out in the barn it’s all dark and I couldn’t see. I thought maybe he could
+there. Then we might put out the light and you could have yours. He said I only
+made it worse, cos I mustn’t take things, so I got to go in the closet. Will
+you hold me tight a little bit first? He did.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret opened her arms and Billy rushed in and clung to her a few seconds,
+with all the force of his being, then he slipped to the floor and marched to
+the closet. Margaret opened the door. Billy gave one glance at the light,
+clinched his fists and, walking inside, climbed on a box. Margaret closed the
+door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she sat and listened. Was the air pure enough? Possibly he might smother.
+She had read something once. Was it very dark? What if there should be a mouse
+in the closet and it should run across his foot and frighten him into spasms.
+Somewhere she had heard&mdash;Margaret leaned forward with tense face and
+listened. Something dreadful might happen. She could bear it no longer. She
+arose hurriedly and opened the door. Billy was drawn up on the box in a little
+heap, and he lifted a disapproving face to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shut that door!” he said. “I ain’t been in here near long enough yet!”
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0010"></a>
+CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN ELNORA HAS MORE FINANCIAL TROUBLES, AND MRS. COMSTOCK AGAIN HEARS
+THE SONG OF THE LIMBERLOST</h3>
+
+<p>
+The following night Elnora hurried to Sintons’. She threw open the back door
+and with anxious eyes searched Margaret’s face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You got it!” panted Elnora. “You got it! I can see by your face that you did.
+Oh, give it to me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I got it, honey, I got it all right, but don’t be so fast. It had been
+kept in such a damp place it needed glueing, it had to have strings, and a key
+was gone. I knew how much you wanted it, so I sent Wesley right to town with
+it. They said they could fix it good as new, but it should be varnished, and
+that it would take several days for the glue to set. You can have it Saturday.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You found it where you thought it was? You know it’s his?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, it was just where I thought, and it’s the same violin I’ve seen him play
+hundreds of times. It’s all right, only laying so long it needs fixing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh Aunt Margaret! Can I ever wait?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It does seem a long time, but how could I help it? You couldn’t do anything
+with it as it was. You see, it had been hidden away in a garret, and it needed
+cleaning and drying to make it fit to play again. You can have it Saturday
+sure. But Elnora, you’ve got to promise me that you will leave it here, or in
+town, and not let your mother get a hint of it. I don’t know what she’d do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Uncle Wesley can bring it here until Monday. Then I will take it to school so
+that I can practise at noon. Oh, I don’t know how to thank you. And there’s
+more than the violin for which to be thankful. You’ve given me my father. Last
+night I saw him plainly as life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora you were dreaming!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know I was dreaming, but I saw him. I saw him so closely that a tiny white
+scar at the corner of his eyebrow showed. I was just reaching out to touch him
+when he disappeared.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who told you there was a scar on his forehead?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No one ever did in all my life. I saw it last night as he went down. And oh,
+Aunt Margaret! I saw what she did, and I heard his cries! No matter what she
+does, I don’t believe I ever can be angry with her again. Her heart is broken,
+and she can’t help it. Oh, it was terrible, but I am glad I saw it. Now, I will
+always understand.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know what to make of that,” said Margaret. “I don’t believe in such
+stuff at all, but you couldn’t make it up, for you didn’t know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I only know that I played the violin last night, as he played it, and while I
+played he came through the woods from the direction of Carneys’. It was summer
+and all the flowers were in bloom. He wore gray trousers and a blue shirt, his
+head was bare, and his face was beautiful. I could almost touch him when he
+sank.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret stood perplexed. “I don’t know what to think of that!” she ejaculated.
+“I was next to the last person who saw him before he was drowned. It was late
+on a June afternoon, and he was dressed as you describe. He was bareheaded
+because he had found a quail’s nest before the bird began to brood, and he
+gathered the eggs in his hat and left it in a fence corner to get on his way
+home; they found it afterward.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was he coming from Carneys’?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He was on that side of the quagmire. Why he ever skirted it so close as to get
+caught is a mystery you will have to dream out. I never could understand it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was he doing something he didn’t want my mother to know?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because if he had been, he might have cut close the swamp so he couldn’t be
+seen from the garden. You know, the whole path straight to the pool where he
+sank can be seen from our back door. It’s firm on our side. The danger is on
+the north and east. If he didn’t want mother to know, he might have tried to
+pass on either of those sides and gone too close. Was he in a hurry?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, he was,” said Margaret. “He had been away longer than he expected, and he
+almost ran when he started home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And he’d left his violin somewhere that you knew, and you went and got it.
+I’ll wager he was going to play, and didn’t want mother to find it out!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It wouldn’t make any difference to you if you knew every little thing, so quit
+thinking about it, and just be glad you are to have what he loved best of
+anything.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s true. Now I must hurry home. I am dreadfully late.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora sprang up and ran down the road, but when she approached the cabin she
+climbed the fence, crossed the open woods pasture diagonally and entered at the
+back garden gate. As she often came that way when she had been looking for
+cocoons her mother asked no questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora lived by the minute until Saturday, when, contrary to his usual custom,
+Wesley went to town in the forenoon, taking her along to buy some groceries.
+Wesley drove straight to the music store, and asked for the violin he had left
+to be mended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In its new coat of varnish, with new keys and strings, it seemed much like any
+other violin to Sinton, but to Elnora it was the most beautiful instrument ever
+made, and a priceless treasure. She held it in her arms, touched the strings
+softly and then she drew the bow across them in whispering measure. She had no
+time to think what a remarkably good bow it was for sixteen years’ disuse. The
+tan leather case might have impressed her as being in fine condition also, had
+she been in a state to question anything. She did remember to ask for the bill
+and she was gravely presented with a slip calling for four strings, one key,
+and a coat of varnish, total, one dollar fifty. It seemed to Elnora she never
+could put the precious instrument in the case and start home. Wesley left her
+in the music store where the proprietor showed her all he could about tuning,
+and gave her several beginners’ sheets of notes and scales. She carried the
+violin in her arms as far as the crossroads at the corner of their land, then
+reluctantly put it under the carriage seat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as her work was done she ran down to Sintons’ and began to play, and on
+Monday the violin went to school with her. She made arrangements with the
+superintendent to leave it in his office and scarcely took time for her food at
+noon, she was so eager to practise. Often one of the girls asked her to stay in
+town all night for some lecture or entertainment. She could take the violin
+with her, practise, and secure help. Her skill was so great that the leader of
+the orchestra offered to give her lessons if she would play to pay for them, so
+her progress was rapid in technical work. But from the first day the instrument
+became hers, with perfect faith that she could play as her father did, she
+spent half her practice time in imitating the sounds of all outdoors and
+improvising the songs her happy heart sang in those days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So the first year went, and the second and third were a repetition; but the
+fourth was different, for that was the close of the course, ending with
+graduation and all its attendant ceremonies and expenses. To Elnora these
+appeared mountain high. She had hoarded every cent, thinking twice before she
+parted with a penny, but teaching natural history in the grades had taken time
+from her studies in school which must be made up outside. She was a
+conscientious student, ranking first in most of her classes, and standing high
+in all branches. Her interest in her violin had grown with the years. She went
+to school early and practised half an hour in the little room adjoining the
+stage, while the orchestra gathered. She put in a full hour at noon, and
+remained another half hour at night. She carried the violin to Sintons’ on
+Saturday and practised all the time she could there, while Margaret watched the
+road to see that Mrs. Comstock was not coming. She had become so skilful that
+it was a delight to hear her play music of any composer, but when she played
+her own, that was joy inexpressible, for then the wind blew, the water rippled,
+the Limberlost sang her songs of sunshine, shadow, black storm, and white
+night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since her dream Elnora had regarded her mother with peculiar tenderness. The
+girl realized, in a measure, what had happened. She avoided anything that
+possibly could stir bitter memories or draw deeper a line on the hard, white
+face. This cost many sacrifices, much work, and sometimes delayed progress, but
+the horror of that awful dream remained with Elnora. She worked her way
+cheerfully, doing all she could to interest her mother in things that happened
+in school, in the city, and by carrying books that were entertaining from the
+public library.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three years had changed Elnora from the girl of sixteen to the very verge of
+womanhood. She had grown tall, round, and her face had the loveliness of
+perfect complexion, beautiful eyes and hair and an added touch from within that
+might have been called comprehension. It was a compound of self-reliance, hard
+knocks, heart hunger, unceasing work, and generosity. There was no form of
+suffering with which the girl could not sympathize, no work she was afraid to
+attempt, no subject she had investigated she did not understand. These things
+combined to produce a breadth and depth of character altogether unusual. She
+was so absorbed in her classes and her music that she had not been able to
+gather many specimens. When she realized this and hunted assiduously, she soon
+found that changing natural conditions had affected such work. Men all around
+were clearing available land. The trees fell wherever corn would grow. The
+swamp was broken by several gravel roads, dotted in places around the edge with
+little frame houses, and the machinery of oil wells; one especially low place
+around the region of Freckles’s room was nearly all that remained of the
+original. Wherever the trees fell the moisture dried, the creeks ceased to
+flow, the river ran low, and at times the bed was dry. With unbroken sweep the
+winds of the west came, gathering force with every mile and howled and raved;
+threatening to tear the shingles from the roof, blowing the surface from the
+soil in clouds of fine dust and rapidly changing everything. From coming in
+with two or three dozen rare moths in a day, in three years’ time Elnora had
+grown to be delighted with finding two or three. Big pursy caterpillars could
+not be picked from their favourite bushes, when there were no bushes.
+Dragonflies would not hover over dry places, and butterflies became scarce in
+proportion to the flowers, while no land yields over three crops of Indian
+relics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the time the expense of books, clothing and incidentals had continued.
+Elnora added to her bank account whenever she could, and drew out when she was
+compelled, but she omitted the important feature of calling for a balance. So,
+one early spring morning in the last quarter of the fourth year, she almost
+fainted when she learned that her funds were gone. Commencement with its extra
+expense was coming, she had no money, and very few cocoons to open in June,
+which would be too late. She had one collection for the Bird Woman complete to
+a pair of Imperialis moths, and that was her only asset. On the day she added
+these big Yellow Emperors she had been promised a check for three hundred
+dollars, but she would not get it until these specimens were secured. She
+remembered that she never had found an Emperor before June.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moreover, that sum was for her first year in college. Then she would be of age,
+and she meant to sell enough of her share of her father’s land to finish. She
+knew her mother would oppose her bitterly in that, for Mrs. Comstock had clung
+to every acre and tree that belonged to her husband. Her land was almost
+complete forest where her neighbours owned cleared farms, dotted with wells
+that every hour sucked oil from beneath her holdings, but she was too absorbed
+in the grief she nursed to know or care. The Brushwood road and the redredging
+of the big Limberlost ditch had been more than she could pay from her income,
+and she had trembled before the wicket as she asked the banker if she had funds
+to pay it, and wondered why he laughed when he assured her she had. For Mrs.
+Comstock had spent no time on compounding interest, and never added the sums
+she had been depositing through nearly twenty years. Now she thought her funds
+were almost gone, and every day she worried over expenses. She could see no
+reason in going through the forms of graduation when pupils had all in their
+heads that was required to graduate. Elnora knew she had to have her diploma in
+order to enter the college she wanted to attend, but she did not dare utter the
+word, until high school was finished, for, instead of softening as she hoped
+her mother had begun to do, she seemed to remain very much the same.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the girl reached the swamp she sat on a log and thought over the expense
+she was compelled to meet. Every member of her particular set was having a
+large photograph taken to exchange with the others. Elnora loved these girls
+and boys, and to say she could not have their pictures to keep was more than
+she could endure. Each one would give to all the others a handsome graduation
+present. She knew they would prepare gifts for her whether she could make a
+present in return or not. Then it was the custom for each graduating class to
+give a great entertainment and use the funds to present the school with a
+statue for the entrance hall. Elnora had been cast for and was practising a
+part in that performance. She was expected to furnish her dress and personal
+necessities. She had been told that she must have a green gauze dress, and
+where was it to come from?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every girl of the class would have three beautiful new frocks for Commencement:
+one for the baccalaureate sermon, another, which could be plain, for graduation
+exercises, and a handsome one for the banquet and ball. Elnora faced the past
+three years and wondered how she could have spent so much money and not kept
+account of it. She did not realize where it had gone. She did not know what she
+could do now. She thought over the photographs, and at last settled that
+question to her satisfaction. She studied longer over the gifts, ten handsome
+ones there must be, and at last decided she could arrange for them. The green
+dress came first. The lights would be dim in the scene, and the setting deep
+woods. She could manage that. She simply could not have three dresses. She
+would have to get a very simple one for the sermon and do the best she could
+for graduation. Whatever she got for that must be made with a guimpe that could
+be taken out to make it a little more festive for the ball. But where could she
+get even two pretty dresses?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The only hope she could see was to break into the collection of the man from
+India, sell some moths, and try to replace them in June. But in her soul she
+knew that never would do. No June ever brought just the things she hoped it
+would. If she spent the college money she knew she could not replace it. If she
+did not, the only way was to secure a room in the grades and teach a year. Her
+work there had been so appreciated that Elnora felt with the recommendation she
+knew she could get from the superintendent and teachers she could secure a
+position. She was sure she could pass the examinations easily. She had once
+gone on Saturday, taken them and secured a license for a year before she left
+the Brushwood school.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wanted to start to college when the other girls were going. If she could
+make the first year alone, she could manage the remainder. But make that first
+year herself, she must. Instead of selling any of her collection, she must hunt
+as she never before had hunted and find a Yellow Emperor. She had to have it,
+that was all. Also, she had to have those dresses. She thought of Wesley and
+dismissed it. She thought of the Bird Woman, and knew she could not tell her.
+She thought of every way in which she ever had hoped to earn money and realized
+that with the play, committee meetings, practising, and final examinations she
+scarcely had time to live, much less to do more than the work required for her
+pictures and gifts. Again Elnora was in trouble, and this time it seemed the
+worst of all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was dark when she arose and went home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother,” she said, “I have a piece of news that is decidedly not cheerful.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then keep it to yourself!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I think I have enough to bear
+without a great girl like you piling trouble on me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My money is all gone!” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, did you think it would last forever? It’s been a marvel to me that it’s
+held out as well as it has, the way you’ve dressed and gone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t think I’ve spent any that I was not compelled to,” said Elnora. “I’ve
+dressed on just as little as I possibly could to keep going. I am heartsick. I
+thought I had over fifty dollars to put me through Commencement, but they tell
+me it is all gone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Fifty dollars! To put you through Commencement! What on earth are you
+proposing to do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The same as the rest of them, in the very cheapest way possible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And what might that be?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora omitted the photographs, the gifts and the play. She told only of the
+sermon, graduation exercises, and the ball.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I wouldn’t trouble myself over that,” sniffed Mrs. Comstock. “If you
+want to go to a sermon, put on the dress you always use for meeting. If you
+need white for the exercises wear the new dress you got last spring. As for the
+ball, the best thing for you to do is to stay a mile away from such folly. In
+my opinion you’d best bring home your books, and quit right now. You can’t be
+fixed like the rest of them, don’t be so foolish as to run into it. Just stay
+here and let these last few days go. You can’t learn enough more to be of any
+account.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But, mother,” gasped Elnora. “You don’t understand!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, I do!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I understand perfectly. So long as the
+money lasted, you held up your head, and went sailing without even explaining
+how you got it from the stuff you gathered. Goodness knows I couldn’t see. But
+now it’s gone, you come whining to me. What have I got? Have you forgot that
+the ditch and the road completely strapped me? I haven’t any money. There’s
+nothing for you to do but get out of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t!” said Elnora desperately. “I’ve gone on too long. It would make a
+break in everything. They wouldn’t let me have my diploma!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s the difference? You’ve got the stuff in your head. I wouldn’t give a
+rap for a scrap of paper. That don’t mean anything!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I’ve worked four years for it, and I can’t enter&mdash;I ought to have it
+to help me get a school, when I want to teach. If I don’t have my grades to
+show, people will think I quit because I couldn’t pass my examinations. I must
+have my diploma!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then get it!” said Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The only way is to graduate with the others.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, graduate if you are bound to!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I can’t, unless I have things enough like the class, that I don’t look as
+I did that first day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, please remember I didn’t get you into this, and I can’t get you out. You
+are set on having your own way. Go on, and have it, and see how you like it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora went upstairs and did not come down again that night, which her mother
+called pouting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve thought all night,” said the girl at breakfast, “and I can’t see any way
+but to borrow the money of Uncle Wesley and pay it back from some that the Bird
+Woman will owe me, when I get one more specimen. But that means that I can’t go
+to&mdash;that I will have to teach this winter, if I can get a city grade or a
+country school.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just you dare go dinging after Wesley Sinton for money,” cried Mrs. Comstock.
+“You won’t do any such a thing!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t see any other way. I’ve got to have the money!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Quit, I tell you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t quit!&mdash;I’ve gone too far!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well then, let me get your clothes, and you can pay me back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you said you had no money!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe I can borrow some at the bank. Then you can return it when the Bird
+Woman pays you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right,” said Elnora. “I don’t need expensive things. Just some kind of a
+pretty cheap white dress for the sermon, and a white one a little better than I
+had last summer, for Commencement and the ball. I can use the white gloves and
+shoes I got myself for last year, and you can get my dress made at the same
+place you did that one. They have my measurements, and do perfect work. Don’t
+get expensive things. It will be warm so I can go bareheaded.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she started to school, but was so tired and discouraged she scarcely could
+walk. Four years’ plans going in one day! For she felt that if she did not
+start to college that fall she never would. Instead of feeling relieved at her
+mother’s offer, she was almost too ill to go on. For the thousandth time she
+groaned: “Oh, why didn’t I keep account of my money?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After that the days passed so swiftly she scarcely had time to think, but
+several trips her mother made to town, and the assurance that everything was
+all right, satisfied Elnora. She worked very hard to pass good final
+examinations and perfect herself for the play. For two days she had remained in
+town with the Bird Woman in order to spend more time practising and at her
+work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Often Margaret had asked about her dresses for graduation, and Elnora had
+replied that they were with a woman in the city who had made her a white dress
+for last year’s Commencement when she was a junior usher, and they would be all
+right. So Margaret, Wesley, and Billy concerned themselves over what they would
+give her for a present. Margaret suggested a beautiful dress. Wesley said that
+would look to every one as if she needed dresses. The thing was to get a
+handsome gift like all the others would have. Billy wanted to present her a
+five-dollar gold piece to buy music for her violin. He was positive Elnora
+would like that best of anything.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was toward the close of the term when they drove to town one evening to try
+to settle this important question. They knew Mrs. Comstock had been alone
+several days, so they asked her to accompany them. She had been more lonely
+than she would admit, filled with unusual unrest besides, and so she was glad
+to go. But before they had driven a mile Billy had told that they were going to
+buy Elnora a graduation present, and Mrs. Comstock devoutly wished that she had
+remained at home. She was prepared when Billy asked: “Aunt Kate, what are you
+going to give Elnora when she graduates?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Plenty to eat, a good bed to sleep in, and do all the work while she
+trollops,” answered Mrs. Comstock dryly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy reflected. “I guess all of them have that,” he said. “I mean a present
+you buy at the store, like Christmas?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is only rich folks who buy presents at stores,” replied Mrs. Comstock. “I
+can’t afford it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, we ain’t rich,” he said, “but we are going to buy Elnora something as
+fine as the rest of them have if we sell a corner of the farm. Uncle Wesley
+said so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A fool and his land are soon parted,” said Mrs. Comstock tersely. Wesley and
+Billy laughed, but Margaret did not enjoy the remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While they were searching the stores for something on which all of them could
+decide, and Margaret was holding Billy to keep him from saying anything before
+Mrs. Comstock about the music on which he was determined, Mr. Brownlee met
+Wesley and stopped to shake hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I see your boy came out finely,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t allow any boy anywhere to be finer than Billy,” said Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess you don’t allow any girl to surpass Elnora,” said Mr. Brownlee. “She
+comes home with Ellen often, and my wife and I love her. Ellen says she is
+great in her part to-night. Best thing in the whole play! Of course, you are in
+to see it! If you haven’t reserved seats, you’d better start pretty soon, for
+the high school auditorium only seats a thousand. It’s always jammed at these
+home-talent plays. All of us want to see how our children perform.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why yes, of course,” said the bewildered Wesley. Then he hurried to Margaret.
+“Say,” he said, “there is going to be a play at the high school to-night; and
+Elnora is in it. Why hasn’t she told us?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” said Margaret, “but I’m going.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So am I,” said Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Me too!” said Wesley, “unless you think for some reason she doesn’t want us.
+Looks like she would have told us if she had. I’m going to ask her mother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, that’s what’s she’s been staying in town for,” said Mrs. Comstock. “It’s
+some sort of a swindle to raise money for her class to buy some silly thing to
+stick up in the school house hall to remember them by. I don’t know whether
+it’s now or next week, but there’s something of the kind to be done.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, it’s to-night,” said Wesley, “and we are going. It’s my treat, and we’ve
+got to hurry or we won’t get in. There are reserved seats, and we have none, so
+it’s the gallery for us, but I don’t care so I get to take one good peep at
+Elnora.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“S’pose she plays?” whispered Margaret in his ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aw, tush! She couldn’t!” said Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, she’s been doing it three years in the orchestra, and working like a
+slave at it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, well that’s different. She’s in the play to-night. Brownlee told me so.
+Come on, quick! We’ll drive and hitch closest place we can find to the
+building.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret went in the excitement of the moment, but she was troubled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they reached the building Wesley tied the team to a railing and Billy
+sprang out to help Margaret. Mrs. Comstock sat still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on, Kate,” said Wesley, reaching his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not going anywhere,” said Mrs. Comstock, settling comfortably back against
+the cushions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All of them begged and pleaded, but it was no use. Not an inch would Mrs.
+Comstock budge. The night was warm and the carriage comfortable, the horses
+were securely hitched. She did not care to see what idiotic thing a pack of
+school children were doing, she would wait until the Sintons returned. Wesley
+told her it might be two hours, and she said she did not care if it were four,
+so they left her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you ever see such&mdash;&mdash;?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cookies!” cried Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Such blamed stubbornness in all your life?” demanded Wesley. “Won’t come to
+see as fine a girl as Elnora in a stage performance. Why, I wouldn’t miss it
+for fifty dollars!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think it’s a blessing she didn’t,” said Margaret placidly. “I begged
+unusually hard so she wouldn’t. I’m scared of my life for fear Elnora will
+play.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They found seats near the door where they could see fairly well. Billy stood at
+the back of the hall and had a good view. By and by, a great volume of sound
+welled from the orchestra, but Elnora was not playing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Told you so!” said Sinton. “Got a notion to go out and see if Kate won’t come
+now. She can take my seat, and I’ll stand with Billy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You sit still!” said Margaret emphatically. “This is not over yet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Wesley remained in his seat. The play opened and progressed very much as all
+high school plays have gone for the past fifty years. But Elnora did not appear
+in any of the scenes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Out in the warm summer night a sour, grim woman nursed an aching heart and
+tried to justify herself. The effort irritated her intensely. She felt that she
+could not afford the things that were being done. The old fear of losing the
+land that she and Robert Comstock had purchased and started clearing was strong
+upon her. She was thinking of him, how she needed him, when the orchestra music
+poured from the open windows near her. Mrs. Comstock endured it as long as she
+could, and then slipped from the carriage and fled down the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not know how far she went or how long she stayed, but everything was
+still, save an occasional raised voice when she wandered back. She stood
+looking at the building. Slowly she entered the wide gates and followed up the
+walk. Elnora had been coming here for almost four years. When Mrs. Comstock
+reached the door she looked inside. The wide hall was lighted with electricity,
+and the statuary and the decorations of the walls did not seem like pieces of
+foolishness. The marble appeared pure, white, and the big pictures most
+interesting. She walked the length of the hall and slowly read the titles of
+the statues and the names of the pupils who had donated them. She speculated on
+where the piece Elnora’s class would buy could be placed to advantage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she wondered if they were having a large enough audience to buy marble.
+She liked it better than the bronze, but it looked as if it cost more. How
+white the broad stairway was! Elnora had been climbing those stairs for years
+and never told her they were marble. Of course, she thought they were wood.
+Probably the upper hall was even grander than this. She went over to the
+fountain, took a drink, climbed to the first landing and looked around her, and
+then without thought to the second. There she came opposite the wide-open doors
+and the entrance to the auditorium packed with people and a crowd standing
+outside. When they noticed a tall woman with white face and hair and black
+dress, one by one they stepped a little aside, so that Mrs. Comstock could see
+the stage. It was covered with curtains, and no one was doing anything. Just as
+she turned to go a sound so faint that every one leaned forward and listened,
+drifted down the auditorium. It was difficult to tell just what it was; after
+one instant half the audience looked toward the windows, for it seemed only a
+breath of wind rustling freshly opened leaves; merely a hint of stirring air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the curtains were swept aside swiftly. The stage had been transformed into
+a lovely little corner of creation, where trees and flowers grew and moss
+carpeted the earth. A soft wind blew and it was the gray of dawn. Suddenly a
+robin began to sing, then a song sparrow joined him, and then several orioles
+began talking at once. The light grew stronger, the dew drops trembled, flower
+perfume began to creep out to the audience; the air moved the branches gently
+and a rooster crowed. Then all the scene was shaken with a babel of bird notes
+in which you could hear a cardinal whistling, and a blue finch piping. Back
+somewhere among the high branches a dove cooed and then a horse neighed
+shrilly. That set a blackbird crying, “T’check,” and a whole flock answered it.
+The crows began to caw and a lamb bleated. Then the grosbeaks, chats, and
+vireos had something to say, and the sun rose higher, the light grew stronger
+and the breeze rustled the treetops loudly; a cow bawled and the whole barnyard
+answered. The guineas were clucking, the turkey gobbler strutting, the hens
+calling, the chickens cheeping, the light streamed down straight overhead and
+the bees began to hum. The air stirred strongly, and away in an unseen field a
+reaper clacked and rattled through ripening wheat while the driver whistled. An
+uneasy mare whickered to her colt, the colt answered, and the light began to
+decline. Miles away a rooster crowed for twilight, and dusk was coming down.
+Then a catbird and a brown thrush sang against a grosbeak and a hermit thrush.
+The air was tremulous with heavenly notes, the lights went out in the hall,
+dusk swept across the stage, a cricket sang and a katydid answered, and a wood
+pewee wrung the heart with its lonesome cry. Then a night hawk screamed, a
+whip-poor-will complained, a belated killdeer swept the sky, and the night wind
+sang a louder song. A little screech owl tuned up in the distance, a barn owl
+replied, and a great horned owl drowned both their voices. The moon shone and
+the scene was warm with mellow light. The bird voices died and soft exquisite
+melody began to swell and roll. In the centre of the stage, piece by piece the
+grasses, mosses and leaves dropped from an embankment, the foliage softly blew
+away, while plainer and plainer came the outlines of a lovely girl figure
+draped in soft clinging green. In her shower of bright hair a few green leaves
+and white blossoms clung, and they fell over her robe down to her feet. Her
+white throat and arms were bare, she leaned forward a little and swayed with
+the melody, her eyes fast on the clouds above her, her lips parted, a pink
+tinge of exercise in her cheeks as she drew her bow. She played as only a
+peculiar chain of circumstances puts it in the power of a very few to play. All
+nature had grown still, the violin sobbed, sang, danced and quavered on alone,
+no voice in particular; the soul of the melody of all nature combined in one
+great outpouring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the doorway, a white-faced woman endured it as long as she could and then
+fell senseless. The men nearest carried her down the hall to the fountain,
+revived her, and then placed her in the carriage to which she directed them.
+The girl played on and never knew. When she finished, the uproar of applause
+sounded a block down the street, but the half-senseless woman scarcely realized
+what it meant. Then the girl came to the front of the stage, bowed, and lifting
+the violin she played her conception of an invitation to dance. Every living
+soul within sound of her notes strained their nerves to sit still and let only
+their hearts dance with her. When that began the woman ran toward the country.
+She never stopped until the carriage overtook her half-way to her cabin. She
+said she had grown tired of sitting, and walked on ahead. That night she asked
+Billy to remain with her and sleep on Elnora’s bed. Then she pitched headlong
+upon her own, and suffered agony of soul such as she never before had known.
+The swamp had sent back the soul of her loved dead and put it into the body of
+the daughter she resented, and it was almost more than she could endure and
+live.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0011"></a>
+CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN ELNORA GRADUATES, AND FRECKLES AND THE ANGEL SEND GIFTS</h3>
+
+<p>
+That was Friday night. Elnora came home Saturday morning and began work. Mrs.
+Comstock asked no questions, and the girl only told her that the audience had
+been large enough to more than pay for the piece of statuary the class had
+selected for the hall. Then she inquired about her dresses and was told they
+would be ready for her. She had been invited to go to the Bird Woman’s to
+prepare for both the sermon and Commencement exercises. Since there was so much
+practising to do, it had been arranged that she should remain there from the
+night of the sermon until after she was graduated. If Mrs. Comstock decided to
+attend she was to drive in with the Sintons. When Elnora begged her to come she
+said she cared nothing about such silliness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was almost time for Wesley to come to take Elnora to the city, when fresh
+from her bath, and dressed to her outer garment, she stood with expectant face
+before her mother and cried: “Now my dress, mother!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock was pale as she replied: “It’s on my bed. Help yourself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora opened the door and stepped into her mother’s room with never a
+misgiving. Since the night Margaret and Wesley had brought her clothing, when
+she first started to school, her mother had selected all of her dresses, with
+Mrs. Sinton’s help made most of them, and Elnora had paid the bills. The white
+dress of the previous spring was the first made at a dressmaker’s. She had worn
+that as junior usher at Commencement; but her mother had selected the material,
+had it made, and it had fitted perfectly and had been suitable in every way. So
+with her heart at rest on that point, Elnora hurried to the bed to find only
+her last summer’s white dress, freshly washed and ironed. For an instant she
+stared at it, then she picked up the garment, looked at the bed beneath it, and
+her gaze slowly swept the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was unfamiliar. Perhaps this was the third time she had been in it since she
+was a very small child. Her eyes ranged over the beautiful walnut dresser, the
+tall bureau, the big chest, inside which she never had seen, and the row of
+masculine attire hanging above it. Somewhere a dainty lawn or mull dress simply
+must be hanging: but it was not. Elnora dropped on the chest because she felt
+too weak to stand. In less than two hours she must be in the church, at
+Onabasha. She could not wear a last year’s washed dress. She had nothing else.
+She leaned against the wall and her father’s overcoat brushed her face. She
+caught the folds and clung to it with all her might.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh father! Father!” she moaned. “I need you! I don’t believe you would have
+done this!” At last she opened the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t find my dress,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, as it’s the only one there I shouldn’t think it would be much trouble.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You mean for me to wear an old washed dress to-night?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a good dress. There isn’t a hole in it! There’s no reason on earth why
+you shouldn’t wear it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Except that I will not,” said Elnora. “Didn’t you provide any dress for
+Commencement, either?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you soil that to-night, I’ve plenty of time to wash it again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley’s voice called from the gate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In a minute,” answered Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She ran upstairs and in an incredibly short time came down wearing one of her
+gingham school dresses. Her face cold and hard, she passed her mother and went
+into the night. Half an hour later Margaret and Billy stopped for Mrs. Comstock
+with the carriage. She had determined fully that she would not go before they
+called. With the sound of their voices a sort of horror of being left seized
+her, so she put on her hat, locked the door and went out to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How did Elnora look?” inquired Margaret anxiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Like she always does,” answered Mrs. Comstock curtly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do hope her dresses are as pretty as the others,” said Margaret. “None of
+them will have prettier faces or nicer ways.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley was waiting before the big church to take care of the team. As they
+stood watching the people enter the building, Mrs. Comstock felt herself
+growing ill. When they went inside among the lights, saw the flower-decked
+stage, and the masses of finely dressed people, she grew no better. She could
+hear Margaret and Billy softly commenting on what was being done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That first chair in the very front row is Elnora’s,” exulted Billy, “cos she’s
+got the highest grades, and so she gets to lead the procession to the
+platform.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The first chair!” “Lead the procession!” Mrs. Comstock was dumbfounded. The
+notes of the pipe organ began to fill the building in a slow rolling march.
+Would Elnora lead the procession in a gingham dress? Or would she be absent and
+her chair vacant on this great occasion? For now, Mrs. Comstock could see that
+it was a great occasion. Every one would remember how Elnora had played a few
+nights before, and they would miss her and pity her. Pity? Because she had no
+one to care for her. Because she was worse off than if she had no mother. For
+the first time in her life, Mrs. Comstock began to study herself as she would
+appear to others. Every time a junior girl came fluttering down the aisle,
+leading some one to a seat, and Mrs. Comstock saw a beautiful white dress pass,
+a wave of positive illness swept over her. What had she done? What would become
+of Elnora?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Elnora rode to the city, she answered Wesley’s questions in monosyllables so
+that he thought she was nervous or rehearsing her speech and did not care to
+talk. Several times the girl tried to tell him and realized that if she said
+the first word it would bring uncontrollable tears. The Bird Woman opened the
+screen and stared unbelievingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, I thought you would be ready; you are so late!” she said. “If you have
+waited to dress here, we must hurry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have nothing to put on,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In bewilderment the Bird Woman drew her inside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did&mdash;did&mdash;” she faltered. “Did you think you would wear that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. I thought I would telephone Ellen that there had been an accident and I
+could not come. I don’t know yet how to explain. I’m too sick to think. Oh, do
+you suppose I can get something made by Tuesday, so that I can graduate?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes; and you’ll get something on you to-night, so that you can lead your
+class, as you have done for four years. Go to my room and take off that
+gingham, quickly. Anna, drop everything, and come help me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bird Woman ran to the telephone and called Ellen Brownlee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora has had an accident. She will be a little late,” she said. “You have
+got to make them wait. Have them play extra music before the march.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she turned to the maid. “Tell Benson to have the carriage at the gate,
+just as soon as he can get it there. Then come to my room. Bring the thread box
+from the sewing-room, that roll of wide white ribbon on the cutting table, and
+gather all the white pins from every dresser in the house. But first come with
+me a minute.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want that trunk with the Swamp Angel’s stuff in it, from the cedar closet,”
+she panted as they reached the top of the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They hurried down the hall together and dragged the big trunk to the Bird
+Woman’s room. She opened it and began tossing out white stuff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How lucky that she left these things!” she cried. “Here are white shoes,
+gloves, stockings, fans, everything!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am all ready but a dress,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bird Woman began opening closets and pulling out drawers and boxes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think I can make it this way,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She snatched up a creamy lace yoke with long sleeves that recently had been
+made for her and held it out. Elnora slipped into it, and the Bird Woman began
+smoothing out wrinkles and sewing in pins. It fitted very well with a little
+lapping in the back. Next, from among the Angel’s clothing she caught up a
+white silk waist with low neck and elbow sleeves, and Elnora put it on. It was
+large enough, but distressingly short in the waist, for the Angel had worn it
+at a party when she was sixteen. The Bird Woman loosened the sleeves and pushed
+them to a puff on the shoulders, catching them in places with pins. She began
+on the wide draping of the yoke, fastening it front, back and at each shoulder.
+She pulled down the waist and pinned it. Next came a soft white dress skirt of
+her own. By pinning her waist band quite four inches above Elnora’s, the Bird
+Woman could secure a perfect Empire sweep, with the clinging silk. Then she
+began with the wide white ribbon that was to trim a new frock for herself,
+bound it three times around the high waist effect she had managed, tied the
+ends in a knot and let them fall to the floor in a beautiful sash.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want four white roses, each with two or three leaves,” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anna ran to bring them, while the Bird Woman added pins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora,” she said, “forgive me, but tell me truly. Is your mother so poor as
+to make this necessary?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” answered Elnora. “Next year I am heir to my share of over three hundred
+acres of land covered with almost as valuable timber as was in the Limberlost.
+We adjoin it. There could be thirty oil wells drilled that would yield to us
+the thousands our neighbours are draining from under us, and the bare land is
+worth over one hundred dollars an acre for farming. She is not poor, she
+is&mdash;I don’t know what she is. A great trouble soured and warped her. It
+made her peculiar. She does not in the least understand, but it is because she
+doesn’t care to, instead of ignorance. She does not&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She is&mdash;is different,” finished the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anna came with the roses. The Bird Woman set one on the front of the draped
+yoke, one on each shoulder and the last among the bright masses of brown hair.
+Then she turned the girl facing the tall mirror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh!” panted Elnora. “You are a genius! Why, I will look as well as any of
+them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank goodness for that!” cried the Bird Woman. “If it wouldn’t do, I should
+have been ill. You are lovely; altogether lovely! Ordinarily I shouldn’t say
+that; but when I think of how you are carpentered, I’m admiring the result.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The organ began rolling out the march as they came in sight. Elnora took her
+place at the head of the procession, while every one wondered. Secretly they
+had hoped that she would be dressed well enough, that she would not appear poor
+and neglected. What this radiant young creature, gowned in the most recent
+style, her smooth skin flushed with excitement, and a rose-set coronet of red
+gold on her head, had to do with the girl they knew was difficult to decide.
+The signal was given and Elnora began the slow march across the vestry and down
+the aisle. The music welled softly, and Margaret began to sob without knowing
+why.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock gripped her hands together and shut her eyes. It seemed an
+eternity to the suffering woman before Margaret caught her arm and whispered,
+“Oh, Kate! For any sake look at her! Here! The aisle across!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock opened her eyes and directing them where she was told, gazed
+intently, and slid down in her seat close to collapse. She was saved by
+Margaret’s tense clasp and her command: “Here! Idiot! Stop that!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the blaze of light Elnora climbed the steps to the palm-embowered platform,
+crossed it and took her place. Sixty young men and women, each of them dressed
+the best possible, followed her. There were manly, fine-looking men in that
+class which Elnora led. There were girls of beauty and grace, but not one of
+them was handsomer or clothed in better taste than she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy thought the time never would come when Elnora would see him, but at last
+she met his eye, then Margaret and Wesley had faint signs of recognition in
+turn, but there was no softening of the girl’s face and no hint of a smile when
+she saw her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Heartsick, Katharine Comstock tried to prove to herself that she was justified
+in what she had done, but she could not. She tried to blame Elnora for not
+saying that she was to lead a procession and sit on a platform in the sight of
+hundreds of people; but that was impossible, for she realized that she would
+have scoffed and not understood if she had been told. Her heart pained until
+she suffered with every breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When at last the exercises were over she climbed into the carriage and rode
+home without a word. She did not hear what Margaret and Billy were saying. She
+scarcely heard Wesley, who drove behind, when he told her that Elnora would not
+be home until Wednesday. Early the next morning Mrs. Comstock was on her way to
+Onabasha. She was waiting when the Brownlee store opened. She examined
+ready-made white dresses, but they had only one of the right size, and it was
+marked forty dollars. Mrs. Comstock did not hesitate over the price, but
+whether the dress would be suitable. She would have to ask Elnora. She inquired
+her way to the home of the Bird Woman and knocked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is Elnora Comstock here?” she asked the maid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, but she is still in bed. I was told to let her sleep as long as she
+would.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe I could sit here and wait,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I want to see about
+getting her a dress for to-morrow. I am her mother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then you don’t need wait or worry,” said the girl cheerfully. “There are two
+women up in the sewing-room at work on a dress for her right now. It will be
+done in time, and it will be a beauty.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock turned and trudged back to the Limberlost. The bitterness in her
+soul became a physical actuality, which water would not wash from her lips. She
+was too late! She was not needed. Another woman was mothering her girl. Another
+woman would prepare a beautiful dress such as Elnora had worn the previous
+night. The girl’s love and gratitude would go to her. Mrs. Comstock tried the
+old process of blaming some one else, but she felt no better. She nursed her
+grief as closely as ever in the long days of the girl’s absence. She brooded
+over Elnora’s possession of the forbidden violin and her ability to play it
+until the performance could not have been told from her father’s. She tried
+every refuge her mind could conjure, to quiet her heart and remove the fear
+that the girl never would come home again, but it persisted. Mrs. Comstock
+could neither eat nor sleep. She wandered around the cabin and garden. She kept
+far from the pool where Robert Comstock had sunk from sight for she felt that
+it would entomb her also if Elnora did not come home Wednesday morning. The
+mother told herself that she would wait, but the waiting was as bitter as
+anything she ever had known.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Elnora awoke Monday another dress was in the hands of a seamstress and was
+soon fitted. It had belonged to the Angel, and was a soft white thing that with
+a little alteration would serve admirably for Commencement and the ball. All
+that day Elnora worked, helping prepare the auditorium for the exercises,
+rehearsing the march and the speech she was to make in behalf of the class. The
+following day was even busier. But her mind was at rest, for the dress was a
+soft delicate lace easy to change, and the marks of alteration impossible to
+detect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bird Woman had telephoned to Grand Rapids, explained the situation and
+asked the Angel if she might use it. The reply had been to give the girl the
+contents of the chest. When the Bird Woman told Elnora, tears filled her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will write at once and thank her,” she said. “With all her beautiful gowns
+she does not need them, and I do. They will serve for me often, and be much
+finer than anything I could afford. It is lovely of her to give me the dress
+and of you to have it altered for me, as I never could.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bird Woman laughed. “I feel religious to-day,” she said. “You know the
+first and greatest rock of my salvation is ‘Do unto others.’ I’m only doing to
+you what there was no one to do for me when I was a girl very like you. Anna
+tells me your mother was here early this morning and that she came to see about
+getting you a dress.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She is too late!” said Elnora coldly. “She had over a month to prepare my
+dresses, and I was to pay for them, so there is no excuse.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nevertheless, she is your mother,” said the Bird Woman, softly. “I think
+almost any kind of a mother must be better than none at all, and you say she
+has had great trouble.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She loved my father and he died,” said Elnora. “The same thing, in quite as
+tragic a manner, has happened to thousands of other women, and they have gone
+on with calm faces and found happiness in life by loving others. There was
+something else I am afraid I never shall forget; this I know I shall not, but
+talking does not help. I must deliver my presents and photographs to the crowd.
+I have a picture and I made a present for you, too, if you would care for
+them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I shall love anything you give me,” said the Bird Woman. “I know you well
+enough to know that whatever you do will be beautiful.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora was pleased over that, and as she tried on her dress for the last
+fitting she was really happy. She was lovely in the dainty gown: it would serve
+finely for the ball and many other like occasions, and it was her very own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bird Woman’s driver took Elnora in the carriage and she called on all the
+girls with whom she was especially intimate, and left her picture and the
+package containing her gift to them. By the time she returned parcels for her
+were arriving. Friends seemed to spring from everywhere. Almost every one she
+knew had some gift for her, while because they so loved her the members of her
+crowd had made her beautiful presents. There were books, vases, silver pieces,
+handkerchiefs, fans, boxes of flowers and candy. One big package settled the
+trouble at Sinton’s, for it contained a dainty dress from Margaret, a
+five-dollar gold piece, conspicuously labelled, “I earned this myself,” from
+Billy, with which to buy music; and a gorgeous cut-glass perfume bottle, it
+would have cost five dollars to fill with even a moderate-priced scent, from
+Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In an expressed crate was a fine curly-maple dressing table, sent by Freckles.
+The drawers were filled with wonderful toilet articles from the Angel. The Bird
+Woman added an embroidered linen cover and a small silver vase for a few
+flowers, so no girl of the class had finer gifts. Elnora laid her head on the
+table sobbing happily, and the Bird Woman was almost crying herself. Professor
+Henley sent a butterfly book, the grade rooms in which Elnora had taught gave
+her a set of volumes covering every phase of life afield, in the woods, and
+water. Elnora had no time to read so she carried one of these books around with
+her hugging it as she went. After she had gone to dress a queer-looking package
+was brought by a small boy who hopped on one foot as he handed it in and said:
+“Tell Elnora that is from her ma.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who are you?” asked the Bird Woman as she took the bundle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m Billy!” announced the boy. “I gave her the five dollars. I earned it
+myself dropping corn, sticking onions, and pulling weeds. My, but you got to
+drop, and stick, and pull a lot before it’s five dollars’ worth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would you like to come in and see Elnora’s gifts?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, ma’am!” said Billy, trying to stand quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gee-mentley!” he gasped. “Does Elnora get all this?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I bet you a thousand dollars I be first in my class when I graduate. Say, have
+the others got a lot more than Elnora?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think not.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Uncle Wesley said to find out if I could, and if she didn’t have as much
+as the rest, he’d buy till she did, if it took a hundred dollars. Say, you
+ought to know him! He’s just scrumptious! There ain’t anybody any where finer
+’an he is. My, he’s grand!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m very sure of it!” said the Bird Woman. “I’ve often heard Elnora say so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I bet you nobody can beat this!” he boasted. Then he stopped, thinking deeply.
+“I don’t know, though,” he began reflectively. “Some of them are awful rich;
+they got big families to give them things and wagon loads of friends, and I
+haven’t seen what they have. Now, maybe Elnora is getting left, after all!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t worry, Billy,” she said. “I will watch, and if I find Elnora is ‘getting
+left’ I’ll buy her some more things myself. But I’m sure she is not. She has
+more beautiful gifts now than she will know what to do with, and others will
+come. Tell your Uncle Wesley his girl is bountifully remembered, very happy,
+and she sends her dearest love to all of you. Now you must go, so I can help
+her dress. You will be there to-night of course?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, sir-ee! She got me a seat, third row from the front, middle section, so I
+can see, and she’s going to wink at me, after she gets her speech off her mind.
+She kissed me, too! She’s a perfect lady, Elnora is. I’m going to marry her
+when I am big enough.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why isn’t that splendid!” laughed the Bird Woman as she hurried upstairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dear!” she called. “Here is another gift for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora was half disrobed as she took the package and, sitting on a couch,
+opened it. The Bird Woman bent over her and tested the fabric with her fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, bless my soul!” she cried. “Hand-woven, hand-embroidered linen, fine as
+silk. It’s priceless! I haven’t seen such things in years. My mother had
+garments like those when I was a child, but my sisters had them cut up for
+collars, belts, and fancy waists while I was small. Look at the exquisite
+work!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where could it have come from?” cried Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook out a petticoat, with a hand-wrought ruffle a foot deep, then an
+old-fashioned chemise the neck and sleeve work of which was elaborate and
+perfectly wrought. On the breast was pinned a note that she hastily opened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was married in these,” it read, “and I had intended to be buried in them,
+but perhaps it would be more sensible for you to graduate and get married in
+them yourself, if you like. Your mother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“From my mother!” Wide-eyed, Elnora looked at the Bird Woman. “I never in my
+life saw the like. Mother does things I think I never can forgive, and when I
+feel hardest, she turns around and does something that makes me think she just
+must love me a little bit, after all. Any of the girls would give almost
+anything to graduate in hand-embroidered linen like that. Money can’t buy such
+things. And they came when I was thinking she didn’t care what became of me. Do
+you suppose she can be insane?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said the Bird Woman. “Wildly insane, if she does not love you and care
+what becomes of you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora arose and held the petticoat to her. “Will you look at it?” she cried.
+“Only imagine her not getting my dress ready, and then sending me such a
+petticoat as this! Ellen would pay fifty dollars for it and never blink. I
+suppose mother has had it all my life, and I never saw it before.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go take your bath and put on those things,” said the Bird Woman. “Forget
+everything and be happy. She is not insane. She is embittered. She did not
+understand how things would be. When she saw, she came at once to provide you a
+dress. This is her way of saying she is sorry she did not get the other. You
+notice she has not spent any money, so perhaps she is quite honest in saying
+she has none.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, she is honest!” said Elnora. “She wouldn’t care enough to tell an untruth.
+She’d say just how things were, no matter what happened.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon Elnora was ready for her dress. She never had looked so well as when she
+again headed the processional across the flower and palm decked stage of the
+high school auditorium. As she sat there she could have reached over and
+dropped a rose she carried into the seat she had occupied that September
+morning when she entered the high school. She spoke the few words she had to
+say in behalf of the class beautifully, had the tiny wink ready for Billy, and
+the smile and nod of recognition for Wesley and Margaret. When at last she
+looked into the eyes of a white-faced woman next them, she slipped a hand to
+her side and raised her skirt the fraction of an inch, just enough to let the
+embroidered edge of a petticoat show a trifle. When she saw the look of relief
+which flooded her mother’s face, Elnora knew that forgiveness was in her heart,
+and that she would go home in the morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was late afternoon before she arrived, and a dray followed with a load of
+packages. Mrs. Comstock was overwhelmed. She sat half dazed and made Elnora
+show her each costly and beautiful or simple and useful gift, tell her
+carefully what it was and from where it came. She studied the faces of Elnora’s
+particular friends. The gifts from them had to be set in a group. Several times
+she started to speak and then stopped. At last, between her dry lips, came a
+harsh whisper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora, what did you give back for these things?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll show you,” said Elnora cheerfully. “I made the same gifts for the Bird
+Woman, Aunt Margaret and you if you care for it. But I have to run upstairs to
+get it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she returned she handed her mother an oblong frame, hand carved, enclosing
+Elnora’s picture, taken by a schoolmate’s camera. She wore her storm-coat and
+carried a dripping umbrella. From under it looked her bright face; her books
+and lunchbox were on her arm, and across the bottom of the frame was carved,
+“Your Country Classmate.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she offered another frame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am strong on frames,” she said. “They seemed to be the best I could do
+without money. I located the maple and the black walnut myself, in a little
+corner that had been overlooked between the river and the ditch. They didn’t
+seem to belong to any one so I just took them. Uncle Wesley said it was all
+right, and he cut and hauled them for me. I gave the mill half of each tree for
+sawing and curing the remainder. Then I gave the wood-carver half of that for
+making my frames. A photographer gave me a lot of spoiled plates, and I boiled
+off the emulsion, and took the specimens I framed from my stuff. The man said
+the white frames were worth three and a half, and the black ones five. I
+exchanged those little framed pictures for the photographs of the others. For
+presents, I gave each one of my crowd one like this, only a different moth. The
+Bird Woman gave me the birch bark. She got it up north last summer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora handed her mother a handsome black-walnut frame a foot and a half wide
+by two long. It finished a small, shallow glass-covered box of birch bark, to
+the bottom of which clung a big night moth with delicate pale green wings and
+long exquisite trailers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So you see I did not have to be ashamed of my gifts,” said Elnora. “I made
+them myself and raised and mounted the moths.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Moth, you call it,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I’ve seen a few of the things
+before.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are numerous around us every June night, or at least they used to be,”
+said Elnora. “I’ve sold hundreds of them, with butterflies, dragonflies, and
+other specimens. Now, I must put away these and get to work, for it is almost
+June and there are a few more I want dreadfully. If I find them I will be paid
+some money for which I have been working.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was afraid to say college at that time. She thought it would be better to
+wait a few days and see if an opportunity would not come when it would work in
+more naturally. Besides, unless she could secure the Yellow Emperor she needed
+to complete her collection, she could not talk college until she was of age,
+for she would have no money.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0012"></a>
+CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN MARGARET SINTON REVEALS A SECRET, AND MRS. COMSTOCK POSSESSES THE
+LIMBERLOST</h3>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora, bring me the towel, quick!” cried Mrs Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In a minute, mother,” mumbled Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was standing before the kitchen mirror, tying the back part of her hair,
+while the front turned over her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hurry! There’s a varmint of some kind!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora ran into the sitting-room and thrust the heavy kitchen towel into her
+mother’s hand. Mrs. Comstock swung open the screen door and struck at some
+object, Elnora tossed the hair from her face so that she could see past her
+mother. The girl screamed wildly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t! Mother, don’t!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock struck again. Elnora caught her arm. “It’s the one I want! It’s
+worth a lot of money! Don’t! Oh, you shall not!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shan’t, missy?” blazed Mrs. Comstock. “When did you get to bossing me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hand that held the screen swept a half-circle and stopped at Elnora’s
+cheek. She staggered with the blow, and across her face, paled with excitement,
+a red mark arose rapidly. The screen slammed shut, throwing the creature on the
+floor before them. Instantly Mrs. Comstock crushed it with her foot. Elnora
+stepped back. Excepting the red mark, her face was very white.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was the last moth I needed,” she said, “to complete a collection worth
+three hundred dollars. You’ve ruined it before my eyes!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Moth!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You say that because you are mad. Moths have big
+wings. I know a moth!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ve kept things from you,” said Elnora, “because I didn’t dare confide in
+you. You had no sympathy with me. But you know I never told you untruths in all
+my life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s no moth!” reiterated Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is!” cried Elnora. “It’s from a case in the ground. Its wings take two or
+three hours to expand and harden.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I had known it was a moth&mdash;&mdash;” Mrs. Comstock wavered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You did know! I told you! I begged you to stop! It meant just three hundred
+dollars to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Bah! Three hundred fiddlesticks!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are what have paid for books, tuition, and clothes for the past four
+years. They are what I could have started on to college. You’ve ruined the very
+one I needed. You never made any pretence of loving me. At last I’ll be equally
+frank with you. I hate you! You are a selfish, wicked woman! I hate you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora turned, went through the kitchen and from the back door. She followed
+the garden path to the gate and walked toward the swamp a short distance when
+reaction overtook her. She dropped on the ground and leaned against a big log.
+When a little child, desperate as now, she had tried to die by holding her
+breath. She had thought in that way to make her mother sorry, but she had
+learned that life was a thing thrust upon her and she could not leave it at her
+wish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was so stunned over the loss of that moth, which she had childishly named
+the Yellow Emperor, that she scarcely remembered the blow. She had thought no
+luck in all the world would be so rare as to complete her collection; now she
+had been forced to see a splendid Imperialis destroyed before her. There was a
+possibility that she could find another, but she was facing the certainty that
+the one she might have had and with which she undoubtedly could have attracted
+others, was spoiled by her mother. How long she sat there Elnora did not know
+or care. She simply suffered in dumb, abject misery, an occasional dry sob
+shaking her. Aunt Margaret was right. Elnora felt that morning that her mother
+never would be any different. The girl had reached the place where she realized
+that she could endure it no longer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Elnora left the room, Mrs. Comstock took one step after her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You little huzzy!” she gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Elnora was gone. Her mother stood staring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She never did lie to me,” she muttered. “I guess it was a moth. And the only
+one she needed to get three hundred dollars, she said. I wish I hadn’t been so
+fast! I never saw anything like it. I thought it was some deadly, stinging,
+biting thing. A body does have to be mighty careful here. But likely I’ve spilt
+the milk now. Pshaw! She can find another! There’s no use to be foolish. Maybe
+moths are like snakes, where there’s one, there are two.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock took the broom and swept the moth out of the door. Then she got
+down on her knees and carefully examined the steps, logs and the earth of the
+flower beds at each side. She found the place where the creature had emerged
+from the ground, and the hard, dark-brown case which had enclosed it, still wet
+inside. Then she knew Elnora had been right. It was a moth. Its wings had been
+damp and not expanded. Mrs. Comstock never before had seen one in that state,
+and she did not know how they originated. She had thought all of them came from
+cases spun on trees or against walls or boards. She had seen only enough to
+know that there were such things; as a flash of white told her that an ermine
+was on her premises, or a sharp “buzzzzz” warned her of a rattler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So it was from creatures like that Elnora had secured her school money. In one
+sickening sweep there rushed into the heart of the woman a full realization of
+the width of the gulf that separated her from her child. Lately many things had
+pointed toward it, none more plainly than when Elnora, like a reincarnation of
+her father, had stood fearlessly before a large city audience and played with
+even greater skill than he, on what Mrs. Comstock felt very certain was his
+violin. But that little crawling creature of earth, crushed by her before its
+splendid yellow and lavender wings could spread and carry it into the mystery
+of night, had performed a miracle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We are nearer strangers to each other than we are with any of the neighbours,”
+she muttered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So one of the Almighty’s most delicate and beautiful creations was sacrificed
+without fulfilling the law, yet none of its species ever served so glorious a
+cause, for at last Mrs. Comstock’s inner vision had cleared. She went through
+the cabin mechanically. Every few minutes she glanced toward the back walk to
+see if Elnora were coming. She knew arrangements had been made with Margaret to
+go to the city some time that day, so she grew more nervous and uneasy every
+moment. She was haunted by the fear that the blow might discolour Elnora’s
+cheek; that she would tell Margaret. She went down the back walk, looking
+intently in all directions, left the garden and followed the swamp path. Her
+step was noiseless on the soft, black earth, and soon she came close enough to
+see Elnora. Mrs. Comstock stood looking at the girl in troubled uncertainty.
+Not knowing what to say, at last she turned and went back to the cabin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Noon came and she prepared dinner, calling, as she always did, when Elnora was
+in the garden, but she got no response, and the girl did not come. A little
+after one o’clock Margaret stopped at the gate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora has changed her mind. She is not going,” called Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt that she hated Margaret as she hitched her horse and came up the walk
+instead of driving on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must be mistaken,” said Margaret. “I was going on purpose for her. She
+asked me to take her. I had no errand. Where is she?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will call her,” said Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She followed the path again, and this time found Elnora sitting on the log. Her
+face was swollen and discoloured, and her eyes red with crying. She paid no
+attention to her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mag Sinton is here,” said Mrs. Comstock harshly. “I told her you had changed
+your mind, but she said you asked her to go with you, and she had nothing to go
+for herself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora arose, recklessly waded through the deep swamp grasses and so reached
+the path ahead of her mother. Mrs. Comstock followed as far as the garden, but
+she could not enter the cabin. She busied herself among the vegetables, barely
+looking up when the back-door screen slammed noisily. Margaret Sinton
+approached colourless, her eyes so angry that Mrs. Comstock shrank back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s the matter with Elnora’s face?” demanded Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock made no reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You struck her, did you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought you wasn’t blind!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have been, for twenty long years now, Kate Comstock,” said Margaret Sinton,
+“but my eyes are open at last. What I see is that I’ve done you no good and
+Elnora a big wrong. I had an idea that it would kill you to know, but I guess
+you are tough enough to stand anything. Kill or cure, you get it now!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are you frothing about?” coolly asked Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You!” cried Margaret. “You! The woman who doesn’t pretend to love her only
+child. Who lets her grow to a woman, as you have let Elnora, and can’t be
+satisfied with every sort of neglect, but must add abuse yet; and all for a
+fool idea about a man who wasn’t worth his salt!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock picked up a hoe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go right on!” she said. “Empty yourself. It’s the last thing you’ll ever do!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I’ll make a tidy job of it,” said Margaret. “You’ll not touch me. You’ll
+stand there and hear the truth at last, and because I dare face you and tell
+it, you will know in your soul it is truth. When Robert Comstock shaved that
+quagmire out there so close he went in, he wanted to keep you from knowing
+where he was coming from. He’d been to see Elvira Carney. They had plans to go
+to a dance that night&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Close your lips!” said Mrs. Comstock in a voice of deadly quiet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know I wouldn’t dare open them if I wasn’t telling you the truth. I can
+prove what I say. I was coming from Reeds. It was hot in the woods and I
+stopped at Carney’s as I passed for a drink. Elvira’s bedridden old mother
+heard me, and she was so crazy for some one to talk with, I stepped in a
+minute. I saw Robert come down the path. Elvira saw him, too, so she ran out of
+the house to head him off. It looked funny, and I just deliberately moved where
+I could see and hear. He brought her his violin, and told her to get ready and
+meet him in the woods with it that night, and they would go to a dance. She
+took it and hid it in the loft to the well-house and promised she’d go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you done?” demanded Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. I am going to tell you the whole story. You don’t spare Elnora anything. I
+shan’t spare you. I hadn’t been here that day, but I can tell you just how he
+was dressed, which way he went and every word they said, though they thought I
+was busy with her mother and wouldn’t notice them. Put down your hoe, Kate. I
+went to Elvira, told her what I knew and made her give me Comstock’s violin for
+Elnora over three years ago. She’s been playing it ever since. I won’t see her
+slighted and abused another day on account of a man who would have broken your
+heart if he had lived. Six months more would have showed you what everybody
+else knew. He was one of those men who couldn’t trust himself, and so no woman
+was safe with him. Now, will you drop grieving over him, and do Elnora
+justice?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock grasped the hoe tighter and turning she went down the walk, and
+started across the woods to the home of Elvira Carney. With averted head she
+passed the pool, steadily pursuing her way. Elvira Carney, hanging towels
+across the back fence, saw her coming and went toward the gate to meet her.
+Twenty years she had dreaded that visit. Since Margaret Sinton had compelled
+her to produce the violin she had hidden so long, because she was afraid to
+destroy it, she had come closer expectation than dread. The wages of sin are
+the hardest debts on earth to pay, and they are always collected at
+inconvenient times and unexpected places. Mrs. Comstock’s face and hair were so
+white, that her dark eyes seemed burned into their setting. Silently she stared
+at the woman before her a long time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I might have saved myself the trouble of coming,” she said at last, “I see you
+are guilty as sin!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What has Mag Sinton been telling you?” panted the miserable woman, gripping
+the fence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The truth!” answered Mrs. Comstock succinctly. “Guilt is in every line of your
+face, in your eyes, all over your wretched body. If I’d taken a good look at
+you any time in all these past years, no doubt I could have seen it just as
+plain as I can now. No woman or man can do what you’ve done, and not get a mark
+set on them for every one to read.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mercy!” gasped weak little Elvira Carney. “Have mercy!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mercy?” scoffed Mrs. Comstock. “Mercy! That’s a nice word from you! How much
+mercy did you have on me? Where’s the mercy that sent Comstock to the slime of
+the bottomless quagmire, and left me to see it, and then struggle on in agony
+all these years? How about the mercy of letting me neglect my baby all the days
+of her life? Mercy! Do you really dare use the word to me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you knew what I’ve suffered!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Suffered?” jeered Mrs. Comstock. “That’s interesting. And pray, what have you
+suffered?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All the neighbours have suspected and been down on me. I ain’t had a friend.
+I’ve always felt guilty of his death! I’ve seen him go down a thousand times,
+plain as ever you did. Many’s the night I’ve stood on the other bank of that
+pool and listened to you, and I tried to throw myself in to keep from hearing
+you, but I didn’t dare. I knew God would send me to burn forever, but I’d
+better done it; for now, He has set the burning on my body, and every hour it
+is slowly eating the life out of me. The doctor says it’s a
+cancer&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock exhaled a long breath. Her grip on the hoe relaxed and her
+stature lifted to towering height.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I didn’t know, or care, when I came here, just what I did,” she said. “But my
+way is beginning to clear. If the guilt of your soul has come to a head, in a
+cancer on your body, it looks as if the Almighty didn’t need any of my help in
+meting out His punishments. I really couldn’t fix up anything to come anywhere
+near that. If you are going to burn until your life goes out with that sort of
+fire, you don’t owe me anything!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Katharine Comstock!” groaned Elvira Carney, clinging to the fence for
+support.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Looks as if the Bible is right when it says, ‘The wages of sin is death,’
+doesn’t it?” asked Mrs. Comstock. “Instead of doing a woman’s work in life, you
+chose the smile of invitation, and the dress of unearned cloth. Now you tell me
+you are marked to burn to death with the unquenchable fire. And him! It was
+shorter with him, but let me tell you he got his share! He left me with an
+untruth on his lips, for he told me he was going to take his violin to Onabasha
+for a new key, when he carried it to you. Every vow of love and constancy he
+ever made me was a lie, after he touched your lips, so when he tried the wrong
+side of the quagmire, to hide from me the direction in which he was coming, it
+reached out for him, and it got him. It didn’t hurry, either! It sucked him
+down, slow and deliberate.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mercy!” groaned Elvira Carney. “Mercy!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know the word,” said Mrs. Comstock. “You took all that out of me long
+ago. The past twenty years haven’t been of the sort that taught mercy. I’ve
+never had any on myself and none on my child. Why in the name of justice,
+should I have mercy on you, or on him? You were both older than I, both strong,
+sane people, you deliberately chose your course when you lured him, and he,
+when he was unfaithful to me. When a Loose Man and a Light Woman face the end
+the Almighty ordained for them, why should they shout at me for mercy? What did
+I have to do with it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elvira Carney sobbed in panting gasps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve got tears, have you?” marvelled Mrs. Comstock. “Mine all dried long
+ago. I’ve none left to shed over my wasted life, my disfigured face and hair,
+my years of struggle with a man’s work, my wreck of land among the tilled
+fields of my neighbours, or the final knowledge that the man I so gladly would
+have died to save, wasn’t worth the sacrifice of a rattlesnake. If anything yet
+could wring a tear from me, it would be the thought of the awful injustice I
+always have done my girl. If I’d lay hand on you for anything, it would be for
+that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Kill me if you want to,” sobbed Elvira Carney. “I know that I deserve it, and
+I don’t care.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are getting your killing fast enough to suit me,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I
+wouldn’t touch you, any more than I would him, if I could. Once is all any man
+or woman deceives me about the holiest things of life. I wouldn’t touch you any
+more than I would the black plague. I am going back to my girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock turned and started swiftly through the woods, but she had gone
+only a few rods when she stopped, and leaning on the hoe, she stood thinking
+deeply. Then she turned back. Elvira still clung to the fence, sobbing
+bitterly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Comstock, “but I left a wrong impression with you. I
+don’t want you to think that I believe the Almighty set a cancer to burning you
+as a punishment for your sins. I don’t! I think a lot more of the Almighty.
+With a whole sky-full of worlds on His hands to manage, I’m not believing that
+He has time to look down on ours, and pick you out of all the millions of us
+sinners, and set a special kind of torture to eating you. It wouldn’t be a
+gentlemanly thing to do, and first of all, the Almighty is bound to be a
+gentleman. I think likely a bruise and bad blood is what caused your trouble.
+Anyway, I’ve got to tell you that the cleanest housekeeper I ever knew, and one
+of the noblest Christian women, was slowly eaten up by a cancer. She got hers
+from the careless work of a poor doctor. The Almighty is to forgive sin and
+heal disease, not to invent and spread it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had gone only a few steps when she again turned back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you will gather a lot of red clover bloom, make a tea strong as lye of it,
+and drink quarts, I think likely it will help you, if you are not too far gone.
+Anyway, it will cool your blood and make the burning easier to bear.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she swiftly went home. Enter the lonely cabin she could not, neither could
+she sit outside and think. She attacked a bed of beets and hoed until the
+perspiration ran from her face and body, then she began on the potatoes. When
+she was too tired to take another stroke she bathed and put on dry clothing. In
+securing her dress she noticed her husband’s carefully preserved clothing
+lining one wall. She gathered it in an armload and carried it to the swamp.
+Piece by piece she pitched into the green maw of the quagmire all those
+articles she had dusted carefully and fought moths from for years, and stood
+watching as it slowly sucked them down. She went back to her room and gathered
+every scrap that had in any way belonged to Robert Comstock, excepting his gun
+and revolver, and threw it into the swamp. Then for the first time she set her
+door wide open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was too weary now to do more, but an urging unrest drove her. She wanted
+Elnora. It seemed to her she never could wait until the girl came and delivered
+her judgment. At last in an effort to get nearer to her, Mrs. Comstock climbed
+the stairs and stood looking around Elnora’s room. It was very unfamiliar. The
+pictures were strange to her. Commencement had filled it with packages and
+bundles. The walls were covered with cocoons; moths and dragonflies were pinned
+everywhere. Under the bed she could see half a dozen large white boxes. She
+pulled out one and lifted the lid. The bottom was covered with a sheet of thin
+cork, and on long pins sticking in it were large, velvet-winged moths. Each one
+was labelled, always there were two of a kind, in many cases four, showing
+under and upper wings of both male and female. They were of every colour and
+shape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock caught her breath sharply. When and where had Elnora found them?
+They were the most exquisite sight the woman ever had seen, so she opened all
+the boxes to feast on their beautiful contents. As she did so there came more
+fully a sense of the distance between her and her child. She could not
+understand how Elnora had gone to school, and performed so much work secretly.
+When it was finished, to the last moth, she, the mother who should have been
+the first confidant and helper, had been the one to bring disappointment. Small
+wonder Elnora had come to hate her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock carefully closed and replaced the boxes; and again stood looking
+around the room. This time her eyes rested on some books she did not remember
+having seen before, so she picked up one and found that it was a moth book. She
+glanced over the first pages and was soon eagerly reading. When the text
+reached the classification of species, she laid it down, took up another and
+read the introductory chapters. By that time her brain was in a confused jumble
+of ideas about capturing moths with differing baits and bright lights.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went down stairs thinking deeply. Being unable to sit still and having
+nothing else to do she glanced at the clock and began preparing supper. The
+work dragged. A chicken was snatched up and dressed hurriedly. A spice cake
+sprang into being. Strawberries that had been intended for preserves went into
+shortcake. Delicious odours crept from the cabin. She put many extra touches on
+the table and then commenced watching the road. Everything was ready, but
+Elnora did not come. Then began the anxious process of trying to keep cooked
+food warm and not spoil it. The birds went to bed and dusk came. Mrs. Comstock
+gave up the fire and set the supper on the table. Then she went out and sat on
+the front-door step watching night creep around her. She started eagerly as the
+gate creaked, but it was only Wesley Sinton coming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Katharine, Margaret and Elnora passed where I was working this afternoon, and
+Margaret got out of the carriage and called me to the fence. She told me what
+she had done. I’ve come to say to you that I am sorry. She has heard me
+threaten to do it a good many times, but I never would have got it done. I’d
+give a good deal if I could undo it, but I can’t, so I’ve come to tell you how
+sorry I am.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ve got something to be sorry for,” said Mrs. Comstock, “but likely we
+ain’t thinking of the same thing. It hurts me less to know the truth, than to
+live in ignorance. If Mag had the sense of a pewee, she’d told me long ago.
+That’s what hurts me, to think that both of you knew Robert was not worth an
+hour of honest grief, yet you’d let me mourn him all these years and neglect
+Elnora while I did it. If I have anything to forgive you, that is what it is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley removed his hat and sat on a bench.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Katharine,” he said solemnly, “nobody ever knows how to take you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would it be asking too much to take me for having a few grains of plain common
+sense?” she inquired. “You’ve known all this time that Comstock got what he
+deserved, when he undertook to sneak in an unused way across a swamp, with
+which he was none too familiar. Now I should have thought that you’d figure
+that knowing the same thing would be the best method to cure me of pining for
+him, and slighting my child.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Heaven only knows we have thought of that, and talked of it often, but we were
+both too big cowards. We didn’t dare tell you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So you have gone on year after year, watching me show indifference to Elnora,
+and yet a little horse-sense would have pointed out to you that she was my
+salvation. Why look at it! Not married quite a year. All his vows of love and
+fidelity made to me before the Almighty forgotten in a few months, and a dance
+and a Light Woman so alluring he had to lie and sneak for them. What kind of a
+prospect is that for a life? I know men and women. An honourable man is an
+honourable man, and a liar is a liar; both are born and not made. One cannot
+change to the other any more than that same old leopard can change its spots.
+After a man tells a woman the first untruth of that sort, the others come
+piling thick, fast, and mountain high. The desolation they bring in their wake
+overshadows anything I have suffered completely. If he had lived six months
+more I should have known him for what he was born to be. It was in the blood of
+him. His father and grandfather before him were fiddling, dancing people; but I
+was certain of him. I thought we could leave Ohio and come out here alone, and
+I could so love him and interest him in his work, that he would be a man. Of
+all the fool, fruitless jobs, making anything of a creature that begins by
+deceiving her, is the foolest a sane woman ever undertook. I am more than sorry
+you and Margaret didn’t see your way clear to tell me long ago. I’d have found
+it out in a few more months if he had lived, and I wouldn’t have borne it a
+day. The man who breaks his vows to me once, doesn’t get the second chance. I
+give truth and honour. I have a right to ask it in return. I am glad I
+understand at last. Now, if Elnora will forgive me, we will take a new start
+and see what we can make out of what is left of life. If she won’t, then it
+will be my time to learn what suffering really means.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But she will,” said Wesley. “She must! She can’t help it when things are
+explained.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I notice she isn’t hurrying any about coming home. Do you know where she is or
+what she is doing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do not. But likely she will be along soon. I must go help Billy with the
+night work. Good-bye, Katharine. Thank the Lord you have come to yourself at
+last!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They shook hands and Wesley went down the road while Mrs. Comstock entered the
+cabin. She could not swallow food. She stood in the back door watching the sky
+for moths, but they did not seem to be very numerous. Her spirits sank and she
+breathed unevenly. Then she heard the front screen. She reached the middle door
+as Elnora touched the foot of the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hurry, and get ready, Elnora,” she said. “Your supper is almost spoiled now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora closed the stair door behind her, and for the first time in her life,
+threw the heavy lever which barred out anyone from down stairs. Mrs. Comstock
+heard the thud, and knew what it meant. She reeled slightly and caught the
+doorpost for support. For a few minutes she clung there, then sank to the
+nearest chair. After a long time she arose and stumbling half blindly, she put
+the food in the cupboard and covered the table. She took the lamp in one hand,
+the butter in the other, and started to the spring house. Something brushed
+close by her face, and she looked just in time to see a winged creature rise
+above the cabin and sail away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was a night bird,” she muttered. As she stopped to set the butter in the
+water, came another thought. “Perhaps it was a moth!” Mrs. Comstock dropped the
+butter and hurried out with the lamp; she held it high above her head and
+waited until her arms ached. Small insects of night gathered, and at last a
+little dusty miller, but nothing came of any size.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I must go where they are, if I get them,” muttered Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went to the barn after the stout pair of high boots she used in feeding
+stock in deep snow. Throwing these beside the back door she climbed to the loft
+over the spring house, and hunted an old lard oil lantern and one of first
+manufacture for oil. Both these she cleaned and filled. She listened until
+everything up stairs had been still for over half an hour. By that time it was
+past eleven o’clock. Then she took the lantern from the kitchen, the two old
+ones, a handful of matches, a ball of twine, and went from the cabin, softly
+closing the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sitting on the back steps, she put on the boots, and then stood gazing into the
+perfumed June night, first in the direction of the woods on her land, then
+toward the Limberlost. Its outline was so dark and forbidding she shuddered and
+went down the garden, following the path toward the woods, but as she neared
+the pool her knees wavered and her courage fled. The knowledge that in her soul
+she was now glad Robert Comstock was at the bottom of it made a coward of her,
+who fearlessly had mourned him there, nights untold. She could not go on. She
+skirted the back of the garden, crossed a field, and came out on the road. Soon
+she reached the Limberlost. She hunted until she found the old trail, then
+followed it stumbling over logs and through clinging vines and grasses. The
+heavy boots clumped on her feet, overhanging branches whipped her face and
+pulled her hair. But her eyes were on the sky as she went straining into the
+night, hoping to find signs of a living creature on wing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by she began to see the wavering flight of something she thought near
+the right size. She had no idea where she was, but she stopped, lighted a
+lantern and hung it as high as she could reach. A little distance away she
+placed the second and then the third. The objects came nearer and sick with
+disappointment she saw that they were bats. Crouching in the damp swamp
+grasses, without a thought of snakes or venomous insects, she waited, her eyes
+roving from lantern to lantern. Once she thought a creature of high flight
+dropped near the lard oil light, so she arose breathlessly waiting, but either
+it passed or it was an illusion. She glanced at the old lantern, then at the
+new, and was on her feet in an instant creeping close. Something large as a
+small bird was fluttering around. Mrs. Comstock began to perspire, while her
+hand shook wildly. Closer she crept and just as she reached for it, something
+similar swept past and both flew away together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock set her teeth and stood shivering. For a long time the locusts
+rasped, the whip-poor-wills cried and a steady hum of night life throbbed in
+her ears. Away in the sky she saw something coming when it was no larger than a
+falling leaf. Straight toward the light it flew. Mrs. Comstock began to pray
+aloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This way, O Lord! Make it come this way! Please! O Lord, send it lower!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moth hesitated at the first light, then slowly, easily it came toward the
+second, as if following a path of air. It touched a leaf near the lantern and
+settled. As Mrs. Comstock reached for it a thin yellow spray wet her hand and
+the surrounding leaves. When its wings raised above its back, her fingers came
+together. She held the moth to the light. It was nearer brown than yellow, and
+she remembered having seen some like it in the boxes that afternoon. It was not
+the one needed to complete the collection, but Elnora might want it, so Mrs.
+Comstock held on. Then the Almighty was kind, or nature was sufficient, as you
+look at it, for following the law of its being when disturbed, the moth again
+threw the spray by which some suppose it attracts its kind, and liberally
+sprinkled Mrs. Comstock’s dress front and arms. From that instant, she became
+the best moth bait ever invented. Every Polyphemus in range hastened to her,
+and other fluttering creatures of night followed. The influx came her way. She
+snatched wildly here and there until she had one in each hand and no place to
+put them. She could see more coming, and her aching heart, swollen with the
+strain of long excitement, hurt pitifully. She prayed in broken exclamations
+that did not always sound reverent, but never was human soul in more intense
+earnest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moths were coming. She had one in each hand. They were not yellow, and she did
+not know what to do. She glanced around to try to discover some way to keep
+what she had, and her throbbing heart stopped and every muscle stiffened. There
+was the dim outline of a crouching figure not two yards away, and a pair of
+eyes their owner thought hidden, caught the light in a cold stream. Her first
+impulse was to scream and fly for life. Before her lips could open a big moth
+alighted on her breast while she felt another walking over her hair. All sense
+of caution deserted her. She did not care to live if she could not replace the
+yellow moth she had killed. She turned her eyes to those among the leaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here, you!” she cried hoarsely. “I need you! Get yourself out here, and help
+me. These critters are going to get away from me. Hustle!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pete Corson parted the bushes and stepped into the light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, it’s you!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I might have known! But you gave me a
+start. Here, hold these until I make some sort of bag for them. Go easy! If you
+break them I don’t guarantee what will happen to you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pretty fierce, ain’t you!” laughed Pete, but he advanced and held out his
+hands. “For Elnora, I s’pose?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Mrs. Comstock. “In a mad fit, I trampled one this morning, and by
+the luck of the old boy himself it was the last moth she needed to complete a
+collection. I got to get another one or die.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then I guess it’s your funeral,” said Pete. “There ain’t a chance in a dozen
+the right one will come. What colour was it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yellow, and big as a bird.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The Emperor, likely,” said Pete. “You dig for that kind, and they are not
+numerous, so’s ’at you can smash ’em for fun.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I can try to get one, anyway,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I forgot all about
+bringing anything to put them in. You take a pinch on their wings until I make
+a poke.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock removed her apron, tearing off the strings. She unfastened and
+stepped from the skirt of her calico dress. With one apron string she tied shut
+the band and placket. She pulled a wire pin from her hair, stuck it through the
+other string, and using it as a bodkin ran it around the hem of her skirt, so
+shortly she had a large bag. She put several branches inside to which the moths
+could cling, closed the mouth partially and held it toward Pete.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Put your hand well down and let the things go!” she ordered. “But be careful,
+man! Don’t run into the twigs! Easy! That’s one. Now the other. Is the one on
+my head gone? There was one on my dress, but I guess it flew. Here comes a kind
+of a gray-looking one.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pete slipped several more moths into the bag.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, that’s five, Mrs. Comstock,” he said. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to make
+that do. You must get out of here lively. Your lights will be taken for hurry
+calls, and inside the next hour a couple of men will ride here like fury. They
+won’t be nice Sunday-school men, and they won’t hold bags and catch moths for
+you. You must go quick!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock laid down the bag and pulled one of the lanterns lower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t budge a step,” she said. “This land doesn’t belong to you. You have no
+right to order me off it. Here I stay until I get a Yellow Emperor, and no
+little petering thieves of this neighbourhood can scare me away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t understand,” said Pete. “I’m willing to help Elnora, and I’d take
+care of you, if I could, but there will be too many for me, and they will be
+mad at being called out for nothing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, who’s calling them out?” demanded Mrs. Comstock. “I’m catching moths. If
+a lot of good-for-nothings get fooled into losing some sleep, why let them,
+they can’t hurt me, or stop my work.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They can, and they’ll do both.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’ll see them do it!” said Mrs. Comstock. “I’ve got Robert’s revolver in
+my dress, and I can shoot as straight as any man, if I’m mad enough. Any one
+who interferes with me to-night will find me mad a-plenty. There goes another!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stepped into the light and waited until a big brown moth settled on her and
+was easily taken. Then in light, airy flight came a delicate pale green thing,
+and Mrs. Comstock started in pursuit. But the scent was not right. The moth
+fluttered high, then dropped lower, still lower, and sailed away. With
+outstretched hands Mrs. Comstock pursued it. She hurried one way and another,
+then ran over an object which tripped her and she fell. She regained her feet
+in an instant, but she had lost sight of the moth. With livid face she turned
+to the crouching man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You nasty, sneaking son of Satan!” she cried. “Why are you hiding there? You
+made me lose the one I wanted most of any I’ve had a chance at yet. Get out of
+here! Go this minute, or I’ll fill your worthless carcass so full of holes
+you’ll do to sift cornmeal. Go, I say! I’m using the Limberlost to-night, and I
+won’t be stopped by the devil himself! Cut like fury, and tell the rest of them
+they can just go home. Pete is going to help me, and he is all of you I need.
+Now go!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man turned and went. Pete leaned against a tree, held his mouth shut and
+shook inwardly. Mrs. Comstock came back panting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The old scoundrel made me lose that!” she said. “If any one else comes
+snooping around here I’ll just blow them up to start with. I haven’t time to
+talk. Suppose that had been yellow! I’d have killed that man, sure! The
+Limberlost isn’t safe to-night, and the sooner those whelps find it out, the
+better it will be for them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pete stopped laughing to look at her. He saw that she was speaking the truth.
+She was quite past reason, sense, or fear. The soft night air stirred the wet
+hair around her temples, the flickering lanterns made her face a ghastly green.
+She would stop at nothing, that was evident. Pete suddenly began catching moths
+with exemplary industry. In putting one into the bag, another escaped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We must not try that again,” said Mrs. Comstock. “Now, what will we do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We are close to the old case,” said Pete. “I think I can get into it. Maybe we
+could slip the rest in there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a fine idea!” said Mrs. Comstock. “They’ll have so much room there they
+won’t be likely to hurt themselves, and the books say they don’t fly in daytime
+unless they are disturbed, so they will settle when it’s light, and I can come
+with Elnora to get them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They captured two more, and then Pete carried them to the case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here comes a big one!” he cried as he returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock looked up and stepped out with a prayer on her lips. She could
+not tell the colour at that distance, but the moth appeared different from the
+others. On it came, dropping lower and darting from light to light. As it swept
+near her, “O Heavenly Father!” exulted Mrs. Comstock, “it’s yellow! Careful
+Pete! Your hat, maybe!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pete made a long sweep. The moth wavered above the hat and sailed away. Mrs.
+Comstock leaned against a tree and covered her face with her shaking hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is my punishment!” she cried. “Oh, Lord, if you will give a moth like
+that into my possession, I’ll always be a better woman!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Emperor again came in sight. Pete stood tense and ready. Mrs. Comstock
+stepped into the light and watched the mothh’s course. Then a second appeared
+in pursuit of the first. The larger one wavered into the radius of light once
+more. The perspiration rolled down the man’s face. He half lifted the hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pray, woman! Pray now!” he panted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess I best get over by that lard oil light and go to work,” breathed Mrs.
+Comstock. “The Lord knows this is all in prayer, but it’s no time for words
+just now. Ready, Pete! You are going to get a chance first!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pete made another long, steady sweep, but the moth darted beneath the hat. In
+its flight it came straight toward Mrs. Comstock. She snatched off the remnant
+of apron she had tucked into her petticoat band and held the calico before her.
+The moth struck full against it and clung to the goods. Pete crept up
+stealthily. The second moth followed the first, and the spray showered the
+apron.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait!” gasped Mrs. Comstock. “I think they have settled. The books say they
+won’t leave now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The big pale yellow creature clung firmly, lowering and raising its wings. The
+other came nearer. Mrs. Comstock held the cloth with rigid hands, while Pete
+could hear her breathing in short gusts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall I try now?” he implored.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait!” whispered the woman. “Something seems to say wait!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The night breeze stiffened and gently waved the apron. Locusts rasped,
+mosquitoes hummed and frogs sang uninterruptedly. A musky odour slowly filled
+the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now shall I?” questioned Pete.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Leave them alone. They are safe now. They are mine. They are my salvation.
+God and the Limberlost gave them to me! They won’t move for hours. The books
+all say so. O Heavenly Father, I am thankful to You, and you, too, Pete Corson!
+You are a good man to help me. Now, I can go home and face my girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead, Mrs. Comstock dropped suddenly. She spread the apron across her knees.
+The moths remained undisturbed. Then her tired white head dropped, the tears
+she had thought forever dried gushed forth, and she sobbed for pure joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I wouldn’t do that now, you know!” comforted Pete. “Think of getting two!
+That’s more than you ever could have expected. A body would think you would
+cry, if you hadn’t got any. Come on, now. It’s almost morning. Let me help you
+home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pete took the bag and the two old lanterns. Mrs. Comstock carried her moths and
+the best lantern and went ahead to light the way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora had sat beside her window far into the night. At last she undressed and
+went to bed, but sleep would not come. She had gone to the city to talk with
+members of the School Board about a room in the grades. There was a possibility
+that she might secure the moth, and so be able to start to college that fall,
+but if she did not, then she wanted the school. She had been given some
+encouragement, but she was so unhappy that nothing mattered. She could not see
+the way open to anything in life, save a long series of disappointments, while
+she remained with her mother. Yet Margaret Sinton had advised her to go home
+and try once more. Margaret had seemed so sure there would be a change for the
+better, that Elnora had consented, although she had no hope herself. So strong
+is the bond of blood, she could not make up her mind to seek a home elsewhere,
+even after the day that had passed. Unable to sleep she arose at last, and the
+room being warm, she sat on the floor close the window. The lights in the swamp
+caught her eye. She was very uneasy, for quite a hundred of her best moths were
+in the case. However, there was no money, and no one ever had touched a book or
+any of her apparatus. Watching the lights set her thinking, and before she
+realized it, she was in a panic of fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She hurried down the stairway softly calling her mother. There was no answer.
+She lightly stepped across the sitting-room and looked in at the open door.
+There was no one, and the bed had not been used. Her first thought was that her
+mother had gone to the pool; and the Limberlost was alive with signals. Pity
+and fear mingled in the heart of the girl. She opened the kitchen door, crossed
+the garden and ran back to the swamp. As she neared it she listened, but she
+could hear only the usual voices of night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother!” she called softly. Then louder, “Mother!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was not a sound. Chilled with fright she hurried back to the cabin. She
+did not know what to do. She understood what the lights in the Limberlost
+meant. Where was her mother? She was afraid to enter, while she was growing
+very cold and still more fearful about remaining outside. At last she went to
+her mother’s room, picked up the gun, carried it into the kitchen, and crowding
+in a little corner behind the stove, she waited in trembling anxiety. The time
+was dreadfully long before she heard her mother’s voice. Then she decided some
+one had been ill and sent for her, so she took courage, and stepping swiftly
+across the kitchen she unbarred the door and drew back from sight beside the
+table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock entered dragging her heavy feet. Her dress skirt was gone, her
+petticoat wet and drabbled, and the waist of her dress was almost torn from her
+body. Her hair hung in damp strings; her eyes were red with crying. In one hand
+she held the lantern, and in the other stiffly extended before her, on a wad of
+calico reposed a magnificent pair of Yellow Emperors. Elnora stared, her lips
+parted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall I put these others in the kitchen?” inquired a man’s voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl shrank back to the shadows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, anywhere inside the door,” replied Mrs. Comstock as she moved a few steps
+to make way for him. Pete’s head appeared. He set down the moths and was gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you, Pete, more than ever woman thanked you before!” said Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She placed the lantern on the table and barred the door. As she turned Elnora
+came into view. Mrs. Comstock leaned toward her, and held out the moths. In a
+voice vibrant with tones never before heard she said: “Elnora, my girl,
+mother’s found you another moth!”
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0013"></a>
+CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN MOTHER LOVE IS BESTOWED ON ELNORA, AND SHE FINDS AN ASSISTANT IN
+MOTH HUNTING</h3>
+
+<p>
+Elnora awoke at dawn and lay gazing around the unfamiliar room. She noticed
+that every vestige of masculine attire and belongings was gone, and knew,
+without any explanation, what that meant. For some reason every tangible
+evidence of her father was banished, and she was at last to be allowed to take
+his place. She turned to look at her mother. Mrs. Comstock’s face was white and
+haggard, but on it rested an expression of profound peace Elnora never before
+had seen. As she studied the features on the pillow beside her, the heart of
+the girl throbbed in tenderness. She realized as fully as any one else could
+what her mother had suffered. Thoughts of the night brought shuddering fear.
+She softly slipped from the bed, went to her room, dressed and entered the
+kitchen to attend the Emperors and prepare breakfast. The pair had been left
+clinging to the piece of calico. The calico was there and a few pieces of
+beautiful wing. A mouse had eaten the moths!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, of all the horrible luck!” gasped Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the first thought of her mother, she caught up the remnants of the moths,
+burying them in the ashes of the stove. She took the bag to her room, hurriedly
+releasing its contents, but there was not another yellow one. Her mother had
+said some had been confined in the case in the Limberlost. There was still a
+hope that an Emperor might be among them. She peeped at her mother, who still
+slept soundly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora took a large piece of mosquito netting, and ran to the swamp. Throwing
+it over the top of the case, she unlocked the door. She reeled, faint with
+distress. The living moths that had been confined there in their fluttering to
+escape to night and the mates they sought not only had wrecked the other
+specimens of the case, but torn themselves to fringes on the pins. A third of
+the rarest moths of the collection for the man of India were antennaless,
+legless, wingless, and often headless. Elnora sobbed aloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is overwhelming,” she said at last. “It is making a fatalist of me. I am
+beginning to think things happen as they are ordained from the beginning, this
+plainly indicating that there is to be no college, at least, this year, for me.
+My life is all mountain-top or canon. I wish some one would lead me into a few
+days of ‘green pastures.’ Last night I went to sleep on mother’s arm, the moths
+all secured, love and college, certainties. This morning I wake to find all my
+hopes wrecked. I simply don’t dare let mother know that instead of helping me,
+she has ruined my collection. Everything is gone&mdash;unless the love lasts.
+That actually seemed true. I believe I will go see.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The love remained. Indeed, in the overflow of the long-hardened, pent-up heart,
+the girl was almost suffocated with tempestuous caresses and generous
+offerings. Before the day was over, Elnora realized that she never had known
+her mother. The woman who now busily went through the cabin, her eyes bright,
+eager, alert, constantly planning, was a stranger. Her very face was different,
+while it did not seem possible that during one night the acid of twenty years
+could disappear from a voice and leave it sweet and pleasant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the next few days Elnora worked at mounting the moths her mother had taken.
+She had to go to the Bird Woman and tell about the disaster, but Mrs. Comstock
+was allowed to think that Elnora delivered the moths when she made the trip. If
+she had told her what actually happened, the chances were that Mrs. Comstock
+again would have taken possession of the Limberlost, hunting there until she
+replaced all the moths that had been destroyed. But Elnora knew from experience
+what it meant to collect such a list in pairs. It would require steady work for
+at least two summers to replace the lost moths. When she left the Bird Woman
+she went to the president of the Onabasha schools and asked him to do all in
+his power to secure her a room in one of the ward buildings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next morning the last moth was mounted, and the housework finished. Elnora
+said to her mother, “If you don’t mind, I believe I will go into the woods
+pasture beside Sleepy Snake Creek and see if I can catch some dragonflies or
+moths.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait until I get a knife and a pail and I will go along,” answered Mrs.
+Comstock. “The dandelions are plenty tender for greens among the deep grasses,
+and I might just happen to see something myself. My eyes are pretty sharp.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish you could realize how young you are,” said Elnora. “I know women in
+Onabasha who are ten years older than you, yet they look twenty years younger.
+So could you, if you would dress your hair becomingly, and wear appropriate
+clothes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think my hair puts me in the old woman class permanently,” said Mrs.
+Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, it doesn’t!” cried Elnora. “There is a woman of twenty-eight who has
+hair as white as yours from sick headaches, but her face is young and
+beautiful. If your face would grow a little fuller and those lines would go
+away, you’d be lovely!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You little pig!” laughed Mrs. Comstock. “Any one would think you would be
+satisfied with having a splinter new mother, without setting up a kick on her
+looks, first thing. Greedy!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is a good word,” said Elnora. “I admit the charge. I am greedy over every
+wasted year. I want you young, lovely, suitably dressed and enjoying life like
+the other girls’ mothers.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock laughed softly as she pushed back her sunbonnet so that shrubs
+and bushes beside the way could be scanned closely. Elnora walked ahead with a
+case over her shoulder, a net in her hand. Her head was bare, the rolling
+collar of her lavender gingham dress was cut in a V at the throat, the sleeves
+only reached the elbows. Every few steps she paused and examined the shrubbery
+carefully, while Mrs. Comstock was watching until her eyes ached, but there
+were no dandelions in the pail she carried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Early June was rioting in fresh grasses, bright flowers, bird songs, and
+gay-winged creatures of air. Down the footpath the two went through the perfect
+morning, the love of God and all nature in their hearts. At last they reached
+the creek, following it toward the bridge. Here Mrs. Comstock found a large bed
+of tender dandelions and stopped to fill her pail. Then she sat on the bank,
+picking over the greens, while she listened to the creek softly singing its
+June song.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora remained within calling distance, and was having good success. At last
+she crossed the creek, following it up to a bridge. There she began a careful
+examination of the under sides of the sleepers and flooring for cocoons. Mrs.
+Comstock could see her and the creek for several rods above. The mother sat
+beating the long green leaves across her hand, carefully picking out the white
+buds, because Elnora liked them, when a splash up the creek attracted her
+attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Around the bend came a man. He was bareheaded, dressed in a white sweater, and
+waders which reached his waist. He walked on the bank, only entering the water
+when forced. He had a queer basket strapped on his hip, and with a small rod he
+sent a long line spinning before him down the creek, deftly manipulating with
+it a little floating object. He was closer Elnora than her mother, but Mrs.
+Comstock thought possibly by hurrying she could remain unseen and yet warn the
+girl that a stranger was coming. As she approached the bridge, she caught a
+sapling and leaned over the water to call Elnora. With her lips parted to speak
+she hesitated a second to watch a sort of insect that flashed past on the
+water, when a splash from the man attracted the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was under the bridge, one knee planted in the embankment and a foot braced
+to support her. Her hair was tousled by wind and bushes, her face flushed, and
+she lifted her arms above her head, working to loosen a cocoon she had found.
+The call Mrs. Comstock had intended to utter never found voice, for as Elnora
+looked down at the sound, “Possibly I could get that for you,” suggested the
+man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock drew back. He was a young man with a wonderfully attractive face,
+although it was too white for robust health, broad shoulders, and slender,
+upright frame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I do hope you can!” answered Elnora. “It’s quite a find! It’s one of those
+lovely pale red cocoons described in the books. I suspect it comes from having
+been in a dark place and screened from the weather.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that so?” cried the man. “Wait a minute. I’ve never seen one. I suppose
+it’s a Cecropia, from the location.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course,” said Elnora. “It’s so cool here the moth hasn’t emerged. The
+cocoon is a big, baggy one, and it is as red as fox tail.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What luck!” he cried. “Are you making a collection?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He reeled in his line, laid his rod across a bush and climbed the embankment to
+Elnora’s side, produced a knife and began the work of whittling a deep groove
+around the cocoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. I paid my way through the high school in Onabasha with them. Now I am
+starting a collection which means college.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Onabasha!” said the man. “That is where I am visiting. Possibly you know my
+people&mdash;Dr. Ammon’s? The doctor is my uncle. My home is in Chicago. I’ve
+been having typhoid fever, something fierce. In the hospital six weeks. Didn’t
+gain strength right, so Uncle Doc sent for me. I am to live out of doors all
+summer, and exercise until I get in condition again. Do you know my uncle?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. He is Aunt Margaret’s doctor, and he would be ours, only we are never
+ill.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you look it!” said the man, appraising Elnora at a glance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Strangers always mention it,” sighed Elnora. “I wonder how it would seem to be
+a pale, languid lady and ride in a carriage.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ask me!” laughed the man. “It feels like the&mdash;dickens! I’m so proud of my
+feet. It’s quite a trick to stand on them now. I have to keep out of the water
+all I can and stop to baby every half-mile. But with interesting outdoor work
+I’ll be myself in a week.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you call that work?” Elnora indicated the creek.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do, indeed! Nearly three miles, banks too soft to brag on and never a
+strike. Wouldn’t you call that hard labour?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” laughed Elnora. “Work at which you might kill yourself and never get a
+fish. Did any one tell you there were trout in Sleepy Snake Creek?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Uncle said I could try.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, you can,” said Elnora. “You can try no end, but you’ll never get a trout.
+This is too far south and too warm for them. If you sit on the bank and use
+worms you might catch some perch or catfish.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But that isn’t exercise.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, if you only want exercise, go right on fishing. You will have a creel
+full of invisible results every night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I object,” said the man emphatically. He stopped work again and studied
+Elnora. Even the watching mother could not blame him. In the shade of the
+bridge Elnora’s bright head and her lavender dress made a picture worthy of
+much contemplation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I object!” repeated the man. “When I work I want to see results. I’d rather
+exercise sawing wood, making one pile grow little and the other big than to
+cast all day and catch nothing because there is not a fish to take. Work for
+work’s sake doesn’t appeal to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He digged the groove around the cocoon with skilled hand. “Now there is some
+fun in this!” he said. “It’s going to be a fair job to cut it out, but when it
+comes, it is not only beautiful, but worth a price; it will help you on your
+way. I think I’ll put up my rod and hunt moths. That would be something like!
+Don’t you want help?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora parried the question. “Have you ever hunted moths, Mr. Ammon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Enough to know the ropes in taking them and to distinguish the commonest ones.
+I go wild on Catocalæ. There’s too many of them, all too much alike for Philip,
+but I know all these fellows. One flew into my room when I was about ten years
+old, and we thought it a miracle. None of us ever had seen one so we took it
+over to the museum to Dr. Dorsey. He said they were common enough, but we
+didn’t see them because they flew at night. He showed me the museum collection,
+and I was so interested I took mine back home and started to hunt them. Every
+year after that we went to our cottage a month earlier, so I could find them,
+and all my family helped. I stuck to it until I went to college. Then, keeping
+the little moths out of the big ones was too much for the mater, so father
+advised that I donate mine to the museum. He bought a fine case for them with
+my name on it, which constitutes my sole contribution to science. I know enough
+to help you all right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aren’t you going north this year?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All depends on how this fever leaves me. Uncle says the nights are too cold
+and the days too hot there for me. He thinks I had better stay in an even
+temperature until I am strong again. I am going to stick pretty close to him
+until I know I am. I wouldn’t admit it to any one at home, but I was almost
+gone. I don’t believe anything can eat up nerve much faster than the burning of
+a slow fever. No, thanks, I have enough. I stay with Uncle Doc, so if I feel it
+coming again he can do something quickly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t blame you,” said Elnora. “I never have been sick, but it must be
+dreadful. I am afraid you are tiring yourself over that. Let me take the knife
+awhile.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, it isn’t so bad as that! I wouldn’t be wading creeks if it were. I only
+need a few more days to get steady on my feet again. I’ll soon have this out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is kind of you to get it,” said Elnora. “I should have had to peel it,
+which would spoil the cocoon for a specimen and ruin the moth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You haven’t said yet whether I may help you while I am here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora hesitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You better say ‘yes,’” he persisted. “It would be a real kindness. It would
+keep me outdoors all day and give an incentive to work. I’m good at it. I’ll
+show you if I am not in a week or so. I can ‘sugar,’ manipulate lights, and
+mirrors, and all the expert methods. I’ll wager, moths are numerous in the old
+swamp over there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are,” said Elnora. “Most I have I took there. A few nights ago my mother
+caught a number, but we don’t dare go alone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All the more reason why you need me. Where do you live? I can’t get an answer
+from you, I’ll go tell your mother who I am and ask her if I may help you. I
+warn you, young lady, I have a very effective way with mothers. They almost
+never turn me down.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then it’s probable you will have a new experience when you meet mine,” said
+Elnora. “She never was known to do what any one expected she surely would.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cocoon came loose. Philip Ammon stepped down the embankment turning to
+offer his hand to Elnora. She ran down as she would have done alone, and taking
+the cocoon turned it end for end to learn if the imago it contained were alive.
+Then Ammon took back the cocoon to smooth the edges. Mrs. Comstock gave them
+one long look as they stood there, and returned to her dandelions. While she
+worked she paused occasionally, listening intently. Presently they came down
+the creek, the man carrying the cocoon as if it were a jewel, while Elnora made
+her way along the bank, taking a lesson in casting. Her face was flushed with
+excitement, her eyes shining, the bushes taking liberties with her hair. For a
+picture of perfect loveliness she scarcely could have been surpassed, and the
+eyes of Philip Ammon seemed to be in working order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Moth-er!” called Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was an undulant, caressing sweetness in the girl’s voice, as she sung out
+the call in perfect confidence that it would bring a loving answer, that struck
+deep in Mrs. Comstock’s heart. She never had heard that word so pronounced
+before and a lump arose in her throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here!” she answered, still cleaning dandelions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother, this is Mr. Philip Ammon, of Chicago,” said Elnora. “He has been ill
+and he is staying with Dr. Ammon in Onabasha. He came down the creek fishing
+and cut this cocoon from under the bridge for me. He feels that it would be
+better to hunt moths than to fish, until he is well. What do you think about
+it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip Ammon extended his hand. “I am glad to know you,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You may take the hand-shaking for granted,” replied Mrs. Comstock. “Dandelions
+have a way of making fingers sticky, and I like to know a man before I take his
+hand, anyway. That introduction seems mighty comprehensive on your part, but it
+still leaves me unclassified. My name is Comstock.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip Ammon bowed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am sorry to hear you have been sick,” said Mrs. Comstock. “But if people
+will live where they have such vile water as they do in Chicago, I don’t see
+what else they are to expect.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip studied her intently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am sure I didn’t have a fever on purpose,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You do seem a little wobbly on your legs,” she observed. “Maybe you had better
+sit and rest while I finish these greens. It’s late for the genuine article,
+but in the shade, among long grass they are still tender.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I have a leaf?” he asked, reaching for one as he sat on the bank, looking
+from the little creek at his feet, away through the dim cool spaces of the June
+forest on the opposite side. He drew a deep breath. “Glory, but this is good
+after almost two months inside hospital walls!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stretched on the grass and lay gazing up at the leaves, occasionally asking
+the interpretation of a bird note or the origin of an unfamiliar forest voice.
+Elnora began helping with the dandelions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Another, please,” said the young man, holding out his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you suppose this is the kind of grass Nebuchadnezzar ate?” Elnora asked,
+giving the leaf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He knew a good thing if it is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, you should taste dandelions boiled with bacon and served with mother’s
+cornbread.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t! My appetite is twice my size now. While it is&mdash;how far is it to
+Onabasha, shortest cut?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Three miles.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man lay in perfect content, nibbling leaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This surely is a treat,” he said. “No wonder you find good hunting here. There
+seems to be foliage for almost every kind of caterpillar. But I suppose you
+have to exchange for northern species and Pacific Coast kinds?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. And every one wants Regalis in trade. I never saw the like. They consider
+a Cecropia or a Polyphemus an insult, and a Luna is barely acceptable.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What authorities have you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora began to name text-books which started a discussion. Mrs. Comstock
+listened. She cleaned dandelions with greater deliberation than they ever
+before were examined. In reality she was taking stock of the young man’s long,
+well-proportioned frame, his strong hands, his smooth, fine-textured skin, his
+thick shock of dark hair, and making mental notes of his simple manly speech
+and the fact that he evidently did know much about moths. It pleased her to
+think that if he had been a neighbour boy who had lain beside her every day of
+his life while she worked, he could have been no more at home. She liked the
+things he said, but she was proud that Elnora had a ready answer which always
+seemed appropriate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last Mrs. Comstock finished the greens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are three miles from the city and less than a mile from where we live,”
+she said. “If you will tell me what you dare eat, I suspect you had best go
+home with us and rest until the cool of the day before you start back. Probably
+some one that you can ride in with will be passing before evening.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is mighty kind of you,” said Philip. “I think I will. It doesn’t matter
+so much what I eat, the point is that I must be moderate. I am hungry all the
+time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then we will go,” said Mrs. Comstock, “and we will not allow you to make
+yourself sick with us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip Ammon arose: picking up the pail of greens and his fishing rod, he stood
+waiting. Elnora led the way. Mrs. Comstock motioned Philip to follow and she
+walked in the rear. The girl carried the cocoon and the box of moths she had
+taken, searching every step for more. The young man frequently set down his
+load to join in the pursuit of a dragonfly or moth, while Mrs. Comstock watched
+the proceedings with sharp eyes. Every time Philip picked up the pail of greens
+she struggled to suppress a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora proceeded slowly, chattering about everything beside the trail. Philip
+was interested in all the objects she pointed out, noticing several things
+which escaped her. He carried the greens as casually when they took a short cut
+down the roadway as on the trail. When Elnora turned toward the gate of her
+home Philip Ammon stopped, took a long look at the big hewed log cabin, the
+vines which clambered over it, the flower garden ablaze with beds of bright
+bloom interspersed with strawberries and tomatoes, the trees of the forest
+rising north and west like a green wall and exclaimed: “How beautiful!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock was pleased. “If you think that,” she said, “perhaps you will
+understand how, in all this present-day rush to be modern, I have preferred to
+remain as I began. My husband and I took up this land, and enough trees to
+build the cabin, stable, and outbuildings are nearly all we ever cut. Of
+course, if he had lived, I suppose we should have kept up with our neighbours.
+I hear considerable about the value of the land, the trees which are on it, and
+the oil which is supposed to be under it, but as yet I haven’t brought myself
+to change anything. So we stand for one of the few remaining homes of first
+settlers in this region. Come in. You are very welcome to what we have.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock stepped forward and took the lead. She had a bowl of soft water
+and a pair of boots to offer for the heavy waders, for outer comfort, a glass
+of cold buttermilk and a bench on which to rest, in the circular arbour until
+dinner was ready. Philip Ammon splashed in the water. He followed to the stable
+and exchanged boots there. He was ravenous for the buttermilk, and when he
+stretched on the bench in the arbour the flickering patches of sunlight so
+tantalized his tired eyes, while the bees made such splendid music, he was soon
+sound asleep. When Elnora and her mother came out with a table they stood a
+short time looking at him. It is probable Mrs. Comstock voiced a united thought
+when she said: “What a refined, decent looking young man! How proud his mother
+must be of him! We must be careful what we let him eat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they returned to the kitchen where Mrs. Comstock proceeded to be careful.
+She broiled ham of her own sugar-curing, creamed potatoes, served asparagus on
+toast, and made a delicious strawberry shortcake. As she cooked dandelions with
+bacon, she feared to serve them to him, so she made an excuse that it took too
+long to prepare them, blanched some and made a salad. When everything was ready
+she touched Philip’s sleeve.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Best have something to eat, lad, before you get too hungry,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please hurry!” he begged laughingly as he held a plate toward her to be
+filled. “I thought I had enough self-restraint to start out alone, but I see I
+was mistaken. If you would allow me, just now, I am afraid I should start a
+fever again. I never did smell food so good as this. It’s mighty kind of you to
+take me in. I hope I will be man enough in a few days to do something worth
+while in return.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spots of sunshine fell on the white cloth and blue china, the bees and an
+occasional stray butterfly came searching for food. A rose-breasted grosbeak,
+released from a three hours’ siege of brooding, while his independent mate took
+her bath and recreation, mounted the top branch of a maple in the west woods
+from which he serenaded the dinner party with a joyful chorus in celebration of
+his freedom. Philip’s eyes strayed to the beautiful cabin, to the mixture of
+flowers and vegetables stretching down to the road, and to the singing bird
+with his red-splotched breast of white and he said: “I can’t realize now that I
+ever lay in ice packs in a hospital. How I wish all the sick folks could come
+here to grow strong!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The grosbeak sang on, a big Turnus butterfly sailed through the arbour and
+poised over the table. Elnora held up a lump of sugar and the butterfly,
+clinging to her fingers, tasted daintily. With eager eyes and parted lips, the
+girl held steadily. When at last it wavered away, “That made a picture!” said
+Philip. “Ask me some other time how I lost my illusions concerning butterflies.
+I always thought of them in connection with sunshine, flower pollen, and fruit
+nectar, until one sad day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know!” laughed Elnora. “I’ve seen that, too, but it didn’t destroy any
+illusion for me. I think quite as much of the butterflies as ever.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they talked of flowers, moths, dragonflies, Indian relics, and all the
+natural wonders the swamp afforded, straying from those subjects to books and
+school work. When they cleared the table Philip assisted, carrying several tray
+loads to the kitchen. He and Elnora mounted specimens while Mrs Comstock washed
+the dishes. Then she came out with a ruffle she was embroidering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wonder if I did not see a picture of you in Onabasha last night,” Philip
+said to Elnora. “Aunt Anna took me to call on Miss Brownlee. She was showing me
+her crowd&mdash;of course, it was you! But it didn’t half do you justice,
+although it was the nearest human of any of them. Miss Brownlee is very fond of
+you. She said the finest things.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they talked of Commencement, and at last Philip said he must go or his
+friends would become anxious about him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock brought him a blue bowl of creamy milk and a plate of bread. She
+stopped a passing team and secured a ride to the city for him, as his exercise
+of the morning had been too violent, and he was forced to admit he was tired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I come to-morrow afternoon and hunt moths awhile?” he asked Mrs. Comstock
+as he arose. “We will ‘sugar’ a tree and put a light beside it, if I can get
+stuff to make the preparation. Possibly we can take some that way. I always
+enjoy moth hunting, I’d like to help Miss Elnora, and it would be a charity to
+me. I’ve got to remain outdoors some place, and I’m quite sure I’d get well
+faster here than anywhere else. Please say I may come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have no objections, if Elnora really would like help,” said Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In her heart she wished he would not come. She wanted her newly found treasure
+all to herself, for a time, at least. But Elnora’s were eager, shining eyes.
+She thought it would be splendid to have help, and great fun to try book
+methods for taking moths, so it was arranged. As Philip rode away, Mrs.
+Comstock’s eyes followed him. “What a nice young man!” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He seems fine,” agreed Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He comes of a good family, too. I’ve often heard of his father. He is a great
+lawyer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am glad he likes it here. I need help. Possibly&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Possibly what?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We can find many moths.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did he mean about the butterflies?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That he always had connected them with sunshine, flowers, and fruits, and
+thought of them as the most exquisite of creations; then one day he found some
+clustering thickly over carrion.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come to think of it, I have seen butterflies&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So had he,” laughed Elnora. “And that is what he meant.”
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0014"></a>
+CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN A NEW POSITION IS TENDERED ELNORA, AND PHILIP AMMON IS SHOWN
+LIMBERLOST VIOLETS</h3>
+
+<p>
+The next morning Mrs. Comstock called to Elnora, “The mail carrier stopped at
+our box.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora ran down the walk and came back carrying an official letter. She tore it
+open and read:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MY DEAR MISS COMSTOCK:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the weekly meeting of the Onabasha School Board last night, it was decided
+to add the position of Lecturer on Natural History to our corps of city
+teachers. It will be the duty of this person to spend two hours a week in each
+of the grade schools exhibiting and explaining specimens of the most prominent
+objects in nature: animals, birds, insects, flowers, vines, shrubs, bushes, and
+trees. These specimens and lectures should be appropriate to the seasons and
+the comprehension of the grades. This position was unanimously voted to you. I
+think you will find the work delightful and much easier than the routine grind
+of the other teachers. It is my advice that you accept and begin to prepare
+yourself at once. Your salary will be $750 a year, and you will be allowed $200
+for expenses in procuring specimens and books. Let us know at once if you want
+the position, as it is going to be difficult to fill satisfactorily if you do
+not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Very truly yours,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DAVID THOMPSON, President, Onabasha Schools.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hardly understand,” marvelled Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is a new position. They never have had anything like it before. I suspect
+it arose from the help I’ve been giving the grade teachers in their nature
+work. They are trying to teach the children something, and half the instructors
+don’t know a blue jay from a king-fisher, a beech leaf from an elm, or a wasp
+from a hornet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, do you?” anxiously inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed, I do!” laughed Elnora, “and several other things beside. When Freckles
+bequeathed me the swamp, he gave me a bigger inheritance than he knew. While
+you have thought I was wandering aimlessly, I have been following a definite
+plan, studying hard, and storing up the stuff that will earn these seven
+hundred and fifty dollars. Mother dear, I am going to accept this, of course.
+The work will be a delight. I’d love it most of anything in teaching. You must
+help me. We must find nests, eggs, leaves, queer formations in plants and rare
+flowers. I must have flower boxes made for each of the rooms and filled with
+wild things. I should begin to gather specimens this very day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora’s face was flushed and her eyes bright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, what great work that will be!” she cried. “You must go with me so you can
+see the little faces when I tell them how the goldfinch builds its nest, and
+how the bees make honey.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Elnora and her mother went into the woods behind the cabin to study nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think,” said Elnora, “the idea is to begin with fall things in the fall,
+keeping to the seasons throughout the year.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What are fall things?” inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, fringed gentians, asters, ironwort, every fall flower, leaves from every
+tree and vine, what makes them change colour, abandoned bird nests, winter
+quarters of caterpillars and insects, what becomes of the butterflies and
+grasshoppers&mdash;myriads of stuff. I shall have to be very wise to select the
+things it will be most beneficial for the children to learn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can I really help you?” Mrs. Comstock’s strong face was pathetic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed, yes!” cried Elnora. “I never can get through it alone. There will be
+an immense amount of work connected with securing and preparing specimens.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock lifted her head proudly and began doing business at once. Her
+sharp eyes ranged from earth to heaven. She investigated everything, asking
+innumerable questions. At noon Mrs. Comstock took the specimens they had
+collected, and went to prepare dinner, while Elnora followed the woods down to
+the Sintons’ to show her letter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had to explain what became of her moths, and why college would have to be
+abandoned for that year, but Margaret and Wesley vowed not to tell. Wesley
+waved the letter excitedly, explaining it to Margaret as if it were a personal
+possession. Margaret was deeply impressed, while Billy volunteered first aid in
+gathering material.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now anything you want in the ground, Snap can dig it out,” he said. “Uncle
+Wesley and I found a hole three times as big as Snap, that he dug at the roots
+of a tree.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We will train him to hunt pupae cases,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you going to the woods this afternoon?” asked Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” answered Elnora. “Dr. Ammon’s nephew from Chicago is visiting in
+Onabasha. He is going to show me how men put some sort of compound on a tree,
+hang a light beside it, and take moths that way. It will be interesting to
+watch and learn.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I come?” asked Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course you may come!” answered Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is this nephew of Dr. Ammon a young man?” inquired Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“About twenty-six, I should think,” said Elnora. “He said he had been out of
+college and at work in his father’s law office three years.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does he seem nice?” asked Margaret, and Wesley smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Finest kind of a person,” said Elnora. “He can teach me so much. It is very
+interesting to hear him talk. He knows considerable about moths that will be a
+help to me. He had a fever and he has to stay outdoors until he grows strong
+again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy, I guess you better help me this afternoon,” said Margaret. “Maybe
+Elnora had rather not bother with you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s no reason on earth why Billy should not come!” cried Elnora, and
+Wesley smiled again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I must hurry home or I won’t be ready,” she added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hastening down the road she entered the cabin, her face glowing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought you never would come,” said Mrs. Comstock. “If you don’t hurry Mr.
+Ammon will be here before you are dressed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I forgot about him until just now,” said Elnora. “I am not going to dress.
+He’s not coming to visit. We are only going to the woods for more specimens. I
+can’t wear anything that requires care. The limbs take the most dreadful
+liberties with hair and clothing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock opened her lips, looked at Elnora and closed them. In her heart
+she was pleased that the girl was so interested in her work that she had
+forgotten Philip Ammon’s coming. But it did seem to her that such a pleasant
+young man should have been greeted by a girl in a fresh dress. “If she isn’t
+disposed to primp at the coming of a man, heaven forbid that I should be the
+one to start her,” thought Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip came whistling down the walk between the cinnamon pinks, pansies, and
+strawberries. He carried several packages, while his face flushed with more
+colour than on the previous day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Only see what has happened to me!” cried Elnora, offering her letter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll wager I know!” answered Philip. “Isn’t it great! Every one in Onabasha is
+talking about it. At last there is something new under the sun. All of them are
+pleased. They think you’ll make a big success. This will give an incentive to
+work. In a few days more I’ll be myself again, and we’ll overturn the fields
+and woods around here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went on to congratulate Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aren’t you proud of her, though?” he asked. “You should hear what folks are
+saying! They say she created the necessity for the position, and every one
+seems to feel that it is a necessity. Now, if she succeeds, and she will, all
+of the other city schools will have such departments, and first thing you know
+she will have made the whole world a little better. Let me rest a few seconds;
+my feet are acting up again. Then we will cook the moth compound and put it to
+cool.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed as he sat breathing shortly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It doesn’t seem possible that a fellow could lose his strength like this. My
+knees are actually trembling, but I’ll be all right in a minute. Uncle Doc said
+I could come. I told him how you took care of me, and he said I would be safe
+here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he began unwrapping packages and explaining to Mrs. Comstock how to cook
+the compound to attract the moths. He followed her into the kitchen, kindled
+the fire, and stirred the preparation as he talked. While the mixture cooled,
+he and Elnora walked through the vegetable garden behind the cabin and strayed
+from there into the woods.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What about college?” he asked. “Miss Brownlee said you were going.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had hoped to,” replied Elnora, “but I had a streak of dreadful luck, so I’ll
+have to wait until next year. If you won’t speak of it, I’ll tell you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip promised, so Elnora recited the history of the Yellow Emperor. She was
+so interested in doing the Emperor justice she did not notice how many
+personalities went into the story. A few pertinent questions told him the
+remainder. He looked at the girl in wonder. In face and form she was as lovely
+as any one of her age and type he ever had seen. Her school work far surpassed
+that of most girls of her age he knew. She differed in other ways. This vast
+store of learning she had gathered from field and forest was a wealth of
+attraction no other girl possessed. Her frank, matter-of-fact manner was an
+inheritance from her mother, but there was something more. Once, as they talked
+he thought “sympathy” was the word to describe it and again “comprehension.”
+She seemed to possess a large sense of brotherhood for all human and animate
+creatures. She spoke to him as if she had known him all her life. She talked to
+the grosbeak in exactly the same manner, as she laid strawberries and potato
+bugs on the fence for his family. She did not swerve an inch from her way when
+a snake slid past her, while the squirrels came down from the trees and took
+corn from her fingers. She might as well have been a boy, so lacking was she in
+any touch of feminine coquetry toward him. He studied her wonderingly. As they
+went along the path they reached a large slime-covered pool surrounded by
+decaying stumps and logs thickly covered with water hyacinths and blue flags.
+Philip stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that the place?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora assented. “The doctor told you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. It was tragic. Is that pool really bottomless?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So far as we ever have been able to discover.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip stood looking at the water, while the long, sweet grasses, thickly
+sprinkled with blue flag bloom, over which wild bees clambered, swayed around
+his feet. Then he turned to the girl. She had worked hard. The same lavender
+dress she had worn the previous day clung to her in limp condition. But she was
+as evenly coloured and of as fine grain as a wild rose petal, her hair was
+really brown, but never was such hair touched with a redder glory, while her
+heavy arching brows added a look of strength to her big gray-blue eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you were born here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had not intended to voice that thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” she said, looking into his eyes. “Just in time to prevent my mother from
+saving the life of my father. She came near never forgiving me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, cruel!” cried Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I find much in life that is cruel, from our standpoints,” said Elnora. “It
+takes the large wisdom of the Unfathomable, the philosophy of the Almighty, to
+endure some of it. But there is always right somewhere, and at last it seems to
+come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will it come to you?” asked Philip, who found himself deeply affected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It has come,” said the girl serenely. “It came a week ago. It came in fullest
+measure when my mother ceased to regret that I had been born. Now, work that I
+love has come&mdash;that should constitute happiness. A little farther along is
+my violet bed. I want you to see it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Philip Ammon followed he definitely settled upon the name of the unusual
+feature of Elnora’s face. It should be called “experience.” She had known
+bitter experiences early in life. Suffering had been her familiar more than
+joy. He watched her earnestly, his heart deeply moved. She led him into a
+swampy half-open space in the woods, stopped and stepped aside. He uttered a
+cry of surprised delight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few decaying logs were scattered around, the grass grew in tufts long and
+fine. Blue flags waved, clusters of cowslips nodded gold heads, but the whole
+earth was purple with a thick blanket of violets nodding from stems a foot in
+length. Elnora knelt and slipping her fingers between the leaves and grasses to
+the roots, gathered a few violets and gave them to Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can your city greenhouses surpass them?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat on a log to examine the blooms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are superb!” he said. “I never saw such length of stem or such rank
+leaves, while the flowers are the deepest blue, the truest violet I ever saw
+growing wild. They are coloured exactly like the eyes of the girl I am going to
+marry.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora handed him several others to add to those he held. “She must have
+wonderful eyes,” she commented.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No other blue eyes are quite so beautiful,” he said. “In fact, she is
+altogether lovely.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is it customary for a man to think the girl he is going to marry lovely? I
+wonder if I should find her so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You would,” said Philip. “No one ever fails to. She is tall as you, very
+slender, but perfectly rounded; you know about her eyes; her hair is black and
+wavy&mdash;while her complexion is clear and flushed with red.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, she must be the most beautiful girl in the whole world!” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, indeed!” he said. “She is not a particle better looking in her way than
+you are in yours. She is a type of dark beauty, but you are equally as perfect.
+She is unusual in her combination of black hair and violet eyes, although every
+one thinks them black at a little distance. You are quite as unusual with your
+fair face, black brows, and brown hair; indeed, I know many people who would
+prefer your bright head to her dark one. It’s all a question of taste&mdash;and
+being engaged to the girl,” he added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That would be likely to prejudice one,” laughed Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith has a birthday soon; if these last will you let me have a box of them to
+send her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will help gather and pack them for you, so they will carry nicely. Does she
+hunt moths with you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Back went Philip Ammon’s head in a gale of laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!” he cried. “She says they are ‘creepy.’ She would go into a spasm if she
+were compelled to touch those caterpillars I saw you handling yesterday.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why would she?” marvelled Elnora. “Haven’t you told her that they are
+perfectly clean, helpless, and harmless as so much animate velvet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I have not told her. She wouldn’t care enough about caterpillars to
+listen.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In what is she interested?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What interests Edith Carr? Let me think! First, I believe she takes pride in
+being a little handsomer and better dressed than any girl of her set. She is
+interested in having a beautiful home, fine appointments, in being petted,
+praised, and the acknowledged leader of society.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She likes to find new things which amuse her, and to always and in all
+circumstances have her own way about everything.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good gracious!” cried Elnora, staring at him. “But what does she do? How does
+she spend her time?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Spend her time!” repeated Philip. “Well, she would call that a joke. Her days
+are never long enough. There is endless shopping, to find the pretty things;
+regular visits to the dressmakers, calls, parties, theatres, entertainments.
+She is always rushed. I never am able to be with her half as much as I would
+like.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I mean work,” persisted Elnora. “In what is she interested that is useful
+to the world?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Me!” cried Philip promptly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can understand that,” laughed Elnora. “What I can’t understand is how you
+can be in&mdash;&mdash;” She stopped in confusion, but she saw that he had
+finished the sentence as she had intended. “I beg your pardon!” she cried. “I
+didn’t intend to say that. But I cannot understand these people I hear about
+who live only for their own amusement. Perhaps it is very great; I’ll never
+have a chance to know. To me, it seems the only pleasure in this world worth
+having is the joy we derive from living for those we love, and those we can
+help. I hope you are not angry with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip sat silently looking far away, with deep thought in his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are angry,” faltered Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His look came back to her as she knelt before him among the flowers and he
+gazed at her steadily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No doubt I should be,” he said, “but the fact is I am not. I cannot understand
+a life purely for personal pleasure myself. But she is only a girl, and this is
+her playtime. When she is a woman in her own home, then she will be different,
+will she not?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora never resembled her mother so closely as when she answered that
+question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I would have to be well acquainted with her to know, but I should hope so. To
+make a real home for a tired business man is a very different kind of work from
+that required to be a leader of society. It demands different talent and
+education. Of course, she means to change, or she would not have promised to
+make a home for you. I suspect our dope is cool now, let’s go try for some
+butterflies.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As they went along the path together Elnora talked of many things but Philip
+answered absently. Evidently he was thinking of something else. But the moth
+bait recalled him and he was ready for work as they made their way back to the
+woods. He wanted to try the Limberlost, but Elnora was firm about remaining on
+home ground. She did not tell him that lights hung in the swamp would be a
+signal to call up a band of men whose presence she dreaded. So they started,
+Ammon carrying the dope, Elnora the net, Billy and Mrs. Comstock following with
+cyanide boxes and lanterns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First they tried for butterflies and captured several fine ones without
+trouble. They also called swarms of ants, bees, beetles, and flies. When it
+grew dusk, Mrs. Comstock and Philip went to prepare supper. Elnora and Billy
+remained until the butterflies disappeared. Then they lighted the lanterns,
+repainted the trees and followed the home trail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you ’spec you’ll get just a lot of moths?” asked Billy, as he walked beside
+Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am sure I hardly know,” said the girl. “This is a new way for me. Perhaps
+they will come to the lights, but few moths eat; and I have some doubt about
+those which the lights attract settling on the right trees. Maybe the smell of
+that dope will draw them. Between us, Billy, I think I like my old way best. If
+I can find a hidden moth, slip up and catch it unawares, or take it in full
+flight, it’s my captive, and I can keep it until it dies naturally. But this
+way you seem to get it under false pretences, it has no chance, and it will
+probably ruin its wings struggling for freedom before morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, any moth ought to be proud to be taken anyway, by you,” said Billy.
+“Just look what you do! You can make everybody love them. People even quit
+hating caterpillars when they see you handle them and hear you tell all about
+them. You must have some to show people how they are. It’s not like killing
+things to see if you can, or because you want to eat them, the way most men
+kill birds. I think it is right for you to take enough for collections, to show
+city people, and to illustrate the Bird Woman’s books. You go on and take them!
+The moths don’t care. They’re glad to have you. They like it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy, I see your future,” said Elnora. “We will educate you and send you up
+to Mr. Ammon to make a great lawyer. You’d beat the world as a special pleader.
+You actually make me feel that I am doing the moths a kindness to take them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And so you are!” cried Billy. “Why, just from what you have taught them Uncle
+Wesley and Aunt Margaret never think of killing a caterpillar until they look
+whether it’s the beautiful June moth kind, or the horrid tent ones. That’s what
+you can do. You go straight ahead!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy, you are a jewel!” cried Elnora, throwing her arm across his shoulders
+as they came down the path.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My, I was scared!” said Billy with a deep breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Scared?” questioned Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes sir-ee! Aunt Margaret scared me. May I ask you a question?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, you may!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that man going to be your beau?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy! No! What made you think such a thing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aunt Margaret said likely he would fall in love with you, and you wouldn’t
+want me around any more. Oh, but I was scared! It isn’t so, is it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Indeed, no!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am your beau, ain’t I?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Surely you are!” said Elnora, tightening her arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do hope Aunt Kate has ginger cookies,” said Billy with a little skip of
+delight.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0015"></a>
+CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK FACES THE ALMIGHTY, AND PHILIP AMMON WRITES A
+LETTER</h3>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock and Elnora were finishing breakfast the following morning when
+they heard a cheery whistle down the road. Elnora with surprised eyes looked at
+her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Could that be Mr. Ammon?” she questioned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did not expect him so soon,” commented Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was sunrise, but the musician was Philip Ammon. He appeared stronger than on
+yesterday.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hope I am not too early,” he said. “I am consumed with anxiety to learn if
+we have made a catch. If we have, we should beat the birds to it. I promised
+Uncle Doc to put on my waders and keep dry for a few days yet, when I go to the
+woods. Let’s hurry! I am afraid of crows. There might be a rare moth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sun was topping the Limberlost when they started. As they neared the place
+Philip stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now we must use great caution,” he said. “The lights and the odours always
+attract numbers that don’t settle on the baited trees. Every bush, shrub, and
+limb may hide a specimen we want.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So they approached with much care.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is something, anyway!” cried Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There are moths! I can see them!” exulted Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Those you see are fast enough. It’s the ones for which you must search that
+will escape. The grasses are dripping, and I have boots, so you look beside the
+path while I take the outside,” suggested Ammon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock wanted to hunt moths, but she was timid about making a wrong
+movement, so she wisely sat on a log and watched Philip and Elnora to learn how
+they proceeded. Back in the deep woods a hermit thrush was singing his chant to
+the rising sun. Orioles were sowing the pure, sweet air with notes of gold,
+poured out while on wing. The robins were only chirping now, for their morning
+songs had awakened all the other birds an hour ago. Scolding red-wings tilted
+on half the bushes. Excepting late species of haws, tree bloom was almost gone,
+but wild flowers made the path border and all the wood floor a riot of colour.
+Elnora, born among such scenes, worked eagerly, but to the city man, recently
+from a hospital, they seemed too good to miss. He frequently stooped to examine
+a flower face, paused to listen intently to the thrush or lifted his head to
+see the gold flash which accompanied the oriole’s trailing notes. So Elnora
+uttered the first cry, as she softly lifted branches and peered among the
+grasses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My find!” she called. “Bring the box, mother!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip came hurrying also. When they reached her she stood on the path holding
+a pair of moths. Her eyes were wide with excitement, her cheeks pink, her red
+lips parted, and on the hand she held out to them clung a pair of delicate
+blue-green moths, with white bodies, and touches of lavender and straw colour.
+All around her lay flower-brocaded grasses, behind the deep green background of
+the forest, while the sun slowly sifted gold from heaven to burnish her hair.
+Mrs. Comstock heard a sharp breath behind her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, what a picture!” exulted Philip at her shoulder. “She is absolutely and
+altogether lovely! I’d give a small fortune for that faithfully set on canvas!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He picked the box from Mrs. Comstock’s fingers and slowly advanced with it.
+Elnora held down her hand and transferred the moths. Philip closed the box
+carefully, but the watching mother saw that his eyes were following the girl’s
+face. He was not making the slightest attempt to conceal his admiration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wonder if a woman ever did anything lovelier than to find a pair of Luna
+moths on a forest path, early on a perfect June morning,” he said to Mrs.
+Comstock, when he returned the box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She glanced at Elnora who was intently searching the bushes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Look here, young man,” said Mrs. Comstock. “You seem to find that girl of mine
+about right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I could suggest no improvement,” said Philip. “I never saw a more attractive
+girl anywhere. She seems absolutely perfect to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then suppose you don’t start any scheme calculated to spoil her!” proposed
+Mrs. Comstock dryly. “I don’t think you can, or that any man could, but I’m not
+taking any risks. You asked to come here to help in this work. We are both glad
+to have you, if you confine yourself to work; but it’s the least you can do to
+leave us as you find us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I beg your pardon!” said Philip. “I intended no offence. I admire her as I
+admire any perfect creation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And nothing in all this world spoils the average girl so quickly and so
+surely,” said Mrs. Comstock. She raised her voice. “Elnora, fasten up that tag
+of hair over your left ear. These bushes muss you so you remind me of a sheep
+poking its nose through a hedge fence.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock started down the path toward the log again, when she reached it
+she called sharply: “Elnora, come here! I believe I have found something
+myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The “something” was a Citheronia Regalis which had emerged from its case on the
+soft earth under the log. It climbed up the wood, its stout legs dragging a big
+pursy body, while it wildly flapped tiny wings the size of a man’s thumb-nail.
+Elnora gave one look and a cry which brought Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the rarest moth in America!” he announced. “Mrs. Comstock, you’ve gone
+up head. You can put that in a box with a screen cover to-night, and attract
+half a dozen, possibly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is it rare, Elnora?” inquired Mrs. Comstock, as if no one else knew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It surely is,” answered Elnora. “If we can find it a mate to-night, it will
+lay from two hundred and fifty to three hundred eggs to-morrow. With any luck
+at all I can raise two hundred caterpillars from them. I did once before. And
+they are worth a dollar apiece.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Was the one I killed like that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. That was a different moth, but its life processes were the same as this.
+The Bird Woman calls this the King of the Poets.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why does she?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Because it is named for Citheron who was a poet, and regalis refers to a king.
+You mustn’t touch it or you may stunt wing development. You watch and don’t let
+that moth out of sight, or anything touch it. When the wings are expanded and
+hardened we will put it in a box.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am afraid it will race itself to death,” objected Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s a part of the game,” said Philip. “It is starting circulation now. When
+the right moment comes, it will stop and expand its wings. If you watch closely
+you can see them expand.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently the moth found a rough projection of bark and clung with its feet,
+back down, its wings hanging. The body was an unusual orange red, the tiny
+wings were gray, striped with the red and splotched here and there with
+markings of canary yellow. Mrs. Comstock watched breathlessly. Presently she
+slipped from the log and knelt to secure a better view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are its wings developing?” called Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are growing larger and the markings coming stronger every minute.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s watch, too,” said Elnora to Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They came and looked over Mrs. Comstock’s shoulder. Lower drooped the gay
+wings, wider they spread, brighter grew the markings as if laid off in
+geometrical patterns. They could hear Mrs. Comstock’s tense breath and see her
+absorbed expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Young people,” she said solemnly, “if your studying science and the elements
+has ever led you to feel that things just happen, kind of evolve by chance, as
+it were, this sight will be good for you. Maybe earth and air accumulate, but
+it takes the wisdom of the Almighty God to devise the wing of a moth. If there
+ever was a miracle, this whole process is one. Now, as I understand it, this
+creature is going to keep on spreading those wings, until they grow to size and
+harden to strength sufficient to bear its body. Then it flies away, mates with
+its kind, lays its eggs on the leaves of a certain tree, and the eggs hatch
+tiny caterpillars which eat just that kind of leaves, and the worms grow and
+grow, and take on different forms and colours until at last they are big
+caterpillars six inches long, with large horns. Then they burrow into the
+earth, build a water-proof house around themselves from material which is
+inside them, and lie through rain and freezing cold for months. A year from egg
+laying they come out like this, and begin the process all over again. They
+don’t eat, they don’t see distinctly, they live but a few days, and fly only at
+night; then they drop off easy, but the process goes on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A shivering movement went over the moth. The wings drooped and spread wider.
+Mrs. Comstock sank into soft awed tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There never was a moment in my life,” she said, “when I felt so in the
+Presence, as I do now. I feel as if the Almighty were so real, and so near,
+that I could reach out and touch Him, as I could this wonderful work of His, if
+I dared. I feel like saying to Him: ‘To the extent of my brain power I realize
+Your presence, and all it is in me to comprehend of Your power. Help me to
+learn, even this late, the lessons of Your wonderful creations. Help me to
+unshackle and expand my soul to the fullest realization of Your wonders.
+Almighty God, make me bigger, make me broader!’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moth climbed to the end of the projection, up it a little way, then
+suddenly reversed its wings, turned the hidden sides out and dropped them
+beside its abdomen, like a large fly. The upper side of the wings, thus
+exposed, was far richer colour, more exquisite texture than the under, and they
+slowly half lifted and drooped again. Mrs. Comstock turned her face to Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Am I an old fool, or do you feel it, too?” she half whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are wiser than you ever have been before,” answered he. “I feel it, also.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I,” breathed Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moth spread its wings, shivered them tremulously, opening and closing them
+rapidly. Philip handed the box to Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t take that one,” she said. “Give her freedom.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But, Elnora,” protested Mrs. Comstock, “I don’t want to let her go. She’s
+mine. She’s the first one I ever found this way. Can’t you put her in a big
+box, and let her live, without hurting her? I can’t bear to let her go. I want
+to learn all about her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then watch while we gather these on the trees,” said Elnora. “We will take her
+home until night and then decide what to do. She won’t fly for a long time
+yet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock settled on the ground, gazing at the moth. Elnora and Philip went
+to the baited trees, placing several large moths and a number of smaller ones
+in the cyanide jar, and searching the bushes beyond where they found several
+paired specimens of differing families. When they returned Elnora showed her
+mother how to hold her hand before the moth so that it would climb upon her
+fingers. Then they started back to the cabin, Elnora and Philip leading the
+way; Mrs. Comstock followed slowly, stepping with great care lest she stumble
+and injure the moth. Her face wore a look of comprehension, in her eyes was an
+exalted light. On she came to the blue-bordered pool lying beside her path.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A turtle scrambled from a log and splashed into the water, while a red-wing
+shouted, “O-ka-lee!” to her. Mrs. Comstock paused and looked intently at the
+slime-covered quagmire, framed in a flower riot and homed over by sweet-voiced
+birds. Then she gazed at the thing of incomparable beauty clinging to her
+fingers and said softly: “If you had known about wonders like these in the days
+of your youth, Robert Comstock, could you ever have done what you did?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora missed her mother, and turning to look for her, saw her standing beside
+the pool. Would the old fascination return? A panic of fear seized the girl.
+She went back swiftly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you afraid she is going?” Elnora asked. “If you are, cup your other hand
+over her for shelter. Carrying her through this air and in the hot sunshine
+will dry her wings and make them ready for flight very quickly. You can’t trust
+her in such air and light as you can in the cool dark woods.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While she talked she took hold of her mother’s sleeve, anxiously smiling a
+pitiful little smile that Mrs. Comstock understood. Philip set his load at the
+back door, returning to hold open the garden gate for Elnora and Mrs. Comstock.
+He reached it in time to see them standing together beside the pool. The mother
+bent swiftly and kissed the girl on the lips. Philip turned and was busily
+hunting moths on the raspberry bushes when they reached the gate. And so
+excellent are the rewards of attending your own business, that he found a
+Promethea on a lilac in a corner; a moth of such rare wine-coloured, velvety
+shades that it almost sent Mrs. Comstock to her knees again. But this one was
+fully developed, able to fly, and had to be taken into the cabin hurriedly.
+Mrs. Comstock stood in the middle of the room holding up her Regalis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now what must I do?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora glanced at Philip Ammon. Their eyes met and both of them smiled; he with
+amusement at the tall, spare figure, with dark eyes and white crown, asking the
+childish question so confidingly; and Elnora with pride. She was beginning to
+appreciate the character of her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How would you like to sit and see her finish development? I’ll get dinner,”
+proposed the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After they had dined, Philip and Elnora carried the dishes to the kitchen,
+brought out boxes, sheets of cork, pins, ink, paper slips and everything
+necessary for mounting and classifying the moths they had taken. When the
+housework was finished Mrs. Comstock with her ruffle sat near, watching and
+listening. She remembered all they said that she understood, and when uncertain
+she asked questions. Occasionally she laid down her work to straighten some
+flower which needed attention or to search the garden for a bug for the
+grosbeak. In one of these absences Elnora said to Philip: “These replace quite
+a number of the moths I lost for the man of India. With a week of such luck, I
+could almost begin to talk college again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is no reason why you should not have the week and the luck,” said he. “I
+have taken moths until the middle of August, though I suspect one is more
+likely to find late ones in the north where it is colder than here. The next
+week is hay-time, but we can count on a few double-brooders and strays, and by
+working the exchange method for all it is worth, I think we can complete the
+collection again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You almost make me hope,” said Elnora, “but I must not allow myself. I don’t
+truly think I can replace all I lost, not even with your help. If I could, I
+scarcely see my way clear to leave mother this winter. I have found her so
+recently, and she is so precious, I can’t risk losing her again. I am going to
+take the nature position in the Onabasha schools, and I shall be most happy
+doing the work. Only, these are a temptation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish you might go to college this fall with the other girls,” said Philip.
+“I feel that if you don’t you never will. Isn’t there some way?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t see it if there is, and I really don’t want to leave mother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, mother is mighty glad to hear it,” said Mrs. Comstock, entering the
+arbour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip noticed that her face was pale, her lips quivering, her voice cold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I was telling your daughter that she should go to college this winter,” he
+explained, “but she says she doesn’t want to leave you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If she wants to go, I wish she could,” said Mrs. Comstock, a look of relief
+spreading over her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, all girls want to go to college,” said Philip. “It’s the only proper place
+to learn bridge and embroidery; not to mention midnight lunches of mixed
+pickles and fruit cake, and all the delights of the sororities.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have thought for years of going to college,” said Elnora, “but I never
+thought of any of those things.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is because your education in fudge and bridge has been sadly neglected,”
+said Philip. “You should hear my sister Polly! This was her final year! Lunches
+and sororities were all I heard her mention, until Tom Levering came on deck;
+now he is the leading subject. I can’t see from her daily conversation that she
+knows half as much really worth knowing as you do, but she’s ahead of you miles
+on fun.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, we had some good times in the high school,” said Elnora. “Life hasn’t been
+all work and study. Is Edith Carr a college girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. She is the very selectest kind of a private boarding-school girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who is she?” asked Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip opened his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She is a girl in Chicago, that Mr. Ammon knows very well,” said Elnora. “She
+is beautiful and rich, and a friend of his sister’s. Or, didn’t you say that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t remember, but she is,” said Philip. “This moth needs an alcohol bath
+to remove the dope.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Won’t the down come, too?” asked Elnora anxiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. You watch and you will see it come out, as Polly would say, ‘a perfectly
+good’ moth.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is your sister younger than you?” inquired Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Philip, “but she is three years older than you. She is the dearest
+sister in all the world. I’d love to see her now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you send for her,” suggested Elnora. “Perhaps she’d like to help us
+catch moths.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I think Polly in a Virot hat, Picot embroidered frock and three-inch
+heels would take more moths than any one who ever tried the Limberlost,”
+laughed Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you find many of them, and you are her brother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, but that is different. Father was reared in Onabasha, and he loved the
+country. He trained me his way and mother took charge of Polly. I don’t quite
+understand it. Mother is a great home body herself, but she did succeed in
+making Polly strictly ornamental.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Does Tom Levering need a ‘strictly ornamental’ girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are too matter of fact! Too ‘strictly’ material. He needs a darling girl
+who will love him plenty, and Polly is that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, then, does the Limberlost need a ‘strictly ornamental’ girl?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!” cried Philip. “You are ornament enough for the Limberlost. I have changed
+my mind. I don’t want Polly here. She would not enjoy catching moths, or
+anything we do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She might,” persisted Elnora. “You are her brother, and surely you care for
+these things.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The argument does not hold,” said Philip. “Polly and I do not like the same
+things when we are at home, but we are very fond of each other. The member of
+my family who would go crazy about this is my father. I wish he could come, if
+only for a week. I’d send for him, but he is tied up in preparing some papers
+for a great corporation case this summer. He likes the country. It was his vote
+that brought me here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip leaned back against the arbour, watching the grosbeak as it hunted food
+between a tomato vine and a day lily. Elnora set him to making labels, and when
+he finished them he asked permission to write a letter. He took no pains to
+conceal his page, and from where she sat opposite him, Elnora could not look
+his way without reading: “My dearest Edith.” He wrote busily for a time and
+then sat staring across the garden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you run out of material so quickly?” asked Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s about it,” said Philip. “I have said that I am getting well as rapidly
+as possible, that the air is fine, the folks at Uncle Doc’s all well, and
+entirely too good to me; that I am spending most of my time in the country
+helping catch moths for a collection, which is splendid exercise; now I can’t
+think of another thing that will be interesting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a burst of exquisite notes in the maple.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Put in the grosbeak,” suggested Elnora. “Tell her you are so friendly with him
+you feed him potato bugs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip lowered the pen to the sheet, bent forward, then hesitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Blest if I do!” he cried. “She’d think a grosbeak was a depraved person with a
+large nose. She’d never dream that it was a black-robed lover, with a breast of
+snow and a crimson heart. She doesn’t care for hungry babies and potato bugs. I
+shall write that to father. He will find it delightful.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora deftly picked up a moth, pinned it and placed its wings. She
+straightened the antennae, drew each leg into position and set it in perfectly
+lifelike manner. As she lifted her work to see if she had it right, she glanced
+at Philip. He was still frowning and hesitating over the paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I dare you to let me dictate a couple of paragraphs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Done!” cried Philip. “Go slowly enough that I can write it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora laughed gleefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am writing this,” she began, “in an old grape arbour in the country, near a
+log cabin where I had my dinner. From where I sit I can see directly into the
+home of the next-door neighbour on the west. His name is R. B. Grosbeak. From
+all I have seen of him, he is a gentleman of the old school; the oldest school
+there is, no doubt. He always wears a black suit and cap and a white vest,
+decorated with one large red heart, which I think must be the emblem of some
+ancient order. I have been here a number of times, and I never have seen him
+wear anything else, or his wife appear in other than a brown dress with touches
+of white.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It has appealed to me at times that she was a shade neglectful of her home
+duties, but he does not seem to feel that way. He cheerfully stays in the
+sitting-room, while she is away having a good time, and sings while he cares
+for the four small children. I must tell you about his music. I am sure he
+never saw inside a conservatory. I think he merely picked up what he knows by
+ear and without vocal training, but there is a tenderness in his tones, a depth
+of pure melody, that I never have heard surpassed. It may be that I think more
+of his music than that of some other good vocalists hereabout, because I see
+more of him and appreciate his devotion to his home life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I just had an encounter with him at the west fence, and induced him to carry a
+small gift to his children. When I see the perfect harmony in which he lives,
+and the depth of content he and the brown lady find in life, I am almost
+persuaded to&mdash; Now this is going to be poetry,” said Elnora. “Move your
+pen over here and begin with a quote and a cap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip’s face had been an interesting study while he wrote her sentences. Now
+he gravely set the pen where she indicated, and Elnora dictated&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+“Buy a nice little home in the country,<br/>
+And settle down there for life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the truth!” cried Philip. “It’s as big a temptation as I ever had. Go
+on!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s all,” said Elnora. “You can finish. The moths are done. I am going
+hunting for whatever I can find for the grades.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wait a minute,” begged Philip. “I am going, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. You stay with mother and finish your letter.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is done. I couldn’t add anything to that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well! Sign your name and come on. But I forgot to tell you all the
+bargain. Maybe you won’t send the letter when you hear that. The remainder is
+that you show me the reply to my part of it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, that’s easy! I wouldn’t have the slightest objection to showing you the
+whole letter.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He signed his name, folded the sheets and slipped them into his pocket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where are we going and what do we take?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you go, mother?” asked Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have a little work that should be done,” said Mrs. Comstock. “Could you
+spare me? Where do you want to go?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We will go down to Aunt Margaret’s and see her a few minutes and get Billy. We
+will be back in time for supper.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock smiled as she watched them down the road. What a splendid-looking
+pair of young creatures they were! How finely proportioned, how full of
+vitality! Then her face grew troubled as she saw them in earnest conversation.
+Just as she was wishing she had not trusted her precious girl with so much of a
+stranger, she saw Elnora stoop to lift a branch and peer under. The mother grew
+content. Elnora was thinking only of her work. She was to be trusted utterly.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0016"></a>
+CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST SINGS FOR PHILIP, AND THE TALKING TREES TELL GREAT
+SECRETS</h3>
+
+<p>
+A few days later Philip handed Elnora a sheet of paper and she read: “In your
+condition I should think the moth hunting and life at that cabin would be very
+good for you, but for any sake keep away from that Grosbeak person, and don’t
+come home with your head full of granger ideas. No doubt he has a remarkable
+voice, but I can’t bear untrained singers, and don’t you get the idea that a
+June song is perennial. You are not hearing the music he will make when the
+four babies have the scarlet fever and the measles, and the gadding wife leaves
+him at home to care for them then. Poor soul, I pity her! How she exists where
+rampant cows bellow at you, frogs croak, mosquitoes consume you, the butter
+goes to oil in summer and bricks in winter, while the pump freezes every day,
+and there is no earthly amusement, and no society! Poor things! Can’t you
+influence him to move? No wonder she gads when she has a chance! I should die.
+If you are thinking of settling in the country, think also of a woman who is
+satisfied with white and brown to accompany you! Brown! Of all deadly colours!
+I should go mad in brown.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora laughed while she read. Her face was dimpling, as she returned the
+sheet. “Who’s ahead?” she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who do you think?” he parried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She is,” said Elnora. “Are you going to tell her in your next that R. B.
+Grosbeak is a bird, and that he probably will spend the winter in a wild plum
+thicket in Tennessee?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Philip. “I shall tell her that I understand her ideas of life
+perfectly, and, of course, I never shall ask her to deal with oily butter and
+frozen pumps&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&mdash;and measley babies,” interpolated Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Exactly!” said Philip. “At the same time I find so much to counterbalance
+those things, that I should not object to bearing them myself, in view of the
+recompense. Where do we go and what do we do to-day?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We will have to hunt beside the roads and around the edge of the Limberlost
+to-day,” said Elnora. “Mother is making strawberry preserves, and she can’t
+come until she finishes. Suppose we go down to the swamp and I’ll show you what
+is left of the flower-room that Terence O’More, the big lumber man of Great
+Rapids, made when he was a homeless boy here. Of course, you have heard the
+story?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, and I’ve met the O’Mores who are frequently in Chicago society. They have
+friends there. I think them one ideal couple.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That sounds as if they might be the only one,” said Elnora, “and, indeed, they
+are not. I know dozens. Aunt Margaret and Uncle Wesley are another, the
+Brownlees another, and my mathematics professor and his wife. The world is full
+of happy people, but no one ever hears of them. You must fight and make a
+scandal to get into the papers. No one knows about all the happy people. I am
+happy myself, and look how perfectly inconspicuous I am.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You only need go where you will be seen,” began Philip, when he remembered and
+finished. “What do we take to-day?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ourselves,” said Elnora. “I have a vagabond streak in my blood and it’s in
+evidence. I am going to show you where real flowers grow, real birds sing, and
+if I feel quite right about it, perhaps I shall raise a note or two myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, do you sing?” asked Philip politely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At times,” answered Elnora. “‘As do the birds; because I must,’ but don’t be
+scared. The mood does not possess me often. Perhaps I shan’t raise a note.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went down the road to the swamp, climbed the snake fence, followed the
+path to the old trail and then turned south upon it. Elnora indicated to Philip
+the trail with remnants of sagging barbed wire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was ten years ago,” she said. “I was a little school girl, but I wandered
+widely even then, and no one cared. I saw him often. He had been in a city
+institution all his life, when he took the job of keeping timber thieves out of
+this swamp, before many trees had been cut. It was a strong man’s work, and he
+was a frail boy, but he grew hardier as he lived out of doors. This trail we
+are on is the path his feet first wore, in those days when he was insane with
+fear and eaten up with loneliness, but he stuck to his work and won out. I used
+to come down to the road and creep among the bushes as far as I dared, to watch
+him pass. He walked mostly, at times he rode a wheel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Some days his face was dreadfully sad, others it was so determined a little
+child could see the force in it, and once he was radiant. That day the Swamp
+Angel was with him. I can’t tell you what she was like. I never saw any one who
+resembled her. He stopped close here to show her a bird’s nest. Then they went
+on to a sort of flower-room he had made, and he sang for her. By the time he
+left, I had gotten bold enough to come out on the trail, and I met the big
+Scotchman Freckles lived with. He saw me catching moths and butterflies, so he
+took me to the flower-room and gave me everything there. I don’t dare come
+alone often, so I can’t keep it up as he did, but you can see something of how
+it was.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora led the way and Philip followed. The outlines of the room were not
+distinct, because many of the trees were gone, but Elnora showed how it had
+been as nearly as she could.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The swamp is almost ruined now,” she said. “The maples, walnuts, and cherries
+are all gone. The talking trees are the only things left worth while.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The ‘talking trees!’ I don’t understand,” commented Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No wonder!” laughed Elnora. “They are my discovery. You know all trees whisper
+and talk during the summer, but there are two that have so much to say they
+keep on the whole winter, when the others are silent. The beeches and oaks so
+love to talk, they cling to their dead, dry leaves. In the winter the winds are
+stiffest and blow most, so these trees whisper, chatter, sob, laugh, and at
+times roar until the sound is deafening. They never cease until new leaves come
+out in the spring to push off the old ones. I love to stand beneath them with
+my ear to the trunks, interpreting what they say to fit my moods. The beeches
+branch low, and their leaves are small so they only know common earthly things;
+but the oaks run straight above almost all other trees before they branch,
+their arms are mighty, their leaves large. They meet the winds that travel
+around the globe, and from them learn the big things.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip studied the girls face. “What do the beeches tell you, Elnora?” he asked
+gently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To be patient, to be unselfish, to do unto others as I would have them do to
+me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And the oaks?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They say ‘be true,’ ‘live a clean life,’ ‘send your soul up here and the winds
+of the world will teach it what honour achieves.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wonderful secrets, those!” marvelled Philip. “Are they telling them now? Could
+I hear?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. They are only gossiping now. This is play-time. They tell the big secrets
+to a white world, when the music inspires them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The music?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All other trees are harps in the winter. Their trunks are the frames, their
+branches the strings, the winds the musicians. When the air is cold and clear,
+the world very white, and the harp music swelling, then the talking trees tell
+the strengthening, uplifting things.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You wonderful girl!” cried Philip. “What a woman you will be!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I am a woman at all worth while, it will be because I have had such
+wonderful opportunities,” said Elnora. “Not every girl is driven to the forest
+to learn what God has to say there. Here are the remains of Freckles’s room.
+The time the Angel came here he sang to her, and I listened. I never heard
+music like that. No wonder she loved him. Every one who knew him did, and they
+do yet. Try that log, it makes a fairly good seat. This old store box was his
+treasure house, just as it’s now mine. I will show you my dearest possession. I
+do not dare take it home because mother can’t overcome her dislike for it. It
+was my father’s, and in some ways I am like him. This is the strongest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora lifted the violin and began to play. She wore a school dress of green
+gingham, with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. She seemed a part of the
+setting all around her. Her head shone like a small dark sun, and her face
+never had seemed so rose-flushed and fair. From the instant she drew the bow,
+her lips parted and her eyes turned toward something far away in the swamp, and
+never did she give more of that impression of feeling for her notes and
+repeating something audible only to her. Philip was too close to get the best
+effect. He arose and stepped back several yards, leaning against a large tree,
+looking and listening intently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he changed positions he saw that Mrs. Comstock had followed them, and was
+standing on the trail, where she could not have helped hearing everything
+Elnora had said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So to Philip before her and the mother watching on the trail, Elnora played the
+Song of the Limberlost. It seemed as if the swamp hushed all its other voices
+and spoke only through her dancing bow. The mother out on the trail had heard
+it all, once before from the girl, many times from her father. To the man it
+was a revelation. He stood so stunned he forgot Mrs. Comstock. He tried to
+realize what a city audience would say to that music, from such a player, with
+a similar background, and he could not imagine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was wondering what he dared say, how much he might express, when the last
+note fell and the girl laid the violin in the case, closed the door, locked it
+and hid the key in the rotting wood at the end of a log. Then she came to him.
+Philip stood looking at her curiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wonder,” he said, “what people would say to that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I played that in public once,” said Elnora. “I think they liked it, fairly
+well. I had a note yesterday offering me the leadership of the high school
+orchestra in Onabasha. I can take it as well as not. None of my talks to the
+grades come the first thing in the morning. I can play a few minutes in the
+orchestra and reach the rooms in plenty of time. It will be more work that I
+love, and like finding the money. I would gladly play for nothing, merely to be
+able to express myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“With some people it makes a regular battlefield of the human heart&mdash;this
+struggle for self-expression,” said Philip. “You are going to do beautiful work
+in the world, and do it well. When I realize that your violin belonged to your
+father, that he played it before you were born, and it no doubt affected your
+mother strongly, and then couple with that the years you have roamed these
+fields and swamps finding in nature all you had to lavish your heart upon, I
+can see how you evolved. I understand what you mean by self-expression. I know
+something of what you have to express. The world never so wanted your message
+as it does now. It is hungry for the things you know. I can see easily how your
+position came to you. What you have to give is taught in no college, and I am
+not sure but you would spoil yourself if you tried to run your mind through a
+set groove with hundreds of others. I never thought I should say such a thing
+to any one, but I do say to you, and I honestly believe it; give up the college
+idea. Your mind does not need that sort of development. Stick close to your
+work in the woods. You are becoming so infinitely greater on it, than the best
+college girl I ever knew, that there is no comparison. When you have money to
+spend, take that violin and go to one of the world’s great masters and let the
+Limberlost sing to him; if he thinks he can improve it, very well. I have my
+doubts.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you really mean that you would give up all idea of going to college, in my
+place?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I really mean it,” said Philip. “If I now held the money in my hands to send
+you, and could give it to you in some way you would accept I would not. I do
+not know why it is the fate of the world always to want something different
+from what life gives them. If you only could realize it, my girl, you are in
+college, and have been always. You are in the school of experience, and it has
+taught you to think, and given you a heart. God knows I envy the man who wins
+it! You have been in the college of the Limberlost all your life, and I never
+met a graduate from any other institution who could begin to compare with you
+in sanity, clarity, and interesting knowledge. I wouldn’t even advise you to
+read too many books on your lines. You acquire your material first hand, and
+you know that you are right. What you should do is to begin early to practise
+self-expression. Don’t wait too long to tell us about the woods as you know
+them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Follow the course of the Bird Woman, you mean?” asked Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In your own way; with your own light. She won’t live forever. You are younger,
+and you will be ready to begin where she ends. The swamp has given you all you
+need so far; now you give it to the world in payment. College be confounded! Go
+to work and show people what there is in you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not until then did he remember Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Should we go out to the trail and see if your mother is coming?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here she is now,” said Elnora. “Gracious, it’s a mercy I got that violin put
+away in time! I didn’t expect her so soon,” whispered the girl as she turned
+and went toward her mother. Mrs. Comstock’s expression was peculiar as she
+looked at Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I forgot that you were making sun-preserves and they didn’t require much
+cooking,” she said. “We should have waited for you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not at all!” answered Mrs. Comstock. “Have you found anything yet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing that I can show you,” said Elnora. “I am almost sure I have found an
+idea that will revolutionize the whole course of my work, thought, and
+ambitions.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘Ambitions!’ My, what a hefty word!” laughed Mrs. Comstock. “Now who would
+suspect a little red-haired country girl of harbouring such a deadly germ in
+her body? Can you tell mother about it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not if you talk to me that way, I can’t,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I guess we better let ambition lie. I’ve always heard it was safest
+asleep. If you ever get a bona fide attack, it will be time to attend it. Let’s
+hunt specimens. It is June. Philip and I are in the grades. You have an hour to
+put an idea into our heads that will stick for a lifetime, and grow for good.
+That’s the way I look at your job. Now, what are you going to give us? We don’t
+want any old silly stuff that has been hashed over and over, we want a big new
+idea to plant in our hearts. Come on, Miss Teacher, what is the boiled-down,
+double-distilled essence of June? Give it to us strong. We are large enough to
+furnish it developing ground. Hurry up! Time is short and we are waiting. What
+is the miracle of June? What one thing epitomizes the whole month, and makes it
+just a little different from any other?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The birth of these big night moths,” said Elnora promptly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip clapped his hands. The tears started to Mrs. Comstock’s eyes. She took
+Elnora in her arms, and kissed her forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’ll do!” she said. “June is June, not because it has bloom, bird, fruit, or
+flower, exclusive to it alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s half May and half July in all of them. But to me, it’s just June, when it
+comes to these great, velvet-winged night moths which sweep its moonlit skies,
+consummating their scheme of creation, and dropping like a bloomed-out flower.
+Give them moths for June. Then make that the basis of your year’s work. Find
+the distinctive feature of each month, the one thing which marks it a time
+apart, and hit them squarely between the eyes with it. Even the babies of the
+lowest grades can comprehend moths when they see a few emerge, and learn their
+history, as it can be lived before them. You should show your specimens in
+pairs, then their eggs, the growing caterpillars, and then the cocoons. You
+want to dig out the red heart of every month in the year, and hold it pulsing
+before them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t name all of them off-hand, but I think of one more right now. February
+belongs to our winter birds. It is then the great horned owl of the swamp
+courts his mate, the big hawks pair, and even the crows begin to take notice.
+These are truly our birds. Like the poor we have them always with us. You
+should hear the musicians of this swamp in February, Philip, on a mellow night.
+Oh, but they are in earnest! For twenty-one years I’ve listened by night to the
+great owls, all the smaller sizes, the foxes, coons, and every resident left in
+these woods, and by day to the hawks, yellow-hammers, sap-suckers, titmice,
+crows, and other winter birds. Only just now it’s come to me that the
+distinctive feature of February is not linen bleaching, nor sugar making; it’s
+the love month of our very own birds. Give them hawks and owls for February,
+Elnora.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With flashing eyes the girl looked at Philip. “How’s that?” she said. “Don’t
+you think I will succeed, with such help? You should hear the concert she is
+talking about! It is simply indescribable when the ground is covered with snow,
+and the moonlight white.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s about the best music we have,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I wonder if you
+couldn’t copy that and make a strong, original piece out of it for your violin,
+Elnora?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was one tense breath, then&mdash;&mdash; “I could try,” said Elnora
+simply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip rushed to the rescue. “We must go to work,” he said, and began examining
+a walnut branch for Luna moth eggs. Elnora joined him while Mrs. Comstock drew
+her embroidery from her pocket and sat on a log. She said she was tired, they
+could come for her when they were ready to go. She could hear their voices
+around her until she called them at supper time. When they came to her she
+stood waiting on the trail, the sewing in one hand, the violin in the other.
+Elnora became very white, but followed the trail without a word. Philip, unable
+to see a woman carry a heavier load than he, reached for the instrument. Mrs.
+Comstock shook her head. She carried the violin home, took it into her room and
+closed the door. Elnora turned to Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If she destroys that, I shall die!” cried the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She won’t!” said Philip. “You misunderstand her. She wouldn’t have said what
+she did about the owls, if she had meant to. She is your mother. No one loves
+you as she does. Trust her! Myself&mdash;I think she’s simply great!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock returned with serene face, and all of them helped with the
+supper. When it was over Philip and Elnora sorted and classified the
+afternoon’s specimens, and made a trip to the woods to paint and light several
+trees for moths. When they came back Mrs. Comstock sat in the arbour, and they
+joined her. The moonlight was so intense, print could have been read by it. The
+damp night air held odours near to earth, making flower and tree perfume
+strong. A thousand insects were serenading, and in the maple the grosbeak
+occasionally said a reassuring word to his wife, while she answered that all
+was well. A whip-poor-will wailed in the swamp and beside the blue-bordered
+pool a chat complained disconsolately. Mrs. Comstock went into the cabin, but
+she returned immediately, laying the violin and bow across Elnora’s lap. “I
+wish you would give us a little music,” she said.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0017"></a>
+CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK DANCES IN THE MOONLIGHT, AND ELNORA MAKES A
+CONFESSION</h3>
+
+<p>
+Billy was swinging in the hammock, at peace with himself and all the world,
+when he thought he heard something. He sat bolt upright, his eyes staring. Once
+he opened his lips, then thought again and closed them. The sound persisted.
+Billy vaulted the fence, and ran down the road with his queer sidewise hop.
+When he neared the Comstock cabin, he left the warm dust of the highway and
+stepped softly at slower pace over the rank grasses of the roadside. He had
+heard aright. The violin was in the grape arbour, singing a perfect jumble of
+everything, poured out in an exultant tumult. The strings were voicing the joy
+of a happy girl heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy climbed the fence enclosing the west woods and crept toward the arbour.
+He was not a spy and not a sneak. He merely wanted to satisfy his child-heart
+as to whether Mrs. Comstock was at home, and Elnora at last playing her loved
+violin with her mother’s consent. One peep sufficed. Mrs. Comstock sat in the
+moonlight, her head leaning against the arbour; on her face was a look of
+perfect peace and contentment. As he stared at her the bow hesitated a second
+and Mrs. Comstock spoke:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s all very melodious and sweet,” she said, “but I do wish you could play
+Money Musk and some of the tunes I danced as a girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora had been carefully avoiding every note that might be reminiscent of her
+father. At the words she laughed softly and began “Turkey in the Straw.” An
+instant later Mrs. Comstock was dancing in the moon light. Ammon sprang to her
+side, caught her in his arms, while to Elnora’s laughter and the violin’s
+impetus they danced until they dropped panting on the arbour bench.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy scarcely knew when he reached the road. His light feet barely touched the
+soft way, so swiftly he flew. He vaulted the fence and burst into the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aunt Margaret! Uncle Wesley!” he screamed. “Listen! Listen! She’s playing it!
+Elnora’s playing her violin at home! And Aunt Kate is dancing like anything
+before the arbour! I saw her in the moonlight! I ran down! Oh, Aunt Margaret!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy fled sobbing to Margaret’s breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why Billy!” she chided. “Don’t cry, you little dunce! That’s what we’ve all
+prayed for these many years; but you must be mistaken about Kate. I can’t
+believe it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy lifted his head. “Well, you just have to!” he said. “When I say I saw
+anything, Uncle Wesley knows I did. The city man was dancing with her. They
+danced together and Elnora laughed. But it didn’t look funny to me; I was
+scared.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who was it said ‘wonders never cease,’” asked Wesley. “You mark my word, once
+you get Kate Comstock started, you can’t stop her. There’s a wagon load of
+penned-up force in her. Dancing in the moonlight! Well, I’ll be hanged!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy was at his side instantly. “Whoever does it will have to hang me, too,”
+he cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sinton threw his arm around Billy and drew him closely. “Tell us all about it,
+son,” he said. Billy told. “And when Elnora just stopped a breath, ‘Can’t you
+play some of the old things I knew when I was a girl?’ said her ma. Then Elnora
+began to do a thing that made you want to whirl round and round, and quicker
+’an scat there was her ma a-whirling. The city man, he ups and grabs her and
+whirls, too, and back in the woods I was going just like they did. Elnora
+begins to laugh, and I ran to tell you, cos I knew you’d like to know. Now, all
+the world is right, ain’t it?” ended Billy in supreme satisfaction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You just bet it is!” said Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy looked steadily at Margaret. “Is it, Aunt Margaret?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret Sinton smiled at him bravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An hour later when Billy was ready to climb the stairs to his room, he went to
+Margaret to say good night. He leaned against her an instant, then brought his
+lips to her ear. “Wish I could get your little girls back for you!” he
+whispered and dashed toward the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down at the Comstock cabin the violin played on until Elnora was so tired she
+scarcely could lift the bow. Then Philip went home. The women walked to the
+gate with him, and stood watching him from sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s what I call one decent young man!” said Mrs. Comstock. “To see him fit
+in with us, you’d think he’d been brought up in a cabin; but it’s likely he’s
+always had the very cream o’ the pot.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I think so,” laughed Elnora, “but it hasn’t hurt him. I’ve never seen
+anything I could criticise. He’s teaching me so much, unconsciously. You know
+he graduated from Harvard, and has several degrees in law. He’s coming in the
+morning, and we are going to put in a big day on Catocalæ.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Which is&mdash;&mdash;?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Those gray moths with wings that fold back like big flies, and they appear as
+if they had been carved from old wood. Then, when they fly, the lower wings
+flash out and they are red and black, or gold and black, or pink and black, or
+dozens of bright, beautiful colours combined with black. No one ever has
+classified all of them and written their complete history, unless the Bird
+Woman is doing it now. She wants everything she can get about them.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I remember,” said Mrs. Comstock. “They are mighty pretty things. I’ve started
+up slews of them from the vines covering the logs, all my life. I must be
+cautious and catch them after this, but they seem powerful spry. I might get
+hold of something rare.” She thought intently and added, “And wouldn’t know it
+if I did. It would just be my luck. I’ve had the rarest thing on earth in reach
+this many a day and only had the wit to cinch it just as it was going. I’ll bet
+I don’t let anything else escape me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next morning Philip came early, and he and Elnora went at once to the fields
+and woods. Mrs. Comstock had come to believe so implicitly in him that she now
+stayed at home to complete the work before she joined them, and when she did
+she often sat sewing, leaving them wandering hours at a time. It was noon
+before she finished, and then she packed a basket of lunch. She found Elnora
+and Philip near the violet patch, which was still in its prime. They all
+lunched together in the shade of a wild crab thicket, with flowers spread at
+their feet, and the gold orioles streaking the air with flashes of light and
+trailing ecstasy behind them, while the red-wings, as always, asked the most
+impertinent questions. Then Mrs. Comstock carried the basket back to the cabin,
+and Philip and Elnora sat on a log, resting a few minutes. They had unexpected
+luck, and both were eager to continue the search.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you remember your promise about these violets?” asked he. “To-morrow is
+Edith’s birthday, and if I’d put them special delivery on the morning train,
+she’d get them in the late afternoon. They ought to keep that long. She leaves
+for the North next day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, you may have them,” said Elnora. “We will quit long enough before
+supper to gather a large bunch. They can be packed so they will carry all
+right. They should be perfectly fresh, especially if we gather them this
+evening and let them drink all night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they went back to hunt Catocalæ. It was a long and a happy search. It led
+them into new, unexplored nooks of the woods, past a red-poll nest, and where
+goldfinches prospected for thistledown for the cradles they would line a little
+later. It led them into real forest, where deep, dark pools lay, where the
+hermit thrush and the wood robin extracted the essence from all other bird
+melody, and poured it out in their pure bell-tone notes. It seemed as if every
+old gray tree-trunk, slab of loose bark, and prostrate log yielded the flashing
+gray treasures; while of all others they seemed to take alarm most easily, and
+be most difficult to capture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip came to Elnora at dusk, daintily holding one by the body, its dark wings
+showing and its long slender legs trying to clasp his fingers and creep from
+his hold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh for mercy’s sake!” cried Elnora, staring at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I half believe it!” exulted Ammon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you ever see one?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Only in collections, and very seldom there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora studied the black wings intently. “I surely believe that’s Sappho,” she
+marvelled. “The Bird Woman will be overjoyed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We must get the cyanide jar quickly,” said Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wouldn’t lose her for anything. Such a chase as she led me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora brought the jar and began gathering up paraphernalia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When you make a find like that,” she said, “it’s the right time to quit and
+feel glorious all the rest of that day. I tell you I’m proud! We will go now.
+We have barely time to carry out our plans before supper. Won’t mother be
+pleased to see that we have a rare one?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’d like to see any one more pleased than I am!” said Philip Ammon. “I feel as
+if I’d earned my supper to-night. Let’s go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took the greater part of the load and stepped aside for Elnora to precede
+him. She followed the path, broken by the grazing cattle, toward the cabin and
+nearest the violet patch she stopped, laid down her net, and the things she
+carried. Philip passed her and hurried straight toward the back gate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aren’t you going to&mdash;&mdash;?” began Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m going to get this moth home in a hurry,” he said. “This cyanide has lost
+its strength, and it’s not working well. We need some fresh in the jar.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had forgotten the violets! Elnora stood looking after him, a curious
+expression on her face. One second so&mdash;then she picked up the net and
+followed. At the blue-bordered pool she paused and half turned back, then she
+closed her lips firmly and went on. It was nine o’clock when Philip said
+good-bye, and started to town. His gay whistle floated to them from the
+farthest corner of the Limberlost. Elnora complained of being tired, so she
+went to her room and to bed. But sleep would not come. Thought was racing in
+her brain and the longer she lay the wider awake she grew. At last she softly
+slipped from bed, lighted her lamp and began opening boxes. Then she went to
+work. Two hours later a beautiful birch bark basket, strongly and artistically
+made, stood on her table. She set a tiny alarm clock at three, returned to bed
+and fell asleep instantly with a smile on her lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was on the floor with the first tinkle of the alarm, and hastily dressing,
+she picked up the basket and a box to fit it, crept down the stairs, and out to
+the violet patch. She was unafraid as it was growing light, and lining the
+basket with damp mosses she swiftly began picking, with practised hands, the
+best of the flowers. She scarcely could tell which were freshest at times, but
+day soon came creeping over the Limberlost and peeped at her. The robins awoke
+all their neighbours, and a babel of bird notes filled the air. The dew was
+dripping, while the first strong rays of light fell on a world in which Elnora
+worshipped. When the basket was filled to overflowing, she set it in the stout
+pasteboard box, packed it solid with mosses, tied it firmly and slipped under
+the cord a note she had written the previous night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she took a short cut across the woods and walked swiftly to Onabasha. It
+was after six o’clock, but all of the city she wished to avoid were asleep. She
+had no trouble in finding a small boy out, and she stood at a distance waiting
+while he rang Dr. Ammon’s bell and delivered the package for Philip to a maid,
+with the note which was to be given him at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the way home through the woods passing some baited trees she collected the
+captive moths. She entered the kitchen with them so naturally that Mrs.
+Comstock made no comment. After breakfast Elnora went to her room, cleared away
+all trace of the night’s work and was out in the arbour mounting moths when
+Philip came down the road. “I am tired sitting,” she said to her mother. “I
+think I will walk a few rods and meet him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Who’s a trump?” he called from afar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not you!” retorted Elnora. “Confess that you forgot!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Completely!” said Philip. “But luckily it would not have been fatal. I wrote
+Polly last week to send Edith something appropriate to-day, with my card. But
+that touch from the woods will be very effective. Thank you more than I can
+say. Aunt Anna and I unpacked it to see the basket, and it was a beauty. She
+says you are always doing such things.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I hope not!” laughed Elnora. “If you’d seen me sneaking out before dawn,
+not to awaken mother and coming in with moths to make her think I’d been to the
+trees, you’d know it was a most especial occasion.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Philip understood two things: Elnora’s mother did not know of the early
+morning trip to the city, and the girl had come to meet him to tell him so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You were a brick to do it!” he whispered as he closed the gate behind them.
+“I’ll never forget you for it. Thank you ever so much.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did not do that for you,” said Elnora tersely. “I did it mostly to preserve
+my own self-respect. I saw you were forgetting. If I did it for anything
+besides that, I did it for her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just look what I’ve brought!” said Philip, entering the arbour and greeting
+Mrs. Comstock. “Borrowed it of the Bird Woman. And it isn’t hers. A rare
+edition of Catocalæ with coloured plates. I told her the best I could, and she
+said to try for Sappho here. I suspect the Bird Woman will be out presently.
+She was all excitement.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they bent over the book together and with the mounted moth before them
+determined her family. The Bird Woman did come later, and carried the moth
+away, to put into a book and Elnora and Philip were freshly filled with
+enthusiasm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So these days were the beginning of the weeks that followed. Six of them flying
+on Time’s wings, each filled to the brim with interest. After June, the moth
+hunts grew less frequent; the fields and woods were searched for material for
+Elnora’s grade work. The most absorbing occupation they found was in carrying
+out Mrs. Comstock’s suggestion to learn the vital thing for which each month
+was distinctive, and make that the key to the nature work. They wrote out a
+list of the months, opposite each the things all of them could suggest which
+seemed to pertain to that month alone, and then tried to sift until they found
+something typical. Mrs. Comstock was a great help. Her mother had been Dutch
+and had brought from Holland numerous quaint sayings and superstitions easily
+traceable to Pliny’s Natural History; and in Mrs. Comstock’s early years in
+Ohio she had heard much Indian talk among her elders, so she knew the signs of
+each season, and sometimes they helped. Always her practical thought and
+sterling common sense were useful. When they were afield until exhausted they
+came back to the cabin for food, to prepare specimens and classify them, and to
+talk over the day. Sometimes Philip brought books and read while Elnora and her
+mother worked, and every night Mrs. Comstock asked for the violin. Her perfect
+hunger for music was sufficient evidence of how she had suffered without it. So
+the days crept by, golden, filled with useful work and pure pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The grosbeak had led the family in the maple abroad and a second brood, in a
+wild grape vine clambering over the well, was almost ready for flight. The dust
+lay thick on the country roads, the days grew warmer; summer was just poising
+to slip into fall, and Philip remained, coming each day as if he had belonged
+there always.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One warm August afternoon Mrs. Comstock looked up from the ruffle on which she
+was engaged to see a blue-coated messenger enter the gate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is Philip Ammon here?” asked the boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He is,” said Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have a message for him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He is in the woods back of the cabin. I will ring the bell. Do you know if it
+is important?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Urgent,” said the boy; “I rode hard.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock stepped to the back door and clanged the dinner bell sharply,
+paused a second, and rang again. In a short time Philip and Elnora ran down the
+path.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you ill, mother?” cried Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock indicated the boy. “There is an important message for Philip,”
+she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He muttered an excuse and tore open the telegram. His colour faded slightly. “I
+have to take the first train,” he said. “My father is ill and I am needed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He handed the sheet to Elnora. “I have about two hours, as I remember the
+trains north, but my things are all over Uncle Doc’s house, so I must go at
+once.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly,” said Elnora, giving back the message. “Is there anything I can do
+to help? Mother, bring Philip a glass of buttermilk to start on. I will gather
+what you have here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never mind. There is nothing of importance. I don’t want to be hampered. I’ll
+send for it if I miss anything I need.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip drank the milk, said good-bye to Mrs. Comstock; thanked her for all her
+kindness, and turned to Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you walk to the edge of the Limberlost with me?” he asked. Elnora
+assented. Mrs. Comstock followed to the gate, urged him to come again soon, and
+repeated her good-bye. Then she went back to the arbour to await Elnora’s
+return. As she watched down the road she smiled softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I had an idea he would speak to me first,” she thought, “but this may change
+things some. He hasn’t time. Elnora will come back a happy girl, and she has
+good reason. He is a model young man. Her lot will be very different from
+mine.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She picked up her embroidery and began setting dainty precise little stitches,
+possible only to certain women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the road Elnora spoke first. “I do hope it is nothing serious,” she said.
+“Is he usually strong?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Quite strong,” said Philip. “I am not at all alarmed but I am very much
+ashamed. I have been well enough for the past month to have gone home and
+helped him with some critical cases that were keeping him at work in this heat.
+I was enjoying myself so I wouldn’t offer to go, and he would not ask me to
+come, so long as he could help it. I have allowed him to overtax himself until
+he is down, and mother and Polly are north at our cottage. He’s never been sick
+before, and it’s probable I am to blame that he is now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He intended you to stay this long when you came,” urged Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, but it’s hot in Chicago. I should have remembered him. He is always
+thinking of me. Possibly he has needed me for days. I am ashamed to go to him
+in splendid condition and admit that I was having such a fine time I forgot to
+come home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have had a fine time, then?” asked Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had reached the fence. Philip vaulted over to take a short cut across the
+fields. He turned and looked at her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The best, the sweetest, and most wholesome time any man ever had in this
+world,” he said. “Elnora, if I talked hours I couldn’t make you understand what
+a girl I think you are. I never in all my life hated anything as I hate leaving
+you. It seems to me that I have not strength to do it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you have learned anything worth while from me,” said Elnora, “that should
+be it. Just to have strength to go to your duty, and to go quickly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He caught the hand she held out to him in both his. “Elnora, these days we have
+had together, have they been sweet to you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Beautiful days!” said Elnora. “Each like a perfect dream to be thought over
+and over all my life. Oh, they have been the only really happy days I’ve ever
+known; these days rich with mother’s love, and doing useful work with your
+help. Good-bye! You must hurry!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip gazed at her. He tried to drop her hand, only clutched it closer.
+Suddenly he drew her toward him. “Elnora,” he whispered, “will you kiss me
+good-bye?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora drew back and stared at him with wide eyes. “I’d strike you sooner!” she
+said. “Have I ever said or done anything in your presence that made you feel
+free to ask that, Philip Ammon?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!” panted Philip. “No! I think so much of you I wanted to touch your lips
+once before I left you. You know, Elnora&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t distress yourself,” said Elnora calmly. “I am broad enough to judge you
+sanely. I know what you mean. It would be no harm to you. It would not matter
+to me, but here we will think of some one else. Edith Carr would not want your
+lips to-morrow if she knew they had touched mine to-day. I was wise to say: ‘Go
+quickly!’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip still clung to her. “Will you write me?” he begged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” said Elnora. “There is nothing to say, save good-bye. We can do that
+now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He held on. “Promise that you will write me only one letter,” he urged. “I want
+just one message from you to lock in my desk, and keep always. Promise you will
+write once, Elnora.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked into his eyes, and smiled serenely. “If the talking trees tell me
+this winter, the secret of how a man may grow perfect, I will write you what it
+is, Philip. In all the time I have known you, I never have liked you so little.
+Good-bye.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She drew away her hand and swiftly turned back to the road. Philip Ammon,
+wordless, started toward Onabasha on a run.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora crossed the road, climbed the fence and sought the shelter of their own
+woods. She chose a diagonal course and followed it until she came to the path
+leading past the violet patch. She went down this hurriedly. Her hands were
+clenched at her side, her eyes dry and bright, her cheeks red-flushed, and her
+breath coming fast. When she reached the patch she turned into it and stood
+looking around her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mosses were dry, the flowers gone, weeds a foot high covered it. She turned
+away and went on down the path until she was almost in sight of the cabin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock smiled and waited in the arbour until it occurred to her that
+Elnora was a long time coming, so she went to the gate. The road stretched away
+toward the Limberlost empty and lonely. Then she knew that Elnora had gone into
+their own woods and would come in the back way. She could not understand why
+the girl did not hurry to her with what she would have to tell. She went out
+and wandered around the garden. Then she stepped into the path and started
+along the way leading to the woods, past the pool now framed in a thick setting
+of yellow lilies. Then she saw, and stopped, gasping for breath. Her hands flew
+up and her lined face grew ghastly. She stared at the sky and then at the
+prostrate girl figure. Over and over she tried to speak, but only a dry breath
+came. She turned and fled back to the garden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the familiar enclosure she gazed around her like a caged animal seeking
+escape. The sun beat down on her bare head mercilessly, and mechanically she
+moved to the shade of a half-grown hickory tree that voluntarily had sprouted
+beside the milk house. At her feet lay an axe with which she made kindlings for
+fires. She stooped and picked it up. The memory of that prone figure sobbing in
+the grass caught her with a renewed spasm. She shut her eyes as if to close it
+out. That made hearing so acute she felt certain she heard Elnora moaning
+beside the path. The eyes flew open. They looked straight at a few spindling
+tomato plants set too near the tree and stunted by its shade. Mrs. Comstock
+whirled on the hickory and swung the axe. Her hair shook down, her clothing
+became disarranged, in the heat the perspiration streamed, but stroke fell on
+stroke until the tree crashed over, grazing a corner of the milk house and
+smashing the garden fence on the east.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the sound Elnora sprang to her feet and came running down the garden walk.
+“Mother!” she cried. “Mother! What in the world are you doing?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock wiped her ghastly face on her apron. “I’ve laid out to cut that
+tree for years,” she said. “It shades the beets in the morning, and the
+tomatoes in the afternoon!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora uttered one wild little cry and fled into her mother’s arms. “Oh
+mother!” she sobbed. “Will you ever forgive me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock’s arms swept together in a tight grip around Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There isn’t a thing on God’s footstool from a to izzard I won’t forgive you,
+my precious girl!” she said. “Tell mother what it is!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora lifted her wet face. “He told me,” she panted, “just as soon as he
+decently could&mdash;that second day he told me. Almost all his life he’s been
+engaged to a girl at home. He never cared anything about me. He was only
+interested in the moths and growing strong.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock’s arms tightened. With a shaking hand she stroked the bright
+hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me, honey,” she said. “Is he to blame for a single one of these tears?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not one!” sobbed Elnora. “Oh mother, I won’t forgive you if you don’t believe
+that. Not one! He never said, or looked, or did anything all the world might
+not have known. He likes me very much as a friend. He hated to go dreadfully!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora!” the mother’s head bent until the white hair mingled with the brown.
+“Elnora, why didn’t you tell me at first?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora caught her breath in a sharp snatch. “I know I should!” she sobbed. “I
+will bear any punishment for not, but I didn’t feel as if I possibly could. I
+was afraid.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Afraid of what?” the shaking hand was on the hair again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Afraid you wouldn’t let him come!” panted Elnora. “And oh, mother, I wanted
+him so!”
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0018"></a>
+CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK EXPERIMENTS WITH REJUVENATION, AND ELNORA TEACHES
+NATURAL HISTORY</h3>
+
+<p>
+For the following week Mrs. Comstock and Elnora worked so hard there was no
+time to talk, and they were compelled to sleep from physical exhaustion.
+Neither of them made any pretence of eating, for they could not swallow without
+an effort, so they drank milk and worked. Elnora kept on setting bait for
+Catacolae and Sphinginae, which, unlike the big moths of June, live several
+months. She took all the dragonflies and butterflies she could, and when she
+went over the list for the man of India, she found, to her amazement, that with
+Philip’s help she once more had it complete save a pair of Yellow Emperors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This circumstance was so surprising she had a fleeting thought of writing
+Philip and asking him to see if he could not secure her a pair. She did tell
+the Bird Woman, who from every source at her command tried to complete the
+series with these moths, but could not find any for sale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think the mills of the Gods are grinding this grist,” said Elnora, “and we
+might as well wait patiently until they choose to send a Yellow Emperor.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock invented work. When she had nothing more to do, she hoed in the
+garden although the earth was hard and dry and there were no plants that really
+needed attention. Then came a notification that Elnora would be compelled to
+attend a week’s session of the Teachers’ Institute held at the county seat
+twenty miles north of Onabasha the following week. That gave them something of
+which to think and real work to do. Elnora was requested to bring her violin.
+As she was on the programme of one of the most important sessions for a talk on
+nature work in grade schools, she was driven to prepare her speech, also to
+select and practise some music. Her mother turned her attention to clothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went to Onabasha together and purchased a simple and appropriate fall suit
+and hat, goods for a dainty little coloured frock, and a dress skirt and
+several fancy waists. Margaret Sinton came down and the sewing began. When
+everything was finished and packed, Elnora kissed her mother good-bye at the
+depot, and entered the train. Mrs. Comstock went into the waiting-room and
+dropped into a seat to rest. Her heart was so sore her whole left side felt
+tender. She was half starved for the food she had no appetite to take. She had
+worked in dogged determination until she was exhausted. For a time she simply
+sat and rested. Then she began to think. She was glad Elnora had gone where she
+would be compelled to fix her mind on other matters for a few days. She
+remembered the girl had said she wanted to go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+School would begin the following week. She thought over what Elnora would have
+to do to accomplish her work successfully. She would be compelled to arise at
+six o’clock, walk three miles through varying weather, lead the high school
+orchestra, and then put in the remainder of the day travelling from building to
+building over the city, teaching a specified length of time every week in each
+room. She must have her object lessons ready, and she must do a certain amount
+of practising with the orchestra. Then a cold lunch at noon, and a three-mile
+walk at night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Humph!” said Mrs. Comstock, “to get through that the girl would have to be
+made of cast-iron. I wonder how I can help her best?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She thought deeply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The less she sees of what she’s been having all summer, the sooner she’ll feel
+better about it,” she muttered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She arose, went to the bank and inquired for the cashier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to know just how I am fixed here,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cashier laughed. “You haven’t been in a hurry,” he replied. “We have been
+ready for you any time these twenty years, but you didn’t seem to pay much
+attention. Your account is rather flourishing. Interest, when it gets to
+compounding, is quite a money breeder. Come back here to a table and I will
+show you your balances.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock sank into a chair and waited while the cashier read a jumble of
+figures to her. It meant that her deposits had exceeded her expenses from one
+to three hundred dollars a year, according to the cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry,
+butter, and eggs she had sold. The aggregate of these sums had been compounding
+interest throughout the years. Mrs. Comstock stared at the total with dazed and
+unbelieving eyes. Through her sick heart rushed the realization, that if she
+merely had stood before that wicket and asked one question, she would have
+known that all those bitter years of skimping for Elnora and herself had been
+unnecessary. She arose and went back to the depot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want to send a message,” she said. She picked up the pencil, and with rash
+extravagance, wrote, “Found money at bank didn’t know about. If you want to go
+to college, come on first train and get ready.” She hesitated a second and then
+she said to herself grimly, “Yes, I’ll pay for that, too,” and recklessly
+added, “With love, Mother.” Then she sat waiting for the answer. It came in
+less than an hour. “Will teach this winter. With dearest love, Elnora.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock held the message a long time. When she arose she was ravenously
+hungry, but the pain in her heart was a little easier. She went to a restaurant
+and ate some food, then to a dressmaker where she ordered four dresses: two
+very plain every-day ones, a serviceable dark gray cloth suit, and a soft light
+gray silk with touches of lavender and lace. She made a heavy list of purchases
+at Brownlee’s, and the remainder of the day she did business in her direct and
+spirited way. At night she was so tired she scarcely could walk home, but she
+built a fire and cooked and ate a hearty meal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later she went out beside the west fence and gathered an armful of tansy which
+she boiled to a thick green tea. Then she stirred in oatmeal until it was a
+stiff paste. She spread a sheet over her bed and began tearing strips of old
+muslin. She bandaged each hand and arm with the mixture and plastered the
+soggy, evil-smelling stuff in a thick poultice over her face and neck. She was
+so tired she went to sleep, and when she awoke she was half skinned. She bathed
+her face and hands, did the work and went back to town, coming home at night to
+go through the same process.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the third morning she was a raw even red, the fourth she had faded to a
+brilliant pink under the soothing influence of a cream recommended. That day
+came a letter from Elnora saying that she would remain where she was until
+Saturday morning, and then come to Ellen Brownlee’s at Onabasha and stay for
+the Saturday’s session of teachers to arrange their year’s work. Sunday was
+Ellen’s last day at home, and she wanted Elnora very much. She had to call
+together the orchestra and practise them Sunday; and could not come home until
+after school Monday night. Mrs. Comstock at once answered the letter saying
+those arrangements suited her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following day she was a pale pink, later a delicate porcelain white. Then
+she went to a hairdresser and had the rope of snowy hair which covered her
+scalp washed, dressed, and fastened with such pins and combs as were decided to
+be most becoming. She took samples of her dresses, went to a milliner, and
+bought a street hat to match her suit, and a gray satin with lavender orchids
+to wear with the silk dress. Her last investment was a loose coat of soft gray
+broadcloth with white lining, and touches of lavender on the embroidered
+collar, and gray gloves to match.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she went home, rested and worked by turns until Monday. When school closed
+on that evening, Elnora, so tired she almost trembled, came down the long walk
+after a late session of teachers’ meeting, to be stopped by a messenger boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There’s a lady wants to see you most important. I am to take you to the
+place,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora groaned. She could not imagine who wanted her, but there was nothing to
+do but find out; tired and anxious to see her mother as she was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is the place,” said the boy, and went his way whistling. Elnora was three
+blocks from the high school building on the same street. She was before a
+quaint old house, fresh with paint and covered with vines. There was a long
+wide lot, grass-covered, closely set with trees, and a barn and chicken park at
+the back that seemed to be occupied. Elnora stepped on the veranda which was
+furnished with straw rugs, bent-hickory chairs, hanging baskets, and a table
+with a work-box and magazines, and knocked at the screen door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Inside she could see polished floors, walls freshly papered in low-toned
+harmonious colours, straw rugs and madras curtains. It seemed to be a restful,
+homelike place to which she had come. A second later down an open stairway came
+a tall, dark-eyed woman with cheeks faintly pink and a crown of fluffy
+snow-white hair. She wore a lavender gingham dress with white collar and cuffs,
+and she called as she advanced: “That screen isn’t latched! Open it and come
+see your brand-new mother, my girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora stepped inside the door. “Mother!” she cried. “You my mother! I don’t
+believe it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, you better!” said Mrs. Comstock, “because it’s true! You said you wished
+I were like the other girls’ mothers, and I’ve shot as close the mark as I
+could without any practice. I thought that walk would be too much for you this
+winter, so I just rented this house and moved in, to be near you, and help more
+in case I’m needed. I’ve only lived here a day, but I like it so well I’ve a
+mortal big notion to buy the place.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But mother!” protested Elnora, clinging to her wonderingly. “You are perfectly
+beautiful, and this house is a little paradise, but how will we ever pay for
+it? We can’t afford it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Humph! Have you forgotten I telegraphed you I’d found some money I didn’t know
+about? All I’ve done is paid for, and plenty more to settle for all I propose
+to do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock glanced around with satisfaction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I may get homesick as a pup before spring,” she said, “but if I do I can go
+back. If I don’t, I’ll sell some timber and put a few oil wells where they
+don’t show much. I can have land enough cleared for a few fields and put a
+tenant on our farm, and we will buy this and settle here. It’s for sale.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You don’t look it, but you’ve surely gone mad!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just the reverse, my girl,” said Mrs. Comstock, “I’ve gone sane. If you are
+going to undertake this work, you must be convenient to it. And your mother
+should be where she can see that you are properly dressed, fed, and cared for.
+This is our&mdash;let me think&mdash;reception-room. How do you like it? This
+door leads to your workroom and study. I didn’t do much there because I wasn’t
+sure of my way. But I knew you would want a rug, curtains, table, shelves for
+books, and a case for your specimens, so I had a carpenter shelve and enclose
+that end of it. Looks pretty neat to me. The dining-room and kitchen are back,
+one of the cows in the barn, and some chickens in the coop. I understand that
+none of the other girls’ mothers milk a cow, so a neighbour boy will tend to
+ours for a third of the milk. There are three bedrooms, and a bath upstairs. Go
+take one, put on some fresh clothes, and come to supper. You can find your room
+because your things are in it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora kissed her mother over and over, and hurried upstairs. She identified
+her room by the dressing-case. There were a pretty rug, and curtains, white
+iron bed, plain and rocking chairs to match her case, a shirtwaist chest, and
+the big closet was filled with her old clothing and several new dresses. She
+found the bathroom, bathed, dressed in fresh linen and went down to a supper
+that was an evidence of Mrs. Comstock’s highest art in cooking. Elnora was so
+hungry she ate her first real meal in two weeks. But the bites went down slowly
+because she forgot about them in watching her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How on earth did you do it?” she asked at last. “I always thought you were
+naturally brown as a nut.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, that was tan and sunburn!” explained Mrs. Comstock. “I always knew I was
+white underneath it. I hated to shade my face because I hadn’t anything but a
+sunbonnet, and I couldn’t stand for it to touch my ears, so I went bareheaded
+and took all the colour I accumulated. But when I began to think of moving you
+in to your work, I saw I must put up an appearance that wouldn’t disgrace you,
+so I thought I’d best remove the crust. It took some time, and I hope I may die
+before I ever endure the feel and the smell of the stuff I used again, but it
+skinned me nicely. What you now see is my own with a little dust of rice
+powder, for protection. I’m sort of tender yet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And your lovely, lovely hair?” breathed Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hairdresser did that!” said Mrs. Comstock. “It cost like smoke. But I watched
+her, and with a little help from you I can wash it alone next time, though it
+will be hard work. I let her monkey with it until she said she had found ‘my
+style.’ Then I tore it down and had her show me how to build it up again three
+times. I thought my arms would drop. When I paid the bill for her work, the
+time I’d taken, the pins, and combs she’d used, I nearly had heart failure, but
+I didn’t turn a hair before her. I just smiled at her sweetly and said, ‘How
+reasonable you are!’ Come to think of it, she was! She might have charged me
+ten dollars for what she did quite as well as nine seventy-five. I couldn’t
+have helped myself. I had made no bargain to begin on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Elnora leaned back in her chair and shouted, in a gust of hearty laughter,
+so a little of the ache ceased in her breast. There was no time to think, the
+remainder of that evening, she was so tired she had to sleep, while her mother
+did not awaken her until she barely had time to dress, breakfast and reach
+school. There was nothing in the new life to remind her of the old. It seemed
+as if there never came a minute for retrospection, but her mother appeared on
+the scene with more work, or some entertaining thing to do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock invited Elnora’s friends to visit her, and proved herself a
+bright and interesting hostess. She digested a subject before she spoke; and
+when she advanced a view, her point was sure to be original and tersely
+expressed. Before three months people waited to hear what she had to say. She
+kept her appearance so in mind that she made a handsome and a distinguished
+figure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora never mentioned Philip Ammon, neither did Mrs. Comstock. Early in
+December came a note and a big box from him. It contained several books on
+nature subjects which would be of much help in school work, a number of
+conveniences Elnora could not afford, and a pair of glass-covered plaster
+casts, for each large moth she had. In these the upper and underwings of male
+and female showed. He explained that she would break her specimens easily,
+carrying them around in boxes. He had seen these and thought they would be of
+use. Elnora was delighted with them, and at once began the tedious process of
+softening the mounted moths and fitting them to the casts moulded to receive
+them. Her time was so taken in school, she progressed slowly, so her mother
+undertook this work. After trying one or two very common ones she learned to
+handle the most delicate with ease. She took keen pride in relaxing the tense
+moths, fitting them to the cases, polishing the glass covers to the last degree
+and sealing them. The results were beautiful to behold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon after Elnora wrote to Philip:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DEAR FRIEND:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am writing to thank you for the books, and the box of conveniences sent me
+for my work. I can use everything with fine results. Hope I am giving good
+satisfaction in my position. You will be interested to learn that when the
+summer’s work was classified and pinned, I again had my complete collection for
+the man of India, save a Yellow Emperor. I have tried everywhere I know, so has
+the Bird Woman. We cannot find a pair for sale. Fate is against me, at least
+this season. I shall have to wait until next year and try again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thank you very much for helping me with my collection and for the books and
+cases.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sincerely yours,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ELNORA COMSTOCK.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip was disappointed over that note and instead of keeping it he tore it
+into bits and dropped them into the waste basket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was precisely what Elnora had intended he should do. Christmas brought
+beautiful cards of greeting to Mrs. Comstock and Elnora, Easter others, and the
+year ran rapidly toward spring. Elnora’s position had been intensely absorbing,
+while she had worked with all her power. She had made a wonderful success and
+won new friends. Mrs. Comstock had helped in every way she could, so she was
+very popular also.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Throughout the winter they had enjoyed the city thoroughly, and the change of
+life it afforded, but signs of spring did wonderful things to the hearts of the
+country-bred women. A restlessness began on bright February days, calmed during
+March storms and attacked full force in April. When neither could bear it any
+longer they were forced to discuss the matter and admit they were growing ill
+with pure homesickness. They decided to keep the city house during the summer,
+but to return to the farm to live as soon as school closed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Mrs. Comstock would prepare breakfast and lunch and then slip away to the
+farm to make up beds in her ploughed garden, plant seeds, trim and tend her
+flowers, and prepare the cabin for occupancy. Then she would go home and make
+the evening as cheerful as possible for Elnora; in these days she lived only
+for the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Both of them were glad when the last of May came and the schools closed. They
+packed the books and clothing they wished to take into a wagon and walked
+across the fields to the old cabin. As they approached it, Mrs. Comstock said
+to Elnora: “You are sure you won’t be lonely here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora knew what she really meant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Quite sure,” she said. “For a time last fall I was glad to be away, but that
+all wore out with the winter. Spring made me homesick as I could be. I can
+scarcely wait until we get back again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So they began that summer as they had begun all others&mdash;with work. But
+both of them took a new joy in everything, and the violin sang by the hour in
+the twilight.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0019"></a>
+CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON GIVES A BALL IN HONOUR OF EDITH CARR, AND HART
+HENDERSON APPEARS ON THE SCENE</h3>
+
+<p>
+Edith Carr stood in a vine-enclosed side veranda of the Lake Shore Club House
+waiting while Philip Ammon gave some important orders. In a few days she would
+sail for Paris to select a wonderful trousseau she had planned for her marriage
+in October. To-night Philip was giving a club dance in her honour. He had spent
+days in devising new and exquisite effects in decorations, entertainment, and
+supper. Weeks before the favoured guests had been notified. Days before they
+had received the invitations asking them to participate in this entertainment
+by Philip Ammon in honour of Miss Carr. They spoke of it as “Phil’s dance for
+Edith!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She could hear the rumble of carriages and the panting of automobiles as in a
+steady stream they rolled to the front entrance. She could catch glimpses of
+floating draperies of gauze and lace, the flash of jewels, and the passing of
+exquisite colour. Every one was newly arrayed in her honour in the loveliest
+clothing, and the most expensive jewels they could command. As she thought of
+it she lifted her head a trifle higher and her eyes flashed proudly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was robed in a French creation suggested and designed by Philip. He had
+said to her: “I know a competent judge who says the distinctive feature of June
+is her exquisite big night moths. I want you to be the very essence of June
+that night, as you will be the embodiment of love. Be a moth. The most
+beautiful of them is either the pale-green Luna or the Yellow Imperialis. Be my
+moon lady, or my gold Empress.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took her to the museum and showed her the moths. She instantly decided on
+the yellow. Because she knew the shades would make her more startlingly
+beautiful than any other colour. To him she said: “A moon lady seems so far
+away and cold. I would be of earth and very near on that night. I choose the
+Empress.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So she matched the colours exactly, wrote out the idea and forwarded the order
+to Paquin. To-night when Philip Ammon came for her, he stood speechless a
+minute and then silently kissed her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For she stood tall, lithe, of grace inborn, her dark waving hair high piled and
+crossed by gold bands studded with amethyst and at one side an enamelled
+lavender orchid rimmed with diamonds, which flashed and sparkled. The soft
+yellow robe of lightest weight velvet fitted her form perfectly, while from
+each shoulder fell a great velvet wing lined with lavender, and flecked with
+embroidery of that colour in imitation of the moth. Around her throat was a
+wonderful necklace and on her arms were bracelets of gold set with amethyst and
+rimmed with diamonds. Philip had said that her gloves, fan, and slippers must
+be lavender, because the feet of the moth were that colour. These accessories
+had been made to order and embroidered with gold. It had been arranged that her
+mother, Philip’s, and a few best friends should receive his guests. She was to
+appear when she led the grand march with Philip Ammon. Miss Carr was positive
+that she would be the most beautiful, and most exquisitely gowned woman
+present. In her heart she thought of herself as “Imperialis Regalis,” as the
+Yellow Empress. In a few moments she would stun her world into feeling it as
+Philip Ammon had done, for she had taken pains that the history of her costume
+should be whispered to a few who would give it circulation. She lifted her head
+proudly and waited, for was not Philip planning something unusual and
+unsurpassed in her honour? Then she smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But of all the fragmentary thoughts crossing her brain the one that never came
+was that of Philip Ammon as the Emperor. Philip the king of her heart; at least
+her equal in all things. She was the Empress&mdash;yes, Philip was but a mere
+man, to devise entertainments, to provide luxuries, to humour whims, to kiss
+hands!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Ah, my luck!” cried a voice behind her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith Carr turned and smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought you were on the ocean,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I only reached the dock,” replied the man, “when I had a letter that recalled
+me by the first limited.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh! Important business?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The only business of any importance in all the world to me. I’m triumphant
+that I came. Edith, you are the most superb woman in every respect that I have
+ever seen. One glimpse is worth the whole journey.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You like my dress?” She moved toward him and turned, lifting her arms. “Do you
+know what it is intended to represent?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, Polly Ammon told me. I knew when I heard about it how you would look, so
+I started a sleuth hunt, to get the first peep. Edith, I can become intoxicated
+merely with looking at you to-night.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He half-closed his eyes and smilingly stared straight at her. He was taller
+than she, a lean man, with close-cropped light hair, steel-gray eyes, a square
+chin and “man of the world” written all over him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith Carr flushed. “I thought you realized when you went away that you were to
+stop that, Hart Henderson,” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did, but this letter of which I tell you called me back to start it all over
+again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She came a step closer. “Who wrote that letter, and what did it contain
+concerning me?” she demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One of your most intimate chums wrote it. It contained the hazard that
+possibly I had given up too soon. It said that in a fit of petulance you had
+broken your engagement with Ammon twice this winter, and he had come back
+because he knew you did not really mean it. I thought deeply there on the dock
+when I read that, and my boat sailed without me. I argued that anything so weak
+as an engagement twice broken and patched up again was a mighty frail affair
+indeed, and likely to smash completely at any time, so I came on the run. I
+said once I would not see you marry any other man. Because I could not bear it,
+I planned to go into exile of any sort to escape that. I have changed my mind.
+I have come back to haunt you until the ceremony is over. Then I go, not
+before. I was insane!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl laughed merrily. “Not half so insane as you are now, Hart!” she cried
+gaily. “You know that Philip Ammon has been devoted to me all my life. Now I’ll
+tell you something else, because this looks serious for you. I love him with
+all my heart. Not while he lives shall he know it, and I will laugh at him if
+you tell him, but the fact remains: I intend to marry him, but no doubt I shall
+tease him constantly. It’s good for a man to be uncertain. If you could see
+Philip’s face at the quarterly return of his ring, you would understand the fun
+of it. You had better have taken your boat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Possibly,” said Henderson calmly. “But you are the only woman in the world for
+me, and while you are free, as I now see my light, I remain near you. You know
+the old adage.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I’m not ‘free!’” cried Edith Carr. “I’m telling you I am not. This night
+is my public acknowledgment that Phil and I are promised, as our world has
+surmised since we were children. That promise is an actual fact, because of
+what I just have told you. My little fits of temper don’t count with Phil. He’s
+been reared on them. In fact, I often invent one in a perfect calm to see him
+perform. He is the most amusing spectacle. But, please, please, do understand
+that I love him, and always shall, and that we shall be married.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Just the same, I’ll wait and see it an accomplished fact,” said Henderson.
+“And Edith, because I love you, with the sort of love it is worth a woman’s
+while to inspire, I want your happiness before my own. So I am going to say
+this to you, for I never dreamed you were capable of the feeling you have
+displayed for Phil. If you do love him, and have loved him always, a
+disappointment would cut you deeper than you know. Go careful from now on!
+Don’t strain that patched engagement of yours any further. I’ve known Philip
+all my life. I’ve known him through boyhood, in college, and since. All men
+respect him. Where the rest of us confess our sins, he stands clean. You can go
+to his arms with nothing to forgive. Mark this thing! I have heard him say,
+‘Edith is my slogan,’ and I have seen him march home strong in the strength of
+his love for you, in the face of temptations before which every other man of us
+fell. Before the gods! that ought to be worth something to a girl, if she
+really is the delicate, sensitive, refined thing she would have man believe. It
+would take a woman with the organism of an ostrich to endure some of the men
+here to-night, if she knew them as I do; but Phil is sound to the core. So this
+is what I would say to you: first, your instincts are right in loving him, why
+not let him feel it in the ways a woman knows? Second, don’t break your
+engagement again. As men know the man, any of us would be afraid to the soul.
+He loves you, yes! He is long-suffering for you, yes! But men know he has a
+limit. When the limit is reached, he will stand fast, and all the powers can’t
+move him. You don’t seem to think it, but you can go too far!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that all?” laughed Edith Carr sarcastically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, there is one thing more,” said Henderson. “Here or here-after, now and so
+long as I breathe, I am your slave. You can do anything you choose and know
+that I will kneel before you again. So carry this in the depths of your heart;
+now or at any time, in any place or condition, merely lift your hand, and I
+will come. Anything you want of me, that thing will I do. I am going to wait;
+if you need me, it is not necessary to speak; only give me the faintest sign.
+All your life I will be somewhere near you waiting for it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Idjit! You rave!” laughed Edith Carr. “How you would frighten me! What a
+bugbear you would raise! Be sensible and go find what keeps Phil. I was waiting
+patiently, but my patience is going. I won’t look nearly so well as I do now
+when it is gone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that instant Philip Ammon entered. He was in full evening dress and
+exceptionally handsome. “Everything is ready,” he said; “they are waiting for
+us to lead the march. It is formed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith Carr smiled entrancingly. “Do you think I am ready?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip looked what he thought, and offered his arm. Edith Carr nodded
+carelessly to Hart Henderson, and moved away. Attendants parted the curtains
+and the Yellow Empress bowing right and left, swept the length of the ballroom
+and took her place at the head of the formed procession. The large open dancing
+pavilion was draped with yellow silk caught up with lilac flowers. Every corner
+was filled with bloom of those colours. The music was played by harpers dressed
+in yellow and violet, so the ball opened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The midnight supper was served with the same colours and the last half of the
+programme was being danced. Never had girl been more complimented and petted in
+the same length of time than Edith Carr. Every minute she seemed to grow more
+worthy of praise. A partners’ dance was called and the floor was filled with
+couples waiting for the music. Philip stood whispering delightful things to
+Edith facing him. From out of the night, in at the wide front entrance to the
+pavilion, there swept in slow wavering flight a large yellow moth and fluttered
+toward the centre cluster of glaring electric lights. Philip Ammon and Edith
+Carr saw it at the same instant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, isn’t that&mdash;&mdash;?” she began excitedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a Yellow Emperor! This is fate!” cried Philip. “The last one Elnora needs
+for her collection. I must have it! Excuse me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He ran toward the light. “Hats! Handkerchiefs! Fans! Anything!” he panted.
+“Every one hold up something and stop that! It’s a moth; I’ve got to catch it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s yellow! He wants it for Edith!” ran in a murmur around the hall. The
+girl’s face flushed, while she bit her lips in vexation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instantly every one began holding up something to keep the moth from flying
+back into the night. One fan held straight before it served, and the moth
+gently settled on it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hold steady!” cried Philip. “Don’t move for your life!” He rushed toward the
+moth, made a quick sweep and held it up between his fingers. “All right!” he
+called. “Thanks, every one! Excuse me a minute.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He ran to the office.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“An ounce of gasolene, quick!” he ordered. “A cigar box, a cork, and the glue
+bottle.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He poured some glue into the bottom of the box, set the cork in it firmly,
+dashed the gasolene over the moth repeatedly, pinned it to the cork, poured the
+remainder of the liquid over it, closed the box, and fastened it. Then he laid
+a bill on the counter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Pack that box with cork around it, in one twice its size, tie securely and
+express to this address at once.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He scribbled on a sheet of paper and shoved it over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On your honour, will you do that faithfully as I say?” he asked the clerk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly,” was the reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then keep the change,” called Philip as he ran back to the pavilion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith Carr stood where he left her, thinking rapidly. She heard the murmur that
+arose when Philip started to capture the exquisite golden creature she was
+impersonating. She saw the flash of surprise that went over unrestrained faces
+when he ran from the room, without even showing it to her. “The last one Elnora
+needs,” rang in her ears. He had told her that he helped collect moths the
+previous summer, but she had understood that the Bird Woman, with whose work
+Miss Carr was familiar, wanted them to put in a book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had spoken of a country girl he had met who played the violin wonderfully,
+and at times, he had shown a disposition to exalt her as a standard of
+womanhood. Miss Carr had ignored what he said, and talked of something else.
+But that girl’s name had been Elnora. It was she who was collecting moths! No
+doubt she was the competent judge who was responsible for the yellow costume
+Philip had devised. Had Edith Carr been in her room, she would have torn off
+the dress at the thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Being in a circle of her best friends, which to her meant her keenest rivals
+and harshest critics, she grew rigid with anger. Her breath hurt her paining
+chest. No one thought to speak to the musicians, and seeing the floor filled,
+they began the waltz. Only part of the guests could see what had happened, and
+at once the others formed and commenced to dance. Gay couples came whirling
+past her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith Carr grew very white as she stood alone. Her lips turned pale, while her
+dark eyes flamed with anger. She stood perfectly still where Philip had left
+her, and the approaching men guided their partners around her, while the girls,
+looking back, could be seen making exclamations of surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The idolized only daughter of the Carr family hoped that she would drop dead
+from mortification, but nothing happened. She was too perverse to step aside
+and say that she was waiting for Philip. Then came Tom Levering dancing with
+Polly Ammon. Being in the scales with the Ammon family, Tom scented trouble
+from afar, so he whispered to Polly: “Edith is standing in the middle of the
+floor, and she’s awful mad about something.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That won’t hurt her,” laughed Polly. “It’s an old pose of hers. She knows she
+looks superb when she is angry, so she keeps herself furious half the time on
+purpose.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She looks like the mischief!” answered Tom. “Hadn’t we better steer over and
+wait with her? She’s the ugliest sight I ever saw!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, Tom!” cried Polly. “Stop, quickly!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They hurried to Edith.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come dear,” said Polly. “We are going to wait with you until Phil returns.
+Let’s go after a drink. I am so thirsty!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, do!” begged Tom, offering his arm. “Let’s get out of here until Phil
+comes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was the opportunity to laugh and walk away, but Edith Carr would not
+accept it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“My betrothed left me here,” she said. “Here I shall remain until he returns
+for me, and then&mdash;he will be my betrothed no longer!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Polly grasped Edith’s arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Edith!” she implored. “Don’t make a scene here, and to-night. Edith, this
+has been the loveliest dance ever given at the club house. Every one is saying
+so. Edith! Darling, do come! Phil will be back in a second. He can explain!
+It’s only a breath since I saw him go out. I thought he had returned.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Polly panted these disjointed ejaculations, Tom Levering began to grow angry
+on her account.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He has been gone just long enough to show every one of his guests that he will
+leave me standing alone, like a neglected fool, for any passing whim of his.
+Explain! His explanation would sound well! Do you know for whom he caught that
+moth? It is being sent to a girl he flirted with all last summer. It has just
+occurred to me that the dress I am wearing is her suggestion. Let him try to
+explain!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Speech unloosed the fountain. She stripped off her gloves to free her hands. At
+that instant the dancers parted to admit Philip. Instinctively they stopped as
+they approached and with wondering faces walled in Edith and Philip, Polly and
+Tom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mighty good of you to wait!” cried Philip, his face showing his delight over
+his success in capturing the Yellow Emperor. “I thought when I heard the music
+you were going on.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How did you think I was going on?” demanded Edith Carr in frigid tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought you would step aside and wait a few seconds for me, or dance with
+Henderson. It was most important to have that moth. It completes a valuable
+collection for a person who needs the money. Come!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He held out his arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I ‘step aside’ for no one!” stormed Edith Carr. “I await no other girl’s
+pleasure! You may ‘complete the collection’ with that!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She drew her engagement ring from her finger and reached to place it on one of
+Philip’s outstretched hands. He saw and drew back. Instantly Edith dropped the
+ring. As it fell, almost instinctively Philip caught it in air. With amazed
+face he looked closely at Edith Carr. Her distorted features were scarcely
+recognizable. He held the ring toward her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith, for the love of mercy, wait until I can explain,” he begged. “Put on
+your ring and let me tell you how it is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I know perfectly ‘how it is,’” she answered. “I never shall wear that ring
+again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You won’t even hear what I have to say? You won’t take back your ring?” he
+cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never! Your conduct is infamous!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come to think of it,” said Philip deliberately, “it is ‘infamous’ to cut a
+girl, who has danced all her life, out of a few measures of a waltz. As for
+asking forgiveness for so black a sin as picking up a moth, and starting it to
+a friend who lives by collecting them, I don’t see how I could! I have not been
+gone three minutes by the clock, Edith. Put on your ring and finish the dance
+like a dear girl.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He thrust the glittering ruby into her fingers and again held out his arms. She
+dropped the ring, and it rolled some distance from them. Hart Henderson
+followed its shining course, and caught it before it was lost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You really mean it?” demanded Philip in a voice as cold as hers ever had been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know I mean it!” cried Edith Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I accept your decision in the presence of these witnesses,” said Philip Ammon.
+“Where is my father?” The elder Ammon with a distressed face hurried to him.
+“Father, take my place,” said Philip. “Excuse me to my guests. Ask all my
+friends to forgive me. I am going away for awhile.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned and walked from the pavilion. As he went Hart Henderson rushed to
+Edith Carr and forced the ring into her fingers. “Edith, quick. Come, quick!”
+he implored. “There’s just time to catch him. If you let him go that way, he
+never will return in this world. Remember what I told you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Great prophet! aren’t you, Hart?” she sneered. “Who wants him to return? If
+that ring is thrust upon me again I shall fling it into the lake. Signal the
+musicians to begin, and dance with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson put the ring into his pocket, and began the dance. He could feel the
+muscular spasms of the girl in his arms, her face was cold and hard, but her
+breath burned with the scorch of fever. She finished the dance and all others,
+taking Phil’s numbers with Henderson, who had arrived too late to arrange a
+programme. She left with the others, merely inclining her head as she passed
+Ammon’s father taking his place, and entered the big touring car for which
+Henderson had telephoned. She sank limply into a seat and moaned softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall I drive awhile in the night air?” asked Henderson.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She nodded. He instructed the chauffeur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She raised her head in a few seconds. “Hart, I’m going to pieces,” she said.
+“Won’t you put your arm around me a little while?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson gathered her into his arms and her head fell on his shoulder.
+“Closer!” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson held her until his arms were numb, but he did not know it. The tricks
+of fate are cruel enough, but there scarcely could have been a worse one than
+that: To care for a woman as he loved Edith Carr and have her given into his
+arms because she was so numb with misery over her trouble with another man that
+she did not know or care what she did. Dawn was streaking the east when he
+spoke to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith, it is growing light.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Take me home,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson helped her up the steps and rang the bell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Miss Carr is ill,” he said to the footman. “Arouse her maid instantly, and
+have her prepare something hot as quickly as possible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith,” he cried, “just a word. I have been thinking. It isn’t too late yet.
+Take your ring and put it on. I will go find Phil at once and tell him you
+have, that you are expecting him, and he will come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Think what he said!” she cried. “He accepted my decision as final, ‘in the
+presence of witnesses,’ as if it were court. He can return it to me, if I ever
+wear it again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You think that now, but in a few days you will find that you feel very
+differently. Living a life of heartache is no joke, and no job for a woman. Put
+on your ring and send me to tell him to come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith, there was not a soul who saw that, but sympathized with Phil. It was
+ridiculous for you to get so angry over a thing which was never intended for
+the slightest offence, and by no logical reasoning could have been so
+considered.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you think that?” she demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do!” said Henderson. “If you had laughed and stepped aside an instant, or
+laughed and stayed where you were, Phil would have been back; or, if he needed
+punishment in your eyes, to have found me having one of his dances would have
+been enough. I was waiting. You could have called me with one look. But to
+publicly do and say what you did, my lady&mdash;I know Phil, and I know you
+went too far. Put on that ring, and send him word you are sorry, before it is
+too late.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I will not! He shall come to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then God help you!” said Henderson, “for you are plunging into misery whose
+depth you do not dream. Edith, I beg of you&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She swayed where she stood. Her maid opened the door and caught her. Henderson
+went down the hall and out to his car.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0020"></a>
+CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN THE ELDER AMMON OFFERS ADVICE, AND EDITH CARR EXPERIENCES
+REGRETS</h3>
+
+<p>
+Philip Ammon walked from among his friends a humiliated and a wounded man.
+Never before had Edith Carr appeared quite so beautiful. All evening she had
+treated him with unusual consideration. Never had he loved her so deeply. Then
+in a few seconds everything was different. Seeing the change in her face, and
+hearing her meaningless accusations, killed something in his heart. Warmth went
+out and a cold weight took its place. But even after that, he had offered the
+ring to her again, and asked her before others to reconsider. The answer had
+been further insult.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He walked, paying no heed to where he went. He had traversed many miles when he
+became aware that his feet had chosen familiar streets. He was passing his
+home. Dawn was near, but the first floor was lighted. He staggered up the steps
+and was instantly admitted. The library door stood open, while his father sat
+with a book pretending to read. At Philip’s entrance the father scarcely
+glanced up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on!” he called. “I have just told Banks to bring me a cup of coffee
+before I turn in. Have one with me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip sat beside the table and leaned his head on his hands, but he drank a
+cup of steaming coffee and felt better.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Father,” he said, “father, may I talk with you a little while?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course,” answered Mr. Ammon. “I am not at all tired. I think I must have
+been waiting in the hope that you would come. I want no one’s version of this
+but yours. Tell me the straight of the thing, Phil.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip told all he knew, while his father sat in deep thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“On my life I can’t see any occasion for such a display of temper, Phil. It
+passed all bounds of reason and breeding. Can’t you think of anything more?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I cannot!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Polly says every one expected you to carry the moth you caught to Edith. Why
+didn’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She screams if a thing of that kind comes near her. She never has taken the
+slightest interest in them. I was in a big hurry. I didn’t want to miss one
+minute of my dance with her. The moth was not so uncommon, but by a combination
+of bad luck it had become the rarest in America for a friend of mine, who is
+making a collection to pay college expenses. For an instant last June the
+series was completed; when a woman’s uncontrolled temper ruined this specimen
+and the search for it began over. A few days later a pair was secured, and
+again the money was in sight for several hours. Then an accident wrecked
+one-fourth of the collection. I helped replace those last June, all but this
+Yellow Emperor which we could not secure, and we haven’t been able to find, buy
+or trade for one since. So my friend was compelled to teach this past winter
+instead of going to college. When that moth came flying in there to-night, it
+seemed to me like fate. All I thought of was, that to secure it would complete
+the collection and secure the money. So I caught the Emperor and started it to
+Elnora. I declare to you that I was not out of the pavilion over three minutes
+at a liberal estimate. If I only had thought to speak to the orchestra! I was
+sure I would be back before enough couples gathered and formed for the dance.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The eyes of the father were very bright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The friend for whom you wanted the moth is a girl?” he asked indifferently, as
+he ran the book leaves through his fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The girl of whom I wrote you last summer, and told you about in the fall. I
+helped her all the time I was away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did Edith know of her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I tried many times to tell her, to interest her, but she was so indifferent
+that it was insulting. She would not hear me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We are neither one in any condition to sleep. Why don’t you begin at the first
+and tell me about this girl? To think of other matters for a time may clear our
+vision for a sane solution of this. Who is she, just what is she doing, and
+what is she like? You know I was reared among those Limberlost people, I can
+understand readily. What is her name and where does she live?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip gave a man’s version of the previous summer, while his father played
+with the book industriously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are very sure as to her refinement and education?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In almost two months’ daily association, could a man be mistaken? She can far
+and away surpass Polly, Edith, or any girl of our set on any common, high
+school, or supplementary branch, and you know high schools have French, German,
+and physics now. Besides, she is a graduate of two other institutions. All her
+life she has been in the school of Hard Knocks. She has the biggest, tenderest,
+most human heart I ever knew in a girl. She has known life in its most cruel
+phases, and instead of hardening her, it has set her trying to save other
+people suffering. Then this nature position of which I told you; she graduated
+in the School of the Woods, before she secured that. The Bird Woman, whose work
+you know, helped her there. Elnora knows more interesting things in a minute
+than any other girl I ever met knew in an hour, provided you are a person who
+cares to understand plant and animal life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The book leaves slid rapidly through his fingers as the father drawled: “What
+sort of looking girl is she?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tall as Edith, a little heavier, pink, even complexion, wide open blue-gray
+eyes with heavy black brows, and lashes so long they touch her cheeks. She has
+a rope of waving, shining hair that makes a real crown on her head, and it
+appears almost red in the light. She is as handsome as any fair woman I ever
+saw, but she doesn’t know it. Every time any one pays her a compliment, her
+mother, who is a caution, discovers that, for some reason, the girl is a
+fright, so she has no appreciation of her looks.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And you were in daily association two months with a girl like that! How about
+it, Phil?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you mean, did I trifle with her, no!” cried Philip hotly. “I told her the
+second time I met her all about Edith. Almost every day I wrote to Edith in her
+presence. Elnora gathered violets and made a fancy basket to put them in for
+Edith’s birthday. I started to err in too open admiration for Elnora, but her
+mother brought me up with a whirl I never forgot. Fifty times a day in the
+swamps and forests Elnora made a perfect picture, but I neither looked nor said
+anything. I never met any girl so downright noble in bearing and actions. I
+never hated anything as I hated leaving her, for we were dear friends, like two
+wholly congenial men. Her mother was almost always with us. She knew how much I
+admired Elnora, but so long as I concealed it from the girl, the mother did not
+care.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yet you left such a girl and came back whole-hearted to Edith Carr!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Surely! You know how it has been with me about Edith all my life.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yet the girl you picture is far her superior to an unprejudiced person, when
+thinking what a man would require in a wife to be happy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never have thought what I would ‘require’ to be happy! I only thought
+whether I could make Edith happy. I have been an idiot! What I’ve borne you’ll
+never know! To-night is only one of many outbursts like that, in varying and
+lesser degrees.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Phil, I love you, when you say you have thought only of Edith! I happen to
+know that it is true. You are my only son, and I have had a right to watch you
+closely. I believe you utterly. Any one who cares for you as I do, and has had
+my years of experience in this world over yours, knows that in some ways,
+to-night would be a blessed release, if you could take it; but you cannot! Go
+to bed now, and rest. To-morrow, go back to her and fix it up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You heard what I said when I left her! I said it because something in my heart
+died a minute before that, and I realized that it was my love for Edith Carr.
+Never again will I voluntarily face such a scene. If she can act like that at a
+ball, before hundreds, over a thing of which I thought nothing at all, she
+would go into actual physical fits and spasms, over some of the household
+crises I’ve seen the mater meet with a smile. Sir, it is truth that I have
+thought only of her up to the present. Now, I will admit I am thinking about
+myself. Father, did you see her? Life is too short, and it can be too sweet, to
+throw it away in a battle with an unrestrained woman. I am no
+fighter&mdash;where a girl is concerned, anyway. I respect and love her or I do
+nothing. Never again is either respect or love possible between me and Edith
+Carr. Whenever I think of her in the future, I will see her as she was
+to-night. But I can’t face the crowd just yet. Could you spare me a few days?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is only ten days until you were to go north for the summer, go now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want to go north. I don’t want to meet people I know. There, the story
+would precede me. I do not need pitying glances or rough condolences. I wonder
+if I could not hide at Uncle Ed’s in Wisconsin for awhile?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The book closed suddenly. The father leaned across the table and looked into
+the son’s eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Phil, are you sure of what you just have said?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perfectly sure!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you think you are in any condition to decide to-night?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Death cannot return to life, father. My love for Edith Carr is dead. I hope
+never to see her again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I thought you could be certain so soon! But, come to think of it, you are
+very like me in many ways. I am with you in this. Public scenes and disgraces I
+would not endure. It would be over with me, were I in your position, that I
+know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is done for all time,” said Philip Ammon. “Let us not speak of it further.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then, Phil,” the father leaned closer and looked at the son tenderly, “Phil,
+why don’t you go to the Limberlost?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Father!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why not? No one can comfort a hurt heart like a tender woman; and, Phil, have
+you ever stopped to think that you may have a duty in the Limberlost, if you
+are free? I don’t know! I only suggest it. But, for a country schoolgirl,
+unaccustomed to men, two months with a man like you might well awaken feelings
+of which you do not think. Because you were safe-guarded is no sign the girl
+was. She might care to see you. You can soon tell. With you, she comes next to
+Edith, and you have made it clear to me that you appreciate her in many ways
+above. So I repeat it, why not go to the Limberlost?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A long time Philip Ammon sat in deep thought. At last he raised his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, why not!” he said. “Years could make me no surer than I am now, and life
+is short. Please ask Banks to get me some coffee and toast, and I will bathe
+and dress so I can take the early train.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Go to your bath. I will attend to your packing and everything. And Phil, if I
+were you, I would leave no addresses.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not an address!” said Philip. “Not even Polly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the train pulled out, the elder Ammon went home to find Hart Henderson
+waiting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where is Phil?” he demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He did not feel like facing his friends at present, and I am just back from
+driving him to the station. He said he might go to Siam, or Patagonia. He would
+leave no address.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson almost staggered. “He’s not gone? And left no address? You don’t mean
+it! He’ll never forgive her!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Never is a long time, Hart,” said Mr. Ammon. “And it seems even longer to
+those of us who are well acquainted with Phil. Last night was not the last
+straw. It was the whole straw-stack. It crushed Phil so far as she is
+concerned. He will not see her again voluntarily, and he will not forget if he
+does. You can take it from him, and from me, we have accepted the lady’s
+decision. Will you have a cup of coffee?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice Henderson opened his lips to speak of Edith Carr’s despair. Twice he
+looked into the stern, inflexible face of Mr. Ammon and could not betray her.
+He held out the ring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have no instructions as to that,” said the elder Ammon, drawing back.
+“Possibly Miss Carr would have it as a keepsake.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am sure not,” said Henderson curtly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then suppose you return it to Peacock. I will phone him. He will give you the
+price of it, and you might add it to the children’s Fresh Air Fund. We would be
+obliged if you would do that. No one here cares to handle the object.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As you choose,” said Henderson. “Good morning!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he went to his home, but he could not think of sleep. He ordered
+breakfast, but he could not eat. He paced the library for a time, but it was
+too small. Going on the streets he walked until exhausted, then he called a
+hansom and was driven to his club. He had thought himself familiar with every
+depth of suffering; that night had taught him that what he felt for himself was
+not to be compared with the anguish which wrung his heart over the agony of
+Edith Carr. He tried to blame Philip Ammon, but being an honest man, Henderson
+knew that was unjust. The fault lay wholly with her, but that only made it
+harder for him, as he realized it would in time for her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he sauntered into the room an attendant hurried to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are wanted most urgently at the ’phone, Mr. Henderson,” he said. “You have
+had three calls from Main 5770.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson shivered as he picked down the receiver and gave the call.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is that you, Hart?” came Edith’s voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you find Phil?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you try?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. As soon as I left you I went straight there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wasn’t he home yet?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He has been home and gone again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gone!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cry tore Henderson’s heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall I come and tell you, Edith?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No! Tell me now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When I reached the house Banks said Mr. Ammon and Phil were out in the motor,
+so I waited. Mr. Ammon came back soon. Edith, are you alone?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes. Go on!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Call your maid. I can’t tell you until some one is with you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tell me instantly!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith, he said he had been to the station. He said Phil had started to Siam or
+Patagonia, he didn’t know which, and left no address. He said&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Distinctly Henderson heard her fall. He set the buzzer ringing, and in a few
+seconds heard voices, so he knew she had been found. Then he crept into a
+private den and shook with a hard, nervous chill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day Edith Carr started on her trip to Europe. Henderson felt certain
+she hoped to meet Philip there. He was sure she would be disappointed, though
+he had no idea where Ammon could have gone. But after much thought he decided
+he would see Edith soonest by remaining at home, so he spent the summer in
+Chicago.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0021"></a>
+CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON RETURNS TO THE LIMBERLOST, AND ELNORA STUDIES THE
+SITUATION</h3>
+
+<p>
+“We must be thinking about supper, mother,” said Elnora, while she set the
+wings of a Cecropia with much care. “It seems as if I can’t get enough to eat,
+or enough of being at home. I enjoyed that city house. I don’t believe I could
+have done my work if I had been compelled to walk back and forth. I thought at
+first I never wanted to come here again. Now, I feel as if I could not live
+anywhere else.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora,” said Mrs. Comstock, “there’s some one coming down the road.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Coming here, do you think?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, coming here, I suspect.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora glanced quickly at her mother and then turned to the road as Philip
+Ammon reached the gate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Careful, mother!” the girl instantly warned. “If you change your treatment of
+him a hair’s breadth, he will suspect. Come with me to meet him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She dropped her work and sprang up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, of all the delightful surprises!” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was a trifle thinner than during the previous summer. On her face there was
+a more mature, patient look, but the sun struck her bare head with the same ray
+of red gold. She wore one of the old blue gingham dresses, open at the throat
+and rolled to the elbows. Mrs. Comstock did not appear at all the same woman,
+but Philip saw only Elnora; heard only her greeting. He caught both hands where
+she offered but one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora,” he cried, “if you were engaged to me, and we were at a ball, among
+hundreds, where I offended you very much, and didn’t even know I had done
+anything, and if I asked you before all of them to allow me to explain, to
+forgive me, to wait, would your face grow distorted and unfamiliar with anger?
+Would you drop my ring on the floor and insult me repeatedly? Oh Elnora, would
+you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora’s big eyes seemed to leap, while her face grew very white. She drew away
+her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hush, Phil! Hush!” she protested. “That fever has you again! You are
+dreadfully ill. You don’t know what you are saying.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am sleepless and exhausted; I’m heartsick; but I am well as I ever was.
+Answer me, Elnora, would you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Answer nothing!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “Answer nothing! Hang your coat there on
+your nail, Phil, and come split some kindling. Elnora, clean away that stuff,
+and set the table. Can’t you see the boy is starved and tired? He’s come home
+to rest and eat a decent meal. Come on, Phil!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock marched away, and Philip hung his coat in its old place and
+followed. Out of sight and hearing she turned on him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you call yourself a man or a hound?” she flared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I beg your pardon&mdash;&mdash;” stammered Philip Ammon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I should think you would!” she ejaculated. “I’ll admit you did the square
+thing and was a man last summer, though I’d liked it better if you’d faced up
+and told me you were promised; but to come back here babying, and take hold of
+Elnora like that, and talk that way because you have had a fuss with your girl,
+I don’t tolerate. Split that kindling and I’ll get your supper, and then you
+better go. I won’t have you working on Elnora’s big heart, because you have
+quarrelled with some one else. You’ll have it patched up in a week and be gone
+again, so you can go right away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mrs. Comstock, I came to ask Elnora to marry me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The more fool you, then!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “This time yesterday you were
+engaged to another woman, no doubt. Now, for some little flare-up you come
+racing here to use Elnora as a tool to spite the other girl. A week of sane
+living, and you will be sorry and ready to go back to Chicago, or, if you
+really are man enough to be sure of yourself, she will come to claim you. She
+has her rights. An engagement of years is a serious matter, and not broken for
+a whim. If you don’t go, she’ll come. Then, when you patch up your affairs and
+go sailing away together, where does my girl come in?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am a lawyer, Mrs. Comstock,” said Philip. “It appeals to me as beneath your
+ordinary sense of justice to decide a case without hearing the evidence. It is
+due me that you hear me first.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hear your side!” flashed Mrs. Comstock. “I’d a heap sight rather hear the
+girl!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish to my soul that you had heard and seen her last night, Mrs. Comstock,”
+said Ammon. “Then, my way would be clear. I never even thought of coming here
+to-day. I’ll admit I would have come in time, but not for many months. My
+father sent me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Your father sent you! Why?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Father, mother, and Polly were present last night. They, and all my friends,
+saw me insulted and disgraced in the worst exhibition of uncontrolled temper
+any of us ever witnessed. All of them knew it was the end. Father liked what I
+had told him of Elnora, and he advised me to come here, so I came. If she does
+not want me, I can leave instantly, but, oh I hoped she would understand!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You people are not splitting wood,” called Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh yes we are!” answered Mrs. Comstock. “You set out the things for biscuit,
+and lay the table.” She turned again to Philip. “I know considerable about your
+father,” she said. “I have met your Uncle’s family frequently this winter. I’ve
+heard your Aunt Anna say that she didn’t at all like Miss Carr, and that she
+and all your family secretly hoped that something would happen to prevent your
+marrying her. That chimes right in with your saying that your father sent you
+here. I guess you better speak your piece.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip gave his version of the previous night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you believe me?” he finished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I stay?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, it looks all right for you, but what about her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing, so far as I am concerned. Her plans were all made to start to Europe
+to-day. I suspect she is on the way by this time. Elnora is very sensible, Mrs.
+Comstock. Hadn’t you better let her decide this?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The final decision rests with her, of course,” admitted Mrs. Comstock. “But
+look you one thing! She’s all I have. As Solomon says, ‘she is the one child,
+the only child of her mother.’ I’ve suffered enough in this world that I fight
+against any suffering which threatens her. So far as I know you’ve always been
+a man, and you may stay. But if you bring tears and heartache to her, don’t
+have the assurance to think I’ll bear it tamely. I’ll get right up and fight
+like a catamount, if things go wrong for Elnora!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have no doubt but you will,” replied Philip, “and I don’t blame you in the
+least if you do. I have the utmost devotion to offer Elnora, a good home, fair
+social position, and my family will love her dearly. Think it over. I know it
+is sudden, but my father advised it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I reckon he did!” said Mrs. Comstock dryly. “I guess instead of me being
+the catamount, you had the genuine article up in Chicago, masquerading in
+peacock feathers, and posing as a fine lady, until her time came to scratch.
+Human nature seems to be the same the world over. But I’d give a pretty to know
+that secret thing you say you don’t, that set her raving over your just
+catching a moth for Elnora. You might get that crock of strawberries in the
+spring house.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They prepared and ate supper. Afterward they sat in the arbour and talked, or
+Elnora played until time for Philip to go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you walk to the gate with me?” he asked Elnora as he arose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not to-night,” she answered lightly. “Come early in the morning if you like,
+and we will go over to Sleepy Snake Creek and hunt moths and gather dandelions
+for dinner.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip leaned toward her. “May I tell you to-morrow why I came?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think not,” replied Elnora. “The fact is, I don’t care why you came. It is
+enough for me that we are your very good friends, and that in trouble, you have
+found us a refuge. I fancy we had better live a week or two before you say
+anything. There is a possibility that what you have to say may change in that
+length of time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It will not change one iota!” cried Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then it will have the grace of that much age to give it some small touch of
+flavour,” said the girl. “Come early in the morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She lifted the violin and began to play.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well bless my soul!” ejaculated the astounded Mrs. Comstock. “To think I was
+worrying for fear you couldn’t take care of yourself!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora laughed while she played.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shall I tell you what he said?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nope! I don’t want to hear it!” said Elnora. “He is only six hours from
+Chicago. I’ll give her a week to find him and fix it up, if he stays that long.
+If she doesn’t put in an appearance then, he can tell me what he wants to say,
+and I’ll take my time to think it over. Time in plenty, too! There are three of
+us in this, and one must be left with a sore heart for life. If the decision
+rests with me I propose to be very sure that it is the one who deserves such
+hard luck.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next morning Philip came early, dressed in the outing clothing he had worn
+the previous summer, and aside from a slight paleness seemed very much the same
+as when he left. Elnora met him on the old footing, and for a week life went on
+exactly as it had the previous summer. Mrs. Comstock made mental notes and
+watched in silence. She could see that Elnora was on a strain, though she hoped
+Philip would not. The girl grew restless as the week drew to a close. Once when
+the gate clicked she suddenly lost colour and moved nervously. Billy came down
+the walk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip leaned toward Mrs. Comstock and said: “I am expressly forbidden to speak
+to Elnora as I would like. Would you mind telling her for me that I had a
+letter from my father this morning saying that Miss Carr is on her way to
+Europe for the summer?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora,” said Mrs. Comstock promptly, “I have just heard that Carr woman is on
+her way to Europe, and I wish to my gracious stars she’d stay there!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip Ammon shouted, but Elnora arose hastily and went to meet Billy. They
+came into the arbour together and after speaking to Mrs. Comstock and Philip,
+Billy said: “Uncle Wesley and I found something funny, and we thought you’d
+like to see.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know what I should do without you and Uncle Wesley to help me,” said
+Elnora. “What have you found now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Something I couldn’t bring. You have to come to it. I tried to get one and I
+killed it. They are a kind of insecty things, and they got a long tail that is
+three fine hairs. They stick those hairs right into the hard bark of trees, and
+if you pull, the hairs stay fast and it kills the bug.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We will come at once,” laughed Elnora. “I know what they are, and I can use
+some in my work.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy, have you been crying?” inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy lifted a chastened face. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “This has been the
+worst day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s the matter with the day?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The day is all right,” admitted Billy. “I mean every single thing has gone
+wrong with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now that is too bad!” sympathized Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Began early this morning,” said Billy. “All Snap’s fault, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What has poor Snap been doing?” demanded Mrs. Comstock, her eyes beginning to
+twinkle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Digging for woodchucks, like he always does. He gets up at two o’clock to dig
+for them. He was coming in from the woods all tired and covered thick with
+dirt. I was going to the barn with the pail of water for Uncle Wesley to use in
+milking. I had to set down the pail to shut the gate so the chickens wouldn’t
+get into the flower beds, and old Snap stuck his dirty nose into the water and
+began to lap it down. I knew Uncle Wesley wouldn’t use that, so I had to go
+‘way back to the cistern for more, and it pumps awful hard. Made me mad, so I
+threw the water on Snap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, what of it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing, if he’d stood still. But it scared him awful, and when he’s afraid he
+goes a-humping for Aunt Margaret. When he got right up against her he stiffened
+out and gave a big shake. You oughter seen the nice blue dress she had put on
+to go to Onabasha!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock and Philip laughed, but Elnora put her arms around the boy. “Oh
+Billy!” she cried. “That was too bad!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She got up early and ironed that dress to wear because it was cool. Then, when
+it was all dirty, she wouldn’t go, and she wanted to real bad.” Billy wiped his
+eyes. “That ain’t all, either,” he added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’d like to know about it, Billy,” suggested Mrs. Comstock, struggling with
+her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cos she couldn’t go to the city, she’s most worked herself to death. She’s
+done all the dirty, hard jobs she could find. She’s fixing her grape juice
+now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “When a woman is disappointed she always works
+like a dog to gain sympathy!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, Uncle Wesley and I are sympathizing all we know how, without her working
+so. I’ve squeezed until I almost busted to get the juice out from the seeds and
+skins. That’s the hard part. Now, she has to strain it through white flannel
+and seal it in bottles, and it’s good for sick folks. Most wish I’d get sick
+myself, so I could have a glass. It’s so good!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora glanced swiftly at her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I worked so hard,” continued Billy, “that she said if I would throw the
+leavings in the woods, then I could come after you to see about the bugs. Do
+you want to go?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We will all go,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I am mightily interested in those bugs
+myself.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From afar commotion could be seen at the Sinton home. Wesley and Margaret were
+running around wildly and peculiar sounds filled the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What’s the trouble?” asked Philip, hurrying to Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Cholera!” groaned Sinton. “My hogs are dying like flies.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret was softly crying. “Wesley, can’t I fix something hot? Can’t we do
+anything? It means several hundred dollars and our winter meat.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never saw stock taken so suddenly and so hard,” said Wesley. “I have ’phoned
+for the veterinary to come as soon as he can get here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All of them hurried to the feeding pen into which the pigs seemed to be
+gathering from the woods. Among the common stock were big white beasts of
+pedigree which were Wesley’s pride at county fairs. Several of these rolled on
+their backs, pawing the air feebly and emitting little squeaks. A huge
+Berkshire sat on his haunches, slowly shaking his head, the water dropping from
+his eyes, until he, too, rolled over with faint grunts. A pair crossing the
+yard on wavering legs collided, and attacked each other in anger, only to fall,
+so weak they scarcely could squeal. A fine snowy Plymouth Rock rooster, after
+several attempts, flew to the fence, balanced with great effort, wildly flapped
+his wings and started a guttural crow, but fell sprawling among the pigs, too
+helpless to stand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you ever see such a dreadful sight?” sobbed Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy climbed on the fence, took one long look and turned an astounded face to
+Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why them pigs is drunk!” he cried. “They act just like my pa!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley turned to Margaret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where did you put the leavings from that grape juice?” he demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I sent Billy to throw it in the woods.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Billy&mdash;&mdash;” began Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Threw it just where she told me to,” cried Billy. “But some of the pigs came
+by there coming into the pen, and some were close in the fence corners.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did they eat it?” demanded Wesley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They just chanked into it,” replied Billy graphically. “They pushed, and
+squealed, and fought over it. You couldn’t blame ’em! It was the best stuff I
+ever tasted!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Margaret,” said Wesley, “run ’phone that doctor he won’t be needed. Billy,
+take Elnora and Mr. Ammon to see the bugs. Katharine, suppose you help me a
+minute.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley took the clothes basket from the back porch and started in the direction
+of the cellar. Margaret returned from the telephone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I just caught him,” she said. “There’s that much saved. Why Wesley, what are
+you going to do?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You go sit on the front porch a little while,” said Wesley. “You will feel
+better if you don’t see this.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Wesley,” cried Margaret aghast. “Some of that wine is ten years old. There are
+days and days of hard work in it, and I couldn’t say how much sugar. Dr. Ammon
+keeps people alive with it when nothing else will stay on their stomachs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let ’em die, then!” said Wesley. “You heard the boy, didn’t you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a cold process. There’s not a particle of fermentation about it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not a particle of fermentation! Great day, Margaret! Look at those pigs!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Margaret took a long look. “Leave me a few bottles for mince-meat,” she
+wavered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not a smell for any use on this earth! You heard the boy! He shan’t say, when
+he grows to manhood, that he learned to like it here!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wesley threw away the wine, Mrs. Comstock cheerfully assisting. Then they
+walked to the woods to see and learn about the wonderful insects. The day ended
+with a big supper at Sintons’, and then they went to the Comstock cabin for a
+concert. Elnora played beautifully that night. When the Sintons left she kissed
+Billy with particular tenderness. She was so moved that she was kinder to
+Philip than she had intended to be, and Elnora as an antidote to a disappointed
+lover was a decided success in any mood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However strong the attractions of Edith Carr had been, once the bond was
+finally broken, Philip Ammon could not help realizing that Elnora was the
+superior woman, and that he was fortunate to have escaped, when he regarded his
+ties strongest. Every day, while working with Elnora, he saw more to admire. He
+grew very thankful that he was free to try to win her, and impatient to justify
+himself to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora did not evince the slightest haste to hear what he had to say, but
+waited the week she had set, in spite of Philip’s hourly manifest impatience.
+When she did consent to listen, Philip felt before he had talked five minutes,
+that she was putting herself in Edith Carr’s place, and judging him from what
+the other girl’s standpoint would be. That was so disconcerting, he did not
+plead his cause nearly so well as he had hoped, for when he ceased Elnora sat
+in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are my judge,” he said at last. “What is your verdict?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I could hear her speak from her heart as I just have heard you, then I
+could decide,” answered Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She is on the ocean,” said Philip. “She went because she knew she was wholly
+in the wrong. She had nothing to say, or she would have remained.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That sounds plausible,” reasoned Elnora, “but it is pretty difficult to find a
+woman in an affair that involves her heart with nothing at all to say. I fancy
+if I could meet her, she would say several things. I should love to hear them.
+If I could talk with her three minutes, I could tell what answer to make you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you believe me, Elnora?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Unquestioningly,” answered Elnora. “But I would believe her also. If only I
+could meet her I soon would know.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t see how that is to be accomplished,” said Philip, “but I am perfectly
+willing. There is no reason why you should not meet her, except that she
+probably would lose her temper and insult you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not to any extent,” said Elnora calmly. “I have a tongue of my own, while I am
+not without some small sense of personal values.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip glanced at her and began to laugh. Very different of facial formation
+and colouring, Elnora at times closely resembled her mother. She joined in his
+laugh ruefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The point is this,” she said. “Some one is going to be hurt, most dreadfully.
+If the decision as to whom it shall be rests with me, I must know it is the
+right one. Of course, no one ever hinted it to you, but you are a very
+attractive man, Philip. You are mighty good to look at, and you have a trained,
+refined mind, that makes you most interesting. For years Edith Carr has felt
+that you were hers. Now, how is she going to change? I have been
+thinking&mdash;thinking deep and long, Phil. If I were in her place, I simply
+could not give you up, unless you had made yourself unworthy of love.
+Undoubtedly, you never seemed so desirable to her as just now, when she is told
+she can’t have you. What I think is that she will come to claim you yet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You overlook the fact that it is not in a woman’s power to throw away a man
+and pick him up at pleasure,” said Philip with some warmth. “She publicly and
+repeatedly cast me off. I accepted her decision as publicly as it was made. You
+have done all your thinking from a wrong viewpoint. You seem to have an idea
+that it lies with you to decide what I shall do, that if you say the word, I
+shall return to Edith. Put that thought out of your head! Now, and for all time
+to come, she is a matter of indifference to me. She killed all feeling in my
+heart for her so completely that I do not even dread meeting her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I hated her, or was angry with her, I could not be sure the feeling would
+not die. As it is, she has deadened me into a creature of indifference. So you
+just revise your viewpoint a little, Elnora. Cease thinking it is for you to
+decide what I shall do, and that I will obey you. I make my own decisions in
+reference to any woman, save you. The question you are to decide is whether I
+may remain here, associating with you as I did last summer; but with the
+difference that it is understood that I am free; that it is my intention to
+care for you all I please, to make you return my feeling for you if I can.
+There is just one question for you to decide, and it is not triangular. It is
+between us. May I remain? May I love you? Will you give me the chance to prove
+what I think of you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You speak very plainly,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is the time to speak plainly,” said Philip Ammon. “There is no use in
+allowing you to go on threshing out a problem which does not exist. If you do
+not want me here, say so and I will go. Of course, I warn you before I start,
+that I will come back. I won’t yield without the stiffest fight it is in me to
+make. But drop thinking it lies in your power to send me back to Edith Carr. If
+she were the last woman in the world, and I the last man, I’d jump off the
+planet before I would give her further opportunity to exercise her temper on
+me. Narrow this to us, Elnora. Will you take the place she vacated? Will you
+take the heart she threw away? I’d give my right hand and not flinch, if I
+could offer you my life, free from any contact with hers, but that is not
+possible. I can’t undo things which are done. I can only profit by experience
+and build better in the future.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t see how you can be sure of yourself,” said Elnora. “I don’t see how I
+could be sure of you. You loved her first, you never can care for me anything
+like that. Always I’d have to be afraid you were thinking of her and
+regretting.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Folly!” cried Philip. “Regretting what? That I was not married to a woman who
+was liable to rave at me any time or place, without my being conscious of
+having given offence? A man does relish that! I am likely to pine for more!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’d be thinking she’d learned a lesson. You would think it wouldn’t happen
+again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, I wouldn’t be ‘thinking,’” said, Philip. “I’d be everlastingly sure! I
+wouldn’t risk what I went through that night again, not to save my life! Just
+you and me, Elnora. Decide for us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t!” cried Elnora. “I am afraid!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well,” said Philip. “We will wait until you feel that you can. Wait until
+fear vanishes. Just decide now whether you would rather have me go for a few
+months, or remain with you. Which shall it be, Elnora?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can never love me as you did her,” wailed Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am happy to say I cannot,” replied he. “I’ve cut my matrimonial teeth. I’m
+cured of wanting to swell in society. I’m over being proud of a woman for her
+looks alone. I have no further use for lavishing myself on a beautiful,
+elegantly dressed creature, who thinks only of self. I have learned that I am a
+common man. I admire beauty and beautiful clothing quite as much as I ever did;
+but, first, I want an understanding, deep as the lowest recess of my soul, with
+the woman I marry. I want to work for you, to plan for you, to build you a home
+with every comfort, to give you all good things I can, to shield you from every
+evil. I want to interpose my body between yours and fire, flood, or famine. I
+want to give you everything; but I hate the idea of getting nothing at all on
+which I can depend in return. Edith Carr had only good looks to offer, and when
+anger overtook her, beauty went out like a snuffed candle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want you to love me. I want some consideration. I even crave respect. I’ve
+kept myself clean. So far as I know how to be, I am honest and scrupulous. It
+wouldn’t hurt me to feel that you took some interest in these things. Rather
+fierce temptations strike a man, every few days, in this world. I can keep
+decent, for a woman who cares for decency, but when I do, I’d like to have the
+fact recognized, by just enough of a show of appreciation that I could see it.
+I am tired of this one-sided business. After this, I want to get a little in
+return for what I give. Elnora, you have love, tenderness, and honest
+appreciation of the finest in life. Take what I offer, and give what I ask.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You do not ask much,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“As for not loving you as I did Edith,” continued Philip, “as I said before, I
+hope not! I have a newer and a better idea of loving. The feeling I offer you
+was inspired by you. It is a Limberlost product. It is as much bigger, cleaner,
+and more wholesome than any feeling I ever had for Edith Carr, as you are
+bigger than she, when you stand before your classes and in calm dignity explain
+the marvels of the Almighty, while she stands on a ballroom floor, and gives
+way to uncontrolled temper. Ye gods, Elnora, if you could look into my soul,
+you would see it leap and rejoice over my escape! Perhaps it isn’t decent, but
+it’s human; and I’m only a common human being. I’m the gladdest man alive that
+I’m free! I would turn somersaults and yell if I dared. What an escape! Stop
+straining after Edith Carr’s viewpoint and take a look from mine. Put yourself
+in my place and try to study out how I feel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am so happy I grow religious over it. Fifty times a day I catch myself
+whispering, ‘My soul is escaped!’ As for you, take all the time you want. If
+you prefer to be alone, I’ll take the next train and stay away as long as I can
+bear it, but I’ll come back. You can be most sure of that. Straight as your
+pigeons to their loft, I’ll come back to you, Elnora. Shall I go?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, what’s the use to be extravagant?” murmured Elnora.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0022"></a>
+CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON KNEELS TO ELNORA, AND STRANGERS COME TO THE
+LIMBERLOST</h3>
+
+<p>
+The month which followed was a reproduction of the previous June. There were
+long moth hunts, days of specimen gathering, wonderful hours with great books,
+big dinners all of them helped to prepare, and perfect nights filled with
+music. Everything was as it had been, with the difference that Philip was now
+an avowed suitor. He missed no opportunity to advance himself in Elnora’s
+graces. At the end of the month he was no nearer any sort of understanding with
+her than he had been at the beginning. He revelled in the privilege of loving
+her, but he got no response. Elnora believed in his love, yet she hesitated to
+accept him, because she could not forget Edith Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One afternoon early in July, Philip came across the fields, through the
+Comstock woods, and entered the garden. He inquired for Elnora at the back door
+and was told that she was reading under the willow. He went around the west end
+of the cabin to her. She sat on a rustic bench they had made and placed beneath
+a drooping branch. He had not seen her before in the dress she was wearing. It
+was clinging mull of pale green, trimmed with narrow ruffles and touched with
+knots of black velvet; a simple dress, but vastly becoming. Every tint of her
+bright hair, her luminous eyes, her red lips, and her rose-flushed face, neck,
+and arms grew a little more vivid with the delicate green setting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped short. She was so near, so temptingly sweet, he lost control. He
+went to her with a half-smothered cry after that first long look, dropped on
+one knee beside her and reached an arm behind her to the bench back, so that he
+was very near. He caught her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora!” he cried tensely, “end it now! Say this strain is over. I pledge you
+that you will be happy. You don’t know! If you only would say the word, you
+would awake to new life and great joy! Won’t you promise me now, Elnora?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl sat staring into the west woods, while strong in her eyes was her
+father’s look of seeing something invisible to others. Philip’s arm slipped
+from the bench around her. His fingers closed firmly over hers. “Elnora,” he
+pleaded, “you know me well enough. You have had time in plenty. End it now. Say
+you will be mine!” He gathered her closer, pressing his face against hers, his
+breath on her cheek. “Can’t you quite promise yet, my girl of the Limberlost?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora shook her head. Instantly he released her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Forgive me,” he begged. “I had no intention of thrusting myself upon you, but,
+Elnora, you are the veriest Queen of Love this afternoon. From the tips of your
+toes to your shining crown, I worship you. I want no woman save you. You are so
+wonderful this afternoon, I couldn’t help urging. Forgive me. Perhaps it was
+something that came this morning for you. I wrote Polly to send it. May we try
+if it fits? Will you tell me if you like it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He drew a little white velvet box from his pocket and showed her a splendid
+emerald ring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It may not be right,” he said. “The inside of a glove finger is not very
+accurate for a measure, but it was the best I could do. I wrote Polly to get
+it, because she and mother are home from the East this week, but next they will
+go on to our cottage in the north, and no one knows what is right quite so well
+as Polly.” He laid the ring in Elnora’s hand. “Dearest,” he said, “don’t slip
+that on your finger; put your arms around my neck and promise me, all at once
+and abruptly, or I’ll keel over and die of sheer joy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I won’t! Not all those venturesome things at once; but, Phil, I’m ashamed to
+confess that ring simply fascinates me. It is the most beautiful one I ever
+saw, and do you know that I never owned a ring of any kind in my life? Would
+you think me unwomanly if I slip it on for a second, before I can say for sure?
+Phil, you know I care! I care very much! You know I will tell you the instant I
+feel right about it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly you will,” agreed Philip promptly. “It is your right to take all the
+time you choose. I can’t put that ring on you until it means a bond between us.
+I’ll shut my eyes and you try it on, so we can see if it fits.” Philip turned
+his face toward the west woods and tightly closed his eyes. It was a boyish
+thing to do, and it caught the hesitating girl in the depths of her heart as
+the boy element in a man ever appeals to a motherly woman. Before she quite
+realized what she was doing, the ring slid on her finger. With both arms she
+caught Philip and drew him to her breast, holding him closely. Her head drooped
+over his, her lips were on his hair. So an instant, then her arms dropped. He
+lifted a convulsed, white face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Dear Lord!” he whispered. “You&mdash;you didn’t mean that, Elnora!
+You&mdash;&mdash; What made you do it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You&mdash;you looked so boyish!” panted Elnora. “I didn’t mean it! I&mdash;I
+forgot that you were older than Billy. Look&mdash;look at the ring!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘The Queen can do no wrong,’” quoted Philip between his set teeth. “But don’t
+you do that again, Elnora, unless you do mean it. Kings are not so good as
+queens, and there is a limit with all men. As you say, we will look at your
+ring. It seems very lovely to me. Suppose you leave it on until time for me to
+go. Please do! I have heard of mute appeals; perhaps it will plead for me. I am
+wild for your lips this afternoon. I am going to take your hands.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He caught both of them and covered them with kisses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Elnora,” he said, “Will you be my wife?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I must have a little more time,” she whispered. “I must be absolutely certain,
+for when I say yes, and give myself to you, only death shall part us. I would
+not give you up. So I want a little more time&mdash;but, I think I will.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you,” said Philip. “If at any time you feel that you have reached a
+decision, will you tell me? Will you promise me to tell me instantly, or shall
+I keep asking you until the time comes?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You make it difficult,” said Elnora. “But I will promise you that. Whenever
+the last doubt vanishes, I will let you know instantly&mdash;if I can.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would it be difficult for you?” whispered Ammon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I&mdash;I don’t know,” faltered Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It seems as if I can’t be man enough to put this thought aside and give up
+this afternoon,” said Philip. “I am ashamed of myself, but I can’t help it. I
+am going to ask God to make that last doubt vanish before I go this night. I am
+going to believe that ring will plead for me. I am going to hope that doubt
+will disappear suddenly. I will be watching. Every second I will be watching.
+If it happens and you can’t speak, give me your hand. Just the least movement
+toward me, I will understand. Would it help you to talk this over with your
+mother? Shall I call her? Shall I&mdash;&mdash;?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Honk! Honk! Honk! Hart Henderson set the horn of the big automobile going as it
+shot from behind the trees lining the Brushwood road. The picture of a
+vine-covered cabin, a large drooping tree, a green-clad girl and a man bending
+over her very closely flashed into view. Edith Carr caught her breath with a
+snap. Polly Ammon gave Tom Levering a quick touch and wickedly winked at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Several days before, Edith had returned from Europe suddenly. She and Henderson
+had called at the Ammon residence saying that they were going to motor down to
+the Limberlost to see Philip a few hours, and urged that Polly and Tom
+accompany them. Mrs. Ammon knew that her husband would disapprove of the trip,
+but it was easy to see that Edith Carr had determined on going. So the mother
+thought it better to have Polly along to support Philip than to allow him to
+confront Edith unexpectedly and alone. Polly was full of spirit. She did not
+relish the thought of Edith as a sister. Always they had been in the same set,
+always Edith, because of greater beauty and wealth, had patronized Polly.
+Although it had rankled, she had borne it sweetly. But two days before, her
+father had extracted a promise of secrecy, given her Philip’s address and told
+her to send him the finest emerald ring she could select. Polly knew how that
+ring would be used. What she did not know was that the girl who accompanied her
+went back to the store afterward, made an excuse to the clerk that she had been
+sent to be absolutely sure that the address was right, and so secured it for
+Edith Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two days later Edith had induced Hart Henderson to take her to Onabasha. By the
+aid of maps they located the Comstock land and passed it, merely to see the
+place. Henderson hated that trip, and implored Edith not to take it, but she
+made no effort to conceal from him what she suffered, and it was more than he
+could endure. He pointed out that Philip had gone away without leaving an
+address, because he did not wish to see her, or any of them. But Edith was so
+sure of her power, she felt certain Philip needed only to see her to succumb to
+her beauty as he always had done, while now she was ready to plead for
+forgiveness. So they came down the Brushwood road, and Henderson had just said
+to Edith beside him: “This should be the Comstock land on our left.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A minute later the wood ended, while the sunlight, as always pitiless, etched
+with distinctness the scene at the west end of the cabin. Instinctively, to
+save Edith, Henderson set the horn blowing. He had thought to drive to the
+city, but Polly Ammon arose crying: “Phil! Phil!” Tom Levering was on his feet
+shouting and waving, while Edith in her most imperial manner ordered him to
+turn into the lane leading through the woods beside the cabin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Find some way for me to have a minute alone with her,” she commanded as he
+stopped the car.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is my sister Polly, her fiance Tom Levering, a friend of mine named
+Henderson, and&mdash;&mdash;” began Philip,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“&mdash;and Edith Carr,” volunteered Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And Edith Carr,” repeated Philip Ammon. “Elnora, be brave, for my sake. Their
+coming can make no difference in any way. I won’t let them stay but a few
+minutes. Come with me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do I seem scared?” inquired Elnora serenely. “This is why you haven’t had your
+answer. I have been waiting just six weeks for that motor. You may bring them
+to me at the arbour.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip glanced at her and broke into a laugh. She had not lost colour. Her
+self-possession was perfect. She deliberately turned and walked toward the
+grape arbour, while he sprang over the west fence and ran to the car.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora standing in the arbour entrance made a perfect picture, framed in green
+leaves and tendrils. No matter how her heart ached, it was good to her, for it
+pumped steadily, and kept her cheeks and lips suffused with colour. She saw
+Philip reach the car and gather his sister into his arms. Past her he reached a
+hand to Levering, then to Edith Carr and Henderson. He lifted his sister to the
+ground, and assisted Edith to alight. Instantly, she stepped beside him, and
+Elnora’s heart played its first trick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She could see that Miss Carr was splendidly beautiful, while she moved with the
+hauteur and grace supposed to be the prerogatives of royalty. And she had
+instantly taken possession of Philip. But he also had a brain which was working
+with rapidity. He knew Elnora was watching, so he turned to the others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Give her up, Tom!” he cried. “I didn’t know I wanted to see the little
+nuisance so badly, but I do. How are father and mother? Polly, didn’t the mater
+send me something?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She did!” said Polly Ammon, stopping on the path and lifting her chin as a
+little child, while she drew away her veil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip caught her in his arms and stooped for his mother’s kiss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Be good to Elnora!” he whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Umhu!” assented Polly. And aloud&mdash;“Look at that ripping green and gold
+symphony! I never saw such a beauty! Thomas Asquith Levering, you come straight
+here and take my hand!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith’s move to compel Philip to approach Elnora beside her had been easy to
+see; also its failure. Henderson stepped into Philip’s place as he turned to
+his sister. Instead of taking Polly’s hand Levering ran to open the gate. Edith
+passed through first, but Polly darted in front of her on the run, with Phil
+holding her arm, and swept up to Elnora. Polly looked for the ring and saw it.
+That settled matters with her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You lovely, lovely, darling girl!” she cried, throwing her arms around Elnora
+and kissing her. With her lips close Elnora’s ear, Polly whispered, “Sister!
+Dear, dear sister!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora drew back, staring at Polly in confused amazement. She was a beautiful
+girl, her eyes were sparkling and dancing, and as she turned to make way for
+the others, she kept one of Elnora’s hands in hers. Polly would have dropped
+dead in that instant if Edith Carr could have killed with a look, for not until
+then did she realize that Polly would even many a slight, and that it had been
+a great mistake to bring her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith bowed low, muttered something and touched Elnora’s fingers. Tom took his
+cue from Polly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I always follow a good example,” he said, and before any one could divine his
+intention he kissed Elnora as he gripped her hand and cried: “Mighty glad to
+meet you! Like to meet you a dozen times a day, you know!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora laughed and her heart pumped smoothly. They had accomplished their
+purpose. They had let her know they were there through compulsion, but on her
+side. In that instant only pity was in Elnora’s breast for the flashing dark
+beauty, standing with smiling face while her heart must have been filled with
+exceeding bitterness. Elnora stepped back from the entrance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come into the shade,” she urged. “You must have found it warm on these country
+roads. Won’t you lay aside your dust-coats and have a cool drink? Philip, would
+you ask mother to come, and bring that pitcher from the spring house?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They entered the arbour exclaiming at the dim, green coolness. There was plenty
+of room and wide seats around the sides, a table in the centre, on which lay a
+piece of embroidery, magazines, books, the moth apparatus, and the cyanide jar
+containing several specimens. Polly rejoiced in the cooling shade, slipped off
+her duster, removed her hat, rumpled her pretty hair and seated herself to
+indulge in the delightful occupation of paying off old scores. Tom Levering
+followed her example. Edith took a seat but refused to remove her hat and coat,
+while Henderson stood in the entrance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There goes something with wings! Should you have that?” cried Levering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He seized a net from the table and raced across the garden after a butterfly.
+He caught it and came back mightily pleased with himself. As the creature
+struggled in the net, Elnora noted a repulsed look on Edith Carr’s face.
+Levering helped the situation beautifully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now what have I got?” he demanded. “Is it just a common one that every one
+knows and you don’t keep, or is it the rarest bird off the perch?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must have had practice, you took that so perfectly,” said Elnora. “I am
+sorry, but it is quite common and not of a kind I keep. Suppose all of you see
+how beautiful it is and then it may go nectar hunting again.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She held the butterfly where all of them could see, showed its upper and under
+wing colours, answered Polly’s questions as to what it ate, how long it lived,
+and how it died. Then she put it into Polly’s hand saying: “Stand there in the
+light and loosen your hold slowly and easily.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora caught a brush from the table and began softly stroking the creature’s
+sides and wings. Delighted with the sensation the butterfly opened and closed
+its wings, clinging to Polly’s soft little fingers, while every one cried out
+in surprise. Elnora laid aside the brush, and the butterfly sailed away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, you are a wizard! You charm them!” marvelled Levering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I learned that from the Bird Woman,” said Elnora. “She takes soft brushes and
+coaxes butterflies and moths into the positions she wants for the illustrations
+of a book she is writing. I have helped her often. Most of the rare ones I find
+go to her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then you don’t keep all you take?” questioned Levering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, dear, no!” cried Elnora. “Not a tenth! For myself, a pair of each kind to
+use in illustrating the lectures I give in the city schools in the winter, and
+one pair for each collection I make. One might as well keep the big night moths
+of June, for they only live four or five days anyway. For the Bird Woman, I
+only save rare ones she has not yet secured. Sometimes I think it is cruel to
+take such creatures from freedom, even for an hour, but it is the only way to
+teach the masses of people how to distinguish the pests they should destroy,
+from the harmless ones of great beauty. Here comes mother with something cool
+to drink.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock came deliberately, talking to Philip as she approached. Elnora
+gave her one searching look, but could discover only an extreme brightness of
+eye to denote any unusual feeling. She wore one of her lavender dresses, while
+her snowy hair was high piled. She had taken care of her complexion, and her
+face had grown fuller during the winter. She might have been any one’s mother
+with pride, and she was perfectly at ease.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Polly instantly went to her and held up her face to be kissed. Mrs. Comstock’s
+eyes twinkled and she made the greeting hearty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The drink was compounded of the juices of oranges and berries from the garden.
+It was cool enough to frost glasses and pitcher and delicious to dusty tired
+travellers. Soon the pitcher was empty, and Elnora picked it up and went to
+refill it. While she was gone Henderson asked Philip about some trouble he was
+having with his car. They went to the woods and began a minute examination to
+find a defect which did not exist. Polly and Levering were having an animated
+conversation with Mrs. Comstock. Henderson saw Edith arise, follow the garden
+path next the woods and stand waiting under the willow which Elnora would pass
+on her return. It was for that meeting he had made the trip. He got down on the
+ground, tore up the car, worked, asked for help, and kept Philip busy screwing
+bolts and applying the oil can. All the time Henderson kept an eye on Edith and
+Elnora under the willow. But he took pains to lay the work he asked Philip to
+do where that scene would be out of his sight. When Elnora came around the
+corner with the pitcher, she found herself facing Edith Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want a minute with you,” said Miss Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well,” replied Elnora, walking on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Set the pitcher on the bench there,” commanded Edith Carr, as if speaking to a
+servant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I prefer not to offer my visitors a warm drink,” said Elnora. “I’ll come back
+if you really wish to speak with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I came solely for that,” said Edith Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It would be a pity to travel so far in this dust and heat for nothing. I’ll
+only be gone a second.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora placed the pitcher before her mother. “Please serve this,” she said.
+“Miss Carr wishes to speak with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you pay the least attention to anything she says,” cried Polly. “Tom and
+I didn’t come here because we wanted to. We only came to checkmate her. I hoped
+I’d get the opportunity to say a word to you, and now she has given it to me. I
+just want to tell you that she threw Phil over in perfectly horrid way. She
+hasn’t any right to lay the ghost of a claim to him, has she, Tom?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nary a claim,” said Tom Levering earnestly. “Why, even you, Polly, couldn’t
+serve me as she did Phil, and ever get me back again. If I were you, Miss
+Comstock, I’d send my mother to talk with her and I’d stay here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tom had gauged Mrs. Comstock rightly. Polly put her arms around Elnora. “Let me
+go with you, dear,” she begged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I promised I would speak with her alone,” said Elnora, “and she must be
+considered. But thank you, very much.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How I shall love you!” exulted Polly, giving Elnora a parting hug.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl slowly and gravely walked back to the willow. She could not imagine
+what was coming, but she was promising herself that she would be very patient
+and control her temper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you be seated?” she asked politely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith Carr glanced at the bench, while a shudder shook her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. I prefer to stand,” she said. “Did Mr. Ammon give you the ring you are
+wearing, and do you consider yourself engaged to him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By what right do you ask such personal questions as those?” inquired Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By the right of a betrothed wife. I have been promised to Philip Ammon ever
+since I wore short skirts. All our lives we have expected to marry. An
+agreement of years cannot be broken in one insane moment. Always he has loved
+me devotedly. Give me ten minutes with him and he will be mine for all time.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I seriously doubt that,” said Elnora. “But I am willing that you should make
+the test. I will call him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stop!” commanded Edith Carr. “I told you that it was you I came to see.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I remember,” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mr. Ammon is my betrothed,” continued Edith Carr. “I expect to take him back
+to Chicago with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You expect considerable,” murmured Elnora. “I will raise no objection to your
+taking him, if you can&mdash;but, I tell you frankly, I don’t think it
+possible.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are so sure of yourself as that,” scoffed Edith Carr. “One hour in my
+presence will bring back the old spell, full force. We belong to each other. I
+will not give him up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then it is untrue that you twice rejected his ring, repeatedly insulted him,
+and publicly renounced him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was through you!” cried Edith Carr. “Phil and I never had been so near
+and so happy as we were on that night. It was your clinging to him for things
+that caused him to desert me among his guests, while he tried to make me await
+your pleasure. I realize the spell of this place, for a summer season. I
+understand what you and your mother have done to inveigle him. I know that your
+hold on him is quite real. I can see just how you have worked to ensnare him!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Men would call that lying,” said Elnora calmly. “The second time I met Philip
+Ammon he told me of his engagement to you, and I respected it. I did by you as
+I would want you to do by me. He was here parts of each day, almost daily last
+summer. The Almighty is my witness that never once, by word or look, did I ever
+make the slightest attempt to interest him in my person or personality. He
+wrote you frequently in my presence. He forgot the violets for which he asked
+to send you. I gathered them and carried them to him. I sent him back to you in
+unswerving devotion, and the Almighty is also my witness that I could have
+changed his heart last summer, if I had tried. I wisely left that work for you.
+All my life I shall be glad that I lived and worked on the square. That he ever
+would come back to me free, by your act, I never dreamed. When he left me I did
+not hope or expect to see him again,” Elnora’s voice fell soft and low, “and,
+behold! You sent him&mdash;and free!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You exult in that!” cried Edith Carr. “Let me tell you he is not free! We have
+belonged for years. We always shall. If you cling to him, and hold him to rash
+things he has said and done, because he thought me still angry and unforgiving
+with him, you will ruin all our lives. If he married you, before a month you
+would read heart-hunger for me in his eyes. He could not love me as he has
+done, and give me up for a little scene like that!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is a great poem,” said Elnora, “one line of which reads, ‘For each man
+kills the thing he loves.’ Let me tell you that a woman can do that also. He
+did love you&mdash;that I concede. But you killed his love everlastingly, when
+you disgraced him in public. Killed it so completely he does not even feel
+resentment toward you. To-day, he would do you a favour, if he could; but love
+you, no! That is over!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith Carr stood truly regal and filled with scorn. “You are mistaken! Nothing
+on earth could kill that!” she cried, and Elnora saw that the girl really
+believed what she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are very sure of yourself!” said Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have reason to be sure,” answered Edith Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We have lived and loved too long. I have had years with him to match against
+your days. He is mine! His work, his ambitions, his friends, his place in
+society are with me. You may have a summer charm for a sick man in the country;
+if he tried placing you in society, he soon would see you as others will. It
+takes birth to position, schooling, and endless practice to meet social demands
+gracefully. You would put him to shame in a week.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I scarcely think I should follow your example so far,” said Elnora dryly. “I
+have a feeling for Philip that would prevent my hurting him purposely, either
+in public or private. As for managing a social career for him he never
+mentioned that he desired such a thing. What he asked of me was that I should
+be his wife. I understood that to mean that he desired me to keep him a clean
+house, serve him digestible food, mother his children, and give him loving
+sympathy and tenderness.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Shameless!” cried Edith Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“To which of us do you intend that adjective to apply?” inquired Elnora. “I
+never was less ashamed in all my life. Please remember I am in my own home, and
+your presence here is not on my invitation.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Carr lifted her head and struggled with her veil. She was very pale and
+trembling violently, while Elnora stood serene, a faint smile on her lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Such vulgarity!” panted Edith Carr. “How can a man like Philip endure it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you ask him?” inquired Elnora. “I can call him with one breath; but,
+if he judged us as we stand, I should not be the one to tremble at his
+decision. Miss Carr, you have been quite plain. You have told me in carefully
+selected words what you think of me. You insult my birth, education,
+appearance, and home. I assure you I am legitimate. I will pass a test
+examination with you on any high school or supplementary branch, or French or
+German. I will take a physical examination beside you. I will face any social
+emergency you can mention with you. I am acquainted with a whole world in which
+Philip Ammon is keenly interested, that you scarcely know exists. I am not
+afraid to face any audience you can get together anywhere with my violin. I am
+not repulsive to look at, and I have a wholesome regard for the proprieties and
+civilities of life. Philip Ammon never asked anything more of me, why should
+you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is plain to see,” cried Edith Carr, “that you took him when he was hurt and
+angry and kept his wound wide open. Oh, what have you not done against me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did not promise to marry him when an hour ago he asked me, and offered me
+this ring, because there was so much feeling in my heart for you, that I knew I
+never could be happy, if I felt that in any way I had failed in doing justice
+to your interests. I did slip on this ring, which he had just brought, because
+I never owned one, and it is very beautiful, but I made him no promise, nor
+shall I make any, until I am quite, quite sure, that you fully realize he never
+would marry you if I sent him away this hour.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You know perfectly that if your puny hold on him were broken, if he were back
+in his home, among his friends, and where he was meeting me, in one short week
+he would be mine again, as he always has been. In your heart you don’t believe
+what you say. You don’t dare trust him in my presence. You are afraid to allow
+him out of your sight, because you know what the results would be. Right or
+wrong, you have made up your mind to ruin him and me, and you are going to be
+selfish enough to do it. But&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That will do!” said Elnora. “Spare me the enumeration of how I will regret it.
+I shall regret nothing. I shall not act until I know there will be nothing to
+regret. I have decided on my course. You may return to your friends.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What do you mean?” demanded Edith Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is my affair,” replied Elnora. “Only this! When your opportunity comes,
+seize it! Any time you are in Philip Ammon’s presence, exert the charms of
+which you boast, and take him. I grant you are justified in doing it if you
+can. I want nothing more than I want to see you marry Philip if he wants you.
+He is just across the fence under that automobile. Go spread your meshes and
+exert your wiles. I won’t stir to stop you. Take him to Onabasha, and to
+Chicago with you. Use every art you possess. If the old charm can be revived I
+will be the first to wish both of you well. Now, I must return to my visitors.
+Kindly excuse me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora turned and went back to the arbour. Edith Carr followed the fence and
+passed through the gate into the west woods where she asked Henderson about the
+car. As she stood near him she whispered: “Take Phil back to Onabasha with us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I say, Ammon, can’t you go to the city with us and help me find a shop where I
+can get this pinion fixed?” asked Henderson. “We want to lunch and start back
+by five. That will get us home about midnight. Why don’t you bring your
+automobile here?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am a working man,” said Philip. “I have no time to be out motoring. I can’t
+see anything the matter with your car, myself; but, of course you don’t want to
+break down in the night, on strange roads, with women on your hands. I’ll see.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip went into the arbour, where Polly took possession of his lap, fingered
+his hair, and kissed his forehead and lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“When are you coming to the cottage, Phil?” she asked. “Come soon, and bring
+Miss Comstock for a visit. All of us will be so glad to have her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip beamed on Polly. “I’ll see about that,” he said. “Sounds pretty good.
+Elnora, Henderson is in trouble with his automobile. He wants me to go to
+Onabasha with him to show him where the doctor lives, and make repairs so he
+can start back this evening. It will take about two hours. May I go?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, you must go,” she said, laughing lightly. “You can’t leave your
+sister. Why don’t you return to Chicago with them? There is plenty of room, and
+you could have a fine visit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be back in just two hours,” said Philip. “While I am gone, you be
+thinking over what we were talking of when the folks came.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Miss Comstock can go with us as well as not,” said Polly. “That back seat was
+made for three, and I can sit on your lap.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come on! Do come!” urged Philip instantly, and Tom Levering joined him, but
+Henderson and Edith silently waited at the gate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, thank you,” laughed Elnora. “That would crowd you, and it’s warm and
+dusty. We will say good-bye here.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She offered her hand to all of them, and when she came to Philip she gave him
+one long steady look in the eyes, then shook hands with him also.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0023"></a>
+CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN ELNORA REACHES A DECISION, AND FRECKLES AND THE ANGEL APPEAR</h3>
+
+<p>
+“Well, she came, didn’t she?” remarked Mrs. Comstock to Elnora as they watched
+the automobile speed down the road. As it turned the Limberlost corner, Philip
+arose and waved to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She hasn’t got him yet, anyway,” said Mrs. Comstock, taking heart. “What’s
+that on your finger, and what did she say to you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora explained about the ring as she drew it off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have several letters to write, then I am going to change my dress and walk
+down toward Aunt Margaret’s for a little exercise. I may meet some of them, and
+I don’t want them to see this ring. You keep it until Philip comes,” said
+Elnora. “As for what Miss Carr said to me, many things, two of importance: one,
+that I lacked every social requirement necessary for the happiness of Philip
+Ammon, and that if I married him I would see inside a month that he was ashamed
+of me&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aw, shockins!” scorned Mrs. Comstock. “Go on!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The other was that she has been engaged to him for years, that he belongs to
+her, and she refuses to give him up. She said that if he were in her presence
+one hour, she would have him under a mysterious thing she calls ‘her spell’
+again; if he were where she could see him for one week, everything would be
+made up. It is her opinion that he is suffering from wounded pride, and that
+the slightest concession on her part will bring him to his knees before her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock giggled. “I do hope the boy isn’t weak-kneed,” she said. “I just
+happened to be passing the west window this afternoon&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora laughed. “Nothing save actual knowledge ever would have made me believe
+there was a girl in all this world so infatuated with herself. She speaks
+casually of her power over men, and boasts of ‘bringing a man to his knees’ as
+complacently as I would pick up a net and say: ‘I am going to take a
+butterfly.’ She honestly believes that if Philip were with her a short time she
+could rekindle his love for her and awaken in him every particle of the old
+devotion. Mother, the girl is honest! She is absolutely sincere! She so
+believes in herself and the strength of Phil’s love for her, that all her life
+she will believe in and brood over that thought, unless she is taught
+differently. So long as she thinks that, she will nurse wrong ideas and pine
+over her blighted life. She must be taught that Phil is absolutely free, and
+yet he will not go to her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But how on earth are you proposing to teach her that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The way will open.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lookey here, Elnora!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “That Carr girl is the handsomest
+dark woman I ever saw. She’s got to the place where she won’t stop at anything.
+Her coming here proves that. I don’t believe there was a thing the matter with
+that automobile. I think that was a scheme she fixed up to get Phil where she
+could see him alone, as she worked to see you. If you are going deliberately to
+put Philip under her influence again, you’ve got to brace yourself for the
+possibility that she may win. A man is a weak mortal, where a lovely woman is
+concerned, and he never denied that he loved her once. You may make yourself
+downright miserable.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But mother, if she won, it wouldn’t make me half so miserable as to marry Phil
+myself, and then read hunger for her in his eyes! Some one has got to suffer
+over this. If it proves to be me, I’ll bear it, and you’ll never hear a whisper
+of complaint from me. I know the real Philip Ammon better in our months of work
+in the fields than she knows him in all her years of society engagements. So
+she shall have the hour she asked, many, many of them, enough to make her
+acknowledge that she is wrong. Now I am going to write my letters and take my
+walk.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora threw her arms around her mother and kissed her repeatedly. “Don’t you
+worry about me,” she said. “I will get along all right, and whatever happens, I
+always will be your girl and you my darling mother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She left two sealed notes on her desk. Then she changed her dress, packed a
+small bundle which she dropped with her hat from the window beside the willow,
+and softly went down stairs. Mrs. Comstock was in the garden. Elnora picked up
+the hat and bundle, hurried down the road a few rods, then climbed the fence
+and entered the woods. She took a diagonal course, and after a long walk
+reached a road two miles west and one south. There she straightened her
+clothing, put on her hat and a thin dark veil and waited the passing of the
+next trolley. She left it at the first town and took a train for Fort Wayne.
+She made that point just in time to climb on the evening train north, as it
+pulled from the station. It was after midnight when she left the car at Grand
+Rapids, and went into the depot to await the coming of day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tired out, she laid her head on her bundle and fell asleep on a seat in the
+women’s waiting-room. Long after light she was awakened by the roar and rattle
+of trains. She washed, re-arranged her hair and clothing, and went into the
+general waiting-room to find her way to the street. She saw him as he entered
+the door. There was no mistaking the tall, lithe figure, the bright hair, the
+lean, brown-splotched face, the steady gray eyes. He was dressed for
+travelling, and carried a light overcoat and a bag. Straight to him Elnora went
+speeding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I was just starting to find you!” she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you!” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are going away?” she panted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not if I am needed. I have a few minutes. Can you be telling me briefly?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am the Limberlost girl to whom your wife gave the dress for Commencement
+last spring, and both of you sent lovely gifts. There is a reason, a very good
+reason, why I must be hidden for a time, and I came straight to you&mdash;as if
+I had a right.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have!” answered Freckles. “Any boy or girl who ever suffered one pang in
+the Limberlost has a claim to the best drop of blood in my heart. You needn’t
+be telling me anything more. The Angel is at our cottage on Mackinac. You shall
+tell her and play with the babies while you want shelter. This way!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They breakfasted in a luxurious car, talked over the swamp, the work of the
+Bird Woman; Elnora told of her nature lectures in the schools, and soon they
+were good friends. In the evening they left the train at Mackinaw City and
+crossed the Straits by boat. Sheets of white moonlight flooded the water and
+paved a molten path across the breast of it straight to the face of the moon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The island lay a dark spot on the silver surface, its tall trees sharply
+outlined on the summit, and a million lights blinked around the shore. The
+night guns boomed from the white fort and a dark sentinel paced the ramparts
+above the little city tucked down close to the water. A great tenor summering
+in the north came out on the upper deck of the big boat, and baring his head,
+faced the moon and sang: “Oh, the moon shines bright on my old Kentucky home!”
+Elnora thought of the Limberlost, of Philip, and her mother, and almost choked
+with the sobs that would arise in her throat. On the dock a woman of exquisite
+beauty swept into the arms of Terence O’More.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Freckles!” she cried. “You’ve been gone a month!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Four days, Angel, only four days by the clock,” remonstrated Freckles. “Where
+are the children?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Asleep! Thank goodness! I’m worn to a thread. I never saw such inventive,
+active children. I can’t keep track of them!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have brought you help,” said Freckles. “Here is the Limberlost girl in whom
+the Bird Woman is interested. Miss Comstock needs a rest before beginning her
+school work for next year, so she came to us.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You dear thing! How good of you!” cried the Angel. “We shall be so happy to
+have you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In her room that night, in a beautiful cottage furnished with every luxury,
+Elnora lifted a tired face to the Angel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, you understand there is something back of this?” she said. “I must
+tell you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” agreed the Angel. “Tell me! If you get it out of your system, you will
+stand a better chance of sleeping.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora stood brushing the copper-bright masses of her hair as she talked. When
+she finished the Angel was almost hysterical.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You insane creature!” she cried. “How crazy of you to leave him to her! I know
+both of them. I have met them often. She may be able to make good her boast.
+But it is perfectly splendid of you! And, after all, really it is the only way.
+I can see that. I think it is what I should have done myself, or tried to do. I
+don’t know that I could have done it! When I think of walking away and leaving
+Freckles with a woman he once loved, to let her see if she can make him love
+her again, oh, it gives me a graveyard heart. No, I never could have done it!
+You are bigger than I ever was. I should have turned coward, sure.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am a coward,” admitted Elnora. “I am soul-sick! I am afraid I shall lose my
+senses before this is over. I didn’t want to come! I wanted to stay, to go
+straight into his arms, to bind myself with his ring, to love him with all my
+heart. It wasn’t my fault that I came. There was something inside that just
+pushed me. She is beautiful&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I quite agree with you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You can imagine how fascinating she can be. She used no arts on me. Her
+purpose was to cower me. She found she could not do that, but she did a thing
+which helped her more: she proved that she was honest, perfectly sincere in
+what she thought. She believes that if she merely beckons to Philip, he will go
+to her. So I am giving her the opportunity to learn from him what he will do.
+She never will believe it from any one else. When she is satisfied, I shall be
+also.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But, child! Suppose she wins him back!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is the supposition with which I shall eat and sleep for the coming few
+weeks. Would one dare ask for a peep at the babies before going to bed?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, you are perfect!” announced the Angel. “I never should have liked you all
+I can, if you had been content to go to sleep in this house without asking to
+see the babies. Come this way. We named the first boy for his father, of
+course, and the girl for Aunt Alice. The next boy is named for my father, and
+the baby for the Bird Woman. After this we are going to branch out.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora began to laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I suspect there will be quite a number of them,” said the Angel serenely.
+“I am told the more there are the less trouble they make. The big ones take
+care of the little ones. We want a large family. This is our start.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She entered a dark room and held aloft a candle. She went to the side of a
+small white iron bed in which lay a boy of eight and another of three. They
+were perfectly formed, rosy children, the elder a replica of his mother, the
+other very like. Then they came to a cradle where a baby girl of almost two
+slept soundly, and made a picture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But just see here!” said the Angel. She threw the light on a sleeping girl of
+six. A mass of red curls swept the pillow. Line and feature the face was that
+of Freckles. Without asking, Elnora knew the colour and expression of the
+closed eyes. The Angel handed Elnora the candle, and stooping, straightened the
+child’s body. She ran her fingers through the bright curls, and lightly touched
+the aristocratic little nose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The supply of freckles holds out in my family, you see!” she said. “Both of
+the girls will have them, and the second boy a few.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stood an instant longer, then bending, ran her hand caressingly down a rosy
+bare leg, while she kissed the babyish red mouth. There had been some reason
+for touching all of them, the kiss fell on the lips which were like Freckles’s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Elnora she said a tender good-night, whispering brave words of encouragement
+and making plans to fill the days to come. Then she went away. An hour later
+there was a light tap on the girl’s door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come!” she called as she lay staring into the dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Angel felt her way to the bedside, sat down and took Elnora’s hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I just had to come back to you,” she said. “I have been telling Freckles, and
+he is almost hurting himself with laughing. I didn’t think it was funny, but he
+does. He thinks it’s the funniest thing that ever happened. He says that to run
+away from Mr. Ammon, when you had made him no promise at all, when he wasn’t
+sure of you, won’t send him home to her; it will set him hunting you! He says
+if you had combined the wisdom of Solomon, Socrates, and all the remainder of
+the wise men, you couldn’t have chosen any course that would have sealed him to
+you so surely. He feels that now Mr. Ammon will perfectly hate her for coming
+down there and driving you away. And you went to give her the chance she
+wanted. Oh, Elnora! It is becoming funny! I see it, too!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Angel rocked on the bedside. Elnora faced the dark in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Forgive me,” gulped the Angel. “I didn’t mean to laugh. I didn’t think it was
+funny, until all at once it came to me. Oh, dear! Elnora, it <i>is</i> funny!
+I’ve got to laugh!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe it is,” admitted Elnora “to others; but it isn’t very funny to me. And
+it won’t be to Philip, or to mother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was very true. Mrs. Comstock had been slightly prepared for stringent
+action of some kind, by what Elnora had said. The mother instantly had guessed
+where the girl would go, but nothing was said to Philip. That would have been
+to invalidate Elnora’s test in the beginning, and Mrs. Comstock knew her child
+well enough to know that she never would marry Philip unless she felt it right
+that she should. The only way was to find out, and Elnora had gone to seek the
+information. There was nothing to do but wait until she came back, and her
+mother was not in the least uneasy but that the girl would return brave and
+self-reliant, as always.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip Ammon hurried back to the Limberlost, strong in the hope that now he
+might take Elnora into his arms and receive her promise to become his wife. His
+first shock of disappointment came when he found her gone. In talking with Mrs.
+Comstock he learned that Edith Carr had made an opportunity to speak with
+Elnora alone. He hastened down the road to meet her, coming back alone, an
+agitated man. Then search revealed the notes. His read:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DEAR PHILIP:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I find that I am never going to be able to answer your question of this
+afternoon fairly to all of us, when you are with me. So I am going away a few
+weeks to think over matters alone. I shall not tell you, or even mother, where
+I am going, but I shall be safe, well cared for, and happy. Please go back home
+and live among your friends, just as you always have done, and on or before the
+first of September, I will write you where I am, and what I have decided.
+Please do not blame Edith Carr for this, and do not avoid her. I hope you will
+call on her and be friends. I think she is very sorry, and covets your
+friendship at least. Until September, then, as ever,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ELNORA.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Comstock’s note was much the same. Philip was ill with disappointment. In
+the arbour he laid his head on the table, among the implements of Elnora’s
+loved work, and gulped down dry sobs he could not restrain. Mrs. Comstock never
+had liked him so well. Her hand involuntarily crept toward his dark head, then
+she drew back. Elnora would not want her to do anything whatever to influence
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What am I going to do to convince Edith Carr that I do not love her, and
+Elnora that I am hers?” he demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess you have to figure that out yourself,” said Mrs. Comstock. “I’d be
+glad to help you if I could, but it seems to be up to you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Philip sat a long time in silence. “Well, I have decided!” he said abruptly.
+“Are you perfectly sure Elnora had plenty of money and a safe place to go?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Absolutely!” answered Mrs. Comstock. “She has been taking care of herself ever
+since she was born, and she always has come out all right, so far; I’ll stake
+all I’m worth on it, that she always will. I don’t know where she is, but I’m
+not going to worry about her safety.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t help worrying!” cried Philip. “I can think of fifty things that may
+happen to her when she thinks she is safe. This is distracting! First, I am
+going to run up to see my father. Then, I’ll let you know what we have decided.
+Is there anything I can do for you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Nothing!” said Mrs. Comstock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the desire to do something for him was so strong with her she scarcely
+could keep her lips closed or her hands quiet. She longed to tell him what
+Edith Carr had said, how it had affected Elnora, and to comfort him as she felt
+she could. But loyalty to the girl held her. If Elnora truly felt that she
+could not decide until Edith Carr was convinced, then Edith Carr would have to
+yield or triumph. It rested with Philip. So Mrs. Comstock kept silent, while
+Philip took the night limited, a bitterly disappointed man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By noon the next day he was in his father’s offices. They had a long
+conference, but did not arrive at much until the elder Ammon suggested sending
+for Polly. Anything that might have happened could be explained after Polly had
+told of the private conference between Edith and Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Talk about lovely woman!” cried Philip Ammon. “One would think that after such
+a dose as Edith gave me, she would be satisfied to let me go my way, but no!
+Not caring for me enough herself to save me from public disgrace, she must now
+pursue me to keep any other woman from loving me. I call that too much! I am
+going to see her, and I want you to go with me, father.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well,” said Mr. Ammon, “I will go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Edith Carr came into her reception-room that afternoon, gowned for
+conquest, she expected only Philip, and him penitent. She came hurrying toward
+him, smiling, radiant, ready to use every allurement she possessed, and paused
+in dismay when she saw his cold face and his father. “Why, Phil!” she cried.
+“When did you come home?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am not at home,” answered Philip. “I merely ran up to see my father on
+business, and to inquire of you what it was you said to Miss Comstock yesterday
+that caused her to disappear before I could return to the Limberlost.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Miss Comstock disappear! Impossible!” cried Edith Carr. “Where could she go?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I thought perhaps you could answer that, since it was through you that she
+went.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Phil, I haven’t the faintest idea where she is,” said the girl gently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you know perfectly why she went! Kindly tell me that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let me see you alone, and I will.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here and now, or not at all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Phil!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What did you say to the girl I love?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Edith Carr stretched out her arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Phil, I am the girl you love!” she cried. “All your life you have loved me.
+Surely it cannot be all gone in a few weeks of misunderstanding. I was jealous
+of her! I did not want you to leave me an instant that night for any other girl
+living. That was the moth I was representing. Every one knew it! I wanted you
+to bring it to me. When you did not, I knew instantly it had been for her that
+you worked last summer, she who suggested my dress, she who had power to take
+you from me, when I wanted you most. The thought drove me mad, and I said and
+did those insane things. Phil, I beg your pardon! I ask your forgiveness.
+Yesterday she said that you had told her of me at once. She vowed both of you
+had been true to me and Phil, I couldn’t look into her eyes and not see that it
+was the truth. Oh, Phil, if you understood how I have suffered you would
+forgive me. Phil, I never knew how much I cared for you! I will do
+anything&mdash;anything!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then tell me what you said to Elnora yesterday that drove her, alone and
+friendless, into the night, heaven knows where!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have no thought for any one save her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Philip. “I have. Because I once loved you, and believed in you, my
+heart aches for you. I will gladly forgive anything you ask. I will do anything
+you want, except to resume our former relations. That is impossible. It is
+hopeless and useless to ask it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You truly mean that!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then find out from her what I said!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Come, father,” said Philip, rising.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You were going to show Miss Comstock’s letter to Edith!” suggested Mr. Ammon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have not the slightest interest in Miss Comstock’s letter,” said Edith Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are not even interested in the fact that she says you are not responsible
+for her going, and that I am to call on you and be friends with you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is interesting, indeed!” sneered Miss Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She took the letter, read and returned it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She has done what she could for my cause, it seems,” she said coldly. “How
+very generous of her! Do you propose calling out Pinkertons and instituting a
+general search?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” replied Philip. “I simply propose to go back to the Limberlost and live
+with her mother, until Elnora becomes convinced that I am not courting you, and
+never shall be. Then, perhaps, she will come home to us. Good-bye. Good luck to
+you always!”
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0024"></a>
+CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN EDITH CARR WAGES A BATTLE, AND HART HENDERSON STANDS GUARD</h3>
+
+<p>
+Many people looked, a few followed, when Edith Carr slowly came down the main
+street of Mackinac, pausing here and there to note the glow of colour in one
+small booth after another, overflowing with gay curios. That street of packed
+white sand, winding with the curves of the shore, outlined with brilliant
+shops, and thronged with laughing, bare-headed people in outing costumes was a
+picturesque and fascinating sight. Thousands annually made long journeys and
+paid exorbitant prices to take part in that pageant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Edith Carr passed, she was the most distinguished figure of the old street.
+Her clinging black gown was sufficiently elaborate for a dinner dress. On her
+head was a large, wide, drooping-brimmed black hat, with immense floating black
+plumes, while on the brim, and among the laces on her breast glowed velvety,
+deep red roses. Some way these made up for the lack of colour in her cheeks and
+lips, and while her eyes seemed unnaturally bright, to a close observer they
+appeared weary. Despite the effort she made to move lightly she was very tired,
+and dragged her heavy feet with an effort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned at the little street leading to the dock, and went to meet the big
+lake steamer ploughing up the Straits from Chicago. Past the landing place, on
+to the very end of the pier she went, then sat down, leaned against a dock
+support and closed her tired eyes. When the steamer came very close she
+languidly watched the people lining the railing. Instantly she marked one lean
+anxious face turned toward hers, and with a throb of pity she lifted a hand and
+waved to Hart Henderson. He was the first man to leave the boat, coming to her
+instantly. She spread her trailing skirts and motioned him to sit beside her.
+Silently they looked across the softly lapping water. At last she forced
+herself to speak to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you have a successful trip?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I accomplished my purpose.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You didn’t lose any time getting back.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I never do when I am coming to you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you want to go to the cottage for anything?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then let us sit here and wait until the Petoskey steamer comes in. I like to
+watch the boats. Sometimes I study the faces, if I am not too tired.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you seen any new types to-day?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head. “This has not been an easy day, Hart.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And it’s going to be worse,” said Henderson bitterly. “There’s no use putting
+it off. Edith, I saw some one to-day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You should have seen thousands,” she said lightly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did. But of them all, only one will be of interest to you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Man or woman?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Man.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lake Shore private hospital.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“An accident?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No. Nervous and physical breakdown.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Phil said he was going back to the Limberlost.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He went. He was there three weeks, but the strain broke him. He has an old
+letter in his hands that he has handled until it is ragged. He held it up to me
+and said: ‘You can see for yourself that she says she will be well and happy,
+but we can’t know until we see her again, and that may never be. She may have
+gone too near that place her father went down, some of that Limberlost gang may
+have found her in the forest, she may lie dead in some city morgue this
+instant, waiting for me to find her body.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hart! For pity sake stop!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t,” cried Henderson desperately. “I am forced to tell you. They are
+fighting brain fever. He did go back to the swamp and he prowled it night and
+day. The days down there are hot now, and the nights wet with dew and cold. He
+paid no attention and forgot his food. A fever started and his uncle brought
+him home. They’ve never had a word from her, or found a trace of her. Mrs.
+Comstock thought she had gone to O’Mores’ at Great Rapids, so when Phil broke
+down she telegraphed there. They had been gone all summer, so her mother is as
+anxious as Phil.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The O’Mores are here,” said Edith. “I haven’t seen any of them, because I
+haven’t gone out much in the few days since we came, but this is their summer
+home.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith, they say at the hospital that it will take careful nursing to save
+Phil. He is surrounded by stacks of maps and railroad guides. He is trying to
+frame up a plan to set the entire detective agency of the country to work. He
+says he will stay there just two days longer. The doctors say he will kill
+himself when he goes. He is a sick man, Edith. His hands are burning and shaky
+and his breath was hot against my face.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why are you telling me?” It was a cry of acute anguish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He thinks you know where she is.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I do not! I haven’t an idea! I never dreamed she would go away when she had
+him in her hand! I should not have done it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He said it was something you said to her that made her go.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That may be, but it doesn’t prove that I know where she went.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson looked across the water and suffered keenly. At last he turned to
+Edith and laid a firm, strong hand over hers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith,” he said, “do you realize how serious this is?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I suppose I do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you want as fine a fellow as Philip driven any further? If he leaves that
+hospital now, and goes out to the exposure and anxiety of a search for her,
+there will be a tragedy that no after regrets can avert. Edith, what did you
+say to Miss Comstock that made her run away from Phil?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl turned her face from him and sat still, but the man gripping her hands
+and waiting in agony could see that she was shaken by the jolting of the heart
+in her breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith, what did you say?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What difference can it make?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It might furnish some clue to her action.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It could not possibly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Phil thinks so. He has thought so until his brain is worn enough to give way.
+Tell me, Edith!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I told her Phil was mine! That if he were away from her an hour and back in my
+presence, he would be to me as he always has been.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith, did you believe that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I would have staked my life, my soul on it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you believe it now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no answer. Henderson took her other hand and holding both of them
+firmly he said softly: “Don’t mind me, dear. I don’t count! I’m just old Hart!
+You can tell me anything. Do you still believe that?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The beautiful head barely moved in negation. Henderson gathered both her hands
+in one of his and stretched an arm across her shoulders to the post to support
+her. She dragged her hands from him and twisted them together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Hart!” she cried. “It isn’t fair! There is a limit! I have suffered my
+share. Can’t you see? Can’t you understand?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes,” he panted. “Yes, my girl! Tell me just this one thing yet, and I’ll
+cheerfully kill any one who annoys you further. Tell me, Edith!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she lifted her big, dull, pain-filled eyes to his and cried: “No! I do not
+believe it now! I know it is not true! I killed his love for me. It is dead and
+gone forever. Nothing will revive it! Nothing in all this world. And that is
+not all. I did not know how to touch the depths of his nature. I never
+developed in him those things he was made to enjoy. He admired me. He was proud
+to be with me. He thought, and I thought, that he worshipped me; but I know now
+that he never did care for me as he cares for her. Never! I can see it! I
+planned to lead society, to make his home a place sought for my beauty and
+popularity. She plans to advance his political ambitions, to make him
+comfortable physically, to stimulate his intellect, to bear him a brood of
+red-faced children. He likes her and her plans as he never did me and mine. Oh,
+my soul! Now, are you satisfied?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She dropped back against his arm exhausted. Henderson held her and learned what
+suffering truly means. He fanned her with his hat, rubbed her cold hands and
+murmured broken, incoherent things. By and by slow tears slipped from under her
+closed lids, but when she opened them her eyes were dull and hard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What a rag one is when the last secret of the soul is torn out and laid bare!”
+she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson thrust his handkerchief into her fingers and whispered, “Edith, the
+boat has been creeping up. It’s very close. Maybe some of our crowd are on it.
+Hadn’t we better slip away from here before it lands?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I can walk,” she said. “Oh, I am so dead tired, Hart!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, dear,” said Henderson soothingly. “Just try to pass the landing before
+the boat anchors. If I only dared carry you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They struggled through the waiting masses, but directly opposite the landing
+there was a backward movement in the happy, laughing crowd, the gang-plank came
+down with a slam, and people began hurrying from the boat. Crowded against the
+fish house on the dock, Henderson could only advance a few steps at a time. He
+was straining every nerve to protect and assist Edith. He saw no one he
+recognized near them, so he slipped his arm across her back to help support
+her. He felt her stiffen against him and catch her breath. At the same instant,
+the clearest, sweetest male voice he ever had heard called: “Be careful there,
+little men!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson sent a swift glance toward the boat. Terence O’More had stepped from
+the gang-plank, leading a little daughter, so like him, it was comical. There
+followed a picture not easy to describe. The Angel in the full flower of her
+beauty, richly dressed, a laugh on her cameo face, the setting sun glinting on
+her gold hair, escorted by her eldest son, who held her hand tightly and
+carefully watched her steps. Next came Elnora, dressed with equal richness, a
+trifle taller and slenderer, almost the same type of colouring, but with
+different eyes and hair, facial lines and expression. She was led by the second
+O’More boy who convulsed the crowd by saying: “Tareful, Elnora! Don’t ’oo be
+’teppin’ in de water!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+People surged around them, purposely closing them in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What lovely women! Who are they? It’s the O’Mores. The lightest one is his
+wife. Is that her sister? No, it is his! They say he has a title in England.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whispers ran fast and audible. As the crowd pressed around the party an opening
+was left beside the fish sheds. Edith ran down the dock. Henderson sprang after
+her, catching her arm and assisting her to the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Up the shore! This way!” she panted. “Every one will go to dinner the first
+thing they do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They left the street and started around the beach, but Edith was breathless
+from running, while the yielding sand made difficult walking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Help me!” she cried, clinging to Henderson. He put his arm around her, almost
+carrying her from sight into a little cove walled by high rocks at the back,
+while there was a clean floor of white sand, and logs washed from the lake for
+seats. He found one of these with a back rest, and hurrying down to the water
+he soaked his handkerchief and carried it to her. She passed it across her
+lips, over her eyes, and then pressed the palms of her hands upon it. Henderson
+removed the heavy hat, fanned her with his, and wet the handkerchief again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hart, what makes you?” she said wearily. “My mother doesn’t care. She says
+this is good for me. Do you think this is good for me, Hart?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith, you know I would give my life if I could save you this,” he said, and
+could not speak further.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She leaned against him, closed her eyes and lay silent so long the man fell
+into panic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith, you are not unconscious?” he whispered, touching her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, just resting. Please don’t leave me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He held her carefully, gently fanning her. She was suffering almost more than
+either of them could endure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish you had your boat,” she said at last. “I want to sail with the wind in
+my face.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is no wind. I can bring my motor around in a few minutes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then get it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lie on the sand. I can ’phone from the first booth. It won’t take but a little
+while.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith lay on the white sand, and Henderson covered her face with her hat. Then
+he ran to the nearest booth and talked imperatively. Presently he was back
+bringing a hot drink that was stimulating. Shortly the motor ran close to the
+beach and stopped. Henderson’s servant brought a row-boat ashore and took them
+to the launch. It was filled with cushions and wraps. Henderson made a couch
+and soon, warmly covered, Edith sped out over the water in search of peace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hour after hour the boat ran up and down the shore. The moon arose and the
+night air grew very chilly. Henderson put on an overcoat and piled more covers
+on Edith.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You must take me home,” she said at last. “The folks will be uneasy.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was compelled to take her to the cottage with the battle still raging. He
+went back early the next morning, but already she had wandered out over the
+island. Instinctively Henderson felt that the shore would attract her. There
+was something in the tumult of rough little Huron’s waves that called to him.
+It was there he found her, crouching so close the water the foam was dampening
+her skirts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“May I stay?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have been hoping you would come,” she answered. “It’s bad enough when you
+are here, but it is a little easier than bearing it alone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank God for that!” said Henderson sitting beside her. “Shall I talk to you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head. So they sat by the hour. At last she spoke: “Of course, you
+know there is something I have got to do, Hart!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have not!” cried Henderson, violently. “That’s all nonsense! Give me just
+one word of permission. That is all that is required of you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘Required?’ You grant, then, that there is something ‘required?’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“One word. Nothing more.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Did you ever know one word could be so big, so black, so desperately bitter?
+Oh, Hart!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But you know it now, Hart!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And still you say that it is ‘required?’”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson suffered unspeakably. At last he said: “If you had seen and heard
+him, Edith, you, too, would feel that it is ‘required.’ Remember&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No! No! No!” she cried. “Don’t ask me to remember even the least of my pride
+and folly. Let me forget!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat silent for a long time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you go with me?” she whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last she arose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I might as well give up and have it over,” she faltered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was the first time in her life that Edith Carr ever had proposed to give
+up anything she wanted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Help me, Hart!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson started around the beach assisting her all he could. Finally he
+stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith, there is no sense in this! You are too tired to go. You know you can
+trust me. You wait in any of these lovely places and send me. You will be safe,
+and I’ll run. One word is all that is necessary.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I’ve got to say that word myself, Hart!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Then write it, and let me carry it. The message is not going to prove who went
+to the office and sent it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is quite true,” she said, dropping wearily, but she made no movement to
+take the pen and paper he offered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hart, you write it,” she said at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson turned away his face. He gripped the pen, while his breath sucked
+between his dry teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Certainly!” he said when he could speak. “Mackinac, August 27, 1908. Philip
+Ammon, Lake Shore Hospital, Chicago.” He paused with suspended pen and glanced
+at Edith. Her white lips were working, but no sound came. “Miss Comstock is
+with the Terence O’Mores, on Mackinac Island,” prompted Henderson.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Signed, Henderson,” continued the big man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Say, ‘She is well and happy,’ and sign, Edith Carr!” she panted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not on your life!” flashed Henderson.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For the love of mercy, Hart, don’t make this any harder! It is the least I can
+do, and it takes every ounce of strength in me to do it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you wait for me here?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She nodded, and, pulling his hat lower over his eyes, Henderson ran around the
+shore. In less than an hour he was back. He helped her a little farther to
+where the Devil’s Kitchen lay cut into the rocks; it furnished places to rest,
+and cool water. Before long his man came with the boat. From it they spread
+blankets on the sand for her, and made chafing-dish tea. She tried to refuse
+it, but the fragrance overcame her for she drank ravenously. Then Henderson
+cooked several dishes and spread an appetizing lunch. She was young, strong,
+and almost famished for food. She was forced to eat. That made her feel much
+better. Then Henderson helped her into the boat and ran it through shady coves
+of the shore, where there were refreshing breezes. When she fell asleep the
+girl did not know, but the man did. Sadly in need of rest himself, he ran that
+boat for five hours through quiet bays, away from noisy parties, and where the
+shade was cool and deep. When she awoke he took her home, and as they went she
+knew that she had been mistaken. She would not die. Her heart was not even
+broken. She had suffered horribly; she would suffer more; but eventually the
+pain must wear out. Into her head crept a few lines of an old opera:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+“Hearts do not break, they sting and ache,<br/>
+For old love’s sake, but do not die,<br/>
+As witnesseth the living I.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That evening they were sailing down the Straits before a stiff breeze and
+Henderson was busy with the tiller when she said to him: “Hart, I want you to
+do something more for me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You have only to tell me,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have I only to tell you, Hart?” she asked softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Haven’t you learned that yet, Edith?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want you to go away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well,” he said quietly, but his face whitened visibly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You say that as if you had been expecting it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have. I knew from the beginning that when this was over you would dislike me
+for having seen you suffer. I have grown my Gethsemane in a full realization of
+what was coming, but I could not leave you, Edith, so long as it seemed to me
+that I was serving you. Does it make any difference to you where I go?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I want you where you will be loved, and good care taken of you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank you!” said Henderson, smiling grimly. “Have you any idea where such a
+spot might be found?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It should be with your sister at Los Angeles. She always has seemed very fond
+of you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That is quite true,” said Henderson, his eyes brightening a little. “I will go
+to her. When shall I start?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At once.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson began to tack for the landing, but his hands shook until he scarcely
+could manage the boat. Edith Carr sat watching him indifferently, but her heart
+was throbbing painfully. “Why is there so much suffering in the world?” she
+kept whispering to herself. Inside her door Henderson took her by the shoulders
+almost roughly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“For how long is this, Edith, and how are you going to say good-bye to me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She raised tired, pain-filled eyes to his.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know for how long it is,” she said. “It seems now as if it had been a
+slow eternity. I wish to my soul that God would be merciful to me and make
+something ‘snap’ in my heart, as there did in Phil’s, that would give me rest.
+I don’t know for how long, but I’m perfectly shameless with you, Hart. If peace
+ever comes and I want you, I won’t wait for you to find it out yourself, I’ll
+cable, Marconigraph, anything. As for how I say good-bye; any way you please, I
+don’t care in the least what happens to me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson studied her intently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In that case, we will shake hands,” he said. “Good-bye, Edith. Don’t forget
+that every hour I am thinking of you and hoping all good things will come to
+you soon.”
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0025"></a>
+CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN PHILIP FINDS ELNORA, AND EDITH CARR OFFERS A YELLOW EMPEROR</h3>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I need my own violin,” cried Elnora. “This one may be a thousand times
+more expensive, and much older than mine; but it wasn’t inspired and taught to
+sing by a man who knew how. It doesn’t know ‘beans,’ as mother would say, about
+the Limberlost.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guests in the O’More music-room laughed appreciatively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you write your mother to come for a visit and bring yours?”
+suggested Freckles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I did that three days ago,” acknowledged Elnora. “I am half expecting her on
+the noon boat. That is one reason why this violin grows worse every minute.
+There is nothing at all the matter with me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Splendid!” cried the Angel. “I’ve begged and begged her to do it. I know how
+anxious these mothers become. When did you send? What made you? Why didn’t you
+tell me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘When?’ Three days ago. ‘What made me?’ You. ‘Why didn’t I tell you?’ Because
+I can’t be sure in the least that she will come. Mother is the most individual
+person. She never does what every one expects she will. She may not come, and I
+didn’t want you to be disappointed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How did I make you?” asked the Angel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Loving Alice. It made me realize that if you cared for your girl like that,
+with Mr. O’More and three other children, possibly my mother, with no one,
+might like to see me. I know I want to see her, and you had told me to so
+often, I just sent for her. Oh, I do hope she comes! I want her to see this
+lovely place.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have been wondering what you thought of Mackinac,” said Freckles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, it is a perfect picture, all of it! I should like to hang it on the wall,
+so I could see it whenever I wanted to; but it isn’t real, of course; it’s
+nothing but a picture.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“These people won’t agree with you,” smiled Freckles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That isn’t necessary,” retorted Elnora. “They know this, and they love it; but
+you and I are acquainted with something different. The Limberlost is life. Here
+it is a carefully kept park. You motor, sail, and golf, all so secure and fine.
+But what I like is the excitement of choosing a path carefully, in the fear
+that the quagmire may reach out and suck me down; to go into the swamp
+naked-handed and wrest from it treasures that bring me books and clothing, and
+I like enough of a fight for things that I always remember how I got them. I
+even enjoy seeing a canny old vulture eyeing me as if it were saying: ’Ware the
+sting of the rattler, lest I pick your bones as I did old Limber’s.’ I like
+sufficient danger to put an edge on life. This is so tame. I should have loved
+it when all the homes were cabins, and watchers for the stealthy Indian canoes
+patrolled the shores. You wait until mother comes, and if my violin isn’t angry
+with me for leaving it, to-night we shall sing you the Song of the Limberlost.
+You shall hear the big gold bees over the red, yellow, and purple flowers, bird
+song, wind talk, and the whispers of Sleepy Snake Creek, as it goes past you.
+You will know!” Elnora turned to Freckles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded. “Who better?” he asked. “This is secure while the children are so
+small, but when they grow larger, we are going farther north, into real forest,
+where they can learn self-reliance and develop backbone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora laid away the violin. “Come along, children,” she said. “We must get at
+that backbone business at once. Let’s race to the playhouse.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the brood at her heels Elnora ran, and for an hour lively sounds stole
+from the remaining spot of forest on the Island, which lay beside the O’More
+cottage. Then Terry went to the playroom to bring Alice her doll. He came
+racing back, dragging it by one leg, and crying: “There’s company! Someone has
+come that mamma and papa are just tearing down the house over. I saw through
+the window.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It could not be my mother, yet,” mused Elnora. “Her boat is not due until
+twelve. Terry, give Alice that doll&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s a man-person, and I don’t know him, but my father is shaking his hand
+right straight along, and my mother is running for a hot drink and a cushion.
+It’s a kind of a sick person, but they are going to make him well right away,
+any one can see that. This is the best place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll go tell him to come lie on the pine needles in the sun and watch the
+sails go by. That will fix him!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Watch sails go by,” chanted Little Brother. “‘A fix him! Elnora fix him, won’t
+you?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t know about that,” answered Elnora. “What sort of person is he, Terry?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A beautiful white person; but my father is going to ‘colour him up,’ I heard
+him say so. He’s just out of the hospital, and he is a bad person, ’cause he
+ran away from the doctors and made them awful angry. But father and mother are
+going to doctor him better. I didn’t know they could make sick people well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“’Ey do anyfing!” boasted Little Brother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before Elnora missed her, Alice, who had gone to investigate, came flying
+across the shadows and through the sunshine waving a paper. She thurst it into
+Elnora’s hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There is a man-person&mdash;a stranger-person!” she shouted. “But he knows
+you! He sent you that! You are to be the doctor! He said so! Oh, do hurry! I
+like him heaps!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora read Edith Carr’s telegram to Philip Ammon and understood that he had
+been ill, that she had been located by Edith who had notified him. In so doing
+she had acknowledged defeat. At last Philip was free. Elnora looked up with a
+radiant face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like him ‘heaps’ myself!” she cried. “Come on children, we will go tell him
+so.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Terry and Alice ran, but Elnora had to suit her steps to Little Brother, who
+was her loyal esquire, and would have been heartbroken over desertion and
+insulted at being carried. He was rather dragged, but he was arriving, and the
+emergency was great, he could see that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s coming!” shouted Alice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s going to be the doctor!” cried Terry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She looked just like she’d seen angels when she read the letter,” explained
+Alice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She likes you ‘heaps!’ She said so!” danced Terry. “Be waiting! Here she is!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora helped Little Brother up the steps, then deserted him and came at a
+rush. The stranger-person stood holding out trembling arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you sure, at last, runaway?” asked Philip Ammon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perfectly sure!” cried Elnora.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you marry me now?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This instant! That is, any time after the noon boat comes in.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why such unnecessary delay?” demanded Ammon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is almost September,” explained Elnora. “I sent for mother three days ago.
+We must wait until she comes, and we either have to send for Uncle Wesley and
+Aunt Margaret, or go to them. I couldn’t possibly be married properly without
+those dear people.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We will send,” decided Ammon. “The trip will be a treat for them. O’More,
+would you get off a message at once?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every one met the noon boat. They went in the motor because Philip was too weak
+to walk so far. As soon as people could be distinguished at all Elnora and
+Philip sighted an erect figure, with a head like a snowdrift. When the
+gang-plank fell the first person across it was a lean, red-haired boy of
+eleven, carrying a violin in one hand and an enormous bouquet of yellow
+marigolds and purple asters in the other. He was beaming with broad smiles
+until he saw Philip. Then his expression changed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Aw, say!” he exclaimed reproachfully. “I bet you Aunt Margaret is right. He is
+going to be your beau!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora stooped to kiss Billy as she caught her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“There, there!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “Don’t knock my headgear into my eye. I’m
+not sure I’ve got either hat or hair. The wind blew like bizzem coming up the
+river.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook out her skirts, straightened her hat, and came forward to meet
+Philip, who took her into his arms and kissed her repeatedly. Then he passed
+her along to Freckles and the Angel to whom her greetings were mingled with
+scolding and laughter over her wind-blown hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No doubt I’m a precious spectacle!” she said to the Angel. “I saw your pa a
+little before I started, and he sent you a note. It’s in my satchel. He said he
+was coming up next week. What a lot of people there are in this world! And what
+on earth are all of them laughing about? Did none of them ever hear of
+sickness, or sorrow, or death? Billy, don’t you go to playing Indian or chasing
+woodchucks until you get out of those clothes. I promised Margaret I’d bring
+back that suit good as new.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the O’More children came crowding to meet Elnora’s mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Merry Christmas!” cried Mrs. Comstock, gathering them in. “Got everything
+right here but the tree, and there seems to be plenty of them a little higher
+up. If this wind would stiffen just enough more to blow away the people, so one
+could see this place, I believe it would be right decent looking.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“See here,” whispered Elnora to Philip. “You must fix this with Billy. I can’t
+have his trip spoiled.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, here is where I dust the rest of ’em!” complacently remarked Mrs.
+Comstock, as she climbed into the motor car for her first ride, in company with
+Philip and Little Brother. “I have been the one to trudge the roads and hop out
+of the way of these things for quite a spell.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat very erect as the car rolled into the broad main avenue, where only
+stray couples were walking. Her eyes began to twinkle and gleam. Suddenly she
+leaned forward and touched the driver on the shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Young man,” she said, “just you toot that horn suddenly and shave close enough
+a few of those people, so that I can see how I look when I leap for ragweed and
+snake fences.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The amazed chauffeur glanced questioningly at Philip who slightly nodded. A
+second later there was a quick “honk!” and a swerve at a corner. A man
+engrossed in conversation grabbed the woman to whom he was talking and dashed
+for the safety of a lawn. The woman tripped in her skirts, and as she fell the
+man caught and dragged her. Both of them turned red faces to the car and
+berated the driver. Mrs. Comstock laughed in unrestrained enjoyment. Then she
+touched the chauffeur again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s enough,” she said. “It seems a mite risky.” A minute later she added to
+Philip, “If only they had been carrying six pounds of butter and ten dozen eggs
+apiece, wouldn’t that have been just perfect?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy had wavered between Elnora and the motor, but his loyal little soul had
+been true to her, so the walk to the cottage began with him at her side. Long
+before they arrived the little O’Mores had crowded around and captured Billy,
+and he was giving them an expurgated version of Mrs. Comstock’s tales of Big
+Foot and Adam Poe, boasting that Uncle Wesley had been in the camps of
+Me-shin-go-me-sia and knew Wa-ca-co-nah before he got religion and dressed like
+white men; while the mighty prowess of Snap as a woodchuck hunter was done full
+justice. When they reached the cottage Philip took Billy aside, showed him the
+emerald ring and gravely asked his permission to marry Elnora. Billy struggled
+to be just, but it was going hard with him, when Alice, who kept close enough
+to hear, intervened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you let them get married?” she asked. “You are much too small for
+her. You wait for me!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy studied her intently. At last he turned to Ammon. “Aw, well! Go on,
+then!” he said gruffly. “I’ll marry Alice!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alice reached her hand. “If you got that settled let’s put on our Indian
+clothes, call the boys, and go to the playhouse.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I haven’t got any Indian clothes,” said Billy ruefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, you have,” explained Alice. “Father bought you some coming from the dock.
+You can put them on in the playhouse. The boys do.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy examined the playhouse with gleaming eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Never had he encountered such possibilities. He could see a hundred amusing
+things to try, and he could not decide which to do first. The most immediate
+attraction seemed to be a dead pine, held perpendicularly by its fellows, while
+its bark had decayed and fallen, leaving a bare, smooth trunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If we just had some grease that would make the dandiest pole to play Fourth of
+July with!” he shouted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The children remembered the Fourth. It had been great fun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Butter is grease. There is plenty in the ’frigerator,” suggested Alice,
+speeding away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy caught the cold roll and began to rub it against the tree excitedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How are you going to get it greased to the top?” inquired Terry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy’s face lengthened. “That’s so!” he said. “The thing is to begin at the
+top and grease down. I’ll show you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy put the butter in his handkerchief and took the corners between his
+teeth. He climbed the pole, greasing it as he slid down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, I got to try first,” he said, “because I’m the biggest and so I have the
+best chance; only the one that goes first hasn’t hardly any chance at all,
+because he has to wipe off the grease on himself, so the others can get up at
+last. See?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All right!” said Terry. “You go first and then I will and then Alice. Phew!
+It’s slick. He’ll never get up.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy wrestled manfully, and when he was exhausted he boosted Terry, and then
+both of them helped Alice, to whom they awarded a prize of her own doll. As
+they rested Billy remembered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do your folks keep cows?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, we buy milk,” said Terry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Gee! Then what about the butter? Maybe your ma needs it for dinner!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, she doesn’t!” cried Alice. “There’s stacks of it! I can have all the
+butter I want.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I’m mighty glad of it!” said Billy. “I didn’t just think. I’m afraid
+we’ve greased our clothes, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s no difference,” said Terry. “We can play what we please in these
+things.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, we ought to be all dirty, and bloody, and have feathers on us to be real
+Indians,” said Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alice tried a handful of dirt on her sleeve and it streaked beautifully.
+Instantly all of them began smearing themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If we only had feathers,” lamented Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Terry disappeared and shortly returned from the garage with a feather duster.
+Billy fell on it with a shriek. Around each one’s head he firmly tied a twisted
+handkerchief, and stuck inside it a row of stiffly upstanding feathers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now, if we just only had some pokeberries to paint us red, we’d be real, for
+sure enough Indians, and we could go on the warpath and fight all the other
+tribes and burn a lot of them at the stake.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alice sidled up to him. “Would huckleberries do?” she asked softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes!” shouted Terry, wild with excitement. “Anything that’s a colour.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alice made another trip to the refrigerator. Billy crushed the berries in his
+hands and smeared and streaked all their faces liberally.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now are we ready?” asked Alice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy collapsed. “I forgot the ponies! You got to ride ponies to go on the
+warpath!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You ain’t neither!” contradicted Terry. “It’s the very latest style to go on
+the warpath in a motor. Everybody does! They go everywhere in them. They are
+much faster and better than any old ponies.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy gave one genuine whoop. “Can we take your motor?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Terry hesitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I suppose you are too little to run it?” said Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am not!” flashed Terry. “I know how to start and stop it, and I drive lots
+for Stephens. It is hard to turn over the engine when you start.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll turn it,” volunteered Billy. “I’m strong as anything.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Maybe it will start without. If Stephens has just been running it, sometimes
+it will. Come on, let’s try.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy straightened up, lifted his chin and cried: “Houpe! Houpe! Houpe!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little O’Mores stared in amazement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why don’t you come on and whoop?” demanded Billy. “Don’t you know how? You are
+great Indians! You got to whoop before you go on the warpath. You ought to kill
+a bat, too, and see if the wind is right. But maybe the engine won’t run if we
+wait to do that. You can whoop, anyway. All together now!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They did whoop, and after several efforts the cry satisfied Billy, so he led
+the way to the big motor, and took the front seat with Terry. Alice and Little
+Brother climbed into the back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will it go?” asked Billy, “or do we have to turn it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It will go,” said Terry as the machine gently slid out into the avenue and
+started under his guidance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“This is no warpath!” scoffed Billy. “We got to go a lot faster than this, and
+we got to whoop. Alice, why don’t you whoop?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alice arose, took hold of the seat in front and whooped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If I open the throttle, I can’t squeeze the bulb to scare people out of our
+way,” said Terry. “I can’t steer and squeeze, too.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We’ll whoop enough to get them out of the way. Go faster!” urged Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy also stood, lifted his chin and whooped like the wildest little savage
+that ever came out of the West. Alice and Little Brother added their voices,
+and when he was not absorbed with the steering gear, Terry joined in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Faster!” shouted Billy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Intoxicated with the speed and excitement, Terry threw the throttle wider and
+the big car leaped forward and sped down the avenue. In it four black,
+feather-bedecked children whooped in wild glee until suddenly Terry’s war cry
+changed to a scream of panic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The lake is coming!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Stop!” cried Billy. “Stop! Why don’t you stop?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Paralyzed with fear Terry clung to the steering gear and the car sped onward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You little fool! Why don’t you stop?” screamed Billy, catching Terry’s arm.
+“Tell me how to stop!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A bicycle shot beside them and Freckles standing on the pedals shouted: “Pull
+out the pin in that little circle at your feet!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy fell on his knees and tugged and the pin yielded at last. Just as the
+wheels struck the white sand the bicycle sheered close, Freckles caught the
+lever and with one strong shove set the brake. The water flew as the car struck
+Huron, but luckily it was shallow and the beach smooth. Hub deep the big motor
+stood quivering as Freckles climbed in and backed it to dry sand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he drew a deep breath and stared at his brood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Terence, would you kindly be explaining?” he said at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Billy looked at the panting little figure of Terry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I guess I better,” he said. “We were playing Indians on the warpath, and we
+hadn’t any ponies, and Terry said it was all the style to go in automobiles
+now, so we&mdash;&mdash;”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Freckles’s head went back, and he did some whooping himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wonder if you realize how nearly you came to being four drowned children?”
+he said gravely, after a time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, I think I could swim enough to get most of us out,” said Billy. “Anyway,
+we need washing.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You do indeed,” said Freckles. “I will head this procession to the garage, and
+there we will remove the first coat.” For the remainder of Billy’s visit the
+nurse, chauffeur, and every servant of the O’More household had something of
+importance on their minds, and Billy’s every step was shadowed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have Billy’s consent,” said Philip to Elnora, “and all the other consent you
+have stipulated. Before you think of something more, give me your left hand,
+please.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora gave it gladly, and the emerald slipped on her finger. Then they went
+together into the forest to tell each other all about it, and talk it over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you seen Edith?” asked Philip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No,” answered Elnora. “But she must be here, or she may have seen me when we
+went to Petoskey a few days ago. Her people have a cottage over on the bluff,
+but the Angel never told me until to-day. I didn’t want to make that trip, but
+the folks were so anxious to entertain me, and it was only a few days until I
+intended to let you know myself where I was.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“And I was going to wait just that long, and if I didn’t hear then I was
+getting ready to turn over the country. I can scarcely realize yet that Edith
+sent me that telegram.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No wonder! It’s a difficult thing to believe. I can’t express how I feel for
+her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let us never speak of it again,” said Philip. “I came nearer feeling sorry for
+her last night than I have yet. I couldn’t sleep on that boat coming over, and
+I couldn’t put away the thought of what sending that message cost her. I never
+would have believed it possible that she would do it. But it is done. We will
+forget it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I scarcely think I shall,” said Elnora. “It is something I like to remember.
+How suffering must have changed her! I would give anything to bring her peace.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Henderson came to see me at the hospital a few days ago. He’s gone a rather
+wild pace, but if he had been held from youth by the love of a good woman he
+might have lived differently. There are things about him one cannot help
+admiring.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think he loves her,” said Elnora softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He does! He always has! He never made any secret of it. He will cut in now and
+do his level best, but he told me that he thought she would send him away. He
+understands her thoroughly.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith Carr did not understand herself. She went to her room after her good-bye
+to Henderson, lay on her bed and tried to think why she was suffering as she
+was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is all my selfishness, my unrestrained temper, my pride in my looks, my
+ambition to be first,” she said. “That is what has caused this trouble.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she went deeper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How does it happen that I am so selfish, that I never controlled my temper,
+that I thought beauty and social position the vital things of life?” she
+muttered. “I think that goes a little past me. I think a mother who allows a
+child to grow up as I did, who educates it only for the frivolities of life,
+has a share in that child’s ending. I think my mother has some responsibility
+in this,” Edith Carr whispered to the night. “But she will recognize none. She
+would laugh at me if I tried to tell her what I have suffered and the bitter,
+bitter lesson I have learned. No one really cares, but Hart. I’ve sent him
+away, so there is no one! No one!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith pressed her fingers across her burning eyes and lay still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He is gone!” she whispered at last. “He would go at once. He would not see me
+again. I should think he never would want to see me any more. But I will want
+to see him! My soul! I want him now! I want him every minute! He is all I have.
+And I’ve sent him away. Oh, these dreadful days to come, alone! I can’t bear
+it. Hart! Hart!” she cried aloud. “I want you! No one cares but you. No one
+understands but you. Oh, I want you!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sprang from her bed and felt her way to her desk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Get me some one at the Henderson cottage,” she said to Central, and waited
+shivering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They don’t answer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“They are there! You must get them. Turn on the buzzer.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a time the sleepy voice of Mrs. Henderson answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Has Hart gone?” panted Edith Carr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No! He came in late and began to talk about starting to California. He hasn’t
+slept in weeks to amount to anything. I put him to bed. There is time enough to
+start to California when he awakens. Edith, what are you planning to do next
+with that boy of mine?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you tell him I want to see him before he goes?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, but I won’t wake him.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t want you to. Just tell him in the morning.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Very well.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You will be sure?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hart was not gone. Edith fell asleep. She arose at noon the next day, took a
+cold bath, ate her breakfast, dressed carefully, and leaving word that she had
+gone to the forest, she walked slowly across the leaves. It was cool and quiet
+there, so she sat where she could see him coming, and waited. She was thinking
+deep and fast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson came swiftly down the path. A long sleep, food, and Edith’s message
+had done him good. He had dressed in new light flannels that were becoming.
+Edith arose and went to meet him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let us walk in the forest,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They passed the old Catholic graveyard, and entered the deepest wood of the
+Island, where all shadows were green, all voices of humanity ceased, and there
+was no sound save the whispering of the trees, a few bird notes and squirrel
+rustle. There Edith seated herself on a mossy old log, and Henderson studied
+her. He could detect a change. She was still pale and her eyes tired, but the
+dull, strained look was gone. He wanted to hope, but he did not dare. Any other
+man would have forced her to speak. The mighty tenderness in Henderson’s heart
+shielded her in every way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What have you thought of that you wanted yet, Edith?” he asked lightly as he
+stretched himself at her feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson lay tense and very still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, I am here!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thank Heaven for that!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson sat up suddenly, leaning toward her with questioning eyes. Not
+knowing what he dared say, afraid of the hope which found birth in his heart,
+he tried to shield her and at the same time to feel his way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am more thankful than I can express that you feel so,” he said. “I would be
+of use, of comfort, to you if I knew how, Edith.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You are my only comfort,” she said. “I tried to send you away. I thought I
+didn’t want you. I thought I couldn’t bear the sight of you, because of what
+you have seen me suffer. But I went to the root of this thing last night, Hart,
+and with self in mind, as usual, I found that I could not live without you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson began breathing lightly. He was afraid to speak or move.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I faced the fact that all this is my own fault,” continued Edith, “and came
+through my own selfishness. Then I went farther back and realized that I am as
+I was reared. I don’t want to blame my parents, but I was carefully trained
+into what I am. If Elnora Comstock had been like me, Phil would have come back
+to me. I can see how selfish I seem to him, and how I appear to you, if you
+would admit it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith,” said Henderson desperately, “there is no use to try to deceive you.
+You have known from the first that I found you wrong in this. But it’s the
+first time in your life I ever thought you wrong about anything&mdash;and it’s
+the only time I ever shall. Understand, I think you the bravest, most beautiful
+woman on earth, the one most worth loving.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’m not to be considered in the same class with her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I don’t grant that, but if I did, you, must remember how I compare with Phil.
+He’s my superior at every point. There’s no use in discussing that. You wanted
+to see me, Edith. What did you want?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wanted you to not go away.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not at all?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Not at all! Not ever! Not unless you take me with you, Hart.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She slightly extended one hand to him. Henderson took that hand, kissing it
+again and again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Anything you want, Edith,” he said brokenly. “Just as you wish it. Do you want
+me to stay here, and go on as we have been?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, only with a difference.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Can you tell me, Edith?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“First, I want you to know that you are the dearest thing on earth to me, right
+now. I would give up everything else, before I would you. I can’t honestly say
+that I love you with the love you deserve. My heart is too sore. It’s too soon
+to know. But I love you some way. You are necessary to me. You are my comfort,
+my shield. If you want me, as you know me to be, Hart, you may consider me
+yours. I give you my word of honour I will try to be as you would have me, just
+as soon as I can.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson kissed her hand passionately. “Don’t, Edith,” he begged. “Don’t say
+those things. I can’t bear it. I understand. Everything will come right in
+time. Love like mine must bring a reward. You will love me some day. I can
+wait. I am the most patient fellow.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But I must say it,” cried Edith. “I&mdash;I think, Hart, that I have been on
+the wrong road to find happiness. I planned to finish life as I started it with
+Phil; and you see how glad he was to change. He wanted the other sort of girl
+far more than he ever wanted me. And you, Hart, honest, now&mdash;I’ll know if
+you don’t tell me the truth! Would you rather have a wife as I planned to live
+life with Phil, or would you rather have her as Elnora Comstock intends to live
+with him?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith!” cried the man, “Edith!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course, you can’t say it in plain English,” said the girl. “You are far too
+chivalrous for that. You needn’t say anything. I am answered. If you could have
+your choice you wouldn’t have a society wife, either. In your heart you’d like
+the smaller home of comfort, the furtherance of your ambitions, the palatable
+meals regularly served, and little children around you. I am sick of all we
+have grown up to, Hart. When your hour of trouble comes, there is no comfort
+for you. I am tired to death. You find out what you want to do, and be, that is
+a man’s work in the world, and I will plan our home, with no thought save your
+comfort. I’ll be the other kind of a girl, as fast as I can learn. I can’t
+correct all my faults in one day, but I’ll change as rapidly as I can.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“God knows, I will be different, too, Edith. You shall not be the only generous
+one. I will make all the rest of life worthy of you. I will change, too!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you dare!” said Edith Carr, taking his head between her hands and
+holding it against her knees, while the tears slid down her cheeks. “Don’t you
+dare change, you big-hearted, splendid lover! I am little and selfish. You are
+the very finest, just as you are!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson was not talking then, so they sat through a long silence. At last he
+heard Edith draw a quick breath, and lifting his head he looked where she
+pointed. Up a fern stalk climbed a curious looking object. They watched
+breathlessly. By lavender feet clung a big, pursy, lavender-splotched, yellow
+body. Yellow and lavender wings began to expand and take on colour. Every
+instant great beauty became more apparent. It was one of those double-brooded
+freaks, which do occur on rare occasions, or merely an Eacles Imperialis moth
+that in the cool damp northern forest had failed to emerge in June. Edith Carr
+drew back with a long, shivering breath. Henderson caught her hands and gripped
+them firmly. Steadily she looked the thought of her heart into his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“By all the powers, you shall not!” swore the man. “You have done enough. I
+will smash that thing!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh no you won’t!” cried the girl, clinging to his hands. “I am not big enough
+yet, Hart, but before I leave this forest I shall have grown to breadth and
+strength to carry that to her. She needs two of each kind. Phil only sent her
+one!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith I can’t bear it! That’s not demanded! Let me take it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You may go with me. I know where the O’More cottage is. I have been there
+often.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll say you sent it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You may watch me deliver it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Phil may be there by now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hope he is! I should like him to see me do one decent thing by which to
+remember me.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I tell you that is not necessary!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘Not necessary!’” cried the girl, her big eyes shining. “Not necessary? Then
+what on earth is the thing doing here? I just have boasted that I would change,
+that I would be like her, that I would grow bigger and broader. As the words
+are spoken God gives me the opportunity to prove whether I am sincere. This is
+my test, Hart! Don’t you see it? If I am big enough to carry that to her, you
+will believe that there is some good in me. You will not be loving me in vain.
+This is an especial Providence, man! Be my strength! Help me, as you always
+have done!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson arose and shook the leaves from his clothing. He drew Edith Carr to
+her feet and carefully picked the mosses from her skirts. He went to the water
+and moistened his handkerchief to bathe her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now a dust of powder,” he said when the tears were washed away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From a tiny book Edith tore leaves that she passed over her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All gone!” cried Henderson, critically studying her. “You look almost half as
+lovely as you really are!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Edith Carr drew a wavering breath. She stretched one hand to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hold tight, Hart!” she said. “I know they handle these things, but I would
+quite as soon touch a snake.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henderson clenched his teeth and held steadily. The moth had emerged too
+recently to be troublesome. It climbed on her fingers quietly and obligingly
+clung there without moving. So hand in hand they went down the dark forest
+path. When they came to the avenue, the first person they met paused with an
+ejaculation of wonder. The next stopped also, and every one following. They
+could make little progress on account of marvelling, interested people. A
+strange excitement took possession of Edith. She began to feel proud of the
+moth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you know,” she said to Henderson, “this is growing easier every step. Its
+clinging is not disagreeable as I thought it would be. I feel as if I were
+saving it, protecting it. I am proud that we are taking it to be put into a
+collection or a book. It seems like doing a thing worth while. Oh, Hart, I wish
+we could work together at something for which people would care as they seem to
+for this. Hear what they say! See them lift their little children to look at
+it!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Edith, if you don’t stop,” said Henderson, “I will take you in my arms here on
+the avenue. You are adorable!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t you dare!” laughed Edith Carr. The colour rushed to her cheeks and a new
+light leaped in her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Oh, Hart!” she cried. “Let’s work! Let’s do something! That’s the way she
+makes people love her so. There’s the place, and thank goodness, there is a
+crowd.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You darling!” whispered Henderson as they passed up the walk. Her face was
+rose-flushed with excitement and her eyes shone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Hello, everyone!” she cried as she came on the wide veranda. “Only see what we
+found up in the forest! We thought you might like to have it for some of your
+collections.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She held out the moth as she walked straight to Elnora, who arose to meet her,
+crying: “How perfectly splendid! I don’t even know how to begin to thank you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elnora took the moth. Edith shook hands with all of them and asked Philip if he
+were improving. She said a few polite words to Freckles and the Angel, declined
+to remain on account of an engagement, and went away, gracefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well bully for her!” said Mrs. Comstock. “She’s a little thoroughbred after
+all!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That was a mighty big thing for her to be doing,” said Freckles in a hushed
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you knew her as well as I do,” said Philip Ammon, “you would have a better
+conception of what that cost.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It was a terror!” cried the Angel. “I never could have done it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘Never could have done it!’” echoed Freckles. “Why, Angel, dear, that is the
+one thing of all the world you would have done!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I have to take care of this,” faltered Elnora, hurrying toward the door to
+hide the tears which were rolling down her cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I must help,” said Philip, disappearing also. “Elnora,” he called, catching up
+with her, “take me where I may cry, too. Wasn’t she great?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Superb!” exclaimed Elnora. “I have no words. I feel so humbled!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“So do I,” said Philip. “I think a brave deed like that always makes one feel
+so. Now are you happy?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Unspeakably happy!” answered Elnora.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
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+Project Gutenberg's A Girl Of The Limberlost, by Gene Stratton Porter
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Girl Of The Limberlost
+
+Author: Gene Stratton Porter
+
+Release Date: March 8, 2006 [EBook #125]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST
+
+By Gene Stratton Porter
+
+
+
+     To All Girls Of The Limberlost
+     In General
+     And One Jeanette Helen Porter
+     In Particular
+
+
+
+CHARACTERS:
+
+  ELNORA, who collects moths to pay for her education, and lives the
+  Golden Rule.
+
+  PHILIP AMMON, who assists in moth hunting, and gains a new conception of
+  love.
+
+  MRS. COMSTOCK, who lost a delusion and found a treasure.
+
+  WESLEY SINTON, who always did his best.
+
+  MARGARET SINTON, who "mothers" Elnora.
+
+  BILLY, a boy from real life.
+
+  EDITH CARR, who discovers herself.
+
+  HART HENDERSON, to whom love means all things.
+
+  POLLY AMMON, who pays an old score.
+
+  TOM LEVERING, engaged to Polly.
+
+  TERENCE O'MORE, Freckles grown tall.
+
+  MRS. O'MORE, who remained the Angel.
+
+  TERENCE, ALICE and LITTLE BROTHER, the O'MORE children.
+
+
+
+
+A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA GOES TO HIGH SCHOOL AND LEARNS MANY LESSONS NOT FOUND IN
+HER BOOKS
+
+
+"Elnora Comstock, have you lost your senses?" demanded the angry voice of
+Katharine Comstock while she glared at her daughter.
+
+"Why mother!" faltered the girl.
+
+"Don't you 'why mother' me!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "You know very well
+what I mean. You've given me no peace until you've had your way about
+this going to school business; I've fixed you good enough, and you're
+ready to start. But no child of mine walks the streets of Onabasha
+looking like a play-actress woman. You wet your hair and comb it down
+modest and decent and then be off, or you'll have no time to find where
+you belong."
+
+Elnora gave one despairing glance at the white face, framed in a most
+becoming riot of reddish-brown hair, which she saw in the little kitchen
+mirror. Then she untied the narrow black ribbon, wet the comb and
+plastered the waving curls close to her head, bound them fast, pinned on
+the skimpy black hat and opened the back door.
+
+"You've gone so plumb daffy you are forgetting your dinner," jeered her
+mother.
+
+"I don't want anything to eat," replied Elnora.
+
+"You'll take your dinner or you'll not go one step. Are you crazy? Walk
+almost three miles and no food from six in the morning until six at
+night. A pretty figure you'd cut if you had your way! And after I've
+gone and bought you this nice new pail and filled it especial to start
+on!"
+
+Elnora came back with a face still whiter and picked up the lunch.
+"Thank you, mother! Good-bye!" she said. Mrs. Comstock did not reply.
+She watched the girl follow the long walk to the gate and go from sight
+on the road, in the bright sunshine of the first Monday of September.
+
+"I bet a dollar she gets enough of it by night!" commented Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+Elnora walked by instinct, for her eyes were blinded with tears. She
+left the road where it turned south, at the corner of the Limberlost,
+climbed a snake fence and entered a path worn by her own feet. Dodging
+under willow and scrub oak branches she came at last to the faint
+outline of an old trail made in the days when the precious timber of the
+swamp was guarded by armed men. This path she followed until she reached
+a thick clump of bushes. From the debris in the end of a hollow log she
+took a key that unlocked the padlock of a large weatherbeaten old box,
+inside of which lay several books, a butterfly apparatus, and a small
+cracked mirror. The walls were lined thickly with gaudy butterflies,
+dragonflies, and moths. She set up the mirror and once more pulling
+the ribbon from her hair, she shook the bright mass over her shoulders,
+tossing it dry in the sunshine. Then she straightened it, bound it
+loosely, and replaced her hat. She tugged vainly at the low brown calico
+collar and gazed despairingly at the generous length of the narrow
+skirt. She lifted it as she would have cut it if possible. That
+disclosed the heavy high leather shoes, at sight of which she seemed
+positively ill, and hastily dropped the skirt. She opened the pail,
+removed the lunch, wrapped it in the napkin, and placed it in a small
+pasteboard box. Locking the case again she hid the key and hurried down
+the trail.
+
+She followed it around the north end of the swamp and then entered a
+footpath crossing a farm leading in the direction of the spires of the
+city to the northeast. Again she climbed a fence and was on the open
+road. For an instant she leaned against the fence staring before her,
+then turned and looked back. Behind her lay the land on which she had
+been born to drudgery and a mother who made no pretence of loving her;
+before her lay the city through whose schools she hoped to find means
+of escape and the way to reach the things for which she cared. When she
+thought of how she appeared she leaned more heavily against the fence
+and groaned; when she thought of turning back and wearing such clothing
+in ignorance all the days of her life she set her teeth firmly and went
+hastily toward Onabasha.
+
+On the bridge crossing a deep culvert at the suburbs she glanced around,
+and then kneeling she thrust the lunch box between the foundation and
+the flooring. This left her empty-handed as she approached the big stone
+high school building. She entered bravely and inquired her way to the
+office of the superintendent. There she learned that she should have
+come the previous week and arranged about her classes. There were many
+things incident to the opening of school, and one man unable to cope
+with all of them.
+
+"Where have you been attending school?" he asked, while he advised the
+teacher of Domestic Science not to telephone for groceries until
+she knew how many she would have in her classes; wrote an order for
+chemicals for the students of science; and advised the leader of the
+orchestra to hire a professional to take the place of the bass violist,
+reported suddenly ill.
+
+"I finished last spring at Brushwood school, district number nine," said
+Elnora. "I have been studying all summer. I am quite sure I can do the
+first year work, if I have a few days to get started."
+
+"Of course, of course," assented the superintendent. "Almost invariably
+country pupils do good work. You may enter first year, and if it is too
+difficult, we will find it out speedily. Your teachers will tell you the
+list of books you must have, and if you will come with me I will show
+you the way to the auditorium. It is now time for opening exercises.
+Take any seat you find vacant."
+
+Elnora stood before the entrance and stared into the largest room she
+ever had seen. The floor sloped to a yawning stage on which a band of
+musicians, grouped around a grand piano, were tuning their instruments.
+She had two fleeting impressions. That it was all a mistake; this was
+no school, but a grand display of enormous ribbon bows; and the second,
+that she was sinking, and had forgotten how to walk. Then a burst from
+the orchestra nerved her while a bevy of daintily clad, sweet-smelling
+things that might have been birds, or flowers, or possibly gaily
+dressed, happy young girls, pushed her forward. She found herself
+plodding across the back of the auditorium, praying for guidance, to an
+empty seat.
+
+As the girls passed her, vacancies seemed to open to meet them. Their
+friends were moving over, beckoning and whispering invitations. Every
+one else was seated, but no one paid any attention to the white-faced
+girl stumbling half-blindly down the aisle next the farthest wall. So
+she went on to the very end facing the stage. No one moved, and she
+could not summon courage to crowd past others to several empty seats she
+saw. At the end of the aisle she paused in desperation, while she stared
+back at the whole forest of faces most of which were now turned upon
+her.
+
+In a flash came the full realization of her scanty dress, her pitiful
+little hat and ribbon, her big, heavy shoes, her ignorance of where to
+go or what to do; and from a sickening wave which crept over her, she
+felt she was going to become very ill. Then out of the mass she saw
+a pair of big, brown boy eyes, three seats from her, and there was a
+message in them. Without moving his body he reached forward and with a
+pencil touched the back of the seat before him. Instantly Elnora took
+another step which brought her to a row of vacant front seats.
+
+She heard laughter behind her; the knowledge that she wore the only hat
+in the room burned her; every matter of moment, and some of none at all,
+cut and stung. She had no books. Where should she go when this was over?
+What would she give to be on the trail going home! She was shaking with
+a nervous chill when the music ceased, and the superintendent arose, and
+coming down to the front of the flower-decked platform, opened a Bible
+and began to read. Elnora did not know what he was reading, and she
+felt that she did not care. Wildly she was racking her brain to decide
+whether she should sit still when the others left the room or follow,
+and ask some one where the Freshmen went first.
+
+In the midst of the struggle one sentence fell on her ear. "Hide me
+under the shadow of Thy wings."
+
+Elnora began to pray frantically. "Hide me, O God, hide me, under the
+shadow of Thy wings."
+
+Again and again she implored that prayer, and before she realized what
+was coming, every one had arisen and the room was emptying rapidly.
+Elnora hurried after the nearest girl and in the press at the door
+touched her sleeve timidly.
+
+"Will you please tell me where the Freshmen go?" she asked huskily.
+
+The girl gave her one surprised glance, and drew away.
+
+"Same place as the fresh women," she answered, and those nearest her
+laughed.
+
+Elnora stopped praying suddenly and the colour crept into her face.
+"I'll wager you are the first person I meet when I find it," she said
+and stopped short. "Not that! Oh, I must not do that!" she thought in
+dismay. "Make an enemy the first thing I do. Oh, not that!"
+
+She followed with her eyes as the young people separated in the hall,
+some climbing stairs, some disappearing down side halls, some entering
+adjoining doors. She saw the girl overtake the brown-eyed boy and speak
+to him. He glanced back at Elnora with a scowl on his face. Then she
+stood alone in the hall.
+
+Presently a door opened and a young woman came out and entered another
+room. Elnora waited until she returned, and hurried to her. "Would you
+tell me where the Freshmen are?" she panted.
+
+"Straight down the hall, three doors to your left," was the answer, as
+the girl passed.
+
+"One minute please, oh please," begged Elnora: "Should I knock or just
+open the door?"
+
+"Go in and take a seat," replied the teacher.
+
+"What if there aren't any seats?" gasped Elnora.
+
+"Classrooms are never half-filled, there will be plenty," was the
+answer.
+
+Elnora removed her hat. There was no place to put it, so she carried
+it in her hand. She looked infinitely better without it. After several
+efforts she at last opened the door and stepping inside faced a smaller
+and more concentrated battery of eyes.
+
+"The superintendent sent me. He thinks I belong here," she said to the
+professor in charge of the class, but she never before heard the voice
+with which she spoke. As she stood waiting, the girl of the hall passed
+on her way to the blackboard, and suppressed laughter told Elnora that
+her thrust had been repeated.
+
+"Be seated," said the professor, and then because he saw Elnora was
+desperately embarrassed he proceeded to lend her a book and to ask her
+if she had studied algebra. She said she had a little, but not the same
+book they were using. He asked her if she felt that she could do the
+work they were beginning, and she said she did.
+
+That was how it happened, that three minutes after entering the room
+she was told to take her place beside the girl who had gone last to the
+board, and whose flushed face and angry eyes avoided meeting Elnora's.
+Being compelled to concentrate on her proposition she forgot herself.
+When the professor asked that all pupils sign their work she firmly
+wrote "Elnora Comstock" under her demonstration. Then she took her seat
+and waited with white lips and trembling limbs, as one after another
+professor called the names on the board, while their owners arose and
+explained their propositions, or "flunked" if they had not found a
+correct solution. She was so eager to catch their forms of expression
+and prepare herself for her recitation, that she never looked from the
+work on the board, until clearly and distinctly, "Elnora Cornstock,"
+called the professor.
+
+The dazed girl stared at the board. One tiny curl added to the top of
+the first curve of the m in her name, had transformed it from a good
+old English patronymic that any girl might bear proudly, to Cornstock.
+Elnora sat speechless. When and how did it happen? She could feel the
+wave of smothered laughter in the air around her. A rush of anger turned
+her face scarlet and her soul sick. The voice of the professor addressed
+her directly.
+
+"This proposition seems to be beautifully demonstrated, Miss Cornstalk,"
+he said. "Surely, you can tell us how you did it."
+
+That word of praise saved her. She could do good work. They might wear
+their pretty clothes, have their friends and make life a greater misery
+than it ever before had been for her, but not one of them should
+do better work or be more womanly. That lay with her. She was tall,
+straight, and handsome as she arose.
+
+"Of course I can explain my work," she said in natural tones. "What I
+can't explain is how I happened to be so stupid as to make a mistake in
+writing my own name. I must have been a little nervous. Please excuse
+me."
+
+She went to the board, swept off the signature with one stroke, then
+rewrote it plainly. "My name is Comstock," she said distinctly. She
+returned to her seat and following the formula used by the others made
+her first high school recitation.
+
+As Elnora resumed her seat Professor Henley looked at her steadily.
+"It puzzles me," he said deliberately, "how you can write as beautiful a
+demonstration, and explain it as clearly as ever has been done in any
+of my classes and still be so disturbed as to make a mistake in your own
+name. Are you very sure you did that yourself, Miss Comstock?"
+
+"It is impossible that any one else should have done it," answered
+Elnora.
+
+"I am very glad you think so," said the professor. "Being Freshmen, all
+of you are strangers to me. I should dislike to begin the year with you
+feeling there was one among you small enough to do a trick like that.
+The next proposition, please."
+
+When the hour had gone the class filed back to the study room and Elnora
+followed in desperation, because she did not know where else to go. She
+could not study as she had no books, and when the class again left the
+room to go to another professor for the next recitation, she went also.
+At least they could put her out if she did not belong there. Noon
+came at last, and she kept with the others until they dispersed on
+the sidewalk. She was so abnormally self-conscious she fancied all the
+hundreds of that laughing, throng saw and jested at her. When she passed
+the brown-eyed boy walking with the girl of her encounter, she knew, for
+she heard him say: "Did you really let that gawky piece of calico get
+ahead of you?" The answer was indistinct.
+
+Elnora hurried from the city. She intended to get her lunch, eat it in
+the shade of the first tree, and then decide whether she would go back
+or go home. She knelt on the bridge and reached for her box, but it
+was so very light that she was prepared for the fact that it was empty,
+before opening it. There was one thing for which to be thankful. The boy
+or tramp who had seen her hide it, had left the napkin. She would not
+have to face her mother and account for its loss. She put it in her
+pocket, and threw the box into the ditch. Then she sat on the bridge and
+tried to think, but her brain was confused.
+
+"Perhaps the worst is over," she said at last. "I will go back. What
+would mother say to me if I came home now?"
+
+So she returned to the high school, followed some other pupils to the
+coat room, hung her hat, and found her way to the study where she had
+been in the morning. Twice that afternoon, with aching head and empty
+stomach, she faced strange professors, in different branches. Once she
+escaped notice; the second time the worst happened. She was asked a
+question she could not answer.
+
+"Have you not decided on your course, and secured your books?" inquired
+the professor.
+
+"I have decided on my course," replied Elnora, "I do not know where to
+ask for my books."
+
+"Ask?" the professor was bewildered.
+
+"I understood the books were furnished," faltered Elnora.
+
+"Only to those bringing an order from the township trustee," replied the
+Professor.
+
+"No! Oh no!" cried Elnora. "I will have them to-morrow," and gripped
+her desk for support for she knew that was not true. Four books, ranging
+perhaps at a dollar and a half apiece; would her mother buy them? Of
+course she would not--could not.
+
+Did not Elnora know the story of old. There was enough land, but no one
+to do clearing and farm. Tax on all those acres, recently the new gravel
+road tax added, the expense of living and only the work of two women to
+meet all of it. She was insane to think she could come to the city to
+school. Her mother had been right. The girl decided that if only she
+lived to reach home, she would stay there and lead any sort of life to
+avoid more of this torture. Bad as what she wished to escape had been,
+it was nothing like this. She never could live down the movement that
+went through the class when she inadvertently revealed the fact that she
+had expected books to be furnished. Her mother would not secure them;
+that settled the question.
+
+But the end of misery is never in a hurry to come; before the day was
+over the superintendent entered the room and explained that pupils from
+the country were charged a tuition of twenty dollars a year. That
+really was the end. Previously Elnora had canvassed a dozen methods for
+securing the money for books, ranging all the way from offering to wash
+the superintendent's dishes to breaking into the bank. This additional
+expense made her plans so wildly impossible, there was nothing to do but
+hold up her head until she was from sight.
+
+Down the long corridor alone among hundreds, down the long street alone
+among thousands, out into the country she came at last. Across the fence
+and field, along the old trail once trodden by a boy's bitter agony, now
+stumbled a white-faced girl, sick at heart. She sat on a log and began
+to sob in spite of her efforts at self-control. At first it was physical
+breakdown, later, thought came crowding.
+
+Oh the shame, the mortification! Why had she not known of the tuition?
+How did she happen to think that in the city books were furnished?
+Perhaps it was because she had read they were in several states. But why
+did she not know? Why did not her mother go with her? Other mothers--but
+when had her mother ever been or done anything at all like other
+mothers? Because she never had been it was useless to blame her now.
+Elnora realized she should have gone to town the week before, called
+on some one and learned all these things herself. She should have
+remembered how her clothing would look, before she wore it in public
+places. Now she knew, and her dreams were over. She must go home to
+feed chickens, calves, and pigs, wear calico and coarse shoes, and with
+averted head, pass a library all her life. She sobbed again.
+
+"For pity's sake, honey, what's the matter?" asked the voice of the
+nearest neighbour, Wesley Sinton, as he seated himself beside Elnora.
+"There, there," he continued, smearing tears all over her face in an
+effort to dry them. "Was it as bad as that, now? Maggie has been just
+wild over you all day. She's got nervouser every minute. She said we
+were foolish to let you go. She said your clothes were not right, you
+ought not to carry that tin pail, and that they would laugh at you. By
+gum, I see they did!"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Wesley," sobbed the girl, "why didn't she tell me?"
+
+"Well, you see, Elnora, she didn't like to. You got such a way of
+holding up your head, and going through with things. She thought some
+way that you'd make it, till you got started, and then she begun to see
+a hundred things we should have done. I reckon you hadn't reached that
+building before she remembered that your skirt should have been pleated
+instead of gathered, your shoes been low, and lighter for hot September
+weather, and a new hat. Were your clothes right, Elnora?"
+
+The girl broke into hysterical laughter. "Right!" she cried. "Right!
+Uncle Wesley, you should have seen me among them! I was a picture!
+They'll never forget me. No, they won't get the chance, for they'll see
+me again to-morrow!
+
+"Now that is what I call spunk, Elnora! Downright grit," said Wesley
+Sinton. "Don't you let them laugh you out. You've helped Margaret and me
+for years at harvest and busy times, what you've earned must amount to
+quite a sum. You can get yourself a good many clothes with it."
+
+"Don't mention clothes, Uncle Wesley," sobbed Elnora, "I don't care now
+how I look. If I don't go back all of them will know it's because I am
+so poor I can't buy my books."
+
+"Oh, I don't know as you are so dratted poor," said Sinton meditatively.
+"There are three hundred acres of good land, with fine timber as ever
+grew on it."
+
+"It takes all we can earn to pay the tax, and mother wouldn't cut a tree
+for her life."
+
+"Well then, maybe, I'll be compelled to cut one for her," suggested
+Sinton. "Anyway, stop tearing yourself to pieces and tell me. If it
+isn't clothes, what is it?"
+
+"It's books and tuition. Over twenty dollars in all."
+
+"Humph! First time I ever knew you to be stumped by twenty dollars,
+Elnora," said Sinton, patting her hand.
+
+"It's the first time you ever knew me to want money," answered Elnora.
+"This is different from anything that ever happened to me. Oh, how can I
+get it, Uncle Wesley?"
+
+"Drive to town with me in the morning and I'll draw it from the bank for
+you. I owe you every cent of it."
+
+"You know you don't owe me a penny, and I wouldn't touch one from you,
+unless I really could earn it. For anything that's past I owe you and
+Aunt Margaret for all the home life and love I've ever known. I know how
+you work, and I'll not take your money."
+
+"Just a loan, Elnora, just a loan for a little while until you can earn
+it. You can be proud with all the rest of the world, but there are no
+secrets between us, are there, Elnora?"
+
+"No," said Elnora, "there are none. You and Aunt Margaret have given me
+all the love there has been in my life. That is the one reason above all
+others why you shall not give me charity. Hand me money because you find
+me crying for it! This isn't the first time this old trail has known
+tears and heartache. All of us know that story. Freckles stuck to what
+he undertook and won out. I stick, too. When Duncan moved away he gave
+me all Freckles left in the swamp, and as I have inherited his property
+maybe his luck will come with it. I won't touch your money, but I'll
+win some way. First, I'm going home and try mother. It's just possible
+I could find second-hand books, and perhaps all the tuition need not
+be paid at once. Maybe they would accept it quarterly. But oh, Uncle
+Wesley, you and Aunt Margaret keep on loving me! I'm so lonely, and no
+one else cares!"
+
+Wesley Sinton's jaws met with a click. He swallowed hard on bitter words
+and changed what he would have liked to say three times before it became
+articulate.
+
+"Elnora," he said at last, "if it hadn't been for one thing I'd have
+tried to take legal steps to make you ours when you were three years
+old. Maggie said then it wasn't any use, but I've always held on. You
+see, I was the first man there, honey, and there are things you see,
+that you can't ever make anybody else understand. She loved him Elnora,
+she just made an idol of him. There was that oozy green hole, with the
+thick scum broke, and two or three big bubbles slowly rising that were
+the breath of his body. There she was in spasms of agony, and beside her
+the great heavy log she'd tried to throw him. I can't ever forgive her
+for turning against you, and spoiling your childhood as she has, but I
+couldn't forgive anybody else for abusing her. Maggie has got no mercy
+on her, but Maggie didn't see what I did, and I've never tried to make
+it very clear to her. It's been a little too plain for me ever since.
+Whenever I look at your mother's face, I see what she saw, so I hold my
+tongue and say, in my heart, 'Give her a mite more time.' Some day it
+will come. She does love you, Elnora. Everybody does, honey. It's just
+that she's feeling so much, she can't express herself. You be a patient
+girl and wait a little longer. After all, she's your mother, and you're
+all she's got, but a memory, and it might do her good to let her know
+that she was fooled in that."
+
+"It would kill her!" cried the girl swiftly. "Uncle Wesley, it would
+kill her! What do you mean?"
+
+"Nothing," said Wesley Sinton soothingly. "Nothing, honey. That was just
+one of them fool things a man says, when he is trying his best to be
+wise. You see, she loved him mightily, and they'd been married only a
+year, and what she was loving was what she thought he was. She hadn't
+really got acquainted with the man yet. If it had been even one more
+year, she could have borne it, and you'd have got justice. Having been a
+teacher she was better educated and smarter than the rest of us, and
+so she was more sensitive like. She can't understand she was loving a
+dream. So I say it might do her good if somebody that knew, could tell
+her, but I swear to gracious, I never could. I've heard her out at the
+edge of that quagmire calling in them wild spells of hers off and on for
+the last sixteen years, and imploring the swamp to give him back to her,
+and I've got out of bed when I was pretty tired, and come down to see
+she didn't go in herself, or harm you. What she feels is too deep for
+me. I've got to respectin' her grief, and I can't get over it. Go home
+and tell your ma, honey, and ask her nice and kind to help you. If she
+won't, then you got to swallow that little lump of pride in your neck,
+and come to Aunt Maggie, like you been a-coming all your life."
+
+"I'll ask mother, but I can't take your money, Uncle Wesley, indeed I
+can't. I'll wait a year, and earn some, and enter next year."
+
+"There's one thing you don't consider, Elnora," said the man earnestly.
+"And that's what you are to Maggie. She's a little like your ma. She
+hasn't given up to it, and she's struggling on brave, but when we buried
+our second little girl the light went out of Maggie's eyes, and it's
+not come back. The only time I ever see a hint of it is when she thinks
+she's done something that makes you happy, Elnora. Now, you go easy
+about refusing her anything she wants to do for you. There's times in
+this world when it's our bounden duty to forget ourselves, and think
+what will help other people. Young woman, you owe me and Maggie all the
+comfort we can get out of you. There's the two of our own we can't ever
+do anything for. Don't you get the idea into your head that a fool thing
+you call pride is going to cut us out of all the pleasure we have in
+life beside ourselves."
+
+"Uncle Wesley, you are a dear," said Elnora. "Just a dear! If I can't
+possibly get that money any way else on earth, I'll come and borrow it
+of you, and then I'll pay it back if I must dig ferns from the swamp and
+sell them from door to door in the city. I'll even plant them, so that
+they will be sure to come up in the spring. I have been sort of panic
+stricken all day and couldn't think. I can gather nuts and sell them.
+Freckles sold moths and butterflies, and I've a lot collected. Of
+course, I am going back to-morrow! I can find a way to get the books.
+Don't you worry about me. I am all right!
+
+"Now, what do you think of that?" inquired Wesley Sinton of the swamp in
+general. "Here's our Elnora come back to stay. Head high and right as a
+trivet! You've named three ways in three minutes that you could earn
+ten dollars, which I figure would be enough, to start you. Let's go to
+supper and stop worrying!"
+
+Elnora unlocked the case, took out the pail, put the napkin in it,
+pulled the ribbon from her hair, binding it down tightly again and
+followed to the road. From afar she could see her mother in the doorway.
+She blinked her eyes, and tried to smile as she answered Wesley Sinton,
+and indeed she did feel better. She knew now what she had to expect,
+where to go, and what to do. Get the books she must; when she had them,
+she would show those city girls and boys how to prepare and recite
+lessons, how to walk with a brave heart; and they could show her how to
+wear pretty clothes and have good times.
+
+As she neared the door her mother reached for the pail. "I forgot to
+tell you to bring home your scraps for the chickens," she said.
+
+Elnora entered. "There weren't any scraps, and I'm hungry again as I
+ever was in my life."
+
+"I thought likely you would be," said Mrs. Comstock, "and so I got
+supper ready. We can eat first, and do the work afterward. What kept you
+so? I expected you an hour ago."
+
+Elnora looked into her mother's face and smiled. It was a queer sort
+of a little smile, and would have reached the depths with any normal
+mother.
+
+"I see you've been bawling," said Mrs. Comstock. "I thought you'd get
+your fill in a hurry. That's why I wouldn't go to any expense. If we
+keep out of the poor-house we have to cut the corners close. It's likely
+this Brushwood road tax will eat up all we've saved in years. Where the
+land tax is to come from I don't know. It gets bigger every year. If
+they are going to dredge the swamp ditch again they'll just have to take
+the land to pay for it. I can't, that's all! We'll get up early in the
+morning and gather and hull the beans for winter, and put in the rest of
+the day hoeing the turnips."
+
+Elnora again smiled that pitiful smile.
+
+"Do you think I didn't know that I was funny and would be laughed at?"
+she asked.
+
+"Funny?" cried Mrs. Comstock hotly.
+
+"Yes, funny! A regular caricature," answered Elnora. "No one else wore
+calico, not even one other. No one else wore high heavy shoes, not even
+one. No one else had such a funny little old hat; my hair was not right,
+my ribbon invisible compared with the others, I did not know where
+to go, or what to do, and I had no books. What a spectacle I made for
+them!" Elnora laughed nervously at her own picture. "But there are
+always two sides! The professor said in the algebra class that he never
+had a better solution and explanation than mine of the proposition he
+gave me, which scored one for me in spite of my clothes."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't brag on myself!"
+
+"That was poor taste," admitted Elnora. "But, you see, it is a case of
+whistling to keep up my courage. I honestly could see that I would have
+looked just as well as the rest of them if I had been dressed as they
+were. We can't afford that, so I have to find something else to brace
+me. It was rather bad, mother!"
+
+"Well, I'm glad you got enough of it!"
+
+"Oh, but I haven't," hurried in Elnora. "I just got a start. The hardest
+is over. To-morrow they won't be surprised. They will know what
+to expect. I am sorry to hear about the dredge. Is it really going
+through?"
+
+"Yes. I got my notification today. The tax will be something enormous.
+I don't know as I can spare you, even if you are willing to be a
+laughing-stock for the town."
+
+With every bite Elnora's courage returned, for she was a healthy young
+thing.
+
+"You've heard about doing evil that good might come from it," she said.
+"Well, mother mine, it's something like that with me. I'm willing to
+bear the hard part to pay for what I'll learn. Already I have selected
+the ward building in which I shall teach in about four years. I am going
+to ask for a room with a south exposure so that the flowers and moths I
+take in from the swamp to show the children will do well."
+
+"You little idiot!" said Mrs. Comstock. "How are you going to pay your
+expenses?"
+
+"Now that is just what I was going to ask you!" said Elnora. "You see,
+I have had two startling pieces of news to-day. I did not know I would
+need any money. I thought the city furnished the books, and there is an
+out-of-town tuition, also. I need ten dollars in the morning. Will you
+please let me have it?"
+
+"Ten dollars!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "Ten dollars! Why don't you say a
+hundred and be done with it! I could get one as easy as the other. I
+told you! I told you I couldn't raise a cent. Every year expenses grow
+bigger and bigger. I told you not to ask for money!"
+
+"I never meant to," replied Elnora. "I thought clothes were all I needed
+and I could bear them. I never knew about buying books and tuition."
+
+"Well, I did!" said Mrs. Comstock. "I knew what you would run into! But
+you are so bull-dog stubborn, and so set in your way, I thought I would
+just let you try the world a little and see how you liked it!"
+
+Elnora pushed back her chair and looked at her mother.
+
+"Do you mean to say," she demanded, "that you knew, when you let me
+go into a city classroom and reveal the fact before all of them that I
+expected to have my books handed out to me; do you mean to say that you
+knew I had to pay for them?"
+
+Mrs. Comstock evaded the direct question.
+
+"Anybody but an idiot mooning over a book or wasting time prowling
+the woods would have known you had to pay. Everybody has to pay for
+everything. Life is made up of pay, pay, pay! It's always and forever
+pay! If you don't pay one way you do another! Of course, I knew you had
+to pay. Of course, I knew you would come home blubbering! But you don't
+get a penny! I haven't one cent, and can't get one! Have your way if you
+are determined, but I think you will find the road somewhat rocky."
+
+"Swampy, you mean, mother," corrected Elnora. She arose white and
+trembling. "Perhaps some day God will teach me how to understand you. He
+knows I do not now. You can't possibly realize just what you let me
+go through to-day, or how you let me go, but I'll tell you this: You
+understand enough that if you had the money, and would offer it to me,
+I wouldn't touch it now. And I'll tell you this much more. I'll get
+it myself. I'll raise it, and do it some honest way. I am going back
+to-morrow, the next day, and the next. You need not come out, I'll do
+the night work, and hoe the turnips."
+
+It was ten o'clock when the chickens, pigs, and cattle were fed, the
+turnips hoed, and a heap of bean vines was stacked beside the back door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+WHEREIN WESLEY AND MARGARET GO SHOPPING, AND ELNORA'S WARDROBE IS
+REPLENISHED
+
+
+Wesley Sinton walked down the road half a mile and turned at the lane
+leading to his home. His heart was hot and filled with indignation. He
+had told Elnora he did not blame her mother, but he did. His wife met
+him at the door.
+
+"Did you see anything of Elnora?" she questioned.
+
+"Most too much, Maggie," he answered. "What do you say to going to town?
+There's a few things has to be got right away."
+
+"Where did you see her, Wesley?"
+
+"Along the old Limberlost trail, my girl, torn to pieces sobbing. Her
+courage always has been fine, but the thing she met to-day was too much
+for her. We ought to have known better than to let her go that way. It
+wasn't only clothes; there were books, and entrance fees for out-of-town
+people, that she didn't know about; while there must have been jeers,
+whispers, and laughing. Maggie, I feel as if I'd been a traitor to
+those girls of ours. I ought to have gone in and seen about this school
+business. Don't cry, Maggie. Get me some supper, and I'll hitch up and
+see what we can do now."
+
+"What can we do, Wesley?
+
+"I don't just know. But we've got to do something. Kate Comstock will be
+a handful, while Elnora will be two, but between us we must see that the
+girl is not too hard pressed about money, and that she is dressed so she
+is not ridiculous. She's saved us the wages of a woman many a day, can't
+you make her some decent dresses?"
+
+"Well, I'm not just what you call expert, but I could beat Kate Comstock
+all to pieces. I know that skirts should be pleated to the band instead
+of gathered, and full enough to sit in, and short enough to walk in. I
+could try. There are patterns for sale. Let's go right away, Wesley."
+
+"Set me a bit of supper, while I hitch up."
+
+Margaret built a fire, made coffee, and fried ham and eggs. She set out
+pie and cake and had enough for a hungry man by the time the carriage
+was at the door, but she had no appetite. She dressed while Wesley ate,
+put away the food while he dressed, and then they drove toward the city
+through the beautiful September evening, and as they went they planned
+for Elnora. The trouble was, not whether they were generous enough to
+buy what she needed, but whether she would accept their purchases, and
+what her mother would say.
+
+They went to a drygoods store and when a clerk asked what they wanted
+to see neither of them knew, so they stepped aside and held a whispered
+consultation.
+
+"What had we better get, Wesley?"
+
+"Dresses," said Wesley promptly,
+
+"But how many dresses, and what kind?"
+
+"Blest if I know!" exclaimed Wesley. "I thought you would manage that. I
+know about some things I'm going to get."
+
+At that instant several high school girls came into the store and
+approached them.
+
+"There!" exclaimed Wesley breathlessly. "There, Maggie! Like them!
+That's what she needs! Buy like they have!"
+
+Margaret stared. What did they wear? They were rapidly passing; they
+seemed to have so much, and she could not decide so quickly. Before she
+knew it she was among them.
+
+"I beg your pardon, but won't you wait one minute?" she asked.
+
+The girls stopped with wondering faces.
+
+"It's your clothes," explained Mrs. Sinton. "You look just beautiful to
+me. You look exactly as I should have wanted to see my girls. They both
+died of diphtheria when they were little, but they had yellow hair, dark
+eyes and pink cheeks, and everybody thought they were lovely. If they
+had lived, they'd been near your age now, and I'd want them to look like
+you."
+
+There was sympathy on every girl face.
+
+"Why thank you!" said one of them. "We are very sorry for you."
+
+"Of course you are," said Margaret. "Everybody always has been. And
+because I can't ever have the joy of a mother in thinking for my girls
+and buying pretty things for them, there is nothing left for me, but to
+do what I can for some one who has no mother to care for her. I know a
+girl, who would be just as pretty as any of you, if she had the clothes,
+but her mother does not think about her, so I mother her some myself."
+
+"She must be a lucky girl," said another.
+
+"Oh, she loves me," said Margaret, "and I love her. I want her to look
+just like you do. Please tell me about your clothes. Are these the
+dresses and hats you wear to school? What kind of goods are they, and
+where do you buy them?"
+
+The girls began to laugh and cluster around Margaret. Wesley strode down
+the store with his head high through pride in her, but his heart
+was sore over the memory of two little faces under Brushwood sod. He
+inquired his way to the shoe department.
+
+"Why, every one of us have on gingham or linen dresses," they said, "and
+they are our school clothes."
+
+For a few moments there was a babel of laughing voices explaining to the
+delighted Margaret that school dresses should be bright and pretty, but
+simple and plain, and until cold weather they should wash.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Ellen Brownlee, "my father owns this store, I know
+all the clerks. I'll take you to Miss Hartley. You tell her just how
+much you want to spend, and what you want to buy, and she will know how
+to get the most for your money. I've heard papa say she was the best
+clerk in the store for people who didn't know precisely what they
+wanted."
+
+"That's the very thing," agreed Margaret. "But before you go, tell me
+about your hair. Elnora's hair is bright and wavy, but yours is silky as
+hackled flax. How do you do it?"
+
+"Elnora?" asked four girls in concert.
+
+"Yes, Elnora is the name of the girl I want these things for."
+
+"Did she come to the high school to-day?" questioned one of them.
+
+"Was she in your classes?" demanded Margaret without reply.
+
+Four girls stood silent and thought fast. Had there been a strange girl
+among them, and had she been overlooked and passed by with indifference,
+because she was so very shabby? If she had appeared as much better than
+they, as she had looked worse, would her reception have been the same?
+
+"There was a strange girl from the country in the Freshman class
+to-day," said Ellen Brownlee, "and her name was Elnora."
+
+"That was the girl," said Margaret.
+
+"Are her people so very poor?" questioned Ellen.
+
+"No, not poor at all, come to think of it," answered Margaret. "It's a
+peculiar case. Mrs. Comstock had a great trouble and she let it change
+her whole life and make a different woman of her. She used to be lovely;
+now she is forever saving and scared to death for fear they will go
+to the poorhouse; but there is a big farm, covered with lots of good
+timber. The taxes are high for women who can't manage to clear and work
+the land. There ought to be enough to keep two of them in good shape all
+their lives, if they only knew how to do it. But no one ever told Kate
+Comstock anything, and never will, for she won't listen. All she does
+is droop all day, and walk the edge of the swamp half the night, and
+neglect Elnora. If you girls would make life just a little easier for
+her it would be the finest thing you ever did."
+
+All of them promised they would.
+
+"Now tell me about your hair," persisted Margaret Sinton.
+
+So they took her to a toilet counter, and she bought the proper hair
+soap, also a nail file, and cold cream, for use after windy days. Then
+they left her with the experienced clerk, and when at last Wesley found
+her she was loaded with bundles and the light of other days was in her
+beautiful eyes. Wesley also carried some packages.
+
+"Did you get any stockings?" he whispered.
+
+"No, I didn't," she said. "I was so interested in dresses and hair
+ribbons and a--a hat----" she hesitated and glanced at Wesley. "Of
+course, a hat!" prompted Wesley. "That I forgot all about those horrible
+shoes. She's got to have decent shoes, Wesley."
+
+"Sure!" said Wesley. "She's got decent shoes. But the man said some
+brown stockings ought to go with them. Take a peep, will you!"
+
+Wesley opened a box and displayed a pair of thick-soled, beautifully
+shaped brown walking shoes of low cut. Margaret cried out with pleasure.
+
+"But do you suppose they are the right size, Wesley? What did you get?"
+
+"I just said for a girl of sixteen with a slender foot."
+
+"Well, that's about as near as I could come. If they don't fit when
+she tries them, we will drive straight in and change them. Come on now,
+let's get home."
+
+All the way they discussed how they should give Elnora their purchases
+and what Mrs. Comstock would say.
+
+"I am afraid she will be awful mad," said Margaret.
+
+"She'll just rip!" replied Wesley graphically. "But if she wants
+to leave the raising of her girl to the neighbours, she needn't get
+fractious if they take some pride in doing a good job. From now on I
+calculate Elnora shall go to school; and she shall have all the clothes
+and books she needs, if I go around on the back of Kate Comstock's land
+and cut a tree, or drive off a calf to pay for them. Why I know one tree
+she owns that would put Elnora in heaven for a year. Just think of it,
+Margaret! It's not fair. One-third of what is there belongs to Elnora
+by law, and if Kate Comstock raises a row I'll tell her so, and see that
+the girl gets it. You go to see Kate in the morning, and I'll go with
+you. Tell her you want Elnora's pattern, that you are going to make her
+a dress, for helping us. And sort of hint at a few more things. If Kate
+balks, I'll take a hand and settle her. I'll go to law for Elnora's
+share of that land and sell enough to educate her."
+
+"Why, Wesley Sinton, you're perfectly wild."
+
+"I'm not! Did you ever stop to think that such cases are so frequent
+there have been laws made to provide for them? I can bring it up in
+court and force Kate to educate Elnora, and board and clothe her till
+she's of age, and then she can take her share."
+
+"Wesley, Kate would go crazy!"
+
+"She's crazy now. The idea of any mother living with as sweet a girl as
+Elnora and letting her suffer till I find her crying like a funeral.
+It makes me fighting mad. All uncalled for. Not a grain of sense in it.
+I've offered and offered to oversee clearing her land and working her
+fields. Let her sell a good tree, or a few acres. Something is going to
+be done, right now. Elnora's been fairly happy up to this, but to spoil
+the school life she's planned, is to ruin all her life. I won't have it!
+If Elnora won't take these things, so help me, I'll tell her what she is
+worth, and loan her the money and she can pay me back when she comes of
+age. I am going to have it out with Kate Comstock in the morning. Here
+we are! You open up what you got while I put away the horses, and then
+I'll show you."
+
+When Wesley came from the barn Margaret had four pieces of crisp
+gingham, a pale blue, a pink, a gray with green stripes and a rich brown
+and blue plaid. On each of them lay a yard and a half of wide ribbon to
+match. There were handkerchiefs and a brown leather belt. In her hands
+she held a wide-brimmed tan straw hat, having a high crown banded with
+velvet strips each of which fastened with a tiny gold buckle.
+
+"It looks kind of bare now," she explained. "It had three quills on it
+here."
+
+"Did you have them taken off?" asked Wesley.
+
+"Yes, I did. The price was two and a half for the hat, and those things
+were a dollar and a half apiece. I couldn't pay that."
+
+"It does seem considerable," admitted Wesley, "but will it look right
+without them?"
+
+"No, it won't!" said Margaret. "It's going to have quills on it. Do you
+remember those beautiful peacock wing feathers that Phoebe Simms gave
+me? Three of them go on just where those came off, and nobody will ever
+know the difference. They match the hat to a moral, and they are just
+a little longer and richer than the ones that I had taken off. I was
+wondering whether I better sew them on to-night while I remember how
+they set, or wait till morning."
+
+"Don't risk it!" exclaimed Wesley anxiously. "Don't you risk it! Sew
+them on right now!"
+
+"Open your bundles, while I get the thread," said Margaret.
+
+Wesley unwrapped the shoes. Margaret took them up and pinched the
+leather and stroked them.
+
+"My, but they are fine!" she cried.
+
+Wesley picked up one and slowly turned it in his big hands. He glanced
+at his foot and back to the shoe.
+
+"It's a little bit of a thing, Margaret," he said softly. "Like as not
+I'll have to take it back. It seems as if it couldn't fit."
+
+"It seems as if it didn't dare do anything else," said Margaret. "That's
+a happy little shoe to get the chance to carry as fine a girl as Elnora
+to high school. Now what's in the other box?"
+
+Wesley looked at Margaret doubtfully.
+
+"Why," he said, "you know there's going to be rainy days, and those
+things she has now ain't fit for anything but to drive up the cows----"
+
+"Wesley, did you get high shoes, too?"
+
+"Well, she ought to have them! The man said he would make them cheaper
+if I took both pairs at once."
+
+Margaret laughed aloud. "Those will do her past Christmas," she exulted.
+"What else did you buy?"
+
+"Well sir," said Wesley, "I saw something to-day. You told me about Kate
+getting that tin pail for Elnora to carry to high school and you said
+you told her it was a shame. I guess Elnora was ashamed all right, for
+to-night she stopped at the old case Duncan gave her, and took out that
+pail, where it had been all day, and put a napkin inside it. Coming home
+she confessed she was half starved because she hid her dinner under a
+culvert, and a tramp took it. She hadn't had a bite to eat the whole
+day. But she never complained at all, she was pleased that she hadn't
+lost the napkin. So I just inquired around till I found this, and I
+think it's about the ticket."
+
+Wesley opened the package and laid a brown leather lunch box on the
+table. "Might be a couple of books, or drawing tools or most anything
+that's neat and genteel. You see, it opens this way."
+
+It did open, and inside was a space for sandwiches, a little porcelain
+box for cold meat or fried chicken, another for salad, a glass with a
+lid which screwed on, held by a ring in a corner, for custard or jelly,
+a flask for tea or milk, a beautiful little knife, fork, and spoon
+fastened in holders, and a place for a napkin.
+
+Margaret was almost crying over it.
+
+"How I'd love to fill it!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Do it the first time, just to show Kate Comstock what love is!" said
+Wesley. "Get up early in the morning and make one of those dresses
+to-morrow. Can't you make a plain gingham dress in a day? I'll pick a
+chicken, and you fry it and fix a little custard for the cup, and do it
+up brown. Go on, Maggie, you do it!"
+
+"I never can," said Margaret. "I am slow as the itch about sewing, and
+these are not going to be plain dresses when it comes to making them.
+There are going to be edgings of plain green, pink, and brown to the
+bias strips, and tucks and pleats around the hips, fancy belts and
+collars, and all of it takes time."
+
+"Then Kate Comstock's got to help," said Wesley. "Can the two of you
+make one, and get that lunch to-morrow?"
+
+"Easy, but she'll never do it!"
+
+"You see if she doesn't!" said Wesley. "You get up and cut it out, and
+soon as Elnora is gone I'll go after Kate myself. She'll take what I'll
+say better alone. But she'll come, and she'll help make the dress. These
+other things are our Christmas gifts to Elnora. She'll no doubt need
+them more now than she will then, and we can give them just as well.
+That's yours, and this is mine, or whichever way you choose."
+
+Wesley untied a good brown umbrella and shook out the folds of a long,
+brown raincoat. Margaret dropped the hat, arose and took the coat. She
+tried it on, felt it, cooed over it and matched it with the umbrella.
+
+"Did it look anything like rain to-night?" she inquired so anxiously
+that Wesley laughed.
+
+"And this last bundle?" she said, dropping back in her chair, the coat
+still over her shoulders.
+
+"I couldn't buy this much stuff for any other woman and nothing for my
+own," said Wesley. "It's Christmas for you, too, Margaret!" He shook out
+fold after fold of soft gray satiny goods that would look lovely against
+Margaret's pink cheeks and whitening hair.
+
+"Oh, you old darling!" she exclaimed, and fled sobbing into his arms.
+
+But she soon dried her eyes, raked together the coals in the cooking
+stove and boiled one of the dress patterns in salt water for half an
+hour. Wesley held the lamp while she hung the goods on the line to dry.
+Then she set the irons on the stove so they would be hot the first thing
+in the morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA VISITS THE BIRD WOMAN, AND OPENS A BANK ACCOUNT
+
+
+Four o'clock the following morning Elnora was shelling beans. At six she
+fed the chickens and pigs, swept two of the rooms of the cabin, built a
+fire, and put on the kettle for breakfast. Then she climbed the narrow
+stairs to the attic she had occupied since a very small child, and
+dressed in the hated shoes and brown calico, plastered down her crisp
+curls, ate what breakfast she could, and pinning on her hat started for
+town.
+
+"There is no sense in your going for an hour yet," said her mother.
+
+"I must try to discover some way to earn those books," replied Elnora.
+"I am perfectly positive I shall not find them lying beside the road
+wrapped in tissue paper, and tagged with my name."
+
+She went toward the city as on yesterday. Her perplexity as to where
+tuition and books were to come from was worse but she did not feel quite
+so badly. She never again would have to face all of it for the first
+time. There had been times yesterday when she had prayed to be hidden,
+or to drop dead, and neither had happened. "I believe the best way to
+get an answer to prayer is to work for it," muttered Elnora grimly.
+
+Again she followed the trail to the swamp, rearranged her hair and left
+the tin pail. This time she folded a couple of sandwiches in the napkin,
+and tied them in a neat light paper parcel which she carried in
+her hand. Then she hurried along the road to Onabasha and found a
+book-store. There she asked the prices of the list of books that she
+needed, and learned that six dollars would not quite supply them. She
+anxiously inquired for second-hand books, but was told that the only way
+to secure them was from the last year's Freshmen. Just then Elnora felt
+that she positively could not approach any of those she supposed to be
+Sophomores and ask to buy their old books. The only balm the girl could
+see for the humiliation of yesterday was to appear that day with a set
+of new books.
+
+"Do you wish these?" asked the clerk hurriedly, for the store was
+rapidly filling with school children wanting anything from a dictionary
+to a pen.
+
+"Yes," gasped Elnora, "Oh, yes! But I cannot pay for them just now.
+Please let me take them, and I will pay for them on Friday, or return
+them as perfect as they are. Please trust me for them a few days."
+
+"I'll ask the proprietor," he said. When he came back Elnora knew the
+answer before he spoke.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said, "but Mr. Hann doesn't recognize your name. You are
+not a customer of ours, and he feels that he can't take the risk."
+
+Elnora clumped out of the store, the thump of her heavy, shoes beating
+as a hammer on her brain. She tried two other dealers with the same
+result, and then in sick despair came into the street. What could she
+do? She was too frightened to think. Should she stay from school that
+day and canvass the homes appearing to belong to the wealthy, and try
+to sell beds of wild ferns, as she had suggested to Wesley Sinton? What
+would she dare ask for bringing in and planting a clump of ferns? How
+could she carry them? Would people buy them? She slowly moved past the
+hotel and then glanced around to see if there were a clock anywhere, for
+she felt sure the young people passing her constantly were on their way
+to school.
+
+There it stood in a bank window in big black letters staring straight at
+her:
+
+
+WANTED: CATERPILLARS, COCOONS, CHRYSALIDES, PUPAE CASES, BUTTERFLIES,
+MOTHS, INDIAN RELICS OF ALL KINDS. HIGHEST SCALE OF PRICES PAID IN CASH
+
+
+Elnora caught the wicket at the cashier's desk with both hands to brace
+herself against disappointment.
+
+"Who is it wants to buy cocoons, butterflies, and moths?" she panted.
+
+"The Bird Woman," answered the cashier. "Have you some for sale?"
+
+"I have some, I do not know if they are what she would want."
+
+"Well, you had better see her," said the cashier. "Do you know where she
+lives?"
+
+"Yes," said Elnora. "Would you tell me the time?"
+
+"Twenty-one after eight," was the answer.
+
+She had nine minutes to reach the auditorium or be late. Should she
+go to school, or to the Bird Woman? Several girls passed her walking
+swiftly and she remembered their faces. They were hurrying to school.
+Elnora caught the infection. She would see the Bird Woman at noon.
+Algebra came first, and that professor was kind. Perhaps she could slip
+to the superintendent and ask him for a book for the next lesson, and at
+noon--"Oh, dear Lord make it come true," prayed Elnora, at noon possibly
+she could sell some of those wonderful shining-winged things she had
+been collecting all her life around the outskirts of the Limberlost.
+
+As she went down the long hall she noticed the professor of mathematics
+standing in the door of his recitation room. When she passed him he
+smiled and spoke to her.
+
+"I have been watching for you," he said, and Elnora stopped bewildered.
+
+"For me?" she questioned.
+
+"Yes," said Professor Henley. "Step inside."
+
+Elnora followed him into the room and closed the door behind them.
+
+"At teachers' meeting last evening, one of the professors mentioned
+that a pupil had betrayed in class that she had expected her books to be
+furnished by the city. I thought possibly it was you. Was it?"
+
+"Yes," breathed Elnora.
+
+"That being the case," said Professor Henley, "it just occurred to me as
+you had expected that, you might require a little time to secure
+them, and you are too fine a mathematician to fall behind for want of
+supplies. So I telephoned one of our Sophomores to bring her last year's
+books this morning. I am sorry to say they are somewhat abused, but the
+text is all here. You can have them for two dollars, and pay when you
+are ready. Would you care to take them?"
+
+Elnora sat suddenly, because she could not stand another instant. She
+reached both hands for the books, and said never a word. The professor
+was silent also. At last Eleanor arose, hugging those books to her heart
+as a mother clasps a baby.
+
+"One thing more," said the professor. "You may pay your tuition
+quarterly. You need not bother about the first instalment this month.
+Any time in October will do."
+
+It seemed as if Elnora's gasp of relief must have reached the soles of
+her brogans.
+
+"Did any one ever tell you how beautiful you are!" she cried.
+
+As the professor was lank, tow-haired and so near-sighted, that he
+peered at his pupils through spectacles, no one ever had.
+
+"No," said Professor Henley, "I've waited some time for that; for which
+reason I shall appreciate it all the more. Come now, or we shall be late
+for opening exercises."
+
+So Elnora entered the auditorium a second time. Her face was like the
+brightest dawn that ever broke over the Limberlost. No matter about the
+lumbering shoes and skimpy dress. No matter about anything, she had the
+books. She could take them home. In her garret she could commit them to
+memory, if need be. She could prove that clothes were not all. If the
+Bird Woman did not want any of the many different kinds of specimens she
+had collected, she was quite sure now she could sell ferns, nuts, and a
+great many things. Then, too, a girl made a place for her that morning,
+and several smiled and bowed. Elnora forgot everything save her books,
+and that she was where she could use them intelligently--everything
+except one little thing away back in her head. Her mother had known
+about the books and the tuition, and had not told her when she agreed to
+her coming.
+
+At noon Elnora took her little parcel of lunch and started to the home
+of the Bird Woman. She must know about the specimens first and then she
+would walk to the suburbs somewhere and eat a few bites. She dropped
+the heavy iron knocker on the door of a big red log cabin, and her heart
+thumped at the resounding stroke.
+
+"Is the Bird Woman at home?" she asked of the maid.
+
+"She is at lunch," was the answer.
+
+"Please ask her if she will see a girl from the Limberlost about some
+moths?" inquired Elnora.
+
+"I never need ask, if it's moths," laughed the girl. "Orders are to
+bring any one with specimens right in. Come this way."
+
+Elnora followed down the hall and entered a long room with high panelled
+wainscoting, old English fireplace with an overmantel and closets of
+peculiar china filling the corners. At a bare table of oak, yellow as
+gold, sat a woman Elnora often had watched and followed covertly around
+the Limberlost. The Bird Woman was holding out a hand of welcome.
+
+"I heard!" she laughed. "A little pasteboard box, or just the mere
+word 'specimen,' passes you at my door. If it is moths I hope you have
+hundreds. I've been very busy all summer and unable to collect, and I
+need so many. Sit down and lunch with me, while we talk it over. From
+the Limberlost, did you say?"
+
+"I live near the swamp," replied Elnora. "Since it's so cleared I dare
+go around the edge in daytime, though we are all afraid at night."
+
+"What have you collected?" asked the Bird Woman, as she helped Elnora to
+sandwiches unlike any she ever before had tasted, salad that seemed to
+be made of many familiar things, and a cup of hot chocolate that would
+have delighted any hungry schoolgirl.
+
+"I am afraid I am bothering you for nothing, and imposing on you," she
+said. "That 'collected' frightens me. I've only gathered. I always loved
+everything outdoors, so I made friends and playmates of them. When I
+learned that the moths die so soon, I saved them especially, because
+there seemed no wickedness in it."
+
+"I have thought the same thing," said the Bird Woman encouragingly. Then
+because the girl could not eat until she learned about the moths, the
+Bird Woman asked Elnora if she knew what kinds she had.
+
+"Not all of them," answered Elnora. "Before Mr. Duncan moved away he
+often saw me near the edge of the swamp and he showed me the box he
+had fixed for Freckles, and gave me the key. There were some books and
+things, so from that time on I studied and tried to take moths right,
+but I am afraid they are not what you want."
+
+"Are they the big ones that fly mostly in June nights?" asked the Bird
+Woman.
+
+"Yes," said Elnora. "Big gray ones with reddish markings, pale
+blue-green, yellow with lavender, and red and yellow."
+
+"What do you mean by 'red and yellow?'" asked the Bird Woman so quickly
+that the girl almost jumped.
+
+"Not exactly red," explained Elnora, with tremulous voice. "A reddish,
+yellowish brown, with canary-coloured spots and gray lines on their
+wings."
+
+"How many of them?" It was the same quick question.
+
+"I had over two hundred eggs," said Elnora, "but some of them didn't
+hatch, and some of the caterpillars died, but there must be at least a
+hundred perfect ones."
+
+"Perfect! How perfect?" cried the Bird Woman.
+
+"I mean whole wings, no down gone, and all their legs and antennae,"
+faltered Elnora.
+
+"Young woman, that's the rarest moth in America," said the Bird Woman
+solemnly. "If you have a hundred of them, they are worth a hundred
+dollars according to my list. I can use all that are not damaged."
+
+"What if they are not pinned right," quavered Elnora.
+
+"If they are perfect, that does not make the slightest difference. I
+know how to soften them so that I can put them into any shape I choose.
+Where are they? When may I see them?"
+
+"They are in Freckles's old case in the Limberlost," said Elnora. "I
+couldn't carry many for fear of breaking them, but I could bring a few
+after school."
+
+"You come here at four," said the Bird Woman, "and we will drive out
+with some specimen boxes, and a price list, and see what you have to
+sell. Are they your very own? Are you free to part with them?"
+
+"They are mine," said Elnora. "No one but God knows I have them. Mr.
+Duncan gave me the books and the box. He told Freckles about me, and
+Freckles told him to give me all he left. He said for me to stick to the
+swamp and be brave, and my hour would come, and it has! I know most of
+them are all right, and oh, I do need the money!"
+
+"Could you tell me?" asked the Bird Woman softly.
+
+"You see the swamp and all the fields around it are so full," explained
+Elnora. "Every day I felt smaller and smaller, and I wanted to know more
+and more, and pretty soon I grew desperate, just as Freckles did. But
+I am better off than he was, for I have his books, and I have a mother;
+even if she doesn't care for me as other girls' mothers do for them,
+it's better than no one."
+
+The Bird Woman's glance fell, for the girl was not conscious of how much
+she was revealing. Her eyes were fixed on a black pitcher filled
+with goldenrod in the centre of the table and she was saying what she
+thought.
+
+"As long as I could go to the Brushwood school I was happy, but I
+couldn't go further just when things were the most interesting, so I was
+determined I'd come to high school and mother wouldn't consent. You see
+there's plenty of land, but father was drowned when I was a baby, and
+mother and I can't make money as men do. The taxes are higher every
+year, and she said it was too expensive. I wouldn't give her any rest,
+until at last she bought me this dress, and these shoes and I came. It
+was awful!"
+
+"Do you live in that beautiful cabin at the northwest end of the swamp?"
+asked the Bird Woman.
+
+"Yes," said Elnora.
+
+"I remember the place and a story about it, now. You entered the high
+school yesterday?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It was rather bad?"
+
+"Rather bad!" echoed Elnora.
+
+The Bird Woman laughed.
+
+"You can't tell me anything about that," she said. "I once entered a
+city school straight from the country. My dress was brown calico, and my
+shoes were heavy."
+
+The tears began to roll down Elnora's cheeks.
+
+"Did they----?" she faltered.
+
+"They did!" said the Bird Woman. "All of it. I am sure they did not miss
+one least little thing."
+
+Then she wiped away some tears that began coursing her cheeks, and
+laughed at the same time.
+
+"Where are they now?" asked Elnora suddenly.
+
+"They are widely scattered, but none of them have attained heights out
+of range. Some of the rich are poor, and some of the poor are rich. Some
+of the brightest died insane, and some of the dullest worked out
+high positions; some of the very worst to bear have gone out, and I
+frequently hear from others. Now I am here, able to remember it, and
+mingle laughter with what used to be all tears; for every day I have my
+beautiful work, and almost every day God sends some one like you to help
+me. What is your name, my girl?"
+
+"Elnora Comstock," answered Elnora. "Yesterday on the board it changed
+to Cornstock, and for a minute I thought I'd die, but I can laugh over
+that already."
+
+The Bird Woman arose and kissed her. "Finish your lunch," she said, "and
+I will bring my price lists, and make a memorandum of what you think you
+have, so I will know how many boxes to prepare. And remember this: What
+you are lies with you. If you are lazy, and accept your lot, you may
+live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name anywhere
+you choose, among the only ones who live beyond the grave in this
+world, the people who write books that help, make exquisite music, carve
+statues, paint pictures, and work for others. Never mind the calico
+dress, and the coarse shoes. Work at your books, and before long you
+will hear yesterday's tormentors boasting that they were once classmates
+of yours. 'I could a tale unfold'----!"
+
+She laughingly left the room and Elnora sat thinking, until she
+remembered how hungry she was, so she ate the food, drank the hot
+chocolate and began to feel better.
+
+Then the Bird Woman came back and showed Elnora a long printed
+slip giving a list of graduated prices for moths, butterflies, and
+dragonflies.
+
+"Oh, do you want them!" exulted Elnora. "I have a few and I can get more
+by the thousand, with every colour in the world on their wings."
+
+"Yes," said the Bird Woman, "I will buy them, also the big moth
+caterpillars that are creeping everywhere now, and the cocoons that they
+will spin just about this time. I have a sneaking impression that the
+mystery, wonder, and the urge of their pure beauty, are going to force
+me to picture and paint our moths and put them into a book for all the
+world to see and know. We Limberlost people must not be selfish with
+the wonders God has given to us. We must share with those poor cooped-up
+city people the best we can. To send them a beautiful book, that is the
+way, is it not, little new friend of mine?"
+
+"Yes, oh yes!" cried Elnora. "And please God they find a way to earn the
+money to buy the books, as I have those I need so badly."
+
+"I will pay good prices for all the moths you can find," said the Bird
+Woman, "because you see I exchange them with foreign collectors. I
+want a complete series of the moths of America to trade with a German
+scientist, another with a man in India, and another in Brazil. Others I
+can exchange with home collectors for those of California and Canada, so
+you see I can use all you can raise, or find. The banker will buy stone
+axes, arrow points, and Indian pipes. There was a teacher from the city
+grade schools here to-day for specimens. There is a fund to supply the
+ward buildings. I'll help you get in touch with that. They want leaves
+of different trees, flowers, grasses, moths, insects, birds' nests and
+anything about birds."
+
+Elnora's eyes were blazing. "Had I better go back to school or open a
+bank account and begin being a millionaire? Uncle Wesley and I have a
+bushel of arrow points gathered, a stack of axes, pipes, skin-dressing
+tools, tubes and mortars. I don't know how I ever shall wait three
+hours."
+
+"You must go, or you will be late," said the Bird Woman. "I will be
+ready at four."
+
+After school closed Elnora, seated beside the Bird Woman, drove to
+Freckles's room in the Limberlost. One at a time the beautiful big moths
+were taken from the interior of the old black case. Not a fourth of them
+could be moved that night and it was almost dark when the last box was
+closed, the list figured, and into Elnora's trembling fingers were paid
+fifty-nine dollars and sixteen cents. Elnora clasped the money closely.
+
+"Oh you beautiful stuff!" she cried. "You are going to buy the books,
+pay the tuition, and take me to high school."
+
+Then because she was a woman, she sat on a log and looked at her shoes.
+Long after the Bird Woman drove away Elnora remained. She had her
+problem, and it was a big one. If she told her mother, would she take
+the money to pay the taxes? If she did not tell her, how could she
+account for the books, and things for which she would spend it. At last
+she counted out what she needed for the next day, placed the remainder
+in the farthest corner of the case, and locked the door. She then filled
+the front of her skirt from a heap of arrow points beneath the case and
+started home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+WHEREIN THE SINTONS ARE DISAPPOINTED, AND MRS. COMSTOCK LEARNS THAT SHE
+CAN LAUGH
+
+
+With the first streak of red above the Limberlost Margaret Sinton was
+busy with the gingham and the intricate paper pattern she had purchased.
+Wesley cooked the breakfast and worked until he thought Elnora would be
+gone, then he started to bring her mother.
+
+"Now you be mighty careful," cautioned Margaret. "I don't know how she
+will take it."
+
+"I don't either," said Wesley philosophically, "but she's got to take it
+some way. That dress has to be finished by school time in the morning."
+
+Wesley had not slept well that night. He had been so busy framing
+diplomatic speeches to make to Mrs. Comstock that sleep had little
+chance with him. Every step nearer to her he approached his position
+seemed less enviable. By the time he reached the front gate and started
+down the walk between the rows of asters and lady slippers he was
+perspiring, and every plausible and convincing speech had fled his
+brain. Mrs. Comstock helped him. She met him at the door.
+
+"Good morning," she said. "Did Margaret send you for something?"
+
+"Yes," said Wesley. "She's got a job that's too big for her, and she
+wants you to help."
+
+"Of course I will," said Mrs. Comstock. It was no one's affair how
+lonely the previous day had been, or how the endless hours of the
+present would drag. "What is she doing in such a rush?"
+
+Now was his chance.
+
+"She's making a dress for Elnora," answered, Wesley. He saw Mrs.
+Comstock's form straighten, and her face harden, so he continued
+hastily. "You see Elnora has been helping us at harvest time,
+butchering, and with unexpected visitors for years. We've made out that
+she's saved us a considerable sum, and as she wouldn't ever touch any
+pay for anything, we just went to town and got a few clothes we thought
+would fix her up a little for the high school. We want to get a dress
+done to-day mighty bad, but Margaret is slow about sewing, and she never
+can finish alone, so I came after you."
+
+"And it's such a simple little matter, so dead easy; and all so between
+old friends like, that you can't look above your boots while you explain
+it," sneered Mrs. Comstock. "Wesley Sinton, what put the idea into your
+head that Elnora would take things bought with money, when she wouldn't
+take the money?"
+
+Then Sinton's eyes came up straightly.
+
+"Finding her on the trail last night sobbing as hard as I ever saw any
+one at a funeral. She wasn't complaining at all, but she's come to me
+all her life with her little hurts, and she couldn't hide how she'd been
+laughed at, twitted, and run face to face against the fact that there
+were books and tuition, unexpected, and nothing will ever make me
+believe you didn't know that, Kate Comstock."
+
+"If any doubts are troubling you on that subject, sure I knew it! She
+was so anxious to try the world, I thought I'd just let her take a few
+knocks and see how she liked them."
+
+"As if she'd ever taken anything but knocks all her life!" cried Wesley
+Sinton. "Kate Comstock, you are a heartless, selfish woman. You've never
+shown Elnora any real love in her life. If ever she finds out that thing
+you'll lose her, and it will serve you right."
+
+"She knows it now," said Mrs. Comstock icily, "and she'll be home
+to-night just as usual."
+
+"Well, you are a brave woman if you dared put a girl of Elnora's make
+through what she suffered yesterday, and will suffer again to-day,
+and let her know you did it on purpose. I admire your nerve. But I've
+watched this since Elnora was born, and I got enough. Things have come
+to a pass where they go better for her, or I interfere."
+
+"As if you'd ever done anything but interfere all her life! Think I
+haven't watched you? Think I, with my heart raw in my breast, and too
+numb to resent it openly, haven't seen you and Mag Sinton trying to turn
+Elnora against me day after day? When did you ever tell her what her
+father meant to me? When did you ever try to make her see the wreck of
+my life, and what I've suffered? No indeed! Always it's been poor little
+abused Elnora, and cakes, kissing, extra clothes, and encouraging her
+to run to you with a pitiful mouth every time I tried to make a woman of
+her."
+
+"Kate Comstock, that's unjust," cried Sinton. "Only last night I tried
+to show her the picture I saw the day she was born. I begged her to come
+to you and tell you pleasant what she needed, and ask you for what I
+happen to know you can well afford to give her."
+
+"I can't!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "You know I can't!"
+
+"Then get so you can!" said Wesley Sinton. "Any day you say the word you
+can sell six thousand worth of rare timber off this place easy. I'll
+see to clearing and working the fields cheap as dirt, for Elnora's
+sake. I'll buy you more cattle to fatten. All you've got to do is sign
+a lease, to pull thousands from the ground in oil, as the rest of us are
+doing all around you!"
+
+"Cut down Robert's trees!" shrieked Mrs. Comstock. "Tear up his land!
+Cover everything with horrid, greasy oil! I'll die first."
+
+"You mean you'll let Elnora go like a beggar, and hurt and mortify her
+past bearing. I've got to the place where I tell you plain what I am
+going to do. Maggie and I went to town last night, and we bought what
+things Elnora needs most urgent to make her look a little like the rest
+of the high school girls. Now here it is in plain English. You can help
+get these things ready, and let us give them to her as we want----"
+
+"She won't touch them!" cried Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Then you can pay us, and she can take them as her right----"
+
+"I won't!"
+
+"Then I will tell Elnora just what you are worth, what you can afford,
+and how much of this she owns. I'll loan her the money to buy books and
+decent clothes, and when she is of age she can sell her share and pay
+me."
+
+Mrs. Comstock gripped a chair-back and opened her lips, but no words
+came.
+
+"And," Sinton continued, "if she is so much like you that she won't do
+that, I'll go to the county seat and lay complaint against you as her
+guardian before the judge. I'll swear to what you are worth, and how you
+are raising her, and have you discharged, or have the judge appoint some
+man who will see that she is comfortable, educated, and decent looking!"
+
+"You--you wouldn't!" gasped Kate Comstock.
+
+"I won't need to, Kate!" said Sinton, his heart softening the instant
+the hard words were said. "You won't show it, but you do love Elnora!
+You can't help it! You must see how she needs things; come help us fix
+them, and be friends. Maggie and I couldn't live without her, and you
+couldn't either. You've got to love such a fine girl as she is; let it
+show a little!"
+
+"You can hardly expect me to love her," said Mrs. Comstock coldly. "But
+for her a man would stand back of me now, who would beat the breath out
+of your sneaking body for the cowardly thing with which you threaten me.
+After all I've suffered you'd drag me to court and compel me to tear up
+Robert's property. If I ever go they carry me. If they touch one tree,
+or put down one greasy old oil well, it will be over all I can shoot,
+before they begin. Now, see how quick you can clear out of here!"
+
+"You won't come and help Maggie with the dress?"
+
+For answer Mrs. Comstock looked around swiftly for some object on which
+to lay her hands. Knowing her temper, Wesley Sinton left with all the
+haste consistent with dignity. But he did not go home. He crossed a
+field, and in an hour brought another neighbour who was skilful with her
+needle. With sinking heart Margaret saw them coming.
+
+"Kate is too busy to help to-day, she can't sew before to-morrow," said
+Wesley cheerfully as they entered.
+
+That quieted Margaret's apprehension a little, though she had some
+doubts. Wesley prepared the lunch, and by four o'clock the dress was
+finished as far as it possibly could be until it was fitted on Elnora.
+If that did not entail too much work, it could be completed in two
+hours.
+
+Then Margaret packed their purchases into the big market basket. Wesley
+took the hat, umbrella, and raincoat, and they went to Mrs. Comstock's.
+As they reached the step, Margaret spoke pleasantly to Mrs. Comstock,
+who sat reading just inside the door, but she did not answer and
+deliberately turned a leaf without looking up.
+
+Wesley Sinton opened the door and went in followed by Margaret.
+
+"Kate," he said, "you needn't take out your mad over our little racket
+on Maggie. I ain't told her a word I said to you, or you said to me.
+She's not so very strong, and she's sewed since four o'clock this
+morning to get this dress ready for to-morrow. It's done and we came
+down to try it on Elnora."
+
+"Is that the truth, Mag Sinton?" demanded Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"You heard Wesley say so," proudly affirmed Mrs. Sinton.
+
+"I want to make you a proposition," said Wesley. "Wait till Elnora
+comes. Then we'll show her the things and see what she says."
+
+"How would it do to see what she says without bribing her," sneered Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+"If she can stand what she did yesterday, and will to-day, she can bear
+'most anything," said Wesley. "Put away the clothes if you want to, till
+we tell her."
+
+"Well, you don't take this waist I'm working on," said Margaret, "for
+I have to baste in the sleeves and set the collar. Put the rest out of
+sight if you like."
+
+Mrs. Comstock picked up the basket and bundles, placed them inside her
+room and closed the door.
+
+Margaret threaded her needle and began to sew. Mrs. Comstock returned
+to her book, while Wesley fidgeted and raged inwardly. He could see
+that Margaret was nervous and almost in tears, but the lines in Mrs.
+Comstock's impassive face were set and cold. So they sat while the
+clock ticked off the time--one hour, two, dusk, and no Elnora. Just when
+Margaret and Wesley were discussing whether he had not better go to town
+to meet Elnora, they heard her coming up the walk. Wesley dropped his
+tilted chair and squared himself. Margaret gripped her sewing, and
+turned pleading eyes toward the door. Mrs. Comstock closed her book and
+grimly smiled.
+
+"Mother, please open the door," called Elnora.
+
+Mrs. Comstock arose, and swung back the screen. Elnora stepped in beside
+her, bent half double, the whole front of her dress gathered into a sort
+of bag filled with a heavy load, and one arm stacked high with books. In
+the dim light she did not see the Sintons.
+
+"Please hand me the empty bucket in the kitchen, mother," she said. "I
+just had to bring these arrow points home, but I'm scared for fear I've
+spoiled my dress and will have to wash it. I'm to clean them, and take
+them to the banker in the morning, and oh, mother, I've sold enough
+stuff to pay for my books, my tuition, and maybe a dress and some
+lighter shoes besides. Oh, mother I'm so happy! Take the books and bring
+the bucket!"
+
+Then she saw Margaret and Wesley. "Oh, glory!" she exulted. "I was just
+wondering how I'd ever wait to tell you, and here you are! It's too
+perfectly splendid to be true!"
+
+"Tell us, Elnora," said Sinton.
+
+"Well sir," said Elnora, doubling down on the floor and spreading out
+her skirt, "set the bucket here, mother. These points are brittle, and
+should be put in one at a time. If they are chipped I can't sell them.
+Well sir! I've had a time! You know I just had to have books. I tried
+three stores, and they wouldn't trust me, not even three days, I didn't
+know what in this world I could do quickly enough. Just when I was
+almost frantic I saw a sign in a bank window asking for caterpillars,
+cocoons, butterflies, arrow points, and everything. I went in, and it
+was this Bird Woman who wants the insects, and the banker wants the
+stones. I had to go to school then, but, if you'll believe it"--Elnora
+beamed on all of them in turn as she talked and slipped the arrow
+points from her dress to the pail--"if you'll believe it--but you won't,
+hardly, until you look at the books--there was the mathematics teacher,
+waiting at his door, and he had a set of books for me that he had
+telephoned a Sophomore to bring."
+
+"How did he happen to do that, Elnora?" interrupted Sinton.
+
+Elnora blushed.
+
+"It was a fool mistake I made yesterday in thinking books were just
+handed out to one. There was a teachers' meeting last night and the
+history teacher told about that. Professor Henley thought of me. You
+know I told you what he said about my algebra, mother. Ain't I glad I
+studied out some of it myself this summer! So he telephoned and a girl
+brought the books. Because they are marked and abused some I get the
+whole outfit for two dollars. I can erase most of the marks, paste down
+the covers, and fix them so they look better. But I must hurry to the
+joy part. I didn't stop to eat, at noon, I just ran to the Bird Woman's,
+and I had lunch with her. It was salad, hot chocolate, and lovely
+things, and she wants to buy most every old scrap I ever gathered. She
+wants dragonflies, moths, butterflies, and he--the banker, I mean--wants
+everything Indian. This very night she came to the swamp with me and
+took away enough stuff to pay for the books and tuition, and to-morrow
+she is going to buy some more."
+
+Elnora laid the last arrow point in the pail and arose, shaking leaves
+and bits of baked earth from her dress. She reached into her pocket,
+produced her money and waved it before their wondering eyes.
+
+"And that's the joy part!" she exulted. "Put it up in the clock till
+morning, mother. That pays for the books and tuition and--" Elnora
+hesitated, for she saw the nervous grasp with which her mother's fingers
+closed on the bills. Then she continued, but more slowly and thinking
+before she spoke.
+
+"What I get to-morrow pays for more books and tuition, and maybe a few,
+just a few, things to wear. These shoes are so dreadfully heavy and
+hot, and they make such a noise on the floor. There isn't another calico
+dress in the whole building, not among hundreds of us. Why, what is
+that? Aunt Margaret, what are you hiding in your lap?"
+
+She snatched the waist and shook it out, and her face was beaming. "Have
+you taken to waists all fancy and buttoned in the back? I bet you this
+is mine!"
+
+"I bet you so too," said Margaret Sinton. "You undress right away and
+try it on, and if it fits, it will be done for morning. There are some
+low shoes, too!"
+
+Elnora began to dance. "Oh, you dear people!" she cried. "I can pay for
+them to-morrow night! Isn't it too splendid! I was just thinking on the
+way home that I certainly would be compelled to have cooler shoes until
+later, and I was wondering what I'd do when the fall rains begin."
+
+"I meant to get you some heavy dress skirts and a coat then," said Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+"I know you said so!" cried Elnora. "But you needn't, now! I can buy
+every single stitch I need myself. Next summer I can gather up a lot
+more stuff, and all winter on the way to school. I am sure I can sell
+ferns, I know I can nuts, and the Bird Woman says the grade rooms want
+leaves, grasses, birds' nests, and cocoons. Oh, isn't this world lovely!
+I'll be helping with the tax, next, mother!"
+
+Elnora waved the waist and started for the bedroom. When she opened the
+door she gave a little cry.
+
+"What have you people been doing?" she demanded. "I never saw so many
+interesting bundles in all my life. I'm 'skeered' to death for fear I
+can't pay for them, and will have to give up something."
+
+"Wouldn't you take them, if you could not pay for them, Elnora?" asked
+her mother instantly.
+
+"Why, not unless you did," answered Elnora. "People have no right to
+wear things they can't afford, have they?"
+
+"But from such old friends as Maggie and Wesley!" Mrs. Comstock's voice
+was oily with triumph.
+
+"From them least of all," cried Elnora stoutly. "From a stranger sooner
+than from them, to whom I owe so much more than I ever can pay now."
+
+"Well, you don't have to," said Mrs. Comstock. "Maggie just selected
+these things, because she is more in touch with the world, and has got
+such good taste. You can pay as long as your money holds out, and if
+there's more necessary, maybe I can sell the butcher a calf, or if
+things are too costly for us, of course, they can take them back. Put on
+the waist now, and then you can look over the rest and see if they are
+suitable, and what you want."
+
+Elnora stepped into the adjoining room and closed the door. Mrs.
+Comstock picked up the bucket and started for the well with it. At the
+bedroom she paused.
+
+"Elnora, were you going to wash these arrow points?"
+
+"Yes. The Bird Woman says they sell better if they are clean, so it can
+be seen that there are no defects in them."
+
+"Of course," said Mrs. Comstock. "Some of them seem quite baked. Shall I
+put them to soak? Do you want to take them in the morning?"
+
+"Yes, I do," answered Elnora. "If you would just fill the pail with
+water."
+
+Mrs. Comstock left the room. Wesley Sinton sat with his back to the
+window in the west end of the cabin which overlooked the well. A
+suppressed sound behind him caused him to turn quickly. Then he arose
+and leaned over Margaret.
+
+"She's out there laughing like a blamed monkey!" he whispered
+indignantly.
+
+"Well, she can't help it!" exclaimed Margaret.
+
+"I'm going home!" said Wesley.
+
+"Oh no, you are not!" retorted Margaret. "You are missing the point.
+The point is not how you look, or feel. It is to get these things in
+Elnora's possession past dispute. You go now, and to-morrow Elnora will
+wear calico, and Kate Comstock will return these goods. Right here I
+stay until everything we bought is Elnora's."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Wesley.
+
+"I don't know yet, myself," said Margaret.
+
+Then she arose and peered from the window. At the well curb stood
+Katharine Comstock. The strain of the day was finding reaction. Her chin
+was in the air, she was heaving, shaking and strangling to suppress
+any sound. The word that slipped between Margaret Sinton's lips shocked
+Wesley until he dropped on his chair, and recalled her to her senses.
+She was fairly composed as she turned to Elnora, and began the fitting.
+When she had pinched, pulled, and patted she called, "Come see if you
+think this fits, Kate."
+
+Mrs. Comstock had gone around to the back door and answered from the
+kitchen. "You know more about it than I do. Go ahead! I'm getting
+supper. Don't forget to allow for what it will shrink in washing!"
+
+"I set the colours and washed the goods last night; it can be made to
+fit right now," answered Margaret.
+
+When she could find nothing more to alter she told Elnora to heat some
+water. After she had done that the girl began opening packages.
+
+The hat came first.
+
+"Mother!" cried Elnora. "Mother, of course, you have seen this, but you
+haven't seen it on me. I must try it on."
+
+"Don't you dare put that on your head until your hair is washed and
+properly combed," said Margaret.
+
+"Oh!" cried Elnora. "Is that water to wash my hair? I thought it was to
+set the colour in another dress."
+
+"Well, you thought wrong," said Margaret simply. "Your hair is going to
+be washed and brushed until it shines like copper. While it dries you
+can eat your supper, and this dress will be finished. Then you can put
+on your new ribbon, and your hat. You can try your shoes now, and if
+they don't fit, you and Wesley can drive to town and change them. That
+little round bundle on the top of the basket is your stockings."
+
+Margaret sat down and began sewing swiftly, and a little later opened
+the machine, and ran several long seams.
+
+Elnora returned in a few minutes holding up her skirts and stepping
+daintily in the new shoes.
+
+"Don't soil them, honey, else you're sure they fit," cautioned Wesley.
+
+"They seem just a trifle large, maybe," said Elnora dubiously, and
+Wesley knelt to feel. He and Margaret thought them a fit, and then
+Elnora appealed to her mother. Mrs. Comstock appeared wiping her hands
+on her apron. She examined the shoes critically.
+
+"They seem to fit," she said, "but they are away too fine to walk
+country roads."
+
+"I think so, too," said Elnora instantly. "We had better take these back
+and get a cheaper pair."
+
+"Oh, let them go for this time," said Mrs. Comstock. "They are so
+pretty, I hate to part with them. You can get cheaper ones after this."
+
+Wesley and Margaret scarcely breathed for a long time.
+
+When Wesley went to do the feeding. Elnora set the table. When the
+water was hot, Margaret pinned a big towel around Elnora's shoulders and
+washed and dried the lovely hair according to the instructions she had
+been given the previous night. As the hair began to dry it billowed out
+in a sparkling sheen that caught the light and gleamed and flashed.
+
+"Now, the idea is to let it stand naturally, just as the curl will make
+it. Don't you do any of that nasty, untidy snarling, Elnora," cautioned
+Margaret. "Wash it this way every two weeks while you are in school,
+shake it out, and dry it. Then part it in the middle and turn a front
+quarter on each side from your face. You tie the back at your neck with
+a string--so, and the ribbon goes in a big, loose bow. I'll show you."
+One after another Margaret Sinton tied the ribbons, creasing each of
+them so they could not be returned, as she explained that she was trying
+to find the colour most becoming. Then she produced the raincoat which
+carried Elnora into transports.
+
+Mrs. Comstock objected. "That won't be warm enough for cold weather, and
+you can't afford it and a coat, too."
+
+"I'll tell you what I thought," said Elnora. "I was planning on the way
+home. These coats are fine because they keep you dry. I thought I would
+get one, and a warm sweater to wear under it cold days. Then I always
+would be dry, and warm. The sweater only costs three dollars, so I could
+get it and the raincoat both for half the price of a heavy cloth coat."
+
+"You are right about that," said Mrs. Comstock. "You can change more
+with the weather, too. Keep the raincoat, Elnora."
+
+"Wear it until you try the hat," said Margaret. "It will have to do
+until the dress is finished."
+
+Elnora picked up the hat dubiously. "Mother, may I wear my hair as it is
+now?" she asked.
+
+"Let me take a good look," said Katharine Comstock.
+
+Heaven only knows what she saw. To Wesley and to Margaret the bright
+young face of Elnora, with its pink tints, its heavy dark brows, its
+bright blue-gray eyes, and its frame of curling reddish-brown hair was
+the sweetest sight on earth, and at that instant Elnora was radiant.
+
+"So long as it's your own hair, and combed back as plain as it will go,
+I don't suppose it cuts much ice whether it's tied a little tighter or
+looser," conceded Mrs. Comstock. "If you stop right there, you may let
+it go at that."
+
+Elnora set the hat on her head. It was only a wide tan straw with three
+exquisite peacock quills at one side. Margaret Sinton cried out, Wesley
+slapped his knee and sighed deeply while Mrs. Comstock stood speechless
+for a second.
+
+"I wish you had asked the price before you put that on," she said
+impatiently. "We never can afford it."
+
+"It's not so much as you think," said Margaret. "Don't you see what I
+did? I had them take off the quills, and put on some of those Phoebe
+Simms gave me from her peacocks. The hat will only cost you a dollar and
+a half."
+
+She avoided Wesley's eyes, and looked straight at Mrs. Comstock. Elnora
+removed the hat to examine it.
+
+"Why, they are those reddish-tan quills of yours!" she cried. "Mother,
+look how beautifully they are set on! I'd much rather have them than
+those from the store."
+
+"So would I," said Mrs. Comstock. "If Margaret wants to spare them, that
+will make you a beautiful hat; dirt cheap, too! You must go past Mrs.
+Simms and show her. She would be pleased to see them."
+
+Elnora sank into a chair and contemplated her toe. "Landy, ain't I a
+queen?" she murmured. "What else have I got?"
+
+"Just a belt, some handkerchiefs, and a pair of top shoes for rainy days
+and colder weather," said Margaret.
+
+"About those high shoes, that was my idea," said Wesley. "Soon as it
+rains, low shoes won't do, and by taking two pairs at once I could get
+them some cheaper. The low ones are two and the high ones two fifty,
+together three seventy-five. Ain't that cheap?"
+
+"That's a real bargain," said Mrs. Comstock, "if they are good shoes,
+and they look it."
+
+"This," said Wesley, producing the last package, "is your Christmas
+present from your Aunt Maggie. I got mine, too, but it's at the house.
+I'll bring it up in the morning."
+
+He handed Margaret the umbrella, and she passed it over to Elnora who
+opened it and sat laughing under its shelter. Then she kissed both of
+them. She brought a pencil and a slip of paper to set down the prices
+they gave her of everything they had brought except the umbrella, added
+the sum, and said laughingly: "Will you please wait till to-morrow for
+the money? I will have it then, sure."
+
+"Elnora," said Wesley Sinton. "Wouldn't you----"
+
+"Elnora, hustle here a minute!" called Mrs. Comstock from the kitchen.
+"I need you!"
+
+"One second, mother," answered Elnora, throwing off the coat and hat,
+and closing the umbrella as she ran. There were several errands to do
+in a hurry, and then supper. Elnora chattered incessantly, Wesley and
+Margaret talked all they could, while Mrs. Comstock said a word now and
+then, which was all she ever did. But Wesley Sinton was watching her,
+and time and again he saw a peculiar little twist around her mouth. He
+knew that for the first time in sixteen years she really was laughing
+over something. She had all she could do to preserve her usually sober
+face. Wesley knew what she was thinking.
+
+After supper the dress was finished, the pattern for the next one
+discussed, and then the Sintons went home. Elnora gathered her
+treasures. When she started upstairs she stopped. "May I kiss you
+good-night, mother?" she asked lightly.
+
+"Never mind any slobbering," said Mrs. Comstock. "I should think you'd
+lived with me long enough to know that I don't care for it."
+
+"Well, I'd love to show you in some way how happy I am, and how I thank
+you."
+
+"I wonder what for?" said Mrs. Comstock. "Mag Sinton chose that stuff
+and brought it here and you pay for it."
+
+"Yes, but you seemed willing for me to have it, and you said you would
+help me if I couldn't pay all."
+
+"Maybe I did," said Mrs. Comstock. "Maybe I did. I meant to get you some
+heavy dress skirts about Thanksgiving, and I still can get them. Go to
+bed, and for any sake don't begin mooning before a mirror, and make a
+dunce of yourself."
+
+Mrs. Comstock picked up several papers and blew out the kitchen light.
+She stood in the middle of the sitting-room floor for a time and then
+went into her room and closed the door. Sitting on the edge of the bed
+she thought for a few minutes and then suddenly buried her face in the
+pillow and again heaved with laughter.
+
+Down the road plodded Margaret and Wesley Sinton. Neither of them had
+words to utter their united thought.
+
+"Done!" hissed Wesley at last. "Done brown! Did you ever feel like a
+bloomin', confounded donkey? How did the woman do it?"
+
+"She didn't do it!" gulped Margaret through her tears. "She didn't do
+anything. She trusted to Elnora's great big soul to bring her out right,
+and really she was right, and so it had to bring her. She's a darling,
+Wesley! But she's got a time before her. Did you see Kate Comstock grab
+that money? Before six months she'll be out combing the Limberlost for
+bugs and arrow points to help pay the tax. I know her."
+
+"Well, I don't!" exclaimed Sinton, "she's too many for me. But there is
+a laugh left in her yet! I didn't s'pose there was. Bet you a dollar,
+if we could see her this minute, she'd be chuckling over the way we got
+left."
+
+Both of them stopped in the road and looked back.
+
+"There's Elnora's light in her room," said Margaret. "The poor child
+will feel those clothes, and pore over her books till morning, but
+she'll look decent to go to school, anyway. Nothing is too big a price
+to pay for that."
+
+"Yes, if Kate lets her wear them. Ten to one, she makes her finish the
+week with that old stuff!"
+
+"No, she won't," said Margaret. "She'll hardly dare. Kate made some
+concessions, all right; big ones for her--if she did get her way in
+the main. She bent some, and if Elnora proves that she can walk out
+barehanded in the morning and come back with that much money in her
+pocket, an armful of books, and buy a turnout like that, she proves
+that she is of some consideration, and Kate's smart enough. She'll think
+twice before she'll do that. Elnora won't wear a calico dress to high
+school again. You watch and see if she does. She may have the best
+clothes she'll get for a time, for the least money, but she won't know
+it until she tries to buy goods herself at the same rates. Wesley, what
+about those prices? Didn't they shrink considerable?"
+
+"You began it," said Wesley. "Those prices were all right. We didn't say
+what the goods cost us, we said what they would cost her. Surely, she's
+mistaken about being able to pay all that. Can she pick up stuff of that
+value around the Limberlost? Didn't the Bird Woman see her trouble, and
+just give her the money?"
+
+"I don't think so," said Margaret. "Seems to me I've heard of her
+paying, or offering to pay those who would take the money, for bugs and
+butterflies, and I've known people who sold that banker Indian stuff.
+Once I heard that his pipe collection beat that of the Government at the
+Philadelphia Centennial. Those things have come to have a value."
+
+"Well, there's about a bushel of that kind of valuables piled up in the
+woodshed, that belongs to Elnora. At least, I picked them up because she
+said she wanted them. Ain't it queer that she'd take to stones, bugs,
+and butterflies, and save them. Now they are going to bring her the very
+thing she wants the worst. Lord, but this is a funny world when you get
+to studying! Looks like things didn't all come by accident. Looks as if
+there was a plan back of it, and somebody driving that knows the road,
+and how to handle the lines. Anyhow, Elnora's in the wagon, and when I
+get out in the night and the dark closes around me, and I see the stars,
+I don't feel so cheap. Maggie, how the nation did Kate Comstock do
+that?"
+
+"You will keep on harping, Wesley. I told you she didn't do it. Elnora
+did it! She walked in and took things right out of our hands. All Kate
+had to do was to enjoy having it go her way, and she was cute enough
+to put in a few questions that sort of guided Elnora. But I don't know,
+Wesley. This thing makes me think, too. S'pose we'd taken Elnora when
+she was a baby, and we'd heaped on her all the love we can't on our
+own, and we'd coddled, petted, and shielded her, would she have made the
+woman that living alone, learning to think for herself, and taking all
+the knocks Kate Comstock could give, have made of her?"
+
+"You bet your life!" cried Wesley, warmly. "Loving anybody don't hurt
+them. We wouldn't have done anything but love her. You can't hurt a
+child loving it. She'd have learned to work, to study, and grown into a
+woman with us, without suffering like a poor homeless dog."
+
+"But you don't see the point, Wesley. She would have grown into a fine
+woman with us; but as we would have raised her, would her heart ever
+have known the world as it does now? Where's the anguish, Wesley, that
+child can't comprehend? Seeing what she's seen of her mother hasn't
+hardened her. She can understand any mother's sorrow. Living life from
+the rough side has only broadened her. Where's the girl or boy burning
+with shame, or struggling to find a way, that will cross Elnora's path
+and not get a lift from her? She's had the knocks, but there'll never be
+any of the thing you call 'false pride' in her. I guess we better keep
+out. Maybe Kate Comstock knows what she's doing. Sure as you live,
+Elnora has grown bigger on knocks than she would on love."
+
+"I don't s'pose there ever was a very fine point to anything but I
+missed it," said Wesley, "because I am blunt, rough, and have no book
+learning to speak of. Since you put it into words I see what you mean,
+but it's dinged hard on Elnora, just the same. And I don't keep out.
+I keep watching closer than ever. I got my slap in the face, but if I
+don't miss my guess, Kate Comstock learned her lesson, same as I did.
+She learned that I was in earnest, that I would haul her to court if she
+didn't loosen up a bit, and she'll loosen. You see if she doesn't. It
+may come hard, and the hinges creak, but she'll fix Elnora decent after
+this, if Elnora doesn't prove that she can fix herself. As for me, I
+found out that what I was doing was as much for myself as for Elnora. I
+wanted her to take those things from us, and love us for giving them. It
+didn't work, and but for you, I'd messed the whole thing and stuck like
+a pig in crossing a bridge. But you helped me out; Elnora's got the
+clothes, and by morning, maybe I won't grudge Kate the only laugh she's
+had in sixteen years. You been showing me the way quite a spell now,
+ain't you, Maggie?"
+
+In her attic Elnora lighted two candles, set them on her little table,
+stacked the books, and put away the precious clothes. How lovingly she
+hung the hat and umbrella, folded the raincoat, and spread the new dress
+over a chair. She fingered the ribbons, and tried to smooth the
+creases from them. She put away the hose neatly folded, touched the
+handkerchiefs, and tried the belt. Then she slipped into her white
+nightdress, shook down her hair that it might become thoroughly dry,
+set a chair before the table, and reverently opened one of the books. A
+stiff draught swept the attic, for it stretched the length of the cabin,
+and had a window in each end. Elnora arose and going to the east window
+closed it. She stood for a minute looking at the stars, the sky, and
+the dark outline of the straggling trees of the rapidly dismantling
+Limberlost. In the region of her case a tiny point of light flashed and
+disappeared. Elnora straightened and wondered. Was it wise to leave
+her precious money there? The light flashed once more, wavered a few
+seconds, and died out. The girl waited. She did not see it again, so she
+turned to her books.
+
+In the Limberlost the hulking figure of a man sneaked down the trail.
+
+"The Bird Woman was at Freckles's room this evening," he muttered.
+"Wonder what for?"
+
+He left the trail, entered the enclosure still distinctly outlined,
+and approached the case. The first point of light flashed from the tiny
+electric lamp on his vest. He took a duplicate key from his pocket, felt
+for the padlock and opened it. The door swung wide. The light flashed
+the second time. Swiftly his glance swept the interior.
+
+"'Bout a fourth of her moths gone. Elnora must have been with the
+Bird Woman and given them to her." Then he stood tense. His keen eyes
+discovered the roll of bills hastily thrust back in the bottom of the
+case. He snatched them up, shut off the light, relocked the case by
+touch, and swiftly went down the trail. Every few seconds he paused
+and listened intently. Just as he reached the road, a second figure
+approached him.
+
+"Is it you, Pete?" came the whispered question.
+
+"Yes," said the first man.
+
+"I was coming down to take a peep, when I saw your flash," he said. "I
+heard the Bird Woman had been at the case to-day. Anything doing?"
+
+"Not a thing," said Pete. "She just took away about a fourth of the
+moths. Probably had the Comstock girl getting them for her. Heard they
+were together. Likely she'll get the rest to-morrow. Ain't picking
+gettin' bare these days?"
+
+"Well, I should say so," said the second man, turning back in disgust.
+"Coming home, now?"
+
+"No, I am going down this way," answered Pete, for his eyes caught the
+gleam from the window of the Comstock cabin, and he had a desire to
+learn why Elnora's attic was lighted at that hour.
+
+He slouched down the road, occasionally feeling the size of the roll he
+had not taken time to count.
+
+The attic was too long, the light too near the other end, and the cabin
+stood much too far back from the road. He could see nothing although
+he climbed the fence and walked back opposite the window. He knew Mrs.
+Comstock was probably awake, and that she sometimes went to the swamp
+behind her home at night. At times a cry went up from that locality that
+paralyzed any one near, or sent them fleeing as if for life. He did not
+care to cross behind the cabin. He returned to the road, passed, and
+again climbed the fence. Opposite the west window he could see Elnora.
+She sat before a small table reading from a book between two candles.
+Her hair fell in a bright sheen around her, and with one hand she
+lightly shook, and tossed it as she studied. The man stood out in the
+night and watched.
+
+For a long time a leaf turned at intervals and the hair-drying went on.
+The man drew nearer. The picture grew more beautiful as he approached.
+He could not see so well as he desired, for the screen was of white
+mosquito netting, and it angered him. He cautiously crept closer. The
+elevation shut off his view. Then he remembered the large willow tree
+shading the well and branching across the window fit the west end of
+the cabin. From childhood Elnora had stepped from the sill to a limb and
+slid down the slanting trunk of the tree. He reached it and noiselessly
+swung himself up. Three steps out on the big limb the man shuddered. He
+was within a few feet of the girl.
+
+He could see the throb of her breast under its thin covering and smell
+the fragrance of the tossing hair. He could see the narrow bed with its
+pieced calico cover, the whitewashed walls with gay lithographs, and
+every crevice stuck full of twigs with dangling cocoons. There were pegs
+for the few clothes, the old chest, the little table, the two chairs,
+the uneven floor covered with rag rugs and braided corn husk. But
+nothing was worth a glance except the perfect face and form within reach
+by one spring through the rotten mosquito bar. He gripped the limb above
+that on which he stood, licked his lips, and breathed through his throat
+to be sure he was making no sound. Elnora closed the book and laid it
+aside. She picked up a towel, and turning the gathered ends of her hair
+rubbed them across it, and dropping the towel on her lap, tossed the
+hair again. Then she sat in deep thought. By and by words began to come
+softly. Near as he was the man could not hear at first. He bent closer
+and listened intently.
+
+"--ever could be so happy," murmured the soft voice. "The dress is so
+pretty, such shoes, the coat, and everything. I won't have to be ashamed
+again, not ever again, for the Limberlost is full of precious moths, and
+I always can collect them. The Bird Woman will buy more to-morrow, and
+the next day, and the next. When they are all gone, I can spend every
+minute gathering cocoons, and hunting other things I can sell. Oh, thank
+God, for my precious, precious money. Why, I didn't pray in vain after
+all! I thought when I asked the Lord to hide me, there in that big
+hall, that He wasn't doing it, because I wasn't covered from sight that
+instant. But I'm hidden now, I feel that." Elnora lifted her eyes to
+the beams above her. "I don't know much about praying properly," she
+muttered, "but I do thank you, Lord, for hiding me in your own time and
+way."
+
+Her face was so bright that it shone with a white radiance. Two big
+tears welled from her eyes, and rolled down her smiling cheeks. "Oh, I
+do feel that you have hidden me," she breathed. Then she blew out the
+lights, and the little wooden bed creaked under her weight.
+
+Pete Corson dropped from the limb and found his way to the road. He
+stood still a long time, then started back to the Limberlost. A tiny
+point of light flashed in the region of the case. He stopped with an
+oath.
+
+"Another hound trying to steal from a girl," he exclaimed. "But it's
+likely he thinks if he gets anything it will be from a woman who can
+afford it, as I did."
+
+He went on, but beside the fences, and very cautiously.
+
+"Swamp seems to be alive to-night," he muttered. "That's three of us
+out."
+
+He entered a deep place at the northwest corner, sat on the ground and
+taking a pencil from his pocket, he tore a leaf from a little notebook,
+and laboriously wrote a few lines by the light he carried. Then he went
+back to the region of the case and waited. Before his eyes swept the
+vision of the slender white creature with tossing hair. He smiled, and
+worshipped it, until a distant rooster faintly announced dawn.
+
+Then he unlocked the case again, and replaced the money, laid the note
+upon it, and went back to concealment, where he remained until Elnora
+came down the trail in the morning, appearing very lovely in her new
+dress and hat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA RECEIVES A WARNING, AND BILLY APPEARS ON THE SCENE
+
+
+It would be difficult to describe how happy Elnora was that morning as
+she hurried through her work, bathed and put on the neat, dainty gingham
+dress, and the tan shoes. She had a struggle with her hair. It crinkled,
+billowed, and shone, and she could not avoid seeing the becoming frame
+it made around her face. But in deference to her mother's feelings
+the girl set her teeth, and bound her hair closely to her head with a
+shoe-string. "Not to be changed at the case," she told herself.
+
+That her mother was watching she was unaware. Just as she picked up the
+beautiful brown ribbon Mrs. Comstock spoke.
+
+"You had better let me tie that. You can't reach behind yourself and do
+it right."
+
+Elnora gave a little gasp. Her mother never before had proposed to do
+anything for the girl that by any possibility she could do herself. Her
+heart quaked at the thought of how her mother would arrange that bow,
+but Elnora dared not refuse. The offer was too precious. It might never
+be made again.
+
+"Oh thank you!" said the girl, and sitting down she held out the ribbon.
+
+Her mother stood back and looked at her critically.
+
+"You haven't got that like Mag Sinton had it last night," she announced.
+"You little idiot! You've tried to plaster it down to suit me, and you
+missed it. I liked it away better as Mag fixed it, after I saw it. You
+didn't look so peeled."
+
+"Oh mother, mother!" laughed Elnora, with a half sob in her voice.
+
+"Hold still, will you?" cried Mrs. Comstock. "You'll be late, and I
+haven't packed your dinner yet."
+
+She untied the string and shook out the hair. It rose with electricity
+and clung to her fingers and hands. Mrs. Comstock jumped back as if
+bitten. She knew that touch. Her face grew white, and her eyes angry.
+
+"Tie it yourself," she said shortly, "and then I'll put on the ribbon.
+But roll it back loose like Mag did. It looked so pretty that way."
+
+Almost fainting Elnora stood before the glass, divided off the front
+parts of her hair, and rolled them as Mrs. Sinton had done; tied it at
+the nape of her neck, then sat while her mother arranged the ribbon.
+
+"If I pull it down till it comes tight in these creases where she had
+it, it will be just right, won't it?" queried Mrs. Comstock, and the
+amazed Elnora stammered,
+
+"Yes."
+
+When she looked in the glass the bow was perfectly tied, and how the
+gold tone of the brown did match the lustre of the shining hair! "That's
+pretty," commented Mrs. Comstock's soul, but her stiff lips had said all
+that could be forced from them for once. Just then Wesley Sinton came to
+the door.
+
+"Good morning," he cried heartily. "Elnora, you look a picture! My,
+but you're sweet! If any of the city boys get sassy you tell your Uncle
+Wesley, and he'll horsewhip them. Here's your Christmas present from
+me." He handed Elnora the leather lunch box, with her name carved across
+the strap in artistic lettering.
+
+"Oh Uncle Wesley!" was all Elnora could say.
+
+"Your Aunt Maggie filled it for me for a starter," he said. "Now, if you
+are ready, I'm going to drive past your way and you can ride almost to
+Onabasha with me, and save the new shoes that much."
+
+Elnora was staring at the box. "Oh I hope it isn't impolite to open it
+before you," she said. "I just feel as if I must see inside."
+
+"Don't you stand on formality with the neighbours," laughed Sinton.
+"Look in your box if you want to!"
+
+Elnora slipped the strap and turned back the lid.
+
+This disclosed the knife, fork, napkin, and spoon, the milk flask, and
+the interior packed with dainty sandwiches wrapped in tissue paper, and
+the little compartments for meat, salad, and the custard cup.
+
+"Oh mother!" cried Elnora. "Oh mother, isn't it fine? What made you
+think of it, Uncle Wesley? How will I ever thank you? No one will have a
+finer lunch box than I. Oh I do thank you! That's the nicest gift I ever
+had. How I love Christmas in September!"
+
+"It's a mighty handy thing," assented Mrs. Comstock, taking in every
+detail with sharp eyes. "I guess you are glad now you went and helped
+Mag and Wesley when you could, Elnora?"
+
+"Deedy, yes," laughed Elnora, "and I'm going again first time they have
+a big day if I stay from school to do it."
+
+"You'll do no such thing!" said the delighted Sinton. "Come now, if
+you're going!"
+
+"If I ride, can you spare me time to run into the swamp to my box a
+minute?" asked Elnora.
+
+The light she had seen the previous night troubled her.
+
+"Sure," said Wesley largely. So they drove away and left a white-faced
+woman watching them from the door, her heart a little sorer than usual.
+
+"I'd give a pretty to hear what he'll say to her!" she commented
+bitterly. "Always sticking in, always doing things I can't ever afford.
+Where on earth did he get that thing and what did it cost?"
+
+Then she entered the cabin and began the day's work, but mingled with
+the brooding bitterness of her soul was the vision of a sweet young
+face, glad with a gladness never before seen on it, and over and over
+she repeated: "I wonder what he'll say to her!"
+
+What he said was that she looked as fresh and sweet as a posy, and to be
+careful not to step in the mud or scratch her shoes when she went to the
+case.
+
+Elnora found her key and opened the door. Not where she had placed it,
+but conspicuously in front lay her little heap of bills, and a crude
+scrawl of writing beside it. Elnora picked up the note in astonishment.
+
+
+DERE ELNORY,
+
+the lord amighty is hiding you all right done you ever dout it this
+money of yourn was took for some time las nite but it is returned with
+intres for god sake done ever come to the swamp at nite or late evnin or
+mornin or far in any time sompin worse an you know could git you
+
+A FREND.
+
+
+Elnora began to tremble. She hastily glanced around. The damp earth
+before the case had been trodden by large, roughly shod feet. She caught
+up the money and the note, thrust them into her guimpe, locked the case,
+and ran to the road.
+
+She was so breathless and her face so white Sinton noticed it.
+
+"What in the world's the matter, Elnora?" he asked.
+
+"I am half afraid!" she panted.
+
+"Tut, tut, child!" said Wesley Sinton. "Nothing in the world to be
+afraid of. What happened?"
+
+"Uncle Wesley," said Elnora, "I had more money than I brought home last
+night, and I put it in my case. Some one has been there. The ground is
+all trampled, and they left this note."
+
+"And took your money, I'll wager," said Sinton angrily.
+
+"No," answered Elnora. "Read the note, and oh Uncle Wesley, tell me what
+it means!"
+
+Sinton's face was a study. "I don't know what it means," he said. "Only
+one thing is clear. It means some beast who doesn't really want to harm
+you has got his eye on you, and he is telling you plain as he can, not
+to give him a chance. You got to keep along the roads, in the open, and
+not let the biggest moth that ever flew toll you out of hearing of us,
+or your mother. It means that, plain and distinct."
+
+"Just when I can sell them! Just when everything is so lovely on account
+of them! I can't! I can't stay away from the swamp. The Limberlost is
+going to buy the books, the clothes, pay the tuition, and even start a
+college fund. I just can't!"
+
+"You've got to," said Sinton. "This is plain enough. You go far in the
+swamp at your own risk, even in daytime."
+
+"Uncle Wesley," said the girl, "last night before I went to bed, I was
+so happy I tried to pray, and I thanked God for hiding me 'under the
+shadow of His wing.' But how in the world could any one know it?"
+
+Wesley Sinton's heart leaped in his breast. His face was whiter than the
+girl's now.
+
+"Were you praying out loud, honey?" he almost whispered.
+
+"I might have said words," answered Elnora. "I know I do sometimes.
+I've never had any one to talk with, and I've played with and talked to
+myself all my life. You've caught me at it often, but it always makes
+mother angry when she does. She says it's silly. I forget and do it,
+when I'm alone. But Uncle Wesley, if I said anything last night, you
+know it was the merest whisper, because I'd have been so afraid of
+waking mother. Don't you see? I sat up late, and studied two lessons."
+
+Sinton was steadying himself "I'll stop and examine the case as I come
+back," he said. "Maybe I can find some clue. That other--that was just
+accidental. It's a common expression. All the preachers use it. If I
+tried to pray, that would be the very first thing I'd say."
+
+The colour returned to Elnora's face.
+
+"Did you tell your mother about this money, Elnora?" he asked.
+
+"No, I didn't," said Elnora. "It's dreadful not to, but I was afraid.
+You see they are clearing the swamp so fast. Every year it grows more
+difficult to find things, and Indian stuff becomes scarcer. I want to
+graduate, and that's four years unless I can double on the course. That
+means twenty dollars tuition each year, and new books, and clothes.
+There won't ever be so much at one time again, that I know. I just got
+to hang to my money. I was afraid to tell her, for fear she would want
+it for taxes, and she really must sell a tree or some cattle for that,
+mustn't she, Uncle Wesley?"
+
+"On your life, she must!" said Wesley. "You put your little wad in the
+bank all safe, and never mention it to a living soul. It doesn't seem
+right, but your case is peculiar. Every word you say is a true word.
+Each year you will find less in the swamp, and things everywhere will
+be scarcer. If you ever get a few dollars ahead, that can start your
+college fund. You know you are going to college, Elnora!"
+
+"Of course I am," said Elnora. "I settled that as soon as I knew what a
+college was. I will put all my money in the bank, except what I owe you.
+I'll pay that now."
+
+"If your arrows are heavy," said Wesley, "I'll drive on to Onabasha with
+you."
+
+"But they are not. Half of them were nicked, and this little box held
+all the good ones. It's so surprising how many are spoiled when you wash
+them."
+
+"What does he pay?"
+
+"Ten cents for any common perfect one, fifty for revolvers, a dollar for
+obsidian, and whatever is right for enormous big ones."
+
+"Well, that sounds fair," said Sinton. "You can come down Saturday and
+wash the stuff at our house, and I'll take it in when we go marketing in
+the afternoon."
+
+Elnora jumped from the carriage. She soon found that with her books, her
+lunch box, and the points she had a heavy load. She had almost reached
+the bridge crossing the culvert when she heard distressed screams of a
+child. Across an orchard of the suburbs came a small boy, after him a
+big dog, urged by a man in the background. Elnora's heart was with the
+small fleeing figure in any event whatever. She dropped her load on
+the bridge, and with practised hand flung a stone at the dog. The beast
+curled double with a howl. The boy reached the fence, and Elnora was
+there to help him over. As he touched the top she swung him to the
+ground, but he clung to her, clasping her tightly, sobbing with fear.
+Elnora helped him to the bridge, and sat with him in her arms. For a
+time his replies to her questions were indistinct, but at last he became
+quieter and she could understand.
+
+He was a mite of a boy, nothing but skin-covered bones, his burned,
+freckled face in a mortar of tears and dust, his clothing unspeakably
+dirty, one great toe in a festering mass from a broken nail, and sores
+all over the visible portions of the small body.
+
+"You won't let the mean old thing make his dog get me!" he wailed.
+
+"Indeed no," said Elnora, holding him closely.
+
+"You wouldn't set a dog on a boy for just taking a few old apples when
+you fed 'em to pigs with a shovel every day, would you?"
+
+"No, I would not," said Elnora hotly.
+
+"You'd give a boy all the apples he wanted, if he hadn't any breakfast,
+and was so hungry he was all twisty inside, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes, I would," said Elnora.
+
+"If you had anything to eat you would give me something right now,
+wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Elnora. "There's nothing but just stones in the package. But
+my dinner is in that case. I'll gladly divide."
+
+She opened the box. The famished child gave a little cry and reached
+both hands. Elnora caught them back.
+
+"Did you have any supper?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Any dinner yesterday?"
+
+"An apple and some grapes I stole."
+
+"Whose boy are you?"
+
+"Old Tom Billings's."
+
+"Why doesn't your father get you something to eat?"
+
+"He does most days, but he's drunk now."
+
+"Hush, you must not!" said Elnora. "He's your father!"
+
+"He's spent all the money to get drunk, too," said the boy, "and Jimmy
+and Belle are both crying for breakfast. I'd a got out all right with an
+apple for myself, but I tried to get some for them and the dog got too
+close. Say, you can throw, can't you?"
+
+"Yes," admitted Elnora. She poured half the milk into the cup. "Drink
+this," she said, holding it to him.
+
+The boy gulped the milk and swore joyously, gripping the cup with
+shaking fingers.
+
+"Hush!" cried Elnora. "That's dreadful!"
+
+"What's dreadful?"
+
+"To say such awful words."
+
+"Huh! pa says worser 'an that every breath he draws."
+
+Elnora saw that the child was older than she had thought. He might have
+been forty judging by his hard, unchildish expression.
+
+"Do you want to be like your father?"
+
+"No, I want to be like you. Couldn't a angel be prettier 'an you. Can I
+have more milk?"
+
+Elnora emptied the flask. The boy drained the cup. He drew a breath of
+satisfaction as he gazed into her face.
+
+"You wouldn't go off and leave your little boy, would you?" he asked.
+
+"Did some one go away and leave you?"
+
+"Yes, my mother went off and left me, and left Jimmy and Belle, too,"
+said the boy. "You wouldn't leave your little boy, would you?"
+
+"No."
+
+The boy looked eagerly at the box. Elnora lifted a sandwich and
+uncovered the fried chicken. The boy gasped with delight.
+
+"Say, I could eat the stuff in the glass and the other box and carry the
+bread and the chicken to Jimmy and Belle," he offered.
+
+Elnora silently uncovered the custard with preserved cherries on top and
+handed it and the spoon to the child. Never did food disappear faster.
+The salad went next, and a sandwich and half a chicken breast followed.
+
+"I better leave the rest for Jimmy and Belle," he said, "they're 'ist
+fightin' hungry."
+
+Elnora gave him the remainder of the carefully prepared lunch. The boy
+clutched it and ran with a sidewise hop like a wild thing. She covered
+the dishes and cup, polished the spoon, replaced it, and closed the
+case. She caught her breath in a tremulous laugh.
+
+"If Aunt Margaret knew that, she'd never forgive me," she said. "It
+seems as if secrecy is literally forced upon me, and I hate it. What
+shall I do for lunch? I'll have to sell my arrows and keep enough money
+for a restaurant sandwich."
+
+So she walked hurriedly into town, sold her points at a good price,
+deposited her funds, and went away with a neat little bank book and the
+note from the Limberlost carefully folded inside. Elnora passed down the
+hall that morning, and no one paid the slightest attention to her.
+The truth was she looked so like every one else that she was perfectly
+inconspicuous. But in the coat room there were members of her class.
+Surely no one intended it, but the whisper was too loud.
+
+"Look at the girl from the Limberlost in the clothes that woman gave
+her!"
+
+Elnora turned on them. "I beg your pardon," she said unsteadily, "I
+couldn't help hearing that! No one gave me these clothes. I paid for
+them myself."
+
+Some one muttered, "Pardon me," but incredulous faces greeted her.
+
+Elnora felt driven. "Aunt Margaret selected them, and she meant to give
+them to me," she explained, "but I wouldn't take them. I paid for them
+myself." There was silence.
+
+"Don't you believe me?" panted Elnora.
+
+"Really, it is none of our affair," said another girl. "Come on, let's
+go."
+
+Elnora stepped before the girl who had spoken. "You have made this your
+affair," she said, "because you told a thing which was not true. No one
+gave me what I am wearing. I paid for my clothes myself with money I
+earned selling moths to the Bird Woman. I just came from the bank where
+I deposited what I did not use. Here is my credit." Elnora drew out and
+offered the little red book. "Surely you will believe that," she said.
+
+"Why of course," said the girl who first had spoken. "We met such a
+lovely woman in Brownlee's store, and she said she wanted our help to
+buy some things for a girl, and that's how we came to know."
+
+"Dear Aunt Margaret," said Elnora, "it was like her to ask you. Isn't
+she splendid?"
+
+"She is indeed," chorused the girls. Elnora set down her lunch box and
+books, unpinned her hat, hanging it beside the others, and taking up
+the books she reached to set the box in its place and dropped it. With
+a little cry she snatched at it and caught the strap on top. That pulled
+from the fastening, the cover unrolled, the box fell away as far as it
+could, two porcelain lids rattled on the floor, and the one sandwich
+rolled like a cartwheel across the room. Elnora lifted a ghastly face.
+For once no one laughed. She stood an instant staring.
+
+"It seems to be my luck to be crucified at every point of the compass,"
+she said at last. "First two days you thought I was a pauper, now you
+will think I'm a fraud. All of you will believe I bought an expensive
+box, and then was too poor to put anything but a restaurant sandwich in
+it. You must stop till I prove to you that I'm not."
+
+Elnora gathered up the lids, and kicked the sandwich into a corner.
+
+"I had milk in that bottle, see! And custard in the cup. There was salad
+in the little box, fried chicken in the large one, and nut sandwiches
+in the tray. You can see the crumbs of all of them. A man set a dog on a
+child who was so starved he was stealing apples. I talked with him, and
+I thought I could bear hunger better, he was such a little boy, so I
+gave him my lunch, and got the sandwich at the restaurant."
+
+Elnora held out the box. The girls were laughing by that time. "You
+goose," said one, "why didn't you give him the money, and save your
+lunch?"
+
+"He was such a little fellow, and he really was hungry," said Elnora.
+"I often go without anything to eat at noon in the fields and woods, and
+never think of it."
+
+She closed the box and set it beside the lunches of other country
+pupils. While her back was turned, into the room came the girl of her
+encounter on the first day, walked to the rack, and with an exclamation
+of approval took down Elnora's hat.
+
+"Just the thing I have been wanting!" she said. "I never saw such
+beautiful quills in all my life. They match my new broadcloth to
+perfection. I've got to have that kind of quills for my hat. I never saw
+the like! Whose is it, and where did it come from?"
+
+No one said a word, for Elnora's question, the reply, and her answer,
+had been repeated. Every one knew that the Limberlost girl had come out
+ahead and Sadie Reed had not been amiable, when the little flourish had
+been added to Elnora's name in the algebra class. Elnora's swift glance
+was pathetic, but no one helped her. Sadie Reed glanced from the hat to
+the faces around her and wondered.
+
+"Why, this is the Freshman section, whose hat is it?" she asked again,
+this time impatiently.
+
+"That's the tassel of the cornstock," said Elnora with a forced laugh.
+
+The response was genuine. Every one shouted. Sadie Reed blushed, but she
+laughed also.
+
+"Well, it's beautiful," she said, "especially the quills. They are
+exactly what I want. I know I don't deserve any kindness from you, but I
+do wish you would tell me at whose store you found those quills."
+
+"Gladly!" said Elnora. "You can't buy quills like those at a store. They
+are from a living bird. Phoebe Simms gathers them in her orchard as her
+peacocks shed them. They are wing quills from the males."
+
+Then there was perfect silence. How was Elnora to know that not a girl
+there would have told that?
+
+"I haven't a doubt but I can get you some," she offered. "She gave Aunt
+Margaret a large bunch, and those are part of them. I am quite sure she
+has more, and would spare some."
+
+Sadie Reed laughed shortly. "You needn't trouble," she said, "I was
+fooled. I thought they were expensive quills. I wanted them for a
+twenty-dollar velvet toque to match my new suit. If they are gathered
+from the ground, really, I couldn't use them."
+
+"Only in spots!" said Elnora. "They don't just cover the earth. Phoebe
+Simms's peacocks are the only ones within miles of Onabasha, and they
+moult but once a year. If your hat cost only twenty dollars, it's
+scarcely good enough for those quills. You see, the Almighty made and
+coloured those Himself; and He puts the same kind on Phoebe Simms's
+peacocks that He put on the head of the family in the forests of Ceylon,
+away back in the beginning. Any old manufactured quill from New York
+or Chicago will do for your little twenty-dollar hat. You should have
+something infinitely better than that to be worthy of quills that are
+made by the Creator."
+
+How those girls did laugh! One of them walked with Elnora to the
+auditorium, sat beside her during exercises, and tried to talk whenever
+she dared, to keep Elnora from seeing the curious and admiring looks
+bent upon her.
+
+For the brown-eyed boy whistled, and there was pantomime of all sorts
+going on behind Elnora's back that day. Happy with her books, no one
+knew how much she saw, and from her absorption in her studies it was
+evident she cared too little to notice.
+
+After school she went again to the home of the Bird Woman, and together
+they visited the swamp and carried away more specimens. This time Elnora
+asked the Bird Woman to keep the money until noon of the next day, when
+she would call for it and have it added to her bank account. She slowly
+walked home, for the visit to the swamp had brought back full force the
+experience of the morning. Again and again she examined the crude little
+note, for she did not know what it meant, yet it bred vague fear. The
+only thing of which Elnora knew herself afraid was her mother; when with
+wild eyes and ears deaf to childish pleading, she sometimes lost control
+of herself in the night and visited the pool where her husband had sunk
+before her, calling his name in unearthly tones and begging of the swamp
+to give back its dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK INDULGES IN "FRILLS," AND BILLY REAPPEARS
+
+
+It was Wesley Sinton who really wrestled with Elnora's problem while
+he drove about his business. He was not forced to ask himself what it
+meant; he knew. The old Corson gang was still holding together. Elder
+members who had escaped the law had been joined by a younger brother of
+Jack's, and they met in the thickest of the few remaining fast places
+of the swamp to drink, gamble, and loaf. Then suddenly, there would be a
+robbery in some country house where a farmer that day had sold his
+wheat or corn and not paid a visit to the bank; or in some neighbouring
+village.
+
+The home of Mrs. Comstock and Elnora adjoined the swamp. Sinton's land
+lay next, and not another residence or man easy to reach in case of
+trouble. Whoever wrote that note had some human kindness in his breast,
+but the fact stood revealed that he feared his strength if Elnora were
+delivered into his hands. Where had he been the previous night when
+he heard that prayer? Was that the first time he had been in such
+proximity? Sinton drove fast, for he wished to reach the swamp before
+Elnora and the Bird Woman would go there.
+
+At almost four he came to the case, and dropping on his knees studied
+the ground, every sense alert. He found two or three little heel prints.
+Those were made by Elnora or the Bird Woman. What Sinton wanted to learn
+was whether all the remainder were the footprints of one man. It was
+easily seen, they were not. There were deep, even tracks made by fairly
+new shoes, and others where a well-worn heel cut deeper on the inside of
+the print than at the outer edge. Undoubtedly some of Corson's old gang
+were watching the case, and the visits of the women to it. There was no
+danger that any one would attack the Bird Woman. She never went to the
+swamp at night, and on her trips in the daytime, every one knew that she
+carried a revolver, understood how to use it, and pursued her work in a
+fearless manner.
+
+Elnora, prowling around the swamp and lured into the interior by the
+flight of moths and butterflies; Elnora, without father, money, or
+friends save himself, to defend her--Elnora was a different proposition.
+For this to happen just when the Limberlost was bringing the very desire
+of her heart to the girl, it was too bad.
+
+Sinton was afraid for her, yet he did not want to add the burden of fear
+to Katharine Comstock's trouble, or to disturb the joy of Elnora in her
+work. He stopped at the cabin and slowly went up the walk. Mrs. Comstock
+was sitting on the front steps with some sewing. The work seemed to
+Sinton as if she might be engaged in putting a tuck in a petticoat. He
+thought of how Margaret had shortened Elnora's dress to the accepted
+length for girls of her age, and made a mental note of Mrs. Comstock's
+occupation.
+
+She dropped her work on her lap, laid her hands on it and looked into
+his face with a sneer.
+
+"You didn't let any grass grow under your feet," she said.
+
+Sinton saw her white, drawn face and comprehended.
+
+"I went to pay a debt and see about this opening of the ditch, Kate."
+
+"You said you were going to prosecute me."
+
+"Good gracious, Kate!" cried Sinton. "Is that what you have been
+thinking all day? I told you before I left yesterday that I would not
+need do that. And I won't! We can't afford to quarrel over Elnora. She's
+all we've got. Now that she has proved that if you don't do just what
+I think you ought by way of clothes and schooling, she can take care of
+herself, I put that out of my head. What I came to see you about is
+a kind of scare I've had to-day. I want to ask you if you ever see
+anything about the swamp that makes you think the old Corson gang is
+still at work?"
+
+"Can't say that I do," said Mrs. Comstock. "There's kind of dancing
+lights there sometimes, but I supposed it was just people passing along
+the road with lanterns. Folks hereabout are none too fond of the swamp.
+I hate it like death. I've never stayed here a night in my life without
+Robert's revolver, clean and loaded, under my pillow, and the shotgun,
+same condition, by the bed. I can't say that I'm afraid here at home.
+I'm not. I can take care of myself. But none of the swamp for me!"
+
+"Well, I'm glad you are not afraid, Kate, because I must tell you
+something. Elnora stopped at the case this morning, and somebody had
+been into it in the night."
+
+"Broke the lock?"
+
+"No. Used a duplicate key. To-day I heard there was a man here last
+night. I want to nose around a little."
+
+Sinton went to the east end of the cabin and looked up at the window.
+There was no way any one could have reached it without a ladder, for the
+logs were hewed and mortar filled the cracks even. Then he went to the
+west end, the willow faced him as he turned the corner. He examined the
+trunk carefully. There was no mistake about small particles of black
+swamp muck adhering to the sides of the tree. He reached the low
+branches and climbed the willow. There was earth on the large limb
+crossing Elnora's window. He stood on it, holding the branch as had
+been done the night before, and looked into the room. He could see very
+little, but he knew that if it had been dark outside and sufficiently
+light for Elnora to study inside he could have seen vividly. He brought
+his face close to the netting, and he could see the bed with its head
+to the east, at its foot the table with the candles and the chair before
+it, and then he knew where the man had been who had heard Elnora's
+prayer.
+
+Mrs. Comstock had followed around the corner and stood watching him.
+"Do you think some slinking hulk was up there peekin' in at Elnora?" she
+demanded indignantly.
+
+"There is muck on the trunk, and plenty on the limb," said Sinton.
+"Hadn't you better get a saw and let me take this branch off?"
+
+"No, I hadn't," said Mrs. Comstock. "First place, Elnora's climbed from
+that window on that limb all her life, and it's hers. Second place, no
+one gets ahead of me after I've had warning. Any crow that perches on
+that roost again will get its feathers somewhat scattered. Look along
+the fence, there, and see if you can find where he came in."
+
+The place was easy to find as was a trail leading for some distance west
+of the cabin.
+
+"You just go home, and don't fret yourself," said Mrs. Comstock. "I'll
+take care of this. If you should hear the dinner bell at any time in the
+night you come down. But I wouldn't say anything to Elnora. She better
+keep her mind on her studies, if she's going to school."
+
+When the work was finished that night Elnora took her books and went
+to her room to prepare some lessons, but every few minutes she looked
+toward the swamp to see if there were lights near the case. Mrs.
+Comstock raked together the coals in the cooking stove, got out the
+lunch box, and sitting down she studied it grimly. At last she arose.
+
+"Wonder how it would do to show Mag Sinton a frill or two," she
+murmured.
+
+She went to her room, knelt before a big black-walnut chest and hunted
+through its contents until she found an old-fashioned cook book. She
+tended the fire as she read and presently was in action. She first sawed
+an end from a fragrant, juicy, sugar-cured ham and put it to cook.
+Then she set a couple of eggs boiling, and after long hesitation began
+creaming butter and sugar in a crock. An hour later the odour of the
+ham, mingled with some of the richest spices of "happy Araby," in a
+combination that could mean nothing save spice cake, crept up to Elnora
+so strongly that she lifted her head and sniffed amazedly. She would
+have given all her precious money to have gone down and thrown her arms
+around her mother's neck, but she did not dare move.
+
+Mrs. Comstock was up early, and without a word handed Elnora the case as
+she left the next morning.
+
+"Thank you, mother," said Elnora, and went on her way.
+
+She walked down the road looking straight ahead until she came to the
+corner, where she usually entered the swamp. She paused, glanced that
+way and smiled. Then she turned and looked back. There was no one coming
+in any direction. She followed the road until well around the corner,
+then she stopped and sat on a grassy spot, laid her books beside her and
+opened the lunch box. Last night's odours had in a measure prepared her
+for what she would see, but not quite. She scarcely could believe her
+senses. Half the bread compartment was filled with dainty sandwiches of
+bread and butter sprinkled with the yolk of egg and the remainder with
+three large slices of the most fragrant spice cake imaginable. The meat
+dish contained shaved cold ham, of which she knew the quality, the
+salad was tomatoes and celery, and the cup held preserved pear, clear as
+amber. There was milk in the bottle, two tissue-wrapped cucumber pickles
+in the folding drinking-cup, and a fresh napkin in the ring. No lunch
+was ever daintier or more palatable; of that Elnora was perfectly sure.
+And her mother had prepared it for her! "She does love me!" cried the
+happy girl. "Sure as you're born she loves me; only she hasn't found it
+out yet!"
+
+She touched the papers daintily, and smiled at the box as if it were a
+living thing. As she began closing it a breath of air swept by, lifting
+the covering of the cake. It was like an invitation, and breakfast
+was several hours away. Elnora picked up a piece and ate it. That cake
+tasted even better than it looked. Then she tried a sandwich. How did
+her mother come to think of making them that way. They never had any at
+home. She slipped out the fork, sampled the salad, and one-quarter of
+pear. Then she closed the box and started down the road nibbling one
+of the pickles and trying to decide exactly how happy she was, but she
+could find no standard high enough for a measure.
+
+She was to go to the Bird Woman's after school for the last load from
+the case. Saturday she would take the arrow points and specimens to the
+bank. That would exhaust her present supplies and give her enough money
+ahead to pay for books, tuition, and clothes for at least two years. She
+would work early and late gathering nuts. In October she would sell all
+the ferns she could find. She must collect specimens of all tree leaves
+before they fell, gather nests and cocoons later, and keep her eyes wide
+open for anything the grades could use. She would see the superintendent
+that night about selling specimens to the ward buildings. She must be
+ahead of any one else if she wanted to furnish these things. So she
+approached the bridge.
+
+That it was occupied could be seen from a distance. As she came up she
+found the small boy of yesterday awaiting her with a confident smile.
+
+"We brought you something!" he announced without greeting. "This is
+Jimmy and Belle--and we brought you a present."
+
+He offered a parcel wrapped in brown paper.
+
+"Why, how lovely of you!" said Elnora. "I supposed you had forgotten me
+when you ran away so fast yesterday."
+
+"Naw, I didn't forget you," said the boy. "I wouldn't forget you, not
+ever! Why, I was ist a-hurrying to take them things to Jimmy and Belle.
+My they was glad!"
+
+Elnora glanced at the children. They sat on the edge of the bridge,
+obviously clad in a garment each, very dirty and unkept, a little boy
+and a girl of about seven and nine. Elnora's heart began to ache.
+
+"Say," said the boy. "Ain't you going to look what we have gave you?"
+
+"I thought it wasn't polite to look before people," answered Elnora. "Of
+course, I will, if you would like to have me."
+
+Elnora opened the package. She had been presented with a quarter of a
+stale loaf of baker's bread, and a big piece of ancient bologna.
+
+"But don't you want this yourselves?" she asked in surprise.
+
+"Gosh, no! I mean ist no," said the boy. "We always have it. We got
+stacks this morning. Pa's come out of it now, and he's so sorry he got
+more 'an ever we can eat. Have you had any before?"
+
+"No," said Elnora, "I never did!"
+
+The boy's eyes brightened and the girl moved restlessly.
+
+"We thought maybe you hadn't," said the boy. "First you ever have, you
+like it real well; but when you don't have anything else for a long
+time, years an' years, you git so tired." He hitched at the string which
+held his trousers and watched Elnora speculatively.
+
+"I don't s'pose you'd trade what you got in that box for ist old bread
+and bologna now, would you? Mebby you'd like it! And I know, I ist know,
+what you got would taste like heaven to Jimmy and Belle. They never had
+nothing like that! Not even Belle, and she's most ten! No, sir-ee, they
+never tasted things like you got!"
+
+It was in Elnora's heart to be thankful for even a taste in time, as
+she knelt on the bridge, opened the box and divided her lunch into three
+equal parts, the smaller boy getting most of the milk. Then she told
+them it was school time and she must go.
+
+"Why don't you put your bread and bologna in the nice box?" asked the
+boy.
+
+"Of course," said Elnora. "I didn't think."
+
+When the box was arranged to the children's satisfaction all of them
+accompanied Elnora to the corner where she turned toward the high
+school.
+
+"Billy," said Elnora, "I would like you much better if you were cleaner.
+Surely, you have water! Can't you children get some soap and wash
+yourselves? Gentlemen are never dirty. You want to be a gentleman, don't
+you?"
+
+"Is being clean all you have to do to be a gentleman?"
+
+"No," said Elnora. "You must not say bad words, and you must be kind and
+polite to your sister."
+
+"Must Belle be kind and polite to me, else she ain't a lady?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then Belle's no lady!" said Billy succinctly.
+
+Elnora could say nothing more just then, and she bade them good-bye and
+started them home.
+
+"The poor little souls!" she mused. "I think the Almighty put them in
+my way to show me real trouble. I won't be likely to spend much time
+pitying myself while I can see them." She glanced at the lunchbox. "What
+on earth do I carry this for? I never had anything that was so strictly
+ornamental! One sure thing! I can't take this stuff to the high school.
+You never seem to know exactly what is going to happen to you while you
+are there."
+
+As if to provide a way out of her difficulty a big dog arose from a
+lawn, and came toward the gate wagging his tail. "If those children ate
+the stuff, it can't possibly kill him!" thought Elnora, so she offered
+the bologna. The dog accepted it graciously, and being a beast of
+pedigree he trotted around to a side porch and laid the bologna before
+his mistress. The woman snatched it, screaming: "Come, quick! Some one
+is trying to poison Pedro!" Her daughter came running from the house.
+"Go see who is on the street. Hurry!" cried the excited mother.
+
+Ellen Brownlee ran and looked. Elnora was half a block away, and no
+one nearer. Ellen called loudly, and Elnora stopped. Ellen came running
+toward her.
+
+"Did you see any one give our dog something?" she cried as she
+approached.
+
+Elnora saw no escape.
+
+"I gave it a piece of bologna myself," she said. "It was fit to eat. It
+wouldn't hurt the dog."
+
+Ellen stood and looked at her. "Of course, I didn't know it was your
+dog," explained Elnora. "I had something I wanted to throw to some dog,
+and that one looked big enough to manage it."
+
+Ellen had arrived at her conclusions. "Pass over that lunch box," she
+demanded.
+
+"I will not!" said Elnora.
+
+"Then I will have you arrested for trying to poison our dog," laughed
+the girl as she took the box.
+
+"One chunk of stale bread, one half mile of antique bologna contributed
+for dog feed; the remains of cake, salad and preserves in an otherwise
+empty lunch box. One ham sandwich yesterday. I think it's lovely you
+have the box. Who ate your lunch to-day?"
+
+"Same," confessed Elnora, "but there were three of them this time."
+
+"Wait, until I run back and tell mother about the dog, and get my
+books."
+
+Elnora waited. That morning she walked down the hall and into the
+auditorium beside one of the very nicest girls in Onabasha, and it was
+the fourth day. But the surprise came at noon when Ellen insisted upon
+Elnora lunching at the Brownlee home, and convulsed her parents and
+family, and overwhelmed Elnora with a greatly magnified, but moderately
+accurate history of her lunch box.
+
+"Gee! but it's a box, daddy!" cried the laughing girl. "It's carved
+leather and fastens with a strap that has her name on it. Inside are
+trays for things all complete, and it bears evidence of having enclosed
+delicious food, but Elnora never gets any. She's carried it two days
+now, and both times it has been empty before she reached school. Isn't
+that killing?"
+
+"It is, Ellen, in more ways than one. No girl is going to eat breakfast
+at six o'clock, walk three miles, and do good work without her lunch.
+You can't tell me anything about that box. I sold it last Monday night
+to Wesley Sinton, one of my good country customers. He told me it was a
+present for a girl who was worthy of it, and I see he was right."
+
+"He's so good to me," said Elnora. "Sometimes I look at him and wonder
+if a neighbour can be so kind to one, what a real father would be like.
+I envy a girl with a father unspeakably."
+
+"You have cause," said Ellen Brownlee. "A father is the very dearest
+person in the whole round world, except a mother, who is just a dear."
+The girl, starting to pay tribute to her father, saw that she must
+include her mother, and said the thing before she remembered what Mrs.
+Sinton had told the girls in the store. She stopped in dismay. Elnora's
+face paled a trifle, but she smiled bravely.
+
+"Then I'm fortunate in having a mother," she said.
+
+Mr. Brownlee lingered at the table after the girls had excused
+themselves and returned to school.
+
+"There's a girl Ellen can't see too much of, in my opinion," he said.
+"She is every inch a lady, and not a foolish notion or action about her.
+I can't understand just what combination of circumstances produced her
+in this day."
+
+"It has been an unusual case of repression, for one thing. She waits on
+her elders and thinks before she speaks," said Mrs. Brownlee.
+
+"She's mighty pretty. She looks so sound and wholesome, and she's neatly
+dressed."
+
+"Ellen says she was a fright the first two days. Long brown calico dress
+almost touching the floor, and big, lumbering shoes. Those Sinton people
+bought her clothes. Ellen was in the store, and the woman stopped her
+crowd and asked them about their dresses. She said the girl was not
+poor, but her mother was selfish and didn't care for her. But Elnora
+showed a bank book the next day, and declared that she paid for the
+things herself, so the Sinton people must just have selected them.
+There's something peculiar about it, but nothing wrong I am sure. I'll
+encourage Ellen to ask her again."
+
+"I should say so, especially if she is going to keep on giving away her
+lunch."
+
+"She lunched with the Bird Woman one day this week."
+
+"She did!"
+
+"Yes, she lives out by the Limberlost. You know the Bird Woman works
+there a great deal, and probably knows her that way. I think the girl
+gathers specimens for her. Ellen says she knows more than the teachers
+about any nature question that comes up, and she is going to lead all of
+them in mathematics, and make them work in any branch."
+
+When Elnora entered the coat room after having had luncheon with Ellen
+Brownlee there was such a difference in the atmosphere that she could
+feel it.
+
+"I am almost sorry I have these clothes," she said to Ellen.
+
+"In the name of sense, why?" cried the astonished girl.
+
+"Every one is so nice to me in them, it sets me to wondering if in time
+I could have made them be equally friendly in the others."
+
+Ellen looked at her introspectively. "I believe you could," she
+announced at last. "But it would have taken time and heartache, and your
+mind would have been less free to work on your studies. No one is happy
+without friends, and I just simply can't study when I am unhappy."
+
+That night the Bird Woman made the last trip to the swamp. Every
+specimen she possibly could use had been purchased at a fair price, and
+three additions had been made to the bank book, carrying the total a
+little past two hundred dollars. There remained the Indian relics to
+sell on Saturday, and Elnora had secured the order to furnish material
+for nature work for the grades. Life suddenly grew very full. There was
+the most excitingly interesting work for every hour, and that work was
+to pay high school expenses and start the college fund. There was one
+little rift in her joy. All of it would have been so much better if she
+could have told her mother, and given the money into her keeping; but
+the struggle to get a start had been so terrible, Elnora was afraid to
+take the risk. When she reached home, she only told her mother that the
+last of the things had been sold that evening.
+
+"I think," said Mrs. Comstock, "that we will ask Wesley to move that box
+over here back of the garden for you. There you are apt to get tolled
+farther into the swamp than you intend to go, and you might mire or
+something. There ought to be just the same things in our woods, and
+along our swampy places, as there are in the Limberlost. Can't you hunt
+your stuff here?"
+
+"I can try," said Elnora. "I don't know what I can find until I do. Our
+woods are undisturbed, and there is a possibility they might be even
+better hunting than the swamp. But I wouldn't have Freckles's case moved
+for the world. He might come back some day, and not like it. I've tried
+to keep his room the best I could, and taking out the box would make
+a big hole in one side of it. Store boxes don't cost much. I will have
+Uncle Wesley buy me one, and set it up wherever hunting looks the best,
+early in the spring. I would feel safer at home."
+
+"Shall we do the work or have supper first?"
+
+"Let's do the work," said Elnora. "I can't say that I'm hungry now.
+Doesn't seem as if I ever could be hungry again with such a lunch. I am
+quite sure no one carried more delicious things to eat than I."
+
+Mrs. Comstock was pleased. "I put in a pretty good hunk of cake. Did you
+divide it with any one?"
+
+"Why, yes, I did," admitted Elnora.
+
+"Who?"
+
+This was becoming uncomfortable. "I ate the biggest piece myself," said
+Elnora, "and gave the rest to a couple of boys named Jimmy and Billy and
+a girl named Belle. They said it was the very best cake they ever tasted
+in all their lives."
+
+Mrs. Comstock sat straight. "I used to be a master hand at spice cake,"
+she boasted. "But I'm a little out of practice. I must get to work
+again. With the very weeds growing higher than our heads, we should
+raise plenty of good stuff to eat on this land, if we can't afford
+anything else but taxes."
+
+Elnora laughed and hurried up stairs to change her dress. Margaret
+Sinton came that night bringing a beautiful blue one in its place, and
+carried away the other to launder.
+
+"Do you mean to say those dresses are to be washed every two days?"
+questioned Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"They have to be, to look fresh," replied Margaret. "We want our girl
+sweet as a rose."
+
+"Well, of all things!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "Every two days! Any girl
+who can't keep a dress clean longer than that is a dirty girl. You'll
+wear the goods out and fade the colours with so much washing."
+
+"We'll have a clean girl, anyway."
+
+"Well, if you like the job you can have it," said Mrs. Comstock. "I
+don't mind the washing, but I'm so inconvenient with an iron."
+
+Elnora sat late that night working over her lessons. The next morning
+she put on her blue dress and ribbon and in those she was a picture.
+Mrs. Comstock caught her breath with a queer stirring around her heart,
+and looked twice to be sure of what she saw. As Elnora gathered her
+books her mother silently gave her the lunch box.
+
+"Feels heavy," said Elnora gaily. "And smelly! Like as not I'll be
+called upon to divide again."
+
+"Then you divide!" said Mrs. Comstock. "Eating is the one thing we don't
+have to economize on, Elnora. Spite of all I can do food goes to waste
+in this soil every day. If you can give some of those city children a
+taste of the real thing, why, don't be selfish."
+
+Elnora went down the road thinking of the city children with whom she
+probably would divide. Of course, the bridge would be occupied again. So
+she stopped and opened the box.
+
+"I don't want to be selfish," murmured Elnora, "but it really seems as
+if I can't give away this lunch. If mother did not put love into it,
+she's substituted something that's likely to fool me."
+
+She almost felt her steps lagging as she approached the bridge. A very
+hungry dog had been added to the trio of children. Elnora loved all
+dogs, and as usual, this one came to her in friendliness. The
+children said "Good morning!" with alacrity, and another paper parcel
+lay conspicuous.
+
+"How are you this morning?" inquired Elnora.
+
+"All right!" cried the three, while the dog sniffed ravenously at the
+lunch box, and beat a perfect tattoo with his tail.
+
+"How did you like the bologna?" questioned Billy eagerly.
+
+"One of the girls took me to lunch at her home yesterday," answered
+Elnora.
+
+Dawn broke beautifully over Billy's streaked face. He caught the package
+and thrust it toward Elnora.
+
+"Then maybe you'd like to try the bologna to-day!"
+
+The dog leaped in glad apprehension of something, and Belle scrambled to
+her feet and took a step forward. The look of famished greed in her eyes
+was more than Elnora could endure. It was not that she cared for the
+food so much. Good things to eat had been in abundance all her life.
+She wanted with this lunch to try to absorb what she felt must be
+an expression of some sort from her mother, and if it were not a
+manifestation of love, she did not know what to think it. But it was her
+mother who had said "be generous." She knelt on the bridge. "Keep back
+the dog!" she warned the elder boy.
+
+She opened the box and divided the milk between Billy and the girl.
+She gave each a piece of cake leaving one and a sandwich. Billy pressed
+forward eagerly, bitter disappointment on his face, and the elder boy
+forgot his charge.
+
+"Aw, I thought they'd be meat!" lamented Billy.
+
+Elnora could not endure that.
+
+"There is!" she said gladly. "There is a little pigeon bird. I want a
+teeny piece of the breast, for a sort of keepsake, just one bite, and
+you can have the rest among you."
+
+Elnora drew the knife from its holder and cut off the wishbone. Then she
+held the bird toward the girl.
+
+"You can divide it," she said. The dog made a bound and seizing the
+squab sprang from the bridge and ran for life. The girl and boy hurried
+after him. With awful eyes Billy stared and swore tempestuously. Elnora
+caught him and clapped her hand over the little mouth. A delivery wagon
+came tearing down the street, the horse running full speed, passed the
+fleeing dog with the girl and boy in pursuit, and stopped at the bridge.
+High school girls began to roll from all sides of it.
+
+"A rescue! A rescue!" they shouted.
+
+It was Ellen Brownlee and her crowd, and every girl of them carried a
+big parcel. They took in the scene as they approached. The fleeing dog
+with something in its mouth, the half-naked girl and boy chasing it
+told the story. Those girls screamed with laughter as they watched the
+pursuit.
+
+"Thank goodness, I saved the wishbone!" said Elnora. "As usual, I can
+prove that there was a bird." She turned toward the box. Billy had
+improved the time. He had the last piece of cake in one hand, and the
+last bite of salad disappeared in one great gulp. Then the girls shouted
+again.
+
+"Let's have a sample ourselves," suggested one. She caught up the box
+and handed out the remaining sandwich. Another girl divided it into
+bites each little over an inch square, and then she lifted the cup lid
+and deposited a preserved strawberry on each bite. "One, two, three,
+altogether now!" she cried.
+
+"You old mean things!" screamed Billy.
+
+In an instant he was down in the road and handfuls of dust began to fly
+among them. The girls scattered before him.
+
+"Billy!" cried Elnora. "Billy! I'll never give you another bite, if you
+throw dust on any one!"
+
+Then Billy dropped the dust, bored both fists into his eyes, and fled
+sobbing into Elnora's new blue skirt. She stooped to meet him and
+consolation began. Those girls laughed on. They screamed and shouted
+until the little bridge shook.
+
+"To-morrow might as well be a clear day," said Ellen, passing around
+and feeding the remaining berries to the girls as they could compose
+themselves enough to take them. "Billy, I admire your taste more than
+your temper."
+
+Elnora looked up. "The little soul is nothing but skin and bones," she
+said. "I never was really hungry myself; were any of you?"
+
+"Well, I should say so," cried a plump, rosy girl. "I'm famished right
+now. Let's have breakfast immediate!"
+
+"We got to refill this box first!" said Ellen Brownlee. "Who's got the
+butter?" A girl advanced with a wooden tray.
+
+"Put it in the preserve cup, a little strawberry flavour won't hurt it.
+Next!" called Ellen.
+
+A loaf of bread was produced and Ellen cut off a piece which filled the
+sandwich box.
+
+"Next!" A bottle of olives was unwrapped. The grocer's boy who was
+waiting opened that, and Ellen filled the salad dish.
+
+"Next!"
+
+A bag of macaroons was produced and the cake compartment filled.
+
+"Next!"
+
+"I don't suppose this will make quite as good dog feed as a bird,"
+laughed a girl holding open a bag of sliced ham while Ellen filled the
+meat dish.
+
+"Next!"
+
+A box of candy was handed her and she stuffed every corner of the
+lunch box with chocolates and nougat. Then it was closed and formally
+presented to Elnora. The girls each helped themselves to candy and
+olives, and gave Billy the remainder of the food. Billy took one bite
+of ham, and approved. Belle and Jimmy had given up chasing the dog, and
+angry and ashamed, stood waiting half a block away.
+
+"Come back!" cried Billy. "You great big dunces, come back! They's a new
+kind of meat, and cake and candy."
+
+The boy delayed, but the girl joined Billy. Ellen wiped her fingers,
+stepped to the cement abutment and began reciting "Horatio at the
+Bridge!" substituting Elnora wherever the hero appeared in the lines.
+
+Elnora gathered up the sacks, and gave them to Belle, telling her to
+take the food home, cut and spread the bread, set things on the table,
+and eat nicely.
+
+Then Elnora was taken into the wagon with the girls, and driven on the
+run to the high school. They sang a song beginning--
+
+     "Elnora, please give me a sandwich.
+     I'm ashamed to ask for cake!"
+
+as they went. Elnora did not know it, but that was her initiation. She
+belonged to "the crowd." She only knew that she was happy, and vaguely
+wondered what her mother and Aunt Margaret would have said about the
+proceedings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK MANIPULATES MARGARET AND BILLY ACQUIRES A
+RESIDENCE
+
+
+Saturday morning Elnora helped her mother with the work. When she had
+finished Mrs. Comstock told her to go to Sintons' and wash her Indian
+relics, so that she would be ready to accompany Wesley to town in the
+afternoon. Elnora hurried down the road and was soon at the cistern
+with a tub busily washing arrow points, stone axes, tubes, pipes, and
+skin-cleaning implements.
+
+Then she went home, dressed and was waiting when the carriage reached
+the gate. She stopped at the bank with the box, and Sinton went to do
+his marketing and some shopping for his wife.
+
+At the dry goods store Mr. Brownlee called to him, "Hello, Sinton! How
+do you like the fate of your lunch box?" Then he began to laugh--
+
+"I always hate to see a man laughing alone," said Sinton. "It looks so
+selfish! Tell me the fun, and let me help you."
+
+Mr. Brownlee wiped his eyes.
+
+"I supposed you knew, but I see she hasn't told."
+
+Then the three days' history of the lunch box was repeated with
+particulars which included the dog.
+
+"Now laugh!" concluded Mr. Brownlee.
+
+"Blest if I see anything funny!" replied Wesley Sinton. "And if you
+had bought that box and furnished one of those lunches yourself, you
+wouldn't either. I call such a work a shame! I'll have it stopped."
+
+"Some one must see to that, all right. They are little leeches. Their
+father earns enough to support them, but they have no mother, and they
+run wild. I suppose they are crazy for cooked food. But it is funny, and
+when you think it over you will see it, if you don't now."
+
+"About where would a body find that father?" inquired Wesley Sinton
+grimly. Mr. Brownlee told him and he started, locating the house with
+little difficulty. House was the proper word, for of home there was no
+sign. Just a small empty house with three unkept little children racing
+through and around it. The girl and the elder boy hung back, but dirty
+little Billy greeted Sinton with: "What you want here?"
+
+"I want to see your father," said Sinton.
+
+"Well, he's asleep," said Billy.
+
+"Where?" asked Sinton.
+
+"In the house," answered Billy, "and you can't wake him."
+
+"Well, I'll try," said Wesley.
+
+Billy led the way. "There he is!" he said. "He is drunk again."
+
+On a dirty mattress in a corner lay a man who appeared to be strong and
+well. Billy was right. You could not awake him. He had gone the limit,
+and a little beyond.
+
+He was now facing eternity. Sinton went out and closed the door.
+
+"Your father is sick and needs help," he said. "You stay here, and I
+will send a man to see him."
+
+"If you just let him 'lone, he'll sleep it off," volunteered Billy.
+"He's that way all the time, but he wakes up and gets us something to
+eat after awhile. Only waitin' twists you up inside pretty bad."
+
+The boy wore no air of complaint. He was merely stating facts.
+
+Wesley Sinton looked intently at Billy. "Are you twisted up inside now?"
+he asked.
+
+Billy laid a grimy hand on the region of his stomach and the filthy
+little waist sank close to the backbone. "Bet yer life, boss," he said
+cheerfully.
+
+"How long have you been twisted?" asked Sinton.
+
+Billy appealed to the others. "When was it we had the stuff on the
+bridge?"
+
+"Yesterday morning," said the girl.
+
+"Is that all gone?" asked Sinton.
+
+"She went and told us to take it home," said Billy ruefully, "and 'cos
+she said to, we took it. Pa had come back, he was drinking some more,
+and he ate a lot of it--almost the whole thing, and it made him sick as
+a dog, and he went and wasted all of it. Then he got drunk some more,
+and now he's asleep again. We didn't get hardly none."
+
+"You children sit on the steps until the man comes," said Sinton. "I'll
+send you some things to eat with him. What's your name, sonny?"
+
+"Billy," said the boy.
+
+"Well, Billy, I guess you better come with me. I'll take care of him,"
+Sinton promised the others. He reached a hand to Billy.
+
+"I ain't no baby, I'm a boy!" said Billy, as he shuffled along beside
+Sinton, taking a kick at every movable object without regard to his
+battered toes.
+
+Once they passed a Great Dane dog lolling after its master, and Billy
+ascended Sinton as if he were a tree, and clung to him with trembling
+hot hands.
+
+"I ain't afraid of that dog," scoffed Billy, as he was again placed on
+the walk, "but onc't he took me for a rat or somepin' and his teeth cut
+into my back. If I'd a done right, I'd a took the law on him."
+
+Sinton looked down into the indignant little face. The child was bright
+enough, he had a good head, but oh, such a body!
+
+"I 'bout got enough of dogs," said Billy. "I used to like 'em, but I'm
+getting pretty tired. You ought to seen the lickin' Jimmy and Belle and
+me give our dog when we caught him, for taking a little bird she gave
+us. We waited 'till he was asleep 'nen laid a board on him and all of
+us jumped on it to onc't. You could a heard him yell a mile. Belle said
+mebbe we could squeeze the bird out of him. But, squeeze nothing! He was
+holler as us, and that bird was lost long 'fore it got to his stummick.
+It was ist a little one, anyway. Belle said it wouldn't 'a' made a
+bite apiece for three of us nohow, and the dog got one good swaller. We
+didn't get much of the meat, either. Pa took most of that. Seems like
+pas and dogs gets everything."
+
+Billy laughed dolefully. Involuntarily Wesley Sinton reached his hand.
+They were coming into the business part of Onabasha and the streets were
+crowded. Billy understood it to mean that he might lose his companion
+and took a grip. That little hot hand clinging tight to his, the sore
+feet recklessly scouring the walk, the hungry child panting for breath
+as he tried to keep even, the brave soul jesting in the face of hard
+luck, caught Sinton in a tender, empty spot.
+
+"Say, son," he said. "How would you like to be washed clean, and have
+all the supper your skin could hold, and sleep in a good bed?"
+
+"Aw, gee!" said Billy. "I ain't dead yet! Them things is in heaven! Poor
+folks can't have them. Pa said so."
+
+"Well, you can have them if you want to go with me and get them,"
+promised Sinton.
+
+"Honest?"
+
+"Yes, honest."
+
+"Crost yer heart?"
+
+"Yes," said Sinton.
+
+"Kin I take some to Jimmy and Belle?"
+
+"If you'll come with me and be my boy, I'll see that they have plenty."
+
+"What will pa say?"
+
+"Your pa is in that kind of sleep now where he won't wake up, Billy,"
+said Sinton. "I am pretty sure the law will give you to me, if you want
+to come."
+
+"When people don't ever wake up they're dead," announced Billy. "Is my
+pa dead?"
+
+"Yes, he is," answered Sinton.
+
+"And you'll take care of Jimmy and Belle, too?"
+
+"I can't adopt all three of you," said Sinton. "I'll take you, and see
+that they are well provided for. Will you come?"
+
+"Yep, I'll come," said Billy. "Let's eat, first thing we do."
+
+"All right," agreed Sinton. "Come into this restaurant." He lifted Billy
+to the lunch counter and ordered the clerk to give him as many glasses
+of milk as he wanted, and a biscuit. "I think there's going to be fried
+chicken when we get home, Billy," he said, "so you just take the edge
+off now, and fill up later."
+
+While Billy lunched Sinton called up the different departments
+and notified the proper authorities ending with the Women's Relief
+Association. He sent a basket of food to Belle and Jimmy, bought Billy a
+pair of trousers, and a shirt, and went to bring Elnora.
+
+"Why, Uncle Wesley!" cried the girl. "Where did you find Billy?"
+
+"I've adopted him for the time being, if not longer," replied Wesley
+Sinton.
+
+"Where did you get him?"
+
+"Well, young woman," said Wesley Sinton, "Mr. Brownlee told me the
+history of your lunch box. It didn't seem so funny to me as it does to
+the rest of them; so I went to look up the father of Billy's family, and
+make him take care of them, or allow the law to do it for him. It will
+have to be the law."
+
+"He's deader than anything!" broke in Billy. "He can't ever take all the
+meat any more."
+
+"Billy!" gasped Elnora.
+
+"Never you mind!" said Sinton. "A child doesn't say such things about a
+father who loved and raised him right. When it happens, the father alone
+is to blame. You won't hear Billy talk like that about me when I cross
+over."
+
+"You don't mean you are going to take him to keep!"
+
+"I'll soon need help," said Wesley. "Billy will come in just about right
+ten years from now, and if I raise him I'll have him the way I want
+him."
+
+"But Aunt Margaret doesn't like boys," objected Elnora.
+
+"Well, she likes me, and I used to be a boy. Anyway, as I remember
+she has had her way about everything at our house ever since we were
+married. I am going to please myself about Billy. Hasn't she always done
+just as she chose so far as you know? Honest, Elnora!"
+
+"Honest!" replied Elnora. "You are beautiful to all of us, Uncle Wesley;
+but Aunt Margaret won't like Billy. She won't want him in her home."
+
+"In our home," corrected Wesley.
+
+"What makes you want him?" marvelled Elnora.
+
+"God only knows," said Sinton. "Billy ain't so beautiful, and he ain't
+so smart, I guess it's because he's so human. My heart goes out to him."
+
+"So did mine," said Elnora. "I love him. I'd rather see him eat my lunch
+than have it myself any time."
+
+"What makes you like him?" asked Wesley.
+
+"Why, I don't know," pondered Elnora. "He's so little, he needs so
+much, he's got such splendid grit, and he's perfectly unselfish with his
+brother and sister. But we must wash him before Aunt Margaret sees him.
+I wonder if mother----"
+
+"You needn't bother. I'm going to take him home the way he is," said
+Sinton. "I want Maggie to see the worst of it."
+
+"I'm afraid----" began Elnora.
+
+"So am I," said Wesley, "but I won't give him up. He's taken a sort of
+grip on my heart. I've always been crazy for a boy. Don't let him hear
+us."
+
+"Don't let him be killed!" cried Elnora. During their talk Billy had
+wandered to the edge of the walk and barely escaped the wheels of a
+passing automobile in an effort to catch a stray kitten that seemed in
+danger.
+
+Wesley drew Billy back to the walk, and held his hand closely. "Are you
+ready, Elnora?"
+
+"Yes; you were gone a long time," she said.
+
+Wesley glanced at a package she carried. "Have to have another book?" he
+asked.
+
+"No, I bought this for mother. I've had such splendid luck selling my
+specimens, I didn't feel right about keeping all the money for myself,
+so I saved enough from the Indian relics to get a few things I wanted.
+I would have liked to have gotten her a dress, but I didn't dare, so I
+compromised on a book."
+
+"What did you select, Elnora?" asked Wesley wonderingly.
+
+"Well," said she, "I have noticed mother always seemed interested in
+anything Mark Twain wrote in the newspapers, and I thought it would
+cheer her up a little, so I just got his 'Innocents Abroad.' I haven't
+read it myself, but I've seen mention made of it all my life, and the
+critics say it's genuine fun."
+
+"Good!" cried Sinton. "Good! You've made a splendid choice. It will take
+her mind off herself a lot. But she will scold you."
+
+"Of course," assented Elnora. "But, possibly she will read it, and feel
+better. I'm going to serve her a trick. I am going to hide it until
+Monday, and set it on her little shelf of books the last thing before
+I go away. She must have all of them by heart. When, she sees a new one
+she can't help being glad, for she loves to read, and if she has all day
+to become interested, maybe she'll like it so she won't scold so much."
+
+"We are both in for it, but I guess we are prepared. I don't know what
+Margaret will say, but I'm going to take Billy home and see. Maybe he
+can win with her, as he did with us."
+
+Elnora had doubts, but she did not say anything more. When they started
+home Billy sat on the front seat. He drove with the hitching strap tied
+to the railing of the dash-board, flourished the whip, and yelled with
+delight. At first Sinton laughed with him, but by the time he left
+Elnora with several packages at her gate, he was looking serious enough.
+
+Margaret was at the door as they drove up the lane. Wesley left Billy in
+the carriage, hitched the horses and went to explain to her. He had not
+reached her before she cried, "Look, Wesley, that child! You'll have a
+runaway!"
+
+Wesley looked and ran. Billy was standing in the carriage slashing the
+mettlesome horses with the whip.
+
+"See me make 'em go!" he shouted as the whip fell a second time.
+
+He did make them go. They took the hitching post and a few fence
+palings, which scraped the paint from a wheel. Sinton missed the lines
+at the first effort, but the dragging post impeded the horses, and he
+soon caught them. He led them to the barn, and ordered Billy to remain
+in the carriage while he unhitched. Then leading Billy and carrying his
+packages he entered the yard.
+
+"You run play a few minutes, Billy," he said. "I want to talk to the
+nice lady."
+
+The nice lady was looking rather stupefied as Wesley approached her.
+
+"Where in the name of sense did you get that awful child?" she demanded.
+
+"He is a young gentleman who has been stopping Elnora and eating her
+lunch every day, part of the time with the assistance of his brother
+and sister, while our girl went hungry. Brownlee told me about it at the
+store. It's happened three days running. The first time she went without
+anything, the second time Brownlee's girl took her to lunch, and the
+third a crowd of high school girls bought a lot of stuff and met them at
+the bridge. The youngsters seemed to think they could rob her every day,
+so I went to see their father about having it stopped."
+
+"Well, I should think so!" cried Margaret.
+
+"There were three of them, Margaret," said Wesley, "that little
+fellow----"
+
+"Hyena, you mean," interpolated Margaret.
+
+"Hyena," corrected Wesley gravely, "and another boy and a girl, all
+equally dirty and hungry. The man was dead. They thought he was in a
+drunken sleep, but he was stone dead. I brought the little boy with me,
+and sent the officers and other help to the house. He's half starved.
+I want to wash him, and put clean clothes on him, and give him some
+supper."
+
+"Have you got anything to put on him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where did you get it?"
+
+"Bought it. It ain't much. All I got didn't cost a dollar."
+
+"A dollar is a good deal when you work and save for it the way we do."
+
+"Well, I don't know a better place to put it. Have you got any hot
+water? I'll use this tub at the cistern. Please give me some soap and
+towels."
+
+Instead Margaret pushed by him with a shriek. Billy had played
+by producing a cord from his pocket, and having tied the tails of
+Margaret's white kittens together, he had climbed on a box and hung them
+across the clothes line. Wild with fright the kittens were clawing each
+other to death, and the air was white with fur. The string had twisted
+and the frightened creatures could not recognize friends. Margaret
+stepped back with bleeding hands. Sinton cut the cord with his knife
+and the poor little cats raced under the house bleeding and disfigured.
+Margaret white with wrath faced Wesley.
+
+"If you don't hitch up and take that animal back to town," she said, "I
+will."
+
+Billy threw himself on the grass and began to scream.
+
+"You said I could have fried chicken for supper," he wailed. "You said
+she was a nice lady!"
+
+Wesley lifted him and something in his manner of handling the child
+infuriated Margaret. His touch was so gentle. She reached for Billy and
+gripped his shirt collar in the back. Wesley's hand closed over hers.
+
+"Gently, girl!" he said. "This little body is covered with sores."
+
+"Sores!" she ejaculated. "Sores? What kind of sores?"
+
+"Oh, they might be from bruises made by fists or boot toes, or they
+might be bad blood, from wrong eating, or they might be pure filth. Will
+you hand me some towels?"
+
+"No, I won't!" said Margaret.
+
+"Well, give me some rags, then."
+
+Margaret compromised on pieces of old tablecloth. Wesley led Billy to
+the cistern, pumped cold water into the tub, poured in a kettle of hot,
+and beginning at the head scoured him. The boy shut his little teeth,
+and said never a word though he twisted occasionally when the soap
+struck a raw spot. Margaret watched the process from the window in
+amazed and ever-increasing anger. Where did Wesley learn it? How could
+his big hands be so gentle? He came to the door.
+
+"Have you got any peroxide?" he asked.
+
+"A little," she answered stiffly.
+
+"Well, I need about a pint, but I'll begin on what you have."
+
+Margaret handed him the bottle. Wesley took a cup, weakened the drug and
+said to Billy: "Man, these sores on you must be healed. Then you must
+eat the kind of food that's fit for little men. I am going to put some
+medicine on you, and it is going to sting like fire. If it just runs
+off, I won't use any more. If it boils, there is poison in these places,
+and they must be tied up, dosed every day, and you must be washed, and
+kept mighty clean. Now, hold still, because I am going to put it on."
+
+"I think the one on my leg is the worst," said the undaunted Billy,
+holding out a raw place. Sinton poured on the drug. Billy's body twisted
+and writhed, but he did not run.
+
+"Gee, look at it boil!" he cried. "I guess they's poison. You'll have to
+do it to all of them."
+
+Wesley's teeth were set, as he watched the boy's face. He poured the
+drug, strong enough to do effective work, on a dozen places over that
+little body and bandaged all he could. Billy's lips quivered at times,
+and his chin jumped, but he did not shed a tear or utter a sound other
+than to take a deep interest in the boiling. As Wesley put the small
+shirt on the boy, and fastened the trousers, he was ready to reset the
+hitching post and mend the fence without a word.
+
+"Now am I clean?" asked Billy.
+
+"Yes, you are clean outside," said Wesley. "There is some dirty blood
+in your body, and some bad words in your mouth, that we have to get out,
+but that takes time. If we put right things to eat into your stomach
+that will do away with the sores, and if you know that I don't like bad
+words you won't say them any oftener than you can help, will you Billy?"
+
+Billy leaned against Wesley in apparent indifference.
+
+"I want to see me!" he demanded.
+
+Wesley led the boy into the house, and lifted him to a mirror.
+
+"My, I'm purty good-looking, ain't I?" bragged Billy. Then as Wesley
+stooped to set him on the floor Billy's lips passed close to the big
+man's ear and hastily whispered a vehement "No!" as he ran for the door.
+
+"How long until supper, Margaret?" asked Wesley as he followed.
+
+"You are going to keep him for supper?" she asked
+
+"Sure!" said Wesley. "That's what I brought him for. It's likely he
+never had a good square meal of decent food in his life. He's starved to
+the bone."
+
+Margaret arose deliberately, removed the white cloth from the supper
+table and substituted an old red one she used to wrap the bread. She
+put away the pretty dishes they commonly used and set the table with old
+plates for pies and kitchen utensils. But she fried the chicken, and was
+generous with milk and honey, snowy bread, gravy, potatoes, and fruit.
+
+Wesley repainted the scratched wheel. He mended the fence, with Billy
+holding the nails and handing the pickets. Then he filled the old hole,
+digged a new one and set the hitching post.
+
+Billy hopped on one foot at his task of holding the post steady as the
+earth was packed around it. There was not the shadow of a trouble on his
+little freckled face.
+
+Sinton threw in stones and pounded the earth solid around the post. The
+sound of a gulping sob attracted him to Billy. The tears were rolling
+down his cheeks. "If I'd a knowed you'd have to get down in a hole, and
+work so hard I wouldn't 'a' hit the horses," he said.
+
+"Never you mind, Billy," said Wesley. "You will know next time, so you
+can think over it, and make up your mind whether you really want to
+before you strike."
+
+Wesley went to the barn to put away the tools. He thought Billy was at
+his heels, but the boy lagged on the way. A big snowy turkey gobbler
+resented the small intruder in his especial preserves, and with spread
+tail and dragging wings came toward him threateningly. If that turkey
+gobbler had known the sort of things with which Billy was accustomed
+to holding his own, he never would have issued the challenge. Billy
+accepted instantly. He danced around with stiff arms at his sides and
+imitated the gobbler. Then came his opportunity, and he jumped on the
+big turkey's back. Wesley heard Margaret's scream in time to see the
+flying leap and admire its dexterity. The turkey tucked its tail and
+scampered. Billy slid from its back and as he fell he clutched wildly,
+caught the folded tail, and instinctively clung to it. The turkey gave
+one scream and relaxed its muscles. Then it fled in disfigured defeat
+to the haystack. Billy scrambled to his feet holding the tail, while his
+eyes were bulging.
+
+"Why, the blasted old thing came off!" he said to Wesley, holding out
+the tail in amazed wonder.
+
+The man, caught suddenly, forgot everything and roared. Seeing which,
+Billy thought a turkey tail of no account and flung that one high above
+him shouting in wild childish laughter, when the feathers scattered and
+fell.
+
+Margaret, watching, began to cry. Wesley had gone mad. For the first
+time in her married life she wanted to tell her mother. When Wesley had
+waited until he was so hungry he could wait no longer he invaded the
+kitchen to find a cooked supper baking on the back of the stove, while
+Margaret with red eyes nursed a pair of demoralized white kittens.
+
+"Is supper ready?" he asked.
+
+"It has been for an hour," answered Margaret.
+
+"Why didn't you call us?"
+
+That "us" had too much comradeship in it. It irritated Margaret.
+
+"I supposed it would take you even longer than this to fix things decent
+again. As for my turkey, and my poor little kittens, they don't matter."
+
+"I am mighty sorry about them, Margaret, you know that. Billy is very
+bright, and he will soon learn----"
+
+"Soon learn!" cried Margaret. "Wesley Sinton, you don't mean to say that
+you think of keeping that creature here for some time?"
+
+"No, I think of keeping a well-behaved little boy."
+
+Margaret set the supper on the table. Seeing the old red cloth Wesley
+stared in amazement. Then he understood. Billy capered around in
+delight.
+
+"Ain't that pretty?" he exulted. "I wish Jimmy and Belle could see. We,
+why we ist eat out of our hands or off a old dry goods box, and when we
+fix up a lot, we have newspaper. We ain't ever had a nice red cloth like
+this."
+
+Wesley looked straight at Margaret, so intently that she turned away,
+her face flushing. He stacked the dictionary and the geography of
+the world on a chair, and lifted Billy beside him. He heaped a plate
+generously, cut the food, put a fork into Billy's little fist, and made
+him eat slowly and properly. Billy did his best. Occasionally greed
+overcame him, and he used his left hand to pop a bite into his mouth
+with his fingers. These lapses Wesley patiently overlooked, and went on
+with his general instructions. Luckily Billy did not spill anything
+on his clothing or the cloth. After supper Wesley took him to the barn
+while he finished the night work. Then he went and sat beside Margaret
+on the front porch. Billy appropriated the hammock, and swung by pulling
+a rope tied around a tree. The very energy with which he went at the
+work of swinging himself appealed to Wesley.
+
+"Mercy, but he's an active little body," he said. "There isn't a lazy
+bone in him. See how he works to pay for his fun."
+
+"There goes his foot through it!" cried Margaret. "Wesley, he shall not
+ruin my hammock."
+
+"Of course he shan't!" said Wesley. "Wait, Billy, let me show you."
+
+Thereupon he explained to Billy that ladies wearing beautiful white
+dresses sat in hammocks, so little boys must not put their dusty feet in
+them. Billy immediately sat, and allowed his feet to swing.
+
+"Margaret," said Wesley after a long silence on the porch, "isn't it
+true that if Billy had been a half-starved sore cat, dog, or animal of
+any sort, that you would have pitied, and helped care for it, and been
+glad to see me get any pleasure out of it I could?"
+
+"Yes," said Margaret coldly.
+
+"But because I brought a child with an immortal soul, there is no
+welcome."
+
+"That isn't a child, it's an animal."
+
+"You just said you would have welcomed an animal."
+
+"Not a wild one. I meant a tame beast."
+
+"Billy is not a beast!" said Wesley hotly. "He is a very dear little
+boy. Margaret, you've always done the church-going and Bible reading for
+this family. How do you reconcile that 'Suffer little children to come
+unto Me' with the way you are treating Billy?"
+
+Margaret arose. "I haven't treated that child. I have only let him
+alone. I can barely hold myself. He needs the hide tanned about off
+him!"
+
+"If you'd cared to look at his body, you'd know that you couldn't find a
+place to strike without cutting into a raw spot," said Wesley. "Besides,
+Billy has not done a thing for which a child should be punished. He is
+only full of life, no training, and with a boy's love of mischief. He
+did abuse your kittens, but an hour before I saw him risk his life to
+save one from being run over. He minds what you tell him, and doesn't
+do anything he is told not to. He thinks of his brother and sister right
+away when anything pleases him. He took that stinging medicine with the
+grit of a bulldog. He is just a bully little chap, and I love him."
+
+"Oh good heavens!" cried Margaret, going into the house as she spoke.
+
+Sinton sat still. At last Billy tired of the swing, came to him and
+leaned his slight body against the big knee.
+
+"Am I going to sleep here?" he asked.
+
+"Sure you are!" said Sinton.
+
+Billy swung his feet as he laid across Wesley's knee. "Come on," said
+Wesley, "I must clean you up for bed."
+
+"You have to be just awful clean here," announced Billy. "I like to be
+clean, you feel so good, after the hurt is over."
+
+Sinton registered that remark, and worked with especial tenderness as
+he redressed the ailing places and washed the dust from Billy's feet and
+hands.
+
+"Where can he sleep?" he asked Margaret.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," she answered.
+
+"Oh, I can sleep ist any place," said Billy. "On the floor or anywhere.
+Home, I sleep on pa's coat on a store-box, and Jimmy and Belle they
+sleep on the storebox, too. I sleep between them, so's I don't roll off
+and crack my head. Ain't you got a storebox and a old coat?"
+
+Wesley arose and opened a folding lounge. Then he brought an armload of
+clean horse blankets from a closet.
+
+"These don't look like the nice white bed a little boy should have,
+Billy," he said, "but we'll make them do. This will beat a storebox all
+hollow."
+
+Billy took a long leap for the lounge. When he found it bounced, he
+proceeded to bounce, until he was tired. By that time the blankets had
+to be refolded. Wesley had Billy take one end and help, while both of
+them seemed to enjoy the job. Then Billy lay down and curled up in his
+clothes like a small dog. But sleep would not come.
+
+Finally he sat up. He stared around restlessly. Then he arose, went to
+Wesley, and leaned against his knee. He picked up the boy and folded his
+arms around him. Billy sighed in rapturous content.
+
+"That bed feels so lost like," he said. "Jimmy always jabbed me on one
+side, and Belle on the other, and so I knew I was there. Do you know
+where they are?"
+
+"They are with kind people who gave them a fine supper, a clean bed, and
+will always take good care of them."
+
+"I wisht I was--" Billy hesitated and looked earnestly at Wesley. "I
+mean I wish they was here."
+
+"You are about all I can manage, Billy," said Wesley.
+
+Billy sat up. "Can't she manage anything?" he asked, waving toward
+Margaret.
+
+"Indeed, yes," said Wesley. "She has managed me for twenty years."
+
+"My, but she made you nice!" said Billy. "I just love you. I wisht she'd
+take Jimmy and Belle and make them nice as you."
+
+"She isn't strong enough to do that, Billy. They will grow into a good
+boy and girl where they are."
+
+Billy slid from Wesley's arms and walked toward Margaret until he
+reached the middle of the room. Then he stopped, and at last sat on the
+floor. Finally he lay down and closed his eyes. "This feels more like my
+bed; if only Jimmy and Belle was here to crowd up a little, so it wasn't
+so alone like."
+
+"Won't I do, Billy?" asked Wesley in a husky voice.
+
+Billy moved restlessly. "Seems like--seems like toward night as if a
+body got kind o' lonesome for a woman person--like her."
+
+Billy indicated Margaret and then closed his eyes so tight his small
+face wrinkled.
+
+Soon he was up again. "Wisht I had Snap," he said. "Oh, I ist wisht I
+had Snap!"
+
+"I thought you laid a board on Snap and jumped on it," said Wesley.
+
+"We did!" cried Billy--"oh, you ought to heard him squeal!" Billy
+laughed loudly, then his face clouded.
+
+"But I want Snap to lay beside me so bad now--that if he was here I'd
+give him a piece of my chicken, 'for, I ate any. Do you like dogs?"
+
+"Yes, I do," said Wesley.
+
+Billy was up instantly. "Would you like Snap?"
+
+"I am sure I would," said Wesley.
+
+"Would she?" Billy indicated Margaret. And then he answered his own
+question. "But of course, she wouldn't, cos she likes cats, and dogs
+chases cats. Oh, dear, I thought for a minute maybe Snap could come
+here." Billy lay down and closed his eyes resolutely.
+
+Suddenly they flew open. "Does it hurt to be dead?" he demanded.
+
+"Nothing hurts you after you are dead, Billy," said Wesley.
+
+"Yes, but I mean does it hurt getting to be dead?"
+
+"Sometimes it does. It did not hurt your father, Billy. It came softly
+while he was asleep."
+
+"It ist came softly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I kind o' wisht he wasn't dead!" said Billy. "'Course I like to
+stay with you, and the fried chicken, and the nice soft bed, and--and
+everything, and I like to be clean, but he took us to the show, and he
+got us gum, and he never hurt us when he wasn't drunk."
+
+Billy drew a deep breath, and tightly closed his eyes. But very soon
+they opened. Then he sat up. He looked at Wesley pitifully, and then he
+glanced at Margaret. "You don't like boys, do you?" he questioned.
+
+"I like good boys," said Margaret.
+
+Billy was at her knee instantly. "Well say, I'm a good boy!" he
+announced joyously.
+
+"I do not think boys who hurt helpless kittens and pull out turkeys'
+tails are good boys."
+
+"Yes, but I didn't hurt the kittens," explained Billy. "They got mad
+'bout ist a little fun and scratched each other. I didn't s'pose they'd
+act like that. And I didn't pull the turkey's tail. I ist held on to the
+first thing I grabbed, and the turkey pulled. Honest, it was the turkey
+pulled." He turned to Wesley. "You tell her! Didn't the turkey pull? I
+didn't know its tail was loose, did I?"
+
+"I don't think you did, Billy," said Wesley.
+
+Billy stared into Margaret's cold face. "Sometimes at night, Belle sits
+on the floor, and I lay my head in her lap. I could pull up a chair and
+lay my head in your lap. Like this, I mean." Billy pulled up a chair,
+climbed on it and laid his head on Margaret's lap. Then he shut his eyes
+again. Margaret could have looked little more repulsed if he had been a
+snake. Billy was soon up.
+
+"My, but your lap is hard," he said. "And you are a good deal fatter 'an
+Belle, too!" He slid from the chair and came back to the middle of the
+room.
+
+"Oh but I wisht he wasn't dead!" he cried. The flood broke and Billy
+screamed in desperation.
+
+Out of the night a soft, warm young figure flashed through the door and
+with a swoop caught him in her arms. She dropped into a chair, nestled
+him closely, drooped her fragrant brown head over his little bullet-eyed
+red one, and rocked softly while she crooned over him--
+
+     "Billy, boy, where have you been?
+     Oh, I have been to seek a wife,
+     She's the joy of my life,
+     But then she's a young thing and she can't leave her mammy!"
+
+Billy clung to her frantically. Elnora wiped his eyes, kissed his face,
+swayed and sang.
+
+"Why aren't you asleep?" she asked at last.
+
+"I don't know," said Billy. "I tried. I tried awful hard cos I thought
+he wanted me to, but it ist wouldn't come. Please tell her I tried." He
+appealed to Margaret.
+
+"He did try to go to sleep," admitted Margaret.
+
+"Maybe he can't sleep in his clothes," suggested Elnora. "Haven't you an
+old dressing sacque? I could roll the sleeves."
+
+Margaret got an old sacque, and Elnora put it on Billy. Then she brought
+a basin of water and bathed his face and head. She gathered him up and
+began to rock again.
+
+"Have you got a pa?" asked Billy.
+
+"No," said Elnora.
+
+"Is he dead like mine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did it hurt him to die?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Billy was wide awake again. "It didn't hurt my pa," he boasted; "he ist
+died while he was asleep. He didn't even know it was coming."
+
+"I am glad of that," said Elnora, pressing the small head against her
+breast again.
+
+Billy escaped her hand and sat up. "I guess I won't go to sleep," he
+said. "It might 'come softly' and get me."
+
+"It won't get you, Billy," said Elnora, rocking and singing between
+sentences. "It doesn't get little boys. It just takes big people who are
+sick."
+
+"Was my pa sick?"
+
+"Yes," said Elnora. "He had a dreadful sickness inside him that burned,
+and made him drink things. That was why he would forget his little boys
+and girl. If he had been well, he would have gotten you good things to
+eat, clean clothes, and had the most fun with you."
+
+Billy leaned against her and closed his eyes, and Elnora rocked
+hopefully.
+
+"If I was dead would you cry?" he was up again.
+
+"Yes, I would," said Elnora, gripping him closer until Billy almost
+squealed with the embrace.
+
+"Do you love me tight as that?" he questioned blissfully.
+
+"Yes, bushels and bushels," said Elnora. "Better than any little boy in
+the whole world."
+
+Billy looked at Margaret. "She don't!" he said. "She'd be glad if it
+would get me 'softly,' right now. She don't want me here 't all."
+
+Elnora smothered his face against her breast and rocked.
+
+"You love me, don't you?"
+
+"I will, if you will go to sleep."
+
+"Every single day you will give me your dinner for the bologna, won't
+you," said Billy.
+
+"Yes, I will," replied Elnora. "But you will have as good lunch as I do
+after this. You will have milk, eggs, chicken, all kinds of good things,
+little pies, and cakes, maybe."
+
+Billy shook his head. "I am going back home soon as it is light," he
+said, "she don't want me. She thinks I'm a bad boy. She's going to whip
+me--if he lets her. She said so. I heard her. Oh, I wish he hadn't died!
+I want to go home." Billy shrieked again.
+
+Mrs. Comstock had started to walk slowly to meet Elnora. The girl had
+been so late that her mother reached the Sinton gate and followed the
+path until the picture inside became visible. Elnora had told her about
+Wesley taking Billy home. Mrs. Comstock had some curiosity to see how
+Margaret bore the unexpected addition to her family. Billy's voice,
+raised with excitement, was plainly audible. She could see Elnora
+holding him, and hear his excited wail. Wesley's face was drawn and
+haggard, and Margaret's set and defiant. A very imp of perversity
+entered the breast of Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Hoity, toity!" she said as she suddenly appeared in the door. "Blest if
+I ever heard a man making sounds like that before!"
+
+Billy ceased suddenly. Mrs. Comstock was tall, angular, and her hair was
+prematurely white. She was only thirty-six, although she appeared fifty.
+But there was an expression on her usually cold face that was attractive
+just then, and Billy was in search of attractions.
+
+"Have I stayed too late, mother?" asked Elnora anxiously. "I truly
+intended to come straight back, but I thought I could rock Billy to
+sleep first. Everything is strange, and he's so nervous."
+
+"Is that your ma?" demanded Billy.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Does she love you?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"My mother didn't love me," said Billy. "She went away and left me, and
+never came back. She don't care what happens to me. You wouldn't go away
+and leave your little girl, would you?" questioned Billy.
+
+"No," said Katharine Comstock, "and I wouldn't leave a little boy,
+either."
+
+Billy began sliding from Elnora's knees.
+
+"Do you like boys?" he questioned.
+
+"If there is anything I love it is a boy," said Mrs. Comstock
+assuringly. Billy was on the floor.
+
+"Do you like dogs?"
+
+"Yes. Almost as well as boys. I am going to buy a dog as soon as I can
+find a good one."
+
+Billy swept toward her with a whoop.
+
+"Do you want a boy?" he shouted.
+
+Katharine Comstock stretched out her arms, and gathered him in.
+
+"Of course, I want a boy!" she rejoiced.
+
+"Maybe you'd like to have me?" offered Billy.
+
+"Sure I would," triumphed Mrs. Comstock. "Any one would like to have
+you. You are just a real boy, Billy."
+
+"Will you take Snap?"
+
+"I'd like to have Snap almost as well as you."
+
+"Mother!" breathed Elnora imploringly. "Don't! Oh, don't! He thinks you
+mean it!"
+
+"And so I do mean it," said Mrs. Comstock. "I'll take him in a jiffy. I
+throw away enough to feed a little tyke like him every day. His chatter
+would be great company while you are gone. Blood soon can be purified
+with right food and baths, and as for Snap, I meant to buy a bulldog,
+but possibly Snap will serve just as well. All I ask of a dog is to bark
+at the right time. I'll do the rest. Would you like to come and be my
+boy, Billy?"
+
+Billy leaned against Mrs. Comstock, reached his arms around her neck and
+gripped her with all his puny might. "You can whip me all you want to,"
+he said. "I won't make a sound."
+
+Mrs. Comstock held him closely and her hard face was softening; of that
+there could be no doubt.
+
+"Now, why would any one whip a nice little boy like you?" she asked
+wonderingly.
+
+"She"--Billy from his refuge waved toward Margaret--"she was going to
+whip me 'cause her cats fought, when I tied their tails together and
+hung them over the line to dry. How did I know her old cats would
+fight?"
+
+Mrs. Comstock began to laugh suddenly, and try as she would she could
+not stop so soon as she desired. Billy studied her.
+
+"Have you got turkeys?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, flocks of them," said Mrs. Comstock, vainly struggling to suppress
+her mirth, and settle her face in its accustomed lines.
+
+"Are their tails fast?" demanded Billy.
+
+"Why, I think so," marvelled Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Hers ain't!" said Billy with the wave toward Margaret that was becoming
+familiar. "Her turkey pulled, and its tail comed right off. She's going
+to whip me if he lets her. I didn't know the turkey would pull. I didn't
+know its tail would come off. I won't ever touch one again, will I?"
+
+"Of course, you won't," said Mrs. Comstock. "And what's more, I don't
+care if you do! I'd rather have a fine little man like you than all the
+turkeys in the country. Let them lose their old tails if they want to,
+and let the cats fight. Cats and turkeys don't compare with boys, who
+are going to be fine big men some of these days."
+
+Then Billy and Mrs. Comstock hugged each other rapturously, while their
+audience stared in silent amazement.
+
+"You like boys!" exulted Billy, and his head dropped against Mrs.
+Comstock in unspeakable content.
+
+"Yes, and if I don't have to carry you the whole way home, we must start
+right now," said Mrs. Comstock. "You are going to be asleep before you
+know it."
+
+Billy opened his eyes and braced himself. "I can walk," he said proudly.
+
+"All right, we must start. Come, Elnora! Good-night, folks!" Mrs.
+Comstock set Billy on the floor, and arose gripping his hand. "You take
+the other side, Elnora, and we will help him as much as we can," she
+said.
+
+Elnora stared piteously at Margaret, then at Wesley, and arose in
+white-faced bewilderment.
+
+"Billy, are you going to leave without even saying good-bye to me?"
+asked Wesley, with a gulp.
+
+Billy held tight to Mrs. Comstock and Elnora.
+
+"Good-bye!" he said casually. "I'll come and see you some time."
+
+Wesley Sinton gave a smothered sob, and strode from the room.
+
+Mrs. Comstock started toward the door, dragging at Billy while Elnora
+pulled back, but Mrs. Sinton was before them, her eyes flashing.
+
+"Kate Comstock, you think you are mighty smart, don't you?" she cried.
+
+"I ain't in the lunatic asylum, where you belong, anyway," said Mrs.
+Comstock. "I am smart enough to tell a dandy boy when I see him, and I'm
+good and glad to get him. I'll love to have him!"
+
+"Well, you won't have him!" exclaimed Margaret Sinton. "That boy is
+Wesley's! He found him, and brought him here. You can't come in and take
+him like that! Let go of him!"
+
+"Not much, I won't!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "Leave the poor sick little
+soul here for you to beat, because he didn't know just how to handle
+things! Of course, he'll make mistakes. He must have a lot of teaching,
+but not the kind he'll get from you! Clear out of my way!"
+
+"You let go of our boy," ordered Margaret.
+
+"Why? Do you want to whip him, before he can go to sleep?" jeered Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+"No, I don't!" said Margaret. "He's Wesley's, and nobody shall touch
+him. Wesley!"
+
+Wesley Sinton appeared behind Margaret in the doorway, and she turned to
+him. "Make Kate Comstock let go of our boy!" she demanded.
+
+"Billy, she wants you now," said Wesley Sinton. "She won't whip you, and
+she won't let any one else. You can have stacks of good things to eat,
+ride in the carriage, and have a great time. Won't you stay with us?"
+
+Billy drew away from Mrs. Comstock and Elnora.
+
+He faced Margaret, his eyes shrewd with unchildish wisdom. Necessity had
+taught him to strike the hot iron, to drive the hard bargain.
+
+"Can I have Snap to live here always?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, you can have all the dogs you want," said Margaret Sinton.
+
+"Can I sleep close enough so's I can touch you?"
+
+"Yes, you can move your lounge up so that you can hold my hand," said
+Margaret.
+
+"Do you love me now?" questioned Billy.
+
+"I'll try to love you, if you are a good boy," said Margaret.
+
+"Then I guess I'll stay," said Billy, walking over to her.
+
+Out in the night Elnora and her mother went down the road in the
+moonlight; every few rods Mrs. Comstock laughed aloud.
+
+"Mother, I don't understand you," sobbed Elnora.
+
+"Well, maybe when you have gone to high school longer you will," said
+Mrs. Comstock. "Anyway, you saw me bring Mag Sinton to her senses,
+didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, I did," answered Elnora, "but I thought you were in earnest. So
+did Billy, and Uncle Wesley, and Aunt Margaret."
+
+"Well, wasn't I?" inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"But you just said you brought Aunt Margaret to!"
+
+"Well, didn't I?"
+
+"I don't understand you."
+
+"That's the reason I am recommending more schooling!"
+
+Elnora took her candle and went to bed. Mrs. Comstock was feeling too
+good to sleep. Twice of late she really had enjoyed herself for the
+first in sixteen years, and greediness for more of the same feeling
+crept into her blood like intoxication. As she sat brooding alone she
+knew the truth. She would have loved to have taken Billy. She would not
+have minded his mischief, his chatter, or his dog. He would have meant
+a distraction from herself that she greatly needed; she was even sincere
+about the dog. She had intended to tell Wesley to buy her one at the
+very first opportunity. Her last thought was of Billy. She chuckled
+softly, for she was not saintly, and now she knew how she could even a
+long score with Margaret and Wesley in a manner that would fill her soul
+with grim satisfaction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST TEMPTS ELNORA, AND BILLY BURIES HIS FATHER
+
+
+Immediately after dinner on Sunday Wesley Sinton stopped at the Comstock
+gate to ask if Elnora wanted to go to town with them. Billy sat beside
+him and he did not appear as if he were on his way to a funeral. Elnora
+said she had to study and could not go, but she suggested that her
+mother take her place. Mrs. Comstock put on her hat and went at once,
+which surprised Elnora. She did not know that her mother was anxious
+for an opportunity to speak with Sinton alone. Elnora knew why she
+was repeatedly cautioned not to leave their land, if she went specimen
+hunting.
+
+She studied two hours and was several lessons ahead of her classes.
+There was no use to go further. She would take a walk and see if she
+could gather any caterpillars or find any freshly spun cocoons. She
+searched the bushes and low trees behind the garden and all around the
+edge of the woods on their land, and having little success, at last
+came to the road. Almost the first thorn bush she examined yielded a
+Polyphemus cocoon. Elnora lifted her head with the instinct of a hunter
+on the chase, and began work. She reached the swamp before she knew
+it, carrying five fine cocoons of different species as her reward. She
+pushed back her hair and gazed around longingly. A few rods inside she
+thought she saw cocoons on a bush, to which she went, and found several.
+Sense of caution was rapidly vanishing; she was in a fair way to
+forget everything and plunge into the swamp when she thought she heard
+footsteps coming down the trail. She went back, and came out almost
+facing Pete Corson.
+
+That ended her difficulty. She had known him since childhood. When she
+sat on the front bench of the Brushwood schoolhouse, Pete had been one
+of the big boys at the back of the room. He had been rough and wild,
+but she never had been afraid of him, and often he had given her pretty
+things from the swamp.
+
+"What luck!" she cried. "I promised mother I would not go inside the
+swamp alone, and will you look at the cocoons I've found! There are more
+just screaming for me to come get them, because the leaves will fall
+with the first frost, and then the jays and crows will begin to tear
+them open. I haven't much time, since I'm going to school. You will go
+with me, Pete! Please say yes! Just a little way!"
+
+"What are those things?" asked the man, his keen black eyes staring at
+her.
+
+"They are the cases these big caterpillars spin for winter, and in the
+spring they come out great night moths, and I can sell them. Oh, Pete, I
+can sell them for enough to take me through high school and dress me
+so like the others that I don't look different, and if I have very good
+luck I can save some for college. Pete, please go with me?"
+
+"Why don't you go like you always have?"
+
+"Well, the truth is, I had a little scare," said Elnora. "I never did
+mean to go alone; sometimes I sort of wandered inside farther than I
+intended, chasing things. You know Duncan gave me Freckles's books, and
+I have been gathering moths like he did. Lately I found I could sell
+them. If I can make a complete collection, I can get three hundred
+dollars for it. Three such collections would take me almost through
+college, and I've four years in the high school yet. That's a long time.
+I might collect them."
+
+"Can every kind there is be found here?"
+
+"No, not all of them, but when I get more than I need of one kind, I
+can trade them with collectors farther north and west, so I can complete
+sets. It's the only way I see to earn the money. Look what I have
+already. Big gray Cecropias come from this kind; brown Polyphemus from
+that, and green Lunas from these. You aren't working on Sunday. Go with
+me only an hour, Pete!"
+
+The man looked at her narrowly. She was young, wholesome, and beautiful.
+She was innocent, intensely in earnest, and she needed the money, he
+knew that.
+
+"You didn't tell me what scared you," he said.
+
+"Oh, I thought I did! Why you know I had Freckles's box packed full of
+moths and specimens, and one evening I sold some to the Bird Woman. Next
+morning I found a note telling me it wasn't safe to go inside the swamp.
+That sort of scared me. I think I'll go alone, rather than miss the
+chance, but I'd be so happy if you would take care of me. Then I could
+go anywhere I chose, because if I mired you could pull me out. You will
+take care of me, Pete?"
+
+"Yes, I'll take care of you," promised Pete Corson.
+
+"Goody!" said Elnora. "Let's start quick! And Pete, you look at these
+closely, and when you are hunting or going along the road, if one
+dangles under your nose, you cut off the little twig and save it for me,
+will you?"
+
+"Yes, I'll save you all I see," promised Pete. He pushed back his
+hat and followed Elnora. She plunged fearlessly among bushes, over
+underbrush, and across dead logs. One minute she was crying wildly, that
+here was a big one, the next she was reaching for a limb above her head
+or on her knees overturning dead leaves under a hickory or oak tree, or
+working aside black muck with her bare hands as she searched for buried
+pupae cases. For the first hour Pete bent back bushes and followed,
+carrying what Elnora discovered. Then he found one.
+
+"Is this the kind of thing you are looking for?" he asked bashfully, as
+he presented a wild cherry twig.
+
+"Oh Pete, that's a Promethea! I didn't even hope to find one."
+
+"What's the bird like?" asked Pete.
+
+"Almost black wings," said Elnora, "with clay-coloured edges, and the
+most wonderful wine-coloured flush over the under side if it's a male,
+and stronger wine above and below if it's a female. Oh, aren't I happy!"
+
+"How would it do to make what you have into a bunch that we could leave
+here, and come back for them?"
+
+"That would be all right."
+
+Relieved of his load Pete began work. First, he narrowly examined the
+cocoons Elnora had found. He questioned her as to what other kinds would
+be like. He began to use the eyes of a trained woodman and hunter in
+her behalf. He saw several so easily, and moved through the forest so
+softly, that Elnora forgot the moths in watching him. Presently she was
+carrying the specimens, and he was making the trips of investigation to
+see which was a cocoon and which a curled leaf, or he was on his knees
+digging around stumps. As he worked he kept asking questions. What
+kind of logs were best to look beside, what trees were pupae cases
+most likely to be under; on what bushes did caterpillars spin most
+frequently? Time passed, as it always does when one's occupation is
+absorbing.
+
+When the Sintons took Mrs. Comstock home, they stopped to see Elnora.
+She was not there. Mrs. Comstock called at the edge of her woods and
+received no reply. Then Wesley turned and drove back to the Limberlost.
+He left Margaret and Mrs. Comstock holding the team and entertaining
+Billy, while he entered the swamp.
+
+Elnora and Pete had made a wide trail behind them. Before Sinton had
+thought of calling, he heard voices and approached with some caution.
+Soon he saw Elnora, her flushed face beaming as she bent with an armload
+of twigs and branches and talked to a kneeling man.
+
+"Now go cautiously!" she was saying. "I am just sure we will find an
+Imperialis here. It's their very kind of a place. There! What did I tell
+you! Isn't that splendid? Oh, I am so glad you came with me!"
+
+Wesley stood staring in speechless astonishment, for the man had arisen,
+brushed the dirt from his hands, and held out to Elnora a small shining
+dark pupa case. As his face came into view Sinton almost cried out, for
+he was the one man of all others Wesley knew with whom he most feared
+for Elnora's safety. She had him on his knees digging pupae cases for
+her from the swamp.
+
+"Elnora!" called Sinton. "Elnora!"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Wesley!" cried the girl. "See what luck we've had! I know we
+have a dozen and a half cocoons and we have three pupae cases. It's much
+harder to get the cases because you have to dig for them, and you can't
+see where to look. But Pete is fine at it! He's found three, and he
+says he will keep watch beside the roads, and through the woods while he
+hunts. Isn't that splendid of him? Uncle Wesley, there is a college over
+there on the western edge of the swamp. Look closely, and you can see
+the great dome up among the clouds."
+
+"I should say you have had luck," said Wesley, striving to make his
+voice natural. "But I thought you were not coming to the swamp?"
+
+"Well, I wasn't," said Elnora, "but I couldn't find many anywhere else,
+honest, I couldn't, and just as soon as I came to the edge I began to
+see them here. I kept my promise. I didn't come in alone. Pete came
+with me. He's so strong, he isn't afraid of anything, and he's perfectly
+splendid to locate cocoons! He's found half of these. Come on, Pete,
+it's getting dark now, and we must go."
+
+They started toward the trail, Pete carrying the cocoons. He left them
+at the case, while Elnora and Wesley went on to the carriage together.
+
+"Elnora Comstock, what does this mean?" demanded her mother.
+
+"It's all right, one of the neighbours was with her, and she got several
+dollars' worth of stuff," interposed Wesley.
+
+"You oughter seen my pa," shouted Billy. "He was ist all whited out, and
+he laid as still as anything. They put him away deep in the ground."
+
+"Billy!" breathed Margaret in a prolonged groan.
+
+"Jimmy and Belle are going to be together in a nice place. They are
+coming to see me, and Snap is right down here by the wheel. Here, Snap!
+My, but he'll be tickled to get something to eat! He's 'most twisted
+as me. They get new clothes, and all they want to eat, too, but they'll
+miss me. They couldn't have got along without me. I took care of them.
+I had a lot of things give to me 'cause I was the littlest, and I always
+divided with them. But they won't need me now."
+
+When she left the carriage Mrs. Comstock gravely shook hands with Billy.
+"Remember," she said to him, "I love boys, and I love dogs. Whenever you
+don't have a good time up there, take your dog and come right down and
+be my little boy. We will just have loads of fun. You should hear the
+whistles I can make. If you aren't treated right you come straight to
+me."
+
+Billy wagged his head sagely. "You ist bet I will!" he said.
+
+"Mother, how could you?" asked Elnora as they walked up the path.
+
+"How could I, missy? You better ask how couldn't I? I just couldn't! Not
+for enough to pay, my road tax! Not for enough to pay the road tax, and
+the dredge tax, too!"
+
+"Aunt Margaret always has been lovely to me, and I don't think it's fair
+to worry her."
+
+"I choose to be lovely to Billy, and let her sweat out her own worries
+just as she has me, these sixteen years. There is nothing in all this
+world so good for people as taking a dose of their own medicine. The
+difference is that I am honest. I just say in plain English, 'if they
+don't treat you right, come to me.' They have only said it in actions
+and inferences. I want to teach Mag Sinton how her own doses taste, but
+she begins to sputter before I fairly get the spoon to her lips. Just
+you wait!"
+
+"When I think what I owe her----" began Elnora.
+
+"Well, thank goodness, I don't owe her anything, and so I'm perfectly
+free to do what I choose. Come on, and help me get supper. I'm hungry as
+Billy!"
+
+Margaret Sinton rocked slowly back and forth in her chair. On her breast
+lay Billy's red head, one hand clutched her dress front with spasmodic
+grip, even after he was unconscious.
+
+"You mustn't begin that, Margaret," said Sinton. "He's too heavy. And
+it's bad for him. He's better off to lie down and go to sleep alone."
+
+"He's very light, Wesley. He jumps and quivers so. He has to be stronger
+than he is now, before he will sleep soundly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA DISCOVERS A VIOLIN, AND BILLY DISCIPLINES MARGARET
+
+
+Elnora missed the little figure at the bridge the following morning. She
+slowly walked up the street and turned in at the wide entrance to the
+school grounds. She scarcely could comprehend that only a week ago she
+had gone there friendless, alone, and so sick at heart that she was
+physically ill. To-day she had decent clothing, books, friends, and her
+mind was at ease to work on her studies.
+
+As she approached home that night the girl paused in amazement. Her
+mother had company, and she was laughing. Elnora entered the kitchen
+softly and peeped into the sitting-room. Mrs. Comstock sat in her chair
+holding a book and every few seconds a soft chuckle broke into a real
+laugh. Mark Twain was doing his work; while Mrs. Comstock was not
+lacking in a sense of humour. Elnora entered the room before her mother
+saw her. Mrs. Comstock looked up with flushed face.
+
+"Where did you get this?" she demanded.
+
+"I bought it," said Elnora.
+
+"Bought it! With all the taxes due!"
+
+"I paid for it out of my Indian money, mother," said Elnora. "I couldn't
+bear to spend so much on myself and nothing at all on you. I was afraid
+to buy the dress I should have liked to, and I thought the book would be
+company, while I was gone. I haven't read it, but I do hope it's good."
+
+"Good! It's the biggest piece of foolishness I have read in all my life.
+I've laughed all day, ever since I found it. I had a notion to go out
+and read some of it to the cows and see if they wouldn't laugh."
+
+"If it made you laugh, it's a wise book," said Elnora.
+
+"Wise!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "You can stake your life it's a wise book.
+It takes the smartest man there is to do this kind of fooling," and she
+began laughing again.
+
+Elnora, highly satisfied with her purchase, went to her room and put on
+her working clothes. Thereafter she made a point of bringing a book that
+she thought would interest her mother, from the library every week, and
+leaving it on the sitting-room table. Each night she carried home at
+least two school books and studied until she had mastered the points
+of her lessons. She did her share of the work faithfully, and every
+available minute she was in the fields searching for cocoons, for the
+moths promised to become her largest source of income.
+
+She gathered baskets of nests, flowers, mosses, insects, and all sorts
+of natural history specimens and sold them to the grade teachers. At
+first she tried to tell these instructors what to teach their pupils
+about the specimens; but recognizing how much more she knew than they,
+one after another begged her to study at home, and use her spare hours
+in school to exhibit and explain nature subjects to their pupils. Elnora
+loved the work, and she needed the money, for every few days some matter
+of expense arose that she had not expected.
+
+From the first week she had been received and invited with the crowd
+of girls in her class, and it was their custom in passing through the
+business part of the city to stop at the confectioners' and take turns
+in treating to expensive candies, ice cream sodas, hot chocolate, or
+whatever they fancied. When first Elnora was asked she accepted without
+understanding. The second time she went because she seldom had tasted
+these things, and they were so delicious she could not resist. After
+that she went because she knew all about it, and had decided to go.
+
+She had spent half an hour on the log beside the trail in deep thought
+and had arrived at her conclusions. She worked harder than usual for the
+next week, but she seemed to thrive on work. It was October and the
+red leaves were falling when her first time came to treat. As the crowd
+flocked down the broad walk that night Elnora called, "Girls, it's my
+treat to-night! Come on!"
+
+She led the way through the city to the grocery they patronized when
+they had a small spread, and entering came out with a basket, which she
+carried to the bridge on her home road. There she arranged the girls
+in two rows on the cement abutments and opening her basket she gravely
+offered each girl an exquisite little basket of bark, lined with red
+leaves, in one end of which nestled a juicy big red apple and in the
+other a spicy doughnut not an hour from Margaret Sinton's frying basket.
+
+Another time she offered big balls of popped corn stuck together with
+maple sugar, and liberally sprinkled with beechnut kernels. Again it
+was hickory-nut kernels glazed with sugar, another time maple candy,
+and once a basket of warm pumpkin pies. She never made any apology,
+or offered any excuse. She simply gave what she could afford, and the
+change was as welcome to those city girls accustomed to sodas and French
+candy, as were these same things to Elnora surfeited on popcorn and pie.
+In her room was a little slip containing a record of the number of weeks
+in the school year, the times it would be her turn to treat and the
+dates on which such occasions would fall, with a number of suggestions
+beside each. Once the girls almost fought over a basket lined with
+yellow leaves, and filled with fat, very ripe red haws. In late October
+there was a riot over one which was lined with red leaves and contained
+big fragrant pawpaws frost-bitten to a perfect degree. Then hazel
+nuts were ripe, and once they served. One day Elnora at her wits' end,
+explained to her mother that the girls had given her things and she
+wanted to treat them. Mrs. Comstock, with characteristic stubbornness,
+had said she would leave a basket at the grocery for her, but firmly
+declined to say what would be in it. All day Elnora struggled to keep
+her mind on her books. For hours she wavered in tense uncertainty. What
+would her mother do? Should she take the girls to the confectioner's
+that night or risk the basket? Mrs. Comstock could make delicious things
+to eat, but would she?
+
+As they left the building Elnora made a final rapid mental calculation.
+She could not see her way clear to a decent treat for ten people for
+less than two dollars and if the basket proved to be nice, then the
+money would be wasted. She decided to risk it. As they went to the
+bridge the girls were betting on what the treat would be, and crowding
+near Elnora like spoiled small children. Elnora set down the basket.
+
+"Girls," she said, "I don't know what this is myself, so all of us are
+going to be surprised. Here goes!"
+
+She lifted the cover and perfumes from the land of spices rolled up. In
+one end of the basket lay ten enormous sugar cakes the tops of which had
+been liberally dotted with circles cut from stick candy. The candy had
+melted in baking and made small transparent wells of waxy sweetness
+and in the centre of each cake was a fat turtle made from a raisin with
+cloves for head and feet. The remainder of the basket was filled with
+big spiced pears that could be held by their stems while they were
+eaten. The girls shrieked and attacked the cookies, and of all the
+treats Elnora offered perhaps none was quite so long remembered as that.
+
+When Elnora took her basket, placed her books in it, and started home,
+all the girls went with her as far as the fence where she crossed the
+field to the swamp. At parting they kissed her good-bye. Elnora was a
+happy girl as she hurried home to thank her mother. She was happy over
+her books that night, and happy all the way to school the following
+morning.
+
+When the music swelled from the orchestra her heart almost broke with
+throbbing joy. For music always had affected her strangely, and since
+she had been comfortable enough in her surroundings to notice things,
+she had listened to every note to find what it was that literally hurt
+her heart, and at last she knew. It was the talking of the violins.
+They were human voices, and they spoke a language Elnora understood. It
+seemed to her that she must climb up on the stage, take the instruments
+from the fingers of the players and make them speak what was in her
+heart.
+
+That night she said to her mother, "I am perfectly crazy for a violin. I
+am sure I could play one, sure as I live. Did any one----" Elnora never
+completed that sentence.
+
+"Hush!" thundered Mrs. Comstock. "Be quiet! Never mention those things
+before me again--never as long as you live! I loathe them! They are a
+snare of the very devil himself! They were made to lure men and women
+from their homes and their honour. If ever I see you with one in your
+fingers I will smash it in pieces."
+
+Naturally Elnora hushed, but she thought of nothing else after she had
+finished her lessons. At last there came a day when for some reason the
+leader of the orchestra left his violin on the grand piano. That morning
+Elnora made her first mistake in algebra. At noon, as soon as the
+building was empty, she slipped into the auditorium, found the side door
+which led to the stage, and going through the musicians' entrance she
+took the violin. She carried it back into the little side room where the
+orchestra assembled, closed all the doors, opened the case and lifted
+out the instrument.
+
+She laid it on her breast, dropped her chin on it and drew the bow
+softly across the strings. One after another she tested the open notes.
+Gradually her stroke ceased to tremble and she drew the bow firmly. Then
+her fingers began to fall and softly, slowly she searched up and down
+those strings for sounds she knew. Standing in the middle of the floor,
+she tried over and over. It seemed scarcely a minute before the hall was
+filled with the sound of hurrying feet, and she was forced to put away
+the violin and go to her classes. The next day she prayed that the
+violin would be left again, but her petition was not answered. That
+night when she returned from the school she made an excuse to go down
+to see Billy. He was engaged in hulling walnuts by driving them through
+holes in a board. His hands were protected by a pair of Margaret's old
+gloves, but he had speckled his face generously. He appeared well, and
+greeted Elnora hilariously.
+
+"Me an' the squirrels are laying up our winter stores," he shouted. "Cos
+the cold is coming, an' the snow an' if we have any nuts we have to fix
+'em now. But I'm ahead, cos Uncle Wesley made me this board, and I
+can hull a big pile while the old squirrel does only ist one with his
+teeth."
+
+Elnora picked him up and kissed him. "Billy, are you happy?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, and so's Snap," answered Billy. "You ought to see him make the
+dirt fly when he gets after a chipmunk. I bet you he could dig up pa, if
+anybody wanted him to."
+
+"Billy!" gasped Margaret as she came out to them.
+
+"Well, me and Snap don't want him up, and I bet you Jimmy and Belle
+don't, either. I ain't been twisty inside once since I been here, and I
+don't want to go away, and Snap don't, either. He told me so."
+
+"Billy! That is not true. Dogs can't talk," cautioned Margaret.
+
+"Then what makes you open the door when he asks you to?" demanded Billy.
+
+"Scratching and whining isn't talking."
+
+"Anyway, it's the best Snap can talk, and you get up and do things he
+wants done. Chipmunks can talk too. You ought to hear them damn things
+holler when Snap gets them!"
+
+"Billy! When you want a cooky for supper and I don't give it to you it
+is because you said a wrong word."
+
+"Well, for----" Billy clapped his hand over his mouth and stained his
+face in swipes. "Well, for--anything! Did I go an' forget again! The
+cookies will get all hard, won't they? I bet you ten dollars I don't say
+that any more."
+
+He espied Wesley and ran to show him a walnut too big to go through the
+holes, and Elnora and Margaret entered the house.
+
+They talked of many things for a time and then Elnora said suddenly:
+"Aunt Margaret, I like music."
+
+"I've noticed that in you all your life," answered Margaret.
+
+"If dogs can't talk, I can make a violin talk," announced Elnora, and
+then in amazement watched the face of Margaret Sinton grow pale.
+
+"A violin!" she wavered. "Where did you get a violin?"
+
+"They fairly seemed to speak to me in the orchestra. One day the
+conductor left his in the auditorium, and I took it, and Aunt Margaret,
+I can make it do the wind in the swamp, the birds, and the animals. I
+can make any sound I ever heard on it. If I had a chance to practise a
+little, I could make it do the orchestra music, too. I don't know how I
+know, but I do."
+
+"Did--did you ever mention it to your mother?" faltered Margaret.
+
+"Yes, and she seems prejudiced against them. But oh, Aunt Margaret, I
+never felt so about anything, not even going to school. I just feel as
+if I'd die if I didn't have one. I could keep it at school, and practise
+at noon a whole hour. Soon they'd ask me to play in the orchestra. I
+could keep it in the case and practise in the woods in summer. You'd let
+me play over here Sunday. Oh, Aunt Margaret, what does one cost? Would
+it be wicked for me to take of my money, and buy a very cheap one? I
+could play on the least expensive one made."
+
+"Oh, no you couldn't! A cheap machine makes cheap music. You got to have
+a fine fiddle to make it sing. But there's no sense in your buying one.
+There isn't a decent reason on earth why you shouldn't have your fa----"
+
+"My father's!" cried Elnora. She caught Margaret Sinton by the arm. "My
+father had a violin! He played it. That's why I can! Where is it! Is it
+in our house? Is it in mother's room?"
+
+"Elnora!" panted Margaret. "Your mother will kill me! She always hated
+it."
+
+"Mother dearly loves music," said Elnora.
+
+"Not when it took the man she loved away from her to make it!"
+
+"Where is my father's violin?"
+
+"Elnora!"
+
+"I've never seen a picture of my father. I've never heard his name
+mentioned. I've never had a scrap that belonged to him. Was he my
+father, or am I a charity child like Billy, and so she hates me?"
+
+"She has good pictures of him. Seems she just can't bear to hear him
+talked about. Of course, he was your father. They lived right there when
+you were born. She doesn't dislike you; she merely tries to make herself
+think she does. There's no sense in the world in you not having his
+violin. I've a great notion----"
+
+"Has mother got it?"
+
+"No. I've never heard her mention it. It was not at home when he--when
+he died."
+
+"Do you know where it is?"
+
+"Yes. I'm the only person on earth who does, except the one who has it."
+
+"Who is that?"
+
+"I can't tell you, but I will see if they have it yet, and get it if I
+can. But if your mother finds it out she will never forgive me."
+
+"I can't help it," said Elnora. "I want that violin."
+
+"I'll go to-morrow, and see if it has been destroyed."
+
+"Destroyed! Oh, Aunt Margaret! Would any one dare?"
+
+"I hardly think so. It was a good instrument. He played it like a
+master."
+
+"Tell me!" breathed Elnora.
+
+"His hair was red and curled more than yours, and his eyes were blue.
+He was tall, slim, and the very imp of mischief. He joked and teased all
+day until he picked up that violin. Then his head bent over it, and his
+eyes got big and earnest. He seemed to listen as if he first heard the
+notes, and then copied them. Sometimes he drew the bow trembly, like
+he wasn't sure it was right, and he might have to try again. He could
+almost drive you crazy when he wanted to, and no man that ever lived
+could make you dance as he could. He made it all up as he went. He
+seemed to listen for his dancing music, too. It appeared to come to him;
+he'd begin to play and you had to keep time. You couldn't be still; he
+loved to sweep a crowd around with that bow of his. I think it was the
+thing you call inspiration. I can see him now, his handsome head
+bent, his cheeks red, his eyes snapping, and that bow going across the
+strings, and driving us like sheep. He always kept his body swinging,
+and he loved to play. He often slighted his work shamefully, and
+sometimes her a little; that is why she hated it--Elnora, what are you
+making me do?"
+
+The tears were rolling down Elnora's cheeks. "Oh, Aunt Margaret," she
+sobbed. "Why haven't you told me about him sooner? I feel as if you had
+given my father to me living, so that I could touch him. I can see him,
+too! Why didn't you ever tell me before? Go on! Go on!"
+
+"I can't, Elnora! I'm scared silly. I never meant to say anything. If I
+hadn't promised her not to talk of him to you she wouldn't have let you
+come here. She made me swear it."
+
+"But why? Why? Was he a shame? Was he disgraced?"
+
+"Maybe it was that unjust feeling that took possession of her when
+she couldn't help him from the swamp. She had to blame some one, or go
+crazy, so she took it out on you. At times, those first ten years, if I
+had talked to you, and you had repeated anything to her, she might have
+struck you too hard. She was not master of herself. You must be patient
+with her, Elnora. God only knows what she has gone through, but I think
+she is a little better, lately."
+
+"So do I," said Elnora. "She seems more interested in my clothes, and
+she fixes me such delicious lunches that the girls bring fine candies
+and cake and beg to trade. I gave half my lunch for a box of candy one
+day, brought it home to her, and told her. Since, she has wanted me to
+carry a market basket and treat the crowd every day, she was so pleased.
+Life has been too monotonous for her. I think she enjoys even the little
+change made by my going and coming. She sits up half the night to read
+the library books I bring, but she is so stubborn she won't even admit
+that she touches them. Tell me more about my father."
+
+"Wait until I see if I can find the violin."
+
+So Elnora went home in suspense, and that night she added to her
+prayers: "Dear Lord, be merciful to my father, and oh, do help Aunt
+Margaret to get his violin."
+
+Wesley and Billy came in to supper tired and hungry. Billy ate heartily,
+but his eyes often rested on a plate of tempting cookies, and when
+Wesley offered them to the boy he reached for one. Margaret was
+compelled to explain that cookies were forbidden that night.
+
+"What!" said Wesley. "Wrong words been coming again. Oh Billy, I do wish
+you could remember! I can't sit and eat cookies before a little boy
+who has none. I'll have to put mine back, too." Billy's face twisted in
+despair.
+
+"Aw go on!" he said gruffly, but his chin was jumping, for Wesley was
+his idol.
+
+"Can't do it," said Wesley. "It would choke me."
+
+Billy turned to Margaret. "You make him," he appealed.
+
+"He can't, Billy," said Margaret. "I know how he feels. You see, I can't
+myself."
+
+Then Billy slid from his chair, ran to the couch, buried his face in
+the pillow and cried heart-brokenly. Wesley hurried to the barn, and
+Margaret to the kitchen. When the dishes were washed Billy slipped from
+the back door.
+
+Wesley piling hay into the mangers heard a sound behind him and
+inquired, "That you, Billy?"
+
+"Yes," answered Billy, "and it's all so dark you can't see me now, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Well, mighty near," answered Wesley.
+
+"Then you stoop down and open your mouth."
+
+Sinton had shared bites of apple and nuts for weeks, for Billy had not
+learned how to eat anything without dividing with Jimmy and Belle. Since
+he had been separated from them, he shared with Wesley and Margaret.
+So he bent over the boy and received an instalment of cooky that almost
+choked him.
+
+"Now you can eat it!" shouted Billy in delight. "It's all dark! I can't
+see what you're doing at all!"
+
+Wesley picked up the small figure and set the boy on the back of a horse
+to bring his face level so that they could talk as men. He never towered
+from his height above Billy, but always lifted the little soul when
+important matters were to be discussed.
+
+"Now what a dandy scheme," he commented. "Did you and Aunt Margaret fix
+it up?"
+
+"No. She ain't had hers yet. But I got one for her. Ist as soon as you
+eat yours, I am going to take hers, and feed her first time I find her
+in the dark."
+
+"But Billy, where did you get the cookies? You know Aunt Margaret said
+you were not to have any."
+
+"I ist took them," said Billy, "I didn't take them for me. I ist took
+them for you and her."
+
+Wesley thought fast. In the warm darkness of the barn the horses
+crunched their corn, a rat gnawed at a corner of the granary, and among
+the rafters the white pigeon cooed a soft sleepy note to his dusky mate.
+
+"Did--did--I steal?" wavered Billy.
+
+Wesley's big hands closed until he almost hurt the boy.
+
+"No!" he said vehemently. "That is too big a word. You made a mistake.
+You were trying to be a fine little man, but you went at it the wrong
+way. You only made a mistake. All of us do that, Billy. The world grows
+that way. When we make mistakes we can see them; that teaches us to be
+more careful the next time, and so we learn."
+
+"How wouldn't it be a mistake?"
+
+"If you had told Aunt Margaret what you wanted to do, and asked her for
+the cookies she would have given them to you."
+
+"But I was 'fraid she wouldn't, and you ist had to have it."
+
+"Not if it was wrong for me to have it, Billy. I don't want it that
+much."
+
+"Must I take it back?"
+
+"You think hard, and decide yourself."
+
+"Lift me down," said Billy, after a silence, "I got to put this in the
+jar, and tell her."
+
+Wesley set the boy on the floor, but as he did so he paused one second
+and strained him close to his breast.
+
+Margaret sat in her chair sewing; Billy slipped in and crept beside her.
+The little face was lined with tragedy.
+
+"Why Billy, whatever is the matter?" she cried as she dropped her sewing
+and held out her arms. Billy stood back. He gripped his little fists
+tight and squared his shoulders. "I got to be shut up in the closet," he
+said.
+
+"Oh Billy! What an unlucky day! What have you done now?"
+
+"I stold!" gulped Billy. "He said it was ist a mistake, but it was
+worser 'an that. I took something you told me I wasn't to have."
+
+"Stole!" Margaret was in despair. "What, Billy?"
+
+"Cookies!" answered Billy in equal trouble.
+
+"Billy!" wailed Margaret. "How could you?"
+
+"It was for him and you," sobbed Billy. "He said he couldn't eat it
+'fore me, but out in the barn it's all dark and I couldn't see. I
+thought maybe he could there. Then we might put out the light and you
+could have yours. He said I only made it worse, cos I mustn't take
+things, so I got to go in the closet. Will you hold me tight a little
+bit first? He did."
+
+Margaret opened her arms and Billy rushed in and clung to her a few
+seconds, with all the force of his being, then he slipped to the floor
+and marched to the closet. Margaret opened the door. Billy gave one
+glance at the light, clinched his fists and, walking inside, climbed on
+a box. Margaret closed the door.
+
+Then she sat and listened. Was the air pure enough? Possibly he might
+smother. She had read something once. Was it very dark? What if there
+should be a mouse in the closet and it should run across his foot and
+frighten him into spasms. Somewhere she had heard--Margaret leaned
+forward with tense face and listened. Something dreadful might happen.
+She could bear it no longer. She arose hurriedly and opened the
+door. Billy was drawn up on the box in a little heap, and he lifted a
+disapproving face to her.
+
+"Shut that door!" he said. "I ain't been in here near long enough yet!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA HAS MORE FINANCIAL TROUBLES, AND MRS. COMSTOCK AGAIN
+HEARS THE SONG OF THE LIMBERLOST
+
+
+The following night Elnora hurried to Sintons'. She threw open the back
+door and with anxious eyes searched Margaret's face.
+
+"You got it!" panted Elnora. "You got it! I can see by your face that
+you did. Oh, give it to me!"
+
+"Yes, I got it, honey, I got it all right, but don't be so fast. It
+had been kept in such a damp place it needed glueing, it had to have
+strings, and a key was gone. I knew how much you wanted it, so I sent
+Wesley right to town with it. They said they could fix it good as new,
+but it should be varnished, and that it would take several days for the
+glue to set. You can have it Saturday."
+
+"You found it where you thought it was? You know it's his?"
+
+"Yes, it was just where I thought, and it's the same violin I've seen
+him play hundreds of times. It's all right, only laying so long it needs
+fixing."
+
+"Oh Aunt Margaret! Can I ever wait?"
+
+"It does seem a long time, but how could I help it? You couldn't do
+anything with it as it was. You see, it had been hidden away in a
+garret, and it needed cleaning and drying to make it fit to play again.
+You can have it Saturday sure. But Elnora, you've got to promise me that
+you will leave it here, or in town, and not let your mother get a hint
+of it. I don't know what she'd do."
+
+"Uncle Wesley can bring it here until Monday. Then I will take it to
+school so that I can practise at noon. Oh, I don't know how to thank
+you. And there's more than the violin for which to be thankful. You've
+given me my father. Last night I saw him plainly as life."
+
+"Elnora you were dreaming!"
+
+"I know I was dreaming, but I saw him. I saw him so closely that a tiny
+white scar at the corner of his eyebrow showed. I was just reaching out
+to touch him when he disappeared."
+
+"Who told you there was a scar on his forehead?"
+
+"No one ever did in all my life. I saw it last night as he went down.
+And oh, Aunt Margaret! I saw what she did, and I heard his cries! No
+matter what she does, I don't believe I ever can be angry with her
+again. Her heart is broken, and she can't help it. Oh, it was terrible,
+but I am glad I saw it. Now, I will always understand."
+
+"I don't know what to make of that," said Margaret. "I don't believe in
+such stuff at all, but you couldn't make it up, for you didn't know."
+
+"I only know that I played the violin last night, as he played it, and
+while I played he came through the woods from the direction of Carneys'.
+It was summer and all the flowers were in bloom. He wore gray trousers
+and a blue shirt, his head was bare, and his face was beautiful. I could
+almost touch him when he sank."
+
+Margaret stood perplexed. "I don't know what to think of that!" she
+ejaculated. "I was next to the last person who saw him before he was
+drowned. It was late on a June afternoon, and he was dressed as you
+describe. He was bareheaded because he had found a quail's nest before
+the bird began to brood, and he gathered the eggs in his hat and left it
+in a fence corner to get on his way home; they found it afterward."
+
+"Was he coming from Carneys'?"
+
+"He was on that side of the quagmire. Why he ever skirted it so close
+as to get caught is a mystery you will have to dream out. I never could
+understand it."
+
+"Was he doing something he didn't want my mother to know?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because if he had been, he might have cut close the swamp so he
+couldn't be seen from the garden. You know, the whole path straight to
+the pool where he sank can be seen from our back door. It's firm on our
+side. The danger is on the north and east. If he didn't want mother to
+know, he might have tried to pass on either of those sides and gone too
+close. Was he in a hurry?"
+
+"Yes, he was," said Margaret. "He had been away longer than he expected,
+and he almost ran when he started home."
+
+"And he'd left his violin somewhere that you knew, and you went and got
+it. I'll wager he was going to play, and didn't want mother to find it
+out!"
+
+"It wouldn't make any difference to you if you knew every little thing,
+so quit thinking about it, and just be glad you are to have what he
+loved best of anything."
+
+"That's true. Now I must hurry home. I am dreadfully late."
+
+Elnora sprang up and ran down the road, but when she approached the
+cabin she climbed the fence, crossed the open woods pasture diagonally
+and entered at the back garden gate. As she often came that way when she
+had been looking for cocoons her mother asked no questions.
+
+Elnora lived by the minute until Saturday, when, contrary to his usual
+custom, Wesley went to town in the forenoon, taking her along to buy
+some groceries. Wesley drove straight to the music store, and asked for
+the violin he had left to be mended.
+
+In its new coat of varnish, with new keys and strings, it seemed much
+like any other violin to Sinton, but to Elnora it was the most beautiful
+instrument ever made, and a priceless treasure. She held it in her arms,
+touched the strings softly and then she drew the bow across them in
+whispering measure. She had no time to think what a remarkably good
+bow it was for sixteen years' disuse. The tan leather case might have
+impressed her as being in fine condition also, had she been in a state
+to question anything. She did remember to ask for the bill and she was
+gravely presented with a slip calling for four strings, one key, and a
+coat of varnish, total, one dollar fifty. It seemed to Elnora she never
+could put the precious instrument in the case and start home. Wesley
+left her in the music store where the proprietor showed her all he
+could about tuning, and gave her several beginners' sheets of notes and
+scales. She carried the violin in her arms as far as the crossroads at
+the corner of their land, then reluctantly put it under the carriage
+seat.
+
+As soon as her work was done she ran down to Sintons' and began to play,
+and on Monday the violin went to school with her. She made arrangements
+with the superintendent to leave it in his office and scarcely took time
+for her food at noon, she was so eager to practise. Often one of
+the girls asked her to stay in town all night for some lecture or
+entertainment. She could take the violin with her, practise, and secure
+help. Her skill was so great that the leader of the orchestra offered to
+give her lessons if she would play to pay for them, so her progress was
+rapid in technical work. But from the first day the instrument became
+hers, with perfect faith that she could play as her father did, she
+spent half her practice time in imitating the sounds of all outdoors and
+improvising the songs her happy heart sang in those days.
+
+So the first year went, and the second and third were a repetition; but
+the fourth was different, for that was the close of the course, ending
+with graduation and all its attendant ceremonies and expenses. To Elnora
+these appeared mountain high. She had hoarded every cent, thinking twice
+before she parted with a penny, but teaching natural history in the
+grades had taken time from her studies in school which must be made up
+outside. She was a conscientious student, ranking first in most of her
+classes, and standing high in all branches. Her interest in her violin
+had grown with the years. She went to school early and practised half
+an hour in the little room adjoining the stage, while the orchestra
+gathered. She put in a full hour at noon, and remained another half hour
+at night. She carried the violin to Sintons' on Saturday and practised
+all the time she could there, while Margaret watched the road to see
+that Mrs. Comstock was not coming. She had become so skilful that it was
+a delight to hear her play music of any composer, but when she played
+her own, that was joy inexpressible, for then the wind blew, the water
+rippled, the Limberlost sang her songs of sunshine, shadow, black storm,
+and white night.
+
+Since her dream Elnora had regarded her mother with peculiar tenderness.
+The girl realized, in a measure, what had happened. She avoided anything
+that possibly could stir bitter memories or draw deeper a line on the
+hard, white face. This cost many sacrifices, much work, and sometimes
+delayed progress, but the horror of that awful dream remained with
+Elnora. She worked her way cheerfully, doing all she could to interest
+her mother in things that happened in school, in the city, and by
+carrying books that were entertaining from the public library.
+
+Three years had changed Elnora from the girl of sixteen to the very
+verge of womanhood. She had grown tall, round, and her face had the
+loveliness of perfect complexion, beautiful eyes and hair and an added
+touch from within that might have been called comprehension. It was a
+compound of self-reliance, hard knocks, heart hunger, unceasing work,
+and generosity. There was no form of suffering with which the girl could
+not sympathize, no work she was afraid to attempt, no subject she had
+investigated she did not understand. These things combined to produce a
+breadth and depth of character altogether unusual. She was so absorbed
+in her classes and her music that she had not been able to gather many
+specimens. When she realized this and hunted assiduously, she soon found
+that changing natural conditions had affected such work. Men all around
+were clearing available land. The trees fell wherever corn would grow.
+The swamp was broken by several gravel roads, dotted in places around
+the edge with little frame houses, and the machinery of oil wells; one
+especially low place around the region of Freckles's room was nearly
+all that remained of the original. Wherever the trees fell the moisture
+dried, the creeks ceased to flow, the river ran low, and at times the
+bed was dry. With unbroken sweep the winds of the west came, gathering
+force with every mile and howled and raved; threatening to tear the
+shingles from the roof, blowing the surface from the soil in clouds of
+fine dust and rapidly changing everything. From coming in with two or
+three dozen rare moths in a day, in three years' time Elnora had grown
+to be delighted with finding two or three. Big pursy caterpillars could
+not be picked from their favourite bushes, when there were no bushes.
+Dragonflies would not hover over dry places, and butterflies became
+scarce in proportion to the flowers, while no land yields over three
+crops of Indian relics.
+
+All the time the expense of books, clothing and incidentals had
+continued. Elnora added to her bank account whenever she could, and drew
+out when she was compelled, but she omitted the important feature of
+calling for a balance. So, one early spring morning in the last quarter
+of the fourth year, she almost fainted when she learned that her funds
+were gone. Commencement with its extra expense was coming, she had no
+money, and very few cocoons to open in June, which would be too
+late. She had one collection for the Bird Woman complete to a pair of
+Imperialis moths, and that was her only asset. On the day she added
+these big Yellow Emperors she had been promised a check for three
+hundred dollars, but she would not get it until these specimens were
+secured. She remembered that she never had found an Emperor before June.
+
+Moreover, that sum was for her first year in college. Then she would be
+of age, and she meant to sell enough of her share of her father's land
+to finish. She knew her mother would oppose her bitterly in that, for
+Mrs. Comstock had clung to every acre and tree that belonged to her
+husband. Her land was almost complete forest where her neighbours owned
+cleared farms, dotted with wells that every hour sucked oil from beneath
+her holdings, but she was too absorbed in the grief she nursed to know
+or care. The Brushwood road and the redredging of the big Limberlost
+ditch had been more than she could pay from her income, and she had
+trembled before the wicket as she asked the banker if she had funds to
+pay it, and wondered why he laughed when he assured her she had. For
+Mrs. Comstock had spent no time on compounding interest, and never added
+the sums she had been depositing through nearly twenty years. Now she
+thought her funds were almost gone, and every day she worried over
+expenses. She could see no reason in going through the forms of
+graduation when pupils had all in their heads that was required to
+graduate. Elnora knew she had to have her diploma in order to enter the
+college she wanted to attend, but she did not dare utter the word, until
+high school was finished, for, instead of softening as she hoped her
+mother had begun to do, she seemed to remain very much the same.
+
+When the girl reached the swamp she sat on a log and thought over the
+expense she was compelled to meet. Every member of her particular set
+was having a large photograph taken to exchange with the others. Elnora
+loved these girls and boys, and to say she could not have their pictures
+to keep was more than she could endure. Each one would give to all the
+others a handsome graduation present. She knew they would prepare gifts
+for her whether she could make a present in return or not. Then it was
+the custom for each graduating class to give a great entertainment and
+use the funds to present the school with a statue for the entrance hall.
+Elnora had been cast for and was practising a part in that performance.
+She was expected to furnish her dress and personal necessities. She had
+been told that she must have a green gauze dress, and where was it to
+come from?
+
+Every girl of the class would have three beautiful new frocks for
+Commencement: one for the baccalaureate sermon, another, which could be
+plain, for graduation exercises, and a handsome one for the banquet and
+ball. Elnora faced the past three years and wondered how she could have
+spent so much money and not kept account of it. She did not realize
+where it had gone. She did not know what she could do now. She
+thought over the photographs, and at last settled that question to her
+satisfaction. She studied longer over the gifts, ten handsome ones there
+must be, and at last decided she could arrange for them. The green dress
+came first. The lights would be dim in the scene, and the setting deep
+woods. She could manage that. She simply could not have three dresses.
+She would have to get a very simple one for the sermon and do the best
+she could for graduation. Whatever she got for that must be made with a
+guimpe that could be taken out to make it a little more festive for the
+ball. But where could she get even two pretty dresses?
+
+The only hope she could see was to break into the collection of the man
+from India, sell some moths, and try to replace them in June. But in her
+soul she knew that never would do. No June ever brought just the things
+she hoped it would. If she spent the college money she knew she could
+not replace it. If she did not, the only way was to secure a room in
+the grades and teach a year. Her work there had been so appreciated
+that Elnora felt with the recommendation she knew she could get from the
+superintendent and teachers she could secure a position. She was sure
+she could pass the examinations easily. She had once gone on Saturday,
+taken them and secured a license for a year before she left the
+Brushwood school.
+
+She wanted to start to college when the other girls were going. If she
+could make the first year alone, she could manage the remainder. But
+make that first year herself, she must. Instead of selling any of her
+collection, she must hunt as she never before had hunted and find a
+Yellow Emperor. She had to have it, that was all. Also, she had to have
+those dresses. She thought of Wesley and dismissed it. She thought of
+the Bird Woman, and knew she could not tell her. She thought of every
+way in which she ever had hoped to earn money and realized that with
+the play, committee meetings, practising, and final examinations she
+scarcely had time to live, much less to do more than the work required
+for her pictures and gifts. Again Elnora was in trouble, and this time
+it seemed the worst of all.
+
+It was dark when she arose and went home.
+
+"Mother," she said, "I have a piece of news that is decidedly not
+cheerful."
+
+"Then keep it to yourself!" said Mrs. Comstock. "I think I have enough
+to bear without a great girl like you piling trouble on me."
+
+"My money is all gone!" said Elnora.
+
+"Well, did you think it would last forever? It's been a marvel to me
+that it's held out as well as it has, the way you've dressed and gone."
+
+"I don't think I've spent any that I was not compelled to," said Elnora.
+"I've dressed on just as little as I possibly could to keep going. I
+am heartsick. I thought I had over fifty dollars to put me through
+Commencement, but they tell me it is all gone."
+
+"Fifty dollars! To put you through Commencement! What on earth are you
+proposing to do?"
+
+"The same as the rest of them, in the very cheapest way possible."
+
+"And what might that be?"
+
+Elnora omitted the photographs, the gifts and the play. She told only of
+the sermon, graduation exercises, and the ball.
+
+"Well, I wouldn't trouble myself over that," sniffed Mrs. Comstock. "If
+you want to go to a sermon, put on the dress you always use for meeting.
+If you need white for the exercises wear the new dress you got last
+spring. As for the ball, the best thing for you to do is to stay a mile
+away from such folly. In my opinion you'd best bring home your books,
+and quit right now. You can't be fixed like the rest of them, don't be
+so foolish as to run into it. Just stay here and let these last few days
+go. You can't learn enough more to be of any account."
+
+"But, mother," gasped Elnora. "You don't understand!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I do!" said Mrs. Comstock. "I understand perfectly. So long as
+the money lasted, you held up your head, and went sailing without even
+explaining how you got it from the stuff you gathered. Goodness knows
+I couldn't see. But now it's gone, you come whining to me. What have I
+got? Have you forgot that the ditch and the road completely strapped me?
+I haven't any money. There's nothing for you to do but get out of it."
+
+"I can't!" said Elnora desperately. "I've gone on too long. It would
+make a break in everything. They wouldn't let me have my diploma!"
+
+"What's the difference? You've got the stuff in your head. I wouldn't
+give a rap for a scrap of paper. That don't mean anything!"
+
+"But I've worked four years for it, and I can't enter--I ought to have
+it to help me get a school, when I want to teach. If I don't have my
+grades to show, people will think I quit because I couldn't pass my
+examinations. I must have my diploma!"
+
+"Then get it!" said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"The only way is to graduate with the others."
+
+"Well, graduate if you are bound to!"
+
+"But I can't, unless I have things enough like the class, that I don't
+look as I did that first day."
+
+"Well, please remember I didn't get you into this, and I can't get you
+out. You are set on having your own way. Go on, and have it, and see how
+you like it!"
+
+Elnora went upstairs and did not come down again that night, which her
+mother called pouting.
+
+"I've thought all night," said the girl at breakfast, "and I can't see
+any way but to borrow the money of Uncle Wesley and pay it back from
+some that the Bird Woman will owe me, when I get one more specimen. But
+that means that I can't go to--that I will have to teach this winter, if
+I can get a city grade or a country school."
+
+"Just you dare go dinging after Wesley Sinton for money," cried Mrs.
+Comstock. "You won't do any such a thing!"
+
+"I can't see any other way. I've got to have the money!"
+
+"Quit, I tell you!"
+
+"I can't quit!--I've gone too far!"
+
+"Well then, let me get your clothes, and you can pay me back."
+
+"But you said you had no money!"
+
+"Maybe I can borrow some at the bank. Then you can return it when the
+Bird Woman pays you."
+
+"All right," said Elnora. "I don't need expensive things. Just some kind
+of a pretty cheap white dress for the sermon, and a white one a little
+better than I had last summer, for Commencement and the ball. I can use
+the white gloves and shoes I got myself for last year, and you can
+get my dress made at the same place you did that one. They have my
+measurements, and do perfect work. Don't get expensive things. It will
+be warm so I can go bareheaded."
+
+Then she started to school, but was so tired and discouraged she
+scarcely could walk. Four years' plans going in one day! For she felt
+that if she did not start to college that fall she never would. Instead
+of feeling relieved at her mother's offer, she was almost too ill to go
+on. For the thousandth time she groaned: "Oh, why didn't I keep account
+of my money?"
+
+After that the days passed so swiftly she scarcely had time to think,
+but several trips her mother made to town, and the assurance that
+everything was all right, satisfied Elnora. She worked very hard to pass
+good final examinations and perfect herself for the play. For two days
+she had remained in town with the Bird Woman in order to spend more time
+practising and at her work.
+
+Often Margaret had asked about her dresses for graduation, and Elnora
+had replied that they were with a woman in the city who had made her a
+white dress for last year's Commencement when she was a junior usher,
+and they would be all right. So Margaret, Wesley, and Billy concerned
+themselves over what they would give her for a present. Margaret
+suggested a beautiful dress. Wesley said that would look to every one as
+if she needed dresses. The thing was to get a handsome gift like all the
+others would have. Billy wanted to present her a five-dollar gold piece
+to buy music for her violin. He was positive Elnora would like that best
+of anything.
+
+It was toward the close of the term when they drove to town one evening
+to try to settle this important question. They knew Mrs. Comstock had
+been alone several days, so they asked her to accompany them. She
+had been more lonely than she would admit, filled with unusual unrest
+besides, and so she was glad to go. But before they had driven a mile
+Billy had told that they were going to buy Elnora a graduation present,
+and Mrs. Comstock devoutly wished that she had remained at home. She was
+prepared when Billy asked: "Aunt Kate, what are you going to give Elnora
+when she graduates?"
+
+"Plenty to eat, a good bed to sleep in, and do all the work while she
+trollops," answered Mrs. Comstock dryly.
+
+Billy reflected. "I guess all of them have that," he said. "I mean a
+present you buy at the store, like Christmas?"
+
+"It is only rich folks who buy presents at stores," replied
+Mrs. Comstock. "I can't afford it."
+
+"Well, we ain't rich," he said, "but we are going to buy Elnora
+something as fine as the rest of them have if we sell a corner of the
+farm. Uncle Wesley said so."
+
+"A fool and his land are soon parted," said Mrs. Comstock tersely.
+Wesley and Billy laughed, but Margaret did not enjoy the remark.
+
+While they were searching the stores for something on which all of them
+could decide, and Margaret was holding Billy to keep him from
+saying anything before Mrs. Comstock about the music on which he was
+determined, Mr. Brownlee met Wesley and stopped to shake hands.
+
+"I see your boy came out finely," he said.
+
+"I don't allow any boy anywhere to be finer than Billy," said Wesley.
+
+"I guess you don't allow any girl to surpass Elnora," said Mr. Brownlee.
+"She comes home with Ellen often, and my wife and I love her. Ellen
+says she is great in her part to-night. Best thing in the whole play!
+Of course, you are in to see it! If you haven't reserved seats, you'd
+better start pretty soon, for the high school auditorium only seats a
+thousand. It's always jammed at these home-talent plays. All of us want
+to see how our children perform."
+
+"Why yes, of course," said the bewildered Wesley. Then he hurried to
+Margaret. "Say," he said, "there is going to be a play at the high
+school to-night; and Elnora is in it. Why hasn't she told us?"
+
+"I don't know," said Margaret, "but I'm going."
+
+"So am I," said Billy.
+
+"Me too!" said Wesley, "unless you think for some reason she doesn't
+want us. Looks like she would have told us if she had. I'm going to ask
+her mother."
+
+"Yes, that's what's she's been staying in town for," said Mrs. Comstock.
+"It's some sort of a swindle to raise money for her class to buy some
+silly thing to stick up in the school house hall to remember them by. I
+don't know whether it's now or next week, but there's something of the
+kind to be done."
+
+"Well, it's to-night," said Wesley, "and we are going. It's my treat,
+and we've got to hurry or we won't get in. There are reserved seats, and
+we have none, so it's the gallery for us, but I don't care so I get to
+take one good peep at Elnora."
+
+"S'pose she plays?" whispered Margaret in his ear.
+
+"Aw, tush! She couldn't!" said Wesley.
+
+"Well, she's been doing it three years in the orchestra, and working
+like a slave at it."
+
+"Oh, well that's different. She's in the play to-night. Brownlee told me
+so. Come on, quick! We'll drive and hitch closest place we can find to
+the building."
+
+Margaret went in the excitement of the moment, but she was troubled.
+
+When they reached the building Wesley tied the team to a railing and
+Billy sprang out to help Margaret. Mrs. Comstock sat still.
+
+"Come on, Kate," said Wesley, reaching his hand.
+
+"I'm not going anywhere," said Mrs. Comstock, settling comfortably back
+against the cushions.
+
+All of them begged and pleaded, but it was no use. Not an inch would
+Mrs. Comstock budge. The night was warm and the carriage comfortable,
+the horses were securely hitched. She did not care to see what idiotic
+thing a pack of school children were doing, she would wait until the
+Sintons returned. Wesley told her it might be two hours, and she said
+she did not care if it were four, so they left her.
+
+"Did you ever see such----?"
+
+"Cookies!" cried Billy.
+
+"Such blamed stubbornness in all your life?" demanded Wesley. "Won't
+come to see as fine a girl as Elnora in a stage performance. Why, I
+wouldn't miss it for fifty dollars!
+
+"I think it's a blessing she didn't," said Margaret placidly. "I begged
+unusually hard so she wouldn't. I'm scared of my life for fear Elnora
+will play."
+
+They found seats near the door where they could see fairly well. Billy
+stood at the back of the hall and had a good view. By and by, a great
+volume of sound welled from the orchestra, but Elnora was not playing.
+
+"Told you so!" said Sinton. "Got a notion to go out and see if Kate
+won't come now. She can take my seat, and I'll stand with Billy."
+
+"You sit still!" said Margaret emphatically. "This is not over yet."
+
+So Wesley remained in his seat. The play opened and progressed very much
+as all high school plays have gone for the past fifty years. But Elnora
+did not appear in any of the scenes.
+
+Out in the warm summer night a sour, grim woman nursed an aching heart
+and tried to justify herself. The effort irritated her intensely. She
+felt that she could not afford the things that were being done. The old
+fear of losing the land that she and Robert Comstock had purchased and
+started clearing was strong upon her. She was thinking of him, how she
+needed him, when the orchestra music poured from the open windows near
+her. Mrs. Comstock endured it as long as she could, and then slipped
+from the carriage and fled down the street.
+
+She did not know how far she went or how long she stayed, but everything
+was still, save an occasional raised voice when she wandered back. She
+stood looking at the building. Slowly she entered the wide gates and
+followed up the walk. Elnora had been coming here for almost four years.
+When Mrs. Comstock reached the door she looked inside. The wide hall was
+lighted with electricity, and the statuary and the decorations of the
+walls did not seem like pieces of foolishness. The marble appeared pure,
+white, and the big pictures most interesting. She walked the length of
+the hall and slowly read the titles of the statues and the names of the
+pupils who had donated them. She speculated on where the piece Elnora's
+class would buy could be placed to advantage.
+
+Then she wondered if they were having a large enough audience to buy
+marble. She liked it better than the bronze, but it looked as if it cost
+more. How white the broad stairway was! Elnora had been climbing those
+stairs for years and never told her they were marble. Of course, she
+thought they were wood. Probably the upper hall was even grander than
+this. She went over to the fountain, took a drink, climbed to the first
+landing and looked around her, and then without thought to the second.
+There she came opposite the wide-open doors and the entrance to the
+auditorium packed with people and a crowd standing outside. When they
+noticed a tall woman with white face and hair and black dress, one by
+one they stepped a little aside, so that Mrs. Comstock could see the
+stage. It was covered with curtains, and no one was doing anything. Just
+as she turned to go a sound so faint that every one leaned forward and
+listened, drifted down the auditorium. It was difficult to tell just
+what it was; after one instant half the audience looked toward the
+windows, for it seemed only a breath of wind rustling freshly opened
+leaves; merely a hint of stirring air.
+
+Then the curtains were swept aside swiftly. The stage had been
+transformed into a lovely little corner of creation, where trees and
+flowers grew and moss carpeted the earth. A soft wind blew and it was
+the gray of dawn. Suddenly a robin began to sing, then a song sparrow
+joined him, and then several orioles began talking at once. The light
+grew stronger, the dew drops trembled, flower perfume began to creep out
+to the audience; the air moved the branches gently and a rooster crowed.
+Then all the scene was shaken with a babel of bird notes in which you
+could hear a cardinal whistling, and a blue finch piping. Back somewhere
+among the high branches a dove cooed and then a horse neighed shrilly.
+That set a blackbird crying, "T'check," and a whole flock answered it.
+The crows began to caw and a lamb bleated. Then the grosbeaks, chats,
+and vireos had something to say, and the sun rose higher, the light grew
+stronger and the breeze rustled the treetops loudly; a cow bawled and
+the whole barnyard answered. The guineas were clucking, the turkey
+gobbler strutting, the hens calling, the chickens cheeping, the light
+streamed down straight overhead and the bees began to hum. The air
+stirred strongly, and away in an unseen field a reaper clacked and
+rattled through ripening wheat while the driver whistled. An uneasy
+mare whickered to her colt, the colt answered, and the light began to
+decline. Miles away a rooster crowed for twilight, and dusk was coming
+down. Then a catbird and a brown thrush sang against a grosbeak and a
+hermit thrush. The air was tremulous with heavenly notes, the lights
+went out in the hall, dusk swept across the stage, a cricket sang and
+a katydid answered, and a wood pewee wrung the heart with its lonesome
+cry. Then a night hawk screamed, a whip-poor-will complained, a belated
+killdeer swept the sky, and the night wind sang a louder song. A little
+screech owl tuned up in the distance, a barn owl replied, and a great
+horned owl drowned both their voices. The moon shone and the scene was
+warm with mellow light. The bird voices died and soft exquisite melody
+began to swell and roll. In the centre of the stage, piece by piece
+the grasses, mosses and leaves dropped from an embankment, the foliage
+softly blew away, while plainer and plainer came the outlines of a
+lovely girl figure draped in soft clinging green. In her shower of
+bright hair a few green leaves and white blossoms clung, and they fell
+over her robe down to her feet. Her white throat and arms were bare, she
+leaned forward a little and swayed with the melody, her eyes fast on
+the clouds above her, her lips parted, a pink tinge of exercise in
+her cheeks as she drew her bow. She played as only a peculiar chain of
+circumstances puts it in the power of a very few to play. All nature had
+grown still, the violin sobbed, sang, danced and quavered on alone, no
+voice in particular; the soul of the melody of all nature combined in
+one great outpouring.
+
+At the doorway, a white-faced woman endured it as long as she could and
+then fell senseless. The men nearest carried her down the hall to the
+fountain, revived her, and then placed her in the carriage to which she
+directed them. The girl played on and never knew. When she finished,
+the uproar of applause sounded a block down the street, but the
+half-senseless woman scarcely realized what it meant. Then the girl came
+to the front of the stage, bowed, and lifting the violin she played her
+conception of an invitation to dance. Every living soul within sound of
+her notes strained their nerves to sit still and let only their hearts
+dance with her. When that began the woman ran toward the country. She
+never stopped until the carriage overtook her half-way to her cabin. She
+said she had grown tired of sitting, and walked on ahead. That night
+she asked Billy to remain with her and sleep on Elnora's bed. Then she
+pitched headlong upon her own, and suffered agony of soul such as she
+never before had known. The swamp had sent back the soul of her loved
+dead and put it into the body of the daughter she resented, and it was
+almost more than she could endure and live.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA GRADUATES, AND FRECKLES AND THE ANGEL SEND GIFTS
+
+
+That was Friday night. Elnora came home Saturday morning and began work.
+Mrs. Comstock asked no questions, and the girl only told her that
+the audience had been large enough to more than pay for the piece of
+statuary the class had selected for the hall. Then she inquired about
+her dresses and was told they would be ready for her. She had been
+invited to go to the Bird Woman's to prepare for both the sermon and
+Commencement exercises. Since there was so much practising to do, it had
+been arranged that she should remain there from the night of the sermon
+until after she was graduated. If Mrs. Comstock decided to attend she
+was to drive in with the Sintons. When Elnora begged her to come she
+said she cared nothing about such silliness.
+
+It was almost time for Wesley to come to take Elnora to the city, when
+fresh from her bath, and dressed to her outer garment, she stood with
+expectant face before her mother and cried: "Now my dress, mother!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock was pale as she replied: "It's on my bed. Help yourself."
+
+Elnora opened the door and stepped into her mother's room with never a
+misgiving. Since the night Margaret and Wesley had brought her clothing,
+when she first started to school, her mother had selected all of her
+dresses, with Mrs. Sinton's help made most of them, and Elnora had paid
+the bills. The white dress of the previous spring was the first made at
+a dressmaker's. She had worn that as junior usher at Commencement; but
+her mother had selected the material, had it made, and it had fitted
+perfectly and had been suitable in every way. So with her heart at rest
+on that point, Elnora hurried to the bed to find only her last summer's
+white dress, freshly washed and ironed. For an instant she stared at it,
+then she picked up the garment, looked at the bed beneath it, and her
+gaze slowly swept the room.
+
+It was unfamiliar. Perhaps this was the third time she had been in it
+since she was a very small child. Her eyes ranged over the beautiful
+walnut dresser, the tall bureau, the big chest, inside which she never
+had seen, and the row of masculine attire hanging above it. Somewhere a
+dainty lawn or mull dress simply must be hanging: but it was not. Elnora
+dropped on the chest because she felt too weak to stand. In less than
+two hours she must be in the church, at Onabasha. She could not wear a
+last year's washed dress. She had nothing else. She leaned against the
+wall and her father's overcoat brushed her face. She caught the folds
+and clung to it with all her might.
+
+"Oh father! Father!" she moaned. "I need you! I don't believe you would
+have done this!" At last she opened the door.
+
+"I can't find my dress," she said.
+
+"Well, as it's the only one there I shouldn't think it would be much
+trouble."
+
+"You mean for me to wear an old washed dress to-night?"
+
+"It's a good dress. There isn't a hole in it! There's no reason on earth
+why you shouldn't wear it."
+
+"Except that I will not," said Elnora. "Didn't you provide any dress for
+Commencement, either?"
+
+"If you soil that to-night, I've plenty of time to wash it again."
+
+Wesley's voice called from the gate.
+
+"In a minute," answered Elnora.
+
+She ran upstairs and in an incredibly short time came down wearing one
+of her gingham school dresses. Her face cold and hard, she passed her
+mother and went into the night. Half an hour later Margaret and Billy
+stopped for Mrs. Comstock with the carriage. She had determined fully
+that she would not go before they called. With the sound of their voices
+a sort of horror of being left seized her, so she put on her hat, locked
+the door and went out to them.
+
+"How did Elnora look?" inquired Margaret anxiously.
+
+"Like she always does," answered Mrs. Comstock curtly.
+
+"I do hope her dresses are as pretty as the others," said Margaret.
+"None of them will have prettier faces or nicer ways."
+
+Wesley was waiting before the big church to take care of the team. As
+they stood watching the people enter the building, Mrs. Comstock felt
+herself growing ill. When they went inside among the lights, saw the
+flower-decked stage, and the masses of finely dressed people, she grew
+no better. She could hear Margaret and Billy softly commenting on what
+was being done.
+
+"That first chair in the very front row is Elnora's," exulted Billy,
+"cos she's got the highest grades, and so she gets to lead the
+procession to the platform."
+
+"The first chair!" "Lead the procession!" Mrs. Comstock was dumbfounded.
+The notes of the pipe organ began to fill the building in a slow rolling
+march. Would Elnora lead the procession in a gingham dress? Or would
+she be absent and her chair vacant on this great occasion? For now,
+Mrs. Comstock could see that it was a great occasion. Every one would
+remember how Elnora had played a few nights before, and they would miss
+her and pity her. Pity? Because she had no one to care for her. Because
+she was worse off than if she had no mother. For the first time in
+her life, Mrs. Comstock began to study herself as she would appear to
+others. Every time a junior girl came fluttering down the aisle, leading
+some one to a seat, and Mrs. Comstock saw a beautiful white dress pass,
+a wave of positive illness swept over her. What had she done? What would
+become of Elnora?
+
+As Elnora rode to the city, she answered Wesley's questions in
+monosyllables so that he thought she was nervous or rehearsing her
+speech and did not care to talk. Several times the girl tried to
+tell him and realized that if she said the first word it would bring
+uncontrollable tears. The Bird Woman opened the screen and stared
+unbelievingly.
+
+"Why, I thought you would be ready; you are so late!" she said. "If
+you have waited to dress here, we must hurry."
+
+"I have nothing to put on," said Elnora.
+
+In bewilderment the Bird Woman drew her inside.
+
+"Did--did--" she faltered. "Did you think you would wear that?"
+
+"No. I thought I would telephone Ellen that there had been an accident
+and I could not come. I don't know yet how to explain. I'm too sick to
+think. Oh, do you suppose I can get something made by Tuesday, so that I
+can graduate?"
+
+"Yes; and you'll get something on you to-night, so that you can lead
+your class, as you have done for four years. Go to my room and take off
+that gingham, quickly. Anna, drop everything, and come help me."
+
+The Bird Woman ran to the telephone and called Ellen Brownlee.
+
+"Elnora has had an accident. She will be a little late," she said.
+"You have got to make them wait. Have them play extra music before the
+march."
+
+Then she turned to the maid. "Tell Benson to have the carriage at the
+gate, just as soon as he can get it there. Then come to my room. Bring
+the thread box from the sewing-room, that roll of wide white ribbon on
+the cutting table, and gather all the white pins from every dresser in
+the house. But first come with me a minute."
+
+"I want that trunk with the Swamp Angel's stuff in it, from the cedar
+closet," she panted as they reached the top of the stairs.
+
+They hurried down the hall together and dragged the big trunk to the
+Bird Woman's room. She opened it and began tossing out white stuff.
+
+"How lucky that she left these things!" she cried. "Here are white
+shoes, gloves, stockings, fans, everything!"
+
+"I am all ready but a dress," said Elnora.
+
+The Bird Woman began opening closets and pulling out drawers and boxes.
+
+"I think I can make it this way," she said.
+
+She snatched up a creamy lace yoke with long sleeves that recently had
+been made for her and held it out. Elnora slipped into it, and the Bird
+Woman began smoothing out wrinkles and sewing in pins. It fitted very
+well with a little lapping in the back. Next, from among the Angel's
+clothing she caught up a white silk waist with low neck and elbow
+sleeves, and Elnora put it on. It was large enough, but distressingly
+short in the waist, for the Angel had worn it at a party when she was
+sixteen. The Bird Woman loosened the sleeves and pushed them to a puff
+on the shoulders, catching them in places with pins. She began on the
+wide draping of the yoke, fastening it front, back and at each shoulder.
+She pulled down the waist and pinned it. Next came a soft white dress
+skirt of her own. By pinning her waist band quite four inches above
+Elnora's, the Bird Woman could secure a perfect Empire sweep, with the
+clinging silk. Then she began with the wide white ribbon that was to
+trim a new frock for herself, bound it three times around the high waist
+effect she had managed, tied the ends in a knot and let them fall to the
+floor in a beautiful sash.
+
+"I want four white roses, each with two or three leaves," she cried.
+
+Anna ran to bring them, while the Bird Woman added pins.
+
+"Elnora," she said, "forgive me, but tell me truly. Is your mother so
+poor as to make this necessary?"
+
+"No," answered Elnora. "Next year I am heir to my share of over three
+hundred acres of land covered with almost as valuable timber as was in
+the Limberlost. We adjoin it. There could be thirty oil wells drilled
+that would yield to us the thousands our neighbours are draining from
+under us, and the bare land is worth over one hundred dollars an acre
+for farming. She is not poor, she is--I don't know what she is. A great
+trouble soured and warped her. It made her peculiar. She does not in
+the least understand, but it is because she doesn't care to, instead of
+ignorance. She does not----"
+
+Elnora stopped.
+
+"She is--is different," finished the girl.
+
+Anna came with the roses. The Bird Woman set one on the front of the
+draped yoke, one on each shoulder and the last among the bright masses
+of brown hair. Then she turned the girl facing the tall mirror.
+
+"Oh!" panted Elnora. "You are a genius! Why, I will look as well as any
+of them."
+
+"Thank goodness for that!" cried the Bird Woman. "If it wouldn't do, I
+should have been ill. You are lovely; altogether lovely! Ordinarily I
+shouldn't say that; but when I think of how you are carpentered, I'm
+admiring the result."
+
+The organ began rolling out the march as they came in sight. Elnora
+took her place at the head of the procession, while every one wondered.
+Secretly they had hoped that she would be dressed well enough, that she
+would not appear poor and neglected. What this radiant young creature,
+gowned in the most recent style, her smooth skin flushed with
+excitement, and a rose-set coronet of red gold on her head, had to do
+with the girl they knew was difficult to decide. The signal was given
+and Elnora began the slow march across the vestry and down the aisle.
+The music welled softly, and Margaret began to sob without knowing why.
+
+Mrs. Comstock gripped her hands together and shut her eyes. It seemed
+an eternity to the suffering woman before Margaret caught her arm and
+whispered, "Oh, Kate! For any sake look at her! Here! The aisle across!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock opened her eyes and directing them where she was told,
+gazed intently, and slid down in her seat close to collapse. She was
+saved by Margaret's tense clasp and her command: "Here! Idiot! Stop
+that!"
+
+In the blaze of light Elnora climbed the steps to the palm-embowered
+platform, crossed it and took her place. Sixty young men and women,
+each of them dressed the best possible, followed her. There were manly,
+fine-looking men in that class which Elnora led. There were girls of
+beauty and grace, but not one of them was handsomer or clothed in better
+taste than she.
+
+Billy thought the time never would come when Elnora would see him, but
+at last she met his eye, then Margaret and Wesley had faint signs of
+recognition in turn, but there was no softening of the girl's face and
+no hint of a smile when she saw her mother.
+
+Heartsick, Katharine Comstock tried to prove to herself that she was
+justified in what she had done, but she could not. She tried to blame
+Elnora for not saying that she was to lead a procession and sit on a
+platform in the sight of hundreds of people; but that was impossible,
+for she realized that she would have scoffed and not understood if she
+had been told. Her heart pained until she suffered with every breath.
+
+When at last the exercises were over she climbed into the carriage and
+rode home without a word. She did not hear what Margaret and Billy were
+saying. She scarcely heard Wesley, who drove behind, when he told her
+that Elnora would not be home until Wednesday. Early the next morning
+Mrs. Comstock was on her way to Onabasha. She was waiting when the
+Brownlee store opened. She examined ready-made white dresses, but they
+had only one of the right size, and it was marked forty dollars. Mrs.
+Comstock did not hesitate over the price, but whether the dress would be
+suitable. She would have to ask Elnora. She inquired her way to the home
+of the Bird Woman and knocked.
+
+"Is Elnora Comstock here?" she asked the maid.
+
+"Yes, but she is still in bed. I was told to let her sleep as long as
+she would."
+
+"Maybe I could sit here and wait," said Mrs. Comstock. "I want to see
+about getting her a dress for to-morrow. I am her mother."
+
+"Then you don't need wait or worry," said the girl cheerfully. "There
+are two women up in the sewing-room at work on a dress for her right
+now. It will be done in time, and it will be a beauty."
+
+Mrs. Comstock turned and trudged back to the Limberlost. The bitterness
+in her soul became a physical actuality, which water would not wash
+from her lips. She was too late! She was not needed. Another woman was
+mothering her girl. Another woman would prepare a beautiful dress such
+as Elnora had worn the previous night. The girl's love and gratitude
+would go to her. Mrs. Comstock tried the old process of blaming some one
+else, but she felt no better. She nursed her grief as closely as ever
+in the long days of the girl's absence. She brooded over Elnora's
+possession of the forbidden violin and her ability to play it until the
+performance could not have been told from her father's. She tried every
+refuge her mind could conjure, to quiet her heart and remove the fear
+that the girl never would come home again, but it persisted. Mrs.
+Comstock could neither eat nor sleep. She wandered around the cabin and
+garden. She kept far from the pool where Robert Comstock had sunk from
+sight for she felt that it would entomb her also if Elnora did not come
+home Wednesday morning. The mother told herself that she would wait, but
+the waiting was as bitter as anything she ever had known.
+
+When Elnora awoke Monday another dress was in the hands of a seamstress
+and was soon fitted. It had belonged to the Angel, and was a soft
+white thing that with a little alteration would serve admirably for
+Commencement and the ball. All that day Elnora worked, helping prepare
+the auditorium for the exercises, rehearsing the march and the speech
+she was to make in behalf of the class. The following day was even
+busier. But her mind was at rest, for the dress was a soft delicate lace
+easy to change, and the marks of alteration impossible to detect.
+
+The Bird Woman had telephoned to Grand Rapids, explained the situation
+and asked the Angel if she might use it. The reply had been to give the
+girl the contents of the chest. When the Bird Woman told Elnora, tears
+filled her eyes.
+
+"I will write at once and thank her," she said. "With all her beautiful
+gowns she does not need them, and I do. They will serve for me often,
+and be much finer than anything I could afford. It is lovely of her
+to give me the dress and of you to have it altered for me, as I never
+could."
+
+The Bird Woman laughed. "I feel religious to-day," she said. "You know
+the first and greatest rock of my salvation is 'Do unto others.' I'm
+only doing to you what there was no one to do for me when I was a girl
+very like you. Anna tells me your mother was here early this morning and
+that she came to see about getting you a dress."
+
+"She is too late!" said Elnora coldly. "She had over a month to prepare
+my dresses, and I was to pay for them, so there is no excuse."
+
+"Nevertheless, she is your mother," said the Bird Woman, softly. "I
+think almost any kind of a mother must be better than none at all, and
+you say she has had great trouble."
+
+"She loved my father and he died," said Elnora. "The same thing, in
+quite as tragic a manner, has happened to thousands of other women, and
+they have gone on with calm faces and found happiness in life by loving
+others. There was something else I am afraid I never shall forget;
+this I know I shall not, but talking does not help. I must deliver my
+presents and photographs to the crowd. I have a picture and I made a
+present for you, too, if you would care for them."
+
+"I shall love anything you give me," said the Bird Woman. "I know you
+well enough to know that whatever you do will be beautiful."
+
+Elnora was pleased over that, and as she tried on her dress for the
+last fitting she was really happy. She was lovely in the dainty gown:
+it would serve finely for the ball and many other like occasions, and it
+was her very own.
+
+The Bird Woman's driver took Elnora in the carriage and she called
+on all the girls with whom she was especially intimate, and left her
+picture and the package containing her gift to them. By the time she
+returned parcels for her were arriving. Friends seemed to spring from
+everywhere. Almost every one she knew had some gift for her, while
+because they so loved her the members of her crowd had made
+her beautiful presents. There were books, vases, silver pieces,
+handkerchiefs, fans, boxes of flowers and candy. One big package settled
+the trouble at Sinton's, for it contained a dainty dress from Margaret,
+a five-dollar gold piece, conspicuously labelled, "I earned this
+myself," from Billy, with which to buy music; and a gorgeous cut-glass
+perfume bottle, it would have cost five dollars to fill with even a
+moderate-priced scent, from Wesley.
+
+In an expressed crate was a fine curly-maple dressing table, sent by
+Freckles. The drawers were filled with wonderful toilet articles from
+the Angel. The Bird Woman added an embroidered linen cover and a small
+silver vase for a few flowers, so no girl of the class had finer gifts.
+Elnora laid her head on the table sobbing happily, and the Bird Woman
+was almost crying herself. Professor Henley sent a butterfly book,
+the grade rooms in which Elnora had taught gave her a set of volumes
+covering every phase of life afield, in the woods, and water. Elnora
+had no time to read so she carried one of these books around with her
+hugging it as she went. After she had gone to dress a queer-looking
+package was brought by a small boy who hopped on one foot as he handed
+it in and said: "Tell Elnora that is from her ma."
+
+"Who are you?" asked the Bird Woman as she took the bundle.
+
+"I'm Billy!" announced the boy. "I gave her the five dollars. I earned
+it myself dropping corn, sticking onions, and pulling weeds. My, but you
+got to drop, and stick, and pull a lot before it's five dollars' worth."
+
+"Would you like to come in and see Elnora's gifts?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am!" said Billy, trying to stand quietly.
+
+"Gee-mentley!" he gasped. "Does Elnora get all this?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I bet you a thousand dollars I be first in my class when I graduate.
+Say, have the others got a lot more than Elnora?"
+
+"I think not."
+
+"Well, Uncle Wesley said to find out if I could, and if she didn't
+have as much as the rest, he'd buy till she did, if it took a hundred
+dollars. Say, you ought to know him! He's just scrumptious! There ain't
+anybody any where finer 'an he is. My, he's grand!"
+
+"I'm very sure of it!" said the Bird Woman. "I've often heard Elnora say
+so."
+
+"I bet you nobody can beat this!" he boasted. Then he stopped, thinking
+deeply. "I don't know, though," he began reflectively. "Some of them are
+awful rich; they got big families to give them things and wagon loads of
+friends, and I haven't seen what they have. Now, maybe Elnora is getting
+left, after all!"
+
+"Don't worry, Billy," she said. "I will watch, and if I find Elnora is
+'getting left' I'll buy her some more things myself. But I'm sure she
+is not. She has more beautiful gifts now than she will know what to
+do with, and others will come. Tell your Uncle Wesley his girl is
+bountifully remembered, very happy, and she sends her dearest love to
+all of you. Now you must go, so I can help her dress. You will be there
+to-night of course?"
+
+"Yes, sir-ee! She got me a seat, third row from the front, middle
+section, so I can see, and she's going to wink at me, after she gets her
+speech off her mind. She kissed me, too! She's a perfect lady, Elnora
+is. I'm going to marry her when I am big enough."
+
+"Why isn't that splendid!" laughed the Bird Woman as she hurried
+upstairs.
+
+"Dear!" she called. "Here is another gift for you."
+
+Elnora was half disrobed as she took the package and, sitting on a
+couch, opened it. The Bird Woman bent over her and tested the fabric
+with her fingers.
+
+"Why, bless my soul!" she cried. "Hand-woven, hand-embroidered linen,
+fine as silk. It's priceless' I haven't seen such things in years. My
+mother had garments like those when I was a child, but my sisters had
+them cut up for collars, belts, and fancy waists while I was small. Look
+at the exquisite work!"
+
+"Where could it have come from?" cried Elnora.
+
+She shook out a petticoat, with a hand-wrought ruffle a foot deep, then
+an old-fashioned chemise the neck and sleeve work of which was elaborate
+and perfectly wrought. On the breast was pinned a note that she hastily
+opened.
+
+"I was married in these," it read, "and I had intended to be buried in
+them, but perhaps it would be more sensible for you to graduate and get
+married in them yourself, if you like. Your mother."
+
+"From my mother!" Wide-eyed, Elnora looked at the Bird Woman. "I never
+in my life saw the like. Mother does things I think I never can forgive,
+and when I feel hardest, she turns around and does something that makes
+me think she just must love me a little bit, after all. Any of the girls
+would give almost anything to graduate in hand-embroidered linen like
+that. Money can't buy such things. And they came when I was thinking she
+didn't care what became of me. Do you suppose she can be insane?"
+
+"Yes," said the Bird Woman. "Wildly insane, if she does not love you and
+care what becomes of you."
+
+Elnora arose and held the petticoat to her. "Will you look at it?" she
+cried. "Only imagine her not getting my dress ready, and then sending me
+such a petticoat as this! Ellen would pay fifty dollars for it and
+never blink. I suppose mother has had it all my life, and I never saw it
+before."
+
+"Go take your bath and put on those things," said the Bird Woman.
+"Forget everything and be happy. She is not insane. She is embittered.
+She did not understand how things would be. When she saw, she came at
+once to provide you a dress. This is her way of saying she is sorry
+she did not get the other. You notice she has not spent any money, so
+perhaps she is quite honest in saying she has none."
+
+"Oh, she is honest!" said Elnora. "She wouldn't care enough to tell an
+untruth. She'd say just how things were, no matter what happened."
+
+Soon Elnora was ready for her dress. She never had looked so well as
+when she again headed the processional across the flower and palm decked
+stage of the high school auditorium. As she sat there she could have
+reached over and dropped a rose she carried into the seat she had
+occupied that September morning when she entered the high school. She
+spoke the few words she had to say in behalf of the class beautifully,
+had the tiny wink ready for Billy, and the smile and nod of recognition
+for Wesley and Margaret. When at last she looked into the eyes of a
+white-faced woman next them, she slipped a hand to her side and raised
+her skirt the fraction of an inch, just enough to let the embroidered
+edge of a petticoat show a trifle. When she saw the look of relief
+which flooded her mother's face, Elnora knew that forgiveness was in her
+heart, and that she would go home in the morning.
+
+It was late afternoon before she arrived, and a dray followed with a
+load of packages. Mrs. Comstock was overwhelmed. She sat half dazed
+and made Elnora show her each costly and beautiful or simple and useful
+gift, tell her carefully what it was and from where it came. She studied
+the faces of Elnora's particular friends. The gifts from them had to be
+set in a group. Several times she started to speak and then stopped. At
+last, between her dry lips, came a harsh whisper.
+
+"Elnora, what did you give back for these things?"
+
+"I'll show you," said Elnora cheerfully. "I made the same gifts for the
+Bird Woman, Aunt Margaret and you if you care for it. But I have to run
+upstairs to get it."
+
+When she returned she handed her mother an oblong frame, hand carved,
+enclosing Elnora's picture, taken by a schoolmate's camera. She wore
+her storm-coat and carried a dripping umbrella. From under it looked
+her bright face; her books and lunchbox were on her arm, and across the
+bottom of the frame was carved, "Your Country Classmate."
+
+Then she offered another frame.
+
+"I am strong on frames," she said. "They seemed to be the best I could
+do without money. I located the maple and the black walnut myself, in a
+little corner that had been overlooked between the river and the ditch.
+They didn't seem to belong to any one so I just took them. Uncle Wesley
+said it was all right, and he cut and hauled them for me. I gave the
+mill half of each tree for sawing and curing the remainder. Then I gave
+the wood-carver half of that for making my frames. A photographer gave
+me a lot of spoiled plates, and I boiled off the emulsion, and took the
+specimens I framed from my stuff. The man said the white frames were
+worth three and a half, and the black ones five. I exchanged those
+little framed pictures for the photographs of the others. For presents,
+I gave each one of my crowd one like this, only a different moth. The
+Bird Woman gave me the birch bark. She got it up north last summer."
+
+Elnora handed her mother a handsome black-walnut frame a foot and a
+half wide by two long. It finished a small, shallow glass-covered box of
+birch bark, to the bottom of which clung a big night moth with delicate
+pale green wings and long exquisite trailers.
+
+"So you see I did not have to be ashamed of my gifts," said Elnora. "I
+made them myself and raised and mounted the moths."
+
+"Moth, you call it," said Mrs. Comstock. "I've seen a few of the things
+before."
+
+"They are numerous around us every June night, or at least they used
+to be," said Elnora. "I've sold hundreds of them, with butterflies,
+dragonflies, and other specimens. Now, I must put away these and get to
+work, for it is almost June and there are a few more I want dreadfully.
+If I find them I will be paid some money for which I have been working."
+
+She was afraid to say college at that time. She thought it would be
+better to wait a few days and see if an opportunity would not come when
+it would work in more naturally. Besides, unless she could secure the
+Yellow Emperor she needed to complete her collection, she could not talk
+college until she was of age, for she would have no money.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+WHEREIN MARGARET SINTON REVEALS A SECRET, AND MRS. COMSTOCK POSSESSES
+THE LIMBERLOST
+
+
+"Elnora, bring me the towel, quick!" cried Mrs Comstock.
+
+"In a minute, mother," mumbled Elnora.
+
+She was standing before the kitchen mirror, tying the back part of her
+hair, while the front turned over her face.
+
+"Hurry! There's a varmint of some kind!"
+
+Elnora ran into the sitting-room and thrust the heavy kitchen towel into
+her mother's hand. Mrs. Comstock swung open the screen door and struck
+at some object, Elnora tossed the hair from her face so that she could
+see past her mother. The girl screamed wildly.
+
+"Don't! Mother, don't!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock struck again. Elnora caught her arm. "It's the one I want!
+It's worth a lot of money! Don't! Oh, you shall not!"
+
+"Shan't, missy?" blazed Mrs. Comstock. "When did you get to bossing me?"
+
+The hand that held the screen swept a half-circle and stopped at
+Elnora's cheek. She staggered with the blow, and across her face, paled
+with excitement, a red mark arose rapidly. The screen slammed shut,
+throwing the creature on the floor before them. Instantly Mrs. Comstock
+crushed it with her foot. Elnora stepped back. Excepting the red mark,
+her face was very white.
+
+"That was the last moth I needed," she said, "to complete a collection
+worth three hundred dollars. You've ruined it before my eyes!"
+
+"Moth!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "You say that because you are mad. Moths
+have big wings. I know a moth!"
+
+"I've kept things from you," said Elnora, "because I didn't dare confide
+in you. You had no sympathy with me. But you know I never told you
+untruths in all my life."
+
+"It's no moth!" reiterated Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"It is!" cried Elnora. "It's from a case in the ground. Its wings take
+two or three hours to expand and harden."
+
+"If I had known it was a moth----" Mrs. Comstock wavered.
+
+"You did know! I told you! I begged you to stop! It meant just three
+hundred dollars to me."
+
+"Bah! Three hundred fiddlesticks!"
+
+"They are what have paid for books, tuition, and clothes for the past
+four years. They are what I could have started on to college. You've
+ruined the very one I needed. You never made any pretence of loving me.
+At last I'll be equally frank with you. I hate you! You are a selfish,
+wicked woman! I hate you!"
+
+Elnora turned, went through the kitchen and from the back door. She
+followed the garden path to the gate and walked toward the swamp a
+short distance when reaction overtook her. She dropped on the ground and
+leaned against a big log. When a little child, desperate as now, she had
+tried to die by holding her breath. She had thought in that way to make
+her mother sorry, but she had learned that life was a thing thrust upon
+her and she could not leave it at her wish.
+
+She was so stunned over the loss of that moth, which she had childishly
+named the Yellow Emperor, that she scarcely remembered the blow. She
+had thought no luck in all the world would be so rare as to complete
+her collection; now she had been forced to see a splendid Imperialis
+destroyed before her. There was a possibility that she could find
+another, but she was facing the certainty that the one she might have
+had and with which she undoubtedly could have attracted others, was
+spoiled by her mother. How long she sat there Elnora did not know or
+care. She simply suffered in dumb, abject misery, an occasional dry sob
+shaking her. Aunt Margaret was right. Elnora felt that morning that
+her mother never would be any different. The girl had reached the place
+where she realized that she could endure it no longer.
+
+As Elnora left the room, Mrs. Comstock took one step after her.
+
+"You little huzzy!" she gasped.
+
+But Elnora was gone. Her mother stood staring.
+
+"She never did lie to me," she muttered. "I guess it was a moth. And
+the only one she needed to get three hundred dollars, she said. I wish I
+hadn't been so fast! I never saw anything like it. I thought it was some
+deadly, stinging, biting thing. A body does have to be mighty careful
+here. But likely I've spilt the milk now. Pshaw! She can find another!
+There's no use to be foolish. Maybe moths are like snakes, where there's
+one, there are two."
+
+Mrs. Comstock took the broom and swept the moth out of the door. Then
+she got down on her knees and carefully examined the steps, logs and
+the earth of the flower beds at each side. She found the place where
+the creature had emerged from the ground, and the hard, dark-brown case
+which had enclosed it, still wet inside. Then she knew Elnora had been
+right. It was a moth. Its wings had been damp and not expanded. Mrs.
+Comstock never before had seen one in that state, and she did not know
+how they originated. She had thought all of them came from cases spun on
+trees or against walls or boards. She had seen only enough to know that
+there were such things; as a flash of white told her that an ermine was
+on her premises, or a sharp "buzzzzz" warned her of a rattler.
+
+So it was from creatures like that Elnora had secured her school money.
+In one sickening sweep there rushed into the heart of the woman a full
+realization of the width of the gulf that separated her from her child.
+Lately many things had pointed toward it, none more plainly than when
+Elnora, like a reincarnation of her father, had stood fearlessly before
+a large city audience and played with even greater skill than he, on
+what Mrs. Comstock felt very certain was his violin. But that little
+crawling creature of earth, crushed by her before its splendid yellow
+and lavender wings could spread and carry it into the mystery of night,
+had performed a miracle.
+
+"We are nearer strangers to each other than we are with any of the
+neighbours," she muttered.
+
+So one of the Almighty's most delicate and beautiful creations was
+sacrificed without fulfilling the law, yet none of its species ever
+served so glorious a cause, for at last Mrs. Comstock's inner vision had
+cleared. She went through the cabin mechanically. Every few minutes
+she glanced toward the back walk to see if Elnora were coming. She knew
+arrangements had been made with Margaret to go to the city some time
+that day, so she grew more nervous and uneasy every moment. She was
+haunted by the fear that the blow might discolour Elnora's cheek; that
+she would tell Margaret. She went down the back walk, looking intently
+in all directions, left the garden and followed the swamp path. Her step
+was noiseless on the soft, black earth, and soon she came close enough
+to see Elnora. Mrs. Comstock stood looking at the girl in troubled
+uncertainty. Not knowing what to say, at last she turned and went back
+to the cabin.
+
+Noon came and she prepared dinner, calling, as she always did, when
+Elnora was in the garden, but she got no response, and the girl did not
+come. A little after one o'clock Margaret stopped at the gate.
+
+"Elnora has changed her mind. She is not going," called Mrs. Comstock.
+
+She felt that she hated Margaret as she hitched her horse and came up
+the walk instead of driving on.
+
+"You must be mistaken," said Margaret. "I was going on purpose for her.
+She asked me to take her. I had no errand. Where is she?"
+
+"I will call her," said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+She followed the path again, and this time found Elnora sitting on the
+log. Her face was swollen and discoloured, and her eyes red with crying.
+She paid no attention to her mother.
+
+"Mag Sinton is here," said Mrs. Comstock harshly. "I told her you had
+changed your mind, but she said you asked her to go with you, and she
+had nothing to go for herself."
+
+Elnora arose, recklessly waded through the deep swamp grasses and so
+reached the path ahead of her mother. Mrs. Comstock followed as far as
+the garden, but she could not enter the cabin. She busied herself among
+the vegetables, barely looking up when the back-door screen slammed
+noisily. Margaret Sinton approached colourless, her eyes so angry that
+Mrs. Comstock shrank back.
+
+"What's the matter with Elnora's face?" demanded Margaret.
+
+Mrs. Comstock made no reply.
+
+"You struck her, did you?"
+
+"I thought you wasn't blind!"
+
+"I have been, for twenty long years now, Kate Comstock," said Margaret
+Sinton, "but my eyes are open at last. What I see is that I've done you
+no good and Elnora a big wrong. I had an idea that it would kill you to
+know, but I guess you are tough enough to stand anything. Kill or cure,
+you get it now!"
+
+"What are you frothing about?" coolly asked Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"You!" cried Margaret. "You! The woman who doesn't pretend to love her
+only child. Who lets her grow to a woman, as you have let Elnora, and
+can't be satisfied with every sort of neglect, but must add abuse yet;
+and all for a fool idea about a man who wasn't worth his salt!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock picked up a hoe.
+
+"Go right on!" she said. "Empty yourself. It's the last thing you'll
+ever do!"
+
+"Then I'll make a tidy job of it," said Margaret. "You'll not touch me.
+You'll stand there and hear the truth at last, and because I dare face
+you and tell it, you will know in your soul it is truth. When Robert
+Comstock shaved that quagmire out there so close he went in, he wanted
+to keep you from knowing where he was coming from. He'd been to see
+Elvira Carney. They had plans to go to a dance that night----"
+
+"Close your lips!" said Mrs. Comstock in a voice of deadly quiet.
+
+"You know I wouldn't dare open them if I wasn't telling you the truth.
+I can prove what I say. I was coming from Reeds. It was hot in the woods
+and I stopped at Carney's as I passed for a drink. Elvira's bedridden
+old mother heard me, and she was so crazy for some one to talk with, I
+stepped in a minute. I saw Robert come down the path. Elvira saw him,
+too, so she ran out of the house to head him off. It looked funny, and
+I just deliberately moved where I could see and hear. He brought her his
+violin, and told her to get ready and meet him in the woods with it that
+night, and they would go to a dance. She took it and hid it in the loft
+to the well-house and promised she'd go."
+
+"Are you done?" demanded Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"No. I am going to tell you the whole story. You don't spare Elnora
+anything. I shan't spare you. I hadn't been here that day, but I can
+tell you just how he was dressed, which way he went and every word they
+said, though they thought I was busy with her mother and wouldn't notice
+them. Put down your hoe, Kate. I went to Elvira, told her what I knew
+and made her give me Comstock's violin for Elnora over three years ago.
+She's been playing it ever since. I won't see her slighted and abused
+another day on account of a man who would have broken your heart if he
+had lived. Six months more would have showed you what everybody else
+knew. He was one of those men who couldn't trust himself, and so no
+woman was safe with him. Now, will you drop grieving over him, and do
+Elnora justice?"
+
+Mrs. Comstock grasped the hoe tighter and turning she went down the
+walk, and started across the woods to the home of Elvira Carney. With
+averted head she passed the pool, steadily pursuing her way. Elvira
+Carney, hanging towels across the back fence, saw her coming and went
+toward the gate to meet her. Twenty years she had dreaded that visit.
+Since Margaret Sinton had compelled her to produce the violin she had
+hidden so long, because she was afraid to destroy it, she had come
+closer expectation than dread. The wages of sin are the hardest debts
+on earth to pay, and they are always collected at inconvenient times and
+unexpected places. Mrs. Comstock's face and hair were so white, that her
+dark eyes seemed burned into their setting. Silently she stared at the
+woman before her a long time.
+
+"I might have saved myself the trouble of coming," she said at last, "I
+see you are guilty as sin!"
+
+"What has Mag Sinton been telling you?" panted the miserable woman,
+gripping the fence.
+
+"The truth!" answered Mrs. Comstock succinctly. "Guilt is in every line
+of your face, in your eyes, all over your wretched body. If I'd taken a
+good look at you any time in all these past years, no doubt I could have
+seen it just as plain as I can now. No woman or man can do what you've
+done, and not get a mark set on them for every one to read."
+
+"Mercy!" gasped weak little Elvira Carney. "Have mercy!"
+
+"Mercy?" scoffed Mrs. Comstock. "Mercy! That's a nice word from you! How
+much mercy did you have on me? Where's the mercy that sent Comstock to
+the slime of the bottomless quagmire, and left me to see it, and then
+struggle on in agony all these years? How about the mercy of letting me
+neglect my baby all the days of her life? Mercy! Do you really dare use
+the word to me?"
+
+"If you knew what I've suffered!"
+
+"Suffered?" jeered Mrs. Comstock. "That's interesting. And pray, what
+have you suffered?"
+
+"All the neighbours have suspected and been down on me. I ain't had a
+friend. I've always felt guilty of his death! I've seen him go down a
+thousand times, plain as ever you did. Many's the night I've stood on
+the other bank of that pool and listened to you, and I tried to throw
+myself in to keep from hearing you, but I didn't dare. I knew God would
+send me to burn forever, but I'd better done it; for now, He has set the
+burning on my body, and every hour it is slowly eating the life out of
+me. The doctor says it's a cancer----"
+
+Mrs. Comstock exhaled a long breath. Her grip on the hoe relaxed and her
+stature lifted to towering height.
+
+"I didn't know, or care, when I came here, just what I did," she said.
+"But my way is beginning to clear. If the guilt of your soul has come
+to a head, in a cancer on your body, it looks as if the Almighty didn't
+need any of my help in meting out His punishments. I really couldn't fix
+up anything to come anywhere near that. If you are going to burn until
+your life goes out with that sort of fire, you don't owe me anything!"
+
+"Oh, Katharine Comstock!" groaned Elvira Carney, clinging to the fence
+for support.
+
+"Looks as if the Bible is right when it says, 'The wages of sin is
+death,' doesn't it?" asked Mrs. Comstock. "Instead of doing a woman's
+work in life, you chose the smile of invitation, and the dress of
+unearned cloth. Now you tell me you are marked to burn to death with the
+unquenchable fire. And him! It was shorter with him, but let me tell you
+he got his share! He left me with an untruth on his lips, for he told
+me he was going to take his violin to Onabasha for a new key, when he
+carried it to you. Every vow of love and constancy he ever made me was a
+lie, after he touched your lips, so when he tried the wrong side of
+the quagmire, to hide from me the direction in which he was coming, it
+reached out for him, and it got him. It didn't hurry, either! It sucked
+him down, slow and deliberate."
+
+"Mercy!" groaned Elvira Carney. "Mercy!"
+
+"I don't know the word," said Mrs. Comstock. "You took all that out of
+me long ago. The past twenty years haven't been of the sort that taught
+mercy. I've never had any on myself and none on my child. Why in the
+name of justice, should I have mercy on you, or on him? You were both
+older than I, both strong, sane people, you deliberately chose your
+course when you lured him, and he, when he was unfaithful to me. When a
+Loose Man and a Light Woman face the end the Almighty ordained for them,
+why should they shout at me for mercy? What did I have to do with it?"
+
+Elvira Carney sobbed in panting gasps.
+
+"You've got tears, have you?" marvelled Mrs. Comstock. "Mine all dried
+long ago. I've none left to shed over my wasted life, my disfigured face
+and hair, my years of struggle with a man's work, my wreck of land among
+the tilled fields of my neighbours, or the final knowledge that the man
+I so gladly would have died to save, wasn't worth the sacrifice of a
+rattlesnake. If anything yet could wring a tear from me, it would be the
+thought of the awful injustice I always have done my girl. If I'd lay
+hand on you for anything, it would be for that."
+
+"Kill me if you want to," sobbed Elvira Carney. "I know that I deserve
+it, and I don't care."
+
+"You are getting your killing fast enough to suit me," said Mrs.
+Comstock. "I wouldn't touch you, any more than I would him, if I could.
+Once is all any man or woman deceives me about the holiest things of
+life. I wouldn't touch you any more than I would the black plague. I am
+going back to my girl."
+
+Mrs. Comstock turned and started swiftly through the woods, but she had
+gone only a few rods when she stopped, and leaning on the hoe, she stood
+thinking deeply. Then she turned back. Elvira still clung to the fence,
+sobbing bitterly.
+
+"I don't know," said Mrs. Comstock, "but I left a wrong impression with
+you. I don't want you to think that I believe the Almighty set a cancer
+to burning you as a punishment for your sins. I don't! I think a lot
+more of the Almighty. With a whole sky-full of worlds on His hands to
+manage, I'm not believing that He has time to look down on ours, and
+pick you out of all the millions of us sinners, and set a special kind
+of torture to eating you. It wouldn't be a gentlemanly thing to do, and
+first of all, the Almighty is bound to be a gentleman. I think likely
+a bruise and bad blood is what caused your trouble. Anyway, I've got
+to tell you that the cleanest housekeeper I ever knew, and one of the
+noblest Christian women, was slowly eaten up by a cancer. She got hers
+from the careless work of a poor doctor. The Almighty is to forgive sin
+and heal disease, not to invent and spread it."
+
+She had gone only a few steps when she again turned back.
+
+"If you will gather a lot of red clover bloom, make a tea strong as lye
+of it, and drink quarts, I think likely it will help you, if you are
+not too far gone. Anyway, it will cool your blood and make the burning
+easier to bear."
+
+Then she swiftly went home. Enter the lonely cabin she could not,
+neither could she sit outside and think. She attacked a bed of beets and
+hoed until the perspiration ran from her face and body, then she began
+on the potatoes. When she was too tired to take another stroke she
+bathed and put on dry clothing. In securing her dress she noticed her
+husband's carefully preserved clothing lining one wall. She gathered it
+in an armload and carried it to the swamp. Piece by piece she pitched
+into the green maw of the quagmire all those articles she had dusted
+carefully and fought moths from for years, and stood watching as it
+slowly sucked them down. She went back to her room and gathered every
+scrap that had in any way belonged to Robert Comstock, excepting his gun
+and revolver, and threw it into the swamp. Then for the first time she
+set her door wide open.
+
+She was too weary now to do more, but an urging unrest drove her. She
+wanted Elnora. It seemed to her she never could wait until the girl came
+and delivered her judgment. At last in an effort to get nearer to her,
+Mrs. Comstock climbed the stairs and stood looking around Elnora's room.
+It was very unfamiliar. The pictures were strange to her. Commencement
+had filled it with packages and bundles. The walls were covered with
+cocoons; moths and dragonflies were pinned everywhere. Under the bed she
+could see half a dozen large white boxes. She pulled out one and lifted
+the lid. The bottom was covered with a sheet of thin cork, and on
+long pins sticking in it were large, velvet-winged moths. Each one was
+labelled, always there were two of a kind, in many cases four, showing
+under and upper wings of both male and female. They were of every colour
+and shape.
+
+Mrs. Comstock caught her breath sharply. When and where had Elnora found
+them? They were the most exquisite sight the woman ever had seen, so she
+opened all the boxes to feast on their beautiful contents. As she did so
+there came more fully a sense of the distance between her and her child.
+She could not understand how Elnora had gone to school, and performed
+so much work secretly. When it was finished, to the last moth, she, the
+mother who should have been the first confidant and helper, had been the
+one to bring disappointment. Small wonder Elnora had come to hate her.
+
+Mrs. Comstock carefully closed and replaced the boxes; and again stood
+looking around the room. This time her eyes rested on some books she did
+not remember having seen before, so she picked up one and found that it
+was a moth book. She glanced over the first pages and was soon eagerly
+reading. When the text reached the classification of species, she laid
+it down, took up another and read the introductory chapters. By that
+time her brain was in a confused jumble of ideas about capturing moths
+with differing baits and bright lights.
+
+She went down stairs thinking deeply. Being unable to sit still and
+having nothing else to do she glanced at the clock and began preparing
+supper. The work dragged. A chicken was snatched up and dressed
+hurriedly. A spice cake sprang into being. Strawberries that had been
+intended for preserves went into shortcake. Delicious odours crept from
+the cabin. She put many extra touches on the table and then commenced
+watching the road. Everything was ready, but Elnora did not come. Then
+began the anxious process of trying to keep cooked food warm and not
+spoil it. The birds went to bed and dusk came. Mrs. Comstock gave up the
+fire and set the supper on the table. Then she went out and sat on the
+front-door step watching night creep around her. She started eagerly as
+the gate creaked, but it was only Wesley Sinton coming.
+
+"Katharine, Margaret and Elnora passed where I was working this
+afternoon, and Margaret got out of the carriage and called me to the
+fence. She told me what she had done. I've come to say to you that I am
+sorry. She has heard me threaten to do it a good many times, but I never
+would have got it done. I'd give a good deal if I could undo it, but I
+can't, so I've come to tell you how sorry I am."
+
+"You've got something to be sorry for," said Mrs. Comstock, "but likely
+we ain't thinking of the same thing. It hurts me less to know the truth,
+than to live in ignorance. If Mag had the sense of a pewee, she'd told
+me long ago. That's what hurts me, to think that both of you knew Robert
+was not worth an hour of honest grief, yet you'd let me mourn him all
+these years and neglect Elnora while I did it. If I have anything to
+forgive you, that is what it is."
+
+Wesley removed his hat and sat on a bench.
+
+"Katharine," he said solemnly, "nobody ever knows how to take you."
+
+"Would it be asking too much to take me for having a few grains of plain
+common sense?" she inquired. "You've known all this time that Comstock
+got what he deserved, when he undertook to sneak in an unused way across
+a swamp, with which he was none too familiar. Now I should have thought
+that you'd figure that knowing the same thing would be the best method
+to cure me of pining for him, and slighting my child."
+
+"Heaven only knows we have thought of that, and talked of it often, but
+we were both too big cowards. We didn't dare tell you."
+
+"So you have gone on year after year, watching me show indifference to
+Elnora, and yet a little horse-sense would have pointed out to you that
+she was my salvation. Why look at it! Not married quite a year. All his
+vows of love and fidelity made to me before the Almighty forgotten in a
+few months, and a dance and a Light Woman so alluring he had to lie and
+sneak for them. What kind of a prospect is that for a life? I know men
+and women. An honourable man is an honourable man, and a liar is a liar;
+both are born and not made. One cannot change to the other any more than
+that same old leopard can change its spots. After a man tells a woman
+the first untruth of that sort, the others come piling thick, fast,
+and mountain high. The desolation they bring in their wake overshadows
+anything I have suffered completely. If he had lived six months more I
+should have known him for what he was born to be. It was in the blood
+of him. His father and grandfather before him were fiddling, dancing
+people; but I was certain of him. I thought we could leave Ohio and come
+out here alone, and I could so love him and interest him in his work,
+that he would be a man. Of all the fool, fruitless jobs, making anything
+of a creature that begins by deceiving her, is the foolest a sane woman
+ever undertook. I am more than sorry you and Margaret didn't see your
+way clear to tell me long ago. I'd have found it out in a few more
+months if he had lived, and I wouldn't have borne it a day. The man who
+breaks his vows to me once, doesn't get the second chance. I give truth
+and honour. I have a right to ask it in return. I am glad I understand
+at last. Now, if Elnora will forgive me, we will take a new start and
+see what we can make out of what is left of life. If she won't, then it
+will be my time to learn what suffering really means."
+
+"But she will," said Wesley. "She must! She can't help it when things
+are explained."
+
+"I notice she isn't hurrying any about coming home. Do you know where
+she is or what she is doing?"
+
+"I do not. But likely she will be along soon. I must go help Billy with
+the night work. Good-bye, Katharine. Thank the Lord you have come to
+yourself at last!"
+
+They shook hands and Wesley went down the road while Mrs. Comstock
+entered the cabin. She could not swallow food. She stood in the back
+door watching the sky for moths, but they did not seem to be very
+numerous. Her spirits sank and she breathed unevenly. Then she heard the
+front screen. She reached the middle door as Elnora touched the foot of
+the stairs.
+
+"Hurry, and get ready, Elnora," she said. "Your supper is almost spoiled
+now."
+
+Elnora closed the stair door behind her, and for the first time in her
+life, threw the heavy lever which barred out anyone from down stairs.
+Mrs. Comstock heard the thud, and knew what it meant. She reeled
+slightly and caught the doorpost for support. For a few minutes she
+clung there, then sank to the nearest chair. After a long time she arose
+and stumbling half blindly, she put the food in the cupboard and covered
+the table. She took the lamp in one hand, the butter in the other, and
+started to the spring house. Something brushed close by her face, and
+she looked just in time to see a winged creature rise above the cabin
+and sail away.
+
+"That was a night bird," she muttered. As she stopped to set the butter
+in the water, came another thought. "Perhaps it was a moth!" Mrs.
+Comstock dropped the butter and hurried out with the lamp; she held it
+high above her head and waited until her arms ached. Small insects of
+night gathered, and at last a little dusty miller, but nothing came of
+any size.
+
+"I must go where they are, if I get them," muttered Mrs. Comstock.
+
+She went to the barn after the stout pair of high boots she used in
+feeding stock in deep snow. Throwing these beside the back door she
+climbed to the loft over the spring house, and hunted an old lard oil
+lantern and one of first manufacture for oil. Both these she cleaned and
+filled. She listened until everything up stairs had been still for over
+half an hour. By that time it was past eleven o'clock. Then she took the
+lantern from the kitchen, the two old ones, a handful of matches, a ball
+of twine, and went from the cabin, softly closing the door.
+
+Sitting on the back steps, she put on the boots, and then stood gazing
+into the perfumed June night, first in the direction of the woods on her
+land, then toward the Limberlost. Its outline was so dark and forbidding
+she shuddered and went down the garden, following the path toward the
+woods, but as she neared the pool her knees wavered and her courage
+fled. The knowledge that in her soul she was now glad Robert Comstock
+was at the bottom of it made a coward of her, who fearlessly had mourned
+him there, nights untold. She could not go on. She skirted the back of
+the garden, crossed a field, and came out on the road. Soon she reached
+the Limberlost. She hunted until she found the old trail, then followed
+it stumbling over logs and through clinging vines and grasses. The heavy
+boots clumped on her feet, overhanging branches whipped her face and
+pulled her hair. But her eyes were on the sky as she went straining into
+the night, hoping to find signs of a living creature on wing.
+
+By and by she began to see the wavering flight of something she thought
+near the right size. She had no idea where she was, but she stopped,
+lighted a lantern and hung it as high as she could reach. A little
+distance away she placed the second and then the third. The objects
+came nearer and sick with disappointment she saw that they were bats.
+Crouching in the damp swamp grasses, without a thought of snakes or
+venomous insects, she waited, her eyes roving from lantern to lantern.
+Once she thought a creature of high flight dropped near the lard oil
+light, so she arose breathlessly waiting, but either it passed or it was
+an illusion. She glanced at the old lantern, then at the new, and was on
+her feet in an instant creeping close. Something large as a small bird
+was fluttering around. Mrs. Comstock began to perspire, while her hand
+shook wildly. Closer she crept and just as she reached for it, something
+similar swept past and both flew away together.
+
+Mrs. Comstock set her teeth and stood shivering. For a long time the
+locusts rasped, the whip-poor-wills cried and a steady hum of night life
+throbbed in her ears. Away in the sky she saw something coming when it
+was no larger than a falling leaf. Straight toward the light it flew.
+Mrs. Comstock began to pray aloud.
+
+"This way, O Lord! Make it come this way! Please! O Lord, send it
+lower!"
+
+The moth hesitated at the first light, then slowly, easily it came
+toward the second, as if following a path of air. It touched a leaf near
+the lantern and settled. As Mrs. Comstock reached for it a thin yellow
+spray wet her hand and the surrounding leaves. When its wings raised
+above its back, her fingers came together. She held the moth to the
+light. It was nearer brown than yellow, and she remembered having seen
+some like it in the boxes that afternoon. It was not the one needed to
+complete the collection, but Elnora might want it, so Mrs. Comstock held
+on. Then the Almighty was kind, or nature was sufficient, as you look
+at it, for following the law of its being when disturbed, the moth
+again threw the spray by which some suppose it attracts its kind, and
+liberally sprinkled Mrs. Comstock's dress front and arms. From that
+instant, she became the best moth bait ever invented. Every Polyphemus
+in range hastened to her, and other fluttering creatures of night
+followed. The influx came her way. She snatched wildly here and there
+until she had one in each hand and no place to put them. She could
+see more coming, and her aching heart, swollen with the strain of long
+excitement, hurt pitifully. She prayed in broken exclamations that did
+not always sound reverent, but never was human soul in more intense
+earnest.
+
+Moths were coming. She had one in each hand. They were not yellow, and
+she did not know what to do. She glanced around to try to discover some
+way to keep what she had, and her throbbing heart stopped and every
+muscle stiffened. There was the dim outline of a crouching figure not
+two yards away, and a pair of eyes their owner thought hidden, caught
+the light in a cold stream. Her first impulse was to scream and fly for
+life. Before her lips could open a big moth alighted on her breast while
+she felt another walking over her hair. All sense of caution deserted
+her. She did not care to live if she could not replace the yellow moth
+she had killed. She turned her eyes to those among the leaves.
+
+"Here, you!" she cried hoarsely. "I need you! Get yourself out here, and
+help me. These critters are going to get away from me. Hustle!"
+
+Pete Corson parted the bushes and stepped into the light.
+
+"Oh, it's you!" said Mrs. Comstock. "I might have known! But you gave
+me a start. Here, hold these until I make some sort of bag for them. Go
+easy! If you break them I don't guarantee what will happen to you!"
+
+"Pretty fierce, ain't you!" laughed Pete, but he advanced and held out
+his hands. "For Elnora, I s'pose?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Comstock. "In a mad fit, I trampled one this morning,
+and by the luck of the old boy himself it was the last moth she needed
+to complete a collection. I got to get another one or die."
+
+"Then I guess it's your funeral," said Pete. "There ain't a chance in a
+dozen the right one will come. What colour was it?"
+
+"Yellow, and big as a bird."
+
+"The Emperor, likely," said Pete. "You dig for that kind, and they are
+not numerous, so's 'at you can smash 'em for fun."
+
+"Well, I can try to get one, anyway," said Mrs. Comstock. "I forgot all
+about bringing anything to put them in. You take a pinch on their wings
+until I make a poke."
+
+Mrs. Comstock removed her apron, tearing off the strings. She unfastened
+and stepped from the skirt of her calico dress. With one apron string
+she tied shut the band and placket. She pulled a wire pin from her
+hair, stuck it through the other string, and using it as a bodkin ran
+it around the hem of her skirt, so shortly she had a large bag. She put
+several branches inside to which the moths could cling, closed the mouth
+partially and held it toward Pete.
+
+"Put your hand well down and let the things go!" she ordered. "But be
+careful, man! Don't run into the twigs! Easy! That's one. Now the other.
+Is the one on my head gone? There was one on my dress, but I guess it
+flew. Here comes a kind of a gray-looking one."
+
+Pete slipped several more moths into the bag.
+
+"Now, that's five, Mrs. Comstock," he said. "I'm sorry, but you'll have
+to make that do. You must get out of here lively. Your lights will be
+taken for hurry calls, and inside the next hour a couple of men will
+ride here like fury. They won't be nice Sunday-school men, and they
+won't hold bags and catch moths for you. You must go quick!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock laid down the bag and pulled one of the lanterns lower.
+
+"I won't budge a step," she said. "This land doesn't belong to you.
+You have no right to order me off it. Here I stay until I get a Yellow
+Emperor, and no little petering thieves of this neighbourhood can scare
+me away."
+
+"You don't understand," said Pete. "I'm willing to help Elnora, and I'd
+take care of you, if I could, but there will be too many for me, and
+they will be mad at being called out for nothing."
+
+"Well, who's calling them out?" demanded Mrs. Comstock. "I'm catching
+moths. If a lot of good-for-nothings get fooled into losing some sleep,
+why let them, they can't hurt me, or stop my work."
+
+"They can, and they'll do both."
+
+"Well, I'll see them do it!" said Mrs. Comstock. "I've got Robert's
+revolver in my dress, and I can shoot as straight as any man, if I'm
+mad enough. Any one who interferes with me to-night will find me mad
+a-plenty. There goes another!"
+
+She stepped into the light and waited until a big brown moth settled
+on her and was easily taken. Then in light, airy flight came a delicate
+pale green thing, and Mrs. Comstock started in pursuit. But the scent
+was not right. The moth fluttered high, then dropped lower, still lower,
+and sailed away. With outstretched hands Mrs. Comstock pursued it. She
+hurried one way and another, then ran over an object which tripped her
+and she fell. She regained her feet in an instant, but she had lost
+sight of the moth. With livid face she turned to the crouching man.
+
+"You nasty, sneaking son of Satan!" she cried. "Why are you hiding
+there? You made me lose the one I wanted most of any I've had a chance
+at yet. Get out of here! Go this minute, or I'll fill your worthless
+carcass so full of holes you'll do to sift cornmeal. Go, I say! I'm
+using the Limberlost to-night, and I won't be stopped by the devil
+himself! Cut like fury, and tell the rest of them they can just go home.
+Pete is going to help me, and he is all of you I need. Now go!"
+
+The man turned and went. Pete leaned against a tree, held his mouth shut
+and shook inwardly. Mrs. Comstock came back panting.
+
+"The old scoundrel made me lose that!" she said. "If any one else comes
+snooping around here I'll just blow them up to start with. I haven't
+time to talk. Suppose that had been yellow! I'd have killed that man,
+sure! The Limberlost isn't safe to-night, and the sooner those whelps
+find it out, the better it will be for them."
+
+Pete stopped laughing to look at her. He saw that she was speaking the
+truth. She was quite past reason, sense, or fear. The soft night air
+stirred the wet hair around her temples, the flickering lanterns made
+her face a ghastly green. She would stop at nothing, that was evident.
+Pete suddenly began catching moths with exemplary industry. In putting
+one into the bag, another escaped.
+
+"We must not try that again," said Mrs. Comstock. "Now, what will we
+do?"
+
+"We are close to the old case," said Pete. "I think I can get into it.
+Maybe we could slip the rest in there."
+
+"That's a fine idea!" said Mrs. Comstock. "They'll have so much room
+there they won't be likely to hurt themselves, and the books say they
+don't fly in daytime unless they are disturbed, so they will settle when
+it's light, and I can come with Elnora to get them."
+
+They captured two more, and then Pete carried them to the case.
+
+"Here comes a big one!" he cried as he returned.
+
+Mrs. Comstock looked up and stepped out with a prayer on her lips.
+She could not tell the colour at that distance, but the moth appeared
+different from the others. On it came, dropping lower and darting from
+light to light. As it swept near her, "O Heavenly Father!" exulted Mrs.
+Comstock, "it's yellow! Careful Pete! Your hat, maybe!"
+
+Pete made a long sweep. The moth wavered above the hat and sailed
+away. Mrs. Comstock leaned against a tree and covered her face with her
+shaking hands.
+
+"That is my punishment!" she cried. "Oh, Lord, if you will give a moth
+like that into my possession, I'll always be a better woman!"
+
+The Emperor again came in sight. Pete stood tense and ready. Mrs.
+Comstock stepped into the light and watched the moth's course. Then a
+second appeared in pursuit of the first. The larger one wavered into the
+radius of light once more. The perspiration rolled down the man's face.
+He half lifted the hat.
+
+"Pray, woman! Pray now!" he panted.
+
+"I guess I best get over by that lard oil light and go to work,"
+breathed Mrs. Comstock. "The Lord knows this is all in prayer, but it's
+no time for words just now. Ready, Pete! You are going to get a chance
+first!"
+
+Pete made another long, steady sweep, but the moth darted beneath the
+hat. In its flight it came straight toward Mrs. Comstock. She snatched
+off the remnant of apron she had tucked into her petticoat band and held
+the calico before her. The moth struck full against it and clung to the
+goods. Pete crept up stealthily. The second moth followed the first, and
+the spray showered the apron.
+
+"Wait!" gasped Mrs. Comstock. "I think they have settled. The books say
+they won't leave now."
+
+The big pale yellow creature clung firmly, lowering and raising its
+wings. The other came nearer. Mrs. Comstock held the cloth with rigid
+hands, while Pete could hear her breathing in short gusts.
+
+"Shall I try now?" he implored.
+
+"Wait!" whispered the woman. "Something seems to say wait!"
+
+The night breeze stiffened and gently waved the apron. Locusts rasped,
+mosquitoes hummed and frogs sang uninterruptedly. A musky odour slowly
+filled the air.
+
+"Now shall I?" questioned Pete.
+
+"No. Leave them alone. They are safe now. They are mine. They are my
+salvation. God and the Limberlost gave them to me! They won't move for
+hours. The books all say so. O Heavenly Father, I am thankful to You,
+and you, too, Pete Corson! You are a good man to help me. Now, I can go
+home and face my girl."
+
+Instead, Mrs. Comstock dropped suddenly. She spread the apron across
+her knees. The moths remained undisturbed. Then her tired white head
+dropped, the tears she had thought forever dried gushed forth, and she
+sobbed for pure joy.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't do that now, you know!" comforted Pete. "Think of
+getting two! That's more than you ever could have expected. A body would
+think you would cry, if you hadn't got any. Come on, now. It's almost
+morning. Let me help you home."
+
+Pete took the bag and the two old lanterns. Mrs. Comstock carried her
+moths and the best lantern and went ahead to light the way.
+
+Elnora had sat beside her window far into the night. At last she
+undressed and went to bed, but sleep would not come. She had gone to
+the city to talk with members of the School Board about a room in the
+grades. There was a possibility that she might secure the moth, and
+so be able to start to college that fall, but if she did not, then she
+wanted the school. She had been given some encouragement, but she was
+so unhappy that nothing mattered. She could not see the way open to
+anything in life, save a long series of disappointments, while she
+remained with her mother. Yet Margaret Sinton had advised her to go home
+and try once more. Margaret had seemed so sure there would be a change
+for the better, that Elnora had consented, although she had no hope
+herself. So strong is the bond of blood, she could not make up her mind
+to seek a home elsewhere, even after the day that had passed. Unable to
+sleep she arose at last, and the room being warm, she sat on the floor
+close the window. The lights in the swamp caught her eye. She was very
+uneasy, for quite a hundred of her best moths were in the case. However,
+there was no money, and no one ever had touched a book or any of her
+apparatus. Watching the lights set her thinking, and before she realized
+it, she was in a panic of fear.
+
+She hurried down the stairway softly calling her mother. There was no
+answer. She lightly stepped across the sitting-room and looked in at the
+open door. There was no one, and the bed had not been used. Her first
+thought was that her mother had gone to the pool; and the Limberlost was
+alive with signals. Pity and fear mingled in the heart of the girl. She
+opened the kitchen door, crossed the garden and ran back to the swamp.
+As she neared it she listened, but she could hear only the usual voices
+of night.
+
+"Mother!" she called softly. Then louder, "Mother!"
+
+There was not a sound. Chilled with fright she hurried back to the
+cabin. She did not know what to do. She understood what the lights in
+the Limberlost meant. Where was her mother? She was afraid to enter,
+while she was growing very cold and still more fearful about remaining
+outside. At last she went to her mother's room, picked up the gun,
+carried it into the kitchen, and crowding in a little corner behind the
+stove, she waited in trembling anxiety. The time was dreadfully long
+before she heard her mother's voice. Then she decided some one had been
+ill and sent for her, so she took courage, and stepping swiftly across
+the kitchen she unbarred the door and drew back from sight beside the
+table.
+
+Mrs. Comstock entered dragging her heavy feet. Her dress skirt was gone,
+her petticoat wet and drabbled, and the waist of her dress was almost
+torn from her body. Her hair hung in damp strings; her eyes were red
+with crying. In one hand she held the lantern, and in the other stiffly
+extended before her, on a wad of calico reposed a magnificent pair of
+Yellow Emperors. Elnora stared, her lips parted.
+
+"Shall I put these others in the kitchen?" inquired a man's voice.
+
+The girl shrank back to the shadows.
+
+"Yes, anywhere inside the door," replied Mrs. Comstock as she moved a
+few steps to make way for him. Pete's head appeared. He set down the
+moths and was gone.
+
+"Thank you, Pete, more than ever woman thanked you before!" said Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+She placed the lantern on the table and barred the door. As she turned
+Elnora came into view. Mrs. Comstock leaned toward her, and held out
+the moths. In a voice vibrant with tones never before heard she said:
+"Elnora, my girl, mother's found you another moth!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+WHEREIN MOTHER LOVE IS BESTOWED ON ELNORA, AND SHE FINDS AN ASSISTANT IN
+MOTH HUNTING
+
+
+Elnora awoke at dawn and lay gazing around the unfamiliar room. She
+noticed that every vestige of masculine attire and belongings was gone,
+and knew, without any explanation, what that meant. For some reason
+every tangible evidence of her father was banished, and she was at last
+to be allowed to take his place. She turned to look at her mother. Mrs.
+Comstock's face was white and haggard, but on it rested an expression of
+profound peace Elnora never before had seen. As she studied the features
+on the pillow beside her, the heart of the girl throbbed in tenderness.
+She realized as fully as any one else could what her mother had
+suffered. Thoughts of the night brought shuddering fear. She softly
+slipped from the bed, went to her room, dressed and entered the kitchen
+to attend the Emperors and prepare breakfast. The pair had been left
+clinging to the piece of calico. The calico was there and a few pieces
+of beautiful wing. A mouse had eaten the moths!
+
+"Well, of all the horrible luck!" gasped Elnora.
+
+With the first thought of her mother, she caught up the remnants of the
+moths, burying them in the ashes of the stove. She took the bag to her
+room, hurriedly releasing its contents, but there was not another yellow
+one. Her mother had said some had been confined in the case in the
+Limberlost. There was still a hope that an Emperor might be among them.
+She peeped at her mother, who still slept soundly.
+
+Elnora took a large piece of mosquito netting, and ran to the swamp.
+Throwing it over the top of the case, she unlocked the door. She reeled,
+faint with distress. The living moths that had been confined there in
+their fluttering to escape to night and the mates they sought not only
+had wrecked the other specimens of the case, but torn themselves to
+fringes on the pins. A third of the rarest moths of the collection
+for the man of India were antennaless, legless, wingless, and often
+headless. Elnora sobbed aloud.
+
+"This is overwhelming," she said at last. "It is making a fatalist of
+me. I am beginning to think things happen as they are ordained from the
+beginning, this plainly indicating that there is to be no college, at
+least, this year, for me. My life is all mountain-top or canon. I wish
+some one would lead me into a few days of 'green pastures.' Last night I
+went to sleep on mother's arm, the moths all secured, love and college,
+certainties. This morning I wake to find all my hopes wrecked. I simply
+don't dare let mother know that instead of helping me, she has ruined
+my collection. Everything is gone--unless the love lasts. That actually
+seemed true. I believe I will go see."
+
+The love remained. Indeed, in the overflow of the long-hardened, pent-up
+heart, the girl was almost suffocated with tempestuous caresses and
+generous offerings. Before the day was over, Elnora realized that she
+never had known her mother. The woman who now busily went through
+the cabin, her eyes bright, eager, alert, constantly planning, was a
+stranger. Her very face was different, while it did not seem possible
+that during one night the acid of twenty years could disappear from a
+voice and leave it sweet and pleasant.
+
+For the next few days Elnora worked at mounting the moths her mother had
+taken. She had to go to the Bird Woman and tell about the disaster, but
+Mrs. Comstock was allowed to think that Elnora delivered the moths
+when she made the trip. If she had told her what actually happened, the
+chances were that Mrs. Comstock again would have taken possession of the
+Limberlost, hunting there until she replaced all the moths that had been
+destroyed. But Elnora knew from experience what it meant to collect such
+a list in pairs. It would require steady work for at least two summers
+to replace the lost moths. When she left the Bird Woman she went to the
+president of the Onabasha schools and asked him to do all in his power
+to secure her a room in one of the ward buildings.
+
+The next morning the last moth was mounted, and the housework finished.
+Elnora said to her mother, "If you don't mind, I believe I will go into
+the woods pasture beside Sleepy Snake Creek and see if I can catch some
+dragonflies or moths."
+
+"Wait until I get a knife and a pail and I will go along," answered Mrs.
+Comstock. "The dandelions are plenty tender for greens among the deep
+grasses, and I might just happen to see something myself. My eyes are
+pretty sharp."
+
+"I wish you could realize how young you are," said Elnora. "I know women
+in Onabasha who are ten years older than you, yet they look twenty years
+younger. So could you, if you would dress your hair becomingly, and wear
+appropriate clothes."
+
+"I think my hair puts me in the old woman class permanently," said Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+"Well, it doesn't!" cried Elnora. "There is a woman of twenty-eight who
+has hair as white as yours from sick headaches, but her face is young
+and beautiful. If your face would grow a little fuller and those lines
+would go away, you'd be lovely!"
+
+"You little pig!" laughed Mrs. Comstock. "Any one would think you would
+be satisfied with having a splinter new mother, without setting up a
+kick on her looks, first thing. Greedy!"
+
+"That is a good word," said Elnora. "I admit the charge. I am greedy
+over every wasted year. I want you young, lovely, suitably dressed and
+enjoying life like the other girls' mothers."
+
+Mrs. Comstock laughed softly as she pushed back her sunbonnet so that
+shrubs and bushes beside the way could be scanned closely. Elnora walked
+ahead with a case over her shoulder, a net in her hand. Her head was
+bare, the rolling collar of her lavender gingham dress was cut in a V
+at the throat, the sleeves only reached the elbows. Every few steps she
+paused and examined the shrubbery carefully, while Mrs. Comstock was
+watching until her eyes ached, but there were no dandelions in the pail
+she carried.
+
+Early June was rioting in fresh grasses, bright flowers, bird songs, and
+gay-winged creatures of air. Down the footpath the two went through the
+perfect morning, the love of God and all nature in their hearts. At
+last they reached the creek, following it toward the bridge. Here Mrs.
+Comstock found a large bed of tender dandelions and stopped to fill
+her pail. Then she sat on the bank, picking over the greens, while she
+listened to the creek softly singing its June song.
+
+Elnora remained within calling distance, and was having good success. At
+last she crossed the creek, following it up to a bridge. There she began
+a careful examination of the under sides of the sleepers and flooring
+for cocoons. Mrs. Comstock could see her and the creek for several rods
+above. The mother sat beating the long green leaves across her hand,
+carefully picking out the white buds, because Elnora liked them, when a
+splash up the creek attracted her attention.
+
+Around the bend came a man. He was bareheaded, dressed in a white
+sweater, and waders which reached his waist. He walked on the bank, only
+entering the water when forced. He had a queer basket strapped on his
+hip, and with a small rod he sent a long line spinning before him down
+the creek, deftly manipulating with it a little floating object. He was
+closer Elnora than her mother, but Mrs. Comstock thought possibly by
+hurrying she could remain unseen and yet warn the girl that a stranger
+was coming. As she approached the bridge, she caught a sapling and
+leaned over the water to call Elnora. With her lips parted to speak she
+hesitated a second to watch a sort of insect that flashed past on the
+water, when a splash from the man attracted the girl.
+
+She was under the bridge, one knee planted in the embankment and a foot
+braced to support her. Her hair was tousled by wind and bushes, her face
+flushed, and she lifted her arms above her head, working to loosen a
+cocoon she had found. The call Mrs. Comstock had intended to utter never
+found voice, for as Elnora looked down at the sound, "Possibly I could
+get that for you," suggested the man.
+
+Mrs. Comstock drew back. He was a young man with a wonderfully
+attractive face, although it was too white for robust health, broad
+shoulders, and slender, upright frame.
+
+"Oh, I do hope you can!" answered Elnora. "It's quite a find! It's one
+of those lovely pale red cocoons described in the books. I suspect it
+comes from having been in a dark place and screened from the weather."
+
+"Is that so?" cried the man. "Wait a minute. I've never seen one. I
+suppose it's a Cecropia, from the location."
+
+"Of course," said Elnora. "It's so cool here the moth hasn't emerged.
+The cocoon is a big, baggy one, and it is as red as fox tail."
+
+"What luck!" he cried. "Are you making a collection?"
+
+He reeled in his line, laid his rod across a bush and climbed the
+embankment to Elnora's side, produced a knife and began the work of
+whittling a deep groove around the cocoon.
+
+"Yes. I paid my way through the high school in Onabasha with them. Now I
+am starting a collection which means college."
+
+"Onabasha!" said the man. "That is where I am visiting. Possibly you
+know my people--Dr. Ammon's? The doctor is my uncle. My home is in
+Chicago. I've been having typhoid fever, something fierce. In the
+hospital six weeks. Didn't gain strength right, so Uncle Doc sent for
+me. I am to live out of doors all summer, and exercise until I get in
+condition again. Do you know my uncle?"
+
+"Yes. He is Aunt Margaret's doctor, and he would be ours, only we are
+never ill."
+
+"Well, you look it!" said the man, appraising Elnora at a glance.
+
+"Strangers always mention it," sighed Elnora. "I wonder how it would
+seem to be a pale, languid lady and ride in a carriage."
+
+"Ask me!" laughed the man. "It feels like the--dickens! I'm so proud of
+my feet. It's quite a trick to stand on them now. I have to keep out
+of the water all I can and stop to baby every half-mile. But with
+interesting outdoor work I'll be myself in a week."
+
+"Do you call that work?" Elnora indicated the creek.
+
+"I do, indeed! Nearly three miles, banks too soft to brag on and never a
+strike. Wouldn't you call that hard labour?"
+
+"Yes," laughed Elnora. "Work at which you might kill yourself and
+never get a fish. Did any one tell you there were trout in Sleepy Snake
+Creek?"
+
+"Uncle said I could try."
+
+"Oh, you can," said Elnora. "You can try no end, but you'll never get
+a trout. This is too far south and too warm for them. If you sit on the
+bank and use worms you might catch some perch or catfish."
+
+"But that isn't exercise."
+
+"Well, if you only want exercise, go right on fishing. You will have a
+creel full of invisible results every night."
+
+"I object," said the man emphatically. He stopped work again and studied
+Elnora. Even the watching mother could not blame him. In the shade of
+the bridge Elnora's bright head and her lavender dress made a picture
+worthy of much contemplation.
+
+"I object!" repeated the man. "When I work I want to see results. I'd
+rather exercise sawing wood, making one pile grow little and the other
+big than to cast all day and catch nothing because there is not a fish
+to take. Work for work's sake doesn't appeal to me."
+
+He digged the groove around the cocoon with skilled hand. "Now there is
+some fun in this!" he said. "It's going to be a fair job to cut it out,
+but when it comes, it is not only beautiful, but worth a price; it will
+help you on your way. I think I'll put up my rod and hunt moths. That
+would be something like! Don't you want help?"
+
+Elnora parried the question. "Have you ever hunted moths, Mr. Ammon?"
+
+"Enough to know the ropes in taking them and to distinguish the
+commonest ones. I go wild on Catocalae. There's too many of them, all
+too much alike for Philip, but I know all these fellows. One flew into
+my room when I was about ten years old, and we thought it a miracle.
+None of us ever had seen one so we took it over to the museum to Dr.
+Dorsey. He said they were common enough, but we didn't see them because
+they flew at night. He showed me the museum collection, and I was so
+interested I took mine back home and started to hunt them. Every year
+after that we went to our cottage a month earlier, so I could find them,
+and all my family helped. I stuck to it until I went to college. Then,
+keeping the little moths out of the big ones was too much for the mater,
+so father advised that I donate mine to the museum. He bought a fine
+case for them with my name on it, which constitutes my sole contribution
+to science. I know enough to help you all right."
+
+"Aren't you going north this year?"
+
+"All depends on how this fever leaves me. Uncle says the nights are too
+cold and the days too hot there for me. He thinks I had better stay in
+an even temperature until I am strong again. I am going to stick pretty
+close to him until I know I am. I wouldn't admit it to any one at home,
+but I was almost gone. I don't believe anything can eat up nerve much
+faster than the burning of a slow fever. No, thanks, I have enough. I
+stay with Uncle Doc, so if I feel it coming again he can do something
+quickly."
+
+"I don't blame you," said Elnora. "I never have been sick, but it must
+be dreadful. I am afraid you are tiring yourself over that. Let me take
+the knife awhile."
+
+"Oh, it isn't so bad as that! I wouldn't be wading creeks if it were. I
+only need a few more days to get steady on my feet again. I'll soon have
+this out."
+
+"It is kind of you to get it," said Elnora. "I should have had to peel
+it, which would spoil the cocoon for a' specimen and ruin the moth."
+
+"You haven't said yet whether I may help you while I am here."
+
+Elnora hesitated.
+
+"You better say 'yes,'" he persisted. "It would be a real kindness. It
+would keep me outdoors all day and give an incentive to work. I'm
+good at it. I'll show you if I am not in a week or so. I can 'sugar,'
+manipulate lights, and mirrors, and all the expert methods. I'll wager,
+moths are numerous in the old swamp over there."
+
+"They are," said Elnora. "Most I have I took there. A few nights ago my
+mother caught a number, but we don't dare go alone."
+
+"All the more reason why you need me. Where do you live? I can't get an
+answer from you, I'll go tell your mother who I am and ask her if I
+may help you. I warn you, young lady, I have a very effective way with
+mothers. They almost never turn me down."
+
+"Then it's probable you will have a new experience when you meet mine,"
+said Elnora. "She never was known to do what any one expected she surely
+would."
+
+The cocoon came loose. Philip Ammon stepped down the embankment turning
+to offer his hand to Elnora. She ran down as she would have done alone,
+and taking the cocoon turned it end for end to learn if the imago it
+contained were alive. Then Ammon took back the cocoon to smooth the
+edges. Mrs. Comstock gave them one long look as they stood there, and
+returned to her dandelions. While she worked she paused occasionally,
+listening intently. Presently they came down the creek, the man carrying
+the cocoon as if it were a jewel, while Elnora made her way along the
+bank, taking a lesson in casting. Her face was flushed with excitement,
+her eyes shining, the bushes taking liberties with her hair. For a
+picture of perfect loveliness she scarcely could have been surpassed,
+and the eyes of Philip Ammon seemed to be in working order.
+
+"Moth-er!" called Elnora.
+
+There was an undulant, caressing sweetness in the girl's voice, as she
+sung out the call in perfect confidence that it would bring a loving
+answer, that struck deep in Mrs. Comstock's heart. She never had heard
+that word so pronounced before and a lump arose in her throat.
+
+"Here!" she answered, still cleaning dandelions.
+
+"Mother, this is Mr. Philip Ammon, of Chicago," said Elnora. "He has
+been ill and he is staying with Dr. Ammon in Onabasha. He came down the
+creek fishing and cut this cocoon from under the bridge for me. He feels
+that it would be better to hunt moths than to fish, until he is well.
+What do you think about it?"
+
+Philip Ammon extended his hand. "I am glad to know you," he said.
+
+"You may take the hand-shaking for granted," replied Mrs. Comstock.
+"Dandelions have a way of making fingers sticky, and I like to know
+a man before I take his hand, anyway. That introduction seems mighty
+comprehensive on your part, but it still leaves me unclassified. My name
+is Comstock."
+
+Philip Ammon bowed.
+
+"I am sorry to hear you have been sick," said Mrs. Comstock. "But if
+people will live where they have such vile water as they do in Chicago,
+I don't see what else they are to expect."
+
+Philip studied her intently.
+
+"I am sure I didn't have a fever on purpose," he said.
+
+"You do seem a little wobbly on your legs," she observed. "Maybe you
+had better sit and rest while I finish these greens. It's late for
+the genuine article, but in the shade, among long grass they are still
+tender."
+
+"May I have a leaf?" he asked, reaching for one as he sat on the bank,
+looking from the little creek at his feet, away through the dim cool
+spaces of the June forest on the opposite side. He drew a deep breath.
+"Glory, but this is good after almost two months inside hospital walls!"
+
+He stretched on the grass and lay gazing up at the leaves, occasionally
+asking the interpretation of a bird note or the origin of an unfamiliar
+forest voice. Elnora began helping with the dandelions.
+
+"Another, please," said the young man, holding out his hand.
+
+"Do you suppose this is the kind of grass Nebuchadnezzar ate?" Elnora
+asked, giving the leaf.
+
+"He knew a good thing if it is."
+
+"Oh, you should taste dandelions boiled with bacon and served with
+mother's cornbread."
+
+"Don't! My appetite is twice my size now. While it is--how far is it to
+Onabasha, shortest cut?"
+
+"Three miles."
+
+The man lay in perfect content, nibbling leaves.
+
+"This surely is a treat," he said. "No wonder you find good hunting
+here. There seems to be foliage for almost every kind of caterpillar.
+But I suppose you have to exchange for northern species and Pacific
+Coast kinds?"
+
+"Yes. And every one wants Regalis in trade. I never saw the like. They
+consider a Cecropia or a Polyphemus an insult, and a Luna is barely
+acceptable."
+
+"What authorities have you?"
+
+Elnora began to name text-books which started a discussion. Mrs.
+Comstock listened. She cleaned dandelions with greater deliberation than
+they ever before were examined. In reality she was taking stock of the
+young man's long, well-proportioned frame, his strong hands, his smooth,
+fine-textured skin, his thick shock of dark hair, and making mental
+notes of his simple manly speech and the fact that he evidently did
+know much about moths. It pleased her to think that if he had been a
+neighbour boy who had lain beside her every day of his life while she
+worked, he could have been no more at home. She liked the things he
+said, but she was proud that Elnora had a ready answer which always
+seemed appropriate.
+
+At last Mrs. Comstock finished the greens.
+
+"You are three miles from the city and less than a mile from where we
+live," she said. "If you will tell me what you dare eat, I suspect you
+had best go home with us and rest until the cool of the day before you
+start back. Probably some one that you can ride in with will be passing
+before evening."
+
+"That is mighty kind of you," said Philip. "I think I will. It doesn't
+matter so much what I eat, the point is that I must be moderate. I am
+hungry all the time."
+
+"Then we will go," said Mrs. Comstock, "and we will not allow you to
+make yourself sick with us."
+
+Philip Ammon arose: picking up the pail of greens and his fishing rod,
+he stood waiting. Elnora led the way. Mrs. Comstock motioned Philip to
+follow and she walked in the rear. The girl carried the cocoon and the
+box of moths she had taken, searching every step for more. The young man
+frequently set down his load to join in the pursuit of a dragonfly or
+moth, while Mrs. Comstock watched the proceedings with sharp eyes. Every
+time Philip picked up the pail of greens she struggled to suppress a
+smile.
+
+Elnora proceeded slowly, chattering about everything beside the trail.
+Philip was interested in all the objects she pointed out, noticing
+several things which escaped her. He carried the greens as casually
+when they took a short cut down the roadway as on the trail. When Elnora
+turned toward the gate of her home Philip Ammon stopped, took a long
+look at the big hewed log cabin, the vines which clambered over it,
+the flower garden ablaze with beds of bright bloom interspersed with
+strawberries and tomatoes, the trees of the forest rising north and west
+like a green wall and exclaimed: "How beautiful!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock was pleased. "If you think that," she said, "perhaps you
+will understand how, in all this present-day rush to be modern, I have
+preferred to remain as I began. My husband and I took up this land, and
+enough trees to build the cabin, stable, and outbuildings are nearly all
+we ever cut. Of course, if he had lived, I suppose we should have kept
+up with our neighbours. I hear considerable about the value of the land,
+the trees which are on it, and the oil which is supposed to be under it,
+but as yet I haven't brought myself to change anything. So we stand for
+one of the few remaining homes of first settlers in this region. Come
+in. You are very welcome to what we have."
+
+Mrs. Comstock stepped forward and took the lead. She had a bowl of
+soft water and a pair of boots to offer for the heavy waders, for outer
+comfort, a glass of cold buttermilk and a bench on which to rest, in
+the circular arbour until dinner was ready. Philip Ammon splashed in
+the water. He followed to the stable and exchanged boots there. He was
+ravenous for the buttermilk, and when he stretched on the bench in the
+arbour the flickering patches of sunlight so tantalized his tired eyes,
+while the bees made such splendid music, he was soon sound asleep. When
+Elnora and her mother came out with a table they stood a short time
+looking at him. It is probable Mrs. Comstock voiced a united thought
+when she said: "What a refined, decent looking young man! How proud his
+mother must be of him! We must be careful what we let him eat."
+
+Then they returned to the kitchen where Mrs. Comstock proceeded to be
+careful. She broiled ham of her own sugar-curing, creamed potatoes,
+served asparagus on toast, and made a delicious strawberry shortcake.
+As she cooked dandelions with bacon, she feared to serve them to him, so
+she made an excuse that it took too long to prepare them, blanched some
+and made a salad. When everything was ready she touched Philip's sleeve.
+
+"Best have something to eat, lad, before you get too hungry," she said.
+
+"Please hurry!" he begged laughingly as he held a plate toward her to be
+filled. "I thought I had enough self-restraint to start out alone, but
+I see I was mistaken. If you would allow me, just now, I am afraid I
+should start a fever again. I never did smell food so good as this. It's
+mighty kind of you to take me in. I hope I will be man enough in a few
+days to do something worth while in return."
+
+Spots of sunshine fell on the white cloth and blue china, the bees and
+an occasional stray butterfly came searching for food. A rose-breasted
+grosbeak, released from a three hours' siege of brooding, while his
+independent mate took her bath and recreation, mounted the top branch of
+a maple in the west woods from which he serenaded the dinner party with
+a joyful chorus in celebration of his freedom. Philip's eyes strayed to
+the beautiful cabin, to the mixture of flowers and vegetables stretching
+down to the road, and to the singing bird with his red-splotched breast
+of white and he said: "I can't realize now that I ever lay in ice packs
+in a hospital. How I wish all the sick folks could come here to grow
+strong!"
+
+The grosbeak sang on, a big Turnus butterfly sailed through the arbour
+and poised over the table. Elnora held up a lump of sugar and the
+butterfly, clinging to her fingers, tasted daintily. With eager eyes and
+parted lips, the girl held steadily. When at last it wavered away, "That
+made a picture!" said Philip. "Ask me some other time how I lost my
+illusions concerning butterflies. I always thought of them in connection
+with sunshine, flower pollen, and fruit nectar, until one sad day."
+
+"I know!" laughed Elnora. "I've seen that, too, but it didn't destroy
+any illusion for me. I think quite as much of the butterflies as ever."
+
+Then they talked of flowers, moths, dragonflies, Indian relics, and all
+the natural wonders the swamp afforded, straying from those subjects
+to books and school work. When they cleared the table Philip assisted,
+carrying several tray loads to the kitchen. He and Elnora mounted
+specimens while Mrs Comstock washed the dishes. Then she came out with a
+ruffle she was embroidering.
+
+"I wonder if I did not see a picture of you in Onabasha last night,"
+Philip said to Elnora. "Aunt Anna took me to call on Miss Brownlee. She
+was showing me her crowd--of course, it was you! But it didn't half
+do you justice, although it was the nearest human of any of them. Miss
+Brownlee is very fond of you. She said the finest things."
+
+Then they talked of Commencement, and at last Philip said he must go or
+his friends would become anxious about him.
+
+Mrs. Comstock brought him a blue bowl of creamy milk and a plate of
+bread. She stopped a passing team and secured a ride to the city for
+him, as his exercise of the morning had been too violent, and he was
+forced to admit he was tired.
+
+"May I come to-morrow afternoon and hunt moths awhile?" he asked Mrs.
+Comstock as he arose. "We will 'sugar' a tree and put a light beside it,
+if I can get stuff to make the preparation. Possibly we can take some
+that way. I always enjoy moth hunting, I'd like to help Miss Elnora, and
+it would be a charity to me. I've got to remain outdoors some place, and
+I'm quite sure I'd get well faster here than anywhere else. Please say I
+may come."
+
+"I have no objections, if Elnora really would like help," said Mrs.
+Comstock.
+
+In her heart she wished he would not come. She wanted her newly found
+treasure all to herself, for a time, at least. But Elnora's were eager,
+shining eyes. She thought it would be splendid to have help, and great
+fun to try book methods for taking moths, so it was arranged. As Philip
+rode away, Mrs. Comstock's eyes followed him. "What a nice young man!"
+she said.
+
+"He seems fine," agreed Elnora.
+
+"He comes of a good family, too. I've often heard of his father. He is a
+great lawyer."
+
+"I am glad he likes it here. I need help. Possibly----"
+
+"Possibly what?"
+
+"We can find many moths."
+
+"What did he mean about the butterflies?"
+
+"That he always had connected them with sunshine, flowers, and fruits,
+and thought of them as the most exquisite of creations; then one day he
+found some clustering thickly over carrion."
+
+"Come to think of it, I have seen butterflies----"
+
+"So had he," laughed Elnora. "And that is what he meant."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+WHEREIN A NEW POSITION IS TENDERED ELNORA, AND PHILIP AMMON IS SHOWN
+LIMBERLOST VIOLETS
+
+
+The next morning Mrs. Comstock called to Elnora, "The mail carrier
+stopped at our box."
+
+Elnora ran down the walk and came back carrying an official letter. She
+tore it open and read:
+
+MY DEAR MISS COMSTOCK:
+
+At the weekly meeting of the Onabasha School Board last night, it was
+decided to add the position of Lecturer on Natural History to our corps
+of city teachers. It will be the duty of this person to spend two hours
+a week in each of the grade schools exhibiting and explaining specimens
+of the most prominent objects in nature: animals, birds, insects,
+flowers, vines, shrubs, bushes, and trees. These specimens and lectures
+should be appropriate to the seasons and the comprehension of the
+grades. This position was unanimously voted to you. I think you will
+find the work delightful and much easier than the routine grind of the
+other teachers. It is my advice that you accept and begin to prepare
+yourself at once. Your salary will be $750 a year, and you will be
+allowed $200 for expenses in procuring specimens and books. Let us know
+at once if you want the position, as it is going to be difficult to fill
+satisfactorily if you do not.
+
+Very truly yours,
+
+DAVID THOMPSON, President, Onabasha Schools.
+
+
+"I hardly understand," marvelled Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"It is a new position. They never have had anything like it before. I
+suspect it arose from the help I've been giving the grade teachers in
+their nature work. They are trying to teach the children something, and
+half the instructors don't know a blue jay from a king-fisher, a beech
+leaf from an elm, or a wasp from a hornet."
+
+"Well, do you?" anxiously inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Indeed, I do!" laughed Elnora, "and several other things beside. When
+Freckles bequeathed me the swamp, he gave me a bigger inheritance than
+he knew. While you have thought I was wandering aimlessly, I have been
+following a definite plan, studying hard, and storing up the stuff that
+will earn these seven hundred and fifty dollars. Mother dear, I am going
+to accept this, of course. The work will be a delight. I'd love it most
+of anything in teaching. You must help me. We must find nests, eggs,
+leaves, queer formations in plants and rare flowers. I must have flower
+boxes made for each of the rooms and filled with wild things. I should
+begin to gather specimens this very day."
+
+Elnora's face was flushed and her eyes bright.
+
+"Oh, what great work that will be!" she cried. "You must go with me so
+you can see the little faces when I tell them how the goldfinch builds
+its nest, and how the bees make honey."
+
+So Elnora and her mother went into the woods behind the cabin to study
+nature.
+
+"I think," said Elnora, "the idea is to begin with fall things in the
+fall, keeping to the seasons throughout the year."
+
+"What are fall things?" inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Oh, fringed gentians, asters, ironwort, every fall flower, leaves
+from every tree and vine, what makes them change colour, abandoned bird
+nests, winter quarters of caterpillars and insects, what becomes of the
+butterflies and grasshoppers--myriads of stuff. I shall have to be very
+wise to select the things it will be most beneficial for the children to
+learn."
+
+"Can I really help you?" Mrs. Comstock's strong face was pathetic.
+
+"Indeed, yes!" cried Elnora. "I never can get through it alone. There
+will be an immense amount of work connected with securing and preparing
+specimens."
+
+Mrs. Comstock lifted her head proudly and began doing business at once.
+Her sharp eyes ranged from earth to heaven. She investigated everything,
+asking innumerable questions. At noon Mrs. Comstock took the specimens
+they had collected, and went to prepare dinner, while Elnora followed
+the woods down to the Sintons' to show her letter.
+
+She had to explain what became of her moths, and why college would have
+to be abandoned for that year, but Margaret and Wesley vowed not to
+tell. Wesley waved the letter excitedly, explaining it to Margaret as
+if it were a personal possession. Margaret was deeply impressed, while
+Billy volunteered first aid in gathering material.
+
+"Now anything you want in the ground, Snap can dig it out," he said.
+"Uncle Wesley and I found a hole three times as big as Snap, that he dug
+at the roots of a tree."
+
+"We will train him to hunt pupae cases," said Elnora.
+
+"Are you going to the woods this afternoon?" asked Billy.
+
+"Yes," answered Elnora. "Dr. Ammon's nephew from Chicago is visiting in
+Onabasha. He is going to show me how men put some sort of compound on
+a tree, hang a light beside it, and take moths that way. It will be
+interesting to watch and learn."
+
+"May I come?" asked Billy.
+
+"Of course you may come!" answered Elnora.
+
+"Is this nephew of Dr. Ammon a young man?" inquired Margaret.
+
+"About twenty-six, I should think," said Elnora. "He said he had been
+out of college and at work in his father's law office three years."
+
+"Does he seem nice?" asked Margaret, and Wesley smiled.
+
+"Finest kind of a person," said Elnora. "He can teach me so much. It
+is very interesting to hear him talk. He knows considerable about moths
+that will be a help to me. He had a fever and he has to stay outdoors
+until he grows strong again."
+
+"Billy, I guess you better help me this afternoon," said Margaret.
+"Maybe Elnora had rather not bother with you."
+
+"There's no reason on earth why Billy should not come!" cried Elnora,
+and Wesley smiled again.
+
+"I must hurry home or I won't be ready," she added.
+
+Hastening down the road she entered the cabin, her face glowing.
+
+"I thought you never would come," said Mrs. Comstock. "If you don't
+hurry Mr. Ammon will be here before you are dressed."
+
+"I forgot about him until just now," said Elnora. "I am not going to
+dress. He's not coming to visit. We are only going to the woods for more
+specimens. I can't wear anything that requires care. The limbs take the
+most dreadful liberties with hair and clothing."
+
+Mrs. Comstock opened her lips, looked at Elnora and closed them. In her
+heart she was pleased that the girl was so interested in her work that
+she had forgotten Philip Ammon's coming. But it did seem to her that
+such a pleasant young man should have been greeted by a girl in a fresh
+dress. "If she isn't disposed to primp at the coming of a man, heaven
+forbid that I should be the one to start her," thought Mrs. Comstock.
+
+Philip came whistling down the walk between the cinnamon pinks, pansies,
+and strawberries. He carried several packages, while his face flushed
+with more colour than on the previous day.
+
+"Only see what has happened to me!" cried Elnora, offering her letter.
+
+"I'll wager I know!" answered Philip. "Isn't it great! Every one in
+Onabasha is talking about it. At last there is something new under the
+sun. All of them are pleased. They think you'll make a big success. This
+will give an incentive to work. In a few days more I'll be myself again,
+and we'll overturn the fields and woods around here."
+
+He went on to congratulate Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Aren't you proud of her, though?" he asked. "You should hear what folks
+are saying! They say she created the necessity for the position, and
+every one seems to feel that it is a necessity. Now, if she succeeds,
+and she will, all of the other city schools will have such departments,
+and first thing you know she will have made the whole world a little
+better. Let me rest a few seconds; my feet are acting up again. Then we
+will cook the moth compound and put it to cool."
+
+He laughed as he sat breathing shortly.
+
+"It doesn't seem possible that a fellow could lose his strength like
+this. My knees are actually trembling, but I'll be all right in a
+minute. Uncle Doc said I could come. I told him how you took care of me,
+and he said I would be safe here."
+
+Then he began unwrapping packages and explaining to Mrs. Comstock how
+to cook the compound to attract the moths. He followed her into the
+kitchen, kindled the fire, and stirred the preparation as he talked.
+While the mixture cooled, he and Elnora walked through the vegetable
+garden behind the cabin and strayed from there into the woods.
+
+"What about college?" he asked. "Miss Brownlee said you were going."
+
+"I had hoped to," replied Elnora, "but I had a streak of dreadful luck,
+so I'll have to wait until next year. If you won't speak of it, I'll
+tell you."
+
+Philip promised, so Elnora recited the history of the Yellow Emperor.
+She was so interested in doing the Emperor justice she did not notice
+how many personalities went into the story. A few pertinent questions
+told him the remainder. He looked at the girl in wonder. In face and
+form she was as lovely as any one of her age and type he ever had seen.
+Her school work far surpassed that of most girls of her age he knew.
+She differed in other ways. This vast store of learning she had
+gathered from field and forest was a wealth of attraction no other girl
+possessed. Her frank, matter-of-fact manner was an inheritance from her
+mother, but there was something more. Once, as they talked he thought
+"sympathy" was the word to describe it and again "comprehension." She
+seemed to possess a large sense of brotherhood for all human and animate
+creatures. She spoke to him as if she had known him all her life.
+She talked to the grosbeak in exactly the same manner, as she laid
+strawberries and potato bugs on the fence for his family. She did
+not swerve an inch from her way when a snake slid past her, while the
+squirrels came down from the trees and took corn from her fingers.
+She might as well have been a boy, so lacking was she in any touch of
+feminine coquetry toward him. He studied her wonderingly. As they went
+along the path they reached a large slime-covered pool surrounded by
+decaying stumps and logs thickly covered with water hyacinths and blue
+flags. Philip stopped.
+
+"Is that the place?" he asked.
+
+Elnora assented. "The doctor told you?"
+
+"Yes. It was tragic. Is that pool really bottomless?"
+
+"So far as we ever have been able to discover."
+
+Philip stood looking at the water, while the long, sweet grasses,
+thickly sprinkled with blue flag bloom, over which wild bees clambered,
+swayed around his feet. Then he turned to the girl. She had worked hard.
+The same lavender dress she had worn the previous day clung to her in
+limp condition. But she was as evenly coloured and of as fine grain as
+a wild rose petal, her hair was really brown, but never was such hair
+touched with a redder glory, while her heavy arching brows added a look
+of strength to her big gray-blue eyes.
+
+"And you were born here?"
+
+He had not intended to voice that thought.
+
+"Yes," she said, looking into his eyes. "Just in time to prevent my
+mother from saving the life of my father. She came near never forgiving
+me."
+
+"Ah, cruel!" cried Philip.
+
+"I find much in life that is cruel, from our standpoints," said Elnora.
+"It takes the large wisdom of the Unfathomable, the philosophy of the
+Almighty, to endure some of it. But there is always right somewhere, and
+at last it seems to come."
+
+"Will it come to you?" asked Philip, who found himself deeply affected.
+
+"It has come," said the girl serenely. "It came a week ago. It came in
+fullest measure when my mother ceased to regret that I had been born.
+Now, work that I love has come--that should constitute happiness. A
+little farther along is my violet bed. I want you to see it."
+
+As Philip Ammon followed he definitely settled upon the name of the
+unusual feature of Elnora's face. It should be called "experience."
+She had known bitter experiences early in life. Suffering had been
+her familiar more than joy. He watched her earnestly, his heart deeply
+moved. She led him into a swampy half-open space in the woods, stopped
+and stepped aside. He uttered a cry of surprised delight.
+
+A few decaying logs were scattered around, the grass grew in tufts long
+and fine. Blue flags waved, clusters of cowslips nodded gold heads, but
+the whole earth was purple with a thick blanket of violets nodding from
+stems a foot in length. Elnora knelt and slipping her fingers between
+the leaves and grasses to the roots, gathered a few violets and gave
+them to Philip.
+
+"Can your city greenhouses surpass them?" she asked.
+
+He sat on a log to examine the blooms.
+
+"They are superb!" he said. "I never saw such length of stem or such
+rank leaves, while the flowers are the deepest blue, the truest violet
+I ever saw growing wild. They are coloured exactly like the eyes of the
+girl I am going to marry."
+
+Elnora handed him several others to add to those he held. "She must have
+wonderful eyes," she commented.
+
+"No other blue eyes are quite so beautiful," he said. "In fact, she is
+altogether lovely."
+
+"Is it customary for a man to think the girl he is going to marry
+lovely? I wonder if I should find her so."
+
+"You would," said Philip. "No one ever fails to. She is tall as you,
+very slender, but perfectly rounded; you know about her eyes; her hair
+is black and wavy--while her complexion is clear and flushed with red."
+
+"Why, she must be the most beautiful girl in the whole world!" she
+cried.
+
+"No, indeed!" he said. "She is not a particle better looking in her way
+than you are in yours. She is a type of dark beauty, but you are equally
+as perfect. She is unusual in her combination of black hair and violet
+eyes, although every one thinks them black at a little distance. You
+are quite as unusual with your fair face, black brows, and brown hair;
+indeed, I know many people who would prefer your bright head to her dark
+one. It's all a question of taste--and being engaged to the girl," he
+added.
+
+"That would be likely to prejudice one," laughed Elnora.
+
+"Edith has a birthday soon; if these last will you let me have a box of
+them to send her?"
+
+"I will help gather and pack them for you, so they will carry nicely.
+Does she hunt moths with you?"
+
+Back went Philip Ammon's head in a gale of laughter.
+
+"No!" he cried. "She says they are 'creepy.' She would go into a spasm
+if she were compelled to touch those caterpillars I saw you handling
+yesterday."
+
+"Why would she?" marvelled Elnora. "Haven't you told her that they are
+perfectly clean, helpless, and harmless as so much animate velvet?"
+
+"No, I have not told her. She wouldn't care enough about caterpillars to
+listen."
+
+"In what is she interested?"
+
+"What interests Edith Carr? Let me think! First, I believe she takes
+pride in being a little handsomer and better dressed than any girl
+of her set. She is interested in having a beautiful home, fine
+appointments, in being petted, praised, and the acknowledged leader of
+society.
+
+"She likes to find new things which amuse her, and to always and in all
+circumstances have her own way about everything."
+
+"Good gracious!" cried Elnora, staring at him. "But what does she do?
+How does she spend her time?"
+
+"Spend her time!" repeated Philip. "Well, she would call that a joke.
+Her days are never long enough. There is endless shopping, to find
+the pretty things; regular visits to the dressmakers, calls, parties,
+theatres, entertainments. She is always rushed. I never am able to be
+with her half as much as I would like."
+
+"But I mean work," persisted Elnora. "In what is she interested that is
+useful to the world?"
+
+"Me!" cried Philip promptly.
+
+"I can understand that," laughed Elnora. "What I can't understand is
+how you can be in----" She stopped in confusion, but she saw that he
+had finished the sentence as she had intended. "I beg your pardon!"
+she cried. "I didn't intend to say that. But I cannot understand these
+people I hear about who live only for their own amusement. Perhaps it is
+very great; I'll never have a chance to know. To me, it seems the only
+pleasure in this world worth having is the joy we derive from living for
+those we love, and those we can help. I hope you are not angry with me."
+
+Philip sat silently looking far away, with deep thought in his eyes.
+
+"You are angry," faltered Elnora.
+
+His look came back to her as she knelt before him among the flowers and
+he gazed at her steadily.
+
+"No doubt I should be," he said, "but the fact is I am not. I cannot
+understand a life purely for personal pleasure myself. But she is only
+a girl, and this is her playtime. When she is a woman in her own home,
+then she will be different, will she not?"
+
+Elnora never resembled her mother so closely as when she answered that
+question.
+
+"I would have to be well acquainted with her to know, but I should hope
+so. To make a real home for a tired business man is a very different
+kind of work from that required to be a leader of society. It demands
+different talent and education. Of course, she means to change, or she
+would not have promised to make a home for you. I suspect our dope is
+cool now, let's go try for some butterflies."
+
+As they went along the path together Elnora talked of many things but
+Philip answered absently. Evidently he was thinking of something else.
+But the moth bait recalled him and he was ready for work as they made
+their way back to the woods. He wanted to try the Limberlost, but Elnora
+was firm about remaining on home ground. She did not tell him that
+lights hung in the swamp would be a signal to call up a band of men
+whose presence she dreaded. So they started, Ammon carrying the dope,
+Elnora the net, Billy and Mrs. Comstock following with cyanide boxes and
+lanterns.
+
+First they tried for butterflies and captured several fine ones without
+trouble. They also called swarms of ants, bees, beetles, and flies. When
+it grew dusk, Mrs. Comstock and Philip went to prepare supper. Elnora
+and Billy remained until the butterflies disappeared. Then they lighted
+the lanterns, repainted the trees and followed the home trail.
+
+"Do you 'spec you'll get just a lot of moths?" asked Billy, as he walked
+beside Elnora.
+
+"I am sure I hardly know," said the girl. "This is a new way for me.
+Perhaps they will come to the lights, but few moths eat; and I have some
+doubt about those which the lights attract settling on the right trees.
+Maybe the smell of that dope will draw them. Between us, Billy, I think
+I like my old way best. If I can find a hidden moth, slip up and catch
+it unawares, or take it in full flight, it's my captive, and I can keep
+it until it dies naturally. But this way you seem to get it under
+false pretences, it has no chance, and it will probably ruin its wings
+struggling for freedom before morning."
+
+"Well, any moth ought to be proud to be taken anyway, by you," said
+Billy. "Just look what you do! You can make everybody love them. People
+even quit hating caterpillars when they see you handle them and hear
+you tell all about them. You must have some to show people how they are.
+It's not like killing things to see if you can, or because you want to
+eat them, the way most men kill birds. I think it is right for you to
+take enough for collections, to show city people, and to illustrate
+the Bird Woman's books. You go on and take them! The moths don't care.
+They're glad to have you. They like it!"
+
+"Billy, I see your future," said Elnora. "We will educate you and send
+you up to Mr. Ammon to make a great lawyer. You'd beat the world as a
+special pleader. You actually make me feel that I am doing the moths a
+kindness to take them."
+
+"And so you are!" cried Billy. "Why, just from what you have taught
+them Uncle Wesley and Aunt Margaret never think of killing a caterpillar
+until they look whether it's the beautiful June moth kind, or the horrid
+tent ones. That's what you can do. You go straight ahead!"
+
+"Billy, you are a jewel!" cried Elnora, throwing her arm across his
+shoulders as they came down the path.
+
+"My, I was scared!" said Billy with a deep breath.
+
+"Scared?" questioned Elnora.
+
+"Yes sir-ee! Aunt Margaret scared me. May I ask you a question?"
+
+"Of course, you may!"
+
+"Is that man going to be your beau?"
+
+"Billy! No! What made you think such a thing?"
+
+"Aunt Margaret said likely he would fall in love with you, and you
+wouldn't want me around any more. Oh, but I was scared! It isn't so, is
+it?"
+
+"Indeed, no!"
+
+"I am your beau, ain't I?"
+
+"Surely you are!" said Elnora, tightening her arm.
+
+"I do hope Aunt Kate has ginger cookies," said Billy with a little skip
+of delight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK FACES THE ALMIGHTY, AND PHILIP AMMON WRITES A
+LETTER
+
+
+Mrs. Comstock and Elnora were finishing breakfast the following morning
+when they heard a cheery whistle down the road. Elnora with surprised
+eyes looked at her mother.
+
+"Could that be Mr. Ammon?" she questioned.
+
+"I did not expect him so soon," commented Mrs. Comstock.
+
+It was sunrise, but the musician was Philip Ammon. He appeared stronger
+than on yesterday.
+
+"I hope I am not too early," he said. "I am consumed with anxiety to
+learn if we have made a catch. If we have, we should beat the birds to
+it. I promised Uncle Doc to put on my waders and keep dry for a few days
+yet, when I go to the woods. Let's hurry! I am afraid of crows. There
+might be a rare moth."
+
+The sun was topping the Limberlost when they started. As they neared the
+place Philip stopped.
+
+"Now we must use great caution," he said. "The lights and the odours
+always attract numbers that don't settle on the baited trees. Every
+bush, shrub, and limb may hide a specimen we want."
+
+So they approached with much care.
+
+"There is something, anyway!" cried Philip.
+
+"There are moths! I can see them!" exulted Elnora.
+
+"Those you see are fast enough. It's the ones for which you must search
+that will escape. The grasses are dripping, and I have boots, so you
+look beside the path while I take the outside," suggested Ammon.
+
+Mrs. Comstock wanted to hunt moths, but she was timid about making a
+wrong movement, so she wisely sat on a log and watched Philip and Elnora
+to learn how they proceeded. Back in the deep woods a hermit thrush was
+singing his chant to the rising sun. Orioles were sowing the pure, sweet
+air with notes of gold, poured out while on wing. The robins were only
+chirping now, for their morning songs had awakened all the other birds
+an hour ago. Scolding red-wings tilted on half the bushes. Excepting
+late species of haws, tree bloom was almost gone, but wild flowers made
+the path border and all the wood floor a riot of colour. Elnora, born
+among such scenes, worked eagerly, but to the city man, recently from a
+hospital, they seemed too good to miss. He frequently stooped to examine
+a flower face, paused to listen intently to the thrush or lifted his
+head to see the gold flash which accompanied the oriole's trailing
+notes. So Elnora uttered the first cry, as she softly lifted branches
+and peered among the grasses.
+
+"My find!" she called. "Bring the box, mother!"
+
+Philip came hurrying also. When they reached her she stood on the path
+holding a pair of moths. Her eyes were wide with excitement, her cheeks
+pink, her red lips parted, and on the hand she held out to them clung
+a pair of delicate blue-green moths, with white bodies, and touches of
+lavender and straw colour. All around her lay flower-brocaded grasses,
+behind the deep green background of the forest, while the sun slowly
+sifted gold from heaven to burnish her hair. Mrs. Comstock heard a sharp
+breath behind her.
+
+"Oh, what a picture!" exulted Philip at her shoulder. "She is absolutely
+and altogether lovely! I'd give a small fortune for that faithfully set
+on canvas!"
+
+He picked the box from Mrs. Comstock's fingers and slowly advanced with
+it. Elnora held down her hand and transferred the moths. Philip closed
+the box carefully, but the watching mother saw that his eyes were
+following the girl's face. He was not making the slightest attempt to
+conceal his admiration.
+
+"I wonder if a woman ever did anything lovelier than to find a pair of
+Luna moths on a forest path, early on a perfect June morning," he said
+to Mrs. Comstock, when he returned the box.
+
+She glanced at Elnora who was intently searching the bushes.
+
+"Look here, young man," said Mrs. Comstock. "You seem to find that girl
+of mine about right."
+
+"I could suggest no improvement," said Philip. "I never saw a more
+attractive girl anywhere. She seems absolutely perfect to me."
+
+"Then suppose you don't start any scheme calculated to spoil her!"
+proposed Mrs. Comstock dryly. "I don't think you can, or that any man
+could, but I'm not taking any risks. You asked to come here to help
+in this work. We are both glad to have you, if you confine yourself to
+work; but it's the least you can do to leave us as you find us."
+
+"I beg your pardon!" said Philip. "I intended no offence. I admire her
+as I admire any perfect creation."
+
+"And nothing in all this world spoils the average girl so quickly and
+so surely," said Mrs. Comstock. She raised her voice. "Elnora, fasten up
+that tag of hair over your left ear. These bushes muss you so you remind
+me of a sheep poking its nose through a hedge fence."
+
+Mrs. Comstock started down the path toward the log again, when she
+reached it she called sharply: "Elnora, come here! I believe I have
+found something myself."
+
+The "something" was a Citheronia Regalis which had emerged from its case
+on the soft earth under the log. It climbed up the wood, its stout legs
+dragging a big pursy body, while it wildly flapped tiny wings the size
+of a man's thumb-nail. Elnora gave one look and a cry which brought
+Philip.
+
+"That's the rarest moth in America!" he announced. "Mrs. Comstock,
+you've gone up head. You can put that in a box with a screen cover
+to-night, and attract half a dozen, possibly."
+
+"Is it rare, Elnora?" inquired Mrs. Comstock, as if no one else knew.
+
+"It surely is," answered Elnora. "If we can find it a mate to-night,
+it will lay from two hundred and fifty to three hundred eggs to-morrow.
+With any luck at all I can raise two hundred caterpillars from them. I
+did once before. And they are worth a dollar apiece."
+
+"Was the one I killed like that?"
+
+"No. That was a different moth, but its life processes were the same as
+this. The Bird Woman calls this the King of the Poets."
+
+"Why does she?"
+
+"Because it is named for Citheron who was a poet, and regalis refers
+to a king. You mustn't touch it or you may stunt wing development. You
+watch and don't let that moth out of sight, or anything touch it. When
+the wings are expanded and hardened we will put it in a box."
+
+"I am afraid it will race itself to death," objected Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"That's a part of the game," said Philip. "It is starting circulation
+now. When the right moment comes, it will stop and expand its wings. If
+you watch closely you can see them expand."
+
+Presently the moth found a rough projection of bark and clung with its
+feet, back down, its wings hanging. The body was an unusual orange red,
+the tiny wings were gray, striped with the red and splotched here
+and there with markings of canary yellow. Mrs. Comstock watched
+breathlessly. Presently she slipped from the log and knelt to secure a
+better view.
+
+"Are its wings developing?" called Elnora.
+
+"They are growing larger and the markings coming stronger every minute."
+
+"Let's watch, too," said Elnora to Philip.
+
+They came and looked over Mrs. Comstock's shoulder. Lower drooped the
+gay wings, wider they spread, brighter grew the markings as if laid off
+in geometrical patterns. They could hear Mrs. Comstock's tense breath
+and see her absorbed expression.
+
+"Young people," she said solemnly, "if your studying science and the
+elements has ever led you to feel that things just happen, kind of
+evolve by chance, as it were, this sight will be good for you. Maybe
+earth and air accumulate, but it takes the wisdom of the Almighty God
+to devise the wing of a moth. If there ever was a miracle, this whole
+process is one. Now, as I understand it, this creature is going to keep
+on spreading those wings, until they grow to size and harden to strength
+sufficient to bear its body. Then it flies away, mates with its kind,
+lays its eggs on the leaves of a certain tree, and the eggs hatch tiny
+caterpillars which eat just that kind of leaves, and the worms grow and
+grow, and take on different forms and colours until at last they are big
+caterpillars six inches long, with large horns. Then they burrow into
+the earth, build a water-proof house around themselves from material
+which is inside them, and lie through rain and freezing cold for months.
+A year from egg laying they come out like this, and begin the process
+all over again. They don't eat, they don't see distinctly, they live
+but a few days, and fly only at night; then they drop off easy, but the
+process goes on."
+
+A shivering movement went over the moth. The wings drooped and spread
+wider. Mrs. Comstock sank into soft awed tones.
+
+"There never was a moment in my life," she said, "when I felt so in the
+Presence, as I do now. I feel as if the Almighty were so real, and so
+near, that I could reach out and touch Him, as I could this wonderful
+work of His, if I dared. I feel like saying to Him: 'To the extent of my
+brain power I realize Your presence, and all it is in me to comprehend
+of Your power. Help me to learn, even this late, the lessons of Your
+wonderful creations. Help me to unshackle and expand my soul to the
+fullest realization of Your wonders. Almighty God, make me bigger, make
+me broader!'"
+
+The moth climbed to the end of the projection, up it a little way, then
+suddenly reversed its wings, turned the hidden sides out and dropped
+them beside its abdomen, like a large fly. The upper side of the wings,
+thus exposed, was far richer colour, more exquisite texture than the
+under, and they slowly half lifted and drooped again. Mrs. Comstock
+turned her face to Philip.
+
+"Am I an old fool, or do you feel it, too?" she half whispered.
+
+"You are wiser than you ever have been before," answered he. "I feel it,
+also."
+
+"And I," breathed Elnora.
+
+The moth spread its wings, shivered them tremulously, opening and
+closing them rapidly. Philip handed the box to Elnora.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I can't take that one," she said. "Give her freedom."
+
+"But, Elnora," protested Mrs. Comstock, "I don't want to let her go.
+She's mine. She's the first one I ever found this way. Can't you put her
+in a big box, and let her live, without hurting her? I can't bear to let
+her go. I want to learn all about her."
+
+"Then watch while we gather these on the trees," said Elnora. "We will
+take her home until night and then decide what to do. She won't fly for
+a long time yet."
+
+Mrs. Comstock settled on the ground, gazing at the moth. Elnora and
+Philip went to the baited trees, placing several large moths and a
+number of smaller ones in the cyanide jar, and searching the bushes
+beyond where they found several paired specimens of differing families.
+When they returned Elnora showed her mother how to hold her hand before
+the moth so that it would climb upon her fingers. Then they started back
+to the cabin, Elnora and Philip leading the way; Mrs. Comstock followed
+slowly, stepping with great care lest she stumble and injure the moth.
+Her face wore a look of comprehension, in her eyes was an exalted light.
+On she came to the blue-bordered pool lying beside her path.
+
+A turtle scrambled from a log and splashed into the water, while a
+red-wing shouted, "O-ka-lee!" to her. Mrs. Comstock paused and looked
+intently at the slime-covered quagmire, framed in a flower riot and
+homed over by sweet-voiced birds. Then she gazed at the thing of
+incomparable beauty clinging to her fingers and said softly: "If you
+had known about wonders like these in the days of your youth, Robert
+Comstock, could you ever have done what you did?"
+
+Elnora missed her mother, and turning to look for her, saw her standing
+beside the pool. Would the old fascination return? A panic of fear
+seized the girl. She went back swiftly.
+
+"Are you afraid she is going?" Elnora asked. "If you are, cup your other
+hand over her for shelter. Carrying her through this air and in the hot
+sunshine will dry her wings and make them ready for flight very quickly.
+You can't trust her in such air and light as you can in the cool dark
+woods."
+
+While she talked she took hold of her mother's sleeve, anxiously smiling
+a pitiful little smile that Mrs. Comstock understood. Philip set his
+load at the back door, returning to hold open the garden gate for Elnora
+and Mrs. Comstock. He reached it in time to see them standing together
+beside the pool. The mother bent swiftly and kissed the girl on the
+lips. Philip turned and was busily hunting moths on the raspberry
+bushes when they reached the gate. And so excellent are the rewards of
+attending your own business, that he found a Promethea on a lilac in a
+corner; a moth of such rare wine-coloured, velvety shades that it almost
+sent Mrs. Comstock to her knees again. But this one was fully developed,
+able to fly, and had to be taken into the cabin hurriedly. Mrs. Comstock
+stood in the middle of the room holding up her Regalis.
+
+"Now what must I do?" she asked.
+
+Elnora glanced at Philip Ammon. Their eyes met and both of them smiled;
+he with amusement at the tall, spare figure, with dark eyes and white
+crown, asking the childish question so confidingly; and Elnora with
+pride. She was beginning to appreciate the character of her mother.
+
+"How would you like to sit and see her finish development? I'll get
+dinner," proposed the girl.
+
+After they had dined, Philip and Elnora carried the dishes to the
+kitchen, brought out boxes, sheets of cork, pins, ink, paper slips and
+everything necessary for mounting and classifying the moths they had
+taken. When the housework was finished Mrs. Comstock with her ruffle
+sat near, watching and listening. She remembered all they said that she
+understood, and when uncertain she asked questions. Occasionally she
+laid down her work to straighten some flower which needed attention
+or to search the garden for a bug for the grosbeak. In one of these
+absences Elnora said to Philip: "These replace quite a number of the
+moths I lost for the man of India. With a week of such luck, I could
+almost begin to talk college again."
+
+"There is no reason why you should not have the week and the luck," said
+he. "I have taken moths until the middle of August, though I suspect one
+is more likely to find late ones in the north where it is colder
+than here. The next week is hay-time, but we can count on a few
+double-brooders and strays, and by working the exchange method for all
+it is worth, I think we can complete the collection again."
+
+"You almost make me hope," said Elnora, "but I must not allow myself. I
+don't truly think I can replace all I lost, not even with your help. If
+I could, I scarcely see my way clear to leave mother this winter. I have
+found her so recently, and she is so precious, I can't risk losing her
+again. I am going to take the nature position in the Onabasha schools,
+and I shall be most happy doing the work. Only, these are a temptation."
+
+"I wish you might go to college this fall with the other girls," said
+Philip. "I feel that if you don't you never will. Isn't there some way?"
+
+"I can't see it if there is, and I really don't want to leave mother."
+
+"Well, mother is mighty glad to hear it," said Mrs. Comstock, entering
+the arbour.
+
+Philip noticed that her face was pale, her lips quivering, her voice
+cold.
+
+"I was telling your daughter that she should go to college this winter,"
+he explained, "but she says she doesn't want to leave you."
+
+"If she wants to go, I wish she could," said Mrs. Comstock, a look of
+relief spreading over her face.
+
+"Oh, all girls want to go to college," said Philip. "It's the only
+proper place to learn bridge and embroidery; not to mention midnight
+lunches of mixed pickles and fruit cake, and all the delights of the
+sororities."
+
+"I have thought for years of going to college," said Elnora, "but I
+never thought of any of those things."
+
+"That is because your education in fudge and bridge has been sadly
+neglected," said Philip. "You should hear my sister Polly! This was her
+final year! Lunches and sororities were all I heard her mention, until
+Tom Levering came on deck; now he is the leading subject. I can't see
+from her daily conversation that she knows half as much really worth
+knowing as you do, but she's ahead of you miles on fun."
+
+"Oh, we had some good times in the high school," said Elnora. "Life
+hasn't been all work and study. Is Edith Carr a college girl?"
+
+"No. She is the very selectest kind of a private boarding-school girl."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Mrs. Comstock.
+
+Philip opened his lips.
+
+"She is a girl in Chicago, that Mr. Ammon knows very well," said Elnora.
+"She is beautiful and rich, and a friend of his sister's. Or, didn't you
+say that?"
+
+"I don't remember, but she is," said Philip. "This moth needs an alcohol
+bath to remove the dope."
+
+"Won't the down come, too?" asked Elnora anxiously.
+
+"No. You watch and you will see it come out, as Polly would say, 'a
+perfectly good' moth."
+
+"Is your sister younger than you?" inquired Elnora.
+
+"Yes," said Philip, "but she is three years older than you. She is the
+dearest sister in all the world. I'd love to see her now."
+
+"Why don't you send for her," suggested Elnora. "Perhaps she'd like to
+help us catch moths."
+
+"Yes, I think Polly in a Virot hat, Picot embroidered frock and
+three-inch heels would take more moths than any one who ever tried the
+Limberlost," laughed Philip.
+
+"Well, you find many of them, and you are her brother."
+
+"Yes, but that is different. Father was reared in Onabasha, and he loved
+the country. He trained me his way and mother took charge of Polly. I
+don't quite understand it. Mother is a great home body herself, but she
+did succeed in making Polly strictly ornamental."
+
+"Does Tom Levering need a 'strictly ornamental' girl?"
+
+"You are too matter of fact! Too 'strictly' material. He needs a darling
+girl who will love him plenty, and Polly is that."
+
+"Well, then, does the Limberlost need a 'strictly ornamental' girl?"
+
+"No!" cried Philip. "You are ornament enough for the Limberlost. I have
+changed my mind. I don't want Polly here. She would not enjoy catching
+moths, or anything we do."
+
+"She might," persisted Elnora. "You are her brother, and surely you care
+for these things."
+
+"The argument does not hold," said Philip. "Polly and I do not like the
+same things when we are at home, but we are very fond of each other. The
+member of my family who would go crazy about this is my father. I wish
+he could come, if only for a week. I'd send for him, but he is tied up
+in preparing some papers for a great corporation case this summer. He
+likes the country. It was his vote that brought me here."
+
+Philip leaned back against the arbour, watching the grosbeak as it
+hunted food between a tomato vine and a day lily. Elnora set him to
+making labels, and when he finished them he asked permission to write
+a letter. He took no pains to conceal his page, and from where she sat
+opposite him, Elnora could not look his way without reading: "My dearest
+Edith." He wrote busily for a time and then sat staring across the
+garden.
+
+"Have you run out of material so quickly?" asked Elnora.
+
+"That's about it," said Philip. "I have said that I am getting well as
+rapidly as possible, that the air is fine, the folks at Uncle Doc's all
+well, and entirely too good to me; that I am spending most of my time
+in the country helping catch moths for a collection, which is splendid
+exercise; now I can't think of another thing that will be interesting."
+
+There was a burst of exquisite notes in the maple.
+
+"Put in the grosbeak," suggested Elnora. "Tell her you are so friendly
+with him you feed him potato bugs."
+
+Philip lowered the pen to the sheet, bent forward, then hesitated.
+
+"Blest if I do!" he cried. "She'd think a grosbeak was a depraved person
+with a large nose. She'd never dream that it was a black-robed lover,
+with a breast of snow and a crimson heart. She doesn't care for hungry
+babies and potato bugs. I shall write that to father. He will find it
+delightful."
+
+Elnora deftly picked up a moth, pinned it and placed its wings. She
+straightened the antennae, drew each leg into position and set it in
+perfectly lifelike manner. As she lifted her work to see if she had it
+right, she glanced at Philip. He was still frowning and hesitating over
+the paper.
+
+"I dare you to let me dictate a couple of paragraphs."
+
+"Done!" cried Philip. "Go slowly enough that I can write it."
+
+Elnora laughed gleefully.
+
+"I am writing this," she began, "in an old grape arbour in the country,
+near a log cabin where I had my dinner. From where I sit I can see
+directly into the home of the next-door neighbour on the west. His name
+is R. B. Grosbeak. From all I have seen of him, he is a gentleman of
+the old school; the oldest school there is, no doubt. He always wears a
+black suit and cap and a white vest, decorated with one large red heart,
+which I think must be the emblem of some ancient order. I have been here
+a number of times, and I never have seen him wear anything else, or his
+wife appear in other than a brown dress with touches of white.
+
+"It has appealed to me at times that she was a shade neglectful of her
+home duties, but he does not seem to feel that way. He cheerfully stays
+in the sitting-room, while she is away having a good time, and sings
+while he cares for the four small children. I must tell you about his
+music. I am sure he never saw inside a conservatory. I think he merely
+picked up what he knows by ear and without vocal training, but there
+is a tenderness in his tones, a depth of pure melody, that I never have
+heard surpassed. It may be that I think more of his music than that
+of some other good vocalists hereabout, because I see more of him and
+appreciate his devotion to his home life.
+
+"I just had an encounter with him at the west fence, and induced him to
+carry a small gift to his children. When I see the perfect harmony in
+which he lives, and the depth of content he and the brown lady find in
+life, I am almost persuaded to-- Now this is going to be poetry," said
+Elnora. "Move your pen over here and begin with a quote and a cap."
+
+Philip's face had been an interesting study while he wrote her
+sentences. Now he gravely set the pen where she indicated, and Elnora
+dictated--
+
+     "Buy a nice little home in the country,
+     And settle down there for life."
+
+"That's the truth!" cried Philip. "It's as big a temptation as I ever
+had. Go on!"
+
+"That's all," said Elnora. "You can finish. The moths are done. I am
+going hunting for whatever I can find for the grades."
+
+"Wait a minute," begged Philip. "I am going, too."
+
+"No. You stay with mother and finish your letter."
+
+"It is done. I couldn't add anything to that."
+
+"Very well! Sign your name and come on. But I forgot to tell you all
+the bargain. Maybe you won't send the letter when you hear that. The
+remainder is that you show me the reply to my part of it."
+
+"Oh, that's easy! I wouldn't have the slightest objection to showing you
+the whole letter."
+
+He signed his name, folded the sheets and slipped them into his pocket.
+
+"Where are we going and what do we take?"
+
+"Will you go, mother?" asked Elnora.
+
+"I have a little work that should be done," said Mrs. Comstock. "Could
+you spare me? Where do you want to go?"
+
+"We will go down to Aunt Margaret's and see her a few minutes and get
+Billy. We will be back in time for supper."
+
+Mrs. Comstock smiled as she watched them down the road. What a
+splendid-looking pair of young creatures they were! How finely
+proportioned, how full of vitality! Then her face grew troubled as she
+saw them in earnest conversation. Just as she was wishing she had not
+trusted her precious girl with so much of a stranger, she saw Elnora
+stoop to lift a branch and peer under. The mother grew content. Elnora
+was thinking only of her work. She was to be trusted utterly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST SINGS FOR PHILIP, AND THE TALKING TREES TELL
+GREAT SECRETS
+
+
+A few days later Philip handed Elnora a sheet of paper and she read: "In
+your condition I should think the moth hunting and life at that cabin
+would be very good for you, but for any sake keep away from that
+Grosbeak person, and don't come home with your head full of granger
+ideas. No doubt he has a remarkable voice, but I can't bear untrained
+singers, and don't you get the idea that a June song is perennial. You
+are not hearing the music he will make when the four babies have the
+scarlet fever and the measles, and the gadding wife leaves him at home
+to care for them then. Poor soul, I pity her! How she exists where
+rampant cows bellow at you, frogs croak, mosquitoes consume you, the
+butter goes to oil in summer and bricks in winter, while the pump
+freezes every day, and there is no earthly amusement, and no society!
+Poor things! Can't you influence him to move? No wonder she gads when
+she has a chance! I should die. If you are thinking of settling in the
+country, think also of a woman who is satisfied with white and brown to
+accompany you! Brown! Of all deadly colours! I should go mad in brown."
+
+Elnora laughed while she read. Her face was dimpling, as she returned
+the sheet. "Who's ahead?" she asked.
+
+"Who do you think?" he parried.
+
+"She is," said Elnora. "Are you going to tell her in your next that R.
+B. Grosbeak is a bird, and that he probably will spend the winter in a
+wild plum thicket in Tennessee?"
+
+"No," said Philip. "I shall tell her that I understand her ideas of
+life perfectly, and, of course, I never shall ask her to deal with oily
+butter and frozen pumps--"
+
+"--and measley babies," interpolated Elnora.
+
+"Exactly!" said Philip. "At the same time I find so much to
+counterbalance those things, that I should not object to bearing them
+myself, in view of the recompense. Where do we go and what do we do
+to-day?"
+
+"We will have to hunt beside the roads and around the edge of the
+Limberlost to-day," said Elnora. "Mother is making strawberry preserves,
+and she can't come until she finishes. Suppose we go down to the swamp
+and I'll show you what is left of the flower-room that Terence O'More,
+the big lumber man of Great Rapids, made when he was a homeless boy
+here. Of course, you have heard the story?"
+
+"Yes, and I've met the O'Mores who are frequently in Chicago society.
+They have friends there. I think them one ideal couple."
+
+"That sounds as if they might be the only one," said Elnora, "and,
+indeed, they are not. I know dozens. Aunt Margaret and Uncle Wesley are
+another, the Brownlees another, and my mathematics professor and his
+wife. The world is full of happy people, but no one ever hears of them.
+You must fight and make a scandal to get into the papers. No one knows
+about all the happy people. I am happy myself, and look how perfectly
+inconspicuous I am."
+
+"You only need go where you will be seen," began Philip, when he
+remembered and finished. "What do we take to-day?"
+
+"Ourselves," said Elnora. "I have a vagabond streak in my blood and it's
+in evidence. I am going to show you where real flowers grow, real birds
+sing, and if I feel quite right about it, perhaps I shall raise a note
+or two myself."
+
+"Oh, do you sing?" asked Philip politely.
+
+"At times," answered Elnora. "'As do the birds; because I must,' but
+don't be scared. The mood does not possess me often. Perhaps I shan't
+raise a note."
+
+They went down the road to the swamp, climbed the snake fence, followed
+the path to the old trail and then turned south upon it. Elnora
+indicated to Philip the trail with remnants of sagging barbed wire.
+
+"It was ten years ago," she said. "I was a little school girl, but I
+wandered widely even then, and no one cared. I saw him often. He had
+been in a city institution all his life, when he took the job of keeping
+timber thieves out of this swamp, before many trees had been cut. It was
+a strong man's work, and he was a frail boy, but he grew hardier as
+he lived out of doors. This trail we are on is the path his feet first
+wore, in those days when he was insane with fear and eaten up with
+loneliness, but he stuck to his work and won out. I used to come down
+to the road and creep among the bushes as far as I dared, to watch him
+pass. He walked mostly, at times he rode a wheel.
+
+"Some days his face was dreadfully sad, others it was so determined a
+little child could see the force in it, and once he was radiant. That
+day the Swamp Angel was with him. I can't tell you what she was like. I
+never saw any one who resembled her. He stopped close here to show her a
+bird's nest. Then they went on to a sort of flower-room he had made, and
+he sang for her. By the time he left, I had gotten bold enough to come
+out on the trail, and I met the big Scotchman Freckles lived with. He
+saw me catching moths and butterflies, so he took me to the flower-room
+and gave me everything there. I don't dare come alone often, so I can't
+keep it up as he did, but you can see something of how it was."
+
+Elnora led the way and Philip followed. The outlines of the room were
+not distinct, because many of the trees were gone, but Elnora showed how
+it had been as nearly as she could.
+
+"The swamp is almost ruined now," she said. "The maples, walnuts, and
+cherries are all gone. The talking trees are the only things left worth
+while."
+
+"The 'talking trees!' I don't understand," commented Philip.
+
+"No wonder!" laughed Elnora. "They are my discovery. You know all trees
+whisper and talk during the summer, but there are two that have so much
+to say they keep on the whole winter, when the others are silent. The
+beeches and oaks so love to talk, they cling to their dead, dry leaves.
+In the winter the winds are stiffest and blow most, so these trees
+whisper, chatter, sob, laugh, and at times roar until the sound is
+deafening. They never cease until new leaves come out in the spring to
+push off the old ones. I love to stand beneath them with my ear to the
+trunks, interpreting what they say to fit my moods. The beeches branch
+low, and their leaves are small so they only know common earthly things;
+but the oaks run straight above almost all other trees before they
+branch, their arms are mighty, their leaves large. They meet the winds
+that travel around the globe, and from them learn the big things."
+
+Philip studied the girls face. "What do the beeches tell you, Elnora?"
+he asked gently.
+
+"To be patient, to be unselfish, to do unto others as I would have them
+do to me."
+
+"And the oaks?"
+
+"They say 'be true,' 'live a clean life,' 'send your soul up here and
+the winds of the world will teach it what honour achieves.'"
+
+"Wonderful secrets, those!" marvelled Philip. "Are they telling them
+now? Could I hear?"
+
+"No. They are only gossiping now. This is play-time. They tell the big
+secrets to a white world, when the music inspires them."
+
+"The music?"
+
+"All other trees are harps in the winter. Their trunks are the frames,
+their branches the strings, the winds the musicians. When the air is
+cold and clear, the world very white, and the harp music swelling, then
+the talking trees tell the strengthening, uplifting things."
+
+"You wonderful girl!" cried Philip. "What a woman you will be!"
+
+"If I am a woman at all worth while, it will be because I have had such
+wonderful opportunities," said Elnora. "Not every girl is driven to
+the forest to learn what God has to say there. Here are the remains
+of Freckles's room. The time the Angel came here he sang to her, and I
+listened. I never heard music like that. No wonder she loved him. Every
+one who knew him did, and they do yet. Try that log, it makes a fairly
+good seat. This old store box was his treasure house, just as it's now
+mine. I will show you my dearest possession. I do not dare take it home
+because mother can't overcome her dislike for it. It was my father's,
+and in some ways I am like him. This is the strongest."
+
+Elnora lifted the violin and began to play. She wore a school dress of
+green gingham, with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. She seemed a part
+of the setting all around her. Her head shone like a small dark sun, and
+her face never had seemed so rose-flushed and fair. From the instant she
+drew the bow, her lips parted and her eyes turned toward something far
+away in the swamp, and never did she give more of that impression of
+feeling for her notes and repeating something audible only to her.
+Philip was too close to get the best effect. He arose and stepped back
+several yards, leaning against a large tree, looking and listening
+intently.
+
+As he changed positions he saw that Mrs. Comstock had followed them,
+and was standing on the trail, where she could not have helped hearing
+everything Elnora had said.
+
+So to Philip before her and the mother watching on the trail, Elnora
+played the Song of the Limberlost. It seemed as if the swamp hushed all
+its other voices and spoke only through her dancing bow. The mother out
+on the trail had heard it all, once before from the girl, many times
+from her father. To the man it was a revelation. He stood so stunned he
+forgot Mrs. Comstock. He tried to realize what a city audience would
+say to that music, from such a player, with a similar background, and he
+could not imagine.
+
+He was wondering what he dared say, how much he might express, when
+the last note fell and the girl laid the violin in the case, closed the
+door, locked it and hid the key in the rotting wood at the end of a log.
+Then she came to him. Philip stood looking at her curiously.
+
+"I wonder," he said, "what people would say to that?"
+
+"I played that in public once," said Elnora. "I think they liked it,
+fairly well. I had a note yesterday offering me the leadership of the
+high school orchestra in Onabasha. I can take it as well as not. None of
+my talks to the grades come the first thing in the morning. I can play
+a few minutes in the orchestra and reach the rooms in plenty of time.
+It will be more work that I love, and like finding the money. I would
+gladly play for nothing, merely to be able to express myself."
+
+"With some people it makes a regular battlefield of the human
+heart--this struggle for self-expression," said Philip. "You are going
+to do beautiful work in the world, and do it well. When I realize that
+your violin belonged to your father, that he played it before you were
+born, and it no doubt affected your mother strongly, and then couple
+with that the years you have roamed these fields and swamps finding in
+nature all you had to lavish your heart upon, I can see how you evolved.
+I understand what you mean by self-expression. I know something of what
+you have to express. The world never so wanted your message as it does
+now. It is hungry for the things you know. I can see easily how your
+position came to you. What you have to give is taught in no college, and
+I am not sure but you would spoil yourself if you tried to run your mind
+through a set groove with hundreds of others. I never thought I should
+say such a thing to any one, but I do say to you, and I honestly believe
+it; give up the college idea. Your mind does not need that sort of
+development. Stick close to your work in the woods. You are becoming so
+infinitely greater on it, than the best college girl I ever knew, that
+there is no comparison. When you have money to spend, take that violin
+and go to one of the world's great masters and let the Limberlost sing
+to him; if he thinks he can improve it, very well. I have my doubts."
+
+"Do you really mean that you would give up all idea of going to college,
+in my place?"
+
+"I really mean it," said Philip. "If I now held the money in my hands to
+send you, and could give it to you in some way you would accept I
+would not. I do not know why it is the fate of the world always to want
+something different from what life gives them. If you only could realize
+it, my girl, you are in college, and have been always. You are in the
+school of experience, and it has taught you to think, and given you
+a heart. God knows I envy the man who wins it! You have been in the
+college of the Limberlost all your life, and I never met a graduate from
+any other institution who could begin to compare with you in sanity,
+clarity, and interesting knowledge. I wouldn't even advise you to read
+too many books on your lines. You acquire your material first hand, and
+you know that you are right. What you should do is to begin early to
+practise self-expression. Don't wait too long to tell us about the woods
+as you know them."
+
+"Follow the course of the Bird Woman, you mean?" asked Elnora.
+
+"In your own way; with your own light. She won't live forever. You are
+younger, and you will be ready to begin where she ends. The swamp has
+given you all you need so far; now you give it to the world in payment.
+College be confounded! Go to work and show people what there is in you!"
+
+Not until then did he remember Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Should we go out to the trail and see if your mother is coming?" he
+asked.
+
+"Here she is now," said Elnora. "Gracious, it's a mercy I got that
+violin put away in time! I didn't expect her so soon," whispered
+the girl as she turned and went toward her mother. Mrs. Comstock's
+expression was peculiar as she looked at Elnora.
+
+"I forgot that you were making sun-preserves and they didn't require
+much cooking," she said. "We should have waited for you."
+
+"Not at all!" answered Mrs. Comstock. "Have you found anything yet?"
+
+"Nothing that I can show you," said Elnora. "I am almost sure I have
+found an idea that will revolutionize the whole course of my work,
+thought, and ambitions."
+
+"'Ambitions!' My, what a hefty word!" laughed Mrs. Comstock. "Now who
+would suspect a little red-haired country girl of harbouring such a
+deadly germ in her body? Can you tell mother about it?"
+
+"Not if you talk to me that way, I can't," said Elnora.
+
+"Well, I guess we better let ambition lie. I've always heard it was
+safest asleep. If you ever get a bona fide attack, it will be time to
+attend it. Let's hunt specimens. It is June. Philip and I are in the
+grades. You have an hour to put an idea into our heads that will stick
+for a lifetime, and grow for good. That's the way I look at your job.
+Now, what are you going to give us? We don't want any old silly stuff
+that has been hashed over and over, we want a big new idea to plant
+in our hearts. Come on, Miss Teacher, what is the boiled-down,
+double-distilled essence of June? Give it to us strong. We are large
+enough to furnish it developing ground. Hurry up! Time is short and we
+are waiting. What is the miracle of June? What one thing epitomizes the
+whole month, and makes it just a little different from any other?"
+
+"The birth of these big night moths," said Elnora promptly.
+
+Philip clapped his hands. The tears started to Mrs. Comstock's eyes. She
+took Elnora in her arms, and kissed her forehead.
+
+"You'll do!" she said. "June is June, not because it has bloom, bird,
+fruit, or flower, exclusive to it alone.
+
+"It's half May and half July in all of them. But to me, it's just June,
+when it comes to these great, velvet-winged night moths which sweep its
+moonlit skies, consummating their scheme of creation, and dropping like
+a bloomed-out flower. Give them moths for June. Then make that the basis
+of your year's work. Find the distinctive feature of each month, the
+one thing which marks it a time apart, and hit them squarely between the
+eyes with it. Even the babies of the lowest grades can comprehend moths
+when they see a few emerge, and learn their history, as it can be lived
+before them. You should show your specimens in pairs, then their eggs,
+the growing caterpillars, and then the cocoons. You want to dig out the
+red heart of every month in the year, and hold it pulsing before them.
+
+"I can't name all of them off-hand, but I think of one more right now.
+February belongs to our winter birds. It is then the great horned owl of
+the swamp courts his mate, the big hawks pair, and even the crows begin
+to take notice. These are truly our birds. Like the poor we have them
+always with us. You should hear the musicians of this swamp in February,
+Philip, on a mellow night. Oh, but they are in earnest! For twenty-one
+years I've listened by night to the great owls, all the smaller sizes,
+the foxes, coons, and every resident left in these woods, and by day to
+the hawks, yellow-hammers, sap-suckers, titmice, crows, and other winter
+birds. Only just now it's come to me that the distinctive feature of
+February is not linen bleaching, nor sugar making; it's the love month
+of our very own birds. Give them hawks and owls for February, Elnora."
+
+With flashing eyes the girl looked at Philip. "How's that?" she said.
+"Don't you think I will succeed, with such help? You should hear the
+concert she is talking about! It is simply indescribable when the ground
+is covered with snow, and the moonlight white."
+
+"It's about the best music we have," said Mrs. Comstock. "I wonder if
+you couldn't copy that and make a strong, original piece out of it for
+your violin, Elnora?"
+
+There was one tense breath, then---- "I could try," said Elnora simply.
+
+Philip rushed to the rescue. "We must go to work," he said, and began
+examining a walnut branch for Luna moth eggs. Elnora joined him while
+Mrs. Comstock drew her embroidery from her pocket and sat on a log. She
+said she was tired, they could come for her when they were ready to go.
+She could hear their voices around her until she called them at supper
+time. When they came to her she stood waiting on the trail, the sewing
+in one hand, the violin in the other. Elnora became very white, but
+followed the trail without a word. Philip, unable to see a woman carry
+a heavier load than he, reached for the instrument. Mrs. Comstock shook
+her head. She carried the violin home, took it into her room and closed
+the door. Elnora turned to Philip.
+
+"If she destroys that, I shall die!" cried the girl.
+
+"She won't!" said Philip. "You misunderstand her. She wouldn't have said
+what she did about the owls, if she had meant to. She is your mother.
+No one loves you as she does. Trust her! Myself--I think she's simply
+great!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock returned with serene face, and all of them helped with
+the supper. When it was over Philip and Elnora sorted and classified the
+afternoon's specimens, and made a trip to the woods to paint and light
+several trees for moths. When they came back Mrs. Comstock sat in the
+arbour, and they joined her. The moonlight was so intense, print could
+have been read by it. The damp night air held odours near to earth,
+making flower and tree perfume strong. A thousand insects were
+serenading, and in the maple the grosbeak occasionally said a reassuring
+word to his wife, while she answered that all was well. A whip-poor-will
+wailed in the swamp and beside the blue-bordered pool a chat complained
+disconsolately. Mrs. Comstock went into the cabin, but she returned
+immediately, laying the violin and bow across Elnora's lap. "I wish you
+would give us a little music," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK DANCES IN THE MOONLIGHT, AND ELNORA MAKES A
+CONFESSION
+
+
+Billy was swinging in the hammock, at peace with himself and all the
+world, when he thought he heard something. He sat bolt upright, his eyes
+staring. Once he opened his lips, then thought again and closed them.
+The sound persisted. Billy vaulted the fence, and ran down the road with
+his queer sidewise hop. When he neared the Comstock cabin, he left the
+warm dust of the highway and stepped softly at slower pace over the
+rank grasses of the roadside. He had heard aright. The violin was in the
+grape arbour, singing a perfect jumble of everything, poured out in an
+exultant tumult. The strings were voicing the joy of a happy girl heart.
+
+Billy climbed the fence enclosing the west woods and crept toward the
+arbour. He was not a spy and not a sneak. He merely wanted to satisfy
+his child-heart as to whether Mrs. Comstock was at home, and Elnora
+at last playing her loved violin with her mother's consent. One peep
+sufficed. Mrs. Comstock sat in the moonlight, her head leaning against
+the arbour; on her face was a look of perfect peace and contentment. As
+he stared at her the bow hesitated a second and Mrs. Comstock spoke:
+
+"That's all very melodious and sweet," she said, "but I do wish you
+could play Money Musk and some of the tunes I danced as a girl."
+
+Elnora had been carefully avoiding every note that might be reminiscent
+of her father. At the words she laughed softly and began "Turkey in the
+Straw." An instant later Mrs. Comstock was dancing in the moon light.
+Ammon sprang to her side, caught her in his arms, while to Elnora's
+laughter and the violin's impetus they danced until they dropped panting
+on the arbour bench.
+
+Billy scarcely knew when he reached the road. His light feet barely
+touched the soft way, so swiftly he flew. He vaulted the fence and burst
+into the house.
+
+"Aunt Margaret! Uncle Wesley!" he screamed. "Listen! Listen! She's
+playing it! Elnora's playing her violin at home! And Aunt Kate is
+dancing like anything before the arbour! I saw her in the moonlight! I
+ran down! Oh, Aunt Margaret!"
+
+Billy fled sobbing to Margaret's breast.
+
+"Why Billy!" she chided. "Don't cry, you little dunce! That's what we've
+all prayed for these many years; but you must be mistaken about Kate. I
+can't believe it."
+
+Billy lifted his head. "Well, you just have to!" he said. "When I say
+I saw anything, Uncle Wesley knows I did. The city man was dancing with
+her. They danced together and Elnora laughed. But it didn't look funny
+to me; I was scared."
+
+"Who was it said 'wonders never cease,'" asked Wesley. "You mark my
+word, once you get Kate Comstock started, you can't stop her. There's
+a wagon load of penned-up force in her. Dancing in the moonlight! Well,
+I'll be hanged!"
+
+Billy was at his side instantly. "Whoever does it will have to hang me,
+too," he cried.
+
+Sinton threw his arm around Billy and drew him closely. "Tell us all
+about it, son," he said. Billy told. "And when Elnora just stopped
+a breath, 'Can't you play some of the old things I knew when I was a
+girl?' said her ma. Then Elnora began to do a thing that made you
+want to whirl round and round, and quicker 'an scat there was her ma
+a-whirling. The city man, he ups and grabs her and whirls, too, and back
+in the woods I was going just like they did. Elnora begins to laugh, and
+I ran to tell you, cos I knew you'd like to know. Now, all the world is
+right, ain't it?" ended Billy in supreme satisfaction.
+
+"You just bet it is!" said Wesley.
+
+Billy looked steadily at Margaret. "Is it, Aunt Margaret?"
+
+Margaret Sinton smiled at him bravely.
+
+An hour later when Billy was ready to climb the stairs to his room, he
+went to Margaret to say good night. He leaned against her an instant,
+then brought his lips to her ear. "Wish I could get your little girls
+back for you!" he whispered and dashed toward the stairs.
+
+Down at the Comstock cabin the violin played on until Elnora was so
+tired she scarcely could lift the bow. Then Philip went home. The women
+walked to the gate with him, and stood watching him from sight.
+
+"That's what I call one decent young man!" said Mrs. Comstock. "To see
+him fit in with us, you'd think he'd been brought up in a cabin; but
+it's likely he's always had the very cream o' the pot."
+
+"Yes, I think so," laughed Elnora, "but it hasn't hurt him. I've
+never seen anything I could criticise. He's teaching me so much,
+unconsciously. You know he graduated from Harvard, and has several
+degrees in law. He's coming in the morning, and we are going to put in a
+big day on Catocalae."
+
+"Which is----?"
+
+"Those gray moths with wings that fold back like big flies, and they
+appear as if they had been carved from old wood. Then, when they fly,
+the lower wings flash out and they are red and black, or gold and black,
+or pink and black, or dozens of bright, beautiful colours combined with
+black. No one ever has classified all of them and written their complete
+history, unless the Bird Woman is doing it now. She wants everything she
+can get about them."
+
+"I remember," said Mrs. Comstock. "They are mighty pretty things. I've
+started up slews of them from the vines covering the logs, all my life.
+I must be cautious and catch them after this, but they seem powerful
+spry. I might get hold of something rare." She thought intently and
+added, "And wouldn't know it if I did. It would just be my luck. I've
+had the rarest thing on earth in reach this many a day and only had the
+wit to cinch it just as it was going. I'll bet I don't let anything else
+escape me."
+
+Next morning Philip came early, and he and Elnora went at once to the
+fields and woods. Mrs. Comstock had come to believe so implicitly in him
+that she now stayed at home to complete the work before she joined them,
+and when she did she often sat sewing, leaving them wandering hours at
+a time. It was noon before she finished, and then she packed a basket
+of lunch. She found Elnora and Philip near the violet patch, which was
+still in its prime. They all lunched together in the shade of a wild
+crab thicket, with flowers spread at their feet, and the gold orioles
+streaking the air with flashes of light and trailing ecstasy behind
+them, while the red-wings, as always, asked the most impertinent
+questions. Then Mrs. Comstock carried the basket back to the cabin,
+and Philip and Elnora sat on a log, resting a few minutes. They had
+unexpected luck, and both were eager to continue the search.
+
+"Do you remember your promise about these violets?" asked he. "To-morrow
+is Edith's birthday, and if I'd put them special delivery on the morning
+train, she'd get them in the late afternoon. They ought to keep that
+long. She leaves for the North next day."
+
+"Of course, you may have them," said Elnora. "We will quit long enough
+before supper to gather a large bunch. They can be packed so they will
+carry all right. They should be perfectly fresh, especially if we gather
+them this evening and let them drink all night."
+
+Then they went back to hunt Catocalae. It was a long and a happy search.
+It led them into new, unexplored nooks of the woods, past a red-poll
+nest, and where goldfinches prospected for thistledown for the cradles
+they would line a little later. It led them into real forest, where
+deep, dark pools lay, where the hermit thrush and the wood robin
+extracted the essence from all other bird melody, and poured it out in
+their pure bell-tone notes. It seemed as if every old gray tree-trunk,
+slab of loose bark, and prostrate log yielded the flashing gray
+treasures; while of all others they seemed to take alarm most easily,
+and be most difficult to capture.
+
+Philip came to Elnora at dusk, daintily holding one by the body, its
+dark wings showing and its long slender legs trying to clasp his fingers
+and creep from his hold.
+
+"Oh for mercy's sake!" cried Elnora, staring at him.
+
+"I half believe it!" exulted Ammon.
+
+"Did you ever see one?"
+
+"Only in collections, and very seldom there."
+
+Elnora studied the black wings intently. "I surely believe that's
+Sappho," she marvelled. "The Bird Woman will be overjoyed."
+
+"We must get the cyanide jar quickly," said Philip.
+
+"I wouldn't lose her for anything. Such a chase as she led me!"
+
+Elnora brought the jar and began gathering up paraphernalia.
+
+"When you make a find like that," she said, "it's the right time to quit
+and feel glorious all the rest of that day. I tell you I'm proud! We
+will go now. We have barely time to carry out our plans before supper.
+Won't mother be pleased to see that we have a rare one?"
+
+"I'd like to see any one more pleased than I am!" said Philip Ammon. "I
+feel as if I'd earned my supper to-night. Let's go."
+
+He took the greater part of the load and stepped aside for Elnora to
+precede him. She followed the path, broken by the grazing cattle, toward
+the cabin and nearest the violet patch she stopped, laid down her net,
+and the things she carried. Philip passed her and hurried straight
+toward the back gate.
+
+"Aren't you going to----?" began Elnora.
+
+"I'm going to get this moth home in a hurry," he said. "This cyanide has
+lost its strength, and it's not working well. We need some fresh in the
+jar."
+
+He had forgotten the violets! Elnora stood looking after him, a curious
+expression on her face. One second so--then she picked up the net and
+followed. At the blue-bordered pool she paused and half turned back,
+then she closed her lips firmly and went on. It was nine o'clock when
+Philip said good-bye, and started to town. His gay whistle floated to
+them from the farthest corner of the Limberlost. Elnora complained of
+being tired, so she went to her room and to bed. But sleep would not
+come. Thought was racing in her brain and the longer she lay the wider
+awake she grew. At last she softly slipped from bed, lighted her lamp
+and began opening boxes. Then she went to work. Two hours later a
+beautiful birch bark basket, strongly and artistically made, stood on
+her table. She set a tiny alarm clock at three, returned to bed and fell
+asleep instantly with a smile on her lips.
+
+She was on the floor with the first tinkle of the alarm, and hastily
+dressing, she picked up the basket and a box to fit it, crept down the
+stairs, and out to the violet patch. She was unafraid as it was growing
+light, and lining the basket with damp mosses she swiftly began picking,
+with practised hands, the best of the flowers. She scarcely could
+tell which were freshest at times, but day soon came creeping over the
+Limberlost and peeped at her. The robins awoke all their neighbours, and
+a babel of bird notes filled the air. The dew was dripping, while the
+first strong rays of light fell on a world in which Elnora worshipped.
+When the basket was filled to overflowing, she set it in the stout
+pasteboard box, packed it solid with mosses, tied it firmly and slipped
+under the cord a note she had written the previous night.
+
+Then she took a short cut across the woods and walked swiftly to
+Onabasha. It was after six o'clock, but all of the city she wished to
+avoid were asleep. She had no trouble in finding a small boy out, and
+she stood at a distance waiting while he rang Dr. Ammon's bell and
+delivered the package for Philip to a maid, with the note which was to
+be given him at once.
+
+On the way home through the woods passing some baited trees she
+collected the captive moths. She entered the kitchen with them so
+naturally that Mrs. Comstock made no comment. After breakfast Elnora
+went to her room, cleared away all trace of the night's work and was out
+in the arbour mounting moths when Philip came down the road. "I am tired
+sitting," she said to her mother. "I think I will walk a few rods and
+meet him."
+
+"Who's a trump?" he called from afar.
+
+"Not you!" retorted Elnora. "Confess that you forgot!"
+
+"Completely!" said Philip. "But luckily it would not have been fatal. I
+wrote Polly last week to send Edith something appropriate to-day, with
+my card. But that touch from the woods will be very effective. Thank you
+more than I can say. Aunt Anna and I unpacked it to see the basket, and
+it was a beauty. She says you are always doing such things."
+
+"Well, I hope not!" laughed Elnora. "If you'd seen me sneaking out
+before dawn, not to awaken mother and coming in with moths to make
+her think I'd been to the trees, you'd know it was a most especial
+occasion."
+
+"Then Philip understood two things: Elnora's mother did not know of the
+early morning trip to the city, and the girl had come to meet him to
+tell him so.
+
+"You were a brick to do it!" he whispered as he closed the gate behind
+them. "I'll never forget you for it. Thank you ever so much."
+
+"I did not do that for you," said Elnora tersely. "I did it mostly to
+preserve my own self-respect. I saw you were forgetting. If I did it for
+anything besides that, I did it for her."
+
+"Just look what I've brought!" said Philip, entering the arbour and
+greeting Mrs. Comstock. "Borrowed it of the Bird Woman. And it isn't
+hers. A rare edition of Catocalae with coloured plates. I told her the
+best I could, and she said to try for Sappho here. I suspect the Bird
+Woman will be out presently. She was all excitement."
+
+Then they bent over the book together and with the mounted moth before
+them determined her family. The Bird Woman did come later, and carried
+the moth away, to put into a book and Elnora and Philip were freshly
+filled with enthusiasm.
+
+So these days were the beginning of the weeks that followed. Six of them
+flying on Time's wings, each filled to the brim with interest. After
+June, the moth hunts grew less frequent; the fields and woods were
+searched for material for Elnora's grade work. The most absorbing
+occupation they found was in carrying out Mrs. Comstock's suggestion
+to learn the vital thing for which each month was distinctive, and make
+that the key to the nature work. They wrote out a list of the months,
+opposite each the things all of them could suggest which seemed to
+pertain to that month alone, and then tried to sift until they found
+something typical. Mrs. Comstock was a great help. Her mother had
+been Dutch and had brought from Holland numerous quaint sayings and
+superstitions easily traceable to Pliny's Natural History; and in Mrs.
+Comstock's early years in Ohio she had heard much Indian talk among her
+elders, so she knew the signs of each season, and sometimes they helped.
+Always her practical thought and sterling common sense were useful. When
+they were afield until exhausted they came back to the cabin for food,
+to prepare specimens and classify them, and to talk over the day.
+Sometimes Philip brought books and read while Elnora and her mother
+worked, and every night Mrs. Comstock asked for the violin. Her perfect
+hunger for music was sufficient evidence of how she had suffered without
+it. So the days crept by, golden, filled with useful work and pure
+pleasure.
+
+The grosbeak had led the family in the maple abroad and a second brood,
+in a wild grape vine clambering over the well, was almost ready for
+flight. The dust lay thick on the country roads, the days grew warmer;
+summer was just poising to slip into fall, and Philip remained, coming
+each day as if he had belonged there always.
+
+One warm August afternoon Mrs. Comstock looked up from the ruffle on
+which she was engaged to see a blue-coated messenger enter the gate.
+
+"Is Philip Ammon here?" asked the boy.
+
+"He is," said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"I have a message for him."
+
+"He is in the woods back of the cabin. I will ring the bell. Do you know
+if it is important?"
+
+"Urgent," said the boy; "I rode hard."
+
+Mrs. Comstock stepped to the back door and clanged the dinner bell
+sharply, paused a second, and rang again. In a short time Philip and
+Elnora ran down the path.
+
+"Are you ill, mother?" cried Elnora.
+
+Mrs. Comstock indicated the boy. "There is an important message for
+Philip," she said.
+
+He muttered an excuse and tore open the telegram. His colour faded
+slightly. "I have to take the first train," he said. "My father is ill
+and I am needed."
+
+He handed the sheet to Elnora. "I have about two hours, as I remember
+the trains north, but my things are all over Uncle Doc's house, so I
+must go at once."
+
+"Certainly," said Elnora, giving back the message. "Is there anything I
+can do to help? Mother, bring Philip a glass of buttermilk to start on.
+I will gather what you have here."
+
+"Never mind. There is nothing of importance. I don't want to be
+hampered. I'll send for it if I miss anything I need."
+
+Philip drank the milk, said good-bye to Mrs. Comstock; thanked her for
+all her kindness, and turned to Elnora.
+
+"Will you walk to the edge of the Limberlost with me?" he asked. Elnora
+assented. Mrs. Comstock followed to the gate, urged him to come again
+soon, and repeated her good-bye. Then she went back to the arbour to
+await Elnora's return. As she watched down the road she smiled softly.
+
+"I had an idea he would speak to me first," she thought, "but this may
+change things some. He hasn't time. Elnora will come back a happy girl,
+and she has good reason. He is a model young man. Her lot will be very
+different from mine."
+
+She picked up her embroidery and began setting dainty precise little
+stitches, possible only to certain women.
+
+On the road Elnora spoke first. "I do hope it is nothing serious," she
+said. "Is he usually strong?"
+
+"Quite strong," said Philip. "I am not at all alarmed but I am very much
+ashamed. I have been well enough for the past month to have gone home
+and helped him with some critical cases that were keeping him at work in
+this heat. I was enjoying myself so I wouldn't offer to go, and he would
+not ask me to come, so long as he could help it. I have allowed him to
+overtax himself until he is down, and mother and Polly are north at our
+cottage. He's never been sick before, and it's probable I am to blame
+that he is now."
+
+"He intended you to stay this long when you came," urged Elnora.
+
+"Yes, but it's hot in Chicago. I should have remembered him. He is
+always thinking of me. Possibly he has needed me for days. I am ashamed
+to go to him in splendid condition and admit that I was having such a
+fine time I forgot to come home."
+
+"You have had a fine time, then?" asked Elnora.
+
+They had reached the fence. Philip vaulted over to take a short cut
+across the fields. He turned and looked at her.
+
+"The best, the sweetest, and most wholesome time any man ever had in
+this world," he said. "Elnora, if I talked hours I couldn't make you
+understand what a girl I think you are. I never in all my life hated
+anything as I hate leaving you. It seems to me that I have not strength
+to do it."
+
+"If you have learned anything worth while from me," said Elnora, "that
+should be it. Just to have strength to go to your duty, and to go
+quickly."
+
+He caught the hand she held out to him in both his. "Elnora, these days
+we have had together, have they been sweet to you?"
+
+"Beautiful days!" said Elnora. "Each like a perfect dream to be thought
+over and over all my life. Oh, they have been the only really happy days
+I've ever known; these days rich with mother's love, and doing useful
+work with your help. Good-bye! You must hurry!"
+
+Philip gazed at her. He tried to drop her hand, only clutched it closer.
+Suddenly he drew her toward him. "Elnora," he whispered, "will you kiss
+me good-bye?"
+
+Elnora drew back and stared at him with wide eyes. "I'd strike you
+sooner!" she said. "Have I ever said or done anything in your presence
+that made you feel free to ask that, Philip Ammon?"
+
+"No!" panted Philip. "No! I think so much of you I wanted to touch your
+lips once before I left you. You know, Elnora----"
+
+"Don't distress yourself," said Elnora calmly. "I am broad enough to
+judge you sanely. I know what you mean. It would be no harm to you. It
+would not matter to me, but here we will think of some one else. Edith
+Carr would not want your lips to-morrow if she knew they had touched
+mine to-day. I was wise to say: 'Go quickly!'"
+
+Philip still clung to her. "Will you write me?" he begged.
+
+"No," said Elnora. "There is nothing to say, save good-bye. We can do
+that now."
+
+He held on. "Promise that you will write me only one letter," he urged.
+"I want just one message from you to lock in my desk, and keep always.
+Promise you will write once, Elnora."
+
+She looked into his eyes, and smiled serenely. "If the talking trees
+tell me this winter, the secret of how a man may grow perfect, I will
+write you what it is, Philip. In all the time I have known you, I never
+have liked you so little. Good-bye."
+
+She drew away her hand and swiftly turned back to the road. Philip
+Ammon, wordless, started toward Onabasha on a run.
+
+Elnora crossed the road, climbed the fence and sought the shelter of
+their own woods. She chose a diagonal course and followed it until
+she came to the path leading past the violet patch. She went down this
+hurriedly. Her hands were clenched at her side, her eyes dry and bright,
+her cheeks red-flushed, and her breath coming fast. When she reached the
+patch she turned into it and stood looking around her.
+
+The mosses were dry, the flowers gone, weeds a foot high covered it. She
+turned away and went on down the path until she was almost in sight of
+the cabin.
+
+Mrs. Comstock smiled and waited in the arbour until it occurred to her
+that Elnora was a long time coming, so she went to the gate. The road
+stretched away toward the Limberlost empty and lonely. Then she knew
+that Elnora had gone into their own woods and would come in the back
+way. She could not understand why the girl did not hurry to her with
+what she would have to tell. She went out and wandered around the
+garden. Then she stepped into the path and started along the way leading
+to the woods, past the pool now framed in a thick setting of yellow
+lilies. Then she saw, and stopped, gasping for breath. Her hands flew up
+and her lined face grew ghastly. She stared at the sky and then at the
+prostrate girl figure. Over and over she tried to speak, but only a dry
+breath came. She turned and fled back to the garden.
+
+In the familiar enclosure she gazed around her like a caged animal
+seeking escape. The sun beat down on her bare head mercilessly, and
+mechanically she moved to the shade of a half-grown hickory tree that
+voluntarily had sprouted beside the milk house. At her feet lay an axe
+with which she made kindlings for fires. She stooped and picked it up.
+The memory of that prone figure sobbing in the grass caught her with
+a renewed spasm. She shut her eyes as if to close it out. That made
+hearing so acute she felt certain she heard Elnora moaning beside the
+path. The eyes flew open. They looked straight at a few spindling tomato
+plants set too near the tree and stunted by its shade. Mrs. Comstock
+whirled on the hickory and swung the axe. Her hair shook down, her
+clothing became disarranged, in the heat the perspiration streamed, but
+stroke fell on stroke until the tree crashed over, grazing a corner of
+the milk house and smashing the garden fence on the east.
+
+At the sound Elnora sprang to her feet and came running down the garden
+walk. "Mother!" she cried. "Mother! What in the world are you doing?"
+
+Mrs. Comstock wiped her ghastly face on her apron. "I've laid out to cut
+that tree for years," she said. "It shades the beets in the morning, and
+the tomatoes in the afternoon!"
+
+Elnora uttered one wild little cry and fled into her mother's arms. "Oh
+mother!" she sobbed. "Will you ever forgive me?"
+
+Mrs. Comstock's arms swept together in a tight grip around Elnora.
+
+"There isn't a thing on God's footstool from a to izzard I won't forgive
+you, my precious girl!" she said. "Tell mother what it is!"
+
+Elnora lifted her wet face. "He told me," she panted, "just as soon as
+he decently could--that second day he told me. Almost all his life he's
+been engaged to a girl at home. He never cared anything about me. He was
+only interested in the moths and growing strong."
+
+Mrs. Comstock's arms tightened. With a shaking hand she stroked the
+bright hair.
+
+"Tell me, honey," she said. "Is he to blame for a single one of these
+tears?"
+
+"Not one!" sobbed Elnora. "Oh mother, I won't forgive you if you don't
+believe that. Not one! He never said, or looked, or did anything all the
+world might not have known. He likes me very much as a friend. He hated
+to go dreadfully!"
+
+"Elnora!" the mother's head bent until the white hair mingled with the
+brown. "Elnora, why didn't you tell me at first?"
+
+Elnora caught her breath in a sharp snatch. "I know I should!" she
+sobbed. "I will bear any punishment for not, but I didn't feel as if I
+possibly could. I was afraid."
+
+"Afraid of what?" the shaking hand was on the hair again.
+
+"Afraid you wouldn't let him come!" panted Elnora. "And oh, mother, I
+wanted him so!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK EXPERIMENTS WITH REJUVENATION, AND ELNORA TEACHES
+NATURAL HISTORY
+
+
+For the following week Mrs. Comstock and Elnora worked so hard there
+was no time to talk, and they were compelled to sleep from physical
+exhaustion. Neither of them made any pretence of eating, for they could
+not swallow without an effort, so they drank milk and worked. Elnora
+kept on setting bait for Catacolae and Sphinginae, which, unlike the
+big moths of June, live several months. She took all the dragonflies and
+butterflies she could, and when she went over the list for the man of
+India, she found, to her amazement, that with Philip's help she once
+more had it complete save a pair of Yellow Emperors.
+
+This circumstance was so surprising she had a fleeting thought of
+writing Philip and asking him to see if he could not secure her a pair.
+She did tell the Bird Woman, who from every source at her command tried
+to complete the series with these moths, but could not find any for
+sale.
+
+"I think the mills of the Gods are grinding this grist," said Elnora,
+"and we might as well wait patiently until they choose to send a Yellow
+Emperor."
+
+Mrs. Comstock invented work. When she had nothing more to do, she hoed
+in the garden although the earth was hard and dry and there were no
+plants that really needed attention. Then came a notification that
+Elnora would be compelled to attend a week's session of the Teachers'
+Institute held at the county seat twenty miles north of Onabasha the
+following week. That gave them something of which to think and real
+work to do. Elnora was requested to bring her violin. As she was on the
+programme of one of the most important sessions for a talk on nature
+work in grade schools, she was driven to prepare her speech, also to
+select and practise some music. Her mother turned her attention to
+clothing.
+
+They went to Onabasha together and purchased a simple and appropriate
+fall suit and hat, goods for a dainty little coloured frock, and a dress
+skirt and several fancy waists. Margaret Sinton came down and the sewing
+began. When everything was finished and packed, Elnora kissed her mother
+good-bye at the depot, and entered the train. Mrs. Comstock went into
+the waiting-room and dropped into a seat to rest. Her heart was so sore
+her whole left side felt tender. She was half starved for the food she
+had no appetite to take. She had worked in dogged determination until
+she was exhausted. For a time she simply sat and rested. Then she began
+to think. She was glad Elnora had gone where she would be compelled to
+fix her mind on other matters for a few days. She remembered the girl
+had said she wanted to go.
+
+School would begin the following week. She thought over what Elnora
+would have to do to accomplish her work successfully. She would be
+compelled to arise at six o'clock, walk three miles through varying
+weather, lead the high school orchestra, and then put in the remainder
+of the day travelling from building to building over the city, teaching
+a specified length of time every week in each room. She must have her
+object lessons ready, and she must do a certain amount of practising
+with the orchestra. Then a cold lunch at noon, and a three-mile walk at
+night.
+
+"Humph!" said Mrs. Comstock, "to get through that the girl would have to
+be made of cast-iron. I wonder how I can help her best?"
+
+She thought deeply.
+
+"The less she sees of what she's been having all summer, the sooner
+she'll feel better about it," she muttered.
+
+She arose, went to the bank and inquired for the cashier.
+
+"I want to know just how I am fixed here," she said.
+
+The cashier laughed. "You haven't been in a hurry," he replied. "We have
+been ready for you any time these twenty years, but you didn't seem to
+pay much attention. Your account is rather flourishing. Interest, when
+it gets to compounding, is quite a money breeder. Come back here to a
+table and I will show you your balances."
+
+Mrs. Comstock sank into a chair and waited while the cashier read a
+jumble of figures to her. It meant that her deposits had exceeded her
+expenses from one to three hundred dollars a year, according to the
+cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, butter, and eggs she had sold. The
+aggregate of these sums had been compounding interest throughout the
+years. Mrs. Comstock stared at the total with dazed and unbelieving
+eyes. Through her sick heart rushed the realization, that if she merely
+had stood before that wicket and asked one question, she would have
+known that all those bitter years of skimping for Elnora and herself had
+been unnecessary. She arose and went back to the depot.
+
+"I want to send a message," she said. She picked up the pencil, and with
+rash extravagance, wrote, "Found money at bank didn't know about. If you
+want to go to college, come on first train and get ready." She hesitated
+a second and then she said to herself grimly, "Yes, I'll pay for that,
+too," and recklessly added, "With love, Mother." Then she sat waiting
+for the answer. It came in less than an hour. "Will teach this winter.
+With dearest love, Elnora."
+
+Mrs. Comstock held the message a long time. When she arose she was
+ravenously hungry, but the pain in her heart was a little easier. She
+went to a restaurant and ate some food, then to a dressmaker where she
+ordered four dresses: two very plain every-day ones, a serviceable dark
+gray cloth suit, and a soft light gray silk with touches of lavender
+and lace. She made a heavy list of purchases at Brownlee's, and the
+remainder of the day she did business in her direct and spirited way.
+At night she was so tired she scarcely could walk home, but she built a
+fire and cooked and ate a hearty meal.
+
+Later she went out beside the west fence and gathered an armful of tansy
+which she boiled to a thick green tea. Then she stirred in oatmeal until
+it was a stiff paste. She spread a sheet over her bed and began tearing
+strips of old muslin. She bandaged each hand and arm with the mixture
+and plastered the soggy, evil-smelling stuff in a thick poultice over
+her face and neck. She was so tired she went to sleep, and when she
+awoke she was half skinned. She bathed her face and hands, did the
+work and went back to town, coming home at night to go through the same
+process.
+
+By the third morning she was a raw even red, the fourth she had faded
+to a brilliant pink under the soothing influence of a cream recommended.
+That day came a letter from Elnora saying that she would remain where
+she was until Saturday morning, and then come to Ellen Brownlee's at
+Onabasha and stay for the Saturday's session of teachers to arrange
+their year's work. Sunday was Ellen's last day at home, and she wanted
+Elnora very much. She had to call together the orchestra and practise
+them Sunday; and could not come home until after school Monday night.
+Mrs. Comstock at once answered the letter saying those arrangements
+suited her.
+
+The following day she was a pale pink, later a delicate porcelain white.
+Then she went to a hairdresser and had the rope of snowy hair which
+covered her scalp washed, dressed, and fastened with such pins and combs
+as were decided to be most becoming. She took samples of her dresses,
+went to a milliner, and bought a street hat to match her suit, and a
+gray satin with lavender orchids to wear with the silk dress. Her last
+investment was a loose coat of soft gray broadcloth with white lining,
+and touches of lavender on the embroidered collar, and gray gloves to
+match.
+
+Then she went home, rested and worked by turns until Monday. When school
+closed on that evening, Elnora, so tired she almost trembled, came down
+the long walk after a late session of teachers' meeting, to be stopped
+by a messenger boy.
+
+"There's a lady wants to see you most important. I am to take you to the
+place," he said.
+
+Elnora groaned. She could not imagine who wanted her, but there was
+nothing to do but find out; tired and anxious to see her mother as she
+was.
+
+"This is the place," said the boy, and went his way whistling. Elnora
+was three blocks from the high school building on the same street. She
+was before a quaint old house, fresh with paint and covered with vines.
+There was a long wide lot, grass-covered, closely set with trees, and
+a barn and chicken park at the back that seemed to be occupied. Elnora
+stepped on the veranda which was furnished with straw rugs, bent-hickory
+chairs, hanging baskets, and a table with a work-box and magazines, and
+knocked at the screen door.
+
+Inside she could see polished floors, walls freshly papered in low-toned
+harmonious colours, straw rugs and madras curtains. It seemed to be a
+restful, homelike place to which she had come. A second later down an
+open stairway came a tall, dark-eyed woman with cheeks faintly pink and
+a crown of fluffy snow-white hair. She wore a lavender gingham dress
+with white collar and cuffs, and she called as she advanced: "That
+screen isn't latched! Open it and come see your brand-new mother, my
+girl."
+
+Elnora stepped inside the door. "Mother!" she cried. "You my mother! I
+don't believe it!"
+
+"Well, you better!" said Mrs. Comstock, "because it's true! You said you
+wished I were like the other girls' mothers, and I've shot as close the
+mark as I could without any practice. I thought that walk would be too
+much for you this winter, so I just rented this house and moved in, to
+be near you, and help more in case I'm needed. I've only lived here a
+day, but I like it so well I've a mortal big notion to buy the place."
+
+"But mother!" protested Elnora, clinging to her wonderingly. "You are
+perfectly beautiful, and this house is a little paradise, but how will
+we ever pay for it? We can't afford it!"
+
+"Humph! Have you forgotten I telegraphed you I'd found some money I
+didn't know about? All I've done is paid for, and plenty more to settle
+for all I propose to do."
+
+Mrs. Comstock glanced around with satisfaction.
+
+"I may get homesick as a pup before spring," she said, "but if I do I
+can go back. If I don't, I'll sell some timber and put a few oil wells
+where they don't show much. I can have land enough cleared for a few
+fields and put a tenant on our farm, and we will buy this and settle
+here. It's for sale."
+
+"You don't look it, but you've surely gone mad!"
+
+"Just the reverse, my girl," said Mrs. Comstock, "I've gone sane. If you
+are going to undertake this work, you must be convenient to it. And your
+mother should be where she can see that you are properly dressed, fed,
+and cared for. This is our--let me think--reception-room. How do you
+like it? This door leads to your workroom and study. I didn't do much
+there because I wasn't sure of my way. But I knew you would want a rug,
+curtains, table, shelves for books, and a case for your specimens, so I
+had a carpenter shelve and enclose that end of it. Looks pretty neat to
+me. The dining-room and kitchen are back, one of the cows in the barn,
+and some chickens in the coop. I understand that none of the other
+girls' mothers milk a cow, so a neighbour boy will tend to ours for a
+third of the milk. There are three bedrooms, and a bath upstairs. Go
+take one, put on some fresh clothes, and come to supper. You can find
+your room because your things are in it."
+
+Elnora kissed her mother over and over, and hurried upstairs. She
+identified her room by the dressing-case. There were a pretty rug, and
+curtains, white iron bed, plain and rocking chairs to match her case,
+a shirtwaist chest, and the big closet was filled with her old clothing
+and several new dresses. She found the bathroom, bathed, dressed in
+fresh linen and went down to a supper that was an evidence of Mrs.
+Comstock's highest art in cooking. Elnora was so hungry she ate her
+first real meal in two weeks. But the bites went down slowly because she
+forgot about them in watching her mother.
+
+"How on earth did you do it?" she asked at last. "I always thought you
+were naturally brown as a nut."
+
+"Oh, that was tan and sunburn!" explained Mrs. Comstock. "I always knew
+I was white underneath it. I hated to shade my face because I hadn't
+anything but a sunbonnet, and I couldn't stand for it to touch my ears,
+so I went bareheaded and took all the colour I accumulated. But when
+I began to think of moving you in to your work, I saw I must put up an
+appearance that wouldn't disgrace you, so I thought I'd best remove the
+crust. It took some time, and I hope I may die before I ever endure the
+feel and the smell of the stuff I used again, but it skinned me nicely.
+What you now see is my own with a little dust of rice powder, for
+protection. I'm sort of tender yet."
+
+"And your lovely, lovely hair?" breathed Elnora.
+
+"Hairdresser did that!" said Mrs. Comstock. "It cost like smoke. But I
+watched her, and with a little help from you I can wash it alone next
+time, though it will be hard work. I let her monkey with it until she
+said she had found 'my style.' Then I tore it down and had her show me
+how to build it up again three times. I thought my arms would drop. When
+I paid the bill for her work, the time I'd taken, the pins, and combs
+she'd used, I nearly had heart failure, but I didn't turn a hair before
+her. I just smiled at her sweetly and said, 'How reasonable you are!'
+Come to think of it, she was! She might have charged me ten dollars for
+what she did quite as well as nine seventy-five. I couldn't have helped
+myself. I had made no bargain to begin on."
+
+Then Elnora leaned back in her chair and shouted, in a gust of hearty
+laughter, so a little of the ache ceased in her breast. There was no
+time to think, the remainder of that evening, she was so tired she had
+to sleep, while her mother did not awaken her until she barely had time
+to dress, breakfast and reach school. There was nothing in the new life
+to remind her of the old. It seemed as if there never came a minute for
+retrospection, but her mother appeared on the scene with more work, or
+some entertaining thing to do.
+
+Mrs. Comstock invited Elnora's friends to visit her, and proved herself
+a bright and interesting hostess. She digested a subject before she
+spoke; and when she advanced a view, her point was sure to be original
+and tersely expressed. Before three months people waited to hear what
+she had to say. She kept her appearance so in mind that she made a
+handsome and a distinguished figure.
+
+Elnora never mentioned Philip Ammon, neither did Mrs. Comstock. Early in
+December came a note and a big box from him. It contained several books
+on nature subjects which would be of much help in school work, a number
+of conveniences Elnora could not afford, and a pair of glass-covered
+plaster casts, for each large moth she had. In these the upper and
+underwings of male and female showed. He explained that she would break
+her specimens easily, carrying them around in boxes. He had seen these
+and thought they would be of use. Elnora was delighted with them, and
+at once began the tedious process of softening the mounted moths and
+fitting them to the casts moulded to receive them. Her time was so taken
+in school, she progressed slowly, so her mother undertook this work.
+After trying one or two very common ones she learned to handle the most
+delicate with ease. She took keen pride in relaxing the tense moths,
+fitting them to the cases, polishing the glass covers to the last degree
+and sealing them. The results were beautiful to behold.
+
+Soon after Elnora wrote to Philip:
+
+DEAR FRIEND:
+
+I am writing to thank you for the books, and the box of conveniences
+sent me for my work. I can use everything with fine results. Hope I am
+giving good satisfaction in my position. You will be interested to learn
+that when the summer's work was classified and pinned, I again had my
+complete collection for the man of India, save a Yellow Emperor. I have
+tried everywhere I know, so has the Bird Woman. We cannot find a pair
+for sale. Fate is against me, at least this season. I shall have to wait
+until next year and try again.
+
+Thank you very much for helping me with my collection and for the books
+and cases.
+
+Sincerely yours,
+
+ELNORA COMSTOCK.
+
+
+Philip was disappointed over that note and instead of keeping it he tore
+it into bits and dropped them into the waste basket.
+
+That was precisely what Elnora had intended he should do. Christmas
+brought beautiful cards of greeting to Mrs. Comstock and Elnora, Easter
+others, and the year ran rapidly toward spring. Elnora's position had
+been intensely absorbing, while she had worked with all her power. She
+had made a wonderful success and won new friends. Mrs. Comstock had
+helped in every way she could, so she was very popular also.
+
+Throughout the winter they had enjoyed the city thoroughly, and the
+change of life it afforded, but signs of spring did wonderful things
+to the hearts of the country-bred women. A restlessness began on bright
+February days, calmed during March storms and attacked full force in
+April. When neither could bear it any longer they were forced to discuss
+the matter and admit they were growing ill with pure homesickness. They
+decided to keep the city house during the summer, but to return to the
+farm to live as soon as school closed.
+
+So Mrs. Comstock would prepare breakfast and lunch and then slip away to
+the farm to make up beds in her ploughed garden, plant seeds, trim and
+tend her flowers, and prepare the cabin for occupancy. Then she would go
+home and make the evening as cheerful as possible for Elnora; in these
+days she lived only for the girl.
+
+Both of them were glad when the last of May came and the schools closed.
+They packed the books and clothing they wished to take into a wagon and
+walked across the fields to the old cabin. As they approached it, Mrs.
+Comstock said to Elnora: "You are sure you won't be lonely here?"
+
+Elnora knew what she really meant.
+
+"Quite sure," she said. "For a time last fall I was glad to be away, but
+that all wore out with the winter. Spring made me homesick as I could
+be. I can scarcely wait until we get back again."
+
+So they began that summer as they had begun all others--with work. But
+both of them took a new joy in everything, and the violin sang by the
+hour in the twilight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON GIVES A BALL IN HONOUR OF EDITH CARR, AND HART
+HENDERSON APPEARS ON THE SCENE
+
+
+Edith Carr stood in a vine-enclosed side veranda of the Lake Shore Club
+House waiting while Philip Ammon gave some important orders. In a few
+days she would sail for Paris to select a wonderful trousseau she had
+planned for her marriage in October. To-night Philip was giving a club
+dance in her honour. He had spent days in devising new and exquisite
+effects in decorations, entertainment, and supper. Weeks before the
+favoured guests had been notified. Days before they had received the
+invitations asking them to participate in this entertainment by Philip
+Ammon in honour of Miss Carr. They spoke of it as "Phil's dance for
+Edith!"
+
+She could hear the rumble of carriages and the panting of automobiles
+as in a steady stream they rolled to the front entrance. She could catch
+glimpses of floating draperies of gauze and lace, the flash of jewels,
+and the passing of exquisite colour. Every one was newly arrayed in her
+honour in the loveliest clothing, and the most expensive jewels they
+could command. As she thought of it she lifted her head a trifle higher
+and her eyes flashed proudly.
+
+She was robed in a French creation suggested and designed by Philip.
+He had said to her: "I know a competent judge who says the distinctive
+feature of June is her exquisite big night moths. I want you to be the
+very essence of June that night, as you will be the embodiment of love.
+Be a moth. The most beautiful of them is either the pale-green Luna or
+the Yellow Imperialis. Be my moon lady, or my gold Empress."
+
+He took her to the museum and showed her the moths. She instantly
+decided on the yellow. Because she knew the shades would make her more
+startlingly beautiful than any other colour. To him she said: "A moon
+lady seems so far away and cold. I would be of earth and very near on
+that night. I choose the Empress."
+
+So she matched the colours exactly, wrote out the idea and forwarded
+the order to Paquin. To-night when Philip Ammon came for her, he stood
+speechless a minute and then silently kissed her hands.
+
+For she stood tall, lithe, of grace inborn, her dark waving hair high
+piled and crossed by gold bands studded with amethyst and at one side
+an enamelled lavender orchid rimmed with diamonds, which flashed and
+sparkled. The soft yellow robe of lightest weight velvet fitted her form
+perfectly, while from each shoulder fell a great velvet wing lined with
+lavender, and flecked with embroidery of that colour in imitation of the
+moth. Around her throat was a wonderful necklace and on her arms were
+bracelets of gold set with amethyst and rimmed with diamonds. Philip had
+said that her gloves, fan, and slippers must be lavender, because the
+feet of the moth were that colour. These accessories had been made to
+order and embroidered with gold. It had been arranged that her mother,
+Philip's, and a few best friends should receive his guests. She was to
+appear when she led the grand march with Philip Ammon. Miss Carr was
+positive that she would be the most beautiful, and most exquisitely
+gowned woman present. In her heart she thought of herself as "Imperialis
+Regalis," as the Yellow Empress. In a few moments she would stun her
+world into feeling it as Philip Ammon had done, for she had taken pains
+that the history of her costume should be whispered to a few who would
+give it circulation. She lifted her head proudly and waited, for was not
+Philip planning something unusual and unsurpassed in her honour? Then
+she smiled.
+
+But of all the fragmentary thoughts crossing her brain the one that
+never came was that of Philip Ammon as the Emperor. Philip the king of
+her heart; at least her equal in all things. She was the Empress--yes,
+Philip was but a mere man, to devise entertainments, to provide
+luxuries, to humour whims, to kiss hands!
+
+"Ah, my luck!" cried a voice behind her.
+
+Edith Carr turned and smiled.
+
+"I thought you were on the ocean," she said.
+
+"I only reached the dock," replied the man, "when I had a letter that
+recalled me by the first limited."
+
+"Oh! Important business?"
+
+"The only business of any importance in all the world to me. I'm
+triumphant that I came. Edith, you are the most superb woman in every
+respect that I have ever seen. One glimpse is worth the whole journey."
+
+"You like my dress?" She moved toward him and turned, lifting her arms.
+"Do you know what it is intended to represent?"
+
+"Yes, Polly Ammon told me. I knew when I heard about it how you would
+look, so I started a sleuth hunt, to get the first peep. Edith, I can
+become intoxicated merely with looking at you to-night."
+
+He half-closed his eyes and smilingly stared straight at her. He was
+taller than she, a lean man, with close-cropped light hair, steel-gray
+eyes, a square chin and "man of the world" written all over him.
+
+Edith Carr flushed. "I thought you realized when you went away that you
+were to stop that, Hart Henderson," she cried.
+
+"I did, but this letter of which I tell you called me back to start it
+all over again."
+
+She came a step closer. "Who wrote that letter, and what did it contain
+concerning me?" she demanded.
+
+"One of your most intimate chums wrote it. It contained the hazard that
+possibly I had given up too soon. It said that in a fit of petulance you
+had broken your engagement with Ammon twice this winter, and he had come
+back because he knew you did not really mean it. I thought deeply there
+on the dock when I read that, and my boat sailed without me. I argued
+that anything so weak as an engagement twice broken and patched up again
+was a mighty frail affair indeed, and likely to smash completely at any
+time, so I came on the run. I said once I would not see you marry any
+other man. Because I could not bear it, I planned to go into exile of
+any sort to escape that. I have changed my mind. I have come back to
+haunt you until the ceremony is over. Then I go, not before. I was
+insane!"
+
+The girl laughed merrily. "Not half so insane as you are now, Hart!" she
+cried gaily. "You know that Philip Ammon has been devoted to me all my
+life. Now I'll tell you something else, because this looks serious for
+you. I love him with all my heart. Not while he lives shall he know it,
+and I will laugh at him if you tell him, but the fact remains: I intend
+to marry him, but no doubt I shall tease him constantly. It's good for
+a man to be uncertain. If you could see Philip's face at the quarterly
+return of his ring, you would understand the fun of it. You had better
+have taken your boat."
+
+"Possibly," said Henderson calmly. "But you are the only woman in the
+world for me, and while you are free, as I now see my light, I remain
+near you. You know the old adage."
+
+"But I'm not 'free!'" cried Edith Carr. "I'm telling you I am not. This
+night is my public acknowledgment that Phil and I are promised, as our
+world has surmised since we were children. That promise is an actual
+fact, because of what I just have told you. My little fits of temper
+don't count with Phil. He's been reared on them. In fact, I often
+invent one in a perfect calm to see him perform. He is the most amusing
+spectacle. But, please, please, do understand that I love him, and
+always shall, and that we shall be married."
+
+"Just the same, I'll wait and see it an accomplished fact," said
+Henderson. "And Edith, because I love you, with the sort of love it is
+worth a woman's while to inspire, I want your happiness before my own.
+So I am going to say this to you, for I never dreamed you were capable
+of the feeling you have displayed for Phil. If you do love him, and have
+loved him always, a disappointment would cut you deeper than you know.
+Go careful from now on! Don't strain that patched engagement of yours
+any further. I've known Philip all my life. I've known him through
+boyhood, in college, and since. All men respect him. Where the rest
+of us confess our sins, he stands clean. You can go to his arms with
+nothing to forgive. Mark this thing! I have heard him say, 'Edith is my
+slogan,' and I have seen him march home strong in the strength of his
+love for you, in the face of temptations before which every other man of
+us fell. Before the gods! that ought to be worth something to a girl, if
+she really is the delicate, sensitive, refined thing she would have man
+believe. It would take a woman with the organism of an ostrich to endure
+some of the men here to-night, if she knew them as I do; but Phil is
+sound to the core. So this is what I would say to you: first, your
+instincts are right in loving him, why not let him feel it in the ways a
+woman knows? Second, don't break your engagement again. As men know the
+man, any of us would be afraid to the soul. He loves you, yes! He is
+long-suffering for you, yes! But men know he has a limit. When the limit
+is reached, he will stand fast, and all the powers can't move him. You
+don't seem to think it, but you can go too far!"
+
+"Is that all?" laughed Edith Carr sarcastically.
+
+"No, there is one thing more," said Henderson. "Here or here-after,
+now and so long as I breathe, I am your slave. You can do anything you
+choose and know that I will kneel before you again. So carry this in
+the depths of your heart; now or at any time, in any place or condition,
+merely lift your hand, and I will come. Anything you want of me, that
+thing will I do. I am going to wait; if you need me, it is not necessary
+to speak; only give me the faintest sign. All your life I will be
+somewhere near you waiting for it."
+
+"Idjit! You rave!" laughed Edith Carr. "How you would frighten me! What
+a bugbear you would raise! Be sensible and go find what keeps Phil. I
+was waiting patiently, but my patience is going. I won't look nearly so
+well as I do now when it is gone."
+
+At that instant Philip Ammon entered. He was in full evening dress
+and exceptionally handsome. "Everything is ready," he said; "they are
+waiting for us to lead the march. It is formed."
+
+Edith Carr smiled entrancingly. "Do you think I am ready?"
+
+Philip looked what he thought, and offered his arm. Edith Carr nodded
+carelessly to Hart Henderson, and moved away. Attendants parted the
+curtains and the Yellow Empress bowing right and left, swept the length
+of the ballroom and took her place at the head of the formed procession.
+The large open dancing pavilion was draped with yellow silk caught up
+with lilac flowers. Every corner was filled with bloom of those colours.
+The music was played by harpers dressed in yellow and violet, so the
+ball opened.
+
+The midnight supper was served with the same colours and the last half
+of the programme was being danced. Never had girl been more complimented
+and petted in the same length of time than Edith Carr. Every minute she
+seemed to grow more worthy of praise. A partners' dance was called and
+the floor was filled with couples waiting for the music. Philip stood
+whispering delightful things to Edith facing him. From out of the night,
+in at the wide front entrance to the pavilion, there swept in slow
+wavering flight a large yellow moth and fluttered toward the centre
+cluster of glaring electric lights. Philip Ammon and Edith Carr saw it
+at the same instant.
+
+"Why, isn't that----?" she began excitedly.
+
+"It's a Yellow Emperor! This is fate!" cried Philip. "The last one
+Elnora needs for her collection. I must have it! Excuse me!"
+
+He ran toward the light. "Hats! Handkerchiefs! Fans! Anything!" he
+panted. "Every one hold up something and stop that! It's a moth; I've
+got to catch it!"
+
+"It's yellow! He wants it for Edith!" ran in a murmur around the hall.
+The girl's face flushed, while she bit her lips in vexation.
+
+Instantly every one began holding up something to keep the moth from
+flying back into the night. One fan held straight before it served, and
+the moth gently settled on it.
+
+"Hold steady!" cried Philip. "Don't move for your life!" He rushed
+toward the moth, made a quick sweep and held it up between his fingers.
+"All right!" he called. "Thanks, every one! Excuse me a minute."
+
+He ran to the office.
+
+"An ounce of gasolene, quick!" he ordered. "A cigar box, a cork, and the
+glue bottle."
+
+He poured some glue into the bottom of the box, set the cork in it
+firmly, dashed the gasolene over the moth repeatedly, pinned it to the
+cork, poured the remainder of the liquid over it, closed the box, and
+fastened it. Then he laid a bill on the counter.
+
+"Pack that box with cork around it, in one twice its size, tie securely
+and express to this address at once."
+
+He scribbled on a sheet of paper and shoved it over.
+
+"On your honour, will you do that faithfully as I say?" he asked the
+clerk.
+
+"Certainly," was the reply.
+
+"Then keep the change," called Philip as he ran back to the pavilion.
+
+Edith Carr stood where he left her, thinking rapidly. She heard the
+murmur that arose when Philip started to capture the exquisite golden
+creature she was impersonating. She saw the flash of surprise that went
+over unrestrained faces when he ran from the room, without even showing
+it to her. "The last one Elnora needs," rang in her ears. He had told
+her that he helped collect moths the previous summer, but she had
+understood that the Bird Woman, with whose work Miss Carr was familiar,
+wanted them to put in a book.
+
+He had spoken of a country girl he had met who played the violin
+wonderfully, and at times, he had shown a disposition to exalt her as a
+standard of womanhood. Miss Carr had ignored what he said, and talked of
+something else. But that girl's name had been Elnora. It was she who
+was collecting moths! No doubt she was the competent judge who was
+responsible for the yellow costume Philip had devised. Had Edith Carr
+been in her room, she would have torn off the dress at the thought.
+
+Being in a circle of her best friends, which to her meant her keenest
+rivals and harshest critics, she grew rigid with anger. Her breath hurt
+her paining chest. No one thought to speak to the musicians, and seeing
+the floor filled, they began the waltz. Only part of the guests could
+see what had happened, and at once the others formed and commenced to
+dance. Gay couples came whirling past her.
+
+Edith Carr grew very white as she stood alone. Her lips turned pale,
+while her dark eyes flamed with anger. She stood perfectly still where
+Philip had left her, and the approaching men guided their partners
+around her, while the girls, looking back, could be seen making
+exclamations of surprise.
+
+The idolized only daughter of the Carr family hoped that she would drop
+dead from mortification, but nothing happened. She was too perverse
+to step aside and say that she was waiting for Philip. Then came Tom
+Levering dancing with Polly Ammon. Being in the scales with the Ammon
+family, Tom scented trouble from afar, so he whispered to Polly: "Edith
+is standing in the middle of the floor, and she's awful mad about
+something."
+
+"That won't hurt her," laughed Polly. "It's an old pose of hers. She
+knows she looks superb when she is angry, so she keeps herself furious
+half the time on purpose."
+
+"She looks like the mischief!" answered Tom. "Hadn't we better steer
+over and wait with her? She's the ugliest sight I ever saw!"
+
+"Why, Tom!" cried Polly. "Stop, quickly!"
+
+They hurried to Edith.
+
+"Come dear," said Polly. "We are going to wait with you until Phil
+returns. Let's go after a drink. I am so thirsty!"
+
+"Yes, do!" begged Tom, offering his arm. "Let's get out of here until
+Phil comes."
+
+There was the opportunity to laugh and walk away, but Edith Carr would
+not accept it.
+
+"My betrothed left me here," she said. "Here I shall remain until he
+returns for me, and then--he will be my betrothed no longer!"
+
+Polly grasped Edith's arm.
+
+"Oh, Edith!" she implored. "Don't make a scene here, and to-night.
+Edith, this has been the loveliest dance ever given at the club house.
+Every one is saying so. Edith! Darling, do come! Phil will be back in
+a second. He can explain! It's only a breath since I saw him go out. I
+thought he had returned."
+
+As Polly panted these disjointed ejaculations, Tom Levering began to
+grow angry on her account.
+
+"He has been gone just long enough to show every one of his guests that
+he will leave me standing alone, like a neglected fool, for any passing
+whim of his. Explain! His explanation would sound well! Do you know for
+whom he caught that moth? It is being sent to a girl he flirted with all
+last summer. It has just occurred to me that the dress I am wearing is
+her suggestion. Let him try to explain!"
+
+Speech unloosed the fountain. She stripped off her gloves to free her
+hands. At that instant the dancers parted to admit Philip. Instinctively
+they stopped as they approached and with wondering faces walled in Edith
+and Philip, Polly and Tom.
+
+"Mighty good of you to wait!" cried Philip, his face showing his delight
+over his success in capturing the Yellow Emperor. "I thought when I
+heard the music you were going on."
+
+"How did you think I was going on?" demanded Edith Carr in frigid tones.
+
+"I thought you would step aside and wait a few seconds for me, or dance
+with Henderson. It was most important to have that moth. It completes a
+valuable collection for a person who needs the money. Come!"
+
+He held out his arms.
+
+"I 'step aside' for no one!" stormed Edith Carr. "I await no other
+girl's pleasure! You may 'complete the collection' with that!"
+
+She drew her engagement ring from her finger and reached to place it
+on one of Philip's outstretched hands. He saw and drew back. Instantly
+Edith dropped the ring. As it fell, almost instinctively Philip caught
+it in air. With amazed face he looked closely at Edith Carr. Her
+distorted features were scarcely recognizable. He held the ring toward
+her.
+
+"Edith, for the love of mercy, wait until I can explain," he begged.
+"Put on your ring and let me tell you how it is."
+
+"I know perfectly 'how it is,'" she answered. "I never shall wear that
+ring again."
+
+"You won't even hear what I have to say? You won't take back your ring?"
+he cried.
+
+"Never! Your conduct is infamous!"
+
+"Come to think of it," said Philip deliberately, "it is 'infamous' to
+cut a girl, who has danced all her life, out of a few measures of a
+waltz. As for asking forgiveness for so black a sin as picking up a
+moth, and starting it to a friend who lives by collecting them, I don't
+see how I could! I have not been gone three minutes by the clock, Edith.
+Put on your ring and finish the dance like a dear girl."
+
+He thrust the glittering ruby into her fingers and again held out his
+arms. She dropped the ring, and it rolled some distance from them. Hart
+Henderson followed its shining course, and caught it before it was lost.
+
+"You really mean it?" demanded Philip in a voice as cold as hers ever
+had been.
+
+"You know I mean it!" cried Edith Carr.
+
+"I accept your decision in the presence of these witnesses," said Philip
+Ammon. "Where is my father?" The elder Ammon with a distressed face
+hurried to him. "Father, take my place," said Philip. "Excuse me to my
+guests. Ask all my friends to forgive me. I am going away for awhile."
+
+He turned and walked from the pavilion. As he went Hart Henderson rushed
+to Edith Carr and forced the ring into her fingers. "Edith, quick. Come,
+quick!" he implored. "There's just time to catch him. If you let him go
+that way, he never will return in this world. Remember what I told you."
+
+"Great prophet! aren't you, Hart?" she sneered. "Who wants him to
+return? If that ring is thrust upon me again I shall fling it into the
+lake. Signal the musicians to begin, and dance with me."
+
+Henderson put the ring into his pocket, and began the dance. He could
+feel the muscular spasms of the girl in his arms, her face was cold and
+hard, but her breath burned with the scorch of fever. She finished the
+dance and all others, taking Phil's numbers with Henderson, who had
+arrived too late to arrange a programme. She left with the others,
+merely inclining her head as she passed Ammon's father taking his place,
+and entered the big touring car for which Henderson had telephoned. She
+sank limply into a seat and moaned softly.
+
+"Shall I drive awhile in the night air?" asked Henderson.
+
+She nodded. He instructed the chauffeur.
+
+She raised her head in a few seconds. "Hart, I'm going to pieces," she
+said. "Won't you put your arm around me a little while?"
+
+Henderson gathered her into his arms and her head fell on his shoulder.
+"Closer!" she cried.
+
+Henderson held her until his arms were numb, but he did not know it. The
+tricks of fate are cruel enough, but there scarcely could have been a
+worse one than that: To care for a woman as he loved Edith Carr and have
+her given into his arms because she was so numb with misery over her
+trouble with another man that she did not know or care what she did.
+Dawn was streaking the east when he spoke to her.
+
+"Edith, it is growing light."
+
+"Take me home," she said.
+
+Henderson helped her up the steps and rang the bell.
+
+"Miss Carr is ill," he said to the footman. "Arouse her maid instantly,
+and have her prepare something hot as quickly as possible."
+
+"Edith," he cried, "just a word. I have been thinking. It isn't too late
+yet. Take your ring and put it on. I will go find Phil at once and tell
+him you have, that you are expecting him, and he will come."
+
+"Think what he said!" she cried. "He accepted my decision as final, 'in
+the presence of witnesses,' as if it were court. He can return it to me,
+if I ever wear it again."
+
+"You think that now, but in a few days you will find that you feel very
+differently. Living a life of heartache is no joke, and no job for a
+woman. Put on your ring and send me to tell him to come."
+
+"No."
+
+"Edith, there was not a soul who saw that, but sympathized with Phil.
+It was ridiculous for you to get so angry over a thing which was never
+intended for the slightest offence, and by no logical reasoning could
+have been so considered."
+
+"Do you think that?" she demanded.
+
+"I do!" said Henderson. "If you had laughed and stepped aside an
+instant, or laughed and stayed where you were, Phil would have been
+back; or, if he needed punishment in your eyes, to have found me having
+one of his dances would have been enough. I was waiting. You could have
+called me with one look. But to publicly do and say what you did, my
+lady--I know Phil, and I know you went too far. Put on that ring, and
+send him word you are sorry, before it is too late."
+
+"I will not! He shall come to me."
+
+"Then God help you!" said Henderson, "for you are plunging into misery
+whose depth you do not dream. Edith, I beg of you----"
+
+She swayed where she stood. Her maid opened the door and caught her.
+Henderson went down the hall and out to his car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+WHEREIN THE ELDER AMMON OFFERS ADVICE, AND EDITH CARR EXPERIENCES
+REGRETS
+
+
+Philip Ammon walked from among his friends a humiliated and a wounded
+man. Never before had Edith Carr appeared quite so beautiful. All
+evening she had treated him with unusual consideration. Never had he
+loved her so deeply. Then in a few seconds everything was different.
+Seeing the change in her face, and hearing her meaningless accusations,
+killed something in his heart. Warmth went out and a cold weight took
+its place. But even after that, he had offered the ring to her again,
+and asked her before others to reconsider. The answer had been further
+insult.
+
+He walked, paying no heed to where he went. He had traversed many miles
+when he became aware that his feet had chosen familiar streets. He was
+passing his home. Dawn was near, but the first floor was lighted. He
+staggered up the steps and was instantly admitted. The library door
+stood open, while his father sat with a book pretending to read. At
+Philip's entrance the father scarcely glanced up.
+
+"Come on!" he called. "I have just told Banks to bring me a cup of
+coffee before I turn in. Have one with me!"
+
+Philip sat beside the table and leaned his head on his hands, but he
+drank a cup of steaming coffee and felt better.
+
+"Father," he said, "father, may I talk with you a little while?"
+
+"Of course," answered Mr. Ammon. "I am not at all tired. I think I
+must have been waiting in the hope that you would come. I want no one's
+version of this but yours. Tell me the straight of the thing, Phil."
+
+Philip told all he knew, while his father sat in deep thought.
+
+"On my life I can't see any occasion for such a display of temper, Phil.
+It passed all bounds of reason and breeding. Can't you think of anything
+more?"
+
+"I cannot!"
+
+"Polly says every one expected you to carry the moth you caught to
+Edith. Why didn't you?"
+
+"She screams if a thing of that kind comes near her. She never has taken
+the slightest interest in them. I was in a big hurry. I didn't want to
+miss one minute of my dance with her. The moth was not so uncommon, but
+by a combination of bad luck it had become the rarest in America for a
+friend of mine, who is making a collection to pay college expenses.
+For an instant last June the series was completed; when a woman's
+uncontrolled temper ruined this specimen and the search for it began
+over. A few days later a pair was secured, and again the money was in
+sight for several hours. Then an accident wrecked one-fourth of the
+collection. I helped replace those last June, all but this Yellow
+Emperor which we could not secure, and we haven't been able to find, buy
+or trade for one since. So my friend was compelled to teach this past
+winter instead of going to college. When that moth came flying in there
+to-night, it seemed to me like fate. All I thought of was, that to
+secure it would complete the collection and secure the money. So I
+caught the Emperor and started it to Elnora. I declare to you that I was
+not out of the pavilion over three minutes at a liberal estimate. If I
+only had thought to speak to the orchestra! I was sure I would be back
+before enough couples gathered and formed for the dance."
+
+The eyes of the father were very bright.
+
+"The friend for whom you wanted the moth is a girl?" he asked
+indifferently, as he ran the book leaves through his fingers.
+
+"The girl of whom I wrote you last summer, and told you about in the
+fall. I helped her all the time I was away."
+
+"Did Edith know of her?"
+
+"I tried many times to tell her, to interest her, but she was so
+indifferent that it was insulting. She would not hear me."
+
+"We are neither one in any condition to sleep. Why don't you begin at
+the first and tell me about this girl? To think of other matters for a
+time may clear our vision for a sane solution of this. Who is she, just
+what is she doing, and what is she like? You know I was reared among
+those Limberlost people, I can understand readily. What is her name and
+where does she live?"
+
+Philip gave a man's version of the previous summer, while his father
+played with the book industriously.
+
+"You are very sure as to her refinement and education?"
+
+"In almost two months' daily association, could a man be mistaken? She
+can far and away surpass Polly, Edith, or any girl of our set on any
+common, high school, or supplementary branch, and you know high schools
+have French, German, and physics now. Besides, she is a graduate of
+two other institutions. All her life she has been in the school of Hard
+Knocks. She has the biggest, tenderest, most human heart I ever knew
+in a girl. She has known life in its most cruel phases, and instead of
+hardening her, it has set her trying to save other people suffering.
+Then this nature position of which I told you; she graduated in the
+School of the Woods, before she secured that. The Bird Woman, whose work
+you know, helped her there. Elnora knows more interesting things in a
+minute than any other girl I ever met knew in an hour, provided you are
+a person who cares to understand plant and animal life."
+
+The book leaves slid rapidly through his fingers as the father drawled:
+"What sort of looking girl is she?"
+
+"Tall as Edith, a little heavier, pink, even complexion, wide open
+blue-gray eyes with heavy black brows, and lashes so long they touch her
+cheeks. She has a rope of waving, shining hair that makes a real crown
+on her head, and it appears almost red in the light. She is as handsome
+as any fair woman I ever saw, but she doesn't know it. Every time any
+one pays her a compliment, her mother, who is a caution, discovers that,
+for some reason, the girl is a fright, so she has no appreciation of her
+looks."
+
+"And you were in daily association two months with a girl like that! How
+about it, Phil?"
+
+"If you mean, did I trifle with her, no!" cried Philip hotly. "I told
+her the second time I met her all about Edith. Almost every day I wrote
+to Edith in her presence. Elnora gathered violets and made a fancy
+basket to put them in for Edith's birthday. I started to err in too open
+admiration for Elnora, but her mother brought me up with a whirl I
+never forgot. Fifty times a day in the swamps and forests Elnora made a
+perfect picture, but I neither looked nor said anything. I never met any
+girl so downright noble in bearing and actions. I never hated anything
+as I hated leaving her, for we were dear friends, like two wholly
+congenial men. Her mother was almost always with us. She knew how much I
+admired Elnora, but so long as I concealed it from the girl, the mother
+did not care."
+
+"Yet you left such a girl and came back whole-hearted to Edith Carr!"
+
+"Surely! You know how it has been with me about Edith all my life."
+
+"Yet the girl you picture is far her superior to an unprejudiced person,
+when thinking what a man would require in a wife to be happy."
+
+"I never have thought what I would 'require' to be happy! I only thought
+whether I could make Edith happy. I have been an idiot! What I've borne
+you'll never know! To-night is only one of many outbursts like that, in
+varying and lesser degrees."
+
+"Phil, I love you, when you say you have thought only of Edith! I happen
+to know that it is true. You are my only son, and I have had a right to
+watch you closely. I believe you utterly. Any one who cares for you as
+I do, and has had my years of experience in this world over yours, knows
+that in some ways, to-night would be a blessed release, if you could
+take it; but you cannot! Go to bed now, and rest. To-morrow, go back to
+her and fix it up."
+
+"You heard what I said when I left her! I said it because something in
+my heart died a minute before that, and I realized that it was my love
+for Edith Carr. Never again will I voluntarily face such a scene. If she
+can act like that at a ball, before hundreds, over a thing of which
+I thought nothing at all, she would go into actual physical fits and
+spasms, over some of the household crises I've seen the mater meet with
+a smile. Sir, it is truth that I have thought only of her up to the
+present. Now, I will admit I am thinking about myself. Father, did you
+see her? Life is too short, and it can be too sweet, to throw it away
+in a battle with an unrestrained woman. I am no fighter--where a girl is
+concerned, anyway. I respect and love her or I do nothing. Never again
+is either respect or love possible between me and Edith Carr. Whenever
+I think of her in the future, I will see her as she was to-night. But I
+can't face the crowd just yet. Could you spare me a few days?"
+
+"It is only ten days until you were to go north for the summer, go now."
+
+"I don't want to go north. I don't want to meet people I know. There,
+the story would precede me. I do not need pitying glances or rough
+condolences. I wonder if I could not hide at Uncle Ed's in Wisconsin for
+awhile?"
+
+The book closed suddenly. The father leaned across the table and looked
+into the son's eyes.
+
+"Phil, are you sure of what you just have said?"
+
+"Perfectly sure!"
+
+"Do you think you are in any condition to decide to-night?"
+
+"Death cannot return to life, father. My love for Edith Carr is dead. I
+hope never to see her again."
+
+"If I thought you could be certain so soon! But, come to think of it,
+you are very like me in many ways. I am with you in this. Public scenes
+and disgraces I would not endure. It would be over with me, were I in
+your position, that I know."
+
+"It is done for all time," said Philip Ammon. "Let us not speak of it
+further."
+
+"Then, Phil," the father leaned closer and looked at the son tenderly,
+"Phil, why don't you go to the Limberlost?"
+
+"Father!"
+
+"Why not? No one can comfort a hurt heart like a tender woman; and,
+Phil, have you ever stopped to think that you may have a duty in the
+Limberlost, if you are free? I don't know! I only suggest it. But, for a
+country schoolgirl, unaccustomed to men, two months with a man like you
+might well awaken feelings of which you do not think. Because you were
+safe-guarded is no sign the girl was. She might care to see you. You can
+soon tell. With you, she comes next to Edith, and you have made it clear
+to me that you appreciate her in many ways above. So I repeat it, why
+not go to the Limberlost?"
+
+A long time Philip Ammon sat in deep thought. At last he raised his
+head.
+
+"Well, why not!" he said. "Years could make me no surer than I am now,
+and life is short. Please ask Banks to get me some coffee and toast, and
+I will bathe and dress so I can take the early train."
+
+"Go to your bath. I will attend to your packing and everything. And
+Phil, if I were you, I would leave no addresses."
+
+"Not an address!" said Philip. "Not even Polly."
+
+When the train pulled out, the elder Ammon went home to find Hart
+Henderson waiting.
+
+"Where is Phil?" he demanded.
+
+"He did not feel like facing his friends at present, and I am just
+back from driving him to the station. He said he might go to Siam, or
+Patagonia. He would leave no address."
+
+Henderson almost staggered. "He's not gone? And left no address? You
+don't mean it! He'll never forgive her!"
+
+"Never is a long time, Hart," said Mr. Ammon. "And it seems even longer
+to those of us who are well acquainted with Phil. Last night was not the
+last straw. It was the whole straw-stack. It crushed Phil so far as she
+is concerned. He will not see her again voluntarily, and he will not
+forget if he does. You can take it from him, and from me, we have
+accepted the lady's decision. Will you have a cup of coffee?"
+
+Twice Henderson opened his lips to speak of Edith Carr's despair. Twice
+he looked into the stern, inflexible face of Mr. Ammon and could not
+betray her. He held out the ring.
+
+"I have no instructions as to that," said the elder Ammon, drawing back.
+"Possibly Miss Carr would have it as a keepsake."
+
+"I am sure not," said Henderson curtly.
+
+"Then suppose you return it to Peacock. I will phone him. He will give
+you the price of it, and you might add it to the children's Fresh Air
+Fund. We would be obliged if you would do that. No one here cares to
+handle the object."
+
+"As you choose," said Henderson. "Good morning!"
+
+Then he went to his home, but he could not think of sleep. He ordered
+breakfast, but he could not eat. He paced the library for a time, but it
+was too small. Going on the streets he walked until exhausted, then
+he called a hansom and was driven to his club. He had thought himself
+familiar with every depth of suffering; that night had taught him that
+what he felt for himself was not to be compared with the anguish which
+wrung his heart over the agony of Edith Carr. He tried to blame Philip
+Ammon, but being an honest man, Henderson knew that was unjust. The
+fault lay wholly with her, but that only made it harder for him, as he
+realized it would in time for her.
+
+As he sauntered into the room an attendant hurried to him.
+
+"You are wanted most urgently at the 'phone, Mr. Henderson," he said.
+"You have had three calls from Main 5770."
+
+Henderson shivered as he picked down the receiver and gave the call.
+
+"Is that you, Hart?" came Edith's voice.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you find Phil?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Did you try?"
+
+"Yes. As soon as I left you I went straight there."
+
+"Wasn't he home yet?"
+
+"He has been home and gone again."
+
+"Gone!"
+
+The cry tore Henderson's heart.
+
+"Shall I come and tell you, Edith?"
+
+"No! Tell me now."
+
+"When I reached the house Banks said Mr. Ammon and Phil were out in the
+motor, so I waited. Mr. Ammon came back soon. Edith, are you alone?"
+
+"Yes. Go on!"
+
+"Call your maid. I can't tell you until some one is with you."
+
+"Tell me instantly!"
+
+"Edith, he said he had been to the station. He said Phil had started
+to Siam or Patagonia, he didn't know which, and left no address. He
+said----"
+
+Distinctly Henderson heard her fall. He set the buzzer ringing, and in
+a few seconds heard voices, so he knew she had been found. Then he crept
+into a private den and shook with a hard, nervous chill.
+
+The next day Edith Carr started on her trip to Europe. Henderson
+felt certain she hoped to meet Philip there. He was sure she would be
+disappointed, though he had no idea where Ammon could have gone. But
+after much thought he decided he would see Edith soonest by remaining at
+home, so he spent the summer in Chicago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON RETURNS TO THE LIMBERLOST, AND ELNORA STUDIES THE
+SITUATION
+
+
+"We must be thinking about supper, mother," said Elnora, while she set
+the wings of a Cecropia with much care. "It seems as if I can't get
+enough to eat, or enough of being at home. I enjoyed that city house. I
+don't believe I could have done my work if I had been compelled to walk
+back and forth. I thought at first I never wanted to come here again.
+Now, I feel as if I could not live anywhere else."
+
+"Elnora," said Mrs. Comstock, "there's some one coming down the road."
+
+"Coming here, do you think?"
+
+"Yes, coming here, I suspect."
+
+Elnora glanced quickly at her mother and then turned to the road as
+Philip Ammon reached the gate.
+
+"Careful, mother!" the girl instantly warned. "If you change your
+treatment of him a hair's breadth, he will suspect. Come with me to meet
+him."
+
+She dropped her work and sprang up.
+
+"Well, of all the delightful surprises!" she cried.
+
+She was a trifle thinner than during the previous summer. On her face
+there was a more mature, patient look, but the sun struck her bare head
+with the same ray of red gold. She wore one of the old blue gingham
+dresses, open at the throat and rolled to the elbows. Mrs. Comstock did
+not appear at all the same woman, but Philip saw only Elnora; heard only
+her greeting. He caught both hands where she offered but one.
+
+"Elnora," he cried, "if you were engaged to me, and we were at a ball,
+among hundreds, where I offended you very much, and didn't even know I
+had done anything, and if I asked you before all of them to allow me
+to explain, to forgive me, to wait, would your face grow distorted and
+unfamiliar with anger? Would you drop my ring on the floor and insult me
+repeatedly? Oh Elnora, would you?"
+
+Elnora's big eyes seemed to leap, while her face grew very white. She
+drew away her hands.
+
+"Hush, Phil! Hush!" she protested. "That fever has you again! You are
+dreadfully ill. You don't know what you are saying."
+
+"I am sleepless and exhausted; I'm heartsick; but I am well as I ever
+was. Answer me, Elnora, would you?"
+
+"Answer nothing!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "Answer nothing! Hang your coat
+there on your nail, Phil, and come split some kindling. Elnora, clean
+away that stuff, and set the table. Can't you see the boy is starved and
+tired? He's come home to rest and eat a decent meal. Come on, Phil!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock marched away, and Philip hung his coat in its old place
+and followed. Out of sight and hearing she turned on him.
+
+"Do you call yourself a man or a hound?" she flared.
+
+"I beg your pardon----" stammered Philip Ammon.
+
+"I should think you would!" she ejaculated. "I'll admit you did the
+square thing and was a man last summer, though I'd liked it better if
+you'd faced up and told me you were promised; but to come back here
+babying, and take hold of Elnora like that, and talk that way because
+you have had a fuss with your girl, I don't tolerate. Split that
+kindling and I'll get your supper, and then you better go. I won't have
+you working on Elnora's big heart, because you have quarrelled with some
+one else. You'll have it patched up in a week and be gone again, so you
+can go right away."
+
+"Mrs. Comstock, I came to ask Elnora to marry me."
+
+"The more fool you, then!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "This time yesterday you
+were engaged to another woman, no doubt. Now, for some little flare-up
+you come racing here to use Elnora as a tool to spite the other girl.
+A week of sane living, and you will be sorry and ready to go back to
+Chicago, or, if you really are man enough to be sure of yourself, she
+will come to claim you. She has her rights. An engagement of years is a
+serious matter, and not broken for a whim. If you don't go, she'll come.
+Then, when you patch up your affairs and go sailing away together, where
+does my girl come in?"
+
+"I am a lawyer, Mrs. Comstock," said Philip. "It appeals to me as
+beneath your ordinary sense of justice to decide a case without hearing
+the evidence. It is due me that you hear me first."
+
+"Hear your side!" flashed Mrs. Comstock. "I'd a heap sight rather hear
+the girl!"
+
+"I wish to my soul that you had heard and seen her last night, Mrs.
+Comstock," said Ammon. "Then, my way would be clear. I never even
+thought of coming here to-day. I'll admit I would have come in time, but
+not for many months. My father sent me."
+
+"Your father sent you! Why?"
+
+"Father, mother, and Polly were present last night. They, and all
+my friends, saw me insulted and disgraced in the worst exhibition of
+uncontrolled temper any of us ever witnessed. All of them knew it was
+the end. Father liked what I had told him of Elnora, and he advised me
+to come here, so I came. If she does not want me, I can leave instantly,
+but, oh I hoped she would understand!"
+
+"You people are not splitting wood," called Elnora.
+
+"Oh yes we are!" answered Mrs. Comstock. "You set out the things
+for biscuit, and lay the table." She turned again to Philip. "I know
+considerable about your father," she said. "I have met your Uncle's
+family frequently this winter. I've heard your Aunt Anna say that she
+didn't at all like Miss Carr, and that she and all your family secretly
+hoped that something would happen to prevent your marrying her. That
+chimes right in with your saying that your father sent you here. I guess
+you better speak your piece."
+
+Philip gave his version of the previous night.
+
+"Do you believe me?" he finished.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"May I stay?"
+
+"Oh, it looks all right for you, but what about her?"
+
+"Nothing, so far as I am concerned. Her plans were all made to start to
+Europe to-day. I suspect she is on the way by this time. Elnora is very
+sensible, Mrs. Comstock. Hadn't you better let her decide this?"
+
+"The final decision rests with her, of course," admitted Mrs. Comstock.
+"But look you one thing! She's all I have. As Solomon says, 'she is the
+one child, the only child of her mother.' I've suffered enough in this
+world that I fight against any suffering which threatens her. So far
+as I know you've always been a man, and you may stay. But if you bring
+tears and heartache to her, don't have the assurance to think I'll bear
+it tamely. I'll get right up and fight like a catamount, if things go
+wrong for Elnora!"
+
+"I have no doubt but you will," replied Philip, "and I don't blame you
+in the least if you do. I have the utmost devotion to offer Elnora, a
+good home, fair social position, and my family will love her dearly.
+Think it over. I know it is sudden, but my father advised it."
+
+"Yes, I reckon he did!" said Mrs. Comstock dryly. "I guess instead of
+me being the catamount, you had the genuine article up in Chicago,
+masquerading in peacock feathers, and posing as a fine lady, until her
+time came to scratch. Human nature seems to be the same the world over.
+But I'd give a pretty to know that secret thing you say you don't, that
+set her raving over your just catching a moth for Elnora. You might get
+that crock of strawberries in the spring house."
+
+They prepared and ate supper. Afterward they sat in the arbour and
+talked, or Elnora played until time for Philip to go.
+
+"Will you walk to the gate with me?" he asked Elnora as he arose.
+
+"Not to-night," she answered lightly. "Come early in the morning if
+you like, and we will go over to Sleepy Snake Creek and hunt moths and
+gather dandelions for dinner."
+
+Philip leaned toward her. "May I tell you to-morrow why I came?" he
+asked.
+
+"I think not," replied Elnora. "The fact is, I don't care why you came.
+It is enough for me that we are your very good friends, and that in
+trouble, you have found us a refuge. I fancy we had better live a week
+or two before you say anything. There is a possibility that what you
+have to say may change in that length of time.
+
+"It will not change one iota!" cried Philip.
+
+"Then it will have the grace of that much age to give it some small
+touch of flavour," said the girl. "Come early in the morning."
+
+She lifted the violin and began to play.
+
+"Well bless my soul!" ejaculated the astounded Mrs. Comstock. "To think
+I was worrying for fear you couldn't take care of yourself!"
+
+Elnora laughed while she played.
+
+"Shall I tell you what he said?"
+
+"Nope! I don't want to hear it!" said Elnora. "He is only six hours from
+Chicago. I'll give her a week to find him and fix it up, if he stays
+that long. If she doesn't put in an appearance then, he can tell me what
+he wants to say, and I'll take my time to think it over. Time in plenty,
+too! There are three of us in this, and one must be left with a sore
+heart for life. If the decision rests with me I propose to be very sure
+that it is the one who deserves such hard luck."
+
+The next morning Philip came early, dressed in the outing clothing he
+had worn the previous summer, and aside from a slight paleness seemed
+very much the same as when he left. Elnora met him on the old footing,
+and for a week life went on exactly as it had the previous summer. Mrs.
+Comstock made mental notes and watched in silence. She could see that
+Elnora was on a strain, though she hoped Philip would not. The girl grew
+restless as the week drew to a close. Once when the gate clicked she
+suddenly lost colour and moved nervously. Billy came down the walk.
+
+Philip leaned toward Mrs. Comstock and said: "I am expressly forbidden
+to speak to Elnora as I would like. Would you mind telling her for me
+that I had a letter from my father this morning saying that Miss Carr is
+on her way to Europe for the summer?"
+
+"Elnora," said Mrs. Comstock promptly, "I have just heard that Carr
+woman is on her way to Europe, and I wish to my gracious stars she'd
+stay there!"
+
+Philip Ammon shouted, but Elnora arose hastily and went to meet Billy.
+They came into the arbour together and after speaking to Mrs. Comstock
+and Philip, Billy said: "Uncle Wesley and I found something funny, and
+we thought you'd like to see."
+
+"I don't know what I should do without you and Uncle Wesley to help me,"
+said Elnora. "What have you found now?"
+
+"Something I couldn't bring. You have to come to it. I tried to get one
+and I killed it. They are a kind of insecty things, and they got a long
+tail that is three fine hairs. They stick those hairs right into the
+hard bark of trees, and if you pull, the hairs stay fast and it kills
+the bug."
+
+"We will come at once," laughed Elnora. "I know what they are, and I can
+use some in my work."
+
+"Billy, have you been crying?" inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+Billy lifted a chastened face. "Yes, ma'am," he replied. "This has been
+the worst day."
+
+"What's the matter with the day?"
+
+"The day is all right," admitted Billy. "I mean every single thing has
+gone wrong with me."
+
+"Now that is too bad!" sympathized Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Began early this morning," said Billy. "All Snap's fault, too."
+
+"What has poor Snap been doing?" demanded Mrs. Comstock, her eyes
+beginning to twinkle.
+
+"Digging for woodchucks, like he always does. He gets up at two o'clock
+to dig for them. He was coming in from the woods all tired and covered
+thick with dirt. I was going to the barn with the pail of water for
+Uncle Wesley to use in milking. I had to set down the pail to shut the
+gate so the chickens wouldn't get into the flower beds, and old Snap
+stuck his dirty nose into the water and began to lap it down. I knew
+Uncle Wesley wouldn't use that, so I had to go 'way back to the cistern
+for more, and it pumps awful hard. Made me mad, so I threw the water on
+Snap."
+
+"Well, what of it?"
+
+"Nothing, if he'd stood still. But it scared him awful, and when he's
+afraid he goes a-humping for Aunt Margaret. When he got right up against
+her he stiffened out and gave a big shake. You oughter seen the nice
+blue dress she had put on to go to Onabasha!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock and Philip laughed, but Elnora put her arms around the
+boy. "Oh Billy!" she cried. "That was too bad!"
+
+"She got up early and ironed that dress to wear because it was cool.
+Then, when it was all dirty, she wouldn't go, and she wanted to real
+bad." Billy wiped his eyes. "That ain't all, either," he added.
+
+"We'd like to know about it, Billy," suggested Mrs. Comstock, struggling
+with her face.
+
+"Cos she couldn't go to the city, she's most worked herself to death.
+She's done all the dirty, hard jobs she could find. She's fixing her
+grape juice now."
+
+"Sure!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "When a woman is disappointed she always
+works like a dog to gain sympathy!"
+
+"Well, Uncle Wesley and I are sympathizing all we know how, without her
+working so. I've squeezed until I almost busted to get the juice out
+from the seeds and skins. That's the hard part. Now, she has to strain
+it through white flannel and seal it in bottles, and it's good for sick
+folks. Most wish I'd get sick myself, so I could have a glass. It's so
+good!"
+
+Elnora glanced swiftly at her mother.
+
+"I worked so hard," continued Billy, "that she said if I would throw
+the leavings in the woods, then I could come after you to see about the
+bugs. Do you want to go?"
+
+"We will all go," said Mrs. Comstock. "I am mightily interested in those
+bugs myself."
+
+From afar commotion could be seen at the Sinton home. Wesley and
+Margaret were running around wildly and peculiar sounds filled the air.
+
+"What's the trouble?" asked Philip, hurrying to Wesley.
+
+"Cholera!" groaned Sinton. "My hogs are dying like flies."
+
+Margaret was softly crying. "Wesley, can't I fix something hot? Can't we
+do anything? It means several hundred dollars and our winter meat."
+
+"I never saw stock taken so suddenly and so hard," said Wesley. "I have
+'phoned for the veterinary to come as soon as he can get here."
+
+All of them hurried to the feeding pen into which the pigs seemed to be
+gathering from the woods. Among the common stock were big white beasts
+of pedigree which were Wesley's pride at county fairs. Several of
+these rolled on their backs, pawing the air feebly and emitting little
+squeaks. A huge Berkshire sat on his haunches, slowly shaking his head,
+the water dropping from his eyes, until he, too, rolled over with faint
+grunts. A pair crossing the yard on wavering legs collided, and attacked
+each other in anger, only to fall, so weak they scarcely could squeal.
+A fine snowy Plymouth Rock rooster, after several attempts, flew to the
+fence, balanced with great effort, wildly flapped his wings and started
+a guttural crow, but fell sprawling among the pigs, too helpless to
+stand.
+
+"Did you ever see such a dreadful sight?" sobbed Margaret.
+
+Billy climbed on the fence, took one long look and turned an astounded
+face to Wesley.
+
+"Why them pigs is drunk!" he cried. "They act just like my pa!"
+
+Wesley turned to Margaret.
+
+"Where did you put the leavings from that grape juice?" he demanded.
+
+"I sent Billy to throw it in the woods."
+
+"Billy----" began Wesley.
+
+"Threw it just where she told me to," cried Billy. "But some of the pigs
+came by there coming into the pen, and some were close in the fence
+corners."
+
+"Did they eat it?" demanded Wesley.
+
+"They just chanked into it," replied Billy graphically. "They pushed,
+and squealed, and fought over it. You couldn't blame 'em! It was the
+best stuff I ever tasted!"
+
+"Margaret," said Wesley, "run 'phone that doctor he won't be needed.
+Billy, take Elnora and Mr. Ammon to see the bugs. Katharine, suppose you
+help me a minute."
+
+Wesley took the clothes basket from the back porch and started in the
+direction of the cellar. Margaret returned from the telephone.
+
+"I just caught him," she said. "There's that much saved. Why Wesley,
+what are you going to do?"
+
+"You go sit on the front porch a little while," said Wesley. "You will
+feel better if you don't see this."
+
+"Wesley," cried Margaret aghast. "Some of that wine is ten years old.
+There are days and days of hard work in it, and I couldn't say how much
+sugar. Dr. Ammon keeps people alive with it when nothing else will stay
+on their stomachs."
+
+"Let 'em die, then!" said Wesley. "You heard the boy, didn't you?"
+
+"It's a cold process. There's not a particle of fermentation about it."
+
+"Not a particle of fermentation! Great day, Margaret! Look at those
+pigs!"
+
+Margaret took a long look. "Leave me a few bottles for mince-meat," she
+wavered.
+
+"Not a smell for any use on this earth! You heard the boy! He shan't
+say, when he grows to manhood, that he learned to like it here!"
+
+Wesley threw away the wine, Mrs. Comstock cheerfully assisting. Then
+they walked to the woods to see and learn about the wonderful insects.
+The day ended with a big supper at Sintons', and then they went to the
+Comstock cabin for a concert. Elnora played beautifully that night. When
+the Sintons left she kissed Billy with particular tenderness. She was
+so moved that she was kinder to Philip than she had intended to be, and
+Elnora as an antidote to a disappointed lover was a decided success in
+any mood.
+
+However strong the attractions of Edith Carr had been, once the bond was
+finally broken, Philip Ammon could not help realizing that Elnora was
+the superior woman, and that he was fortunate to have escaped, when he
+regarded his ties strongest. Every day, while working with Elnora, he
+saw more to admire. He grew very thankful that he was free to try to win
+her, and impatient to justify himself to her.
+
+Elnora did not evince the slightest haste to hear what he had to say,
+but waited the week she had set, in spite of Philip's hourly manifest
+impatience. When she did consent to listen, Philip felt before he had
+talked five minutes, that she was putting herself in Edith Carr's place,
+and judging him from what the other girl's standpoint would be. That was
+so disconcerting, he did not plead his cause nearly so well as he had
+hoped, for when he ceased Elnora sat in silence.
+
+"You are my judge," he said at last. "What is your verdict?"
+
+"If I could hear her speak from her heart as I just have heard you, then
+I could decide," answered Elnora.
+
+"She is on the ocean," said Philip. "She went because she knew she
+was wholly in the wrong. She had nothing to say, or she would have
+remained."
+
+"That sounds plausible," reasoned Elnora, "but it is pretty difficult to
+find a woman in an affair that involves her heart with nothing at all to
+say. I fancy if I could meet her, she would say several things. I should
+love to hear them. If I could talk with her three minutes, I could tell
+what answer to make you."
+
+"Don't you believe me, Elnora?"
+
+"Unquestioningly," answered Elnora. "But I would believe her also. If
+only I could meet her I soon would know."
+
+"I don't see how that is to be accomplished," said Philip, "but I am
+perfectly willing. There is no reason why you should not meet her,
+except that she probably would lose her temper and insult you."
+
+"Not to any extent," said Elnora calmly. "I have a tongue of my own,
+while I am not without some small sense of personal values."
+
+Philip glanced at her and began to laugh. Very different of facial
+formation and colouring, Elnora at times closely resembled her mother.
+She joined in his laugh ruefully.
+
+"The point is this," she said. "Some one is going to be hurt, most
+dreadfully. If the decision as to whom it shall be rests with me, I must
+know it is the right one. Of course, no one ever hinted it to you, but
+you are a very attractive man, Philip. You are mighty good to look at,
+and you have a trained, refined mind, that makes you most interesting.
+For years Edith Carr has felt that you were hers. Now, how is she going
+to change? I have been thinking--thinking deep and long, Phil. If I
+were in her place, I simply could not give you up, unless you had made
+yourself unworthy of love. Undoubtedly, you never seemed so desirable
+to her as just now, when she is told she can't have you. What I think is
+that she will come to claim you yet."
+
+"You overlook the fact that it is not in a woman's power to throw away
+a man and pick him up at pleasure," said Philip with some warmth. "She
+publicly and repeatedly cast me off. I accepted her decision as publicly
+as it was made. You have done all your thinking from a wrong viewpoint.
+You seem to have an idea that it lies with you to decide what I shall
+do, that if you say the word, I shall return to Edith. Put that thought
+out of your head! Now, and for all time to come, she is a matter of
+indifference to me. She killed all feeling in my heart for her so
+completely that I do not even dread meeting her.
+
+"If I hated her, or was angry with her, I could not be sure the
+feeling would not die. As it is, she has deadened me into a creature of
+indifference. So you just revise your viewpoint a little, Elnora. Cease
+thinking it is for you to decide what I shall do, and that I will obey
+you. I make my own decisions in reference to any woman, save you. The
+question you are to decide is whether I may remain here, associating
+with you as I did last summer; but with the difference that it is
+understood that I am free; that it is my intention to care for you all
+I please, to make you return my feeling for you if I can. There is just
+one question for you to decide, and it is not triangular. It is between
+us. May I remain? May I love you? Will you give me the chance to prove
+what I think of you?"
+
+"You speak very plainly," said Elnora.
+
+"This is the time to speak plainly," said Philip Ammon. "There is no use
+in allowing you to go on threshing out a problem which does not exist.
+If you do not want me here, say so and I will go. Of course, I warn
+you before I start, that I will come back. I won't yield without the
+stiffest fight it is in me to make. But drop thinking it lies in your
+power to send me back to Edith Carr. If she were the last woman in the
+world, and I the last man, I'd jump off the planet before I would give
+her further opportunity to exercise her temper on me. Narrow this to us,
+Elnora. Will you take the place she vacated? Will you take the heart she
+threw away? I'd give my right hand and not flinch, if I could offer you
+my life, free from any contact with hers, but that is not possible. I
+can't undo things which are done. I can only profit by experience and
+build better in the future."
+
+"I don't see how you can be sure of yourself," said Elnora. "I don't see
+how I could be sure of you. You loved her first, you never can care for
+me anything like that. Always I'd have to be afraid you were thinking of
+her and regretting."
+
+"Folly!" cried Philip. "Regretting what? That I was not married to a
+woman who was liable to rave at me any time or place, without my being
+conscious of having given offence? A man does relish that! I am likely
+to pine for more!"
+
+"You'd be thinking she'd learned a lesson. You would think it wouldn't
+happen again."
+
+"No, I wouldn't be 'thinking,'" said, Philip. "I'd be everlastingly
+sure! I wouldn't risk what I went through that night again, not to save
+my life! Just you and me, Elnora. Decide for us."
+
+"I can't!" cried Elnora. "I am afraid!"
+
+"Very well," said Philip. "We will wait until you feel that you can.
+Wait until fear vanishes. Just decide now whether you would rather have
+me go for a few months, or remain with you. Which shall it be, Elnora?"
+
+"You can never love me as you did her," wailed Elnora.
+
+"I am happy to say I cannot," replied he. "I've cut my matrimonial
+teeth. I'm cured of wanting to swell in society. I'm over being proud of
+a woman for her looks alone. I have no further use for lavishing myself
+on a beautiful, elegantly dressed creature, who thinks only of self.
+I have learned that I am a common man. I admire beauty and beautiful
+clothing quite as much as I ever did; but, first, I want an
+understanding, deep as the lowest recess of my soul, with the woman I
+marry. I want to work for you, to plan for you, to build you a home with
+every comfort, to give you all good things I can, to shield you from
+every evil. I want to interpose my body between yours and fire, flood,
+or famine. I want to give you everything; but I hate the idea of getting
+nothing at all on which I can depend in return. Edith Carr had only
+good looks to offer, and when anger overtook her, beauty went out like a
+snuffed candle.
+
+"I want you to love me. I want some consideration. I even crave respect.
+I've kept myself clean. So far as I know how to be, I am honest and
+scrupulous. It wouldn't hurt me to feel that you took some interest in
+these things. Rather fierce temptations strike a man, every few days,
+in this world. I can keep decent, for a woman who cares for decency,
+but when I do, I'd like to have the fact recognized, by just enough of
+a show of appreciation that I could see it. I am tired of this one-sided
+business. After this, I want to get a little in return for what I give.
+Elnora, you have love, tenderness, and honest appreciation of the finest
+in life. Take what I offer, and give what I ask."
+
+"You do not ask much," said Elnora.
+
+"As for not loving you as I did Edith," continued Philip, "as I said
+before, I hope not! I have a newer and a better idea of loving. The
+feeling I offer you was inspired by you. It is a Limberlost product. It
+is as much bigger, cleaner, and more wholesome than any feeling I ever
+had for Edith Carr, as you are bigger than she, when you stand before
+your classes and in calm dignity explain the marvels of the Almighty,
+while she stands on a ballroom floor, and gives way to uncontrolled
+temper. Ye gods, Elnora, if you could look into my soul, you would see
+it leap and rejoice over my escape! Perhaps it isn't decent, but it's
+human; and I'm only a common human being. I'm the gladdest man alive
+that I'm free! I would turn somersaults and yell if I dared. What an
+escape! Stop straining after Edith Carr's viewpoint and take a look from
+mine. Put yourself in my place and try to study out how I feel.
+
+"I am so happy I grow religious over it. Fifty times a day I catch
+myself whispering, 'My soul is escaped!' As for you, take all the time
+you want. If you prefer to be alone, I'll take the next train and stay
+away as long as I can bear it, but I'll come back. You can be most sure
+of that. Straight as your pigeons to their loft, I'll come back to you,
+Elnora. Shall I go?"
+
+"Oh, what's the use to be extravagant?" murmured Elnora.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON KNEELS TO ELNORA, AND STRANGERS COME TO THE
+LIMBERLOST
+
+
+The month which followed was a reproduction of the previous June. There
+were long moth hunts, days of specimen gathering, wonderful hours with
+great books, big dinners all of them helped to prepare, and perfect
+nights filled with music. Everything was as it had been, with
+the difference that Philip was now an avowed suitor. He missed no
+opportunity to advance himself in Elnora's graces. At the end of the
+month he was no nearer any sort of understanding with her than he had
+been at the beginning. He revelled in the privilege of loving her, but
+he got no response. Elnora believed in his love, yet she hesitated to
+accept him, because she could not forget Edith Carr.
+
+One afternoon early in July, Philip came across the fields, through the
+Comstock woods, and entered the garden. He inquired for Elnora at the
+back door and was told that she was reading under the willow. He went
+around the west end of the cabin to her. She sat on a rustic bench
+they had made and placed beneath a drooping branch. He had not seen her
+before in the dress she was wearing. It was clinging mull of pale green,
+trimmed with narrow ruffles and touched with knots of black velvet; a
+simple dress, but vastly becoming. Every tint of her bright hair, her
+luminous eyes, her red lips, and her rose-flushed face, neck, and arms
+grew a little more vivid with the delicate green setting.
+
+He stopped short. She was so near, so temptingly sweet, he lost control.
+He went to her with a half-smothered cry after that first long look,
+dropped on one knee beside her and reached an arm behind her to the
+bench back, so that he was very near. He caught her hands.
+
+"Elnora!" he cried tensely, "end it now! Say this strain is over. I
+pledge you that you will be happy. You don't know! If you only would say
+the word, you would awake to new life and great joy! Won't you promise
+me now, Elnora?"
+
+The girl sat staring into the west woods, while strong in her eyes was
+her father's look of seeing something invisible to others. Philip's arm
+slipped from the bench around her. His fingers closed firmly over hers.
+"Elnora," he pleaded, "you know me well enough. You have had time in
+plenty. End it now. Say you will be mine!" He gathered her closer,
+pressing his face against hers, his breath on her cheek. "Can't you
+quite promise yet, my girl of the Limberlost?"
+
+Elnora shook her head. Instantly he released her.
+
+"Forgive me," he begged. "I had no intention of thrusting myself upon
+you, but, Elnora, you are the veriest Queen of Love this afternoon. From
+the tips of your toes to your shining crown, I worship you. I want no
+woman save you. You are so wonderful this afternoon, I couldn't help
+urging. Forgive me. Perhaps it was something that came this morning for
+you. I wrote Polly to send it. May we try if it fits? Will you tell me
+if you like it?"
+
+He drew a little white velvet box from his pocket and showed her a
+splendid emerald ring.
+
+"It may not be right," he said. "The inside of a glove finger is not
+very accurate for a measure, but it was the best I could do. I wrote
+Polly to get it, because she and mother are home from the East this
+week, but next they will go on to our cottage in the north, and no
+one knows what is right quite so well as Polly." He laid the ring in
+Elnora's hand. "Dearest," he said, "don't slip that on your finger; put
+your arms around my neck and promise me, all at once and abruptly, or
+I'll keel over and die of sheer joy."
+
+Elnora smiled.
+
+"I won't! Not all those venturesome things at once; but, Phil, I'm
+ashamed to confess that ring simply fascinates me. It is the most
+beautiful one I ever saw, and do you know that I never owned a ring of
+any kind in my life? Would you think me unwomanly if I slip it on for
+a second, before I can say for sure? Phil, you know I care! I care very
+much! You know I will tell you the instant I feel right about it."
+
+"Certainly you will," agreed Philip promptly. "It is your right to take
+all the time you choose. I can't put that ring on you until it means a
+bond between us. I'll shut my eyes and you try it on, so we can see
+if it fits." Philip turned his face toward the west woods and tightly
+closed his eyes. It was a boyish thing to do, and it caught the
+hesitating girl in the depths of her heart as the boy element in a man
+ever appeals to a motherly woman. Before she quite realized what she was
+doing, the ring slid on her finger. With both arms she caught Philip and
+drew him to her breast, holding him closely. Her head drooped over his,
+her lips were on his hair. So an instant, then her arms dropped. He
+lifted a convulsed, white face.
+
+"Dear Lord!" he whispered. "You--you didn't mean that, Elnora! You----
+What made you do it?"
+
+"You--you looked so boyish!" panted Elnora. "I didn't mean it! I--I
+forgot that you were older than Billy. Look--look at the ring!"
+
+"'The Queen can do no wrong,'" quoted Philip between his set teeth. "But
+don't you do that again, Elnora, unless you do mean it. Kings are not so
+good as queens, and there is a limit with all men. As you say, we will
+look at your ring. It seems very lovely to me. Suppose you leave it
+on until time for me to go. Please do! I have heard of mute appeals;
+perhaps it will plead for me. I am wild for your lips this afternoon. I
+am going to take your hands."
+
+He caught both of them and covered them with kisses.
+
+"Elnora," he said, "Will you be my wife?"
+
+"I must have a little more time," she whispered. "I must be absolutely
+certain, for when I say yes, and give myself to you, only death shall
+part us. I would not give you up. So I want a little more time--but, I
+think I will."
+
+"Thank you," said Philip. "If at any time you feel that you have reached
+a decision, will you tell me? Will you promise me to tell me instantly,
+or shall I keep asking you until the time comes?"
+
+"You make it difficult," said Elnora. "But I will promise you that.
+Whenever the last doubt vanishes, I will let you know instantly--if I
+can."
+
+"Would it be difficult for you?" whispered Ammon.
+
+"I--I don't know," faltered Elnora.
+
+"It seems as if I can't be man enough to put this thought aside and give
+up this afternoon," said Philip. "I am ashamed of myself, but I can't
+help it. I am going to ask God to make that last doubt vanish before I
+go this night. I am going to believe that ring will plead for me. I am
+going to hope that doubt will disappear suddenly. I will be watching.
+Every second I will be watching. If it happens and you can't speak,
+give me your hand. Just the least movement toward me, I will understand.
+Would it help you to talk this over with your mother? Shall I call her?
+Shall I----?"
+
+Honk! Honk! Honk! Hart Henderson set the horn of the big automobile
+going as it shot from behind the trees lining the Brushwood road. The
+picture of a vine-covered cabin, a large drooping tree, a green-clad
+girl and a man bending over her very closely flashed into view. Edith
+Carr caught her breath with a snap. Polly Ammon gave Tom Levering a
+quick touch and wickedly winked at him.
+
+Several days before, Edith had returned from Europe suddenly. She and
+Henderson had called at the Ammon residence saying that they were going
+to motor down to the Limberlost to see Philip a few hours, and urged
+that Polly and Tom accompany them. Mrs. Ammon knew that her husband
+would disapprove of the trip, but it was easy to see that Edith Carr had
+determined on going. So the mother thought it better to have Polly along
+to support Philip than to allow him to confront Edith unexpectedly and
+alone. Polly was full of spirit. She did not relish the thought of Edith
+as a sister. Always they had been in the same set, always Edith, because
+of greater beauty and wealth, had patronized Polly. Although it had
+rankled, she had borne it sweetly. But two days before, her father had
+extracted a promise of secrecy, given her Philip's address and told her
+to send him the finest emerald ring she could select. Polly knew how
+that ring would be used. What she did not know was that the girl who
+accompanied her went back to the store afterward, made an excuse to the
+clerk that she had been sent to be absolutely sure that the address was
+right, and so secured it for Edith Carr.
+
+Two days later Edith had induced Hart Henderson to take her to Onabasha.
+By the aid of maps they located the Comstock land and passed it, merely
+to see the place. Henderson hated that trip, and implored Edith not to
+take it, but she made no effort to conceal from him what she suffered,
+and it was more than he could endure. He pointed out that Philip had
+gone away without leaving an address, because he did not wish to see
+her, or any of them. But Edith was so sure of her power, she felt
+certain Philip needed only to see her to succumb to her beauty as he
+always had done, while now she was ready to plead for forgiveness. So
+they came down the Brushwood road, and Henderson had just said to Edith
+beside him: "This should be the Comstock land on our left."
+
+A minute later the wood ended, while the sunlight, as always pitiless,
+etched with distinctness the scene at the west end of the cabin.
+Instinctively, to save Edith, Henderson set the horn blowing. He had
+thought to drive to the city, but Polly Ammon arose crying: "Phil!
+Phil!" Tom Levering was on his feet shouting and waving, while Edith
+in her most imperial manner ordered him to turn into the lane leading
+through the woods beside the cabin.
+
+"Find some way for me to have a minute alone with her," she commanded as
+he stopped the car.
+
+"That is my sister Polly, her fiance Tom Levering, a friend of mine
+named Henderson, and----" began Philip,
+
+"--and Edith Carr," volunteered Elnora.
+
+"And Edith Carr," repeated Philip Ammon. "Elnora, be brave, for my sake.
+Their coming can make no difference in any way. I won't let them stay
+but a few minutes. Come with me!"
+
+"Do I seem scared?" inquired Elnora serenely. "This is why you haven't
+had your answer. I have been waiting just six weeks for that motor. You
+may bring them to me at the arbour."
+
+Philip glanced at her and broke into a laugh. She had not lost colour.
+Her self-possession was perfect. She deliberately turned and walked
+toward the grape arbour, while he sprang over the west fence and ran to
+the car.
+
+Elnora standing in the arbour entrance made a perfect picture, framed in
+green leaves and tendrils. No matter how her heart ached, it was good to
+her, for it pumped steadily, and kept her cheeks and lips suffused with
+colour. She saw Philip reach the car and gather his sister into his
+arms. Past her he reached a hand to Levering, then to Edith Carr and
+Henderson. He lifted his sister to the ground, and assisted Edith to
+alight. Instantly, she stepped beside him, and Elnora's heart played its
+first trick.
+
+She could see that Miss Carr was splendidly beautiful, while she moved
+with the hauteur and grace supposed to be the prerogatives of royalty.
+And she had instantly taken possession of Philip. But he also had a
+brain which was working with rapidity. He knew Elnora was watching, so
+he turned to the others.
+
+"Give her up, Tom!" he cried. "I didn't know I wanted to see the little
+nuisance so badly, but I do. How are father and mother? Polly, didn't
+the mater send me something?"
+
+"She did!" said Polly Ammon, stopping on the path and lifting her chin
+as a little child, while she drew away her veil.
+
+Philip caught her in his arms and stooped for his mother's kiss.
+
+"Be good to Elnora!" he whispered.
+
+"Umhu!" assented Polly. And aloud--"Look at that ripping green and gold
+symphony! I never saw such a beauty! Thomas Asquith Levering, you come
+straight here and take my hand!"
+
+Edith's move to compel Philip to approach Elnora beside her had been
+easy to see; also its failure. Henderson stepped into Philip's place as
+he turned to his sister. Instead of taking Polly's hand Levering ran to
+open the gate. Edith passed through first, but Polly darted in front of
+her on the run, with Phil holding her arm, and swept up to Elnora. Polly
+looked for the ring and saw it. That settled matters with her.
+
+"You lovely, lovely, darling girl!" she cried, throwing her arms
+around Elnora and kissing her. With her lips close Elnora's ear, Polly
+whispered, "Sister! Dear, dear sister!"
+
+Elnora drew back, staring at Polly in confused amazement. She was a
+beautiful girl, her eyes were sparkling and dancing, and as she turned
+to make way for the others, she kept one of Elnora's hands in hers.
+Polly would have dropped dead in that instant if Edith Carr could have
+killed with a look, for not until then did she realize that Polly would
+even many a slight, and that it had been a great mistake to bring her.
+
+Edith bowed low, muttered something and touched Elnora's fingers. Tom
+took his cue from Polly.
+
+"I always follow a good example," he said, and before any one could
+divine his intention he kissed Elnora as he gripped her hand and cried:
+"Mighty glad to meet you! Like to meet you a dozen times a day, you
+know!"
+
+Elnora laughed and her heart pumped smoothly. They had accomplished
+their purpose. They had let her know they were there through compulsion,
+but on her side. In that instant only pity was in Elnora's breast for
+the flashing dark beauty, standing with smiling face while her heart
+must have been filled with exceeding bitterness. Elnora stepped back
+from the entrance.
+
+"Come into the shade," she urged. "You must have found it warm on these
+country roads. Won't you lay aside your dust-coats and have a cool
+drink? Philip, would you ask mother to come, and bring that pitcher from
+the spring house?"
+
+They entered the arbour exclaiming at the dim, green coolness. There was
+plenty of room and wide seats around the sides, a table in the
+centre, on which lay a piece of embroidery, magazines, books, the moth
+apparatus, and the cyanide jar containing several specimens. Polly
+rejoiced in the cooling shade, slipped off her duster, removed her hat,
+rumpled her pretty hair and seated herself to indulge in the delightful
+occupation of paying off old scores. Tom Levering followed her example.
+Edith took a seat but refused to remove her hat and coat, while
+Henderson stood in the entrance.
+
+"There goes something with wings! Should you have that?" cried Levering.
+
+He seized a net from the table and raced across the garden after a
+butterfly. He caught it and came back mightily pleased with himself. As
+the creature struggled in the net, Elnora noted a repulsed look on Edith
+Carr's face. Levering helped the situation beautifully.
+
+"Now what have I got?" he demanded. "Is it just a common one that every
+one knows and you don't keep, or is it the rarest bird off the perch?"
+
+"You must have had practice, you took that so perfectly," said Elnora.
+"I am sorry, but it is quite common and not of a kind I keep. Suppose
+all of you see how beautiful it is and then it may go nectar hunting
+again."
+
+She held the butterfly where all of them could see, showed its upper and
+under wing colours, answered Polly's questions as to what it ate,
+how long it lived, and how it died. Then she put it into Polly's hand
+saying: "Stand there in the light and loosen your hold slowly and
+easily."
+
+Elnora caught a brush from the table and began softly stroking the
+creature's sides and wings. Delighted with the sensation the butterfly
+opened and closed its wings, clinging to Polly's soft little fingers,
+while every one cried out in surprise. Elnora laid aside the brush, and
+the butterfly sailed away.
+
+"Why, you are a wizard! You charm them!" marvelled Levering.
+
+"I learned that from the Bird Woman," said Elnora. "She takes soft
+brushes and coaxes butterflies and moths into the positions she wants
+for the illustrations of a book she is writing. I have helped her often.
+Most of the rare ones I find go to her."
+
+"Then you don't keep all you take?" questioned Levering.
+
+"Oh, dear, no!" cried Elnora. "Not a tenth! For myself, a pair of each
+kind to use in illustrating the lectures I give in the city schools in
+the winter, and one pair for each collection I make. One might as well
+keep the big night moths of June, for they only live four or five
+days anyway. For the Bird Woman, I only save rare ones she has not
+yet secured. Sometimes I think it is cruel to take such creatures from
+freedom, even for an hour, but it is the only way to teach the masses
+of people how to distinguish the pests they should destroy, from the
+harmless ones of great beauty. Here comes mother with something cool to
+drink."
+
+Mrs. Comstock came deliberately, talking to Philip as she approached.
+Elnora gave her one searching look, but could discover only an extreme
+brightness of eye to denote any unusual feeling. She wore one of her
+lavender dresses, while her snowy hair was high piled. She had taken
+care of her complexion, and her face had grown fuller during the winter.
+She might have been any one's mother with pride, and she was perfectly
+at ease.
+
+Polly instantly went to her and held up her face to be kissed. Mrs.
+Comstock's eyes twinkled and she made the greeting hearty.
+
+The drink was compounded of the juices of oranges and berries from the
+garden. It was cool enough to frost glasses and pitcher and delicious to
+dusty tired travellers. Soon the pitcher was empty, and Elnora picked
+it up and went to refill it. While she was gone Henderson asked Philip
+about some trouble he was having with his car. They went to the woods
+and began a minute examination to find a defect which did not exist.
+Polly and Levering were having an animated conversation with Mrs.
+Comstock. Henderson saw Edith arise, follow the garden path next the
+woods and stand waiting under the willow which Elnora would pass on her
+return. It was for that meeting he had made the trip. He got down on the
+ground, tore up the car, worked, asked for help, and kept Philip busy
+screwing bolts and applying the oil can. All the time Henderson kept an
+eye on Edith and Elnora under the willow. But he took pains to lay the
+work he asked Philip to do where that scene would be out of his sight.
+When Elnora came around the corner with the pitcher, she found herself
+facing Edith Carr.
+
+"I want a minute with you," said Miss Carr.
+
+"Very well," replied Elnora, walking on.
+
+"Set the pitcher on the bench there," commanded Edith Carr, as if
+speaking to a servant.
+
+"I prefer not to offer my visitors a warm drink," said Elnora. "I'll
+come back if you really wish to speak with me."
+
+"I came solely for that," said Edith Carr.
+
+"It would be a pity to travel so far in this dust and heat for nothing.
+I'll only be gone a second."
+
+Elnora placed the pitcher before her mother. "Please serve this," she
+said. "Miss Carr wishes to speak with me."
+
+"Don't you pay the least attention to anything she says," cried Polly.
+"Tom and I didn't come here because we wanted to. We only came to
+checkmate her. I hoped I'd get the opportunity to say a word to you, and
+now she has given it to me. I just want to tell you that she threw Phil
+over in perfectly horrid way. She hasn't any right to lay the ghost of a
+claim to him, has she, Tom?"
+
+"Nary a claim," said Tom Levering earnestly. "Why, even you, Polly,
+couldn't serve me as she did Phil, and ever get me back again. If I were
+you, Miss Comstock, I'd send my mother to talk with her and I'd stay
+here."
+
+Tom had gauged Mrs. Comstock rightly. Polly put her arms around Elnora.
+"Let me go with you, dear," she begged.
+
+"I promised I would speak with her alone," said Elnora, "and she must be
+considered. But thank you, very much."
+
+"How I shall love you!" exulted Polly, giving Elnora a parting hug.
+
+The girl slowly and gravely walked back to the willow. She could not
+imagine what was coming, but she was promising herself that she would be
+very patient and control her temper.
+
+"Will you be seated?" she asked politely.
+
+Edith Carr glanced at the bench, while a shudder shook her.
+
+"No. I prefer to stand," she said. "Did Mr. Ammon give you the ring you
+are wearing, and do you consider yourself engaged to him?"
+
+"By what right do you ask such personal questions as those?" inquired
+Elnora.
+
+"By the right of a betrothed wife. I have been promised to Philip Ammon
+ever since I wore short skirts. All our lives we have expected to marry.
+An agreement of years cannot be broken in one insane moment. Always he
+has loved me devotedly. Give me ten minutes with him and he will be mine
+for all time."
+
+"I seriously doubt that," said Elnora. "But I am willing that you should
+make the test. I will call him."
+
+"Stop!" commanded Edith Carr. "I told you that it was you I came to
+see."
+
+"I remember," said Elnora.
+
+"Mr. Ammon is my betrothed," continued Edith Carr. "I expect to take him
+back to Chicago with me."
+
+"You expect considerable," murmured Elnora. "I will raise no objection
+to your taking him, if you can--but, I tell you frankly, I don't think
+it possible."
+
+"You are so sure of yourself as that," scoffed Edith Carr. "One hour in
+my presence will bring back the old spell, full force. We belong to each
+other. I will not give him up."
+
+"Then it is untrue that you twice rejected his ring, repeatedly insulted
+him, and publicly renounced him?"
+
+"That was through you!" cried Edith Carr. "Phil and I never had been so
+near and so happy as we were on that night. It was your clinging to him
+for things that caused him to desert me among his guests, while he tried
+to make me await your pleasure. I realize the spell of this place, for
+a summer season. I understand what you and your mother have done to
+inveigle him. I know that your hold on him is quite real. I can see just
+how you have worked to ensnare him!"
+
+"Men would call that lying," said Elnora calmly. "The second time I met
+Philip Ammon he told me of his engagement to you, and I respected it.
+I did by you as I would want you to do by me. He was here parts of each
+day, almost daily last summer. The Almighty is my witness that never
+once, by word or look, did I ever make the slightest attempt to interest
+him in my person or personality. He wrote you frequently in my presence.
+He forgot the violets for which he asked to send you. I gathered them
+and carried them to him. I sent him back to you in unswerving devotion,
+and the Almighty is also my witness that I could have changed his heart
+last summer, if I had tried. I wisely left that work for you. All my
+life I shall be glad that I lived and worked on the square. That he ever
+would come back to me free, by your act, I never dreamed. When he left
+me I did not hope or expect to see him again," Elnora's voice fell soft
+and low, "and, behold! You sent him--and free!"
+
+"You exult in that!" cried Edith Carr. "Let me tell you he is not free!
+We have belonged for years. We always shall. If you cling to him, and
+hold him to rash things he has said and done, because he thought me
+still angry and unforgiving with him, you will ruin all our lives. If
+he married you, before a month you would read heart-hunger for me in his
+eyes. He could not love me as he has done, and give me up for a little
+scene like that!"
+
+"There is a great poem," said Elnora, "one line of which reads, 'For
+each man kills the thing he loves.' Let me tell you that a woman can
+do that also. He did love you--that I concede. But you killed his love
+everlastingly, when you disgraced him in public. Killed it so completely
+he does not even feel resentment toward you. To-day, he would do you a
+favour, if he could; but love you, no! That is over!"
+
+Edith Carr stood truly regal and filled with scorn. "You are mistaken!
+Nothing on earth could kill that!" she cried, and Elnora saw that the
+girl really believed what she said.
+
+"You are very sure of yourself!" said Elnora.
+
+"I have reason to be sure," answered Edith Carr.
+
+"We have lived and loved too long. I have had years with him to match
+against your days. He is mine! His work, his ambitions, his friends, his
+place in society are with me. You may have a summer charm for a sick man
+in the country; if he tried placing you in society, he soon would see
+you as others will. It takes birth to position, schooling, and endless
+practice to meet social demands gracefully. You would put him to shame
+in a week."
+
+"I scarcely think I should follow your example so far," said Elnora
+dryly. "I have a feeling for Philip that would prevent my hurting him
+purposely, either in public or private. As for managing a social career
+for him he never mentioned that he desired such a thing. What he asked
+of me was that I should be his wife. I understood that to mean that he
+desired me to keep him a clean house, serve him digestible food, mother
+his children, and give him loving sympathy and tenderness."
+
+"Shameless!" cried Edith Carr.
+
+"To which of us do you intend that adjective to apply?" inquired Elnora.
+"I never was less ashamed in all my life. Please remember I am in my own
+home, and your presence here is not on my invitation."
+
+Miss Carr lifted her head and struggled with her veil. She was very pale
+and trembling violently, while Elnora stood serene, a faint smile on her
+lips.
+
+"Such vulgarity!" panted Edith Carr. "How can a man like Philip endure
+it?"
+
+"Why don't you ask him?" inquired Elnora. "I can call him with one
+breath; but, if he judged us as we stand, I should not be the one to
+tremble at his decision. Miss Carr, you have been quite plain. You have
+told me in carefully selected words what you think of me. You insult my
+birth, education, appearance, and home. I assure you I am legitimate.
+I will pass a test examination with you on any high school or
+supplementary branch, or French or German. I will take a physical
+examination beside you. I will face any social emergency you can mention
+with you. I am acquainted with a whole world in which Philip Ammon is
+keenly interested, that you scarcely know exists. I am not afraid to
+face any audience you can get together anywhere with my violin. I am not
+repulsive to look at, and I have a wholesome regard for the proprieties
+and civilities of life. Philip Ammon never asked anything more of me,
+why should you?"
+
+"It is plain to see," cried Edith Carr, "that you took him when he was
+hurt and angry and kept his wound wide open. Oh, what have you not done
+against me?"
+
+"I did not promise to marry him when an hour ago he asked me, and
+offered me this ring, because there was so much feeling in my heart for
+you, that I knew I never could be happy, if I felt that in any way I
+had failed in doing justice to your interests. I did slip on this ring,
+which he had just brought, because I never owned one, and it is very
+beautiful, but I made him no promise, nor shall I make any, until I am
+quite, quite sure, that you fully realize he never would marry you if I
+sent him away this hour."
+
+"You know perfectly that if your puny hold on him were broken, if he
+were back in his home, among his friends, and where he was meeting me,
+in one short week he would be mine again, as he always has been. In your
+heart you don't believe what you say. You don't dare trust him in my
+presence. You are afraid to allow him out of your sight, because you
+know what the results would be. Right or wrong, you have made up your
+mind to ruin him and me, and you are going to be selfish enough to do
+it. But----"
+
+"That will do!" said Elnora. "Spare me the enumeration of how I will
+regret it. I shall regret nothing. I shall not act until I know there
+will be nothing to regret. I have decided on my course. You may return
+to your friends."
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Edith Carr.
+
+"That is my affair," replied Elnora. "Only this! When your opportunity
+comes, seize it! Any time you are in Philip Ammon's presence, exert the
+charms of which you boast, and take him. I grant you are justified in
+doing it if you can. I want nothing more than I want to see you
+marry Philip if he wants you. He is just across the fence under that
+automobile. Go spread your meshes and exert your wiles. I won't stir to
+stop you. Take him to Onabasha, and to Chicago with you. Use every art
+you possess. If the old charm can be revived I will be the first to wish
+both of you well. Now, I must return to my visitors. Kindly excuse me."
+
+Elnora turned and went back to the arbour. Edith Carr followed the
+fence and passed through the gate into the west woods where she asked
+Henderson about the car. As she stood near him she whispered: "Take Phil
+back to Onabasha with us."
+
+"I say, Ammon, can't you go to the city with us and help me find a shop
+where I can get this pinion fixed?" asked Henderson. "We want to lunch
+and start back by five. That will get us home about midnight. Why don't
+you bring your automobile here?"
+
+"I am a working man," said Philip. "I have no time to be out motoring. I
+can't see anything the matter with your car, myself; but, of course you
+don't want to break down in the night, on strange roads, with women on
+your hands. I'll see."
+
+Philip went into the arbour, where Polly took possession of his lap,
+fingered his hair, and kissed his forehead and lips.
+
+"When are you coming to the cottage, Phil?" she asked. "Come soon, and
+bring Miss Comstock for a visit. All of us will be so glad to have her."
+
+Philip beamed on Polly. "I'll see about that," he said. "Sounds pretty
+good. Elnora, Henderson is in trouble with his automobile. He wants me
+to go to Onabasha with him to show him where the doctor lives, and make
+repairs so he can start back this evening. It will take about two hours.
+May I go?"
+
+"Of course, you must go," she said, laughing lightly. "You can't leave
+your sister. Why don't you return to Chicago with them? There is plenty
+of room, and you could have a fine visit."
+
+"I'll be back in just two hours," said Philip. "While I am gone, you be
+thinking over what we were talking of when the folks came."
+
+"Miss Comstock can go with us as well as not," said Polly. "That back
+seat was made for three, and I can sit on your lap."
+
+"Come on! Do come!" urged Philip instantly, and Tom Levering joined him,
+but Henderson and Edith silently waited at the gate.
+
+"No, thank you," laughed Elnora. "That would crowd you, and it's warm
+and dusty. We will say good-bye here."
+
+She offered her hand to all of them, and when she came to Philip she
+gave him one long steady look in the eyes, then shook hands with him
+also.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA REACHES A DECISION, AND FRECKLES AND THE ANGEL APPEAR
+
+
+"Well, she came, didn't she?" remarked Mrs. Comstock to Elnora as they
+watched the automobile speed down the road. As it turned the Limberlost
+corner, Philip arose and waved to them.
+
+"She hasn't got him yet, anyway," said Mrs. Comstock, taking heart.
+"What's that on your finger, and what did she say to you?"
+
+Elnora explained about the ring as she drew it off.
+
+"I have several letters to write, then I am going to change my dress and
+walk down toward Aunt Margaret's for a little exercise. I may meet
+some of them, and I don't want them to see this ring. You keep it until
+Philip comes," said Elnora. "As for what Miss Carr said to me, many
+things, two of importance: one, that I lacked every social requirement
+necessary for the happiness of Philip Ammon, and that if I married him I
+would see inside a month that he was ashamed of me----"
+
+"Aw, shockins!" scorned Mrs. Comstock. "Go on!"
+
+"The other was that she has been engaged to him for years, that he
+belongs to her, and she refuses to give him up. She said that if he were
+in her presence one hour, she would have him under a mysterious thing
+she calls 'her spell' again; if he were where she could see him for
+one week, everything would be made up. It is her opinion that he is
+suffering from wounded pride, and that the slightest concession on her
+part will bring him to his knees before her."
+
+Mrs. Comstock giggled. "I do hope the boy isn't weak-kneed," she said.
+"I just happened to be passing the west window this afternoon----"
+
+Elnora laughed. "Nothing save actual knowledge ever would have made me
+believe there was a girl in all this world so infatuated with herself.
+She speaks casually of her power over men, and boasts of 'bringing a man
+to his knees' as complacently as I would pick up a net and say: 'I am
+going to take a butterfly.' She honestly believes that if Philip were
+with her a short time she could rekindle his love for her and awaken in
+him every particle of the old devotion. Mother, the girl is honest! She
+is absolutely sincere! She so believes in herself and the strength of
+Phil's love for her, that all her life she will believe in and brood
+over that thought, unless she is taught differently. So long as she
+thinks that, she will nurse wrong ideas and pine over her blighted life.
+She must be taught that Phil is absolutely free, and yet he will not go
+to her."
+
+"But how on earth are you proposing to teach her that?"
+
+"The way will open."
+
+"Lookey here, Elnora!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "That Carr girl is the
+handsomest dark woman I ever saw. She's got to the place where she won't
+stop at anything. Her coming here proves that. I don't believe there was
+a thing the matter with that automobile. I think that was a scheme she
+fixed up to get Phil where she could see him alone, as she worked to
+see you. If you are going deliberately to put Philip under her influence
+again, you've got to brace yourself for the possibility that she may
+win. A man is a weak mortal, where a lovely woman is concerned, and he
+never denied that he loved her once. You may make yourself downright
+miserable."
+
+"But mother, if she won, it wouldn't make me half so miserable as to
+marry Phil myself, and then read hunger for her in his eyes! Some one
+has got to suffer over this. If it proves to be me, I'll bear it, and
+you'll never hear a whisper of complaint from me. I know the real Philip
+Ammon better in our months of work in the fields than she knows him in
+all her years of society engagements. So she shall have the hour she
+asked, many, many of them, enough to make her acknowledge that she is
+wrong. Now I am going to write my letters and take my walk."
+
+Elnora threw her arms around her mother and kissed her repeatedly.
+"Don't you worry about me," she said. "I will get along all right, and
+whatever happens, I always will be your girl and you my darling mother."
+
+She left two sealed notes on her desk. Then she changed her dress,
+packed a small bundle which she dropped with her hat from the window
+beside the willow, and softly went down stairs. Mrs. Comstock was in the
+garden. Elnora picked up the hat and bundle, hurried down the road a few
+rods, then climbed the fence and entered the woods. She took a diagonal
+course, and after a long walk reached a road two miles west and one
+south. There she straightened her clothing, put on her hat and a thin
+dark veil and waited the passing of the next trolley. She left it at the
+first town and took a train for Fort Wayne. She made that point just in
+time to climb on the evening train north, as it pulled from the station.
+It was after midnight when she left the car at Grand Rapids, and went
+into the depot to await the coming of day.
+
+Tired out, she laid her head on her bundle and fell asleep on a seat in
+the women's waiting-room. Long after light she was awakened by the roar
+and rattle of trains. She washed, re-arranged her hair and clothing, and
+went into the general waiting-room to find her way to the street. She
+saw him as he entered the door. There was no mistaking the tall, lithe
+figure, the bright hair, the lean, brown-splotched face, the steady gray
+eyes. He was dressed for travelling, and carried a light overcoat and a
+bag. Straight to him Elnora went speeding.
+
+"Oh, I was just starting to find you!" she cried.
+
+"Thank you!" he said.
+
+"You are going away?" she panted.
+
+"Not if I am needed. I have a few minutes. Can you be telling me
+briefly?"
+
+"I am the Limberlost girl to whom your wife gave the dress for
+Commencement last spring, and both of you sent lovely gifts. There is a
+reason, a very good reason, why I must be hidden for a time, and I came
+straight to you--as if I had a right."
+
+"You have!" answered Freckles. "Any boy or girl who ever suffered one
+pang in the Limberlost has a claim to the best drop of blood in my
+heart. You needn't be telling me anything more. The Angel is at our
+cottage on Mackinac. You shall tell her and play with the babies while
+you want shelter. This way!"
+
+They breakfasted in a luxurious car, talked over the swamp, the work of
+the Bird Woman; Elnora told of her nature lectures in the schools,
+and soon they were good friends. In the evening they left the train at
+Mackinaw City and crossed the Straits by boat. Sheets of white moonlight
+flooded the water and paved a molten path across the breast of it
+straight to the face of the moon.
+
+The island lay a dark spot on the silver surface, its tall trees sharply
+outlined on the summit, and a million lights blinked around the shore.
+The night guns boomed from the white fort and a dark sentinel paced the
+ramparts above the little city tucked down close to the water. A great
+tenor summering in the north came out on the upper deck of the big
+boat, and baring his head, faced the moon and sang: "Oh, the moon shines
+bright on my old Kentucky home!" Elnora thought of the Limberlost, of
+Philip, and her mother, and almost choked with the sobs that would arise
+in her throat. On the dock a woman of exquisite beauty swept into the
+arms of Terence O'More.
+
+"Oh, Freckles!" she cried. "You've been gone a month!"
+
+"Four days, Angel, only four days by the clock," remonstrated Freckles.
+"Where are the children?"
+
+"Asleep! Thank goodness! I'm worn to a thread. I never saw such
+inventive, active children. I can't keep track of them!"
+
+"I have brought you help," said Freckles. "Here is the Limberlost girl
+in whom the Bird Woman is interested. Miss Comstock needs a rest before
+beginning her school work for next year, so she came to us."
+
+"You dear thing! How good of you!" cried the Angel. "We shall be so
+happy to have you!"
+
+In her room that night, in a beautiful cottage furnished with every
+luxury, Elnora lifted a tired face to the Angel.
+
+"Of course, you understand there is something back of this?" she said.
+"I must tell you."
+
+"Yes," agreed the Angel. "Tell me! If you get it out of your system, you
+will stand a better chance of sleeping."
+
+Elnora stood brushing the copper-bright masses of her hair as she
+talked. When she finished the Angel was almost hysterical.
+
+"You insane creature!" she cried. "How crazy of you to leave him to her!
+I know both of them. I have met them often. She may be able to make good
+her boast. But it is perfectly splendid of you! And, after all, really
+it is the only way. I can see that. I think it is what I should have
+done myself, or tried to do. I don't know that I could have done it!
+When I think of walking away and leaving Freckles with a woman he once
+loved, to let her see if she can make him love her again, oh, it gives
+me a graveyard heart. No, I never could have done it! You are bigger
+than I ever was. I should have turned coward, sure."
+
+"I am a coward," admitted Elnora. "I am soul-sick! I am afraid I shall
+lose my senses before this is over. I didn't want to come! I wanted to
+stay, to go straight into his arms, to bind myself with his ring, to
+love him with all my heart. It wasn't my fault that I came. There was
+something inside that just pushed me. She is beautiful----"
+
+"I quite agree with you!"
+
+"You can imagine how fascinating she can be. She used no arts on me. Her
+purpose was to cower me. She found she could not do that, but she did a
+thing which helped her more: she proved that she was honest, perfectly
+sincere in what she thought. She believes that if she merely beckons to
+Philip, he will go to her. So I am giving her the opportunity to learn
+from him what he will do. She never will believe it from any one else.
+When she is satisfied, I shall be also."
+
+"But, child! Suppose she wins him back!"
+
+"That is the supposition with which I shall eat and sleep for the coming
+few weeks. Would one dare ask for a peep at the babies before going to
+bed?"
+
+"Now, you are perfect!" announced the Angel. "I never should have liked
+you all I can, if you had been content to go to sleep in this house
+without asking to see the babies. Come this way. We named the first boy
+for his father, of course, and the girl for Aunt Alice. The next boy is
+named for my father, and the baby for the Bird Woman. After this we are
+going to branch out."
+
+Elnora began to laugh.
+
+"Oh, I suspect there will be quite a number of them," said the Angel
+serenely. "I am told the more there are the less trouble they make. The
+big ones take care of the little ones. We want a large family. This is
+our start."
+
+She entered a dark room and held aloft a candle. She went to the side of
+a small white iron bed in which lay a boy of eight and another of three.
+They were perfectly formed, rosy children, the elder a replica of his
+mother, the other very like. Then they came to a cradle where a baby
+girl of almost two slept soundly, and made a picture.
+
+"But just see here!" said the Angel. She threw the light on a sleeping
+girl of six. A mass of red curls swept the pillow. Line and feature the
+face was that of Freckles. Without asking, Elnora knew the colour and
+expression of the closed eyes. The Angel handed Elnora the candle, and
+stooping, straightened the child's body. She ran her fingers through the
+bright curls, and lightly touched the aristocratic little nose.
+
+"The supply of freckles holds out in my family, you see!" she said.
+"Both of the girls will have them, and the second boy a few."
+
+She stood an instant longer, then bending, ran her hand caressingly down
+a rosy bare leg, while she kissed the babyish red mouth. There had been
+some reason for touching all of them, the kiss fell on the lips which
+were like Freckles's.
+
+To Elnora she said a tender good-night, whispering brave words of
+encouragement and making plans to fill the days to come. Then she went
+away. An hour later there was a light tap on the girl's door.
+
+"Come!" she called as she lay staring into the dark.
+
+The Angel felt her way to the bedside, sat down and took Elnora's hands.
+
+"I just had to come back to you," she said. "I have been telling
+Freckles, and he is almost hurting himself with laughing. I didn't think
+it was funny, but he does. He thinks it's the funniest thing that ever
+happened. He says that to run away from Mr. Ammon, when you had made him
+no promise at all, when he wasn't sure of you, won't send him home to
+her; it will set him hunting you! He says if you had combined the
+wisdom of Solomon, Socrates, and all the remainder of the wise men, you
+couldn't have chosen any course that would have sealed him to you so
+surely. He feels that now Mr. Ammon will perfectly hate her for coming
+down there and driving you away. And you went to give her the chance she
+wanted. Oh, Elnora! It is becoming funny! I see it, too!"
+
+The Angel rocked on the bedside. Elnora faced the dark in silence.
+
+"Forgive me," gulped the Angel. "I didn't mean to laugh. I didn't think
+it was funny, until all at once it came to me. Oh, dear! Elnora, it
+_is_ funny! I've got to laugh!"
+
+"Maybe it is," admitted Elnora "to others; but it isn't very funny to
+me. And it won't be to Philip, or to mother."
+
+That was very true. Mrs. Comstock had been slightly prepared for
+stringent action of some kind, by what Elnora had said. The mother
+instantly had guessed where the girl would go, but nothing was said
+to Philip. That would have been to invalidate Elnora's test in the
+beginning, and Mrs. Comstock knew her child well enough to know that she
+never would marry Philip unless she felt it right that she should. The
+only way was to find out, and Elnora had gone to seek the information.
+There was nothing to do but wait until she came back, and her mother
+was not in the least uneasy but that the girl would return brave and
+self-reliant, as always.
+
+Philip Ammon hurried back to the Limberlost, strong in the hope that now
+he might take Elnora into his arms and receive her promise to become his
+wife. His first shock of disappointment came when he found her gone.
+In talking with Mrs. Comstock he learned that Edith Carr had made an
+opportunity to speak with Elnora alone. He hastened down the road to
+meet her, coming back alone, an agitated man. Then search revealed the
+notes. His read:
+
+DEAR PHILIP:
+
+I find that I am never going to be able to answer your question of this
+afternoon fairly to all of us, when you are with me. So I am going away
+a few weeks to think over matters alone. I shall not tell you, or even
+mother, where I am going, but I shall be safe, well cared for, and
+happy. Please go back home and live among your friends, just as you
+always have done, and on or before the first of September, I will write
+you where I am, and what I have decided. Please do not blame Edith
+Carr for this, and do not avoid her. I hope you will call on her and be
+friends. I think she is very sorry, and covets your friendship at least.
+Until September, then, as ever,
+
+ELNORA.
+
+
+Mrs. Comstock's note was much the same. Philip was ill with
+disappointment. In the arbour he laid his head on the table, among the
+implements of Elnora's loved work, and gulped down dry sobs he could
+not restrain. Mrs. Comstock never had liked him so well. Her hand
+involuntarily crept toward his dark head, then she drew back. Elnora
+would not want her to do anything whatever to influence him.
+
+"What am I going to do to convince Edith Carr that I do not love her,
+and Elnora that I am hers?" he demanded.
+
+"I guess you have to figure that out yourself," said Mrs. Comstock. "I'd
+be glad to help you if I could, but it seems to be up to you."
+
+Philip sat a long time in silence. "Well, I have decided!" he said
+abruptly. "Are you perfectly sure Elnora had plenty of money and a safe
+place to go?"
+
+"Absolutely!" answered Mrs. Comstock. "She has been taking care of
+herself ever since she was born, and she always has come out all right,
+so far; I'll stake all I'm worth on it, that she always will. I don't
+know where she is, but I'm not going to worry about her safety."
+
+"I can't help worrying!" cried Philip. "I can think of fifty things
+that may happen to her when she thinks she is safe. This is distracting!
+First, I am going to run up to see my father. Then, I'll let you know
+what we have decided. Is there anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Nothing!" said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+But the desire to do something for him was so strong with her she
+scarcely could keep her lips closed or her hands quiet. She longed to
+tell him what Edith Carr had said, how it had affected Elnora, and to
+comfort him as she felt she could. But loyalty to the girl held her.
+If Elnora truly felt that she could not decide until Edith Carr was
+convinced, then Edith Carr would have to yield or triumph. It rested
+with Philip. So Mrs. Comstock kept silent, while Philip took the night
+limited, a bitterly disappointed man.
+
+By noon the next day he was in his father's offices. They had a long
+conference, but did not arrive at much until the elder Ammon suggested
+sending for Polly. Anything that might have happened could be explained
+after Polly had told of the private conference between Edith and Elnora.
+
+"Talk about lovely woman!" cried Philip Ammon. "One would think that
+after such a dose as Edith gave me, she would be satisfied to let me go
+my way, but no! Not caring for me enough herself to save me from public
+disgrace, she must now pursue me to keep any other woman from loving me.
+I call that too much! I am going to see her, and I want you to go with
+me, father."
+
+"Very well," said Mr. Ammon, "I will go."
+
+When Edith Carr came into her reception-room that afternoon, gowned for
+conquest, she expected only Philip, and him penitent. She came hurrying
+toward him, smiling, radiant, ready to use every allurement she
+possessed, and paused in dismay when she saw his cold face and his
+father. "Why, Phil!" she cried. "When did you come home?"
+
+"I am not at home," answered Philip. "I merely ran up to see my father
+on business, and to inquire of you what it was you said to Miss Comstock
+yesterday that caused her to disappear before I could return to the
+Limberlost."
+
+"Miss Comstock disappear! Impossible!" cried Edith Carr. "Where could
+she go?"
+
+"I thought perhaps you could answer that, since it was through you that
+she went."
+
+"Phil, I haven't the faintest idea where she is," said the girl gently.
+
+"But you know perfectly why she went! Kindly tell me that."
+
+"Let me see you alone, and I will."
+
+"Here and now, or not at all."
+
+"Phil!"
+
+"What did you say to the girl I love?"
+
+Then Edith Carr stretched out her arms.
+
+"Phil, I am the girl you love!" she cried. "All your life you have loved
+me. Surely it cannot be all gone in a few weeks of misunderstanding. I
+was jealous of her! I did not want you to leave me an instant that night
+for any other girl living. That was the moth I was representing. Every
+one knew it! I wanted you to bring it to me. When you did not, I knew
+instantly it had been for her that you worked last summer, she who
+suggested my dress, she who had power to take you from me, when I wanted
+you most. The thought drove me mad, and I said and did those insane
+things. Phil, I beg your pardon! I ask your forgiveness. Yesterday she
+said that you had told her of me at once. She vowed both of you had been
+true to me and Phil, I couldn't look into her eyes and not see that it
+was the truth. Oh, Phil, if you understood how I have suffered you
+would forgive me. Phil, I never knew how much I cared for you! I will do
+anything--anything!"
+
+"Then tell me what you said to Elnora yesterday that drove her, alone
+and friendless, into the night, heaven knows where!"
+
+"You have no thought for any one save her?"
+
+"Yes," said Philip. "I have. Because I once loved you, and believed in
+you, my heart aches for you. I will gladly forgive anything you ask. I
+will do anything you want, except to resume our former relations. That
+is impossible. It is hopeless and useless to ask it."
+
+"You truly mean that!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then find out from her what I said!"
+
+"Come, father," said Philip, rising.
+
+"You were going to show Miss Comstock's letter to Edith!" suggested Mr.
+Ammon.
+
+"I have not the slightest interest in Miss Comstock's letter," said
+Edith Carr.
+
+"You are not even interested in the fact that she says you are not
+responsible for her going, and that I am to call on you and be friends
+with you?"
+
+"That is interesting, indeed!" sneered Miss Carr.
+
+She took the letter, read and returned it.
+
+"She has done what she could for my cause, it seems," she said coldly.
+"How very generous of her! Do you propose calling out Pinkertons and
+instituting a general search?"
+
+"No," replied Philip. "I simply propose to go back to the Limberlost
+and live with her mother, until Elnora becomes convinced that I am not
+courting you, and never shall be. Then, perhaps, she will come home to
+us. Good-bye. Good luck to you always!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+WHEREIN EDITH CARR WAGES A BATTLE, AND HART HENDERSON STANDS GUARD
+
+
+Many people looked, a few followed, when Edith Carr slowly came down
+the main street of Mackinac, pausing here and there to note the glow of
+colour in one small booth after another, overflowing with gay curios.
+That street of packed white sand, winding with the curves of the shore,
+outlined with brilliant shops, and thronged with laughing, bare-headed
+people in outing costumes was a picturesque and fascinating sight.
+Thousands annually made long journeys and paid exorbitant prices to take
+part in that pageant.
+
+As Edith Carr passed, she was the most distinguished figure of the old
+street. Her clinging black gown was sufficiently elaborate for a dinner
+dress. On her head was a large, wide, drooping-brimmed black hat, with
+immense floating black plumes, while on the brim, and among the laces
+on her breast glowed velvety, deep red roses. Some way these made up
+for the lack of colour in her cheeks and lips, and while her eyes seemed
+unnaturally bright, to a close observer they appeared weary. Despite
+the effort she made to move lightly she was very tired, and dragged her
+heavy feet with an effort.
+
+She turned at the little street leading to the dock, and went to meet
+the big lake steamer ploughing up the Straits from Chicago. Past the
+landing place, on to the very end of the pier she went, then sat down,
+leaned against a dock support and closed her tired eyes. When the
+steamer came very close she languidly watched the people lining the
+railing. Instantly she marked one lean anxious face turned toward hers,
+and with a throb of pity she lifted a hand and waved to Hart Henderson.
+He was the first man to leave the boat, coming to her instantly. She
+spread her trailing skirts and motioned him to sit beside her. Silently
+they looked across the softly lapping water. At last she forced herself
+to speak to him.
+
+"Did you have a successful trip?"
+
+"I accomplished my purpose."
+
+"You didn't lose any time getting back."
+
+"I never do when I am coming to you."
+
+"Do you want to go to the cottage for anything?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then let us sit here and wait until the Petoskey steamer comes in. I
+like to watch the boats. Sometimes I study the faces, if I am not too
+tired."
+
+"Have you seen any new types to-day?"
+
+She shook her head. "This has not been an easy day, Hart."
+
+"And it's going to be worse," said Henderson bitterly. "There's no use
+putting it off. Edith, I saw some one to-day."
+
+"You should have seen thousands," she said lightly.
+
+"I did. But of them all, only one will be of interest to you."
+
+"Man or woman?"
+
+"Man."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Lake Shore private hospital."
+
+"An accident?"
+
+"No. Nervous and physical breakdown."
+
+"Phil said he was going back to the Limberlost."
+
+"He went. He was there three weeks, but the strain broke him. He has an
+old letter in his hands that he has handled until it is ragged. He held
+it up to me and said: 'You can see for yourself that she says she will
+be well and happy, but we can't know until we see her again, and that
+may never be. She may have gone too near that place her father went
+down, some of that Limberlost gang may have found her in the forest, she
+may lie dead in some city morgue this instant, waiting for me to find
+her body.'"
+
+"Hart! For pity sake stop!"
+
+"I can't," cried Henderson desperately. "I am forced to tell you. They
+are fighting brain fever. He did go back to the swamp and he prowled it
+night and day. The days down there are hot now, and the nights wet with
+dew and cold. He paid no attention and forgot his food. A fever started
+and his uncle brought him home. They've never had a word from her, or
+found a trace of her. Mrs. Comstock thought she had gone to O'Mores' at
+Great Rapids, so when Phil broke down she telegraphed there. They had
+been gone all summer, so her mother is as anxious as Phil."
+
+"The O'Mores are here," said Edith. "I haven't seen any of them, because
+I haven't gone out much in the few days since we came, but this is their
+summer home."
+
+"Edith, they say at the hospital that it will take careful nursing to
+save Phil. He is surrounded by stacks of maps and railroad guides. He
+is trying to frame up a plan to set the entire detective agency of the
+country to work. He says he will stay there just two days longer. The
+doctors say he will kill himself when he goes. He is a sick man, Edith.
+His hands are burning and shaky and his breath was hot against my face."
+
+"Why are you telling me?" It was a cry of acute anguish.
+
+"He thinks you know where she is."
+
+"I do not! I haven't an idea! I never dreamed she would go away when she
+had him in her hand! I should not have done it!"
+
+"He said it was something you said to her that made her go."
+
+"That may be, but it doesn't prove that I know where she went."
+
+Henderson looked across the water and suffered keenly. At last he turned
+to Edith and laid a firm, strong hand over hers.
+
+"Edith," he said, "do you realize how serious this is?"
+
+"I suppose I do."
+
+"Do you want as fine a fellow as Philip driven any further? If he leaves
+that hospital now, and goes out to the exposure and anxiety of a search
+for her, there will be a tragedy that no after regrets can avert. Edith,
+what did you say to Miss Comstock that made her run away from Phil?"
+
+The girl turned her face from him and sat still, but the man gripping
+her hands and waiting in agony could see that she was shaken by the
+jolting of the heart in her breast.
+
+"Edith, what did you say?"
+
+"What difference can it make?"
+
+"It might furnish some clue to her action."
+
+"It could not possibly."
+
+"Phil thinks so. He has thought so until his brain is worn enough to
+give way. Tell me, Edith!"
+
+"I told her Phil was mine! That if he were away from her an hour and
+back in my presence, he would be to me as he always has been."
+
+"Edith, did you believe that?"
+
+"I would have staked my life, my soul on it!"
+
+"Do you believe it now?"
+
+There was no answer. Henderson took her other hand and holding both of
+them firmly he said softly: "Don't mind me, dear. I don't count! I'm
+just old Hart! You can tell me anything. Do you still believe that?"
+
+The beautiful head barely moved in negation. Henderson gathered both
+her hands in one of his and stretched an arm across her shoulders to
+the post to support her. She dragged her hands from him and twisted them
+together.
+
+"Oh, Hart!" she cried. "It isn't fair! There is a limit! I have suffered
+my share. Can't you see? Can't you understand?"
+
+"Yes," he panted. "Yes, my girl! Tell me just this one thing yet, and
+I'll cheerfully kill any one who annoys you further. Tell me, Edith!"
+
+Then she lifted her big, dull, pain-filled eyes to his and cried: "No! I
+do not believe it now! I know it is not true! I killed his love for me.
+It is dead and gone forever. Nothing will revive it! Nothing in all this
+world. And that is not all. I did not know how to touch the depths of
+his nature. I never developed in him those things he was made to enjoy.
+He admired me. He was proud to be with me. He thought, and I thought,
+that he worshipped me; but I know now that he never did care for me as
+he cares for her. Never! I can see it! I planned to lead society, to
+make his home a place sought for my beauty and popularity. She plans to
+advance his political ambitions, to make him comfortable physically, to
+stimulate his intellect, to bear him a brood of red-faced children. He
+likes her and her plans as he never did me and mine. Oh, my soul! Now,
+are you satisfied?"
+
+She dropped back against his arm exhausted. Henderson held her and
+learned what suffering truly means. He fanned her with his hat, rubbed
+her cold hands and murmured broken, incoherent things. By and by slow
+tears slipped from under her closed lids, but when she opened them her
+eyes were dull and hard.
+
+"What a rag one is when the last secret of the soul is torn out and laid
+bare!" she cried.
+
+Henderson thrust his handkerchief into her fingers and whispered,
+"Edith, the boat has been creeping up. It's very close. Maybe some of
+our crowd are on it. Hadn't we better slip away from here before it
+lands?"
+
+"If I can walk," she said. "Oh, I am so dead tired, Hart!
+
+"Yes, dear," said Henderson soothingly. "Just try to pass the landing
+before the boat anchors. If I only dared carry you!"
+
+They struggled through the waiting masses, but directly opposite the
+landing there was a backward movement in the happy, laughing crowd, the
+gang-plank came down with a slam, and people began hurrying from the
+boat. Crowded against the fish house on the dock, Henderson could only
+advance a few steps at a time. He was straining every nerve to protect
+and assist Edith. He saw no one he recognized near them, so he slipped
+his arm across her back to help support her. He felt her stiffen against
+him and catch her breath. At the same instant, the clearest, sweetest
+male voice he ever had heard called: "Be careful there, little men!"
+
+Henderson sent a swift glance toward the boat. Terence O'More had
+stepped from the gang-plank, leading a little daughter, so like him, it
+was comical. There followed a picture not easy to describe. The Angel
+in the full flower of her beauty, richly dressed, a laugh on her cameo
+face, the setting sun glinting on her gold hair, escorted by her eldest
+son, who held her hand tightly and carefully watched her steps. Next
+came Elnora, dressed with equal richness, a trifle taller and slenderer,
+almost the same type of colouring, but with different eyes and hair,
+facial lines and expression. She was led by the second O'More boy who
+convulsed the crowd by saying: "Tareful, Elnora! Don't 'oo be 'teppin'
+in de water!"
+
+People surged around them, purposely closing them in.
+
+"What lovely women! Who are they? It's the O'Mores. The lightest one is
+his wife. Is that her sister? No, it is his! They say he has a title in
+England."
+
+Whispers ran fast and audible. As the crowd pressed around the party
+an opening was left beside the fish sheds. Edith ran down the dock.
+Henderson sprang after her, catching her arm and assisting her to the
+street.
+
+"Up the shore! This way!" she panted. "Every one will go to dinner the
+first thing they do."
+
+They left the street and started around the beach, but Edith was
+breathless from running, while the yielding sand made difficult walking.
+
+"Help me!" she cried, clinging to Henderson. He put his arm around her,
+almost carrying her from sight into a little cove walled by high rocks
+at the back, while there was a clean floor of white sand, and logs
+washed from the lake for seats. He found one of these with a back rest,
+and hurrying down to the water he soaked his handkerchief and carried it
+to her. She passed it across her lips, over her eyes, and then pressed
+the palms of her hands upon it. Henderson removed the heavy hat, fanned
+her with his, and wet the handkerchief again.
+
+"Hart, what makes you?" she said wearily. "My mother doesn't care. She
+says this is good for me. Do you think this is good for me, Hart?"
+
+"Edith, you know I would give my life if I could save you this," he
+said, and could not speak further.
+
+She leaned against him, closed her eyes and lay silent so long the man
+fell into panic.
+
+"Edith, you are not unconscious?" he whispered, touching her.
+
+"No, just resting. Please don't leave me."
+
+He held her carefully, gently fanning her. She was suffering almost more
+than either of them could endure.
+
+"I wish you had your boat," she said at last. "I want to sail with the
+wind in my face."
+
+"There is no wind. I can bring my motor around in a few minutes."
+
+"Then get it."
+
+"Lie on the sand. I can 'phone from the first booth. It won't take but a
+little while."
+
+Edith lay on the white sand, and Henderson covered her face with her
+hat. Then he ran to the nearest booth and talked imperatively. Presently
+he was back bringing a hot drink that was stimulating. Shortly the
+motor ran close to the beach and stopped. Henderson's servant brought a
+row-boat ashore and took them to the launch. It was filled with cushions
+and wraps. Henderson made a couch and soon, warmly covered, Edith sped
+out over the water in search of peace.
+
+Hour after hour the boat ran up and down the shore. The moon arose and
+the night air grew very chilly. Henderson put on an overcoat and piled
+more covers on Edith.
+
+"You must take me home," she said at last. "The folks will be uneasy."
+
+He was compelled to take her to the cottage with the battle still
+raging. He went back early the next morning, but already she had
+wandered out over the island. Instinctively Henderson felt that the
+shore would attract her. There was something in the tumult of rough
+little Huron's waves that called to him. It was there he found her,
+crouching so close the water the foam was dampening her skirts.
+
+"May I stay?" he asked.
+
+"I have been hoping you would come," she answered. "It's bad enough when
+you are here, but it is a little easier than bearing it alone."
+
+"Thank God for that!" said Henderson sitting beside her. "Shall I talk
+to you?"
+
+She shook her head. So they sat by the hour. At last she spoke: "Of
+course, you know there is something I have got to do, Hart!"
+
+"You have not!" cried Henderson, violently. "That's all nonsense! Give
+me just one word of permission. That is all that is required of you."
+
+"'Required?' You grant, then, that there is something 'required?'"
+
+"One word. Nothing more."
+
+"Did you ever know one word could be so big, so black, so desperately
+bitter? Oh, Hart!"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you know it now, Hart!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And still you say that it is 'required?'"
+
+Henderson suffered unspeakably. At last he said: "If you had seen
+and heard him, Edith, you, too, would feel that it is 'required.'
+Remember----"
+
+"No! No! No!" she cried. "Don't ask me to remember even the least of my
+pride and folly. Let me forget!"
+
+She sat silent for a long time.
+
+"Will you go with me?" she whispered.
+
+"Of course."
+
+At last she arose.
+
+"I might as well give up and have it over," she faltered.
+
+That was the first time in her life that Edith Carr ever had proposed to
+give up anything she wanted.
+
+"Help me, Hart!"
+
+Henderson started around the beach assisting her all he could. Finally
+he stopped.
+
+"Edith, there is no sense in this! You are too tired to go. You know you
+can trust me. You wait in any of these lovely places and send me. You
+will be safe, and I'll run. One word is all that is necessary."
+
+"But I've got to say that word myself, Hart!"
+
+"Then write it, and let me carry it. The message is not going to prove
+who went to the office and sent it."
+
+"That is quite true," she said, dropping wearily, but she made no
+movement to take the pen and paper he offered.
+
+"Hart, you write it," she said at last.
+
+Henderson turned away his face. He gripped the pen, while his breath
+sucked between his dry teeth.
+
+"Certainly!" he said when he could speak. "Mackinac, August 27, 1908.
+Philip Ammon, Lake Shore Hospital, Chicago." He paused with suspended
+pen and glanced at Edith. Her white lips were working, but no sound
+came. "Miss Comstock is with the Terence O'Mores, on Mackinac Island,"
+prompted Henderson.
+
+Edith nodded.
+
+"Signed, Henderson," continued the big man.
+
+Edith shook her head.
+
+"Say, 'She is well and happy,' and sign, Edith Carr!" she panted.
+
+"Not on your life!" flashed Henderson.
+
+"For the love of mercy, Hart, don't make this any harder! It is the
+least I can do, and it takes every ounce of strength in me to do it."
+
+"Will you wait for me here?" he asked.
+
+She nodded, and, pulling his hat lower over his eyes, Henderson ran
+around the shore. In less than an hour he was back. He helped her a
+little farther to where the Devil's Kitchen lay cut into the rocks; it
+furnished places to rest, and cool water. Before long his man came with
+the boat. From it they spread blankets on the sand for her, and made
+chafing-dish tea. She tried to refuse it, but the fragrance overcame
+her for she drank ravenously. Then Henderson cooked several dishes and
+spread an appetizing lunch. She was young, strong, and almost famished
+for food. She was forced to eat. That made her feel much better. Then
+Henderson helped her into the boat and ran it through shady coves of
+the shore, where there were refreshing breezes. When she fell asleep the
+girl did not know, but the man did. Sadly in need of rest himself,
+he ran that boat for five hours through quiet bays, away from noisy
+parties, and where the shade was cool and deep. When she awoke he took
+her home, and as they went she knew that she had been mistaken. She
+would not die. Her heart was not even broken. She had suffered horribly;
+she would suffer more; but eventually the pain must wear out. Into her
+head crept a few lines of an old opera:
+
+     "Hearts do not break, they sting and ache,
+     For old love's sake, but do not die,
+     As witnesseth the living I."
+
+That evening they were sailing down the Straits before a stiff breeze
+and Henderson was busy with the tiller when she said to him: "Hart, I
+want you to do something more for me."
+
+"You have only to tell me," he said.
+
+"Have I only to tell you, Hart?" she asked softly.
+
+"Haven't you learned that yet, Edith?"
+
+"I want you to go away."
+
+"Very well," he said quietly, but his face whitened visibly.
+
+"You say that as if you had been expecting it."
+
+"I have. I knew from the beginning that when this was over you would
+dislike me for having seen you suffer. I have grown my Gethsemane in a
+full realization of what was coming, but I could not leave you, Edith,
+so long as it seemed to me that I was serving you. Does it make any
+difference to you where I go?"
+
+"I want you where you will be loved, and good care taken of you."
+
+"Thank you!" said Henderson, smiling grimly. "Have you any idea where
+such a spot might be found?"
+
+"It should be with your sister at Los Angeles. She always has seemed
+very fond of you."
+
+"That is quite true," said Henderson, his eyes brightening a little. "I
+will go to her. When shall I start?"
+
+"At once."
+
+Henderson began to tack for the landing, but his hands shook until
+he scarcely could manage the boat. Edith Carr sat watching him
+indifferently, but her heart was throbbing painfully. "Why is there so
+much suffering in the world?" she kept whispering to herself. Inside her
+door Henderson took her by the shoulders almost roughly.
+
+"For how long is this, Edith, and how are you going to say good-bye to
+me?"
+
+She raised tired, pain-filled eyes to his.
+
+"I don't know for how long it is," she said. "It seems now as if it had
+been a slow eternity. I wish to my soul that God would be merciful to
+me and make something 'snap' in my heart, as there did in Phil's,
+that would give me rest. I don't know for how long, but I'm perfectly
+shameless with you, Hart. If peace ever comes and I want you, I
+won't wait for you to find it out yourself, I'll cable, Marconigraph,
+anything. As for how I say good-bye; any way you please, I don't care in
+the least what happens to me."
+
+Henderson studied her intently.
+
+"In that case, we will shake hands," he said. "Good-bye, Edith. Don't
+forget that every hour I am thinking of you and hoping all good things
+will come to you soon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP FINDS ELNORA, AND EDITH CARR OFFERS A YELLOW EMPEROR
+
+
+"Oh, I need my own violin," cried Elnora. "This one may be a thousand
+times more expensive, and much older than mine; but it wasn't inspired
+and taught to sing by a man who knew how. It doesn't know 'beans,' as
+mother would say, about the Limberlost."
+
+The guests in the O'More music-room laughed appreciatively.
+
+"Why don't you write your mother to come for a visit and bring yours?"
+suggested Freckles.
+
+"I did that three days ago," acknowledged Elnora. "I am half expecting
+her on the noon boat. That is one reason why this violin grows worse
+every minute. There is nothing at all the matter with me."
+
+"Splendid!" cried the Angel. "I've begged and begged her to do it. I
+know how anxious these mothers become. When did you send? What made you?
+Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"'When?' Three days ago. 'What made me?' You. 'Why didn't I tell you?'
+Because I can't be sure in the least that she will come. Mother is the
+most individual person. She never does what every one expects she will.
+She may not come, and I didn't want you to be disappointed."
+
+"How did I make you?" asked the Angel.
+
+"Loving Alice. It made me realize that if you cared for your girl like
+that, with Mr. O'More and three other children, possibly my mother, with
+no one, might like to see me. I know I want to see her, and you had told
+me to so often, I just sent for her. Oh, I do hope she comes! I want her
+to see this lovely place."
+
+"I have been wondering what you thought of Mackinac," said Freckles.
+
+"Oh, it is a perfect picture, all of it! I should like to hang it on
+the wall, so I could see it whenever I wanted to; but it isn't real, of
+course; it's nothing but a picture."
+
+"These people won't agree with you," smiled Freckles.
+
+"That isn't necessary," retorted Elnora. "They know this, and they
+love it; but you and I are acquainted with something different. The
+Limberlost is life. Here it is a carefully kept park. You motor, sail,
+and golf, all so secure and fine. But what I like is the excitement of
+choosing a path carefully, in the fear that the quagmire may reach out
+and suck me down; to go into the swamp naked-handed and wrest from it
+treasures that bring me books and clothing, and I like enough of a fight
+for things that I always remember how I got them. I even enjoy seeing a
+canny old vulture eyeing me as if it were saying: 'Ware the sting of
+the rattler, lest I pick your bones as I did old Limber's.' I like
+sufficient danger to put an edge on life. This is so tame. I should have
+loved it when all the homes were cabins, and watchers for the stealthy
+Indian canoes patrolled the shores. You wait until mother comes, and if
+my violin isn't angry with me for leaving it, to-night we shall sing you
+the Song of the Limberlost. You shall hear the big gold bees over the
+red, yellow, and purple flowers, bird song, wind talk, and the whispers
+of Sleepy Snake Creek, as it goes past you. You will know!" Elnora
+turned to Freckles.
+
+He nodded. "Who better?" he asked. "This is secure while the children
+are so small, but when they grow larger, we are going farther north,
+into real forest, where they can learn self-reliance and develop
+backbone."
+
+Elnora laid away the violin. "Come along, children," she said. "We must
+get at that backbone business at once. Let's race to the playhouse."
+
+With the brood at her heels Elnora ran, and for an hour lively sounds
+stole from the remaining spot of forest on the Island, which lay beside
+the O'More cottage. Then Terry went to the playroom to bring Alice her
+doll. He came racing back, dragging it by one leg, and crying: "There's
+company! Someone has come that mamma and papa are just tearing down the
+house over. I saw through the window."
+
+"It could not be my mother, yet," mused Elnora. "Her boat is not due
+until twelve. Terry, give Alice that doll----"
+
+"It's a man-person, and I don't know him, but my father is shaking his
+hand right straight along, and my mother is running for a hot drink and
+a cushion. It's a kind of a sick person, but they are going to make him
+well right away, any one can see that. This is the best place.
+
+"I'll go tell him to come lie on the pine needles in the sun and watch
+the sails go by. That will fix him!"
+
+"Watch sails go by," chanted Little Brother. "'A fix him! Elnora fix
+him, won't you?"
+
+"I don't know about that," answered Elnora. "What sort of person is he,
+Terry?"
+
+"A beautiful white person; but my father is going to 'colour him up,' I
+heard him say so. He's just out of the hospital, and he is a bad person,
+'cause he ran away from the doctors and made them awful angry. But
+father and mother are going to doctor him better. I didn't know they
+could make sick people well."
+
+"'Ey do anyfing!" boasted Little Brother.
+
+Before Elnora missed her, Alice, who had gone to investigate, came
+flying across the shadows and through the sunshine waving a paper. She
+thurst it into Elnora's hand.
+
+"There is a man-person--a stranger-person!" she shouted. "But he knows
+you! He sent you that! You are to be the doctor! He said so! Oh, do
+hurry! I like him heaps!"
+
+Elnora read Edith Carr's telegram to Philip Ammon and understood that he
+had been ill, that she had been located by Edith who had notified him.
+In so doing she had acknowledged defeat. At last Philip was free. Elnora
+looked up with a radiant face.
+
+"I like him 'heaps' myself!" she cried. "Come on children, we will go
+tell him so."
+
+Terry and Alice ran, but Elnora had to suit her steps to Little
+Brother, who was her loyal esquire, and would have been heartbroken over
+desertion and insulted at being carried. He was rather dragged, but he
+was arriving, and the emergency was great, he could see that.
+
+"She's coming!" shouted Alice.
+
+"She's going to be the doctor!" cried Terry.
+
+"She looked just like she'd seen angels when she read the letter,"
+explained Alice.
+
+"She likes you 'heaps!' She said so!" danced Terry. "Be waiting! Here
+she is!"
+
+Elnora helped Little Brother up the steps, then deserted him and came at
+a rush. The stranger-person stood holding out trembling arms.
+
+"Are you sure, at last, runaway?" asked Philip Ammon.
+
+"Perfectly sure!" cried Elnora.
+
+"Will you marry me now?"
+
+"This instant! That is, any time after the noon boat comes in."
+
+"Why such unnecessary delay?" demanded Ammon.
+
+"It is almost September," explained Elnora. "I sent for mother three
+days ago. We must wait until she comes, and we either have to send for
+Uncle Wesley and Aunt Margaret, or go to them. I couldn't possibly be
+married properly without those dear people."
+
+"We will send," decided Ammon. "The trip will be a treat for them.
+O'More, would you get off a message at once?"
+
+Every one met the noon boat. They went in the motor because Philip was
+too weak to walk so far. As soon as people could be distinguished at all
+Elnora and Philip sighted an erect figure, with a head like a snowdrift.
+When the gang-plank fell the first person across it was a lean,
+red-haired boy of eleven, carrying a violin in one hand and an enormous
+bouquet of yellow marigolds and purple asters in the other. He was
+beaming with broad smiles until he saw Philip. Then his expression
+changed.
+
+"Aw, say!" he exclaimed reproachfully. "I bet you Aunt Margaret is
+right. He is going to be your beau!"
+
+Elnora stooped to kiss Billy as she caught her mother.
+
+"There, there!" cried Mrs. Comstock. "Don't knock my headgear into my
+eye. I'm not sure I've got either hat or hair. The wind blew like bizzem
+coming up the river."
+
+She shook out her skirts, straightened her hat, and came forward to meet
+Philip, who took her into his arms and kissed her repeatedly. Then he
+passed her along to Freckles and the Angel to whom her greetings were
+mingled with scolding and laughter over her wind-blown hair.
+
+"No doubt I'm a precious spectacle!" she said to the Angel. "I saw
+your pa a little before I started, and he sent you a note. It's in my
+satchel. He said he was coming up next week. What a lot of people there
+are in this world! And what on earth are all of them laughing about? Did
+none of them ever hear of sickness, or sorrow, or death? Billy, don't
+you go to playing Indian or chasing woodchucks until you get out of
+those clothes. I promised Margaret I'd bring back that suit good as
+new."
+
+Then the O'More children came crowding to meet Elnora's mother.
+
+"Merry Christmas!" cried Mrs. Comstock, gathering them in. "Got
+everything right here but the tree, and there seems to be plenty of them
+a little higher up. If this wind would stiffen just enough more to blow
+away the people, so one could see this place, I believe it would be
+right decent looking."
+
+"See here," whispered Elnora to Philip. "You must fix this with Billy. I
+can't have his trip spoiled."
+
+"Now, here is where I dust the rest of 'em!" complacently remarked
+Mrs. Comstock, as she climbed into the motor car for her first ride, in
+company with Philip and Little Brother. "I have been the one to trudge
+the roads and hop out of the way of these things for quite a spell."
+
+She sat very erect as the car rolled into the broad main avenue, where
+only stray couples were walking. Her eyes began to twinkle and gleam.
+Suddenly she leaned forward and touched the driver on the shoulder.
+
+"Young man," she said, "just you toot that horn suddenly and shave close
+enough a few of those people, so that I can see how I look when I leap
+for ragweed and snake fences."
+
+The amazed chauffeur glanced questioningly at Philip who slightly
+nodded. A second later there was a quick "honk!" and a swerve at a
+corner. A man engrossed in conversation grabbed the woman to whom he was
+talking and dashed for the safety of a lawn. The woman tripped in her
+skirts, and as she fell the man caught and dragged her. Both of them
+turned red faces to the car and berated the driver. Mrs. Comstock
+laughed in unrestrained enjoyment. Then she touched the chauffeur again.
+
+"That's enough," she said. "It seems a mite risky." A minute later she
+added to Philip, "If only they had been carrying six pounds of butter
+and ten dozen eggs apiece, wouldn't that have been just perfect?"
+
+Billy had wavered between Elnora and the motor, but his loyal little
+soul had been true to her, so the walk to the cottage began with him at
+her side. Long before they arrived the little O'Mores had crowded around
+and captured Billy, and he was giving them an expurgated version of Mrs.
+Comstock's tales of Big Foot and Adam Poe, boasting that Uncle Wesley
+had been in the camps of Me-shin-go-me-sia and knew Wa-ca-co-nah before
+he got religion and dressed like white men; while the mighty prowess of
+Snap as a woodchuck hunter was done full justice. When they reached the
+cottage Philip took Billy aside, showed him the emerald ring and gravely
+asked his permission to marry Elnora. Billy struggled to be just, but
+it was going hard with him, when Alice, who kept close enough to hear,
+intervened.
+
+"Why don't you let them get married?" she asked. "You are much too small
+for her. You wait for me!"
+
+Billy studied her intently. At last he turned to Ammon. "Aw, well! Go
+on, then!" he said gruffly. "I'll marry Alice!"
+
+Alice reached her hand. "If you got that settled let's put on our Indian
+clothes, call the boys, and go to the playhouse."
+
+"I haven't got any Indian clothes," said Billy ruefully.
+
+"Yes, you have," explained Alice. "Father bought you some coming from
+the dock. You can put them on in the playhouse. The boys do."
+
+Billy examined the playhouse with gleaming eyes.
+
+Never had he encountered such possibilities. He could see a hundred
+amusing things to try, and he could not decide which to do first. The
+most immediate attraction seemed to be a dead pine, held perpendicularly
+by its fellows, while its bark had decayed and fallen, leaving a bare,
+smooth trunk.
+
+"If we just had some grease that would make the dandiest pole to play
+Fourth of July with!" he shouted.
+
+The children remembered the Fourth. It had been great fun.
+
+"Butter is grease. There is plenty in the 'frigerator," suggested Alice,
+speeding away.
+
+Billy caught the cold roll and began to rub it against the tree
+excitedly.
+
+"How are you going to get it greased to the top?" inquired Terry.
+
+Billy's face lengthened. "That's so!" he said. "The thing is to begin at
+the top and grease down. I'll show you!"
+
+Billy put the butter in his handkerchief and took the corners between
+his teeth. He climbed the pole, greasing it as he slid down.
+
+"Now, I got to try first," he said, "because I'm the biggest and so I
+have the best chance; only the one that goes first hasn't hardly any
+chance at all, because he has to wipe off the grease on himself, so the
+others can get up at last. See?"
+
+"All right!" said Terry. "You go first and then I will and then Alice.
+Phew! It's slick. He'll never get up."
+
+Billy wrestled manfully, and when he was exhausted he boosted Terry, and
+then both of them helped Alice, to whom they awarded a prize of her own
+doll. As they rested Billy remembered.
+
+"Do your folks keep cows?" he asked.
+
+"No, we buy milk," said Terry.
+
+"Gee! Then what about the butter? Maybe your ma needs it for dinner!"
+
+"No, she doesn't!" cried Alice. "There's stacks of it! I can have all
+the butter I want."
+
+"Well, I'm mighty glad of it!" said Billy. "I didn't just think. I'm
+afraid we've greased our clothes, too."
+
+"That's no difference," said Terry. "We can play what we please in these
+things."
+
+"Well, we ought to be all dirty, and bloody, and have feathers on us to
+be real Indians," said Billy.
+
+Alice tried a handful of dirt on her sleeve and it streaked beautifully.
+Instantly all of them began smearing themselves.
+
+"If we only had feathers," lamented Billy.
+
+Terry disappeared and shortly returned from the garage with a feather
+duster. Billy fell on it with a shriek. Around each one's head he
+firmly tied a twisted handkerchief, and stuck inside it a row of stiffly
+upstanding feathers.
+
+"Now, if we just only had some pokeberries to paint us red, we'd be
+real, for sure enough Indians, and we could go on the warpath and fight
+all the other tribes and burn a lot of them at the stake."
+
+Alice sidled up to him. "Would huckleberries do?" she asked softly.
+
+"Yes!" shouted Terry, wild with excitement. "Anything that's a colour."
+
+Alice made another trip to the refrigerator. Billy crushed the berries
+in his hands and smeared and streaked all their faces liberally.
+
+"Now are we ready?" asked Alice.
+
+Billy collapsed. "I forgot the ponies! You got to ride ponies to go on
+the warpath!"
+
+"You ain't neither!" contradicted Terry. "It's the very latest style
+to go on the warpath in a motor. Everybody does! They go everywhere in
+them. They are much faster and better than any old ponies."
+
+Billy gave one genuine whoop. "Can we take your motor?"
+
+Terry hesitated.
+
+"I suppose you are too little to run it?" said Billy.
+
+"I am not!" flashed Terry. "I know how to start and stop it, and I drive
+lots for Stephens. It is hard to turn over the engine when you start."
+
+"I'll turn it," volunteered Billy. "I'm strong as anything."
+
+"Maybe it will start without. If Stephens has just been running it,
+sometimes it will. Come on, let's try."
+
+Billy straightened up, lifted his chin and cried: "Houpe! Houpe! Houpe!"
+
+The little O'Mores stared in amazement.
+
+"Why don't you come on and whoop?" demanded Billy. "Don't you know how?
+You are great Indians! You got to whoop before you go on the warpath.
+You ought to kill a bat, too, and see if the wind is right. But maybe
+the engine won't run if we wait to do that. You can whoop, anyway. All
+together now!"
+
+
+They did whoop, and after several efforts the cry satisfied Billy, so he
+led the way to the big motor, and took the front seat with Terry. Alice
+and Little Brother climbed into the back.
+
+"Will it go?" asked Billy, "or do we have to turn it?"
+
+"It will go," said Terry as the machine gently slid out into the avenue
+and started under his guidance.
+
+"This is no warpath!" scoffed Billy. "We got to go a lot faster than
+this, and we got to whoop. Alice, why don't you whoop?"
+
+Alice arose, took hold of the seat in front and whooped.
+
+"If I open the throttle, I can't squeeze the bulb to scare people out of
+our way," said Terry. "I can't steer and squeeze, too."
+
+"We'll whoop enough to get them out of the way. Go faster!" urged Billy.
+
+Billy also stood, lifted his chin and whooped like the wildest little
+savage that ever came out of the West. Alice and Little Brother added
+their voices, and when he was not absorbed with the steering gear, Terry
+joined in.
+
+"Faster!" shouted Billy.
+
+Intoxicated with the speed and excitement, Terry threw the throttle
+wider and the big car leaped forward and sped down the avenue. In
+it four black, feather-bedecked children whooped in wild glee until
+suddenly Terry's war cry changed to a scream of panic.
+
+"The lake is coming!"
+
+"Stop!" cried Billy. "Stop! Why don't you stop?"
+
+Paralyzed with fear Terry clung to the steering gear and the car sped
+onward.
+
+"You little fool! Why don't you stop?" screamed Billy, catching Terry's
+arm. "Tell me how to stop!"
+
+A bicycle shot beside them and Freckles standing on the pedals shouted:
+"Pull out the pin in that little circle at your feet!"
+
+Billy fell on his knees and tugged and the pin yielded at last. Just
+as the wheels struck the white sand the bicycle sheered close, Freckles
+caught the lever and with one strong shove set the brake. The water
+flew as the car struck Huron, but luckily it was shallow and the beach
+smooth. Hub deep the big motor stood quivering as Freckles climbed in
+and backed it to dry sand.
+
+Then he drew a deep breath and stared at his brood.
+
+"Terence, would you kindly be explaining?" he said at last.
+
+Billy looked at the panting little figure of Terry.
+
+"I guess I better," he said. "We were playing Indians on the warpath,
+and we hadn't any ponies, and Terry said it was all the style to go in
+automobiles now, so we----"
+
+Freckles's head went back, and he did some whooping himself.
+
+"I wonder if you realize how nearly you came to being four drowned
+children?" he said gravely, after a time.
+
+"Oh, I think I could swim enough to get most of us out," said Billy.
+"Anyway, we need washing."
+
+"You do indeed," said Freckles. "I will head this procession to the
+garage, and there we will remove the first coat." For the remainder
+of Billy's visit the nurse, chauffeur, and every servant of the O'More
+household had something of importance on their minds, and Billy's every
+step was shadowed.
+
+"I have Billy's consent," said Philip to Elnora, "and all the other
+consent you have stipulated. Before you think of something more, give me
+your left hand, please."
+
+Elnora gave it gladly, and the emerald slipped on her finger. Then they
+went together into the forest to tell each other all about it, and talk
+it over.
+
+"Have you seen Edith?" asked Philip.
+
+"No," answered Elnora. "But she must be here, or she may have seen me
+when we went to Petoskey a few days ago. Her people have a cottage over
+on the bluff, but the Angel never told me until to-day. I didn't want
+to make that trip, but the folks were so anxious to entertain me, and
+it was only a few days until I intended to let you know myself where I
+was."
+
+"And I was going to wait just that long, and if I didn't hear then I was
+getting ready to turn over the country. I can scarcely realize yet that
+Edith sent me that telegram."
+
+"No wonder! It's a difficult thing to believe. I can't express how I
+feel for her."
+
+"Let us never speak of it again," said Philip. "I came nearer feeling
+sorry for her last night than I have yet. I couldn't sleep on that boat
+coming over, and I couldn't put away the thought of what sending that
+message cost her. I never would have believed it possible that she would
+do it. But it is done. We will forget it."
+
+"I scarcely think I shall," said Elnora. "It is something I like to
+remember. How suffering must have changed her! I would give anything to
+bring her peace."
+
+"Henderson came to see me at the hospital a few days ago. He's gone a
+rather wild pace, but if he had been held from youth by the love of a
+good woman he might have lived differently. There are things about him
+one cannot help admiring."
+
+"I think he loves her," said Elnora softly.
+
+"He does! He always has! He never made any secret of it. He will cut in
+now and do his level best, but he told me that he thought she would send
+him away. He understands her thoroughly."
+
+Edith Carr did not understand herself. She went to her room after her
+good-bye to Henderson, lay on her bed and tried to think why she was
+suffering as she was.
+
+"It is all my selfishness, my unrestrained temper, my pride in my
+looks, my ambition to be first," she said. "That is what has caused this
+trouble."
+
+Then she went deeper.
+
+"How does it happen that I am so selfish, that I never controlled my
+temper, that I thought beauty and social position the vital things of
+life?" she muttered. "I think that goes a little past me. I think a
+mother who allows a child to grow up as I did, who educates it only for
+the frivolities of life, has a share in that child's ending. I think
+my mother has some responsibility in this," Edith Carr whispered to the
+night. "But she will recognize none. She would laugh at me if I tried
+to tell her what I have suffered and the bitter, bitter lesson I have
+learned. No one really cares, but Hart. I've sent him away, so there is
+no one! No one!"
+
+Edith pressed her fingers across her burning eyes and lay still.
+
+"He is gone!" she whispered at last. "He would go at once. He would not
+see me again. I should think he never would want to see me any more.
+But I will want to see him! My soul! I want him now! I want him every
+minute! He is all I have. And I've sent him away. Oh, these dreadful
+days to come, alone! I can't bear it. Hart! Hart!" she cried aloud. "I
+want you! No one cares but you. No one understands but you. Oh, I want
+you!"
+
+She sprang from her bed and felt her way to her desk.
+
+"Get me some one at the Henderson cottage," she said to Central, and
+waited shivering.
+
+"They don't answer."
+
+"They are there! You must get them. Turn on the buzzer."
+
+After a time the sleepy voice of Mrs. Henderson answered.
+
+"Has Hart gone?" panted Edith Carr.
+
+"No! He came in late and began to talk about starting to California. He
+hasn't slept in weeks to amount to anything. I put him to bed. There is
+time enough to start to California when he awakens. Edith, what are you
+planning to do next with that boy of mine?"
+
+"Will you tell him I want to see him before he goes?"
+
+"Yes, but I won't wake him."
+
+"I don't want you to. Just tell him in the morning."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"You will be sure?"
+
+"Sure!"
+
+Hart was not gone. Edith fell asleep. She arose at noon the next day,
+took a cold bath, ate her breakfast, dressed carefully, and leaving word
+that she had gone to the forest, she walked slowly across the leaves. It
+was cool and quiet there, so she sat where she could see him coming, and
+waited. She was thinking deep and fast.
+
+Henderson came swiftly down the path. A long sleep, food, and Edith's
+message had done him good. He had dressed in new light flannels that
+were becoming. Edith arose and went to meet him.
+
+"Let us walk in the forest," she said.
+
+They passed the old Catholic graveyard, and entered the deepest wood of
+the Island, where all shadows were green, all voices of humanity ceased,
+and there was no sound save the whispering of the trees, a few bird
+notes and squirrel rustle. There Edith seated herself on a mossy old
+log, and Henderson studied her. He could detect a change. She was still
+pale and her eyes tired, but the dull, strained look was gone. He wanted
+to hope, but he did not dare. Any other man would have forced her to
+speak. The mighty tenderness in Henderson's heart shielded her in every
+way.
+
+"What have you thought of that you wanted yet, Edith?" he asked lightly
+as he stretched himself at her feet.
+
+"You!"
+
+Henderson lay tense and very still.
+
+"Well, I am here!"
+
+"Thank Heaven for that!"
+
+Henderson sat up suddenly, leaning toward her with questioning eyes. Not
+knowing what he dared say, afraid of the hope which found birth in his
+heart, he tried to shield her and at the same time to feel his way.
+
+"I am more thankful than I can express that you feel so," he said. "I
+would be of use, of comfort, to you if I knew how, Edith."
+
+"You are my only comfort," she said. "I tried to send you away. I
+thought I didn't want you. I thought I couldn't bear the sight of you,
+because of what you have seen me suffer. But I went to the root of this
+thing last night, Hart, and with self in mind, as usual, I found that I
+could not live without you."
+
+Henderson began breathing lightly. He was afraid to speak or move.
+
+"I faced the fact that all this is my own fault," continued Edith, "and
+came through my own selfishness. Then I went farther back and realized
+that I am as I was reared. I don't want to blame my parents, but I was
+carefully trained into what I am. If Elnora Comstock had been like me,
+Phil would have come back to me. I can see how selfish I seem to him,
+and how I appear to you, if you would admit it."
+
+"Edith," said Henderson desperately, "there is no use to try to deceive
+you. You have known from the first that I found you wrong in this.
+But it's the first time in your life I ever thought you wrong about
+anything--and it's the only time I ever shall. Understand, I think you
+the bravest, most beautiful woman on earth, the one most worth loving."
+
+"I'm not to be considered in the same class with her."
+
+"I don't grant that, but if I did, you, must remember how I compare
+with Phil. He's my superior at every point. There's no use in discussing
+that. You wanted to see me, Edith. What did you want?"
+
+"I wanted you to not go away."
+
+"Not at all?"
+
+"Not at all! Not ever! Not unless you take me with you, Hart."
+
+She slightly extended one hand to him. Henderson took that hand, kissing
+it again and again.
+
+"Anything you want, Edith," he said brokenly. "Just as you wish it. Do
+you want me to stay here, and go on as we have been?"
+
+"Yes, only with a difference."
+
+"Can you tell me, Edith?"
+
+"First, I want you to know that you are the dearest thing on earth to
+me, right now. I would give up everything else, before I would you. I
+can't honestly say that I love you with the love you deserve. My heart
+is too sore. It's too soon to know. But I love you some way. You are
+necessary to me. You are my comfort, my shield. If you want me, as you
+know me to be, Hart, you may consider me yours. I give you my word of
+honour I will try to be as you would have me, just as soon as I can."
+
+Henderson kissed her hand passionately. "Don't, Edith," he begged.
+"Don't say those things. I can't bear it. I understand. Everything will
+come right in time. Love like mine must bring a reward. You will love me
+some day. I can wait. I am the most patient fellow."
+
+"But I must say it," cried Edith. "I--I think, Hart, that I have been on
+the wrong road to find happiness. I planned to finish life as I started
+it with Phil; and you see how glad he was to change. He wanted the other
+sort of girl far more than he ever wanted me. And you, Hart, honest,
+now--I'll know if you don't tell me the truth! Would you rather have a
+wife as I planned to live life with Phil, or would you rather have her
+as Elnora Comstock intends to live with him?"
+
+"Edith!" cried the man, "Edith!"
+
+"Of course, you can't say it in plain English," said the girl. "You are
+far too chivalrous for that. You needn't say anything. I am answered. If
+you could have your choice you wouldn't have a society wife, either. In
+your heart you'd like the smaller home of comfort, the furtherance
+of your ambitions, the palatable meals regularly served, and little
+children around you. I am sick of all we have grown up to, Hart. When
+your hour of trouble comes, there is no comfort for you. I am tired to
+death. You find out what you want to do, and be, that is a man's work in
+the world, and I will plan our home, with no thought save your comfort.
+I'll be the other kind of a girl, as fast as I can learn. I can't
+correct all my faults in one day, but I'll change as rapidly as I can."
+
+"God knows, I will be different, too, Edith. You shall not be the only
+generous one. I will make all the rest of life worthy of you. I will
+change, too!"
+
+"Don't you dare!" said Edith Carr, taking his head between her hands
+and holding it against her knees, while the tears slid down her cheeks.
+"Don't you dare change, you big-hearted, splendid lover! I am little and
+selfish. You are the very finest, just as you are!"
+
+Henderson was not talking then, so they sat through a long silence. At
+last he heard Edith draw a quick breath, and lifting his head he looked
+where she pointed. Up a fern stalk climbed a curious looking object.
+They watched breathlessly. By lavender feet clung a big, pursy,
+lavender-splotched, yellow body. Yellow and lavender wings began to
+expand and take on colour. Every instant great beauty became more
+apparent. It was one of those double-brooded freaks, which do occur on
+rare occasions, or merely an Eacles Imperialis moth that in the cool
+damp northern forest had failed to emerge in June. Edith Carr drew back
+with a long, shivering breath. Henderson caught her hands and gripped
+them firmly. Steadily she looked the thought of her heart into his eyes.
+
+"By all the powers, you shall not!" swore the man. "You have done
+enough. I will smash that thing!"
+
+"Oh no you won't!" cried the girl, clinging to his hands. "I am not big
+enough yet, Hart, but before I leave this forest I shall have grown to
+breadth and strength to carry that to her. She needs two of each kind.
+Phil only sent her one!"
+
+"Edith I can't bear it! That's not demanded! Let me take it!"
+
+"You may go with me. I know where the O'More cottage is. I have been
+there often."
+
+"I'll say you sent it!"
+
+"You may watch me deliver it!"
+
+"Phil may be there by now."
+
+"I hope he is! I should like him to see me do one decent thing by which
+to remember me."
+
+"I tell you that is not necessary!"
+
+"'Not necessary!'" cried the girl, her big eyes shining. "Not necessary?
+Then what on earth is the thing doing here? I just have boasted that
+I would change, that I would be like her, that I would grow bigger and
+broader. As the words are spoken God gives me the opportunity to prove
+whether I am sincere. This is my test, Hart! Don't you see it? If I am
+big enough to carry that to her, you will believe that there is some
+good in me. You will not be loving me in vain. This is an especial
+Providence, man! Be my strength! Help me, as you always have done!"
+
+Henderson arose and shook the leaves from his clothing. He drew Edith
+Carr to her feet and carefully picked the mosses from her skirts. He
+went to the water and moistened his handkerchief to bathe her face.
+
+"Now a dust of powder," he said when the tears were washed away.
+
+From a tiny book Edith tore leaves that she passed over her face.
+
+"All gone!" cried Henderson, critically studying her. "You look almost
+half as lovely as you really are!"
+
+Edith Carr drew a wavering breath. She stretched one hand to him.
+
+"Hold tight, Hart!" she said. "I know they handle these things, but I
+would quite as soon touch a snake."
+
+Henderson clenched his teeth and held steadily. The moth had emerged
+too recently to be troublesome. It climbed on her fingers quietly and
+obligingly clung there without moving. So hand in hand they went down
+the dark forest path. When they came to the avenue, the first person
+they met paused with an ejaculation of wonder. The next stopped also,
+and every one following. They could make little progress on account of
+marvelling, interested people. A strange excitement took possession of
+Edith. She began to feel proud of the moth.
+
+"Do you know," she said to Henderson, "this is growing easier every
+step. Its clinging is not disagreeable as I thought it would be. I feel
+as if I were saving it, protecting it. I am proud that we are taking it
+to be put into a collection or a book. It seems like doing a thing worth
+while. Oh, Hart, I wish we could work together at something for which
+people would care as they seem to for this. Hear what they say! See them
+lift their little children to look at it!"
+
+"Edith, if you don't stop," said Henderson, "I will take you in my arms
+here on the avenue. You are adorable!"
+
+"Don't you dare!" laughed Edith Carr. The colour rushed to her cheeks
+and a new light leaped in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, Hart!" she cried. "Let's work! Let's do something! That's the way
+she makes people love her so. There's the place, and thank goodness,
+there is a crowd."
+
+"You darling!" whispered Henderson as they passed up the walk. Her face
+was rose-flushed with excitement and her eyes shone.
+
+"Hello, everyone!" she cried as she came on the wide veranda. "Only
+see what we found up in the forest! We thought you might like to have it
+for some of your collections."
+
+She held out the moth as she walked straight to Elnora, who arose to
+meet her, crying: "How perfectly splendid! I don't even know how to
+begin to thank you."
+
+Elnora took the moth. Edith shook hands with all of them and asked
+Philip if he were improving. She said a few polite words to Freckles
+and the Angel, declined to remain on account of an engagement, and went
+away, gracefully.
+
+"Well bully for her!" said Mrs. Comstock. "She's a little thoroughbred
+after all!"
+
+"That was a mighty big thing for her to be doing," said Freckles in a
+hushed voice.
+
+"If you knew her as well as I do," said Philip Ammon, "you would have a
+better conception of what that cost."
+
+"It was a terror!" cried the Angel. "I never could have done it."
+
+"'Never could have done it!'" echoed Freckles. "Why, Angel, dear, that
+is the one thing of all the world you would have done!"
+
+"I have to take care of this," faltered Elnora, hurrying toward the door
+to hide the tears which were rolling down her cheeks.
+
+"I must help," said Philip, disappearing also. "Elnora," he called,
+catching up with her, "take me where I may cry, too. Wasn't she great?"
+
+"Superb!" exclaimed Elnora. "I have no words. I feel so humbled!"
+
+"So do I," said Philip. "I think a brave deed like that always makes one
+feel so. Now are you happy?"
+
+"Unspeakably happy!" answered Elnora.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Girl Of The Limberlost, by Gene Stratton Porter
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+
+
+A Girl of The Limberlost
+By Gene Stratton Porter
+                                        
+                                        
+TO ALL GIRLS OF THE LIMBERLOST IN GENERAL
+AND ONE JEANETTE HELEN PORTER IN PARTICULAR
+
+                                        
+
+CHARACTERS
+
+ELNORA, who collects moths to pay for her education,
+        and lives the Golden Rule.
+
+PHILIP AMMON, who assists in moth hunting,
+              and gains a new conception of love.
+
+MRS. COMSTOCK, who lost a delusion and found a treasure.
+
+WESLEY SINTON, who always did his best.
+
+MARGARET SINTON, who "mothers" Elnora.
+
+BILLY, a boy from real life.
+
+EDITH CARR, who discovers herself.
+
+HART HENDERSON, to whom love means all things.
+
+POLLY AMMON, who pays an old score.
+
+TOM LEVERING, engaged to Polly.
+
+TERENCE O'MORE, Freckles grown tall.
+
+MRS. O'MORE, who remained the Angel.
+
+TERENCE, ALICE and LITTLE BROTHER, the O'MORE children.
+
+
+
+A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA GOES TO HIGH SCHOOL
+AND LEARNS MANY LESSONS NOT FOUND IN HER BOOKS
+
+
+Elnora Comstock, have you lost your senses?"
+demanded the angry voice of Katharine Comstock
+while she glared at her daughter.
+
+"Why mother!" faltered the girl.
+
+"Don't you `why mother' me!" cried Mrs. Comstock. 
+"You know very well what I mean.  You've given me
+no peace until you've had your way about this going to
+school business; I've fixed you good enough, and you're
+ready to start.  But no child of mine walks the streets
+of Onabasha looking like a play-actress woman.  You wet
+your hair and comb it down modest and decent and then
+be off, or you'll have no time to find where you belong."
+
+Elnora gave one despairing glance at the white face,
+framed in a most becoming riot of reddish-brown hair,
+which she saw in the little kitchen mirror.  Then she
+untied the narrow black ribbon, wet the comb and plastered
+the waving curls close to her head, bound them fast, pinned
+on the skimpy black hat and opened the back door.
+
+"You've gone so plumb daffy you are forgetting your
+dinner," jeered her mother.
+
+"I don't want anything to eat," replied Elnora.
+
+"You'll take your dinner or you'll not go one step. 
+Are you crazy?  Walk almost three miles and no food
+from six in the morning until six at night.  A pretty
+figure you'd cut if you had your way!  And after I've
+gone and bought you this nice new pail and filled it
+especial to start on!"
+
+Elnora came back with a face still whiter and picked
+up the lunch.  "Thank you, mother!  Good-bye!" she
+said.  Mrs. Comstock did not reply.  She watched the
+girl follow the long walk to the gate and go from sight
+on the road, in the bright sunshine of the first Monday
+of September.
+
+"I bet a dollar she gets enough of it by night!"
+commented Mrs. Comstock.
+
+Elnora walked by instinct, for her eyes were blinded
+with tears.  She left the road where it turned south, at
+the corner of the Limberlost, climbed a snake fence and
+entered a path worn by her own feet.  Dodging under
+willow and scrub oak branches she came at last to the
+faint outline of an old trail made in the days when the
+precious timber of the swamp was guarded by armed
+men.  This path she followed until she reached a thick
+clump of bushes.  From the debris in the end of a hollow
+log she took a key that unlocked the padlock of a large
+weatherbeaten old box, inside of which lay several books,
+a butterfly apparatus, and a small cracked mirror.  The walls
+were lined thickly with gaudy butterflies, dragonflies,
+and moths.  She set up the mirror and once more
+pulling the ribbon from her hair, she shook the bright
+mass over her shoulders, tossing it dry in the sunshine. 
+Then she straightened it, bound it loosely, and replaced
+her hat.  She tugged vainly at the low brown calico
+collar and gazed despairingly at the generous length of
+the narrow skirt.  She lifted it as she would have cut
+it if possible.  That disclosed the heavy high leather
+shoes, at sight of which she seemed positively ill, and
+hastily dropped the skirt.  She opened the pail, removed
+the lunch, wrapped it in the napkin, and placed it in a
+small pasteboard box.  Locking the case again she hid
+the key and hurried down the trail.
+
+She followed it around the north end of the swamp
+and then entered a footpath crossing a farm leading in
+the direction of the spires of the city to the northeast. 
+Again she climbed a fence and was on the open road.  For
+an instant she leaned against the fence staring before
+her, then turned and looked back.  Behind her lay the
+land on which she had been born to drudgery and a
+mother who made no pretence of loving her; before her
+lay the city through whose schools she hoped to find
+means of escape and the way to reach the things for
+which she cared.  When she thought of how she appeared
+she leaned more heavily against the fence and groaned;
+when she thought of turning back and wearing such
+clothing in ignorance all the days of her life she set her
+teeth firmly and went hastily toward Onabasha.
+
+On the bridge crossing a deep culvert at the suburbs
+she glanced around, and then kneeling she thrust the
+lunch box between the foundation and the flooring. 
+This left her empty-handed as she approached the big stone
+high school building.  She entered bravely and inquired
+her way to the office of the superintendent.  There she
+learned that she should have come the previous week
+and arranged about her classes.  There were many things
+incident to the opening of school, and one man unable to
+cope with all of them.
+
+"Where have you been attending school?" he asked,
+while he advised the teacher of Domestic Science not to
+telephone for groceries until she knew how many she
+would have in her classes; wrote an order for chemicals
+for the students of science; and advised the leader of
+the orchestra to hire a professional to take the place of
+the bass violist, reported suddenly ill.
+
+"I finished last spring at Brushwood school, district
+number nine," said Elnora.  "I have been studying all summer. 
+I am quite sure I can do the first year work, if I have
+a few days to get started."
+
+"Of course, of course," assented the superintendent. 
+"Almost invariably country pupils do good work.  You may
+enter first year, and if it is too difficult, we will find
+it out speedily.  Your teachers will tell you the list of
+books you must have, and if you will come with me I will
+show you the way to the auditorium.  It is now time
+for opening exercises.  Take any seat you find vacant."
+
+Elnora stood before the entrance and stared into the
+largest room she ever had seen.  The floor sloped to a
+yawning stage on which a band of musicians, grouped
+around a grand piano, were tuning their instruments. 
+She had two fleeting impressions.  That it was all a
+mistake; this was no school, but a grand display of
+enormous ribbon bows; and the second, that she was sinking,
+and had forgotten how to walk.  Then a burst from the
+orchestra nerved her while a bevy of daintily clad, sweet-
+smelling things that might have been birds, or flowers,
+or possibly gaily dressed, happy young girls, pushed
+her forward.  She found herself plodding across the back of
+the auditorium, praying for guidance, to an empty seat.
+
+As the girls passed her, vacancies seemed to open to
+meet them.  Their friends were moving over, beckoning
+and whispering invitations.  Every one else was seated,
+but no one paid any attention to the white-faced girl
+stumbling half-blindly down the aisle next the farthest wall. 
+So she went on to the very end facing the stage. 
+No one moved, and she could not summon courage to
+crowd past others to several empty seats she saw. 
+At the end of the aisle she paused in desperation, while
+she stared back at the whole forest of faces most of which
+were now turned upon her.
+
+In a flash came the full realization of her scanty dress,
+her pitiful little hat and ribbon, her big, heavy shoes,
+her ignorance of where to go or what to do; and from a
+sickening wave which crept over her, she felt she was
+going to become very ill.  Then out of the mass she saw
+a pair of big, brown boy eyes, three seats from her, and
+there was a message in them.  Without moving his body
+he reached forward and with a pencil touched the back of
+the seat before him.  Instantly Elnora took another step
+which brought her to a row of vacant front seats.
+
+She heard laughter behind her; the knowledge that
+she wore the only hat in the room burned her; every
+matter of moment, and some of none at all, cut and stung. 
+She had no books.  Where should she go when this
+was over?  What would she give to be on the trail
+going home!  She was shaking with a nervous chill when
+the music ceased, and the superintendent arose, and
+coming down to the front of the flower-decked platform,
+opened a Bible and began to read.  Elnora did not know
+what he was reading, and she felt that she did not care. 
+Wildly she was racking her brain to decide whether she
+should sit still when the others left the room or follow,
+and ask some one where the Freshmen went first.
+
+In the midst of the struggle one sentence fell on her ear. 
+"Hide me under the shadow of Thy wings."
+
+Elnora began to pray frantically.  "Hide me, O God,
+hide me, under the shadow of Thy wings."
+
+Again and again she implored that prayer, and before
+she realized what was coming, every one had arisen and
+the room was emptying rapidly.  Elnora hurried after the
+nearest girl and in the press at the door touched her
+sleeve timidly.
+
+"Will you please tell me where the Freshmen go?" she
+asked huskily.
+
+The girl gave her one surprised glance, and drew away.
+
+"Same place as the fresh women," she answered, and
+those nearest her laughed.
+
+Elnora stopped praying suddenly and the colour crept
+into her face.  "I'll wager you are the first person I meet
+when I find it," she said and stopped short.  "Not that! 
+Oh, I must not do that!" she thought in dismay.  "Make an
+enemy the first thing I do.  Oh, not that!"
+
+She followed with her eyes as the young people separated
+in the hall, some climbing stairs, some disappearing
+down side halls, some entering adjoining doors.  She saw
+the girl overtake the brown-eyed boy and speak to him. 
+He glanced back at Elnora with a scowl on his face. 
+Then she stood alone in the hall.
+
+Presently a door opened and a young woman came out
+and entered another room.  Elnora waited until she
+returned, and hurried to her.  "Would you tell me where
+the Freshmen are?" she panted.
+
+"Straight down the hall, three doors to your left,"
+was the answer, as the girl passed.
+
+"One minute please, oh please," begged Elnora: 
+"Should I knock or just open the door?"
+
+"Go in and take a seat," replied the teacher.
+
+"What if there aren't any seats?" gasped Elnora.
+
+"Classrooms are never half-filled, there will be plenty,"
+was the answer.
+
+Elnora removed her hat.  There was no place to put
+it, so she carried it in her hand.  She looked infinitely
+better without it.  After several efforts she at last opened
+the door and stepping inside faced a smaller and more
+concentrated battery of eyes.
+
+"The superintendent sent me.  He thinks I belong
+here," she said to the professor in charge of the class,
+but she never before heard the voice with which she spoke. 
+As she stood waiting, the girl of the hall passed
+on her way to the blackboard, and suppressed laughter
+told Elnora that her thrust had been repeated.
+
+"Be seated," said the professor, and then because he
+saw Elnora was desperately embarrassed he proceeded
+to lend her a book and to ask her if she had studied algebra. 
+She said she had a little, but not the same book they were using. 
+He asked her if she felt that she could do the work they were
+beginning, and she said she did.
+
+That was how it happened, that three minutes after
+entering the room she was told to take her place beside the
+girl who had gone last to the board, and whose flushed face
+and angry eyes avoided meeting Elnora's.  Being compelled
+to concentrate on her proposition she forgot herself. 
+When the professor asked that all pupils sign their work
+she firmly wrote "Elnora Comstock" under her demonstration. 
+Then she took her seat and waited with white lips and
+trembling limbs, as one after another professor called
+the names on the board, while their owners arose and
+explained their propositions, or "flunked" if they had
+not found a correct solution.  She was so eager to catch
+their forms of expression and prepare herself for her
+recitation, that she never looked from the work on the
+board, until clearly and distinctly, "Elnora Comstock,"
+called the professor.
+
+The dazed girl stared at the board.  One tiny curl
+added to the top of the first curve of the m in her name,
+had transformed it from a good old English patronymic
+that any girl might bear proudly, to Cornstock. 
+Elnora sat speechless.  When and how did it happen? 
+She could feel the wave of smothered laughter in the air
+around her.  A rush of anger turned her face scarlet and
+her soul sick.  The voice of the professor addressed her directly.
+
+"This proposition seems to be beautifully demonstrated,
+Miss Cornstalk," he said.  "Surely, you can tell us how
+you did it."
+
+That word of praise saved her.  She could do good work. 
+They might wear their pretty clothes, have their friends
+and make life a greater misery than it ever before
+had been for her, but not one of them should do better
+work or be more womanly.  That lay with her.  She was
+tall, straight, and handsome as she arose.
+
+"Of course I can explain my work," she said in natural tones. 
+"What I can't explain is how I happened to be so stupid
+as to make a mistake in writing my own name.  I must
+have been a little nervous.  Please excuse me."
+
+She went to the board, swept off the signature with one
+stroke,then rewrote it plainly.  "My name is Comstock,"
+she said distinctly.  She returned to her seat and following the
+formula used by the others made her first high school recitation.
+
+As Elnora resumed her seat Professor Henley looked at
+her steadily.  "It puzzles me," he said deliberately,
+how you can write as beautiful a demonstration, and explain
+it as clearly as ever has been done in any of my classes and
+still be so disturbed as to make a mistake in your own name. 
+Are you very sure you did that yourself, Miss Comstock?"
+
+"It is impossible that any one else should have done it,"
+answered Elnora.
+
+"I am very glad you think so," said the professor. 
+"Being Freshmen, all of you are strangers to me. 
+I should dislike to begin the year with you feeling there
+was one among you small enough to do a trick like that. 
+The next proposition, please."
+
+When the hour had gone the class filed back to the study
+room and Elnora followed in desperation, because she did
+not know where else to go.  She could not study as she had
+no books, and when the class again left the room to go to
+another professor for the next recitation, she went also. 
+At least they could put her out if she did not belong there. 
+Noon came at last, and she kept with the others until they
+dispersed on the sidewalk.  She was so abnormally self-
+conscious she fancied all the hundreds of that laughing,
+throng saw and jested at her.  When she passed the
+brown-eyed boy walking with the girl of her encounter,
+she knew, for she heard him say:  "Did you really let that
+gawky piece of calico get ahead of you?"  The answer
+was indistinct.
+
+Elnora hurried from the city.  She intended to get her
+lunch, eat it in the shade of the first tree, and then decide
+whether she would go back or go home.  She knelt on the
+bridge and reached for her box, but it was so very light that
+she was prepared for the fact that it was empty, before
+opening it.  There was one thing for which to be thankful. 
+The boy or tramp who had seen her hide it, had left the napkin. 
+She would not have to face her mother and account for
+its loss.  She put it in her pocket, and threw the box
+into the ditch.  Then she sat on the bridge and tried
+to think, but her brain was confused.
+
+"Perhaps the worst is over," she said at last.  "I will
+go back.  What would mother say to me if I came home now?"
+
+So she returned to the high school, followed some other
+pupils to the coat room, hung her hat, and found her way
+to the study where she had been in the morning.  Twice
+that afternoon, with aching head and empty stomach, she
+faced strange professors, in different branches.  Once she
+escaped notice; the second time the worst happened.  She was
+asked a question she could not answer.
+
+"Have you not decided on your course, and secured your books?"
+inquired the professor.
+
+"I have decided on my course," replied Elnora, "I
+do not know where to ask for my books."
+
+"Ask?" the professor was bewildered.
+
+"I understood the books were furnished," faltered Elnora.
+
+"Only to those bringing an order from the township
+trustee," replied the Professor.
+
+"No!  Oh no!" cried Elnora.  "I will have them to-
+morrow," and gripped her desk for support for she knew
+that was not true.  Four books, ranging perhaps at a
+dollar and a half apiece; would her mother buy them? 
+Of course she would not--could not.
+
+Did not Elnora know the story of old.  There was
+enough land, but no one to do clearing and farm.  Tax on
+all those acres, recently the new gravel road tax added,
+the expense of living and only the work of two women to
+meet all of it.  She was insane to think she could come to
+the city to school.  Her mother had been right.  The girl
+decided that if only she lived to reach home, she would
+stay there and lead any sort of life to avoid more of
+this torture.  Bad as what she wished to escape had been,
+it was nothing like this.  She never could live down the
+movement that went through the class when she inadvertently
+revealed the fact that she had expected books to
+be furnished.  Her mother would not secure them; that
+settled the question.
+
+But the end of misery is never in a hurry to come; before
+the day was over the superintendent entered the room and
+explained that pupils from the country were charged a
+tuition of twenty dollars a year.  That really was the end. 
+Previously Elnora had canvassed a dozen methods for
+securing the money for books, ranging all the way from
+offering to wash the superintendent's dishes to breaking
+into the bank.  This additional expense made her plans
+so wildly impossible, there was nothing to do but hold up
+her head until she was from sight.
+
+Down the long corridor alone among hundreds, down the
+long street alone among thousands, out into the country
+she came at last.  Across the fence and field, along the old
+trail once trodden by a boy's bitter agony, now stumbled a
+white-faced girl, sick at heart.  She sat on a log and began
+to sob in spite of her efforts at self-control.  At first it
+wasphysical breakdown, later, thought came crowding.
+
+Oh the shame, the mortification!  Why had she not
+known of the tuition?  How did she happen to think that
+in the city books were furnished?  Perhaps it was because
+she had read they were in several states.  But why did she
+not know?  Why did not her mother go with her?  Other mothers--
+but when had her mother ever been or done anything at all
+like other mothers?  Because she never had been it was
+useless to blame her now.  Elnora realized she should have
+gone to town the week before, called on some one and
+learned all these things herself.  She should have remembered
+how her clothing would look, before she wore it in
+public places.  Now she knew, and her dreams were over. 
+She must go home to feed chickens, calves, and pigs,
+wear calico and coarse shoes, and with averted head,
+pass a library all her life.  She sobbed again.
+
+"For pity's sake, honey, what's the matter?" asked the
+voice of the nearest neighbour, Wesley Sinton, as he
+seated himself beside Elnora.  "There, there," he continued,
+smearing tears all over her face in an effort to dry them. 
+"Was it as bad as that, now?  Maggie has been just wild
+over you all day.  She's got nervouser every minute. 
+She said we were foolish to let you go.  She said your
+clothes were not right, you ought not to carry that tin
+pail, and that they would laugh at you.  By gum, I see
+they did!"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Wesley," sobbed the girl, "why didn't she
+tell me? "
+
+"Well, you see, Elnora, she didn't like to.  You got
+such a way of holding up your head, and going through
+with things.  She thought some way that you'd make it,
+till you got started, and then she begun to see a hundred
+things we should have done.  I reckon you hadn't reached
+that building before she remembered that your skirt
+should have been pleated instead of gathered, your shoes
+been low, and lighter for hot September weather, and a
+new hat.  Were your clothes right, Elnora?"
+
+The girl broke into hysterical laughter.  "Right!" she cried. 
+"Right!  Uncle Wesley, you should have seen me among them! 
+I was a picture!  They'll never forget me.  No, they won't
+get the chance, for they'll see me again to-morrow!
+
+"Now that is what I call spunk, Elnora!  Downright grit,"
+said Wesley Sinton.  "Don't you let them laugh you out. 
+You've helped Margaret and me for years at harvest and
+busy times, what you've earned must amount to quite a sum. 
+You can get yourself a good many clothes with it."
+
+"Don't mention clothes, Uncle Wesley," sobbed Elnora,
+"I don't care now how I look.  If I don't go back all of them
+will know it's because I am so poor I can't buy my books."
+
+"Oh, I don't know as you are so dratted poor," said
+Sinton meditatively.  "There are three hundred acres
+of good land, with fine timber as ever grew on it."
+
+"It takes all we can earn to pay the tax, and mother
+wouldn't cut a tree for her life."
+
+"Well then, maybe, I'll be compelled to cut one for her,"
+suggested Sinton.  "Anyway, stop tearing yourself to
+pieces and tell me.  If it isn't clothes, what is it?"
+
+"It's books and tuition.  Over twenty dollars in all."
+
+"Humph!  First time I ever knew you to be stumped by
+twenty dollars, Elnora," said Sinton, patting her hand.
+
+"It's the first time you ever knew me to want money,"
+answered Elnora.  "This is different from anything that ever
+happened to me.  Oh, how can I get it, Uncle Wesley?"
+
+"Drive to town with me in the morning and I'll draw it
+from the bank for you.  I owe you every cent of it."
+
+"You know you don't owe me a penny, and I wouldn't
+touch one from you, unless I really could earn it. 
+For anything that's past I owe you and Aunt Margaret for
+all the home life and love I've ever known.  I know how
+you work, and I'll not take your money."
+
+"Just a loan, Elnora, just a loan for a little while
+until you can earn it.  You can be proud with all the
+rest of the world, but there are no secrets between us,
+are there, Elnora?"
+
+"No," said Elnora, "there are none.  You and Aunt
+Margaret have given me all the love there has been
+in my life.  That is the one reason above all others why
+you shall not give me charity.  Hand me money because
+you find me crying for it!  This isn't the first time this
+old trail has known tears and heartache.  All of us know
+that story.  Freckles stuck to what he undertook and
+won out.  I stick, too.  When Duncan moved away he
+gave me all Freckles left in the swamp, and as I have
+inherited his property maybe his luck will come with it. 
+I won't touch your money, but I'll win some way.  First, I'm
+going home and try mother.  It's just possible I could
+find second-hand books, and perhaps all the tuition need
+not be paid at once.  Maybe they would accept it quarterly. 
+But oh, Uncle Wesley, you and Aunt Margaret keep on loving me! 
+I'm so lonely, and no one else cares!"
+
+Wesley Sinton's jaws met with a click.  He swallowed
+hard on bitter words and changed what he would have
+liked to say three times before it became articulate.
+
+"Elnora," he said at last, "if it hadn't been for one
+thing I'd have tried to take legal steps to make you
+ours when you were three years old.  Maggie said then
+it wasn't any use, but I've always held on.  You see,
+I was the first man there, honey, and there are things
+you see, that you can't ever make anybody else understand. 
+She loved him Elnora, she just made an idol of him. 
+There was that oozy green hole, with the thick
+scum broke, and two or three big bubbles slowly rising
+that were the breath of his body.  There she was in
+spasms of agony, and beside her the great heavy log she'd
+tried to throw him.  I can't ever forgive her for turning
+against you, and spoiling your childhood as she has,
+but I couldn't forgive anybody else for abusing her. 
+Maggie has got no mercy on her, but Maggie didn't see what
+I did, and I've never tried to make it very clear to her. 
+It's been a little too plain for me ever since.  Whenever I
+look at your mother's face, I see what she saw, so
+I hold my tongue and say, in my heart, `Give her a mite
+more time.'  Some day it will come.  She does love you,
+Elnora.  Everybody does, honey.  It's just that she's
+feeling so much, she can't express herself.  You be a
+patient girl and wait a little longer.  After all, she's
+your mother, and you're all she's got, but a memory, and
+it might do her good to let her know that she was fooled
+in that."
+
+"It would kill her!" cried the girl swiftly.  "Uncle Wesley,
+it would kill her!  What do you mean?"
+
+"Nothing," said Wesley Sinton soothingly.  "Nothing, honey. 
+That was just one of them fool things a man says,
+when he is trying his best to be wise.  You see,
+she loved him mightily, and they'd been married only
+a year, and what she was loving was what she thought
+he was.  She hadn't really got acquainted with the man yet. 
+If it had been even one more year, she could have
+borne it, and you'd have got justice.  Having been
+a teacher she was better educated and smarter than
+the rest of us, and so she was more sensitive like. 
+She can't understand she was loving a dream.  So I say
+it might do her good if somebody that knew, could tell
+her, but I swear to gracious, I never could.  I've heard
+her out at the edge of that quagmire calling in them
+wild spells of hers off and on for the last sixteen years,
+and imploring the swamp to give him back to her, and
+I've got out of bed when I was pretty tired, and come
+down to see she didn't go in herself, or harm you.  What
+she feels is too deep for me.  I've got to respectin' her
+grief, and I can't get over it.  Go home and tell your
+ma, honey, and ask her nice and kind to help you.  If she
+won't, then you got to swallow that little lump of
+pride in your neck, and come to Aunt Maggie, like you
+been a-coming all your life."
+
+"I'll ask mother, but I can't take your money, Uncle
+Wesley, indeed I can't.  I'll wait a year, and earn some,
+and enter next year."
+
+"There's one thing you don't consider, Elnora," said
+the man earnestly.  "And that's what you are to Maggie. 
+She's a little like your ma.  She hasn't given up to it,
+and she's struggling on brave, but when we buried our
+second little girl the light went out of Maggie's eyes, and
+it's not come back.  The only time I ever see a hint of
+it is when she thinks she's done something that makes you
+happy, Elnora.  Now, you go easy about refusing her
+anything she wants to do for you.  There's times in this
+world when it's our bounden duty to forget ourselves, and
+think what will help other people.  Young woman, you
+owe me and Maggie all the comfort we can get out of you. 
+There's the two of our own we can't ever do anything for. 
+Don't you get the idea into your head that a fool thing
+you call pride is going to cut us out of all the pleasure
+we have in life beside ourselves."
+
+"Uncle Wesley, you are a dear," said Elnora.  "Just a dear! 
+If I can't possibly get that money any way else on earth,
+I'll come and borrow it of you, and then I'll pay it
+back if I must dig ferns from the swamp and sell them
+from door to door in the city.  I'll even plant them,
+so that they will be sure to come up in the spring.  I have
+been sort of panic stricken all day and couldn't think. 
+I can gather nuts and sell them.  Freckles sold moths
+and butterflies, and I've a lot collected.  Of course,
+I am going back to-morrow!  I can find a way to get the books. 
+Don't you worry about me.  I am all right!
+
+"Now, what do you think of that?" inquired Wesley
+Sinton of the swamp in general.  "Here's our Elnora
+come back to stay.  Head high and right as a trivet! 
+You've named three ways in three minutes that you
+could earn ten dollars, which I figure would be enough,
+to start you.  Let's go to supper and stop worrying!"
+
+Elnora unlocked the case, took out the pail, put the
+napkin in it, pulled the ribbon from her hair, binding it
+down tightly again and followed to the road.  From afar
+she could see her mother in the doorway.  She blinked
+her eyes, and tried to smile as she answered Wesley
+Sinton, and indeed she did feel better.  She knew now
+what she had to expect, where to go, and what to do. 
+Get the books she must; when she had them, she would show
+those city girls and boys how to prepare and recite lessons,
+how to walk with a brave heart; and they could show her
+how to wear pretty clothes and have good times.
+
+As she neared the door her mother reached for the pail. 
+"I forgot to tell you to bring home your scraps for
+the chickens," she said.
+
+Elnora entered.  "There weren't any scraps, and I'm
+hungry again as I ever was in my life."
+
+"I thought likely you would be," said Mrs. Comstock,
+"and so I got supper ready.  We can eat first, and do the
+work afterward.  What kept you so?  I expected you an
+hour ago."
+
+Elnora looked into her mother's face and smiled.  It was
+a queer sort of a little smile, and would have reached
+the depths with any normal mother.
+
+"I see you've been bawling," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"I thought you'd get your fill in a hurry.  That's why
+I wouldn't go to any expense.  If we keep out of the poor-
+house we have to cut the corners close.  It's likely this
+Brushwood road tax will eat up all we've saved in years. 
+Where the land tax is to come from I don't know.  It gets
+bigger every year.  If they are going to dredge the swamp
+ditch again they'll just have to take the land to pay for it. 
+I can't, that's all!  We'll get up early in the morning and
+gather and hull the beans for winter, and put in the rest
+of the day hoeing the turnips."
+
+Elnora again smiled that pitiful smile.
+
+"Do you think I didn't know that I was funny and
+would be laughed at?" she asked.
+
+"Funny?" cried Mrs. Comstock hotly.
+
+"Yes, funny!  A regular caricature," answered Elnora. 
+"No one else wore calico, not even one other.  No one
+else wore high heavy shoes, not even one.  No one
+else had such a funny little old hat; my hair was not
+right, my ribbon invisible compared with the others,
+I did not know where to go, or what to do, and I had
+no books.  What a spectacle I made for them!" 
+Elnora laughed nervously at her own picture.  "But there
+are always two sides!  The professor said in the algebra
+class that he never had a better solution and explanation
+than mine of the proposition he gave me, which scored
+one for me in spite of my clothes."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't brag on myself!"
+
+"That was poor taste," admitted Elnora.  "But, you see,
+it is a case of whistling to keep up my courage. 
+I honestly could see that I would have looked just as
+well as the rest of them if I had been dressed as
+they were.  We can't afford that, so I have to find
+something else to brace me.  It was rather bad, mother!"
+
+"Well, I'm glad you got enough of it!"
+
+"Oh, but I haven't" hurried in Elnora.  "I just got
+a start.  The hardest is over.  To-morrow they won't
+be surprised.  They will know what to expect.  I am
+sorry to hear about the dredge.  Is it really going through?"
+
+"Yes.  I got my notification today.  The tax will
+be something enormous.  I don't know as I can spare
+you, even if you are willing to be a laughing-stock for
+the town."
+
+With every bite Elnora's courage returned, for she was
+a healthy young thing.
+
+"You've heard about doing evil that good might come
+from it," she said.  "Well, mother mine, it's something
+like that with me.  I'm willing to bear the hard part
+to pay for what I'll learn.  Already I have selected the
+ward building in which I shall teach in about four years. 
+I am going to ask for a room with a south exposure so
+that the flowers and moths I take in from the swamp
+to show the children will do well."
+
+"You little idiot!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "How are
+you going to pay your expenses?"
+
+"Now that is just what I was going to ask you!" said Elnora. 
+"You see, I have had two startling pieces of news to-day. 
+I did not know I would need any money.  I thought the city
+furnished the books, and there is an out-of-town tuition, also. 
+I need ten dollars in the morning.  Will you please let me have it?"
+
+"Ten dollars!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "Ten dollars! 
+Why don't you say a hundred and be done with it!  I could
+get one as easy as the other.  I told you!  I told you
+I couldn't raise a cent.  Every year expenses grow bigger
+and bigger.  I told you not to ask for money!"
+
+"I never meant to," replied Elnora.  "I thought
+clothes were all I needed and I could bear them. 
+I never knew about buying books and tuition."
+
+"Well, I did!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "I knew what
+you would run into!  But you are so bull-dog stubborn,
+and so set in your way, I thought I would just let you
+try the world a little and see how you liked it!"
+
+Elnora pushed back her chair and looked at her mother.
+
+"Do you mean to say," she demanded, "that you knew,
+when you let me go into a city classroom and reveal the
+fact before all of them that I expected to have my books
+handed out to me; do you mean to say that you knew I had
+to pay for them?"
+
+Mrs. Comstock evaded the direct question.
+
+"Anybody but an idiot mooning over a book or wasting
+time prowling the woods would have known you had
+to pay.  Everybody has to pay for everything.  Life is
+made up of pay, pay, pay!  It's always and forever pay! 
+If you don't pay one way you do another!  Of course,
+I knew you had to pay.  Of course, I knew you would come
+home blubbering!  But you don't get a penny!  I haven't
+one cent, and can't get one!  Have your way if you are
+determined, but I think you will find the road somewhat rocky."
+
+"Swampy, you mean, mother," corrected Elnora.  She arose
+white and trembling.  "Perhaps some day God will teach
+me how to understand you.  He knows I do not now. 
+You can't possibly realize just what you let me go
+through to-day, or how you let me go, but I'll tell you this: 
+You understand enough that if you had the money, and
+would offer it to me, I wouldn't touch it now.  And I'll
+tell you this much more.  I'll get it myself.  I'll raise it,
+and do it some honest way.  I am going back to-morrow,
+the next day, and the next.  You need not come out, I'll do
+the night work, and hoe the turnips."
+
+It was ten o'clock when the chickens, pigs, and cattle
+were fed, the turnips hoed, and a heap of bean vines was
+stacked beside the back door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+WHEREIN WESLEY AND MARGARET GO SHOPPING,
+AND ELNORA'S WARDROBE IS REPLENISHED
+
+
+Wesley Sinton walked down the road half a
+mile and turned at the lane leading to his home.
+His heart was hot and filled with indignation. 
+He had told Elnora he did not blame her mother,
+but he did.  His wife met him at the door.
+
+"Did you see anything of Elnora?" she questioned.
+
+"Most too much, Maggie," he answered.  "What do
+you say to going to town?  There's a few things has
+to be got right away."
+
+"Where did you see her, Wesley?"
+
+"Along the old Limberlost trail, my girl, torn to
+pieces sobbing.  Her courage always has been fine, but the
+thing she met to-day was too much for her.  We ought to have
+known better than to let her go that way.  It wasn't only
+clothes; there were books, and entrance fees for out-of-
+town people, that she didn't know about; while there must
+have been jeers, whispers, and laughing.  Maggie, I feel
+as if I'd been a traitor to those girls of ours.  I ought to
+have gone in and seen about this school business. 
+Don't cry, Maggie.  Get me some supper, and I'll hitch up
+and see what we can do now."
+
+"What can we do, Wesley?
+
+"I don't just know.  But we've got to do something. 
+Kate Comstock will be a handful, while Elnora will be
+two, but between us we must see that the girl is not too
+hard pressed about money, and that she is dressed so she
+is not ridiculous.  She's saved us the wages of a woman
+many a day, can't you make her some decent dresses?"
+
+"Well, I'm not just what you call expert, but I could
+beat Kate Comstock all to pieces.  I know that skirts
+should be pleated to the band instead of gathered, and full
+enough to sit in, and short enough to walk in.  I could try. 
+There are patterns for sale.  Let's go right away, Wesley."
+
+"Set me a bit of supper, while I hitch up."
+
+Margaret built a fire, made coffee, and fried ham and eggs. 
+She set out pie and cake and had enough for a hungry
+man by the time the carriage was at the door, but she
+had no appetite.  She dressed while Wesley ate, put away
+the food while he dressed, and then they drove toward
+the city through the beautiful September evening,
+and as they went they planned for Elnora.  The trouble
+was, not whether they were generous enough to buy what
+she needed, but whether she would accept their purchases,
+and what her mother would say.
+
+They went to a drygoods store and when a clerk asked
+what they wanted to see neither of them knew, so they
+stepped aside and held a whispered consultation. 
+
+"What had we better get, Wesley?"
+
+"Dresses," said Wesley promptly,
+
+"But how many dresses, and what kind?"
+
+"Blest if I know!" exclaimed Wesley.  "I thought you
+would manage that.  I know about some things I'm going
+to get."
+
+At that instant several high school girls came into the
+store and approached them.
+
+"There!" exclaimed Wesley breathlessly.  "There, Maggie! 
+Like them!  That's what she needs!  Buy like they have!"
+
+Margaret stared.  What did they wear?  They were
+rapidly passing; they seemed to have so much, and she
+could not decide so quickly.  Before she knew it she was
+among them.
+
+"I beg your pardon, but won't you wait one minute?"
+she asked.
+
+The girls stopped with wondering faces.
+
+"It's your clothes," explained Mrs. Sinton.  "You look
+just beautiful to me.  You look exactly as I should have
+wanted to see my girls.  They both died of diphtheria
+when they were little, but they had yellow hair, dark eyes
+and pink cheeks, and everybody thought they were lovely. 
+If they had lived, they'd been near your age now, and I'd
+want them to look like you."
+
+There was sympathy on every girl face.
+
+"Why thank you!" said one of them.  "We are very
+sorry for you."
+
+"Of course you are," said Margaret.  "Everybody always
+has been.  And because I can't ever have the joy of
+a mother in thinking for my girls and buying pretty things
+for them, there is nothing left for me, but to do what I can
+for some one who has no mother to care for her.  I know
+a girl, who would be just as pretty as any of you, if she had
+the clothes, but her mother does not think about her, so I
+mother her some myself."
+
+"She must be a lucky girl," said another.
+
+"Oh, she loves me," said Margaret, "and I love her. 
+I want her to look just like you do.  Please tell me
+about your clothes.  Are these the dresses and hats you
+wear to school?  What kind of goods are they, and where
+do you buy them?"
+
+The girls began to laugh and cluster around Margaret. 
+Wesley strode down the store with his head high through
+pride in her, but his heart was sore over the memory of two
+little faces under Brushwood sod.  He inquired his way to
+the shoe department.
+
+"Why, every one of us have on gingham or linen
+dresses," they said, "and they are our school clothes."
+
+For a few moments there was a babel of laughing voices
+explaining to the delighted Margaret that school dresses
+should be bright and pretty, but simple and plain, and
+until cold weather they should wash.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Ellen Brownlee, "my father owns
+this store, I know all the clerks.  I'll take you to Miss
+Hartley.  You tell her just how much you want to spend,
+and what you want to buy, and she will know how to get
+the most for your money.  I've heard papa say she was
+the best clerk in the store for people who didn't know
+precisely what they wanted."
+
+"That's the very thing," agreed Margaret.  "But before
+you go, tell me about your hair.  Elnora's hair is
+bright and wavy, but yours is silky as hackled flax. 
+How do you do it?"
+
+"Elnora?" asked four girls in concert.
+
+"Yes, Elnora is the name of the girl I want these things for."
+
+"Did she come to the high school to-day?" questioned
+one of them.
+
+"Was she in your classes?" demanded Margaret without reply.
+
+Four girls stood silent and thought fast.  Had there
+been a strange girl among them, and had she been overlooked
+and passed by with indifference, because she was so
+very shabby?  If she had appeared as much better than
+they, as she had looked worse, would her reception have
+been the same?
+
+"There was a strange girl from the country in the Freshman
+class to-day," said Ellen Brownlee, "and her name was Elnora."
+
+"That was the girl," said Margaret.
+
+"Are her people so very poor?" questioned Ellen.
+
+"No, not poor at all, come to think of it," answered Margaret. 
+"It's a peculiar case.  Mrs. Comstock had a great trouble
+and she let it change her whole life and make a different
+woman of her.  She used to be lovely; now she is forever
+saving and scared to death for fear they will go to the
+poorhouse; but there is a big farm, covered with lots
+of good timber.  The taxes are high for women who can't
+manage to clear and work the land.  There ought to be
+enough to keep two of them in good shape all their lives,
+if they only knew how to do it.  But no one ever told
+Kate Comstock anything, and never will, for she won't listen. 
+All she does is droop all day, and walk the edge of the
+swamp half the night, and neglect Elnora.  If you girls
+would make life just a little easier for her it would
+be the finest thing you ever did."
+
+All of them promised they would.
+
+"Now tell me about your hair," persisted Margaret Sinton.
+
+So they took her to a toilet counter, and she bought the
+proper hair soap, also a nail file, and cold cream, for use
+after windy days.  Then they left her with the experienced
+clerk, and when at last Wesley found her she was loaded with
+bundles and the light of other days was in her beautiful eyes. 
+Wesley also carried some packages.
+
+"Did you get any stockings?" he whispered.
+
+"No, I didn't," she said.  "I was so interested in dresses
+and hair ribbons and a--a hat----" she hesitated and
+glanced at Wesley.  "Of course, a hat!" prompted
+Wesley.  "That I forgot all about those horrible shoes. 
+She's got to have decent shoes, Wesley."
+
+"Sure!" said Wesley.  "She's got decent shoes.  But
+the man said some brown stockings ought to go with them. 
+Take a peep, will you!"
+
+Wesley opened a box and displayed a pair of thick-
+soled, beautifully shaped brown walking shoes of low
+cut.  Margaret cried out with pleasure.
+
+"But do you suppose they are the right size, Wesley?
+What did you get?"
+
+"I just said for a girl of sixteen with a slender foot."
+
+"Well, that's about as near as I could come.  If they
+don't fit when she tries them, we will drive straight in
+and change them.  Come on now, let's get home."
+
+All the way they discussed how they should give Elnora
+their purchases and what Mrs. Comstock would say.
+
+"I am afraid she will be awful mad," said Margaret.
+
+"She'll just rip!" replied Wesley graphically.  "But if
+she wants to leave the raising of her girl to the neighbours,
+she needn't get fractious if they take some pride in doing
+a good job.  From now on I calculate Elnora shall go
+to school; and she shall have all the clothes and books
+she needs, if I go around on the back of Kate Comstock's
+land and cut a tree, or drive off a calf to pay for them. 
+Why I know one tree she owns that would put Elnora in
+heaven for a year.  Just think of it, Margaret!  It's not
+fair.  One-third of what is there belongs to Elnora by
+law, and if Kate Comstock raises a row I'll tell her so,
+and see that the girl gets it.  You go to see Kate in the
+morning, and I'll go with you.  Tell her you want Elnora's
+pattern, that you are going to make her a dress, for
+helping us.  And sort of hint at a few more things. 
+If Kate balks, I'll take a hand and settle her.  I'll go
+to law for Elnora's share of that land and sell enough to
+educate her."
+
+"Why, Wesley Sinton, you're perfectly wild."
+
+"I'm not!  Did you ever stop to think that such cases are
+so frequent there have been laws made to provide for them? 
+I can bring it up in court and force Kate to educate
+Elnora, and board and clothe her till she's of age,
+and then she can take her share."
+
+"Wesley, Kate would go crazy!"
+
+"She's crazy now.  The idea of any mother living with as
+sweet a girl as Elnora. and letting her suffer till I find
+her crying like a funeral.  It makes me fighting mad. 
+All uncalled for.  Not a grain of sense in it.  I've offered
+and offered to oversee clearing her land and working
+her fields.  Let her sell a good tree, or a few acres. 
+Something is going to be done, right now.  Elnora's been
+fairly happy up to this, but to spoil the school life she's
+planned, is to ruin all her life.  I won't have it! If Elnora
+won't take these things, so help me, I'll tell her
+what she is worth, and loan her the money and she can
+pay me back when she comes of age.  I am going to have
+it out with Kate Comstock in the morning.  Here we are! 
+You open up what you got while I put away the horses,
+and then I'll show you."
+
+When Wesley came from the barn Margaret had four
+pieces of crisp gingham, a pale blue, a pink, a gray with
+green stripes and a rich brown and blue plaid.  On each
+of them lay a yard and a half of wide ribbon to match. 
+There were handkerchiefs and a brown leather belt.  In her
+hands she held a wide-brimmed tan straw hat, having a
+high crown banded with velvet strips each of which fastened
+with a tiny gold buckle.
+
+"It looks kind of bare now," she explained.  "It had
+three quills on it here."
+
+"Did you have them taken off?" asked Wesley.
+
+"Yes, I did.  The price was two and a half for the
+hat, and those things were a dollar and a half apiece. 
+I couldn't pay that."
+
+"It does seem considerable," admitted Wesley, "but
+will it look right without them?"
+
+"No, it won't!" said Margaret.  "It's going to have
+quills on it.  Do you remember those beautiful peacock
+wing feathers that Phoebe Simms gave me?  Three of
+them go on just where those came off, and nobody will
+ever know the difference.  They match the hat to a
+moral, and they are just a little longer and richer than
+the ones that I had taken off.  I was wondering whether
+I better sew them on to-night while I remember how they
+set, or wait till morning."
+
+"Don't risk it!" exclaimed Wesley anxiously.  "Don't you
+risk it!  Sew them on right now!"
+
+"Open your bundles, while I get the thread," said Margaret.
+
+Wesley unwrapped the shoes.  Margaret took them up
+and pinched the leather and stroked them.
+
+"My, but they are fine!" she cried.
+
+Wesley picked up one and slowly turned it in his big hands. 
+He glanced at his foot and back to the shoe.
+
+"It's a little bit of a thing, Margaret," he said softly. 
+"Like as not I'll have to take it back.  It seems as if it
+couldn't fit."
+
+"It seems as if it didn't dare do anything else," said Margaret. 
+"That's a happy little shoe to get the chance to carry as
+fine a girl as Elnora to high school.  Now what's in the
+other box?"
+
+Wesley looked at Margaret doubtfully.
+
+"Why," he said, "you know there's going to be rainy
+days, and those things she has now ain't fit for anything
+but to drive up the cows----"
+
+"Wesley, did you get high shoes, too?"
+
+"Well, she ought to have them!  The man said he
+would make them cheaper if I took both pairs at once."
+
+Margaret laughed aloud.  "Those will do her past
+Christmas," she exulted.  "What else did you buy?"
+
+"Well sir," said Wesley, "I saw something to-day. 
+You told me about Kate getting that tin pail for Elnora
+to carry to high school and you said you told her it was
+a shame.  I guess Elnora was ashamed all right, for
+to-night she stopped at the old case Duncan gave her,
+and took out that pail, where it had been all day, and
+put a napkin inside it.  Coming home she confessed
+she was half starved because she hid her dinner under
+a culvert, and a tramp took it.  She hadn't had a bite
+to eat the whole day.  But she never complained at all,
+she was pleased that she hadn't lost the napkin.  So I
+just inquired around till I found this, and I think it's
+about the ticket."
+
+Wesley opened the package and laid a brown leather
+lunch box on the table.  "Might be a couple of books,
+or drawing tools or most anything that's neat and genteel. 
+You see, it opens this way."
+
+It did open, and inside was a space for sandwiches,
+a little porcelain box for cold meat or fried chicken,
+another for salad, a glass with a lid which screwed on, held
+by a ring in a corner, for custard or jelly, a flask for tea or
+milk, a beautiful little knife, fork, and spoon fastened in
+holders, and a place for a napkin.
+
+Margaret was almost crying over it.
+
+"How I'd love to fill it!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Do it the first time, just to show Kate Comstock
+what love is!" said Wesley.  "Get up early in the morning
+and make one of those dresses to-morrow.  Can't you
+make a plain gingham dress in a day?  I'll pick a chicken,
+and you fry it and fix a little custard for the cup,
+and do it up brown.  Go on, Maggie, you do it!"
+
+"I never can," said Margaret.  "I am slow as the
+itch about sewing, and these are not going to be plain
+dresses when it comes to making them.  There are going
+to be edgings of plain green, pink, and brown to the bias
+strips, and tucks and pleats around the hips, fancy belts
+and collars, and all of it takes time."
+
+"Then Kate Comstock's got to help," said Wesley.  "Can the
+two of you make one, and get that lunch to-morrow?"
+
+"Easy, but she'll never do it!"
+
+"You see if she doesn't!" said Wesley.  "You get
+up and cut it out, and soon as Elnora is gone I'll go after
+Kate myself.  She'll take what I'll say better alone. 
+But she'll come, and she'll help make the dress.  These other
+things are our Christmas gifts to Elnora.  She'll no doubt
+need them more now than she will then, and we can give
+them just as well.  That's yours, and this is mine, or
+whichever way you choose."
+
+Wesley untied a good brown umbrella and shook out
+the folds of a long, brown raincoat.  Margaret dropped
+the hat, arose and took the coat.  She tried it on, felt it,
+cooed over it and matched it with the umbrella.
+
+"Did it look anything like rain to-night?" she inquired
+so anxiously that Wesley laughed.
+
+"And this last bundle?" she said, dropping back in her
+chair, the coat still over her shoulders.
+
+"I couldn't buy this much stuff for any other woman
+and nothing for my own," said Wesley.  "It's Christmas
+for you, too, Margaret!"  He shook out fold after fold
+of soft gray satiny goods that would look lovely against
+Margaret's pink cheeks and whitening hair.
+
+"Oh, you old darling!" she exclaimed, and fled sobbing
+into his arms.
+
+But she soon dried her eyes, raked together the coals
+in the cooking stove and boiled one of the dress patterns
+in salt water for half an hour.  Wesley held the lamp
+while she hung the goods on the line to dry.  Then she
+set the irons on the stove so they would be hot the first
+thing in the morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA VISITS THE BIRD WOMAN,
+AND OPENS A BANK ACCOUNT
+
+
+Four o'clock the following morning Elnora
+was shelling beans.  At six she fed the chickens
+and pigs, swept two of the rooms of the cabin,
+built a fire, and put on the kettle for breakfast.  Then she
+climbed the narrow stairs to the attic she had occupied since
+a very small child, and dressed in the hated shoes and
+brown calico, plastered down her crisp curls, ate what
+breakfast she could, and pinning on her hat started for town.
+
+"There is no sense in your going for an hour yet,"
+said her mother.
+
+"I must try to discover some way to earn those books,"
+replied Elnora.  "I am perfectly positive I shall not
+find them lying beside the road wrapped in tissue paper,
+and tagged with my name."
+
+She went toward the city as on yesterday.  Her perplexity
+as to where tuition and books were to come from was
+worse but she did not feel quite so badly.  She never
+again would have to face all of it for the first time. 
+There had been times yesterday when she had prayed to
+be hidden, or to drop dead, and neither had happened. 
+"I believe the best way to get an answer to prayer is
+to work for it," muttered Elnora grimly.
+
+Again she followed the trail to the swamp, rearranged
+her hair and left the tin pail.  This time she folded a couple
+of sandwiches in the napkin, and tied them in a neat light
+paper parcel which she carried in her hand.  Then she
+hurried along the road to Onabasha and found a book-store. 
+There she asked the prices of the list of books that
+she needed, and learned that six dollars would not quite
+supply them.  She anxiously inquired for second-hand
+books, but was told that the only way to secure them was
+from the last year's Freshmen.  Just then Elnora felt that
+she positively could not approach any of those she supposed
+to be Sophomores and ask to buy their old books. 
+The only balm the girl could see for the humiliation of
+yesterday was to appear that day with a set of new books.
+
+"Do you wish these?" asked the clerk hurriedly, for the
+store was rapidly filling with school children wanting
+anything from a dictionary to a pen.
+
+"Yes," gasped Elnora, "Oh, yes!  But I cannot pay for
+them just now.  Please let me take them, and I will pay
+for them on Friday, or return them as perfect as they are. 
+Please trust me for them a few days."
+
+"I'll ask the proprietor," he said.  When he came back
+Elnora knew the answer before he spoke.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said, "but Mr. Hann doesn't recognize
+your name.  You are not a customer of ours, and he feels
+that he can't take the risk."
+
+Elnora clumped out of the store, the thump of her heavy,
+shoes beating as a hammer on her brain.  She tried two
+other dealers with the same result, and then in sick despair
+came into the street.  What could she  do?  She was too
+frightened to think.  Should she stay from school that
+day and canvass the homes appearing to belong to the
+wealthy, and try to sell beds of wild ferns, as she had
+suggested to Wesley Sinton?  What would she dare ask for
+bringing in and planting a clump of ferns?  How could she
+carry them?  Would people buy them?  She slowly moved
+past the hotel and then glanced around to see if there
+were a clock anywhere, for she felt sure the young people
+passing her constantly were on their way to school.
+
+There it stood in a bank window in big black letters
+staring straight at her:
+
+
+WANTED:  CATERPILLARS, COCOONS, CHRYSALIDES,
+PUPAE CASES, BUTTERFLIES, MOTHS, INDIAN RELICS
+OF ALL KINDS.  HIGHEST SCALE OF PRICES PAID IN CASH
+
+
+Elnora caught the wicket at the cashier's desk with both
+hands to brace herself against disappointment.
+
+"Who is it wants to buy cocoons, butterflies, and
+moths?" she panted.
+
+"The Bird Woman," answered the cashier.  "Have you
+some for sale?"
+
+"I have some, I do not know if they are what she would want."
+
+"Well, you had better see her," said the cashier.  "Do you
+know where she lives?"
+
+"Yes," said Elnora.  "Would you tell me the time?"
+
+"Twenty-one after eight," was the answer.
+
+She had nine minutes to reach the auditorium or be late. 
+Should she go to school, or to the Bird Woman?  Several girls
+passed her walking swiftly and she remembered their faces. 
+They were hurrying to school.  Elnora caught the infection. 
+She would see the Bird Woman at noon.  Algebra came first,
+and that professor was kind.  Perhaps she could slip to the
+superintendent and ask him for a book for the next lesson,
+and at noon--"Oh, dear Lord make it come true," prayed Elnora,
+at noon possibly she could sell some of those wonderful
+shining-winged things she had been collecting all her life
+around the outskirts of the Limberlost.
+
+As she went down the long hall she noticed the professor
+of mathematics standing in the door of his recitation room. 
+When she passed him he smiled and spoke to her.
+
+"I have been watching for you," he said, and Elnora
+stopped bewildered.
+
+"For me?" she questioned.
+
+"Yes," said Professor Henley.  "Step inside."
+
+Elnora followed him into the room and closed the door
+behind them.
+
+"At teachers' meeting last evening, one of the professors
+mentioned that a pupil had betrayed in class that she had
+expected her books to be furnished by the city.  I thought
+possibly it was you.  Was it?"
+
+"Yes," breathed Elnora.
+
+"That being the case," said Professor Henley, "it just
+occurred to me as you had expected that, you might require
+a little time to secure them, and you are too fine a
+mathematician to fall behind for want of supplies.  So I
+telephoned one of our Sophomores to bring her last year's
+books this morning.  I am sorry to say they are somewhat
+abused, but the text is all here.  You can have them for
+two dollars, and pay when you are ready.  Would you
+care to take them?"
+
+Elnora sat suddenly, because she could not stand another instant. 
+She reached both hands for the books, and said never a word. 
+The professor was silent also.  At last Eleanor arose,
+hugging those books to her heart as a mother clasps a baby.
+
+"One thing more," said the professor.  "You may pay
+your tuition quarterly.  You need not bother about the
+first instalment this month.  Any time in October will do."
+
+It seemed as if Elnora's gasp of relief must have reached
+the soles of her brogans.
+
+"Did any one ever tell you how beautiful you are!" she cried.
+
+As the professor was lank, tow-haired and so near-
+sighted, that he peered at his pupils through spectacles,
+no one ever had.
+
+"No," said Professor Henley, "I've waited some time
+for that; for which reason I shall appreciate it all the more. 
+Come now, or we shall be late for opening exercises."
+
+So Elnora entered the auditorium a second time.  Her face was
+like the brightest dawn that ever broke over the Limberlost. 
+No matter about the lumbering shoes and skimpy dress. 
+No matter about anything, she had the books.  She could
+take them home.  In her garret she could commit them to
+memory, if need be.  She could prove that clothes were
+not all.  If the Bird Woman did not want any of the many
+different kinds of specimens she had collected, she was
+quite sure now she could sell ferns, nuts, and a great
+many things.  Then, too, a girl made a place for her
+that morning, and several smiled and bowed.  Elnora forgot
+everything save her books, and that she was where she
+could use them intelligently--everything except one
+little thing away back in her head.  Her mother had
+known about the books and the tuition, and had not told
+her when she agreed to her coming.
+
+At noon Elnora took her little parcel of lunch and started
+to the home of the Bird Woman.  She must know about
+the specimens first and then she would walk to the suburbs
+somewhere and eat a few bites.  She dropped the heavy
+iron knocker on the door of a big red log cabin, and
+her heart thumped at the resounding stroke.
+
+"Is the Bird Woman at home?" she asked of the maid.
+
+"She is at lunch," was the answer.
+
+"Please ask her if she will see a girl from the Limberlost
+about some moths?" inquired Elnora.
+
+"I never need ask, if it's moths," laughed the girl. 
+"Orders are to bring any one with specimens right in. 
+Come this way."
+
+Elnora followed down the hall and entered a long room with
+high panelled wainscoting, old English fireplace with an
+overmantel and closets of peculiar china filling the corners. 
+At a bare table of oak, yellow as gold, sat a woman Elnora
+often had watched and followed covertly around the Limberlost. 
+The Bird Woman was holding out a hand of welcome.
+
+I heard!" she laughed.  "A little pasteboard box, or
+just the mere word `specimen,' passes you at my door. 
+If it is moths I hope you have hundreds.  I've been very
+busy all summer and unable to collect, and I need so many. 
+Sit down and lunch with me, while we talk it over. 
+From the Limberlost, did you say?"
+
+"I live near the swamp," replied Elnora.  "Since it's
+so cleared I dare go around the edge in daytime, though
+we are all afraid at night."
+
+"What have you collected?" asked the Bird Woman,
+as she helped Elnora to sandwiches unlike any she ever
+before had tasted, salad that seemed to be made of many
+familiar things, and a cup of hot chocolate that would have
+delighted any hungry schoolgirl.
+
+"I am afraid I am bothering you for nothing, and imposing
+on you," she said.  "That 'collected' frightens me. 
+I've only gathered.  I always loved everything outdoors,
+so I made friends and playmates of them.  When I learned
+that the moths die so soon, I saved them especially,
+because there seemed no wickedness in it."
+
+"I have thought the same thing," said the Bird
+Woman encouragingly.  Then because the girl could
+not eat until she learned about the moths, the Bird
+Woman asked Elnora if she knew what kinds she had.
+
+"Not all of them," answered Elnora.  "Before Mr.
+Duncan moved away he often saw me near the edge of
+the swamp and he showed me the box he had fixed for
+Freckles, and gave me the key.  There were some books
+and things, so from that time on I studied and tried to
+take moths right, but I am afraid they are not what you want."
+
+"Are they the big ones that fly mostly in June nights?"
+asked the Bird Woman.
+
+"Yes," said Elnora.  "Big gray ones with reddish
+markings, pale blue-green, yellow with lavender, and red
+and yellow."
+
+"What do you mean by `red and yellow?'" asked the
+Bird Woman so quickly that the girl almost jumped
+
+"Not exactly red," explained Elnora, with tremulous voice. 
+"A reddish, yellowish brown, with canary-coloured spots
+and gray lines on their wings."
+
+"How many of them?"  It was the same quick question.
+
+"I had over two hundred eggs," said Elnora, "but
+some of them didn't hatch, and some of the caterpillars
+died, but there must be at least a hundred perfect ones."
+
+"Perfect!  How perfect?" cried the Bird Woman.
+
+"I mean whole wings, no down gone, and all their legs
+and antennae," faltered Elnora.
+
+"Young woman, that's the rarest moth in America,"
+said the Bird Woman solemnly.  "If you have a hundred
+of them, they are worth a hundred dollars according to
+my list.  I can use all that are not damaged."
+
+"What if they are not pinned right," quavered Elnora.
+
+"If they are perfect, that does not make the
+slightest difference.  I know how to soften them so
+that I can put them into any shape I choose. 
+Where are they?  When may I see them?"
+
+"They are in Freckles's old case in the Limberlost,"
+said Elnora.  "I couldn't carry many for fear of breaking
+them, but I could bring a few after school."
+
+"You come here at four," said the Bird Woman, "and
+we will drive out with some specimen boxes, and a price
+list, and see what you have to sell.  Are they your very own? 
+Are you free to part with them?"
+
+"They are mine," said Elnora.  "No one but God
+knows I have them.  Mr. Duncan gave me the books
+and the box.  He told Freckles about me, and Freckles
+told him to give me all he left.  He said for me to stick
+to the swamp and be brave, and my hour would come, and
+it has!  I know most of them are all right, and oh, I
+do need the money!"
+
+"Could you tell me?" asked the Bird Woman softly.
+
+"You see the swamp and all the fields around it are so
+full," explained Elnora.  "Every day I felt smaller and
+smaller, and I wanted to know more and more, and pretty
+soon I grew desperate, just as Freckles did.  But I am
+better off than he was, for I have his books, and I have a
+mother; even if she doesn't care for me as other girls'
+mothers do for them, it's better than no one."
+
+The Bird Woman's glance fell, for the girl was not
+conscious of how much she was revealing.  Her eyes
+were fixed on a black pitcher filled with goldenrod in
+the centre of the table and she was saying what she thought.
+
+"As long as I could go to the Brushwood school I was
+happy, but I couldn't go further just when things were
+the most interesting, so I was determined I'd come to
+high school and mother wouldn't consent.  You see
+there's plenty of land, but father was drowned when I
+was a baby, and mother and I can't make money as men do. 
+The taxes are higher every year, and she said it was
+too expensive.  I wouldn't give her any rest, until at
+last she bought me this dress, and these shoes and I came. 
+It was awful!"
+
+"Do you live in that beautiful cabin at the northwest
+end of the swamp?" asked the Bird Woman.
+
+"Yes," said Elnora.
+
+"I remember the place and a story about it, now. 
+You entered the high school yesterday?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It was rather bad?"
+
+"Rather bad!" echoed Elnora. 
+
+The Bird Woman laughed.
+
+"You can't tell me anything about that," she said. 
+"I once entered a city school straight from the country. 
+My dress was brown calico, and my shoes were heavy."
+
+The tears began to roll down Elnora's cheeks. 
+
+"Did they----?" she faltered.
+
+"They did!" said the Bird Woman.  "All of it.  I am
+sure they did not miss one least little thing."
+
+Then she wiped away some tears that began coursing
+her cheeks, and laughed at the same time.
+
+"Where are they now?" asked Elnora suddenly.
+
+"They are widely scattered, but none of them have
+attained heights out of range.  Some of the rich are
+poor, and some of the poor are rich.  Some of the brightest
+died insane, and some of the dullest worked out high
+positions; some of the very worst to bear have gone out,
+and I frequently hear from others.  Now I am here,
+able to remember it, and mingle laughter with what
+used to be all tears; for every day I have my beautiful
+work, and almost every day God sends some one like you
+to help me.  What is your name, my girl?"
+
+"Elnora Comstock," answered Elnora.  "Yesterday on the
+board it changed to Cornstock, and for a minute I
+thought I'd die, but I can laugh over that already."
+
+The Bird Woman arose and kissed her.  "Finish your
+lunch," she said, "and I will bring my price lists, and
+make a memorandum of what you think you have, so I
+will know how many boxes to prepare.  And remember this: 
+What you are lies with you.  If you are lazy, and
+accept your lot, you may live in it.  If you are willing
+to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose,
+among the only ones who live beyond the grave in this
+world, the people who write books that help, make exquisite
+music, carve statues, paint pictures, and work for others. 
+Never mind the calico dress, and the coarse shoes. 
+Work at your books, and before long you will hear
+yesterday's tormentors boasting that they were once
+classmates of yours.  `I could a tale unfold'----!"
+
+She laughingly left the room and Elnora sat thinking,
+until she remembered how hungry she was, so she ate the
+food, drank the hot chocolate and began to feel better.
+
+Then the Bird Woman came back and showed Elnora a
+long printed slip giving a list of graduated prices for
+moths, butterflies, and dragonflies.
+
+"Oh, do you want them!" exulted Elnora.  "I have
+a few and I can get more by the thousand, with every
+colour in the world on their wings."
+
+"Yes," said the Bird Woman, "I will buy them, also the
+big moth caterpillars that are creeping everywhere now,
+and the cocoons that they will spin just about this time. 
+I have a sneaking impression that the mystery, wonder,
+and the urge of their pure beauty, are going to force me
+to picture and paint our moths and put them into a book
+for all the world to see and know.  We Limberlost people
+must not be selfish with the wonders God has given to us. 
+We must share with those poor cooped-up city people the
+best we can.  To send them a beautiful book, that is the
+way, is it not, little new friend of mine?"
+
+"Yes, oh yes!" cried Elnora.  "And please God they
+find a way to earn the money to buy the books, as I have
+those I need so badly."
+
+"I will pay good prices for all the moths you can find,"
+said the Bird Woman, "because you see I exchange them
+with foreign collectors.  I want a complete series of the
+moths of America to trade with a German scientist,
+another with a man in India, and another in Brazil. 
+Others I can exchange with home collectors for those of
+California and Canada, so you see I can use all you can
+raise, or find.  The banker will buy stone axes, arrow
+points, and Indian pipes.  There was a teacher from the
+city grade schools here to-day for specimens.  There is
+a fund to supply the ward buildings.  I'll help you get
+in touch with that.  They want leaves of different trees,
+flowers, grasses, moths, insects, birds' nests and anything
+about birds."
+
+Elnora's eyes were blazing.  "Had I better go back to
+school or open a bank account and begin being a millionaire? 
+Uncle Wesley and I have a bushel of arrow points gathered,
+a stack of axes, pipes, skin-dressing tools, tubes and mortars. 
+I don't know how I ever shall wait three hours."
+
+"You must go, or you will be late," said the Bird Woman. 
+"I will be ready at four."
+
+After school closed Elnora, seated beside the Bird
+Woman, drove to Freckles's room in the Limberlost.  One at
+a time the beautiful big moths were taken from the
+interior of the old black case.  Not a fourth of them could
+be moved that night and it was almost dark when the last
+box was closed, the list figured, and into Elnora's trembling
+fingers were paid fifty-nine dollars and sixteen cents. 
+Elnora clasped the money closely.
+
+"Oh you beautiful stuff!" she cried.  "You are going to
+buy the books, pay the tuition, and take me to high school."
+
+Then because she was a woman, she sat on a log and
+looked at her shoes.  Long after the Bird Woman drove
+away Elnora remained.  She had her problem, and it was
+a big one.  If she told her mother, would she take the
+money to pay the taxes?  If she did not tell her, how could
+she account for the books, and things for which she would
+spend it.  At last she counted out what she needed for
+the next day, placed the remainder in the farthest corner
+of the case, and locked the door.  She then filled the front
+of her skirt from a heap of arrow points beneath the case
+and started home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+WHEREIN THE SINTONS ARE DISAPPOINTED,
+AND MRS. COMSTOCK LEARNS THAT SHE CAN LAUGH
+
+
+With the first streak of red above the Limberlost
+Margaret Sinton was busy with the gingham and the
+intricate paper pattern she had purchased. 
+Wesley cooked the breakfast and worked until he thought
+Elnora would be gone, then he started to bring her mother.
+
+"Now you be mighty careful," cautioned Margaret. 
+"I don't know how she will take it."
+
+"I don't either," said Wesley philosophically, "but
+she's got to take it some way.  That dress has to be
+finished by school time in the morning."
+
+Wesley had not slept well that night.  He had been so
+busy framing diplomatic speeches to make to Mrs. Comstock
+that sleep had little chance with him.  Every step nearer
+to her he approached his position seemed less enviable. 
+By the time he reached the front gate and started down
+the walk between the rows of asters and lady slippers
+he was perspiring, and every plausible and convincing
+speech had fled his brain.  Mrs. Comstock helped him. 
+She met him at the door.
+
+"Good morning," she said.  "Did Margaret send you
+for something?"
+
+"Yes," said Wesley.  "She's got a job that's too big
+for her, and she wants you to help."
+
+"Of course I will," said Mrs. Comstock.  It was no
+one's affair how lonely the previous day had been, or
+how the endless hours of the present would drag. 
+"What is she doing in such a rush?"
+
+Now was his chance.
+
+"She's making a dress for Elnora," answered, Wesley. 
+He saw Mrs. Comstock's form straighten, and her face
+harden, so he continued hastily.  "You see Elnora has
+been helping us at harvest time, butchering, and with
+unexpected visitors for years.  We've made out that
+she's saved us a considerable sum, and as she wouldn't
+ever touch any pay for anything, we just went to town
+and got a few clothes we thought would fix her up a little
+for the high school.  We want to get a dress done to-day
+mighty bad, but Margaret is slow about sewing, and she
+never can finish alone, so I came after you."
+
+"And it's such a simple little matter, so dead easy;
+and all so between old friends like, that you can't look
+above your boots while you explain it," sneered Mrs. Comstock. 
+"Wesley Sinton, what put the idea into your head that
+Elnora would take things bought with money, when she
+wouldn't take the money?
+
+Then Sinton's eyes came up straightly.
+
+"Finding her on the trail last night sobbing as hard as
+I ever saw any one at a funeral.  She wasn't complaining
+at all, but she's come to me all her life with her little hurts,
+and she couldn't hide how she'd been laughed at, twitted,
+and run face to face against the fact that there were books
+and tuition, unexpected, and nothing will ever make me
+believe you didn't know that, Kate Comstock."
+
+"If any doubts are troubling you on that subject, sure
+I knew it!  She was so anxious to try the world, I thought
+I'd just let her take a few knocks and see how she liked them."
+
+"As if she'd ever taken anything but knocks all her life!"
+cried Wesley Sinton.  "Kate Comstock, you are a heartless,
+selfish woman.  You've never shown Elnora any real love in
+her life.  If ever she finds out that thing you'll lose her,
+and it will serve you right."
+
+"She knows it now," said Mrs. Comstock icily, "and
+she'll be home to-night just as usual."
+
+"Well, you are a brave woman if you dared put a girl of
+Elnora's make through what she suffered yesterday, and will
+suffer again to-day, and let her know you did it on purpose. 
+I admire your nerve.  But I've watched this since Elnora
+was born, and I got enough.  Things have come to a pass
+where they go better for her, or I interfere."
+
+"As if you'd ever done anything but interfere all her life! 
+Think I haven't watched you?  Think I, with my heart raw
+in my breast, and too numb to resent it openly,
+haven't seen you and Mag Sinton trying to turn Elnora
+against me day after day?  When did you ever tell her
+what her father meant to me?  When did you ever try to
+make her see the wreck of my life, and what I've suffered? 
+No indeed!  Always it's been poor little abused Elnora,
+and cakes, kissing, extra clothes, and encouraging her
+to run to you with a pitiful mouth every time I tried to
+make a woman of her."
+
+"Kate Comstock, that's unjust," cried Sinton.  "Only last
+night I tried to show her the picture I saw the day she
+was born.  I begged her to come to you and tell you
+pleasant what she needed, and ask you for what I happen
+to know you can well afford to give her."
+
+"I can't!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "You know I can't!"
+
+"Then get so you can!" said Wesley Sinton.  "Any day
+you say the word you can sell six thousand worth of
+rare timber off this place easy.  I'll see to clearing and
+working the fields cheap as dirt, for Elnora's sake. 
+I'll buy you more cattle to fatten.  All you've got to do
+is sign a lease, to pull thousands from the ground in oil,
+as the rest of us are doing all around you!"
+
+"Cut down Robert's trees!" shrieked Mrs. Comstock. 
+"Tear up his land!  Cover everything with horrid,
+greasy oil!  I'll die first."
+
+"You mean you'll let Elnora go like a beggar, and hurt
+and mortify her past bearing.  I've got to the place where
+I tell you plain what I am going to do.  Maggie and I
+went to town last night, and we bought what things Elnora
+needs most urgent to make her look a little like the rest of
+the high school girls.  Now here it is in plain English. 
+You can help get these things ready, and let us give them to
+her as we want----"
+
+"She won't touch them!" cried Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Then you can pay us, and she can take them as her right----"
+
+"I won't!"
+
+"Then I will tell Elnora just what you are worth, what
+you can afford, and how much of this she owns.  I'll loan
+her the money to buy books and decent clothes, and
+when she is of age she can sell her share and pay me."
+
+Mrs. Comstock gripped a chair-back and opened her
+lips, but no words came.
+
+"And," Sinton continued, "if she is so much like you
+that she won't do that, I'll go to the county seat and lay
+complaint against you as her guardian before the judge. 
+I'll swear to what you are worth, and how you are raising
+her, and have you discharged, or have the judge appoint
+some man who will see that she is comfortable, educated,
+and decent looking!"
+
+"You--you wouldn't!" gasped Kate Comstock.
+
+"I won't need to, Kate!" said Sinton, his heart softening
+the instant the hard words were said.  "You won't
+show it, but you do love Elnora!  You can't help it! 
+You must see how she needs things; come help us fix them,
+and be friends.  Maggie and I couldn't live without her,
+and you couldn't either.  You've got to love such a fine
+girl as she is; let it show a little!"
+
+"You can hardly expect me to love her," said Mrs.
+Comstock coldly.  "But for her a man would stand back
+of me now, who would beat the breath out of your sneaking
+body for the cowardly thing with which you threaten me. 
+After all I've suffered you'd drag me to court and
+compel me to tear up Robert's property.  If I ever go they
+carry me.  If they touch one tree, or put down one greasy
+old oil well, it will be over all I can shoot, before they
+begin.  Now, see how quick you can clear out of here!"
+
+"You won't come and help Maggie with the dress?"
+
+For answer Mrs. Comstock looked around swiftly for
+some object on which to lay her hands.  Knowing her
+temper, Wesley Sinton left with all the haste consistent
+with dignity.  But he did not go home.  He crossed a
+field, and in an hour brought another neighbour who was
+skilful with her needle.  With sinking heart Margaret saw
+them coming.
+
+"Kate is too busy to help to-day, she can't sew before
+to-morrow," said Wesley cheerfully as they entered.
+
+That quieted Margaret's apprehension a little, though
+she had some doubts.  Wesley prepared the lunch, and
+by four o'clock the dress was finished as far as it possibly
+could be until it was fitted on Elnora.  If that did not
+entail too much work, it could be completed in two hours.
+
+Then Margaret packed their purchases into the big
+market basket.  Wesley took the hat, umbrella, and raincoat,
+and they went to Mrs. Comstock's.  As they reached
+the step, Margaret spoke pleasantly to Mrs. Comstock,
+who sat reading just inside the door, but she did not
+answer and deliberately turned a leaf without looking up.
+
+Wesley Sinton opened the door and went in followed by Margaret.
+
+"Kate," he said, "you needn't take out your mad over
+our little racket on Maggie.  I ain't told her a word I said
+to you, or you said to me.  She's not so very strong, and
+she's sewed since four o'clock this morning to get this dress
+ready for to-morrow.  It's done and we came down to try
+it on Elnora."
+
+"Is that the truth, Mag Sinton?" demanded Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"You heard Wesley say so," proudly affirmed Mrs. Sinton.
+
+"I want to make you a proposition," said Wesley. 
+"Wait till Elnora comes.  Then we'll show her the things
+and see what she says."
+
+"How would it do to see what she says without bribing
+her," sneered Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"If she can stand what she did yesterday, and will to-
+day, she can bear 'most anything," said Wesley.  "Put away
+the clothes if you want to, till we tell her."
+
+"Well, you don't take this waist I'm working on,"
+said Margaret, "for I have to baste in the sleeves and set
+the collar.  Put the rest out of sight if you like."
+
+Mrs. Comstock picked up the basket and bundles,
+placed them inside her room and closed the door.
+
+Margaret threaded her needle and began to sew. 
+Mrs. Comstock returned to her book, while Wesley fidgeted
+and raged inwardly.  He could see that Margaret was
+nervous and almost in tears, but the lines in Mrs.
+Comstock's impassive face were set and cold.  So they
+sat while the clock ticked off the time--one hour, two,
+dusk, and no Elnora.  Just when Margaret and Wesley were
+discussing whether he had not better go to town to meet
+Elnora, they heard her coming up the walk.  Wesley dropped
+his tilted chair and squared himself.  Margaret gripped
+her sewing, and turned pleading eyes toward the door. 
+Mrs. Comstock closed her book and grimly smiled.
+
+"Mother, please open the door," called Elnora.
+
+Mrs. Comstock arose, and swung back the screen.
+Elnora stepped in beside her, bent half double, the whole
+front of her dress gathered into a sort of bag filled with a
+heavy load, and one arm stacked high with books.  In the
+dim light she did not see the Sintons.
+
+ "Please hand me the empty bucket in the kitchen,
+mother," she said.  "I just had to bring these arrow
+points home, but I'm scared for fear I've spoiled my dress
+and will have to wash it.  I'm to clean them, and take
+them to the banker in the morning, and oh, mother, I've
+sold enough stuff to pay for my books, my tuition, and
+maybe a dress and some lighter shoes besides.  Oh, mother
+I'm so happy!  Take the books and bring the bucket!"
+
+Then she saw Margaret and Wesley.  "Oh, glory!"
+she exulted.  "I was just wondering how I'd ever wait to
+tell you, and here you are!  It's too perfectly splendid to
+be true!"
+
+"Tell us, Elnora," said Sinton.
+
+"Well sir," said Elnora, doubling down on the floor and
+spreading out her skirt, "set the bucket here, mother. 
+These points are brittle, and should be put in one at a time. 
+If they are chipped I can't sell them.  Well sir!  I've had
+a time!  You know I just had to have books.  I tried three
+stores, and they wouldn't trust me, not even three days,
+I didn't know what in this world I could do quickly enough. 
+Just when I was almost frantic I saw a sign in a bank window
+asking for caterpillars, cocoons, butterflies, arrow points,
+and everything.  I went in, and it was this Bird Woman who
+wants the insects, and the banker wants the stones.  I had
+to go to school then, but, if you'll believe it"--Elnora
+beamed on all of them in turn as she talked and slipped
+the arrow points from her dress to the pail--"if you'll
+believe it--but you won't, hardly, until you look at the
+books--there was the mathematics teacher, waiting at his
+door, and he had a set of books for me that he had
+telephoned a Sophomore to bring."
+
+"How did he happen to do that, Elnora?" interrupted Sinton.
+
+Elnora blushed.
+
+"It was a fool mistake I made yesterday in thinking
+books were just handed out to one.  There was a teachers'
+meeting last night and the history teacher told about that. 
+Professor Henley thought of me.  You know I told you what
+he said about my algebra, mother.  Ain't I glad I studied
+out some of it myself this summer!  So he telephoned and
+a girl brought the books.  Because they are marked and
+abused some I get the whole outfit for two dollars. 
+I can erase most of the marks, paste down the covers,
+and fix them so they look better.  But I must hurry to
+the joy part.  I didn't stop to eat, at noon, I just
+ran to the Bird Woman's, and I had lunch with her.  It was
+salad, hot chocolate, and lovely things, and she wants
+to buy most every old scrap I ever gathered.  She wants
+dragonflies, moths, butterflies, and he--the banker, I
+mean--wants everything Indian.  This very night she
+came to the swamp with me and took away enough stuff to
+pay for the books and tuition, and to-morrow she is going
+to buy some more."
+
+Elnora laid the last arrow point in the pail and arose,
+shaking leaves and bits of baked earth from her dress. 
+She reached into her pocket, produced her money and
+waved it before their wondering eyes.
+
+"And that's the joy part!" she exulted.  "Put it up in
+the clock till morning, mother.  That pays for the books
+and tuition and--" Elnora hesitated, for she saw the
+nervous grasp with which her mother's fingers closed on
+the bills.  Then she continued, but more slowly and
+thinking before she spoke.
+
+"What I get to-morrow pays for more books and tuition,
+and maybe a few, just a few, things to wear.  These shoes
+are so dreadfully heavy and hot, and they make such a
+noise on the floor.  There isn't another calico dress in
+the whole building, not among hundreds of us.  Why, what
+is that?  Aunt Margaret, what are you hiding in your lap?"
+
+She snatched the waist and shook it out, and her face
+was beaming.  "Have you taken to waists all fancy and
+buttoned in the back?  I bet you this is mine!"
+
+"I bet you so too," said Margaret Sinton.  "You undress
+right away and try it on, and if it fits, it will be
+done for morning.  There are some low shoes, too!"
+
+Elnora began to dance.  "Oh, you dear people!"
+she cried.  "I can pay for them to-morrow night! 
+Isn't it too splendid!  I was just thinking on the
+way home that I certainly would be compelled to
+have cooler shoes until later, and I was wondering
+what I'd do when the fall rains begin."
+
+"I meant to get you some heavy dress skirts and a
+coat then," said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"I know you said so!" cried Elnora.  "But you needn't, now! 
+I can buy every single stitch I need myself.  Next summer
+I can gather up a lot more stuff, and all winter on the
+way to school.  I am sure I can sell ferns, I know
+I can nuts, and the Bird Woman says the grade rooms
+want leaves, grasses, birds' nests, and cocoons.  Oh, isn't
+this world lovely!  I'll be helping with the tax, next, mother!"
+
+Elnora waved the waist and started for the bedroom. 
+When she opened the door she gave a little cry.
+
+"What have you people been doing?" she demanded. 
+"I never saw so many interesting bundles in all my life. 
+I'm `skeered' to death for fear I can't pay for them, and
+will have to give up something."
+
+"Wouldn't you take them, if you could not pay for
+them, Elnora?" asked her mother instantly.
+
+"Why, not unless you did," answered Elnora.  "People have
+no right to wear things they can't afford, have they?"
+
+"But from such old friends as Maggie and Wesley!" 
+Mrs. Comstock's voice was oily with triumph.
+
+"From them least of all," cried Elnora stoutly.  "From a
+stranger sooner than from them, to whom I owe so much more
+than I ever can pay now."
+
+"Well, you don't have to," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"Maggie just selected these things, because she is more
+in touch with the world, and has got such good taste. 
+You can pay as long as your money holds out, and if
+there's more necessary, maybe I can sell the butcher a
+calf, or if things are too costly for us, of course,
+they can take them back.  Put on the waist now, and then
+you can look over the rest and see if they are suitable,
+and what you want."
+
+Elnora stepped into the adjoining room and closed the door. 
+Mrs. Comstock picked up the bucket and started for the well
+with it.  At the bedroom she paused.
+
+"Elnora, were you going to wash these arrow points?"
+
+"Yes.  The Bird Woman says they sell better if they are clean,
+so it can be seen that there are no defects in them."
+
+"Of course," said Mrs. Comstock.  "Some of them
+seem quite baked.  Shall I put them to soak?  Do you
+want to take them in the morning?"
+
+"Yes, I do," answered Elnora.  "If you would just
+fill the pail with water."
+
+Mrs. Comstock left the room.  Wesley Sinton sat
+with his back to the window in the west end of the cabin
+which overlooked the well.  A suppressed sound behind
+him caused him to turn quickly.  Then he arose and
+leaned over Margaret.
+
+"She's out there laughing like a blamed monkey!"
+he whispered indignantly.
+
+"Well, she can't help it!" exclaimed Margaret.
+
+"I'm going home!" said Wesley.
+
+"Oh no, you are not!" retorted Margaret.  "You are
+missing the point.  The point is not how you look,
+or feel.  It is to get these things in Elnora's possession
+past dispute.  You go now, and to-morrow Elnora will
+wear calico, and Kate Comstock will return these goods. 
+Right here I stay until everything we bought is Elnora's."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Wesley.
+
+"I don't know yet, myself," said Margaret.
+
+Then she arose and peered from the window.  At the
+well curb stood Katharine Comstock.  The strain
+of the day was finding reaction.  Her chin was in the
+air, she was heaving, shaking and strangling to suppress
+any sound.  The word that slipped between Margaret
+Sinton's lips shocked Wesley until he dropped on his
+chair, and recalled her to her senses.  She was fairly
+composed as she turned to Elnora, and began the fitting. 
+When she had pinched, pulled, and patted she called,
+"Come see if you think this fits, Kate."
+
+Mrs. Comstock had gone around to the back door and
+answered from the kitchen.  "You know more about
+it than I do.  Go ahead!  I'm getting supper. 
+Don't forget to allow for what it will shrink in washing!"
+
+"I set the colours and washed the goods last night;
+it can be made to fit right now," answered Margaret.
+
+When she could find nothing more to alter she told
+Elnora to heat some water.  After she had done that the
+girl began opening packages.
+
+The hat came first.
+
+"Mother!" cried Elnora.  "Mother, of course, you
+have seen this, but you haven't seen it on me.  I must
+try it on."
+
+"Don't you dare put that on your head until your hair
+is washed and properly combed," said Margaret.
+
+"Oh!" cried Elnora.  "Is that water to wash my hair? 
+I thought it was to set the colour in another dress."
+
+"Well, you thought wrong," said Margaret simply. 
+"Your hair is going to be washed and brushed until
+it shines like copper.  While it dries you can eat your
+supper, and this dress will be finished.  Then you can
+put on your new ribbon, and your hat.  You can try
+your shoes now, and if they don't fit, you and Wesley
+can drive to town and change them.  That little round
+bundle on the top of the basket is your stockings."
+
+Margaret sat down and began sewing swiftly, and a little
+later opened the machine, and ran several long seams.
+
+Elnora returned in a few minutes holding up her skirts
+and stepping daintily in the new shoes.
+
+"Don't soil them, honey, else you're sure they fit,"
+cautioned Wesley.
+
+"They seem just a trifle large, maybe," said Elnora
+dubiously, and Wesley knelt to feel.  He and Margaret
+thought them a fit, and then Elnora appealed to
+her mother.  Mrs. Comstock appeared wiping her hands
+on her apron.  She examined the shoes critically.
+
+"They seem to fit," she said, "but they are away too
+fine to walk country roads."
+
+"I think so, too," said Elnora instantly.  "We had
+better take these back and get a cheaper pair."
+
+"Oh, let them go for this time," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"They are so pretty, I hate to part with them.  You can
+get cheaper ones after this."
+
+Wesley and Margaret scarcely breathed for a long time.
+
+When Wesley went to do the feeding.  Elnora set
+the table.  When the water was hot, Margaret pinned a
+big towel around Elnora's shoulders and washed and
+dried the lovely hair according to the instructions she
+had been given the previous night.  As the hair began
+to dry it billowed out in a sparkling sheen that caught the
+light and gleamed and flashed.
+
+"Now, the idea is to let it stand naturally, just as the
+curl will make it.  Don't you do any of that nasty, untidy
+snarling, Elnora," cautioned Margaret.  "Wash it this
+way every two weeks while you are in school, shake it
+out, and dry it.  Then part it in the middle and turn a
+front quarter on each side from your face.  You tie the
+back at your neck with a string--so, and the ribbon goes
+in a big, loose bow.  I'll show you."  One after another
+Margaret Sinton tied the ribbons, creasing each of them
+so they could not be returned, as she explained that she
+was trying to find the colour most becoming.  Then she
+produced the raincoat which carried Elnora into transports.
+
+Mrs. Comstock objected.  "That won't be warm enough for
+cold weather, and you can't afford it and a coat, too."
+
+"I'll tell you what I thought," said Elnora.  "I was
+planning on the way home.  These coats are fine because
+they keep you dry.  I thought I would get one, and a
+warm sweater to wear under it cold days.  Then I always
+would be dry, and warm.  The sweater only costs three
+dollars, so I could get it and the raincoat both for half
+the price of a heavy cloth coat."
+
+"You are right about that," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"You can change more with the weather, too.  Keep the
+raincoat, Elnora."
+
+"Wear it until you try the hat," said Margaret.  "It will
+have to do until the dress is finished."
+
+Elnora picked up the hat dubiously.  "Mother, may
+I wear my hair as it is now?" she asked.
+
+"Let me take a good look," said Katharine Comstock.
+
+Heaven only knows what she saw.  To Wesley and
+to Margaret the bright young face of Elnora, with its
+pink tints, its heavy dark brows, its bright blue-gray
+eyes, and its frame of curling reddish-brown hair was
+the sweetest sight on earth, and at that instant Elnora
+was radiant.
+
+"So long as it's your own hair, and combed back as plain
+as it will go, I don't suppose it cuts much ice whether
+it's tied a little tighter or looser," conceded Mrs. Comstock. 
+"If you stop right there, you may let it go at that."
+
+Elnora set the hat on her head.  It was only a wide
+tan straw with three exquisite peacock quills at one side. 
+Margaret Sinton cried out, Wesley slapped his knee and
+sighed deeply while Mrs. Comstock stood speechless
+for a second.
+
+"I wish you had asked the price before you put that
+on," she said impatiently.  "We never can afford it."
+
+"It's not so much as you think," said Margaret. 
+"Don't you see what I did?  I had them take off the
+quills, and put on some of those Phoebe Simms gave me
+from her peacocks.  The hat will only cost you a dollar
+and a half."
+
+She avoided Wesley's eyes, and looked straight at
+Mrs. Comstock.  Elnora removed the hat to examine it.
+
+"Why, they are those reddish-tan quills of yours!"
+she cried.  "Mother, look how beautifully they are
+set on!  I'd much rather have them than those from
+the store."
+
+"So would I," said Mrs. Comstock.  "If Margaret
+wants to spare them, that will make you a beautiful
+hat; dirt cheap, too!  You must go past Mrs. Simms
+and show her.  She would be pleased to see them."
+
+Elnora sank into a chair and contemplated her toe.
+"Landy, ain't I a queen?" she murmured.  "What else
+have I got?"
+
+"Just a belt, some handkerchiefs, and a pair of top
+shoes for rainy days and colder weather," said Margaret.
+
+"About those high shoes, that was my idea," said Wesley. 
+"Soon as it rains, low shoes won't do, and by taking
+two pairs at once I could get them some cheaper.  The low
+ones are two and the high ones two fifty, together three
+seventy-five.  Ain't that cheap?"
+
+"That's a real bargain," said Mrs. Comstock, "if they
+are good shoes, and they look it."
+
+"This" said Wesley, producing the last package, "is
+your Christmas present from your Aunt Maggie.  I got
+mine, too, but it's at the house.  I'll bring it up in
+the morning."
+
+He handed Margaret the umbrella, and she passed it
+over to Elnora who opened it and sat laughing under
+its shelter.  Then she kissed both of them.  She brought a
+pencil and a slip of paper to set down the prices they gave
+her of everything they had brought except the umbrella,
+added the sum, and said laughingly:  "Will you please wait
+till to-morrow for the money?  I will have it then, sure."
+
+"Elnora," said Wesley Sinton.  "Wouldn't you----"
+
+"Elnora, hustle here a minute!" called Mrs. Comstock
+from the kitchen.  "I need you!"
+
+"One second, mother," answered Elnora, throwing off
+the coat and hat, and closing the umbrella as she ran. 
+There were several errands to do in a hurry, and then supper. 
+Elnora chattered incessantly, Wesley and Margaret talked
+all they could, while Mrs. Comstock said a word now and then,
+which was all she ever did.  But Wesley Sinton was watching
+her, and time and again he saw a peculiar little twist
+around her mouth.  He knew that for the first time in
+sixteen years she really was laughing over something. 
+She had all she could do to preserve her usually sober face. 
+Wesley knew what she was thinking.
+
+After supper the dress was finished, the pattern for
+the next one discussed, and then the Sintons went home. 
+Elnora gathered her treasures.  When she started upstairs
+she stopped.  "May I kiss you good-night, mother?"
+she asked lightly.
+
+"Never mind any slobbering," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"I should think you'd lived with me long enough to know
+that I don't care for it."
+
+"Well, I'd love to show you in some way how happy I
+am, and how I thank you."
+
+"I wonder what for?" said Mrs. Comstock.  "Mag Sinton
+chose that stuff and brought it here and you pay for it."
+
+"Yes, but you seemed willing for me to have it, and
+you said you would help me if I couldn't pay all."
+
+"Maybe I did," said Mrs. Comstock.  "Maybe I did. 
+I meant to get you some heavy dress skirts about
+Thanksgiving, and I still can get them.  Go to bed,
+and for any sake don't begin mooning before a mirror,
+and make a dunce of yourself."
+
+Mrs. Comstock picked up several papers and blew out
+the kitchen light.  She stood in the middle of the sitting-
+room floor for a time and then went into her room and
+closed the door.  Sitting on the edge of the bed she thought
+for a few minutes and then suddenly buried her face in the
+pillow and again heaved with laughter.
+
+Down the road plodded Margaret and Wesley Sinton. 
+Neither of them had words to utter their united thought.
+
+"Done!" hissed Wesley at last.  "Done brown!  Did you
+ever feel like a bloomin', confounded donkey?  How did
+the woman do it?"
+
+"She didn't do it!" gulped Margaret through her tears. 
+"She didn't do anything.  She trusted to Elnora's great
+big soul to bring her out right, and really she was right,
+and so it had to bring her.  She's a darling, Wesley! 
+But she's got a time before her.  Did you see Kate Comstock
+grab that money?  Before six months she'll be out combing
+the Limberlost for bugs and arrow points to help pay the tax. 
+I know her."
+
+"Well, I don't!" exclaimed Sinton, "she's too many for me. 
+But there is a laugh left in her yet!  I didn't s'pose
+there was.  Bet you a dollar, if we could see her this
+minute, she'd be chuckling over the way we got left."
+
+Both of them stopped in the road and looked back.
+
+"There's Elnora's light in her room," said Margaret. 
+"The poor child will feel those clothes, and pore over
+her books till morning, but she'll look decent to go to
+school, anyway.  Nothing is too big a price to pay for that."
+
+"Yes, if Kate lets her wear them.  Ten to one, she
+makes her finish the week with that old stuff!"
+
+"No, she won't," said Margaret.  "She'll hardly dare. 
+Kate made some concessions, all right; big ones for her--
+if she did get her way in the main.  She bent some, and
+if Elnora proves that she can walk out barehanded in the
+morning and come back with that much money in her
+pocket, an armful of books, and buy a turnout like that,
+she proves that she is of some consideration, and Kate's
+smart enough.  She'll think twice before she'll do that. 
+Elnora won't wear a calico dress to high school again. 
+You watch and see if she does.  She may have the best
+clothes she'll get for a time, for the least money, but she
+won't know it until she tries to buy goods herself at the
+same rates.  Wesley, what about those prices?  Didn't they
+shrink considerable?"
+
+"You began it," said Wesley.  "Those prices were all right. 
+We didn't say what the goods cost us, we said what they
+would cost her.  Surely, she's mistaken about being able
+to pay all that.  Can she pick up stuff of that value
+around the Limberlost?  Didn't the Bird Woman see her
+trouble, and just give her the money?"
+
+"I don't think so," said Margaret.  "Seems to me
+I've heard of her paying, or offering to pay those who
+would take the money, for bugs and butterflies, and I've
+known people who sold that banker Indian stuff.  Once I
+heard that his pipe collection beat that of the Government
+at the Philadelphia Centennial.  Those things have come
+to have a value."
+
+"Well, there's about a bushel of that kind of valuables
+piled up in the woodshed, that belongs to Elnora.  At least,
+I picked them up because she said she wanted them. 
+Ain't it queer that she'd take to stones, bugs, and
+butterflies, and save them.  Now they are going to bring her
+the very thing she wants the worst.  Lord, but this is a funny
+world when you get to studying!  Looks like things didn't
+all come by accident.  Looks as if there was a plan back
+of it, and somebody driving that knows the road, and how
+to handle the lines.  Anyhow, Elnora's in the wagon, and
+when I get out in the night and the dark closes around me,
+and I see the stars, I don't feel so cheap.  Maggie, how the
+nation did Kate Comstock do that?"
+
+"You will keep on harping, Wesley.  I told you she
+didn't do it.  Elnora did it!  She walked in and took
+things right out of our hands.  All Kate had to do was to
+enjoy having it go her way, and she was cute enough to
+put in a few questions that sort of guided Elnora.  But I
+don't know, Wesley.  This thing makes me think, too. 
+S'pose we'd taken Elnora when she was a baby, and we'd
+heaped on her all the love we can't on our own, and we'd
+coddled, petted, and shielded her, would she have made
+the woman that living alone, learning to think for herself,
+and taking all the knocks Kate Comstock could give, have
+made of her?"
+
+"You bet your life!" cried Wesley, warmly.  "Loving anybody
+don't hurt them.  We wouldn't have done anything but love her. 
+You can't hurt a child loving it.  She'd have learned to work,
+to study, and grown into a woman with us, without suffering
+like a poor homeless dog."
+
+"But you don't see the point, Wesley.  She would have
+grown into a fine woman with us; but as we would have
+raised her, would her heart ever have known the world as it
+does now?  Where's the anguish, Wesley, that child can't
+comprehend?  Seeing what she's seen of her mother hasn't
+hardened her.  She can understand any mother's sorrow. 
+Living life from the rough side has only broadened her. 
+Where's the girl or boy burning with shame, or struggling
+to find a way, that will cross Elnora's path and not get
+a lift from her?  She's had the knocks, but there'll never
+be any of the thing you call `false pride' in her.  I guess
+we better keep out.  Maybe Kate Comstock knows what she's doing. 
+Sure as you live, Elnora has grown bigger on knocks than she
+would on love."
+
+"I don't s'pose there ever was a very fine point to
+anything but I missed it," said Wesley, "because I am
+blunt, rough, and have no book learning to speak of. 
+Since you put it into words I see what you mean, but it's
+dinged hard on Elnora, just the same.  And I don't keep out. 
+I keep watching closer than ever.  I got my slap in the
+face, but if I don't miss my guess, Kate Comstock learned
+her lesson, same as I did.  She learned that I was in
+earnest, that I would haul her to court if she didn't
+loosen up a bit, and she'll loosen.  You see if she doesn't. 
+It may come hard, and the hinges creak, but she'll fix
+Elnora decent after this, if Elnora doesn't prove that she
+can fix herself.  As for me, I found out that what I was
+doing was as much for myself as for Elnora.  I wanted her
+to take those things from us, and love us for giving them. 
+It didn't work, and but for you, I'd messed the whole
+thing and stuck like a pig in crossing a bridge.  But you
+helped me out; Elnora's got the clothes, and by morning,
+maybe I won't grudge Kate the only laugh she's had in
+sixteen years.  You been showing me the way quite a
+spell now, ain't you, Maggie?"
+
+In her attic Elnora lighted two candles, set them on her
+little table, stacked the books, and put away the
+precious clothes.  How lovingly she hung the hat and umbrella,
+folded the raincoat, and spread the new dress over a chair. 
+She fingered the ribbons, and tried to smooth the creases
+from them.  She put away the hose neatly folded, touched
+the handkerchiefs, and tried the belt.  Then she slipped
+into her white nightdress, shook down her hair that it
+might become thoroughly dry, set a chair before the table,
+and reverently opened one of the books.  A stiff draught
+swept the attic, for it stretched the length of the cabin,
+and had a window in each end.  Elnora arose and going to the
+east window closed it.  She stood for a minute looking at
+the stars, the sky, and the dark outline of the straggling
+trees of the rapidly dismantling Limberlost.  In the region
+of her case a tiny point of light flashed and disappeared. 
+Elnora straightened and wondered.  Was it wise to leave
+her precious money there?  The light flashed once more,
+wavered a few seconds, and died out.  The girl waited. 
+She did not see it again, so she turned to her books.
+
+In the Limberlost the hulking figure of a man sneaked
+down the trail.
+
+"The Bird Woman was at Freckles's room this evening,"
+he muttered.  "Wonder what for?"
+
+He left the trail, entered the enclosure still distinctly
+outlined, and approached the case.  The first point of light
+flashed from the tiny electric lamp on his vest.  He took
+a duplicate key from his pocket, felt for the padlock and
+opened it.  The door swung wide.  The light flashed the
+second time.  Swiftly his glance swept the interior.
+
+"'Bout a fourth of her moths gone.  Elnora must
+have been with the Bird Woman and given them to her."
+Then he stood tense.  His keen eyes discovered the
+roll of bills hastily thrust back in the bottom of the case. 
+He snatched them up, shut off the light, relocked the
+case by touch, and swiftly went down the trail.  Every few
+seconds he paused and listened intently.  Just as he
+reached the road, a second figure approached him.
+
+"Is it you, Pete?" came the whispered question.
+
+"Yes," said the first man.
+
+"I was coming down to take a peep, when I saw your
+flash," he said.  "I heard the Bird Woman had been at
+the case to-day.  Anything doing?"
+
+"Not a thing," said Pete.  "She just took away about
+a fourth of the moths.  Probably had the Comstock girl
+getting them for her.  Heard they were together. 
+Likely she'll get the rest to-morrow.  Ain't picking
+gettin' bare these days?"
+
+"Well, I should say so," said the second man, turning
+back in disgust.  "Coming home, now?"
+
+"No, I am going down this way," answered Pete,
+for his eyes caught the gleam from the window of the
+Comstock cabin, and he had a desire to learn why Elnora's
+attic was lighted at that hour.
+
+He slouched down the road, occasionally feeling the
+size of the roll he had not taken time to count.
+
+The attic was too long, the light too near the other
+end, and the cabin stood much too far back from the road. 
+He could see nothing although he climbed the fence
+and walked back opposite the window.  He knew
+Mrs. Comstock was probably awake, and that she
+sometimes went to the swamp behind her home at night. 
+At times a cry went up from that locality that paralyzed
+any one near, or sent them fleeing as if for life.  He did
+not care to cross behind the cabin.  He returned to the
+road, passed, and again climbed the fence.  Opposite the
+west window he could see Elnora.  She sat before
+a small table reading from a book between two candles. 
+Her hair fell in a bright sheen around her, and with one
+hand she lightly shook, and tossed it as she studied. 
+The man stood out in the night and watched.
+
+For a long time a leaf turned at intervals and the
+hair-drying went on.  The man drew nearer.  The picture
+grew more beautiful as he approached.  He could not
+see so well as he desired, for the screen was of white
+mosquito netting, and it angered him.  He cautiously
+crept closer.  The elevation shut off his view.  Then he
+remembered the large willow tree shading the well and
+branching across the window fit the west end of the cabin. 
+From childhood Elnora had stepped from the sill to a limb
+and slid down the slanting trunk of the tree.  He reached
+it and noiselessly swung himself up.  Three steps out
+on the big limb the man shuddered.  He was within a
+few feet of the girl.
+
+He could see the throb of her breast under its thin
+covering and smell the fragrance of the tossing hair. 
+He could see the narrow bed with its pieced calico cover,
+the whitewashed walls with gay lithographs, and every
+crevice stuck full of twigs with dangling cocoons. 
+There were pegs for the few clothes, the old chest,
+the little table, the two chairs, the uneven floor covered
+with rag rugs and braided corn husk.  But nothing was worth
+a glance except the perfect face and form within reach by
+one spring through the rotten mosquito bar.  He gripped
+the limb above that on which he stood, licked his lips,
+and breathed through his throat to be sure he was making
+no sound.  Elnora closed the book and laid it aside. 
+She picked up a towel, and turning the gathered ends of
+her hair rubbed them across it, and dropping the towel on
+her lap, tossed the hair again.  Then she sat in deep thought. 
+By and by words began to come softly.  Near as he was
+the man could not hear at first.  He bent closer and
+listened intently.
+
+"--ever could be so happy," murmured the soft voice. 
+"The dress is so pretty, such shoes, the coat, and everything. 
+I won't have to be ashamed again, not ever again,
+for the Limberlost is full of precious moths, and
+I always can collect them.  The Bird Woman will buy
+more to-morrow, and the next day, and the next.  When they
+are all gone, I can spend every minute gathering
+cocoons, and hunting other things I can sell.  Oh, thank
+God, for my precious, precious money.  Why, I didn't
+pray in vain after all!  I thought when I asked the Lord
+to hide me, there in that big hall, that He wasn't doing
+it, because I wasn't covered from sight that instant. 
+But I'm hidden now, I feel that."  Elnora lifted her eyes
+to the beams above her.  "I don't know much about praying
+properly," she muttered, "but I do thank you, Lord, for
+hiding me in your own time and way."
+
+Her face was so bright that it shone with a white radiance. 
+Two big tears welled from her eyes, and rolled down her
+smiling cheeks.  "Oh, I do feel that you have hidden me,"
+she breathed.  Then she blew out the lights, and the little
+wooden bed creaked under her weight.
+
+Pete Corson dropped from the limb and found his way
+to the road.  He stood still a long time, then started back
+to the Limberlost.  A tiny point of light flashed in the
+region of the case.  He stopped with an oath.
+
+"Another hound trying to steal from a girl," he exclaimed. 
+"But it's likely he thinks if he gets anything it will be
+from a woman who can afford it, as I did."
+
+He went on, but beside the fences, and very cautiously. 
+
+"Swamp seems to be alive to-night," he muttered. 
+"That's three of us out."
+
+He entered a deep place at the northwest corner, sat
+on the ground and taking a pencil from his pocket, he
+tore a leaf from a little notebook, and laboriously wrote
+a few lines by the light he carried.  Then he went back
+to the region of the case and waited.  Before his eyes
+swept the vision of the slender white creature with
+tossing hair.  He smiled, and worshipped it, until a
+distant rooster faintly announced dawn.
+
+Then he unlocked the case again, and replaced the
+money, laid the note upon it, and went back to
+concealment, where he remained until Elnora came down the
+trail in the morning, appearing very lovely in her new
+dress and hat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA RECEIVES A WARNING,
+AND BILLY APPEARS ON THE SCENE
+
+
+It would be difficult to describe how happy Elnora
+was that morning as she hurried through her work,
+bathed and put on the neat, dainty gingham dress,
+and the tan shoes.  She had a struggle with her hair. 
+It crinkled, billowed, and shone, and she could
+not avoid seeing the becoming frame it made around
+her face.  But in deference to her mother's feelings the
+girl set her teeth, and bound her hair closely to her head
+with a shoe-string.  "Not to be changed at the case,"
+she told herself.
+
+That her mother was watching she was unaware.  Just as
+she picked up the beautiful brown ribbon Mrs. Comstock spoke.
+
+"You had better let me tie that.  You can't reach
+behind yourself and do it right."
+
+Elnora gave a little gasp.  Her mother never before
+had proposed to do anything for the girl that by any
+possibility she could do herself.  Her heart quaked at
+the thought of how her mother would arrange that bow,
+but Elnora dared not refuse.  The offer was too precious. 
+It might never be made again.
+
+"Oh thank you!" said the girl, and sitting down she
+held out the ribbon.
+
+Her mother stood back and looked at her critically.
+
+"You haven't got that like Mag Sinton had it last
+night," she announced.  "You little idiot!  You've tried
+to plaster it down to suit me, and you missed it.  I liked
+it away better as Mag fixed it, after I saw it.  You didn't
+look so peeled."
+
+"Oh mother, mother!" laughed Elnora, with a half
+sob in her voice.
+
+"Hold still, will you?" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "You'll be
+late, and I haven't packed your dinner yet."
+
+She untied the string and shook out the hair.  It rose
+with electricity and clung to her fingers and hands.  Mrs.
+Comstock jumped back as if bitten.  She knew that touch. 
+Her face grew white, and her eyes angry.
+
+"Tie it yourself," she said shortly, "and then I'll put
+on the ribbon.  But roll it back loose like Mag did. 
+It looked so pretty that way."
+
+Almost fainting Elnora stood before the glass, divided
+off the front parts of her hair, and rolled them as Mrs.
+Sinton had done; tied it at the nape of her neck, then sat
+while her mother arranged the ribbon.
+
+"If I pull it down till it comes tight in these creases
+where she had it, it will be just right, won't it?" queried
+Mrs. Comstock, and the amazed Elnora stammered
+
+"Yes."
+
+When she looked in the glass the bow was perfectly
+tied, and how the gold tone of the brown did match the
+lustre of the shining hair!  "That's pretty," commented
+Mrs. Comstock's soul, but her stiff lips had said all that
+could be forced from them for once.  Just then Wesley
+Sinton came to the door.
+
+"Good morning," he cried heartily.  "Elnora, you
+look a picture!  My, but you're sweet!  If any of the
+city boys get sassy you tell your Uncle Wesley, and
+he'll horsewhip them.  Here's your Christmas present
+from me."  He handed Elnora the leather lunch box, with
+her name carved across the strap in artistic lettering.
+
+"Oh Uncle Wesley!" was all Elnora could say.
+
+"Your Aunt Maggie filled it for me for a starter," he said. 
+"Now, if you are ready, I'm going to drive past your way
+and you can ride almost to Onabasha with me, and save
+the new shoes that much."
+
+Elnora was staring at the box.  "Oh I hope it isn't
+impolite to open it before you," she said.  "I just feel
+as if I must see inside."
+
+"Don't you stand on formality with the neighbours,"
+laughed Sinton.  "Look in your box if you want to!"
+
+Elnora slipped the strap and turned back the lid.
+
+This disclosed the knife, fork, napkin, and spoon, the
+milk flask, and the interior packed with dainty sandwiches
+wrapped in tissue paper, and the little compartments for
+meat, salad, and the custard cup.
+
+"Oh mother!" cried Elnora.  "Oh mother, isn't it fine? 
+What made you think of it, Uncle Wesley?  How will I ever
+thank you?  No one will have a finer lunch box than I. 
+Oh I do thank you!  That's the nicest gift I ever had. 
+How I love Christmas in September!"
+
+"It's a mighty handy thing," assented Mrs. Comstock,
+taking in every detail with sharp eyes.  "I guess you are
+glad now you went and helped Mag and Wesley when you
+could, Elnora?"
+
+"Deedy, yes," laughed Elnora, "and I'm going again first
+time they have a big day if I stay from school to do it."
+
+"You'll do no such thing!" said the delighted Sinton. 
+"Come now, if you're going!"
+
+"If I ride, can you spare me time to run into the swamp
+to my box a minute?" asked Elnora.
+
+The light she had seen the previous night troubled her.
+
+"Sure," said Wesley largely.  So they drove away and
+left a white-faced woman watching them from the door,
+her heart a little sorer than usual.
+
+"I'd give a pretty to hear what he'll say to her!" she
+commented bitterly.  "Always sticking in, always doing
+things I can't ever afford.  Where on earth did he get that
+thing and what did it cost?"
+
+Then she entered the cabin and began the day's work,
+but mingled with the brooding bitterness of her soul was
+the vision of a sweet young face, glad with a gladness
+never before seen on it, and over and over she repeated: 
+"I wonder what he'll say to her!"
+
+What he said was that she looked as fresh and sweet as a
+posy, and to be careful not to step in the mud or scratch
+her shoes when she went to the case.
+
+Elnora found her key and opened the door.  Not where
+she had placed it, but conspicuously in front lay her little
+heap of bills, and a crude scrawl of writing beside it. 
+Elnora picked up the note in astonishment.
+
+
+DERE ELNORY,
+
+the lord amighty is hiding you all right done you ever dout it this
+money of yourn was took for some time las nite but it is returned with
+intres for god sake done ever come to the swamp at nite or late evnin
+or mornin or far in any time sompin worse an you know could git you
+
+                                                  A FREND.
+
+
+Elnora began to tremble.  She hastily glanced around. 
+The damp earth before the case had been trodden by
+large, roughly shod feet.  She caught up the money and
+the note, thrust them into her guimpe, locked the case,
+and ran to the road.
+
+She was so breathless and her face so white Sinton noticed it.
+
+"What in the world's the matter, Elnora?" he asked.
+
+"I am half afraid!" she panted.
+
+"Tut, tut, child!" said Wesley Sinton.  "Nothing in
+the world to be afraid of.  What happened?"
+
+"Uncle Wesley," said Elnora, "I had more money than I
+brought home last night, and I put it in my case.  Some one
+has been there.  The ground is all trampled, and they
+left this note."
+
+"And took your money, I'll wager," said Sinton angrily.
+
+"No," answered Elnora.  "Read the note, and oh
+Uncle Wesley, tell me what it means!"
+
+Sinton's face was a study.  "I don't know what it
+means,"  he said.  "Only one thing is clear.  It means
+some beast who doesn't really want to harm you has got
+his eye on you, and he is telling you plain as he can, not
+to give him a chance.  You got to keep along the roads,
+in the open, and not let the biggest moth that ever flew
+toll you out of hearing of us, or your mother.  It means
+that, plain and distinct."
+
+"Just when I can sell them!  Just when everything is so
+lovely on account of them!  I can't!  I can't stay away
+from the swamp.  The Limberlost is going to buy the books,
+the clothes, pay the tuition, and even start a college fund. 
+I just can't!"
+
+"You've got to," said Sinton.  "This is plain enough. 
+You go far in the swamp at your own risk, even in daytime."
+
+"Uncle Wesley," said the girl, "last night before I went
+to bed, I was so happy I tried to pray, and I thanked God
+for hiding me `under the shadow of His wing.'  But how
+in the world could any one know it?"
+
+Wesley Sinton's heart leaped in his breast.  His face
+was whiter than the girl's now.
+
+"Were you praying out loud, honey?" he almost whispered.
+
+"I might have said words," answered Elnora.  "I know
+I do sometimes.  I've never had any one to talk with,
+and I've played with and talked to myself all my life. 
+You've caught me at it often, but it always makes mother
+angry when she does.  She says it's silly.  I forget
+and do it, when I'm alone.  But Uncle Wesley, if I said
+anything last night, you know it was the merest whisper,
+because I'd have been so afraid of waking mother. 
+Don't you see?  I sat up late, and studied two lessons."
+
+Sinton was steadying himself "I'll stop and examine
+the case as I come back," he said.  "Maybe I can find
+some clue.  That other--that was just accidental.  It's a
+common expression.  All the preachers use it.  If I tried
+to pray, that would be the very first thing I'd say."
+
+The colour returned to Elnora's face.
+
+"Did you tell your mother about this money, Elnora?"
+he asked.
+
+"No, I didn't," said Elnora.  "It's dreadful not to, but
+I was afraid.  You see they are clearing the swamp so fast. 
+Every year it grows more difficult to find things, and
+Indian stuff becomes scarcer.  I want to graduate, and
+that's four years unless I can double on the course. 
+That means twenty dollars tuition each year, and new books,
+and clothes.  There won't ever be so much at one time
+again, that I know.  I just got to hang to my money.  I was
+afraid to tell her, for fear she would want it for taxes,
+and she really must sell a tree or some cattle for that,
+mustn't she, Uncle Wesley?"
+
+"On your life, she must!" said Wesley.  "You put your
+little wad in the bank all safe, and never mention it
+to a living soul.  It doesn't seem right, but your case
+is peculiar.  Every word you say is a true word.  Each year
+you will find less in the swamp, and things everywhere will
+be scarcer.  If you ever get a few dollars ahead, that can start
+your college fund.  You know you are going to college, Elnora!"
+
+"Of course I am," said Elnora.  "I settled that as soon
+as I knew what a college was.  I will put all my money in
+the bank, except what I owe you.  I'll pay that now."
+
+"If your arrows are heavy," said Wesley, "I'll drive on
+to Onabasha with you."
+
+"But they are not.  Half of them were nicked, and this
+little box held all the good ones.  It's so surprising how
+many are spoiled when you wash them."
+
+"What does he pay?"
+
+"Ten cents for any common perfect one, fifty for revolvers,
+a dollar for obsidian, and whatever is right for enormous
+big ones."
+
+"Well, that sounds fair," said Sinton.  "You can come
+down Saturday and wash the stuff at our house, and I'll
+take it in when we go marketing in the afternoon."
+
+Elnora jumped from the carriage.  She soon found that
+with her books, her lunch box, and the points she had a
+heavy load.  She had almost reached the bridge crossing
+the culvert when she heard distressed screams of a child. 
+Across an orchard of the suburbs came a small boy, after
+him a big dog, urged by a man in the background. 
+Elnora's heart was with the small fleeing figure in any
+event whatever.  She dropped her load on the bridge,
+and with practised hand flung a stone at the dog. 
+The beast curled double with a howl.  The boy reached
+the fence, and Elnora was there to help him over.  As he
+touched the top she swung him to the ground, but he clung
+to her, clasping her tightly, sobbing with fear. 
+Elnora helped him to the bridge, and sat with him in her arms. 
+For a time his replies to her questions were indistinct, but
+at last he became quieter and she could understand.
+
+He was a mite of a boy, nothing but skin-covered bones,
+his burned, freckled face in a mortar of tears and dust, his
+clothing unspeakably dirty, one great toe in a festering
+mass from a broken nail, and sores all over the visible
+portions of the small body.
+
+"You won't let the mean old thing make his dog get me!" he wailed.
+
+"Indeed no," said Elnora, holding him closely.
+
+"You wouldn't set a dog on a boy for just taking a few
+old apples when you fed 'em to pigs with a shovel every
+day, would you?"
+
+"No, I would not," said Elnora hotly.
+
+"You'd give a boy all the apples he wanted, if he hadn't
+any breakfast, and was so hungry he was all twisty inside,
+wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes, I would," said Elnora.
+
+"If you had anything to eat you would give me something
+right now, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Elnora.  "There's nothing but just stones in
+the package.  But my dinner is in that case.  I'll gladly divide."
+
+She opened the box.  The famished child gave a little
+cry and reached both hands.  Elnora caught them back.
+
+"Did you have any supper?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Any dinner yesterday?"
+
+"An apple and some grapes I stole."
+
+"Whose boy are you?"
+
+"Old Tom Billings's."
+
+"Why doesn't your father get you something to eat?"
+
+"He does most days, but he's drunk now."
+
+"Hush, you must not!" said Elnora.  "He's your father!"
+
+"He's spent all the money to get drunk, too," said the
+boy, "and Jimmy and Belle are both crying for breakfast. 
+I'd a got out all right with an apple for myself, but I tried
+to get some for them and the dog got too close.  Say, you
+can throw, can't you?"
+
+"Yes," admitted Elnora.  She poured half the milk
+into the cup.  "Drink this," she said, holding it to him.
+
+The boy gulped the milk and swore joyously, gripping
+the cup with shaking fingers.
+
+"Hush!" cried Elnora.  "That's dreadful!"
+
+"What's dreadful?"
+
+"To say such awful words."
+
+"Huh! pa says worser 'an that every breath he draws."
+
+Elnora saw that the child was older than she had thought. 
+He might have been forty judging by his hard, unchildish expression.
+
+"Do you want to be like your father?"
+
+"No, I want to be like you.  Couldn't a angel be
+prettier 'an you.  Can I have more milk?"
+
+Elnora emptied the flask.  The boy drained the cup. 
+He drew a breath of satisfaction as he gazed into her face.
+
+"You wouldn't go off and leave your little boy, would
+you?" he asked.
+
+"Did some one go away and leave you?"
+
+"Yes, my mother went off and left me, and left Jimmy
+and Belle, too," said the boy.  "You wouldn't leave
+your little boy, would you?"
+
+"No."
+
+The boy looked eagerly at the box.  Elnora lifted a
+sandwich and uncovered the fried chicken.  The boy
+gasped with delight.
+
+"Say, I could eat the stuff in the glass and the other
+box and carry the bread and the chicken to Jimmy and
+Belle," he offered.
+
+Elnora silently uncovered the custard with preserved
+cherries on top and handed it and the spoon to the child. 
+Never did food disappear faster.  The salad went next,
+and a sandwich and half a chicken breast followed.
+
+"I better leave the rest for Jimmy and Belle," he
+said, "they're 'ist fightin' hungry."
+
+Elnora gave him the remainder of the carefully prepared lunch. 
+The boy clutched it and ran with a sidewise hop like a
+wild thing.  She covered the dishes and cup, polished the
+spoon, replaced it, and closed the case.  She caught her
+breath in a tremulous laugh.
+
+"If Aunt Margaret knew that, she'd never forgive me,"
+she said.  "It seems as if secrecy is literally forced upon
+me, and I hate it.  What shall I do for lunch?  I'll have to
+sell my arrows and keep enough money for a restaurant sandwich."
+
+So she walked hurriedly into town, sold her points at a
+good price, deposited her funds, and went away with a
+neat little bank book and the note from the Limberlost
+carefully folded inside.  Elnora passed down the hall that
+morning, and no one paid the slightest attention to her. 
+The truth was she looked so like every one else that she
+was perfectly inconspicuous.  But in the coat room there
+were members of her class.  Surely no one intended it,
+but the whisper was too loud.
+
+"Look at the girl from the Limberlost in the clothes that
+woman gave her!"
+
+Elnora turned on them.  "I beg your pardon," she said
+unsteadily, "I couldn't help hearing that!  No one gave
+me these clothes.  I paid for them myself."
+
+Some one muttered, "Pardon me," but incredulous faces
+greeted her.
+
+Elnora felt driven.  "Aunt Margaret selected them, and she
+meant to give them to me," she explained, "but I wouldn't
+take them.  I paid for them myself."  There was silence.
+
+"Don't you believe me?" panted Elnora.
+
+"Really, it is none of our affair," said another girl. 
+"Come on, let's go."
+
+Elnora stepped before the girl who had spoken.  "You have
+made this your affair," she said, "because you told a
+thing which was not true.  No one gave me what I am wearing. 
+I paid for my clothes myself with money I earned selling
+moths to the Bird Woman.  I just came from the bank where
+I deposited what I did not use.  Here is my credit." 
+Elnora drew out and offered the little red book. 
+"Surely you will believe that," she said.
+
+"Why of course," said the girl who first had spoken. 
+"We met such a lovely woman in Brownlee's store, and she
+said she wanted our help to buy some things for a girl,
+and that's how we came to know."
+
+"Dear Aunt Margaret," said Elnora, "it was like her to
+ask you.  Isn't she splendid?"
+
+"She is indeed," chorused the girls.  Elnora set down her
+lunch box and books, unpinned her hat, hanging it beside
+the others, and taking up the books she reached to set the
+box in its place and dropped it.  With a little cry she
+snatched at it and caught the strap on top.  That pulled
+from the fastening, the cover unrolled, the box fell away
+as far as it could, two porcelain lids rattled on the floor,
+and the one sandwich rolled like a cartwheel across the room. 
+Elnora lifted a ghastly face.  For once no one laughed. 
+She stood an instant staring.
+
+"It seems to be my luck to be crucified at every point of
+the compass," she said at last.  "First two days you
+thought I was a pauper, now you will think I'm a fraud. 
+All of you will believe I bought an expensive box, and then
+was too poor to put anything but a restaurant sandwich in it. 
+You must stop till I prove to you that I'm not."
+
+Elnora gathered up the lids, and kicked the sandwich
+into a corner.
+
+"I had milk in that bottle, see!  And custard in the cup. 
+There was salad in the little box, fried chicken in the large
+one, and nut sandwiches in the tray.  You can see the
+crumbs of all of them.  A man set a dog on a child who was
+so starved he was stealing apples.  I talked with him, and
+I thought I could bear hunger better, he was such a little boy,
+so I gave him my lunch, and got the sandwich at the restaurant."
+
+Elnora held out the box.  The girls were laughing by
+that time.  "You goose," said one, "why didn't you give
+him the money, and save your lunch?"
+
+"He was such a little fellow, and he really was hungry,"
+said Elnora.  "I often go without anything to eat at noon
+in the fields and woods, and never think of it."
+
+She closed the box and set it beside the lunches of other
+country pupils.  While her back was turned, into the
+room came the girl of her encounter on the first day,
+walked to the rack, and with an exclamation of approval
+took down Elnora's hat.
+
+"Just the thing I have been wanting!" she said.  "I never
+saw such beautiful quills in all my life.  They match
+my new broadcloth to perfection.  I've got to have that
+kind of quills for my hat.  I never saw the like!  Whose is
+it, and where did it come from?"
+
+No one said a word, for Elnora's question, the reply, and
+her answer, had been repeated.  Every one knew that the
+Limberlost girl had come out ahead and Sadie Reed had
+not been amiable, when the little flourish had been added
+to Elnora's name in the algebra class.  Elnora's swift
+glance was pathetic, but no one helped her.  Sadie Reed
+glanced from the hat to the faces around her and wondered.
+
+"Why, this is the Freshman section, whose hat is it?"
+she asked again, this time impatiently.
+
+"That's the tassel of the cornstock," said Elnora with a
+forced laugh.
+
+The response was genuine.  Every one shouted.  Sadie Reed
+blushed, but she laughed also.
+
+"Well, it's beautiful," she said, "especially the quills. 
+They are exactly what I want.  I know I don't deserve
+any kindness from you, but I do wish you would tell me
+at whose store you found those quills."
+
+"Gladly!" said Elnora.  You can't buy quills like those
+at a store.  They are from a living bird.  Phoebe Simms
+gathers them in her orchard as her peacocks shed them. 
+They are wing quills from the males."
+
+Then there was perfect silence.  How was Elnora to
+know that not a girl there would have told that?
+
+"I haven't a doubt but I can get you some," she offered. 
+"She gave Aunt Margaret a large bunch, and those are part
+of them.  I am quite sure she has more, and would spare some."
+
+Sadie Reed laughed shortly.  "You needn't trouble,"
+she said, "I was fooled.  I thought they were expensive quills. 
+I wanted them for a twenty-dollar velvet toque to match my
+new suit.  If they are gathered from the ground, really,
+I couldn't use them."
+
+"Only in spots!" said Elnora.  "They don't just cover
+the earth.  Phoebe Simms's peacocks are the only ones
+within miles of Onabasha, and they moult but once a year. 
+If your hat cost only twenty dollars, it's scarcely good
+enough for those quills.  You see, the Almighty made and
+coloured those Himself; and He puts the same kind on
+Phoebe Simms's peacocks that He put on the head of the
+family in the forests of Ceylon, away back in the beginning. 
+Any old manufactured quill from New York or Chicago
+will do for your little twenty-dollar hat.  You should have
+something infinitely better than that to be worthy of quills
+that are made by the Creator."
+
+How those girls did laugh!  One of them walked with
+Elnora to the auditorium, sat beside her during exercises,
+and tried to talk whenever she dared, to keep Elnora
+from seeing the curious and admiring looks bent upon her.
+
+For the brown-eyed boy whistled, and there was pantomime
+of all sorts going on behind Elnora's back that day. 
+Happy with her books, no one knew how much she saw,
+and from her absorption in her studies it was evident she
+cared too little to notice.
+
+After school she went again to the home of the Bird
+Woman, and together they visited the swamp and carried
+away more specimens.  This time Elnora asked the Bird
+Woman to keep the money until noon of the next day,
+when she would call for it and have it added to her
+bank account.  She slowly walked home, for the visit to
+the swamp had brought back full force the experience of
+the morning.  Again and again she examined the crude little
+note, for she did not know what it meant, yet it bred
+vague fear.  The only thing of which Elnora knew herself
+afraid was her mother; when with wild eyes and ears deaf to
+childish pleading, she sometimes lost control of herself in
+the night and visited the pool where her husband had sunk
+before her, calling his name in unearthly tones and begging
+of the swamp to give back its dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK INDULGES IN "FRILLS,"
+AND BILLY REAPPEARS
+
+
+It was Wesley Sinton who really wrestled with
+Elnora's problem while he drove about his business. 
+He was not forced to ask himself what it meant; he knew. 
+The old Corson gang was still holding together. 
+Elder members who had escaped the law had been joined by
+a younger brother of Jack's, and they met in the thickest
+of the few remaining fast places of the swamp to drink,
+gamble, and loaf.  Then suddenly, there would be a
+robbery in some country house where a farmer that day had
+sold his wheat or corn and not paid a visit to the bank;
+or in some neighbouring village.
+
+The home of Mrs. Comstock and Elnora adjoined the swamp. 
+Sinton's land lay next, and not another residence or man
+easy to reach in case of trouble.  Whoever wrote that
+note had some human kindness in his breast, but the fact
+stood revealed that he feared his strength if Elnora were
+delivered into his hands.  Where had he been the previous
+night when he heard that prayer?  Was that the first time
+he had been in such proximity?  Sinton drove fast,
+for he wished to reach the swamp before Elnora and the
+Bird Woman would go there.
+
+At almost four he came to the case, and dropping on his
+knees studied the ground, every sense alert.  He found
+two or three little heel prints.  Those were made by
+Elnora or the Bird Woman.  What Sinton wanted to learn
+was whether all the remainder were the footprints of
+one man.  It was easily seen, they were not.  There were
+deep, even tracks made by fairly new shoes, and others
+where a well-worn heel cut deeper on the inside of
+the print than at the outer edge.  Undoubtedly some of
+Corson's old gang were watching the case, and the visits
+of the women to it.  There was no danger that any one
+would attack the Bird Woman.  She never went to the
+swamp at night, and on her trips in the daytime, every one
+knew that she carried a revolver, understood how to use it,
+and pursued her work in a fearless manner.
+
+Elnora, prowling around the swamp and lured into the
+interior by the flight of moths and butterflies; Elnora,
+without father, money, or friends save himself, to defend
+her--Elnora was a different proposition.  For this to
+happen just when the Limberlost was bringing the very
+desire of her heart to the girl, it was too bad.
+
+Sinton was afraid for her, yet he did not want to add
+the burden of fear to Katharine Comstock's trouble, or to
+disturb the joy of Elnora in her work.  He stopped at the
+cabin and slowly went up the walk.  Mrs. Comstock was
+sitting on the front steps with some sewing.  The work
+seemed to Sinton as if she might be engaged in putting a
+tuck in a petticoat.  He thought of how Margaret had
+shortened Elnora's dress to the accepted length for girls of
+her age, and made a mental note of Mrs. Comstock's occupation.
+
+She dropped her work on her lap, laid her hands on it
+and looked into his face with a sneer.
+
+"You didn't let any grass grow under your feet," she said.
+
+Sinton saw her white, drawn face and comprehended.
+
+"I went to pay a debt and see about this opening of the
+ditch, Kate."
+
+"You said you were going to prosecute me."
+
+"Good gracious, Kate!" cried Sinton.  "Is that what
+you have been thinking all day?  I told you before I left
+yesterday that I would not need do that.  And I won't! 
+We can't afford to quarrel over Elnora.  She's all we've got. 
+Now that she has proved that if you don't do just
+what I think you ought by way of clothes and schooling,
+she can take care of herself, I put that out of my head. 
+What I came to see you about is a kind of scare I've
+had to-day.  I want to ask you if you ever see anything
+about the swamp that makes you think the old Corson gang
+is still at work?"
+
+"Can't say that I do," said Mrs. Comstock.  "There's kind
+of dancing lights there sometimes, but I supposed it
+was just people passing along the road with lanterns. 
+Folks hereabout are none too fond of the swamp.  I hate
+it like death.  I've never stayed here a night in my
+life without Robert's revolver, clean and loaded, under
+my pillow, and the shotgun, same condition, by the bed. 
+I can't say that I'm afraid here at home.  I'm not.  I can
+take care of myself.  But none of the swamp for me!"
+
+"Well, I'm glad you are not afraid, Kate, because I
+must tell you something.  Elnora stopped at the case
+this morning, and somebody had been into it in the night."
+
+"Broke the lock?"
+
+"No.  Used a duplicate key.  To-day I heard there was
+a man here last night.  I want to nose around a little."
+
+Sinton went to the east end of the cabin and looked
+up at the window.  There was no way any one could
+have reached it without a ladder, for the logs were hewed
+and mortar filled the cracks even.  Then he went to the
+west end, the willow faced him as he turned the corner. 
+He examined the trunk carefully.  There was no mistake
+about small particles of black swamp muck adhering to
+the sides of the tree.  He reached the low branches and
+climbed the willow.  There was earth on the large limb
+crossing Elnora's window.  He stood on it, holding the
+branch as had been done the night before, and looked into
+the room.  He could see very little, but he knew that if
+it had been dark outside and sufficiently light for Elnora
+to study inside he could have seen vividly.  He brought
+his face close to the netting, and he could see the bed with
+its head to the east, at its foot the table with the candles
+and the chair before it, and then he knew where the man
+had been who had heard Elnora's prayer.
+
+Mrs. Comstock had followed around the corner and stood
+watching him.  "Do you think some slinking hulk was up
+there peekin' in at Elnora?" she demanded indignantly.
+
+"There is muck on the trunk, and plenty on the limb,"
+said Sinton.  "Hadn't you better get a saw and let me
+take this branch off?"
+
+"No, I hadn't," said Mrs. Comstock.  "First place,
+Elnora's climbed from that window on that limb all her
+life, and it's hers.  Second place, no one gets ahead of me
+after I've had warning.  Any crow that perches on that
+roost again will get its feathers somewhat scattered. 
+Look along the fence, there, and see if you can find
+where he came in."
+
+The place was easy to find as was a trail leading for
+some distance west of the cabin.
+
+"You just go home, and don't fret yourself," said
+Mrs. Comstock.  "I'll take care of this.  If you should
+hear the dinner bell at any time in the night you come down. 
+But I wouldn't say anything to Elnora.  She better
+keep her mind on her studies, if she's going to school."
+
+When the work was finished that night Elnora took
+her books and went to her room to prepare some lessons,
+but every few minutes she looked toward the swamp to
+see if there were lights near the case.  Mrs. Comstock
+raked together the coals in the cooking stove, got out
+the lunch box, and sitting down she studied it grimly. 
+At last she arose.
+
+"Wonder how it would do to show Mag Sinton a frill
+or two," she murmured.
+
+She went to her room, knelt before a big black-walnut
+chest and hunted through its contents until she found
+an old-fashioned cook book.  She tended the fire as she
+read and presently was in action.  She first sawed an
+end from a fragrant, juicy, sugar-cured ham and put
+it to cook.  Then she set a couple of eggs boiling, and
+after long hesitation began creaming butter and sugar
+in a crock.  An hour later the odour of the ham, mingled
+with some of the richest spices of "happy Araby," in a
+combination that could mean nothing save spice cake,
+crept up to Elnora so strongly that she lifted her head
+and sniffed amazedly.  She would have given all her
+precious money to have gone down and thrown her arms
+around her mother's neck, but she did not dare move.
+
+Mrs. Comstock was up early, and without a word
+handed Elnora the case as she left the next morning.
+
+"Thank you, mother," said Elnora, and went on her way.
+
+She walked down the road looking straight ahead until
+she came to the corner, where she usually entered
+the swamp.  She paused, glanced that way and smiled. 
+Then she turned and looked back.  There was no one
+coming in any direction.  She followed the road until
+well around the corner, then she stopped and sat on a
+grassy spot, laid her books beside her and opened the
+lunch box.  Last night's odours had in a measure prepared
+her for what she would see, but not quite.  She scarcely
+could believe her senses.  Half the bread compartment
+was filled with dainty sandwiches of bread and butter
+sprinkled with the yolk of egg and the remainder with three
+large slices of the most fragrant spice cake imaginable. 
+The meat dish contained shaved cold ham, of which she
+knew the quality, the salad was tomatoes and celery,
+and the cup held preserved pear, clear as amber. 
+There was milk in the bottle, two tissue-wrapped cucumber
+pickles in the folding drinking-cup, and a fresh napkin in
+the ring.  No lunch was ever daintier or more palatable;
+of that Elnora was perfectly sure.  And her mother had
+prepared it for her!  "She does love me!" cried the happy girl. 
+"Sure as you're born she loves me; only she hasn't found
+it out yet!"
+
+She touched the papers daintily, and smiled at the
+box as if it were a living thing.  As she began closing
+it a breath of air swept by, lifting the covering of
+the cake.  It was like an invitation, and breakfast was
+several hours away.  Elnora picked up a piece and ate it. 
+That cake tasted even better than it looked.  Then she
+tried a sandwich.  How did her mother come to think of
+making them that way.  They never had any at home. 
+She slipped out the fork, sampled the salad, and one-quarter
+of pear.  Then she closed the box and started down the
+road nibbling one of the pickles and trying to decide
+exactly how happy she was, but she could find no standard
+high enough for a measure.
+
+She was to go to the Bird Woman's after school for
+the last load from the case.  Saturday she would take
+the arrow points and specimens to the bank.  That would
+exhaust her present supplies and give her enough money
+ahead to pay for books, tuition, and clothes for at
+least two years.  She would work early and late
+gathering nuts.  In October she would sell all the ferns
+she could find.  She must collect specimens of all tree
+leaves before they fell, gather nests and cocoons later,
+and keep her eyes wide open for anything the grades could use. 
+She would see the superintendent that night about selling
+specimens to the ward buildings.  She must be ahead of
+any one else if she wanted to furnish these things.  So she
+approached the bridge.
+
+That it was occupied could be seen from a distance. 
+As she came up she found the small boy of yesterday
+awaiting her with a confident smile.
+
+"We brought you something!" he announced without greeting. 
+"This is Jimmy and Belle--and we brought you a present."
+
+He offered a parcel wrapped in brown paper.
+
+"Why, how lovely of you!" said Elnora.  "I supposed
+you had forgotten me when you ran away so fast yesterday."
+
+"Naw, I didn't forget you," said the boy.  "I wouldn't
+forget you, not ever!  Why, I was ist a-hurrying to take
+them things to Jimmy and Belle.  My they was glad!"
+
+Elnora glanced at the children.  They sat on the edge
+of the bridge, obviously clad in a garment each, very dirty
+and unkept, a little boy and a girl of about seven and nine. 
+Elnora's heart began to ache.
+
+"Say," said the boy.  "Ain't you going to look what
+we have gave you?"
+
+"I thought it wasn't polite to look before people,"
+answered Elnora.  "Of course, I will, if you would like
+to have me."
+
+Elnora opened the package.  She had been presented
+with a quarter of a stale loaf of baker's bread, and a
+big piece of ancient bologna.
+
+"But don't you want this yourselves?" she asked in surprise.
+
+"Gosh, no!  I mean ist no," said the boy.  "We always
+have it.  We got stacks this morning.  Pa's come out
+of it now, and he's so sorry he got more 'an ever we
+can eat.  Have you had any before?"
+
+"No," said Elnora, "I never did!"
+
+The boy's eyes brightened and the girl moved restlessly.
+
+"We thought maybe you hadn't," said the boy.  "First you
+ever have, you like it real well; but when you don't
+have anything else for a long time, years an' years, you
+git so tired."  He hitched at the string which held his
+trousers and watched Elnora speculatively.
+
+"I don't s'pose you'd trade what you got in that box
+for ist old bread and bologna now, would you?  Mebby you'd
+like it!  And I know, I ist know, what you got would
+taste like heaven to Jimmy and Belle.  They never had
+nothing like that!  Not even Belle, and she's most ten! 
+No, sir-ee, they never tasted things like you got!"
+
+It was in Elnora's heart to be thankful for even a taste
+in time, as she knelt on the bridge, opened the box and
+divided her lunch into three equal parts, the smaller boy
+getting most of the milk.  Then she told them it was
+school time and she must go.
+
+"Why don't you put your bread and bologna in the nice box?"
+asked the boy.
+
+"Of course," said Elnora.  "I didn't think."
+
+When the box was arranged to the children's satisfaction
+all of them accompanied Elnora to the corner where she
+turned toward the high school.
+
+"Billy," said Elnora, "I would like you much better if
+you were cleaner.  Surely, you have water!  Can't you
+children get some soap and wash yourselves?  Gentlemen are
+never dirty.  You want to be a gentleman, don't you?"
+
+"Is being clean all you have to do to be a gentleman?"
+
+"No," said Elnora.  "You must not say bad words, and
+you must be kind and polite to your sister."
+
+"Must Belle be kind and polite to me, else she ain't a lady?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then Belle's no lady!" said Billy succinctly.
+
+Elnora could say nothing more just then, and she bade
+them good-bye and started them home.
+
+"The poor little souls!" she mused.  "I think the Almighty
+put them in my way to show me real trouble.  I won't be
+likely to spend much time pitying myself while I can
+see them."   She glanced at the lunchbox.  "What on
+earth do I carry this for?  I never had anything that was
+so strictly ornamental!  One sure thing!  I can't take
+this stuff to the high school.  You never seem to know
+exactly what is going to happen to you while you are there."
+
+As if to provide a way out of her difficulty a big dog
+arose from a lawn, and came toward the gate wagging his tail. 
+"If those children ate the stuff, it can't possibly kill him!"
+thought Elnora, so she offered the bologna.  The dog
+accepted it graciously, and being a beast of pedigree
+he trotted around to a side porch and laid the bologna
+before his mistress.  The woman snatched it, screaming: 
+"Come, quick!  Some one is trying to poison Pedro!" 
+Her daughter came running from the house.  "Go see
+who is on the street.  Hurry!" cried the excited mother.
+
+Ellen Brownlee ran and looked.  Elnora was half a
+block away, and no one nearer.  Ellen called loudly, and
+Elnora stopped.  Ellen came running toward her.
+
+"Did you see any one give our dog something?" she
+cried as she approached.
+
+Elnora saw no escape.
+
+"I gave it a piece of bologna myself," she said.  "It was
+fit to eat.  It wouldn't hurt the dog."
+
+Ellen stood and looked at her.  "Of course, I didn't
+know it was your dog," explained Elnora.  "I had something
+I wanted to throw to some dog, and that one looked big
+enough to manage it."
+
+Ellen had arrived at her conclusions.  "Pass over that
+lunch box," she demanded.
+
+"I will not!" said Elnora.
+
+"Then I will have you arrested for trying to poison our
+dog," laughed the girl as she took the box.
+
+"One chunk of stale bread, one half mile of antique
+bologna contributed for dog feed; the remains of cake, salad
+and preserves in an otherwise empty lunch box.  One ham
+sandwich yesterday.  I think it's lovely you have the box. 
+Who ate your lunch to-day?"
+
+"Same," confessed Elnora, "but there were three of
+them this time."
+
+"Wait, until I run back and tell mother about the dog,
+and get my books."
+
+Elnora waited.  That morning she walked down the
+hall and into the auditorium beside one of the very nicest
+girls in Onabasha, and it was the fourth day.  But the
+surprise came at noon when Ellen insisted upon Elnora
+lunching at the Brownlee home, and convulsed her parents
+and family, and overwhelmed Elnora with a greatly magnified,
+but moderately accurate history of her lunch box.
+
+"Gee! but it's a box, daddy!" cried the laughing girl. 
+"It's carved leather and fastens with a strap that has her
+name on it.  Inside are trays for things all complete, and
+it bears evidence of having enclosed delicious food, but
+Elnora never gets any.  She's carried it two days now, and
+both times it has been empty before she reached school. 
+Isn't that killing?"
+
+"It is, Ellen, in more ways than one.  No girl is going
+to eat breakfast at six o'clock, walk three miles, and do
+good work without her lunch.  You can't tell me anything
+about that box.  I sold it last Monday night to Wesley
+Sinton, one of my good country customers.  He told me it
+was a present for a girl who was worthy of it, and I see he
+was right."
+
+"He's so good to me," said Elnora.  "Sometimes I look
+at him and wonder if a neighbour can be so kind to one,
+what a real father would be like.  I envy a girl with a
+father unspeakably."
+
+"You have cause," said Ellen Brownlee.  "A father is
+the very dearest person in the whole round world, except a
+mother, who is just a dear."  The girl, starting to pay
+tribute to her father, saw that she must include her mother,
+and said the thing before she remembered what Mrs. Sinton
+had told the girls in the store.  She stopped in dismay. 
+Elnora's face paled a trifle, but she smiled bravely.
+
+"Then I'm fortunate in having a mother," she said.
+
+Mr. Brownlee lingered at the table after the girls had
+excused themselves and returned to school.
+
+"There's a girl Ellen can't see too much of, in my
+opinion," he said.  "She is every inch a lady, and not a
+foolish notion or action about her.  I can't understand
+just what combination of circumstances produced her in
+this day."
+
+"It has been an unusual case of repression, for one thing. 
+She waits on her elders and thinks before she speaks,"
+said Mrs. Brownlee.
+
+"She's mighty pretty.  She looks so sound and wholesome,
+and she's neatly dressed."
+
+"Ellen says she was a fright the first two days.  Long brown
+calico dress almost touching the floor, and big,
+lumbering shoes.  Those Sinton people bought her clothes. 
+Ellen was in the store, and the woman stopped her crowd
+and asked them about their dresses.  She said the girl
+was not poor, but her mother was selfish and didn't
+care for her.  But Elnora showed a bank book the next
+day, and declared that she paid for the things herself,
+so the Sinton people must just have selected them. 
+There's something peculiar about it, but nothing wrong
+I am sure.  I'll encourage Ellen to ask her again."
+
+"I should say so, especially if she is going to keep on
+giving away her lunch."
+
+"She lunched with the Bird Woman one day this week."
+
+"She did!"
+
+"Yes, she lives out by the Limberlost.  You know the
+Bird Woman works there a great deal, and probably
+knows her that way.  I think the girl gathers specimens
+for her.  Ellen says she knows more than the teachers
+about any nature question that comes up, and she is going
+to lead all of them in mathematics, and make them work
+in any branch."
+
+When Elnora entered the coat room after having had
+luncheon with Ellen Brownlee there was such a difference
+in the atmosphere that she could feel it.
+
+"I am almost sorry I have these clothes," she said to Ellen.
+
+"In the name of sense, why?" cried the astonished girl.
+
+"Every one is so nice to me in them, it sets me to
+wondering if in time I could have made them be equally
+friendly in the others."
+
+Ellen looked at her introspectively.  "I believe you
+could," she announced at last.  "But it would have taken
+time and heartache, and your mind would have been less
+free to work on your studies.  No one is happy without
+friends, and I just simply can't study when I am unhappy."
+
+That night the Bird Woman made the last trip to the swamp. 
+Every specimen she possibly could use had been purchased
+at a fair price, and three additions had been made to the
+bank book, carrying the total a little past two hundred dollars. 
+There remained the Indian relics to sell on Saturday,
+and Elnora had secured the order to furnish material for
+nature work for the grades.  Life suddenly grew very full. 
+There was the most excitingly interesting work for every hour,
+and that work was to pay high school expenses and start the
+college fund.  There was one little rift in her joy. 
+All of it would have been so much better if she could have
+told her mother, and given the money into her keeping;
+but the struggle to get a start had been so terrible,
+Elnora was afraid to take the risk.  When she reached home,
+she only told her mother that the last of the things had
+been sold that evening.
+
+"I think," said Mrs. Comstock, "that we will ask Wesley
+to move that box over here back of the garden for you. 
+There you are apt to get tolled farther into the swamp
+than you intend to go, and you might mire or something. 
+There ought to be just the same things in our woods,
+and along our swampy places, as there are in the Limberlost. 
+Can't you hunt your stuff here?"
+
+"I can try," said Elnora.  "I don't know what I can
+find until I do.  Our woods are undisturbed, and there
+is a possibility they might be even better hunting than
+the swamp.  But I wouldn't have Freckles's case moved for
+the world.  He might come back some day, and not like it. 
+I've tried to keep his room the best I could, and taking out
+the box would make a big hole in one side of it.  Store boxes
+don't cost much.  I will have Uncle Wesley buy me one,
+and set it up wherever hunting looks the best, early in
+the spring.  I would feel safer at home."
+
+"Shall we do the work or have supper first?"
+
+"Let's do the work," said Elnora.  "I can't say that
+I'm hungry now.  Doesn't seem as if I ever could be
+hungry again with such a lunch.  I am quite sure no one
+carried more delicious things to eat than I."
+
+Mrs. Comstock was pleased.  "I put in a pretty good
+hunk of cake.  Did you divide it with any one?"
+
+"Why, yes, I did," admitted Elnora.
+
+"Who?"
+
+This was becoming uncomfortable.  "I ate the biggest
+piece myself," said Elnora, "and gave the rest to a couple
+of boys named Jimmy and Billy and a girl named Belle. 
+They said it was the very best cake they ever tasted in all
+their lives."
+
+Mrs. Comstock sat straight.  "I used to be a master
+hand at spice cake," she boasted.  "But I'm a little out
+of practice.  I must get to work again.  With the very
+weeds growing higher than our heads, we should raise
+plenty of good stuff to eat on this land, if we can't afford
+anything else but taxes."
+
+Elnora laughed and hurried up stairs to change her dress. 
+Margaret Sinton came that night bringing a beautiful blue
+one in its place, and carried away the other to launder.
+
+"Do you mean to say those dresses are to be washed
+every two days?" questioned Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"They have to be, to look fresh," replied Margaret. 
+"We want our girl sweet as a rose."
+
+"Well, of all things!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "Every two days! 
+Any girl who can't keep a dress clean longer than that is a
+dirty girl.  You'll wear the goods out and fade the colours
+with so much washing."
+
+"We'll have a clean girl, anyway."
+
+"Well, if you like the job you can have it," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"I don't mind the washing, but I'm so inconvenient with an iron."
+
+Elnora sat late that night working over her lessons. 
+The next morning she put on her blue dress and ribbon
+and in those she was a picture.  Mrs. Comstock caught
+her breath with a queer stirring around her heart, and
+looked twice to be sure of what she saw.  As Elnora
+gathered her books her mother silently gave her the lunch box.
+
+"Feels heavy," said Elnora gaily.  "And smelly!  Like as not
+I'll be called upon to divide again."
+
+"Then you divide!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "Eating is
+the one thing we don't have to economize on, Elnora. 
+Spite of all I can do food goes to waste in this soil
+every day.  If you can give some of those city children
+a taste of the real thing, why, don't be selfish."
+
+Elnora went down the road thinking of the city children
+with whom she probably would divide.  Of course,
+the bridge would be occupied again.  So she stopped and
+opened the box.
+
+"I don't want to be selfish," murmured Elnora, "but
+it really seems as if I can't give away this lunch. 
+If mother did not put love into it, she's substituted
+something that's likely to fool me."
+
+She almost felt her steps lagging as she approached
+the bridge.  A very hungry dog had been added to the trio
+of children.  Elnora loved all dogs, and as usual, this one
+came to her in friendliness.  The children said "Good morning!"
+with alacrity, and another paper parcel layconspicuous.
+
+"How are you this morning?" inquired Elnora.
+
+"All right!" cried the three, while the dog sniffed ravenously
+at the lunch box, and beat a perfect tattoo with his tail.
+
+"How did you like the bologna?" questioned Billy eagerly.
+
+"One of the girls took me to lunch at her home yesterday,"
+answered Elnora.
+
+Dawn broke beautifully over Billy's streaked face. 
+He caught the package and thrust it toward Elnora.
+
+"Then maybe you'd like to try the bologna to-day!"
+
+The dog leaped in glad apprehension of something, and
+Belle scrambled to her feet and took a step forward. 
+The look of famished greed in her eyes was more than Elnora
+could endure.  It was not that she cared for the food
+so much.  Good things to eat had been in abundance all
+her life.  She wanted with this lunch to try to absorb
+what she felt must be an expression of some sort from her
+mother, and if it were not a manifestation of love, she
+did not know what to think it.  But it was her mother
+who had said "be generous."  She knelt on the bridge. 
+"Keep back the dog!" she warned the elder boy.
+
+She opened the box and divided the milk between Billy
+and the girl.  She gave each a piece of cake leaving
+one and a sandwich.  Billy pressed forward eagerly, bitter
+disappointment on his face, and the elder boy forgot his charge.
+
+"Aw, I thought they'd be meat!" lamented Billy.
+
+Elnora could not endure that.
+
+"There is!" she said gladly.  "There is a little pigeon bird. 
+I want a teeny piece of the breast, for a sort of keepsake,
+just one bite, and you can have the rest among you".
+
+Elnora drew the knife from its holder and cut off
+the wishbone.  Then she held the bird toward the girl.
+
+"You can divide it," she said.  The dog made a bound
+and seizing the squab sprang from the bridge and ran
+for life.  The girl and boy hurried after him.  With awful
+eyes Billy stared and swore tempestuously.  Elnora caught
+him and clapped her hand over the little mouth. 
+A delivery wagon came tearing down the street, the horse
+running full speed, passed the fleeing dog with the girl
+and boy in pursuit, and stopped at the bridge.  High school
+girls began to roll from all sides of it.
+
+"A rescue!  A rescue!" they shouted.
+
+It was Ellen Brownlee and her crowd, and every girl
+of them carried a big parcel.  They took in the scene
+as they approached.  The fleeing dog with something
+in its mouth, the half-naked girl and boy chasing it told
+the story.  Those girls screamed with laughter as they
+watched the pursuit.
+
+"Thank goodness, I saved the wishbone!" said Elnora. 
+"As usual, I can prove that there was a bird." 
+She turned toward the box.  Billy had improved the time. 
+He had the last piece of cake in one hand, and the last
+bite of salad disappeared in one great gulp.  Then the
+girls shouted again.
+
+"Let's have a sample ourselves," suggested one.  She caught
+up the box and handed out the remaining sandwich.  Another girl
+divided it into bites each little over an inch square, and
+then she lifted the cup lid and deposited a preserved
+strawberry on each bite.  "One, two, three, altogether now!"
+she cried.
+
+"You old mean things!" screamed Billy.
+
+In an instant he was down in the road and handfuls of dust
+began to fly among them.  The girls scattered before him.
+
+"Billy!" cried Elnora.  "Billy!  I'll never give you
+another bite, if you throw dust on any one!"
+
+Then Billy dropped the dust, bored both fists into his
+eyes, and fled sobbing into Elnora's new blue skirt. 
+She stooped to meet him and consolation began.  Those girls
+laughed on.  They screamed and shouted until the little
+bridge shook.
+
+"To-morrow might as well be a clear day," said Ellen,
+passing around and feeding the remaining berries to the
+girls as they could compose themselves enough to take them. 
+"Billy, I admire your taste more than your temper."
+
+Elnora looked up.  "The little soul is nothing but skin
+and bones," she said.  "I never was really hungry myself;
+were any of you?"
+
+"Well, I should say so," cried a plump, rosy girl.
+"I'm famished right now.  Let's have breakfast immediate!"
+
+"We got to refill this box first!" said Ellen Brownlee.
+"Who's got the butter?"  A girl advanced with a wooden tray.
+
+"Put it in the preserve cup, a little strawberry flavour
+won't hurt it.  Next!" called Ellen.
+
+A loaf of bread was produced and Ellen cut off a piece
+which filled the sandwich box.
+
+"Next!"  A bottle of olives was unwrapped.  The grocer's
+boy who was waiting opened that, and Ellen filled the
+salad dish.
+
+"Next!"
+
+A bag of macaroons was produced and the cake compartment filled.
+
+"Next!"
+
+"I don't suppose this will make quite as good dog feed
+as a bird," laughed a girl holding open a bag of sliced
+ham while Ellen filled the meat dish.
+
+"Next!"
+
+A box of candy was handed her and she stuffed every
+corner of the lunch box with chocolates and nougat. 
+Then it was closed and formally presented to Elnora. 
+The girls each helped themselves to candy and olives,
+and gave Billy the remainder of the food.  Billy took
+one bite of ham, and approved.  Belle and Jimmy had
+given up chasing the dog, and angry and ashamed, stood
+waiting half a block away.
+
+"Come back!" cried Billy.  "You great big dunces,
+come back!  They's a new kind of meat, and cake and candy."
+
+The boy delayed, but the girl joined Billy.  Ellen wiped
+her fingers, stepped to the cement abutment and began
+reciting "Horatio at the Bridge!" substituting Elnora
+wherever the hero appeared in the lines.
+
+Elnora gathered up the sacks, and gave them to Belle,
+telling her to take the food home, cut and spread the
+bread, set things on the table, and eat nicely.
+
+Then Elnora was taken into the wagon with the girls,
+and driven on the run to the high school.  They sang a
+song beginning--
+
+               "Elnora, please give me a sandwich.
+                I'm ashamed to ask for cake"
+
+as they went.  Elnora did not know it, but that was
+her initiation.  She belonged to "the crowd."  She only
+knew that she was happy, and vaguely wondered what
+her mother and Aunt Margaret would have said about
+the proceedings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK MANIPULATES MARGARET
+AND BILLY ACQUIRES A RESIDENCE
+
+
+Saturday morning Elnora helped her mother with the work. 
+When she had finished Mrs. Comstock told her to go to
+Sintons' and wash her Indian relics, so that she would
+be ready to accompany Wesley to town in the afternoon. 
+Elnora hurried down the road and was soon at the cistern
+with a tub busily washing arrow points, stone axes, tubes,
+pipes, and skin-cleaning implements.
+
+Then she went home, dressed and was waiting when the
+carriage reached the gate.  She stopped at the bank with
+the box, and Sinton went to do his marketing and some
+shopping for his wife.
+
+At the dry goods store Mr. Brownlee called to him, 
+"Hello, Sinton!  How do you like the fate of your lunch
+box?" Then he began to laugh--
+
+"I always hate to see a man laughing alone," said Sinton. 
+It looks so selfish!  Tell me the fun, and let me
+help you."
+
+Mr. Brownlee wiped his eyes.
+
+"I supposed you knew, but I see she hasn't told."
+
+Then the three days' history of the lunch box was
+repeated with particulars which included the dog.
+
+"Now laugh!" concluded Mr. Brownlee.
+
+"Blest if I see anything funny!" replied Wesley Sinton. 
+"And if you had bought that box and furnished one of
+those lunches yourself, you wouldn't either.  I call such
+a work a shame!  I'll have it stopped."
+
+"Some one must see to that, all right.  They are
+little leeches.  Their father earns enough to support them,
+but they have no mother, and they run wild.  I suppose
+they are crazy for cooked food.  But it is funny, and
+when you think it over you will see it, if you don't now."
+
+"About where would a body find that father?" inquired
+Wesley Sinton grimly.  Mr. Brownlee told him and he
+started, locating the house with little difficulty. 
+House was the proper word, for of home there was no sign. 
+Just a small empty house with three unkept little children
+racing through and around it.  The girl and the elder
+boy hung back, but dirty little Billy greeted Sinton with: 
+"What you want here?"
+
+"I want to see your father," said Sinton.)
+
+"Well, he's asleep," said Billy.
+
+"Where?" asked Sinton.
+
+"In the house," answered Billy, "and you can't wake him."
+
+"Well, I'll try," said Wesley.
+
+Billy led the way.  "There he is!" he said.  "He is
+drunk again."
+
+On a dirty mattress in a corner lay a man who appeared
+to be strong and well.  Billy was right.  You could not
+awake him.  He had gone the limit, and a little beyond.
+
+He was now facing eternity.  Sinton went out and closed
+the door.
+
+"Your father is sick and needs help," he said. 
+"You stay here, and I will send a man to see him."
+
+"If you just let him 'lone, he'll sleep it off,"
+volunteered Billy.  "He's that way all the time,
+but he wakes up and gets us something to eat after awhile. 
+Only waitin' twists you up inside pretty bad."
+
+The boy wore no air of complaint.  He was merely
+stating facts.
+
+Wesley Sinton looked intently at Billy.  "Are you
+twisted up inside now?" he asked.
+
+Billy laid a grimy hand on the region of his stomach and
+the filthy little waist sank close to the backbone. 
+"Bet yer life, boss," he said cheerfully.
+
+"How long have you been twisted?" asked Sinton.
+
+Billy appealed to the others.  "When was it we had the
+stuff on the bridge?"
+
+"Yesterday morning," said the girl.
+
+"Is that all gone?" asked Sinton.
+
+"She went and told us to take it home," said Billy ruefully,
+"and 'cos she said to, we took it.  Pa had come back,
+he was drinking some more, and he ate a lot of it--
+almost the whole thing, and it made him sick as a dog, and
+he went and wasted all of it.  Then he got drunk some
+more, and now he's asleep again.  We didn't get hardly none."
+
+"You children sit on the steps until the man comes,"
+said Sinton.  "I'll send you some things to eat with him. 
+What's your name, sonny?"
+
+"Billy," said the boy.
+
+"Well, Billy, I guess you better come with me.  I'll take
+care of him," Sinton promised the others.  He reached a
+hand to Billy.
+
+"I ain't no baby, I'm a boy!" said Billy, as he shuffled
+along beside Sinton, taking a kick at every movable object
+without regard to his battered toes.
+
+Once they passed a Great Dane dog lolling after its master,
+and Billy ascended Sinton as if he were a tree, and
+clung to him with trembling hot hands.
+
+"I ain't afraid of that dog," scoffed Billy, as he was
+again placed on the walk, "but onc't he took me for a rat
+or somepin' and his teeth cut into my back.  If I'd a done
+right, I'd a took the law on him."
+
+Sinton looked down into the indignant little face.  The child
+was bright enough, he had a good head, but oh, such a body!
+
+"I 'bout got enough of dogs," said Billy.  "I used to
+like 'em, but I'm getting pretty tired.  You ought to seen
+the lickin' Jimmy and Belle and me give our dog when we
+caught him, for taking a little bird she gave us.  We waited
+'till he was asleep 'nen laid a board on him and all of us
+jumped on it to onc't.  You could a heard him yell a mile. 
+Belle said mebbe we could squeeze the bird out of him. 
+But, squeeze nothing!  He was holler as us, and that bird
+was lost long 'fore it got to his stummick.  It was ist a
+little one, anyway.  Belle said it wouldn't 'a' made a bite
+apiece for three of us nohow, and the dog got one good swaller. 
+We didn't get much of the meat, either.  Pa took most
+of that.  Seems like pas and dogs gets everything."
+
+Billy laughed dolefully.  Involuntarily Wesley Sinton
+reached his hand.  They were coming into the business part
+of Onabasha and the streets were crowded.  Billy understood
+it to mean that he might lose his companion and took a grip. 
+That little hot hand clinging tight to his, the sore feet
+recklessly scouring the walk, the hungry child panting for
+breath as he tried to keep even, the brave soul jesting in
+the face of hard luck, caught Sinton in a tender, empty spot.
+
+"Say, son," he said.  "How would you like to be
+washed clean, and have all the supper your skin could
+hold, and sleep in a good bed?"
+
+"Aw, gee!" said Billy.  "I ain't dead yet!  Them things
+is in heaven!  Poor folks can't have them.  Pa said so."
+
+"Well, you can have them if you want to go with me and
+get them," promised Sinton.
+
+"Honest?"
+
+"Yes, honest."
+
+"Crost yer heart?"
+
+"Yes," said Sinton.
+
+"Kin I take some to Jimmy and Belle?"
+
+"If you'll come with me and be my boy, I'll see that they
+have plenty."
+
+"What will pa say?"
+
+"Your pa is in that kind of sleep now where he won't
+wake up, Billy," said Sinton.  "I am pretty sure the law
+will give you to me, if you want to come."
+
+"When people don't ever wake up they're dead,"
+announced Billy.  "Is my pa dead?"
+
+"Yes, he is," answered Sinton.
+
+"And you'll take care of Jimmy and Belle, too?"
+
+"I can't adopt all three of you," said Sinton.  "I'll take
+you, and see that they are well provided for.  Will you come?"
+
+"Yep, I'll come," said Billy.  "Let's eat, first thing we do."
+
+"All right," agreed Sinton.  "Come into this restaurant." 
+He lifted Billy to the lunch counter and ordered the clerk
+to give him as many glasses of milk as he wanted, and a biscuit. 
+"I think there's going to be fried chicken when we get home,
+Billy," he said, "so you just take the edge off now, and fill
+up later."
+
+While Billy lunched Sinton called up the different departments
+and notified the proper authorities ending with the Women's
+Relief Association.  He sent a basket of food to Belle and Jimmy,
+bought Billy a pair of trousers, and a shirt, and went to
+bring Elnora.
+
+"Why, Uncle Wesley!" cried the girl.  "Where did you
+find Billy?"
+
+"I've adopted him for the time being, if not longer,"
+replied Wesley Sinton.
+
+"Where did you get him?"
+
+"Well, young woman," said Wesley Sinton, "Mr. Brownlee
+told me the history of your lunch box.  It didn't
+seem so funny to me as it does to the rest of them; so I
+went to look up the father of Billy's family, and make him
+take care of them, or allow the law to do it for him. 
+It will have to be the law."
+
+"He's deader than anything!" broke in Billy.  "He can't
+ever take all the meat any more."
+
+"Billy!" gasped Elnora.
+
+"Never you mind!" said Sinton.  "A child doesn't say
+such things about a father who loved and raised him right. 
+When it happens, the father alone is to blame.  You won't
+hear Billy talk like that about me when I cross over."
+
+"You don't mean you are going to take him to keep!"
+
+"I'll soon need help," said Wesley.  "Billy will come
+in just about right ten years from now, and if I raise him
+I'll have him the way I want him."
+
+"But Aunt Margaret doesn't like boys," objected Elnora.
+
+"Well, she likes me, and I used to be a boy.  Anyway, as
+I remember she has had her way about everything at our
+house ever since we were married.  I am going to please
+myself about Billy.  Hasn't she always done just as she
+chose so far as you know?  Honest, Elnora!"
+
+"Honest!" replied Elnora.  "You are beautiful to all of
+us, Uncle Wesley; but Aunt Margaret won't like Billy. 
+She won't want him in her home."
+
+"In our home," corrected Wesley.
+
+"What makes you want him?" marvelled Elnora.
+
+"God only knows," said Sinton.  "Billy ain't so beautiful,
+and he ain't so smart, I guess it's because he's so human. 
+My heart goes out to him."
+
+"So did mine," said Elnora.  "I love him.  I'd rather
+see him eat my lunch than have it myself any time."
+
+"What makes you like him?" asked Wesley.
+
+"Why, I don't know," pondered Elnora.  "He's so little,
+he needs so much, he's got such splendid grit, and
+he's perfectly unselfish with his brother and sister. 
+But we must wash him before Aunt Margaret sees him. 
+I wonder if mother----"
+
+"You needn't bother.  I'm going to take him home the
+way he is," said Sinton.  "I want Maggie to see the
+worst of it."
+
+"I'm afraid----" began Elnora.
+
+"So am I," said Wesley, "but I won't give him up. 
+He's taken a sort of grip on my heart.  I've always
+been crazy for a boy.  Don't let him hear us."
+
+"Don't let him be killed!" cried Elnora.  During their
+talk Billy had wandered to the edge of the walk and
+barely escaped the wheels of a passing automobile in an
+effort to catch a stray kitten that seemed in danger.
+
+Wesley drew Billy back to the walk, and held his hand closely. 
+"Are you ready, Elnora?"
+
+"Yes; you were gone a long time," she said.
+
+Wesley glanced at a package she carried.  "Have to
+have another book?" he asked.
+
+"No, I bought this for mother.  I've had such splendid
+luck selling my specimens, I didn't feel right about keeping
+all the money for myself, so I saved enough from the
+Indian relics to get a few things I wanted.  I would have
+liked to have gotten her a dress, but I didn't dare, so I
+compromised on a book."
+
+"What did you select, Elnora?" asked Wesley wonderingly.
+
+"Well," said she, "I have noticed mother always seemed
+interested in anything Mark Twain wrote in the newspapers,
+and I thought it would cheer her up a little, so I just
+got his `Innocents Abroad.'  I haven't read it myself,
+but I've seen mention made of it all my life, and the
+critics say it's genuine fun."
+
+"Good!" cried Sinton.  "Good!  You've made a
+splendid choice.  It will take her mind off herself
+a lot.  But she will scold you."
+
+"Of course," assented Elnora.  "But, possibly she will
+read it, and feel better.  I'm going to serve her a trick. 
+I am going to hide it until Monday, and set it on her little
+shelf of books the last thing before I go away.  She must
+have all of them by heart.  When, she sees a new one she
+can't help being glad, for she loves to read, and if she has
+all day to become interested, maybe she'll like it so she
+won't scold so much."
+
+"We are both in for it, but I guess we are prepared. 
+I don't know what Margaret will say, but I'm going to take
+Billy home and see.  Maybe he can win with her, as he
+did with us."
+
+Elnora had doubts, but she did not say anything more. 
+When they started home Billy sat on the front seat. 
+He drove with the hitching strap tied to the railing of
+the dash-board, flourished the whip, and yelled
+with delight.  At first Sinton laughed with him, but
+by the time he left Elnora with several packages at her
+gate, he was looking serious enough.
+
+Margaret was at the door as they drove up the lane. 
+Wesley left Billy in the carriage, hitched the horses and
+went to explain to her.  He had not reached her before she
+cried, "Look, Wesley, that child!  You'll have a runaway!"
+
+Wesley looked and ran.  Billy was standing in the
+carriage slashing the mettlesome horses with the whip.
+
+"See me make 'em go!" he shouted as the whip fell a
+second time.
+
+He did make them go.  They took the hitching post
+and a few fence palings, which scraped the paint from
+a wheel.  Sinton missed the lines at the first effort,
+but the dragging post impeded the horses, and he soon
+caught them.  He led them to the barn, and ordered Billy
+to remain in the carriage while he unhitched.  Then leading
+Billy and carrying his packages he entered the yard.
+
+"You run play a few minutes, Billy," he said.  "I want
+to talk to the nice lady."
+
+The nice lady was looking rather stupefied as Wesley
+approached her.
+
+"Where in the name of sense did you get that awful
+child?" she demanded.
+
+"He is a young gentleman who has been stopping Elnora
+and eating her lunch every day, part of the time
+with the assistance of his brother and sister, while our
+girl went hungry.  Brownlee told me about it at the store. 
+It's happened three days running.  The first time she
+went without anything, the second time Brownlee's girl
+took her to lunch, and the third a crowd of high school
+girls bought a lot of stuff and met them at the bridge. 
+The youngsters seemed to think they could rob her every
+day, so I went to see their father about having it stopped."
+
+"Well, I should think so!" cried Margaret.
+
+"There were three of them, Margaret," said Wesley,
+"that little fellow----"
+
+"Hyena, you mean," interpolated Margaret. 
+
+"Hyena," corrected Wesley gravely, "and another
+boy and a girl, all equally dirty and hungry.  The man
+was dead.  They thought he was in a drunken sleep,
+but he was stone dead.  I brought the little boy with
+me, and sent the officers and other help to the house. 
+He's half starved.  I want to wash him, and put clean
+clothes on him, and give him some supper."
+
+"Have you got anything to put on him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where did you get it?"
+
+"Bought it.  It ain't much.  All I got didn't cost a dollar."
+
+"A dollar is a  good deal when you work and save for
+it the way we do."
+
+"Well, I don't know a better place to put it.  Have you
+got any hot water?  I'll use this tub at the cistern. 
+Please give me some soap and towels."
+
+Instead Margaret pushed by him with a shriek.  Billy had
+played by producing a cord from his pocket, and having
+tied the tails of Margaret's white kittens together, he had
+climbed on a box and hung them across the clothes line. 
+Wild with fright the kittens were clawing each other
+to death, and the air was white with fur.  The string
+had twisted and the frightened creatures could not
+recognize friends.  Margaret stepped back with bleeding hands. 
+Sinton cut the cord with his knife and the poor little cats
+raced under the house bleeding and disfigured. 
+Margaret white with wrath faced Wesley.
+
+"If you don't hitch up and take that animal back to
+town," she said, "I will."
+
+Billy threw himself on the grass and began to scream.
+
+"You said I could have fried chicken for supper,"
+he wailed.  "You said she was a nice lady!"
+
+Wesley lifted him and something in his manner of
+handling the child infuriated Margaret.  His touch was
+so gentle.  She reached for Billy and gripped his shirt
+collar in the back.  Wesley's hand closed over hers.
+
+"Gently, girl!" he said.  "This little body is covered
+with sores."
+
+"Sores!" she ejaculated.  "Sores?  What kind of sores?"
+
+"Oh, they might be from bruises made by fists or boot
+toes, or they might be bad blood, from wrong eating,
+or they might be pure filth.  Will you hand me some towels?"
+
+"No, I won't!" said Margaret.
+
+"Well, give me some rags, then."
+
+Margaret compromised on pieces of old tablecloth. 
+Wesley led Billy to the cistern, pumped cold water into
+the tub, poured in a kettle of hot, and beginning at the
+head scoured him.  The boy shut his little teeth, and
+said never a word though he twisted occasionally when
+the soap struck a raw spot.  Margaret watched the process
+from the window in amazed and ever-increasing anger. 
+Where did Wesley learn it?  How could his big hands be
+so gentle?  He came to the door.
+
+"Have you got any peroxide?" he asked.
+
+"A little," she answered stiffly.
+
+"Well, I need about a pint, but I'll begin on what you have."
+
+Margaret handed him the bottle.  Wesley took a cup,
+weakened the drug and said to Billy:  "Man, these sores
+on you must be healed.  Then you must eat the kind of
+food that's fit for little men.  I am going to put some
+medicine on you, and it is going to sting like fire.  If it
+just runs off, I won't use any more.  If it boils, there is
+poison in these places, and they must be tied up, dosed
+every day, and you must be washed, and kept mighty clean. 
+Now, hold still, because I am going to put it on."
+
+"I think the one on my leg is the worst," said the undaunted
+Billy, holding out a raw place.  Sinton poured on the drug. 
+Billy's body twisted and writhed, but he did not run.
+
+"Gee, look at it boil!" he cried.  "I guess they's poison. 
+You'll have to do it to all of them."
+
+Wesley's teeth were set, as he watched the boy's face. 
+He poured the drug, strong enough to do effective work,
+on a dozen places over that little body and bandaged all
+he could.  Billy's lips quivered at times, and his chin
+jumped, but he did not shed a tear or utter a sound other
+than to take a deep interest in the boiling.  As Wesley
+put the small shirt on the boy, and fastened the trousers,
+he was ready to reset the hitching post and mend the fence
+without a word.
+
+"Now am I clean?" asked Billy.
+
+"Yes, you are clean outside," said Wesley.  "There is
+some dirty blood in your body, and some bad words in
+your mouth, that we have to get out, but that takes time. 
+If we put right things to eat into your stomach
+that will do away with the sores, and if you know that
+I don't like bad words you won't say them any oftener
+than you can help, will you Billy?"
+
+Billy leaned against Wesley in apparent indifference. 
+
+"I want to see me!" he demanded.
+
+Wesley led the boy into the house, and lifted him to a mirror.
+
+"My, I'm purty good-looking, ain't I?" bragged Billy. 
+Then as Wesley stooped to set him on the floor Billy's
+lips passed close to the big man's ear and hastily
+whispered a vehement "No!" as he ran for the door.
+
+"How long until supper, Margaret?" asked Wesley
+as he followed.
+
+"You are going to keep him for supper?" she asked
+
+"Sure!" said Wesley.  "That's what I brought him for. 
+It's likely he never had a good square meal of decent
+food in his life.  He's starved to the bone."
+
+Margaret arose deliberately, removed the white cloth
+from the supper table and substituted an old red one
+she used to wrap the bread.  She put away the pretty
+dishes they commonly used and set the table with old
+plates for pies and kitchen utensils.  But she fried the
+chicken, and was generous with milk and honey, snowy
+bread, gravy, potatoes, and fruit.
+
+Wesley repainted the scratched wheel.  He mended the
+fence, with Billy holding the nails and handing the pickets. 
+Then he filled the old hole, digged a new one and set the
+hitching post.
+
+Billy hopped on one foot at his task of holding the post
+steady as the earth was packed around it.  There was
+not the shadow of a trouble on his little freckled face.
+
+Sinton threw in stones and pounded the earth solid around
+the post.  The sound of a gulping sob attracted him to Billy. 
+The tears were rolling down his cheeks.  "If I'd a knowed
+you'd have to get down in a hole, and work so hard I
+wouldn't 'a' hit the horses," he said.
+
+"Never you mind, Billy," said Wesley.  "You will
+know next time, so you can think over it, and make up
+your mind whether you really want to before you strike."
+
+Wesley went to the barn to put away the tools.  He
+thought Billy was at his heels, but the boy lagged on
+the way.  A big snowy turkey gobbler resented the small
+intruder in his especial preserves, and with spread tail
+and dragging wings came toward him threateningly.  If that
+turkey gobbler had known the sort of things with which
+Billy was accustomed to holding his own, he never would
+have issued the challenge.  Billy accepted instantly. 
+He danced around with stiff arms at his sides and imitated
+the gobbler.  Then came his opportunity, and he jumped
+on the big turkey's back.  Wesley heard Margaret's scream
+in time to see the flying leap and admire its dexterity. 
+The turkey tucked its tail and scampered.  Billy slid from
+its back and as he fell he clutched wildly, caught the
+folded tail, and instinctively clung to it.  The turkey
+gave one scream and relaxed its muscles.  Then it fled
+in disfigured defeat to the haystack.  Billy scrambled
+to his feet holding the tail, while his eyes were bulging.
+
+"Why, the blasted old thing came off!" he said to
+Wesley, holding out the tail in amazed wonder.
+
+The man, caught suddenly, forgot everything and roared. 
+Seeing which, Billy thought a turkey tail of no
+account and flung that one high above him shouting in
+wild childish laughter, when the feathers scattered and fell.
+
+Margaret, watching, began to cry.  Wesley had gone mad. 
+For the first time in her married life she wanted
+to tell her mother.  When Wesley had waited until he
+was so hungry he could wait no longer he invaded the
+kitchen to find a cooked supper baking on the back of the
+stove, while Margaret with red eyes nursed a pair of
+demoralized white kittens.
+
+"Is supper ready?" he asked.
+
+"It has been for an hour," answered Margaret.
+
+"Why didn't you call us?"
+
+That "us" had too much comradeship in it.  It irritated Margaret.
+
+"I supposed it would take you even longer than this to
+fix things decent again.  As for my turkey, and my poor
+little kittens, they don't matter."
+
+"I am mighty sorry about them, Margaret, you know that. 
+Billy is very bright, and he will soon learn----"
+
+"Soon learn!" cried Margaret.  "Wesley Sinton, you
+don't mean to say that you think of keeping that creature
+here for some time?"
+
+"No, I think of keeping a well-behaved little boy."
+
+Margaret set the supper on the table.  Seeing the old
+red cloth Wesley stared in amazement.  Then he understood. 
+Billy capered around in delight.
+
+"Ain't that pretty?" he exulted.  "I wish Jimmy and
+Belle could see.  We, why we ist eat out of our hands or
+off a old dry goods box, and when we fix up a lot, we
+have newspaper.  We ain't ever had a nice red cloth like this."
+
+Wesley looked straight at Margaret, so intently that she
+turned away, her face flushing.  He stacked the dictionary
+and the geography of the world on a chair, and lifted Billy
+beside him.  He heaped a plate generously, cut the food,
+put a fork into Billy's little fist, and made him eat slowly
+and properly.  Billy did his best.  Occasionally greed
+overcame him, and he used his left hand to pop a bite into
+his mouth with his fingers.  These lapses Wesley patiently
+overlooked, and went on with his general instructions. 
+Luckily Billy did not spill anything on his clothing or
+the cloth.  After supper Wesley took him to the barn while
+he finished the night work.  Then he went and sat beside
+Margaret on the front porch.  Billy appropriated the
+hammock, and swung by pulling a rope tied around a tree. 
+The very energy with which he went at the work of
+swinging himself appealed to Wesley.
+
+"Mercy, but he's an active little body," he said. 
+"There isn't a lazy bone in him.  See how he works
+to pay for his fun."
+
+"There goes his foot through it!" cried Margaret. 
+"Wesley, he shall not ruin my hammock."
+
+"Of course he shan't!" said Wesley.  "Wait, Billy, let
+me show you."
+
+Thereupon he explained to Billy that ladies wearing
+beautiful white dresses sat in hammocks, so little boys
+must not put their dusty feet in them.  Billy immediately
+sat, and allowed his feet to swing.
+
+"Margaret," said Wesley after a long silence on the
+porch, "isn't it true that if Billy had been a half-starved
+sore cat, dog, or animal of any sort, that you would have
+pitied, and helped care for it, and been glad to see me get
+any pleasure out of it I could?"
+
+"Yes," said Margaret coldly.
+
+"But because I brought a child with an immortal soul,
+there is no welcome."
+
+"That isn't a child, it's an animal."
+
+"You just said you would have welcomed an animal."
+
+"Not a wild one.  I meant a tame beast."
+
+"Billy is not a beast!" said Wesley hotly.  "He is a
+very dear little boy.  Margaret, you've always done the
+church-going and Bible reading for this family.  How do
+you reconcile that `Suffer little children to come unto Me'
+with the way you are treating Billy?"
+
+Margaret arose.  "I haven't treated that child.  I have
+only let him alone.  I can barely hold myself.  He needs
+the hide tanned about off him!"
+
+"If you'd cared to look at his body, you'd know that you
+couldn't find a place to strike without cutting into a raw
+spot," said Wesley.  "Besides, Billy has not done a
+thing for which a child should be punished.  He is only
+full of life, no training, and with a boy's love of mischief. 
+He did abuse your kittens, but an hour before I saw him
+risk his life to save one from being run over.  He minds
+what you tell him, and doesn't do anything he is told not to. 
+He thinks of his brother and sister right away when
+anything pleases him.  He took that stinging medicine
+with the grit of a bulldog.  He is just a bully little chap,
+and I love him."
+
+"Oh good heavens!" cried Margaret, going into the
+house as she spoke.
+
+Sinton sat still.  At last Billy tired of the swing, came
+to him and leaned his slight body against the big knee.
+
+"Am I going to sleep here?" he asked.
+
+"Sure you are!" said Sinton.
+
+Billy swung his feet as he laid across Wesley's knee.
+"Come on," said Wesley, "I must clean you up for bed."
+
+"You have to be just awful clean here," announced Billy. 
+"I like to be clean, you feel so good, after the hurt is over."
+
+Sinton registered that remark, and worked with especial
+tenderness as he redressed the ailing places and
+washed the dust from Billy's feet and hands.
+
+"Where can he sleep?" he asked Margaret.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," she answered.
+
+"Oh, I can sleep ist any place," said Billy.  "On the
+floor or anywhere.  Home, I sleep on pa's coat on a store-
+box, and Jimmy and Belle they sleep on the storebox, too. 
+"I sleep between them, so's I don't roll off and crack
+my head.  Ain't you got a storebox and a old coat?"
+
+Wesley arose and opened a folding lounge.  Then he
+brought an armload of clean horse blankets from a closet.
+
+"These don't look like the nice white bed a little boy
+should have, Billy," he said, "but we'll make them do. 
+This will beat a storebox all hollow."
+
+Billy took a long leap for the lounge.  When he found
+it bounced, he proceeded to bounce, until he was tired. 
+By that time the blankets had to be refolded.  Wesley had
+Billy take one end and help, while both of them seemed to
+enjoy the job.  Then Billy lay down and curled up in his
+clothes like a small dog.  But sleep would not come.
+
+Finally he sat up.  He stared around restlessly.  Then he
+arose, went to Wesley, and leaned against his knee.  He picked
+up the boy and folded his arms around him.  Billy sighed
+in rapturous content.
+
+"That bed feels so lost like," he said.  "Jimmy always
+jabbed me on one side, and Belle on the other, and so I
+knew I was there.  Do you know where they are?"
+
+"They are with kind people who gave them a fine supper,
+a clean bed, and will always take good care of them."
+
+"I wisht I was--"  Billy hesitated and looked earnestly
+at Wesley.  "I mean I wish they was here."
+
+"You are about all I can manage, Billy," said Wesley.
+
+Billy sat up.  "Can't she manage anything?" he asked,
+waving toward Margaret.
+
+"Indeed, yes," said Wesley.  "She has managed me
+for twenty years."
+
+"My, but she made you nice!" said Billy.  "I just love you. 
+I wisht she'd take Jimmy and Belle and make them nice as you."
+
+"She isn't strong enough to do that, Billy.  They will
+grow into a good boy and girl where they are."
+
+Billy slid from Wesley's arms and walked toward
+Margaret until he reached the middle of the room.  Then he
+stopped, and at last sat on the floor.  Finally he lay
+down and closed his eyes.  "This feels more like my bed;
+if only Jimmy and Belle was here to crowd up a little, so it
+wasn't so alone like."
+
+"Won't I do, Billy?" asked Wesley in a husky voice.
+
+Billy moved restlessly.  "Seems like--seems like
+toward night as if a body got kind o' lonesome for a
+woman person--like her."
+
+Billy indicated Margaret and then closed his eyes so
+tight his small face wrinkled.
+
+Soon he was up again.  "Wisht I had Snap," he said. 
+"Oh, I ist wisht I had Snap!"
+
+"I thought you laid a board on Snap and jumped on
+it," said Wesley.
+
+"We did!" cried Billy--"oh, you ought to heard him
+squeal!" Billy laughed loudly, then his face clouded.
+
+"But I want Snap to lay beside me so bad now--that if he
+was here I'd give him a piece of my chicken, 'for, I ate any. 
+Do you like dogs?"
+
+"Yes, I do," said Wesley.
+
+Billy was up instantly.  "Would you like Snap?"
+
+"I am sure I would," said Wesley.
+
+"Would she?" Billy indicated Margaret.  And then
+he answered his own question.  "But of course, she
+wouldn't, cos she likes cats, and dogs chases cats. 
+Oh, dear, I thought for a minute maybe Snap could
+come here."  Billy lay down and closed his eyes resolutely.
+
+Suddenly they flew open.  "Does it hurt to be dead?"
+he demanded.
+
+"Nothing hurts you after you are dead, Billy," said Wesley.
+
+"Yes, but I mean does it hurt getting to be dead?"
+
+"Sometimes it does.  It did not hurt your father, Billy. 
+It came softly while he was asleep."
+
+"It ist came softly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I kind o' wisht he wasn't dead!" said Billy.  "'Course I
+like to stay with you, and the fried chicken, and the nice
+soft bed, and--and everything, and I like to be clean, but
+he took us to the show, and he got us gum, and he never
+hurt us when he wasn't drunk."
+
+Billy drew a deep breath, and tightly closed his eyes. 
+But very soon they opened.  Then he sat up.  He looked
+at Wesley pitifully, and then he glanced at Margaret. 
+"You don't like boys, do you?" he questioned.
+
+"I like good boys," said Margaret.
+
+Billy was at her knee instantly.  "Well say, I'm a good
+boy!" he announced joyously.
+
+"I do not think boys who hurt helpless kittens and pull
+out turkeys' tails are good boys."
+
+"Yes, but I didn't hurt the kittens," explained Billy. 
+"They got mad 'bout ist a little fun and scratched each other. 
+I didn't s'pose they'd act like that.  And I didn't pull
+the turkey's tail.  I ist held on to the first thing I
+grabbed, and the turkey pulled.  Honest, it was the
+turkey pulled."  He turned to Wesley.  "You tell her! 
+Didn't the turkey pull?  I didn't know its tail was loose,
+did I?"
+
+"I don't think you did, Billy," said Wesley.
+
+Billy stared into Margaret's cold face.  "Sometimes at night,
+Belle sits on the floor, and I lay my head in her lap. 
+I could pull up a chair and lay my head in your lap. 
+Like this, I mean."  Billy pulled up a chair, climbed
+on it and laid his head on Margaret's lap.  Then he shut
+his eyes again.  Margaret could have looked little more
+repulsed if he had been a snake.  Billy was soon up.
+
+"My, but your lap is hard," he said.  "And you are
+a good deal fatter 'an Belle, too!"  He slid from the
+chair and came back to the middle of the room.
+
+"Oh but I wisht he wasn't dead!" he cried.  The flood
+broke and Billy screamed in desperation.
+
+Out of the night a soft, warm young figure flashed
+through the door and with a swoop caught him in her arms. 
+She dropped into a chair, nestled him closely, drooped
+her fragrant brown head over his little bullet-eyed
+red one, and rocked softly while she crooned over him--
+
+
+     "Billy, boy, where have you been?
+      Oh, I have been to seek a wife,
+      She's the joy of my life,
+      But then she's a young thing and she can't leave her mammy!"
+
+
+Billy clung to her frantically.  Elnora wiped his eyes,
+kissed his face, swayed and sang.
+
+"Why aren't you asleep?" she asked at last.
+
+"I don't know," said Billy.  "I tried.  I tried awful
+hard cos I thought he wanted me to, but it ist wouldn't come. 
+Please tell her I tried."  He appealed to Margaret.
+
+"He did try to go to sleep," admitted Margaret.
+
+"Maybe he can't sleep in his clothes," suggested Elnora. 
+"Haven't you an old dressing sacque?  I could roll
+the sleeves."
+
+Margaret got an old sacque, and Elnora put it on Billy. 
+Then she brought a basin of water and bathed his face
+and head.  She gathered him up and began to rock again.
+
+"Have you got a pa?" asked Billy.
+
+"No," said Elnora.
+
+"Is he dead like mine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did it hurt him to die?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Billy was wide awake again.  "It didn't hurt my pa,"
+he boasted; "he ist died while he was asleep.  He didn't
+even know it was coming."
+
+"I am glad of that," said Elnora, pressing the small
+head against her breast again.
+
+Billy escaped her hand and sat up.  "I guess I won't go
+to sleep," he said.  "It might `come softly' and get me."
+
+"It won't get you, Billy," said Elnora, rocking and
+singing between sentences.  "It doesn't get little boys. 
+It just takes big people who are sick."
+
+"Was my pa sick?"
+
+"Yes," said Elnora.  "He had a dreadful sickness
+inside him that burned, and made him drink things. 
+That was why he would forget his little boys and girl. 
+If he had been well, he would have gotten you good things
+to eat, clean clothes, and had the most fun with you."
+
+Billy leaned against her and closed his eyes, and Elnora
+rocked hopefully.
+
+"If I was dead would you cry?" he was up again.
+
+"Yes, I would," said Elnora, gripping him closer until
+Billy almost squealed with the embrace.
+
+"Do you love me tight as that?" he questioned blissfully.
+
+"Yes, bushels and bushels," said Elnora.  "Better than
+any little boy in the whole world."
+
+Billy looked at Margaret.  "She don't!" he said.
+"She'd be glad if it would get me `softly,' right now. 
+She don't want me here 't all."
+
+Elnora smothered his face against her breast and rocked. 
+
+"You love me, don't you?"
+
+"I will, if you will go to sleep."
+
+"Every single day you will give me your dinner for
+the bologna, won't you," said Billy.
+
+"Yes, I will," replied Elnora.  "But you will have as
+good lunch as I do after this.  You will have milk, eggs,
+chicken, all kinds of good things, little pies, and cakes, maybe."
+
+Billy shook his head.  "I am going back home soon as
+it is light," he said, "she don't want me.  She thinks
+I'm a bad boy.  She's going to whip me--if he lets her. 
+She said so.  I heard her.  Oh, I wish he hadn't died! 
+I want to go home." Billy shrieked again.
+
+Mrs. Comstock had started to walk slowly to meet Elnora. 
+The girl had been so late that her mother reached the
+Sinton gate and followed the path until the picture inside
+became visible.  Elnora had told her about Wesley
+taking Billy home.  Mrs. Comstock had some curiosity
+to see how Margaret bore the unexpected addition to
+her family.  Billy's voice, raised with excitement, was
+plainly audible.  She could see Elnora holding him, and
+hear his excited wail.  Wesley's face was drawn and haggard,
+and Margaret's set and defiant.  A very imp of perversity
+entered the breast of Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Hoity, toity!" she said as she suddenly appeared
+in the door.  "Blest if I ever heard a man making sounds
+like that before!"
+
+Billy ceased suddenly.  Mrs. Comstock was tall, angular,
+and her hair was prematurely white.  She was only
+thirty-six, although she appeared fifty.  But there
+was an expression on her usually cold face that was
+attractive just then, and Billy was in search of attractions.
+
+"Have I stayed too late, mother?" asked Elnora anxiously. 
+"I truly intended to come straight back, but I thought
+I could rock Billy to sleep first.  Everything is strange,
+and he's so nervous."
+
+"Is that your ma?" demanded Billy.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Does she love you?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"My mother didn't love me," said Billy.  "She went
+away and left me, and never came back.  She don't care
+what happens to me.  You wouldn't go away and leave
+your little girl, would you?" questioned Billy.
+
+"No," said Katharine Comstock, "and I wouldn't
+leave a little boy, either."
+
+Billy began sliding from Elnora's knees.
+
+"Do you like boys?" he questioned.
+
+"If there is anything I love it is a boy," said Mrs.
+Comstock assuringly.  Billy was on the floor.
+
+"Do you like dogs?"
+
+"Yes.  Almost as well as boys.  I am going to buy a
+dog as soon as I can find a good one."
+
+Billy swept toward her with a whoop.
+
+"Do you want a boy?" he shouted.
+
+Katharine Comstock stretched out her arms, and
+gathered him in.
+
+"Of course, I want a boy!" she rejoiced.
+
+"Maybe you'd like to have me?" offered Billy.
+
+"Sure I would," triumphed Mrs. Comstock.  "Any one
+would like to have you.  You are just a real boy, Billy."
+
+"Will you take Snap?"
+
+"I'd like to have Snap almost as well as you."
+
+"Mother!" breathed Elnora imploringly.  "Don't! Oh, don't! 
+He thinks you mean it!"
+
+"And so I do mean it," said Mrs. Comstock.  "I'll take
+him in a jiffy.  I throw away enough to feed a little
+tyke like him every day.  His chatter would be great
+company while you are gone.  Blood soon can be purified
+with right food and baths, and as for Snap, I meant to
+buy a bulldog, but possibly Snap will serve just as well. 
+All I ask of a dog is to bark at the right time.  I'll do
+the rest.  Would you like to come and be my boy, Billy?"
+
+Billy leaned against Mrs. Comstock, reached his arms
+around her neck and gripped her with all his puny might. 
+"You can whip me all you want to," he said.  "I won't
+make a sound."
+
+Mrs. Comstock held him closely and her hard face was
+softening; of that there could be no doubt.
+
+"Now, why would any one whip a nice little boy like
+you?" she asked wonderingly.
+
+"She"--Billy from his refuge waved toward Margaret
+--"she was going to whip me 'cause her cats fought,
+when I tied their tails together and hung them over the
+line to dry.  How did I know her old cats would fight?"
+
+Mrs. Comstock began to laugh suddenly, and try as
+she would she could not stop so soon as she desired. 
+Billy studied her.
+
+"Have you got turkeys?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, flocks of them," said Mrs. Comstock, vainly
+struggling to suppress her mirth, and settle her face in
+its accustomed lines.
+
+"Are their tails fast?" demanded Billy.
+
+"Why, I think so," marvelled Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Hers ain't!" said Billy with the wave toward Margaret
+that was becoming familiar.  "Her turkey pulled,
+and its tail comed right off.  She's going to whip me if he
+lets her.  I didn't know the turkey would pull.  I didn't
+know its tail would come off.  I won't ever touch one
+again, will I?"
+
+"Of course, you won't," said Mrs. Comstock.  "And what's
+more, I don't care if you do!  I'd rather have a fine
+little man like you than all the turkeys in the country. 
+Let them lose their old tails if they want to, and let
+the cats fight.  Cats and turkeys don't compare with boys,
+who are going to be fine big men some of these days."
+
+Then Billy and Mrs. Comstock hugged each other
+rapturously, while their audience stared in silent amazement.
+
+"You like boys!" exulted Billy, and his head dropped
+against Mrs. Comstock in unspeakable content.
+
+"Yes, and if I don't have to carry you the whole way
+home, we must start right now," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"You are going to be asleep before you know it."
+
+Billy opened his eyes and braced himself.  "I can
+walk," he said proudly.
+
+"All right, we must start.  Come, Elnora!  Good-night, folks!" 
+Mrs. Comstock set Billy on the floor, and arose gripping
+his hand.  "You take the other side, Elnora, and we will
+help him as much as we can," she said.
+
+Elnora stared piteously at Margaret, then at Wesley,
+and arose in white-faced bewilderment.
+
+"Billy, are you going to leave without even saying good-
+bye to me?" asked Wesley, with a gulp.
+
+Billy held tight to Mrs. Comstock and Elnora.
+
+"Good-bye!" he said casually.  "I'll come and see you
+some time."
+
+Wesley Sinton gave a smothered sob, and strode from
+the room.
+
+Mrs. Comstock started toward the door, dragging at
+Billy while Elnora pulled back, but Mrs. Sinton was before
+them, her eyes flashing.
+
+"Kate Comstock, you think you are mighty smart,
+don't you?" she cried.
+
+"I ain't in the lunatic asylum, where you belong,
+anyway,"said Mrs. Comstock.  "I am smart enough to tell
+a dandy boy when I see him, and I'm good and glad to
+get him.  I'll love to have him!"
+
+"Well, you won't have him!" exclaimed Margaret Sinton. 
+"That boy is Wesley's!  He found him, and brought him here. 
+You can't come in and take him like that!  Let go of him!"
+
+"Not much, I won't!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "Leave the
+poor sick little soul here for you to beat, because he
+didn't know just how to handle things!  Of course, he'll
+make mistakes.  He must have a lot of teaching, but not
+the kind he'll get from you!  Clear out of my way!"
+
+"You let go of our boy," ordered Margaret.
+
+"Why?  Do you want to whip him, before he can go
+to sleep?" jeered Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"No, I don't!" said Margaret.  "He's Wesley's, and
+nobody shall touch him.  Wesley!"
+
+Wesley Sinton appeared behind Margaret in the doorway,
+and she turned to him.  "Make Kate Comstock let go of
+our boy!" she demanded.
+
+"Billy, she wants you now," said Wesley Sinton.  "She won't
+whip you, and she won't let any one else.  You can have
+stacks of good things to eat, ride in the carriage, and have
+a great time.  Won't you stay with us?"
+
+Billy drew away from Mrs. Comstock and Elnora.
+
+He faced Margaret, his eyes shrewd with unchildish wisdom. 
+Necessity had taught him to strike the hot iron, to
+drive the hard bargain.
+
+"Can I have Snap to live here always?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, you can have all the dogs you want," said Margaret Sinton.
+
+"Can I sleep close enough so's I can touch you?"
+
+"Yes, you can move your lounge up so that you can
+hold my hand," said Margaret.
+
+"Do you love me now?" questioned Billy.
+
+"I'll try to love you, if you are a good boy," said Margaret.
+
+"Then I guess I'll stay," said Billy, walking over to her.
+
+Out in the night Elnora and her mother went down the
+road in the moonlight; every few rods Mrs. Comstock
+laughed aloud.
+
+"Mother, I don't understand you," sobbed Elnora.
+
+"Well, maybe when you have gone to high school longer
+you will," said Mrs. Comstock.  "Anyway, you saw me
+bring Mag Sinton to her senses, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, I did," answered Elnora, "but I thought you
+were in earnest.  So did Billy, and Uncle Wesley, and
+Aunt Margaret."
+
+"Well, wasn't I?" inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"But you just said you brought Aunt Margaret to!"
+
+"Well, didn't I?"
+
+"I don't understand you."
+
+"That's the reason I am recommending more schooling!"
+
+Elnora took her candle and went to bed.  Mrs. Comstock
+was feeling too good to sleep.  Twice of late she
+really had enjoyed herself for the first in sixteen years,
+and greediness for more of the same feeling crept into her
+blood like intoxication.  As she sat brooding alone she
+knew the truth.  She would have loved to have taken Billy. 
+She would not have minded his mischief, his chatter, or his dog. 
+He would have meant a distraction from herself that she
+greatly needed; she was even sincere about the dog. 
+She had intended to tell Wesley to buy her one at the very
+first opportunity.  Her last thought was of Billy. 
+She chuckled softly, for she was not saintly, and now she
+knew how she could even a long score with Margaret and Wesley
+in a manner that would fill her soul with grim satisfaction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST TEMPTS ELNORA, AND BILLY
+BURIES HIS FATHER
+
+
+Immediately after dinner on Sunday Wesley Sinton
+stopped at the Comstock gate to ask if Elnora wanted
+to go to town with them.  Billy sat beside him and he
+did not appear as if he were on his way to a funeral. 
+Elnora said she had to study and could not go, but she
+suggested that her mother take her place.  Mrs. Comstock
+put on her hat and went at once, which surprised Elnora. 
+She did not know that her mother was anxious for an
+opportunity to speak with Sinton alone.  Elnora knew
+why she was repeatedly cautioned not to leave their land,
+if she went specimen hunting.
+
+She studied two hours and was several lessons ahead of
+her classes.  There was no use to go further.  She would
+take a walk and see if she could gather any caterpillars or
+find any freshly spun cocoons.  She searched the bushes
+and low trees behind the garden and all around the edge of
+the woods on their land, and having little success, at
+last came to the road.  Almost the first thorn bush she
+examined yielded a Polyphemus cocoon.  Elnora lifted
+her head with the instinct of a hunter on the chase, and
+began work.  She reached the swamp before she knew it,
+carrying five fine cocoons of different species as her reward.
+She pushed back her hair and gazed around longingly.  A few
+rods inside she thought she saw cocoons on a bush, to
+which she went, and found several.  Sense of caution was
+rapidly vanishing; she was in a fair way to forget everything
+and plunge into the swamp when she thought she heard
+footsteps coming down the trail.  She went back, and came
+out almost facing Pete Corson.
+
+That ended her difficulty.  She had known him since childhood. 
+When she sat on the front bench of the Brushwood schoolhouse,
+Pete had been one of the big boys at the back of the room. 
+He had been rough and wild, but she never had been afraid of
+him, and often he had given her pretty things from the swamp.
+
+"What luck!" she cried.  "I promised mother I would
+not go inside the swamp alone, and will you look at the
+cocoons I've found!  There are more just screaming for
+me to come get them, because the leaves will fall with the
+first frost, and then the jays and crows will begin to tear
+them open.  I haven't much time, since I'm going to school. 
+You will go with me, Pete!  Please say yes!  Just a little way!"
+
+"What are those things?" asked the man, his keen
+black eyes staring at her.
+
+"They are the cases these big caterpillars spin for
+winter, and in the spring they come out great night moths,
+and I can sell them.  Oh, Pete, I can sell them for enough
+to take me through high school and dress me so like the
+others that I don't look different, and if I have very good
+luck I can save some for college.  Pete, please go with me?"
+
+"Why don't you go like you always have?"
+
+"Well, the truth is, I had a little scare," said Elnora. 
+"I never did mean to go alone; sometimes I sort of wandered
+inside farther than I intended, chasing things.  You know
+Duncan gave me Freckles's books, and I have been gathering
+moths like he did.  Lately I found I could sell them. 
+If I can make a complete collection, I can get three
+hundred dollars for it.  Three such collections would
+take me almost through college, and I've four years in the
+high school yet.  That's a long time.  I might collect them."
+
+"Can every kind there is be found here?"
+
+"No, not all of them, but when I get more than I need
+of one kind, I can trade them with collectors farther north
+and west, so I can complete sets.  It's the only way I see
+to earn the money.  Look what I have already.  Big gray
+Cecropias come from this kind; brown Polyphemus from that,
+and green Lunas from these.  You aren't working on Sunday. 
+Go with me only an hour, Pete!"
+
+The man looked at her narrowly.  She was young,
+wholesome, and beautiful.  She was innocent, intensely in
+earnest, and she needed the money, he knew that.
+
+"You didn't tell me what scared you," he said.
+
+"Oh, I thought I did!  Why you know I had Freckles's
+box packed full of moths and specimens, and one evening
+I sold some to the Bird Woman.  Next morning I found
+a note telling me it wasn't safe to go inside the swamp. 
+That sort of scared me.  I think I'll go alone, rather than
+miss the chance, but I'd be so happy if you would take
+care of me.  Then I could go anywhere I chose, because if
+I mired you could pull me out.  You will take care of me, Pete?"
+
+"Yes, I'll take care of you," promised Pete Corson.
+
+"Goody!" said Elnora.  "Let's start quick!  And Pete,
+you look at these closely, and when you are hunting or
+going along the road, if one dangles under your nose, you
+cut off the little twig and save it for me, will you?"
+
+"Yes, I'll save you all I see," promised Pete.  He pushed
+back his hat and followed Elnora.  She plunged fearlessly
+among bushes, over underbrush, and across dead logs. 
+One minute she was crying wildly, that here was a
+big one, the next she was reaching for a limb above her
+head or on her knees overturning dead leaves under a
+hickory or oak tree, or working aside black muck with her
+bare hands as she searched for buried pupae cases.  For the
+first hour Pete bent back bushes and followed, carrying
+what Elnora discovered.  Then he found one.
+
+"Is this the kind of thing you are looking for?" he asked
+bashfully, as he presented a wild cherry twig.
+
+"Oh Pete, that's a Promethea!  I didn't even hope to
+find one."
+
+"What's the bird like?" asked Pete.
+
+"Almost black wings," said Elnora, "with clay-coloured
+edges, and the most wonderful wine-coloured flush over the
+under side if it's a male, and stronger wine above and below
+if it's a female.  Oh, aren't I happy!"
+
+"How would it do to make what you have into a bunch
+that we could leave here, and come back for them?"
+
+"That would be all right."
+
+Relieved of his load Pete began work.  First, he narrowly
+examined the cocoons Elnora had found.  He questioned
+her as to what other kinds would be like.  He began to
+use the eyes of a trained woodman and hunter in her behalf. 
+He saw several so easily, and moved through the forest
+so softly, that Elnora forgot the moths in watching him. 
+Presently she was carrying the specimens, and he was
+making the trips of investigation to see which was a
+cocoon and which a curled leaf, or he was on his knees
+digging around stumps.  As he worked he kept asking questions. 
+What kind of logs were best to look beside, what trees were
+pupae cases most likely to be under; on what bushes did
+caterpillars spin most frequently?  Time passed, as it
+always does when one's occupation is absorbing.
+
+When the Sintons took Mrs. Comstock home, they stopped
+to see Elnora.  She was not there.  Mrs. Comstock called
+at the edge of her woods and received no reply. 
+Then Wesley turned and drove back to the Limberlost. 
+He left Margaret and Mrs. Comstock holding the team and
+entertaining Billy, while he entered the swamp.
+
+Elnora and Pete had made a wide trail behind them. 
+Before Sinton had thought of calling, he heard voices
+and approached with some caution.  Soon he saw Elnora,
+her flushed face beaming as she bent with an armload of
+twigs and branches and talked to a kneeling man.
+
+"Now go cautiously!" she was saying.  "I am just sure
+we will find an Imperialis here.  It's their very kind of
+a place.  There!  What did I tell you! Isn't that splendid? 
+Oh, I am so glad you came with me!"
+
+Wesley stood staring in speechless astonishment, for
+the man had arisen, brushed the dirt from his hands, and
+held out to Elnora a small shining dark pupa case. 
+As his face came into view Sinton almost cried out, for he
+was the one man of all others Wesley knew with whom he
+most feared for Elnora's safety.  She had him on his
+knees digging pupae cases for her from the swamp.
+
+"Elnora!" called Sinton.  "Elnora!"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Wesley!" cried the girl.  "See what luck
+we've had!  I know we have a dozen and a half cocoons
+and we have three pupae cases.  It's much harder to get
+the cases because you have to dig for them, and you can't
+see where to look.  But Pete is fine at it!  He's found
+three, and he says he will keep watch beside the roads,
+and through the woods while he hunts.  Isn't that splendid
+of him?  Uncle Wesley, there is a college over there
+on the western edge of the swamp.  Look closely, and
+you can see the great dome up among the clouds."
+
+"I should say you have had luck," said Wesley, striving
+to make his voice natural.  "But I thought you were not
+coming to the swamp?"
+
+"Well, I wasn't," said Elnora, "but I couldn't find
+many anywhere else, honest, I couldn't, and just as soon
+as I came to the edge I began to see them here.  I kept
+my promise.  I didn't come in alone.  Pete came with me. 
+He's so strong, he isn't afraid of anything, and
+he's perfectly splendid to locate cocoons!  He's found
+half of these.  Come on, Pete, it's getting dark now, and
+we must go."
+
+They started toward the trail, Pete carrying the cocoons. 
+He left them at the case, while Elnora and Wesley went
+on to the carriage together.
+
+"Elnora Comstock, what does this mean?" demanded
+her mother.
+
+"It's all right, one of the neighbours was with her, and
+she got several dollars' worth of stuff," interposed Wesley.
+
+"You oughter seen my pa," shouted Billy.  "He was ist
+all whited out, and he laid as still as anything. 
+They put him away deep in the ground."
+
+"Billy!" breathed Margaret in a prolonged groan.
+
+"Jimmy and Belle are going to be together in a nice place. 
+They are coming to see me, and Snap is right down here
+by the wheel.  Here, Snap!  My, but he'll be tickled
+to get something to eat!  He's 'most twisted as me. 
+They get new clothes, and all they want to eat, too,
+but they'll miss me.  They couldn't have got along
+without me.  I took care of them.  I had a lot of things
+give to me 'cause I was the littlest, and I always divided
+with them.  But they won't need me now."
+
+When she left the carriage Mrs. Comstock gravely
+shook hands with Billy.  "Remember," she said to him,
+"I love boys, and I love dogs.  Whenever you don't
+have a good time up there, take your dog and come right
+down and be my little boy.  We will just have loads of fun. 
+You should hear the whistles I can make.  If you
+aren't treated right you come straight to me."
+
+Billy wagged his head sagely.  "You ist bet I will!"
+he said.
+
+"Mother, how could you?" asked Elnora as they walked
+up the path.
+
+"How could I, missy?  You better ask how couldn't I? 
+I just couldn't!  Not for enough to pay, my road tax! 
+Not for enough to pay the road tax, and the dredge tax, too!"
+
+"Aunt Margaret always has been lovely to me, and I
+don't think it's fair to worry her."
+
+"I choose to be lovely to Billy, and let her sweat out
+her own worries just as she has me, these sixteen years. 
+There is nothing in all this world so good for people as
+taking a dose of their own medicine.  The difference is
+that I am honest.  I just say in plain English, `if they
+don't treat you right, come to me.'  They have only
+said it in actions and inferences.  I want to teach Mag
+Sinton how her own doses taste, but she begins to sputter
+before I fairly get the spoon to her lips.  Just you wait!"
+
+"When I think what I owe her----" began Elnora.
+
+"Well, thank goodness, I don't owe her anything, and
+so I'm perfectly free to do what I choose.  Come on,
+and help me get supper.  I'm hungry as Billy!"
+
+Margaret Sinton rocked slowly back and forth in her chair. 
+On her breast lay Billy's red head, one hand clutched her
+dress front with spasmodic grip, even after he was unconscious.
+
+"You mustn't begin that, Margaret," said Sinton. 
+"He's too heavy.  And it's bad for him.  He's better
+off to lie down and go to sleep alone."
+
+"He's very light, Wesley.  He jumps and quivers so. 
+He has to be stronger than he is now, before he will
+sleep soundly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA DISCOVERS A VIOLIN,
+AND BILLY DISCIPLINES MARGARET
+
+
+Elnora missed the little figure at the bridge the
+following morning.  She slowly walked up the
+street and turned in at the wide entrance to the
+school grounds.  She scarcely could comprehend that
+only a week ago she had gone there friendless, alone, and
+so sick at heart that she was physically ill.  To-day she
+had decent clothing, books, friends, and her mind was at
+ease to work on her studies.
+
+As she approached home that night the girl paused
+in amazement.  Her mother had company, and she was laughing. 
+Elnora entered the kitchen softly and peeped into the
+sitting-room.  Mrs. Comstock sat in her chair holding
+a book and every few seconds a soft chuckle broke into
+a real laugh.  Mark Twain was doing his work; while
+Mrs. Comstock was not lacking in a sense of humour. 
+Elnora entered the room before her mother saw her. 
+Mrs. Comstock looked up with flushed face.
+
+"Where did you get this?" she demanded.
+
+"I bought it," said Elnora.
+
+"Bought it!  With all the taxes due!"
+
+"I paid for it out of my Indian money, mother," said Elnora. 
+"I couldn't bear to spend so much on myself and nothing
+at all on you.  I was afraid to buy the dress I should
+have liked to, and I thought the book would be company,
+while I was gone.  I haven't read it, but I do hope it's good."
+
+"Good!  It's the biggest piece of foolishness I have
+read in all my life.  I've laughed all day, ever since I
+found it.  I had a notion to go out and read some of it
+to the cows and see if they wouldn't laugh."
+
+"If it made you laugh, it's a wise book," said Elnora.
+
+"Wise!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "You can stake your life
+it's a wise book.  It takes the smartest man there is
+to do this kind of fooling," and she began laughing again.
+
+Elnora, highly satisfied with her purchase, went to her
+room and put on her working clothes.  Thereafter she
+made a point of bringing a book that she thought would
+interest her mother, from the library every week, and
+leaving it on the sitting-room table.  Each night she
+carried home at least two school books and studied until
+she had mastered the points of her lessons.  She did
+her share of the work faithfully, and every available
+minute she was in the fields searching for cocoons, for
+the moths promised to become her largest source of income.
+
+She gathered baskets of nests, flowers, mosses, insects,
+and all sorts of natural history specimens and sold them
+to the grade teachers.  At first she tried to tell these
+instructors what to teach their pupils about the specimens;
+but recognizing how much more she knew than they, one after
+another begged her to study at home, and use her spare hours
+in school to exhibit and explain nature subjects to
+their pupils.  Elnora loved the work, and she needed the
+money, for every few days some matter of expense arose
+that she had not expected.
+
+From the first week she had been received and invited
+with the crowd of girls in her class, and it was their
+custom in passing through the business part of the city
+to stop at the confectioners' and take turns in treating
+to expensive candies, ice cream sodas, hot chocolate, or
+whatever they fancied.  When first Elnora was asked she
+accepted without understanding.  The second time she
+went because she seldom had tasted these things, and
+they were so delicious she could not resist.  After that
+she went because she knew all about it, and had decided
+to go.
+
+She had spent half an hour on the log beside the trail
+in deep thought and had arrived at her conclusions. 
+She worked harder than usual for the next week, but she
+seemed to thrive on work.  It was October and the red
+leaves were falling when her first time came to treat.
+As the crowd flocked down the broad walk that night
+Elnora called, "Girls, it's my treat to-night!  Come on!"
+
+She led the way through the city to the grocery they
+patronized when they had a small spread, and entering
+came out with a basket, which she carried to the bridge
+on her home road.  There she arranged the girls in two
+rows on the cement abutments and opening her basket
+she gravely offered each girl an exquisite little basket of
+bark, lined with red leaves, in one end of which nestled a
+juicy big red apple and in the other a spicy doughnut not
+an hour from Margaret Sinton's frying basket.
+
+Another time she offered big balls of popped corn stuck
+together with maple sugar, and liberally sprinkled with
+beechnut kernels.  Again it was hickory-nut kernels
+glazed with sugar, another time maple candy, and once
+a basket of warm pumpkin pies.  She never made any
+apology, or offered any excuse.  She simply gave what
+she could afford, and the change was as welcome to those
+city girls accustomed to sodas and French candy, as were
+these same things to Elnora surfeited on popcorn and pie. 
+In her room was a little slip containing a record of the
+number of weeks in the school year, the times it would be
+her turn to treat and the dates on which such occasions
+would fall, with a number of suggestions beside each. 
+Once the girls almost fought over a basket lined with
+yellow leaves, and filled with fat, very ripe red haws. 
+In late October there was a riot over one which was lined
+with red leaves and contained big fragrant pawpaws
+frost-bitten to a perfect degree.  Then hazel nuts were
+ripe, and once they served.  One day Elnora at her wits'
+end, explained to her mother that the girls had given her
+things and she wanted to treat them.  Mrs. Comstock,
+with characteristic stubbornness, had said she would leave
+a basket at the grocery for her, but firmly declined to say
+what would be in it.  All day Elnora struggled to keep
+her mind on her books.  For hours she wavered in tense
+uncertainty.  What would her mother do?  Should she
+take the girls to the confectioner's that night or risk
+the basket?  Mrs. Comstock could make delicious things to
+eat, but would she?
+
+As they left the building Elnora made a final rapid
+mental calculation.  She could not see her way clear to
+a decent treat for ten people for less than two dollars and
+if the basket proved to be nice, then the money would
+be wasted.  She decided to risk it.  As they went to the
+bridge the girls were betting on what the treat would be,
+and crowding near Elnora like spoiled small children. 
+Elnora set down the basket.
+
+"Girls," she said, "I don't know what this is myself, so
+all of us are going to be surprised.  Here goes!"
+
+She lifted the cover and perfumes from the land of spices
+rolled up.  In one end of the basket lay ten enormous
+sugar cakes the tops of which had been liberally dotted
+with circles cut from stick candy.  The candy had melted
+in baking and made small transparent wells of waxy sweetness
+and in the centre of each cake was a fat turtle made from
+a raisin with cloves for head and feet.  The remainder
+of the basket was filled with big spiced pears that could
+be held by their stems while they were eaten.  The girls
+shrieked and attacked the cookies, and of all the treats
+Elnora offered perhaps none was quite so long remembered
+as that.
+
+When Elnora took her basket, placed her books in it,
+and started home, all the girls went with her as far as the
+fence where she crossed the field to the swamp.  At parting
+they kissed her good-bye.  Elnora was a happy girl as she
+hurried home to thank her mother.  She was happy over her
+books that night, and happy all the way to school the
+following morning.
+
+When the music swelled from the orchestra her heart
+almost broke with throbbing joy.  For music always had
+affected her strangely, and since she had been comfortable
+enough in her surroundings to notice things, she had
+listened to every note to find what it was that literally hurt
+her heart, and at last she knew.  It was the talking of
+the violins.  They were human voices, and they spoke a
+language Elnora understood.  It seemed to her that she
+must climb up on the stage, take the instruments from the
+fingers of the players and make them speak what was in
+her heart.
+
+That night she said to her mother, "I am perfectly crazy
+for a violin.  I am sure I could play one, sure as I live. 
+Did any one----"  Elnora never completed that sentence.
+
+"Hush!" thundered Mrs. Comstock.  "Be quiet! 
+Never mention those things before me again--never as
+long as you live!  I loathe them!  They are a snare of the
+very devil himself!  They were made to lure men and
+women from their homes and their honour.  If ever I see
+you with one in your fingers I will smash it in pieces."
+
+Naturally Elnora hushed, but she thought of nothing else
+after she had finished her lessons.  At last there came
+a day when for some reason the leader of the orchestra
+left his violin on the grand piano.  That morning Elnora
+made her first mistake in algebra.  At noon, as soon as the
+building was empty, she slipped into the auditorium, found
+the side door which led to the stage, and going through the
+musicians' entrance she took the violin.  She carried it back
+into the little side room where the orchestra assembled, closed
+all the doors, opened the case and lifted out the instrument.
+
+She laid it on her breast, dropped her chin on it and
+drew the bow softly across the strings.  One after another
+she tested the open notes.  Gradually her stroke ceased to
+tremble and she drew the bow firmly.  Then her fingers
+began to fall and softly, slowly she searched up and down
+those strings for sounds she knew.  Standing in the middle
+of the floor, she tried over and over.  It seemed scarcely a
+minute before the hall was filled with the sound of hurrying
+feet, and she was forced to put away the violin and go
+to her classes.  The next day she prayed that the violin
+would be left again, but her petition was not answered. 
+That night when she returned from the school she made an
+excuse to go down to see Billy.  He was engaged in hulling
+walnuts by driving them through holes in a board.  His
+hands were protected by a pair of Margaret's old gloves,
+but he had speckled his face generously.  He appeared
+well, and greeted Elnora hilariously.
+
+"Me an' the squirrels are laying up our winter stores,"
+he shouted.  "Cos the cold is coming, an' the snow an'
+if we have any nuts we have to fix 'em now.  But I'm
+ahead, cos Uncle Wesley made me this board, and I can
+hull a big pile while the old squirrel does only ist one
+with his teeth."
+
+Elnora picked him up and kissed him.  "Billy, are you
+happy?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, and so's Snap," answered Billy.  "You ought to
+see him make the dirt fly when he gets after a chipmunk. 
+I bet you he could dig up pa, if anybody wanted him to."
+
+"Billy!" gasped Margaret as she came out to them.
+
+"Well, me and Snap don't want him up, and I bet you
+Jimmy and Belle don't, either.  I ain't been twisty
+inside once since I been here, and I don't want to go away,
+and Snap don't, either.  He told me so."
+
+"Billy!  That is not true.  Dogs can't talk,"
+cautioned Margaret.
+
+"Then what makes you open the door when he asks you to?"
+demanded Billy.
+
+"Scratching and whining isn't talking."
+
+"Anyway, it's the best Snap can talk, and you get up
+and do things he wants done.  Chipmunks can talk too. 
+You ought to hear them damn things holler when Snap
+gets them!"
+
+"Billy!  When you want a cooky for supper and I don't
+give it to you it is because you said a wrong word."
+
+"Well, for----"   Billy clapped his hand over his mouth
+and stained his face in swipes.  "Well, for--anything! 
+Did I go an' forget again!  The cookies will get all
+hard, won't they?  I bet you ten dollars I don't say that
+any more."
+
+He espied Wesley and ran to show him a walnut too big
+to go through the holes, and Elnora and Margaret entered
+the house.
+
+They talked of many things for a time and then Elnora
+said suddenly:  "Aunt Margaret, I like music."
+
+"I've noticed that in you all your life," answered Margaret.
+
+"If dogs can't talk, I can make a violin talk," announced
+Elnora, and then in amazement watched the face of
+Margaret Sinton grow pale.
+
+"A violin!" she wavered.  "Where did you get a violin?"
+
+"They fairly seemed to speak to me in the orchestra. 
+One day the conductor left his in the auditorium, and I
+took it, and Aunt Margaret, I can make it do the wind in
+the swamp, the birds, and the animals.  I can make any
+sound I ever heard on it.  If I had a chance to practise
+a little, I could make it do the orchestra music, too. 
+I don't know how I know, but I do."
+
+"Did--did you ever mention it to your mother?"
+faltered Margaret.
+
+"Yes, and she seems prejudiced against them.  But oh,
+Aunt Margaret, I never felt so about anything, not even
+going to school.  I just feel as if I'd die if I didn't
+have one.  I could keep it at school, and practise at noon
+a whole hour.  Soon they'd ask me to play in the orchestra. 
+I could keep it in the case and practise in the woods
+in summer.  You'd let me play over here Sunday. 
+Oh, Aunt Margaret, what does one cost?  Would it be wicked
+for me to take of my money, and buy a very cheap one? 
+I could play on the least expensive one made."
+
+"Oh, no you couldn't!  A cheap machine makes cheap music. 
+You got to have a fine fiddle to make it sing.  But there's
+no sense in your buying one.  There isn't a decent reason
+on earth why you shouldn't have your fa----"
+
+"My father's!" cried Elnora.  She caught Margaret
+Sinton by the arm.  "My father had a violin!  He played it. 
+That's why I can!  Where is it!  Is it in our house?
+Is it in mother's room?"
+
+"Elnora!" panted Margaret.  "Your mother will kill me! 
+She always hated it."
+
+"Mother dearly loves music," said Elnora.
+
+"Not when it took the man she loved away from her to
+make it!"
+
+"Where is my father's violin?"
+
+"Elnora!"
+
+"I've never seen a picture of my father.  I've never
+heard his name mentioned.  I've never had a scrap that
+belonged to him.  Was he my father, or am I a charity
+child like Billy, and so she hates me?"
+
+"She has good pictures of him.  Seems she just can't bear
+to hear him talked about.  Of course, he was your father. 
+They lived right there when you were born.  She doesn't
+dislike you; she merely tries to make herself think
+she does.  There's no sense in the world in you not
+having his violin.  I've a great notion----"
+
+"Has mother got it?"
+
+"No.  I've never heard her mention it.  It was not at
+home when he--when he died."
+
+"Do you know where it is?"
+
+"Yes.  I'm the only person on earth who does, except
+the one who has it."
+
+"Who is that?"
+
+"I can't tell you, but I will see if they have it yet, and get
+it if I can.  But if your mother finds it out she will never
+forgive me."
+
+"I can't help it," said Elnora.  I want that violin."
+
+"I'll go to-morrow, and see if it has been destroyed."
+
+"Destroyed!  Oh, Aunt Margaret!  Would any one dare?"
+
+"I hardly think so.  It was a good instrument.  He played
+it like a master."
+
+"Tell me!" breathed Elnora.
+
+"His hair was red and curled more than yours, and his
+eyes were blue.  He was tall, slim, and the very imp
+of mischief.  He joked and teased all day until he picked
+up that violin.  Then his head bent over it, and his eyes
+got big and earnest.  He seemed to listen as if he first
+heard the notes, and then copied them.  Sometimes he
+drew the bow trembly, like he wasn't sure it was right, and
+he might have to try again.  He could almost drive you
+crazy when he wanted to, and no man that ever lived could
+make you dance as he could.  He made it all up as he went. 
+He seemed to listen for his dancing music, too.  It appeared
+to come to him; he'd begin to play and you had to keep time. 
+You couldn't be still; he loved to sweep a crowd around with
+that bow of his.  I think it was the thing you call inspiration. 
+I can see him now, his handsome head bent, his cheeks red,
+his eyes snapping, and that bow going across the strings,
+and driving us like sheep.  He always kept his body swinging,
+and he loved to play.  He often slighted his work shamefully,
+and sometimes her a little; that is why she hated it--Elnora,
+what are you making me do?"
+
+The tears were rolling down Elnora's cheeks.  "Oh, Aunt
+Margaret," she sobbed.  "Why haven't you told me about
+him sooner?  I feel as if you had given my father to me
+living, so that I could touch him.  I can see him, too! 
+Why didn't you ever tell me before?  Go on!  Go on!"
+
+"I can't, Elnora! I'm scared silly.  I never meant to
+say anything.  If I hadn't promised her not to talk of
+him to you she wouldn't have let you come here. 
+She made me swear it."
+
+"But why?  Why?  Was he a shame?  Was he disgraced?"
+
+"Maybe it was that unjust feeling that took possession
+of her when she couldn't help him from the swamp.  She had
+to blame some one, or go crazy, so she took it out on you. 
+At times, those first ten years, if I had talked to you,
+and you had repeated anything to her, she might have
+struck you too hard.  She was not master of herself. 
+You must be patient with her, Elnora.  God only knows
+what she has gone through, but I think she is a little
+better, lately."
+
+"So do I," said Elnora.  "She seems more interested in
+my clothes, and she fixes me such delicious lunches that the
+girls bring fine candies and cake and beg to trade.  I gave
+half my lunch for a box of candy one day, brought it
+home to her, and told her.  Since, she has wanted me to
+carry a market basket and treat the crowd every day, she
+was so pleased.  Life has been too monotonous for her. 
+I think she enjoys even the little change made by my going
+and coming.  She sits up half the night to read the library
+books I bring, but she is so stubborn she won't even admit
+that she touches them.  Tell me more about my father."
+
+"Wait until I see if I can find the violin."
+
+So Elnora went home in suspense, and that night she
+added to her prayers:  "Dear Lord, be merciful to my
+father, and oh, do help Aunt Margaret to get his violin."
+
+Wesley and Billy came in to supper tired and hungry. 
+Billy ate heartily, but his eyes often rested on a plate of
+tempting cookies, and when Wesley offered them to the
+boy he reached for one.  Margaret was compelled to explain
+that cookies were forbidden that night.
+
+"What!" said Wesley.  "Wrong words been coming again. 
+Oh Billy, I do wish you could remember!  I can't sit
+and eat cookies before a little boy who has none. 
+I'll have to put mine back, too."  Billy's face twisted
+in despair.
+
+"Aw go on!" he said gruffly, but his chin was jumping,
+for Wesley was his idol.
+
+"Can't do it," said Wesley.  "It would choke me."
+
+Billy turned to Margaret.  "You make him," he appealed.
+
+"He can't, Billy," said Margaret.  "I know how he feels. 
+You see, I can't myself."
+
+Then Billy slid from his chair, ran to the couch, buried his
+face in the pillow and cried heart-brokenly.  Wesley hurried
+to the barn, and Margaret to the kitchen.  When the dishes
+were washed Billy slipped from the back door.
+
+Wesley piling hay into the mangers heard a sound behind him
+and inquired, "That you, Billy?"
+
+"Yes," answered Billy, "and it's all so dark you can't
+see me now, isn't it?"
+
+"Well, mighty near," answered Wesley.
+
+"Then you stoop down and open your mouth."
+
+Sinton had shared bites of apple and nuts for weeks, for
+Billy had not learned how to eat anything without dividing
+with Jimmy and Belle.  Since he had been separated
+from them, he shared with Wesley and Margaret.  So he
+bent over the boy and received an instalment of cooky
+that almost choked him.
+
+"Now you can eat it!" shouted Billy in delight. 
+"It's all dark!  I can't see what you're doing at all!"
+
+Wesley picked up the small figure and set the boy on the
+back of a horse to bring his face level so that they could
+talk as men.  He never towered from his height above
+Billy, but always lifted the little soul when important
+matters were to be discussed.
+
+"Now what a dandy scheme," he commented.  "Did you
+and Aunt Margaret fix it up?"
+
+"No.  She ain't had hers yet.  But I got one for her. 
+Ist as soon as you eat yours, I am going to take hers, and
+feed her first time I find her in the dark."
+
+"But Billy, where did you get the cookies?  You know
+Aunt Margaret said you were not to have any."
+
+"I ist took them," said Billy, "I didn't take them for me. 
+I ist took them for you and her."
+
+Wesley thought fast.  In the warm darkness of the barn
+the horses crunched their corn, a rat gnawed at a corner of
+the granary, and among the rafters the white pigeon cooed
+a soft sleepy note to his dusky mate.
+
+"Did--did--I steal?" wavered Billy.
+
+Wesley's big hands closed until he almost hurt the boy.
+
+"No!" he said vehemently.  "That is too big a word. 
+You made a mistake.  You were trying to be a fine
+little man, but you went at it the wrong way.  You only
+made a mistake.  All of us do that, Billy.  The world
+grows that way.  When we make mistakes we can see them;
+that teaches us to be more careful the next time, and
+so we learn."
+
+"How wouldn't it be a mistake?"
+
+"If you had told Aunt Margaret what you wanted to do, and
+asked her for the cookies she would have given them to you."
+
+"But I was 'fraid she wouldn't, and you ist had to have it."
+
+"Not if it was wrong for me to have it, Billy.  I don't
+want it that much."
+
+"Must I take it back?"
+
+"You think hard, and decide yourself."
+
+"Lift me down," said Billy, after a silence, "I got
+to put this in the jar, and tell her."
+
+Wesley set the boy on the floor, but as he did so he
+paused one second and strained him close to his breast.
+
+Margaret sat in her chair sewing; Billy slipped in and
+crept beside her.  The little face was lined with tragedy.
+
+"Why Billy, whatever is the matter?" she cried as she
+dropped her sewing and held out her arms.  Billy stood back. 
+He gripped his little fists tight and squared his shoulders. 
+"I got to be shut up in the closet," he said.
+
+"Oh Billy!  What an unlucky day!  What have you
+done now?"
+
+"I stold!" gulped Billy.  "He said it was ist a mistake,
+but it was worser 'an that.  I took something you told
+me I wasn't to have."
+
+"Stole!" Margaret was in despair.  "What, Billy?"
+
+"Cookies!" answered Billy in equal trouble.
+
+"Billy!" wailed Margaret.  "How could you?"
+
+"It was for him and you," sobbed Billy.  "He said
+he couldn't eat it 'fore me, but out in the barn it's all
+dark and I couldn't see.  I thought maybe he could there. 
+Then we might put out the light and you could have yours. 
+He said I only made it worse, cos I mustn't take things,
+so I got to go in the closet.  Will you hold me tight a
+little bit first?  He did."
+
+Margaret opened her arms and Billy rushed in and clung
+to her a few seconds, with all the force of his being,
+then he slipped to the floor and marched to the closet. 
+Margaret opened the door.  Billy gave one glance at
+the light, clinched his fists and, walking inside, climbed
+on a box.  Margaret closed the door.
+
+Then she sat and listened.  Was the air pure enough? 
+Possibly he might smother.  She had read something once. 
+Was it very dark?  What if there should be a mouse in
+the closet and it should run across his foot and
+frighten him into spasms.  Somewhere she had heard--
+Margaret leaned forward with tense face and listened. 
+Something dreadful might happen.  She could bear it
+no longer.  She arose hurriedly and opened the door. 
+Billy was drawn up on the box in a little heap, and he
+lifted a disapproving face to her.
+
+"Shut that door!" he said.  "I ain't been in here near
+long enough yet!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA HAS MORE FINANCIAL TROUBLES,
+AND MRS. COMSTOCK AGAIN HEARS THE SONG OF THE LIMBERLOST
+
+
+The following night Elnora hurried to Sintons'.
+She threw open the back door and with anxious
+eyes searched Margaret's face.
+
+"You got it!" panted Elnora.  "You got it!  I can
+see by your face that you did.  Oh, give it to me!"
+
+"Yes, I got it, honey, I got it all right, but don't be
+so fast.  It had been kept in such a damp place it needed
+glueing, it had to have strings, and a key was gone. 
+I knew how much you wanted it, so I sent Wesley right
+to town with it.  They said they could fix it good as
+new, but it should be varnished, and that it would take
+several days for the glue to set.  You can have it Saturday."
+
+"You found it where you thought it was?  You know
+it's his?"
+
+"Yes, it was just where I thought, and it's the same
+violin I've seen him play hundreds of times.  It's all
+right, only laying so long it needs fixing."
+
+"Oh Aunt Margaret!  Can I ever wait?"
+
+"It does seem a long time, but how could I help it? 
+You couldn't do anything with it as it was.  You see,
+it had been hidden away in a garret, and it needed cleaning
+and drying to make it fit to play again.  You can
+have it Saturday sure.  But Elnora, you've got to promise
+me that you will leave it here, or in town, and not let
+your mother get a hint of it.  I don't know what she'd do."
+
+"Uncle Wesley can bring it here until Monday.  Then I will
+take it to school so that I can practise at noon.  Oh, I
+don't know how to thank you.  And there's more than the
+violin for which to be thankful.  You've given me my father. 
+Last night I saw him plainly as life."
+
+"Elnora you were dreaming!"
+
+"I know I was dreaming, but I saw him.  I saw him so
+closely that a tiny white scar at the corner of his
+eyebrow showed.  I was just reaching out to touch him
+when he disappeared."
+
+"Who told you there was a scar on his forehead?"
+
+"No one ever did in all my life.  I saw it last night
+as he went down.  And oh, Aunt Margaret!  I saw what
+she did, and I heard his cries!  No matter what she does,
+I don't believe I ever can be angry with her again.  Her heart
+is broken, and she can't help it.  Oh, it was terrible,
+but I am glad I saw it.  Now, I will always understand."
+
+"I don't know what to make of that," said Margaret. 
+I don't believe in such stuff at all, but you couldn't make
+it up, for you didn't know."
+
+"I only know that I played the violin last night, as
+he played it, and while I played he came through the
+woods from the direction of Carneys'.  It was summer
+and all the flowers were in bloom.  He wore gray
+trousers and a blue shirt, his head was bare, and his
+face was beautiful.  I could almost touch him when he sank."
+
+Margaret stood perplexed.  "I don't know what to
+think of that!" she ejaculated.  "I was next to the last
+person who saw him before he was drowned.  It was late
+on a June afternoon, and he was dressed as you describe. 
+He was bareheaded because he had found a quail's nest
+before the bird began to brood, and he gathered the eggs
+in his hat and left it in a fence corner to get on his way
+home; they found it afterward."
+
+"Was he coming from Carneys'?"
+
+"He was on that side of the quagmire.  Why he ever skirted
+it so close as to get caught is a mystery you will have to
+dream out.  I never could understand it."
+
+"Was he doing something he didn't want my mother to know?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because if he had been, he might have cut close the
+swamp so he couldn't be seen from the garden.  You know,
+the whole path straight to the pool where he sank can be
+seen from our back door.  It's firm on our side. 
+The danger is on the north and east.  If he didn't want
+mother to know, he might have tried to pass on either of
+those sides and gone too close.  Was he in a hurry?"
+
+"Yes, he was," said Margaret.  "He had been away
+longer than he expected, and he almost ran when he
+started home."
+
+"And he'd left his violin somewhere that you knew, and
+you went and got it.  I'll wager he was going to play,
+and didn't want mother to find it out!"
+
+"It wouldn't make any difference to you if you knew
+every little thing, so quit thinking about it, and just be
+glad you are to have what he loved best of anything."
+"That's true.  Now I must hurry home.  I am dreadfully late."
+
+Elnora sprang up and ran down the road, but when
+she approached the cabin she climbed the fence, crossed
+the open woods pasture diagonally and entered at the
+back garden gate.  As she often came that way when she
+had been looking for cocoons her mother asked no questions.
+
+Elnora lived by the minute until Saturday, when,
+contrary to his usual custom, Wesley went to town in
+the forenoon, taking her along to buy some groceries. 
+Wesley drove straight to the music store, and asked for
+the violin he had left to be mended.
+
+In its new coat of varnish, with new keys and strings,
+it seemed much like any other violin to Sinton, but to
+Elnora it was the most beautiful instrument ever made,
+and a priceless treasure.  She held it in her arms, touched
+the strings softly and then she drew the bow across them
+in whispering measure.  She had no time to think what
+a remarkably good bow it was for sixteen years' disuse. 
+The tan leather case might have impressed her as being
+in fine condition also, had she been in a state to
+question anything.  She did remember to ask for the bill
+and she was gravely presented with a slip calling for
+four strings, one key, and a coat of varnish, total, one
+dollar fifty.  It seemed to Elnora she never could put the
+precious instrument in the case and start home.  Wesley left
+her in the music store where the proprietor showed her all
+he could about tuning, and gave her several beginners'
+sheets of notes and scales.  She carried the violin in her
+arms as far as the crossroads at the corner of their land,
+then reluctantly put it under the carriage seat.
+
+As soon as her work was done she ran down to Sintons'
+and began to play, and on Monday the violin went to
+school with her.  She made arrangements with the superintendent
+to leave it in his office and scarcely took time for her food
+at noon, she was so eager to practise.  Often one of the
+girls asked her to stay in town all night for some lecture
+or entertainment.  She could take the violin with her,
+practise, and secure help.  Her skill was so great that
+the leader of the orchestra offered to give her lessons
+if she would play to pay for them, so her progress was
+rapid in technical work.  But from the first day the
+instrument became hers, with perfect faith that she could
+play as her father did, she spent half her practice time in
+imitating the sounds of all outdoors and improvising the
+songs her happy heart sang in those days.
+
+So the first year went, and the second and third were
+a repetition; but the fourth was different, for that was the
+close of the course, ending with graduation and all its
+attendant ceremonies and expenses.  To Elnora these
+appeared mountain high.  She had hoarded every cent,
+thinking twice before she parted with a penny, but teaching
+natural history in the grades had taken time from her studies
+in school which must be made up outside.  She was a
+conscientious student, ranking first in most of her classes,
+and standing high in all branches.  Her interest in
+her violin had grown with the years.  She went to school
+early and practised half an hour in the little room adjoining
+the stage, while the orchestra gathered.  She put in a
+full hour at noon, and remained another half hour at night. 
+She carried the violin to Sintons' on Saturday and practised
+all the time she could there, while Margaret watched the
+road to see that Mrs. Comstock was not coming.  She had
+become so skilful that it was a delight to hear her play
+music of any composer, but when she played her own, that
+was joy inexpressible, for then the wind blew, the water
+rippled, the Limberlost sang her songs of sunshine, shadow,
+black storm, and white night.
+
+Since her dream Elnora had regarded her mother with
+peculiar tenderness.  The girl realized, in a measure, what
+had happened.  She avoided anything that possibly could
+stir bitter memories or draw deeper a line on the hard,
+white face.  This cost many sacrifices, much work, and
+sometimes delayed progress, but the horror of that awful
+dream remained with Elnora.  She worked her way cheerfully,
+doing all she could to interest her mother in things
+that happened in school, in the city, and by carrying books
+that were entertaining from the public library.
+
+Three years had changed Elnora from the girl of sixteen
+to the very verge of womanhood.  She had grown tall,
+round, and her face had the loveliness of perfect
+complexion, beautiful eyes and hair and an added touch
+from within that might have been called comprehension. 
+It was a compound of self-reliance, hard knocks, heart
+hunger, unceasing work, and generosity.  There was no
+form of suffering with which the girl could not sympathize,
+no work she was afraid to attempt, no subject she had
+investigated she did not understand.  These things combined
+to produce a breadth and depth of character altogether unusual. 
+She was so absorbed in her classes and her music that she
+had not been able to gather many specimens.  When she
+realized this and hunted assiduously, she soon found
+that changing natural conditions had affected such work. 
+Men all around were clearing available land.  The trees
+fell wherever corn would grow.  The swamp was broken by
+several gravel roads, dotted in places around the edge
+with little frame houses, and the machinery of oil wells;
+one especially low place around the region of Freckles's
+room was nearly all that remained of the original. 
+Wherever the trees fell the moisture dried, the creeks
+ceased to flow, the river ran low, and at times the
+bed was dry.  With unbroken sweep the winds of the
+west came, gathering force with every mile and howled and
+raved; threatening to tear the shingles from the roof,
+blowing the surface from the soil in clouds of fine dust and
+rapidly changing everything.  From coming in with two or
+three dozen rare moths in a day, in three years' time Elnora
+had grown to be delighted with finding two or three. 
+Big pursy caterpillars could not be picked from their favourite
+bushes, when there were no bushes.  Dragonflies would
+not hover over dry places, and butterflies became scarce
+in proportion to the flowers, while no land yields over three
+crops of Indian relics.
+
+All the time the expense of books, clothing and
+incidentals had continued.  Elnora added to her bank
+account whenever she could, and drew out when she was
+compelled, but she omitted the important feature of calling
+for a balance.  So, one early spring morning in the last
+quarter of the fourth year, she almost fainted when she
+learned that her funds were gone.  Commencement with its
+extra expense was coming, she had no money, and very few
+cocoons to open in June, which would be too late.  She had
+one collection for the Bird Woman complete to a pair of
+Imperialis moths, and that was her only asset.  On the
+day she added these big Yellow Emperors she had been
+promised a check for three hundred dollars, but she would
+not get it until these specimens were secured. 
+She remembered that she never had found an Emperor
+before June.
+
+Moreover, that sum was for her first year in college. 
+Then she would be of age, and she meant to sell enough of
+her share of her father's land to finish.  She knew her
+mother would oppose her bitterly in that, for Mrs.
+Comstock had clung to every acre and tree that belonged to
+her husband.  Her land was almost complete forest where her
+neighbours owned cleared farms, dotted with wells that
+every hour sucked oil from beneath her holdings, but she
+was too absorbed in the grief she nursed to know or care. 
+The Brushwood road and the redredging of the big Limberlost
+ditch had been more than she could pay from her income,
+and she had trembled before the wicket as she asked
+the banker if she had funds to pay it, and wondered why he
+laughed when he assured her she had.  For Mrs. Comstock
+had spent no time on compounding interest, and
+never added the sums she had been depositing through
+nearly twenty years.  Now she thought her funds were
+almost gone, and every day she worried over expenses. 
+She could see no reason in going through the forms of
+graduation when pupils had all in their heads that was
+required to graduate.  Elnora knew she had to have her
+diploma in order to enter the college she wanted to attend,
+but she did not dare utter the word, until high school
+was finished, for, instead of softening as she hoped her
+mother had begun to do, she seemed to remain very
+much the same.
+
+When the girl reached the swamp she sat on a log and
+thought over the expense she was compelled to meet. 
+Every member of her particular set was having a large
+photograph taken to exchange with the others.  Elnora loved
+these girls and boys, and to say she could not have
+their pictures to keep was more than she could endure. 
+Each one would give to all the others a handsome
+graduation present.  She knew they would prepare gifts for
+her whether she could make a present in return or not. 
+Then it was the custom for each graduating class to give a
+great entertainment and use the funds to present the school
+with a statue for the entrance hall.  Elnora had been cast
+for and was practising a part in that performance.  She was
+expected to furnish her dress and personal necessities. 
+She had been told that she must have a green gauze dress,
+and where was it to come from?
+
+Every girl of the class would have three beautiful new
+frocks for Commencement: one for the baccalaureate
+sermon, another, which could be plain, for graduation
+exercises, and a handsome one for the banquet and ball. 
+Elnora faced the past three years and wondered how she
+could have spent so much money and not kept account of it. 
+She did not realize where it had gone.  She did not
+know what she could do now.  She thought over the
+photographs, and at last settled that question to
+her satisfaction.  She studied longer over the gifts,
+ten handsome ones there must be, and at last decided she
+could arrange for them.  The green dress came first. 
+The lights would be dim in the scene, and the setting
+deep woods.  She could manage that.  She simply could not
+have three dresses.  She would have to get a very simple one
+for the sermon and do the best she could for graduation. 
+Whatever she got for that must be made with a guimpe that
+could be taken out to make it a little more festive for
+the ball.  But where could she get even two pretty dresses?
+
+The only hope she could see was to break into the collection
+of the man from India, sell some moths, and try to replace
+them in June.  But in her soul she knew that never
+would do.  No June ever brought just the things she
+hoped it would.  If she spent the college money she knew
+she could not replace it.  If she did not, the only way was
+to secure a room in the grades and teach a year.  Her work
+there had been so appreciated that Elnora felt with
+the recommendation she knew she could get from the
+superintendent and teachers she could secure a position. 
+She was sure she could pass the examinations easily. 
+She had once gone on Saturday, taken them and secured a
+license for a year before she left the Brushwood school.
+
+She wanted to start to college when the other girls were going. 
+If she could make the first year alone, she could manage
+the remainder.  But make that first year herself, she must. 
+Instead of selling any of her collection, she must hunt
+as she never before had hunted and find a Yellow Emperor. 
+She had to have it, that was all.  Also, she had to have
+those dresses.  She thought of Wesley and dismissed it. 
+She thought of the Bird Woman, and knew she could not
+tell her.  She thought of every way in which she ever had
+hoped to earn money and realized that with the play,
+committee meetings, practising, and final examinations
+she scarcely had time to live, much less to do more than
+the work required for her pictures and gifts.  Again Elnora
+was in trouble, and this time it seemed the worst of all.
+
+It was dark when she arose and went home.
+
+"Mother," she said, "I have a piece of news that is
+decidedly not cheerful."
+
+"Then keep it to yourself!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "I think
+I have enough to bear without a great girl like you
+piling trouble on me."
+
+"My money is all gone!" said Elnora.
+
+"Well, did you think it would last forever?  It's been
+a marvel to me that it's held out as well as it has, the way
+you've dressed and gone."
+
+"I don't think I've spent any that I was not compelled
+to," said Elnora.  "I've dressed on just as little as I
+possibly could to keep going.  I am heartsick.  I thought
+I had over fifty dollars to put me through Commencement,
+but they tell me it is all gone."
+
+"Fifty dollars!  To put you through Commencement! 
+What on earth are you proposing to do?"
+
+"The same as the rest of them, in the very cheapest
+way possible."
+
+"And what might that be?"
+
+Elnora omitted the photographs, the gifts and the play. 
+She told only of the sermon, graduation exercises, and the ball.
+
+"Well, I wouldn't trouble myself over that," sniffed
+Mrs. Comstock.  "If you want to go to a sermon, put on
+the dress you always use for meeting.  If you need white
+for the exercises wear the new dress you got last spring. 
+As for the ball, the best thing for you to do is to stay a
+mile away from such folly.  In my opinion you'd best
+bring home your books, and quit right now.  You can't
+be fixed like the rest of them, don't be so foolish
+as to run into it.  Just stay here and let these last few
+days go.  You can't learn enough more to be of any account."
+
+"But, mother," gasped Elnora.  "You don't understand!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I do!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "I understand perfectly. 
+So long as the money lasted, you held up your head,
+and went sailing without even explaining how you got it
+from the stuff you gathered.  Goodness knows I couldn't see. 
+But now it's gone, you come whining to me.  What have I got? 
+Have you forgot that the ditch and the road completely
+strapped me?  I haven't any money.  There's nothing for you
+to do but get out of it."
+
+"I can't!" said Elnora desperately.  "I've gone on too long. 
+It would make a break in everything.  They wouldn't let me
+have my diploma!"
+
+"What's the difference?  You've got the stuff in your head. 
+I wouldn't give a rap for a scrap of paper.  That don't
+mean anything!"
+
+"But I've worked four years for it, and I can't enter--
+I ought to have it to help me get a school, when I want
+to teach.  If I don't have my grades to show, people
+will think I quit because I couldn't pass my examinations. 
+I must have my diploma!"
+
+"Then get it!" said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"The only way is to graduate with the others."
+
+"Well, graduate if you are bound to!"
+
+"But I can't, unless I have things enough like the
+class, that I don't look as I did that first day."
+
+"Well, please remember I didn't get you into this,
+and I can't get you out.  You are set on having your
+own way.  Go on, and have it, and see how you like it!"
+
+Elnora went upstairs and did not come down again
+that night, which her mother called pouting.
+
+"I've thought all night," said the girl at breakfast,
+"and I can't see any way but to borrow the money of
+Uncle Wesley and pay it back from some that the Bird
+Woman will owe me, when I get one more specimen. 
+But that means that I can't go to--that I will have to
+teach this winter, if I can get a city grade or a
+country school."
+
+"Just you dare go dinging after Wesley Sinton for money,"
+cried Mrs. Comstock.  "You won't do any such a thing!"
+
+"I can't see any other way.  I've got to have the money!"
+
+"Quit, I tell you!"
+
+"I can't quit!--I've gone too far!"
+
+"Well then, let me get your clothes, and you can pay
+me back."
+
+"But you said you had no money!"
+
+"Maybe I can borrow some at the bank.  Then you
+can return it when the Bird Woman pays you."
+
+"All right," said Elnora.  "I don't need expensive things. 
+Just some kind of a pretty cheap white dress for the sermon,
+and a white one a little better than I had last summer,
+for Commencement and the ball.  I can use the white
+gloves and shoes I got myself for last year, and you can
+get my dress made at the same place you did that one. 
+They have my measurements, and do perfect work. 
+Don't get expensive things.  It will be warm so I can
+go bareheaded."
+
+Then she started to school, but was so tired and
+discouraged she scarcely could walk.  Four years' plans
+going in one day!  For she felt that if she did not start
+to college that fall she never would.  Instead of feeling
+relieved at her mother's offer, she was almost too ill to
+go on.  For the thousandth time she groaned:  "Oh, why
+didn't I keep account of my money?"
+
+After that the days passed so swiftly she scarcely had
+time to think, but several trips her mother made to town,
+and the assurance that everything was all right,
+satisfied Elnora.  She worked very hard to pass good
+final examinations and perfect herself for the play. 
+For two days she had remained in town with the Bird Woman
+in order to spend more time practising and at her work.
+
+Often Margaret had asked about her dresses for graduation,
+and Elnora had replied that they were with a woman in the
+city who had made her a white dress for last year's
+Commencement when she was a junior usher, and they would
+be all right.  So Margaret, Wesley, and Billy concerned
+themselves over what they would give her for a present. 
+Margaret suggested a beautiful dress.  Wesley said that
+would look to every one as if she needed dresses. 
+The thing was to get a handsome gift like all the others
+would have.  Billy wanted to present her a five-dollar gold
+piece to buy music for her violin.  He was positive Elnora
+would like that best of anything.
+
+It was toward the close of the term when they drove to
+town one evening to try to settle this important question. 
+They knew Mrs. Comstock had been alone several days,
+so they asked her to accompany them.  She had
+been more lonely than she would admit, filled with unusual
+unrest besides, and so she was glad to go.  But before
+they had driven a mile Billy had told that they were going
+to buy Elnora a graduation present, and Mrs. Comstock
+devoutly wished that she had remained at home.  She was
+prepared when Billy asked:  "Aunt Kate, what are you going
+to give Elnora when she graduates?"
+
+"Plenty to eat, a good bed to sleep in, and do all
+the work while she trollops," answered Mrs. Comstock dryly.
+
+Billy reflected.  "I guess all of them have that," he said. 
+"I mean a present you buy at the store, like Christmas?"
+
+"It is only rich folks who buy presents at stores,"
+replied Mrs.Comstock. "I can't afford it."
+
+
+"Well, we ain't rich," he said, "but we are going to buy
+Elnora something as fine as the rest of them have if we sell
+a corner of the farm.  Uncle Wesley said so."
+
+"A fool and his land are soon parted," said Mrs.
+Comstock tersely.  Wesley and Billy laughed, but
+Margaret did not enjoy the remark.
+
+While they were searching the stores for something on
+which all of them could decide, and Margaret was holding
+Billy to keep him from saying anything before Mrs. Comstock
+about the music on which he was determined, Mr. Brownlee
+met Wesley and stopped to shake hands.
+
+"I see your boy came out finely," he said.
+
+"I don't allow any boy anywhere to be finer than Billy,"
+said Wesley.
+
+"I guess you don't allow any girl to surpass Elnora,"
+said Mr. Brownlee.  "She comes home with Ellen often,
+and my wife and I love her.  Ellen says she is great in her
+part to-night.  Best thing in the whole play!  Of course,
+you are in to see it!  If you haven't reserved seats, you'd
+better start pretty soon, for the high school auditorium
+only seats a thousand.  It's always jammed at these home-
+talent plays.  All of us want to see how our children perform."
+
+"Why yes, of course," said the bewildered Wesley. 
+Then he hurried to Margaret.  "Say," he said, "there is
+going to be a play at the high school to-night; and Elnora
+is in it.  Why hasn't she told us?"
+
+"I don't know," said Margaret, "but I'm going."
+
+"So am I," said Billy.
+
+"Me too!" said Wesley, "unless you think for some
+reason she doesn't want us.  Looks like she would have
+told us if she had.  I'm going to ask her mother."
+
+"Yes, that's what's she's been staying in town for," said
+Mrs. Comstock.  "It's some sort of a swindle to raise
+money for her class to buy some silly thing to stick up in
+the school house hall to remember them by.  I don't know
+whether it's now or next week, but there's something of the
+kind to be done."
+
+"Well, it's to-night," said Wesley, "and we are going. 
+It's my treat, and we've got to hurry or we won't get in. 
+There are reserved seats, and we have none, so it's the
+gallery for us, but I don't care so I get to take one good
+peep at Elnora."
+
+"S'pose she plays?" whispered Margaret in his ear.
+
+"Aw, tush!  She couldn't!" said Wesley.
+
+"Well, she's been doing it three years in the orchestra,
+and working like a slave at it."
+
+"Oh, well that's different.  She's in the play to-night. 
+Brownlee told me so.  Come on, quick!  We'll drive and
+hitch closest place we can find to the building."
+
+Margaret went in the excitement of the moment, but
+she was troubled.
+
+When they reached the building Wesley tied the team
+to a railing and Billy sprang out to help Margaret. 
+Mrs. Comstock sat still.
+
+"Come on, Kate," said Wesley, reaching his hand.
+
+"I'm not going anywhere," said Mrs. Comstock,
+settling comfortably back against the cushions.
+
+All of them begged and pleaded, but it was no use.  Not an
+inch would Mrs. Comstock budge.  The night was warm and
+the carriage comfortable, the horses were securely hitched. 
+She did not care to see what idiotic thing a pack of school
+children were doing, she would wait until the Sintons returned. 
+Wesley told her it might be two hours, and she said she did
+not care if it were four, so they left her.
+
+"Did you ever see such----?"
+
+"Cookies!" cried Billy.
+
+"Such blamed stubbornness in all your life?" demanded Wesley. 
+"Won't come to see as fine a girl as Elnora in a
+stage performance.  Why, I wouldn't miss it for fifty dollars!
+
+"I think it's a blessing she didn't," said Margaret placidly. 
+"I begged unusually hard so she wouldn't.  I'm scared of my
+life for fear Elnora will play."
+
+They found seats near the door where they could see
+fairly well.  Billy stood at the back of the hall and had a
+good view.  By and by, a great volume of sound welled
+from the orchestra, but Elnora was not playing.
+
+"Told you so!" said Sinton.  "Got a notion to go out
+and see if Kate won't come now.  She can take my seat,
+and I'll stand with Billy."
+
+"You sit  still!" said Margaret emphatically.  "This is
+not over yet."
+
+So Wesley remained in his seat.  The play opened and
+progressed very much as all high school plays have gone
+for the past fifty years.  But Elnora did not appear in any
+of the scenes.
+
+Out in the warm summer night a sour, grim woman
+nursed an aching heart and tried to justify herself. 
+The effort irritated her intensely.  She felt that she
+could not afford the things that were being done. 
+The old fear of losing the land that she and Robert
+Comstock had purchased and started clearing was strong
+upon her.  She was thinking of him, how she needed him,
+when the orchestra music poured from the open windows
+near her.  Mrs. Comstock endured it as long as she
+could, and then slipped from the carriage and fled down
+the street.
+
+She did not know how far she went or how long she stayed,
+but everything was still, save an occasional raised
+voice when she wandered back.  She stood looking at
+the building.  Slowly she entered the wide gates and
+followed up the walk.  Elnora had been coming here for
+almost four years.  When Mrs. Comstock reached the door she
+looked inside.  The wide hall was lighted with electricity,
+and the statuary and the decorations of the walls did not
+seem like pieces of foolishness.  The marble appeared
+pure, white, and the big pictures most interesting. 
+She walked the length of the hall and slowly read the titles
+of the statues and the names of the pupils who had donated them. 
+She speculated on where the piece Elnora's class would buy
+could be placed to advantage.
+
+Then she wondered if they were having a large enough
+audience to buy marble.  She liked it better than the
+bronze, but it looked as if it cost more.  How white the
+broad stairway was!  Elnora had been climbing those
+stairs for years and never told her they were marble. 
+Of course, she thought they were wood.  Probably the upper
+hall was even grander than this.  She went over to the
+fountain, took a drink, climbed to the first landing and
+looked around her, and then without thought to the second. 
+There she came opposite the wide-open doors and the
+entrance to the auditorium packed with people and a
+crowd standing outside.  When they noticed a tall
+woman with white face and hair and black dress, one by
+one they stepped a little aside, so that Mrs. Comstock
+could see the stage.  It was covered with curtains, and no
+one was doing anything.  Just as she turned to go a sound
+so faint that every one leaned forward and listened,
+drifted down the auditorium.  It was difficult to tell just
+what it was; after one instant half the audience looked
+toward the windows, for it seemed only a breath of wind
+rustling freshly opened leaves; merely a hint of stirring air.
+
+Then the curtains were swept aside swiftly.  The stage
+had been transformed into a lovely little corner of creation,
+where trees and flowers grew and moss carpeted the earth. 
+A soft wind blew and it was the gray of dawn.  Suddenly a
+robin began to sing, then a song sparrow joined him, and
+then several orioles began talking at once.  The light grew
+stronger, the dew drops trembled, flower perfume began
+to creep out to the audience; the air moved the branches
+gently and a rooster crowed.  Then all the scene was
+shaken with a babel of bird notes in which you could hear
+a cardinal whistling, and a blue finch piping.  Back somewhere
+among the high branches a dove cooed and then a horse
+neighed shrilly.  That set a blackbird crying, "T'check,"
+and a whole flock answered it.  The crows began to caw and
+a lamb bleated.  Then the grosbeaks, chats, and vireos
+had something to say, and the sun rose higher, the light
+grew stronger and the breeze rustled the treetops
+loudly; a cow bawled and the whole barnyard answered. 
+The guineas were clucking, the turkey gobbler strutting,
+the hens calling, the chickens cheeping, the light streamed
+down straight overhead and the bees began to hum.  The air
+stirred strongly, and away in an unseen field a reaper
+clacked and rattled through ripening wheat while the
+driver whistled.  An uneasy mare whickered to her colt,
+the colt answered, and the light began to decline. 
+Miles away a rooster crowed for twilight, and dusk was
+coming down.  Then a catbird and a brown thrush sang
+against a grosbeak and a hermit thrush.  The air was
+tremulous with heavenly notes, the lights went out in the
+hall, dusk swept across the stage, a cricket sang and a
+katydid answered, and a wood pewee wrung the heart with
+its lonesome cry.  Then a night hawk screamed, a whip-
+poor-will complained, a belated killdeer swept the sky,
+and the night wind sang a louder song.  A little screech owl
+tuned up in the distance, a barn owl replied, and a great
+horned owl drowned both their voices.  The moon shone and the
+scene was warm with mellow light.  The bird voices died
+and soft exquisite melody began to swell and roll.  In the
+centre of the stage, piece by piece the grasses, mosses and
+leaves dropped from an embankment, the foliage softly
+blew away, while plainer and plainer came the outlines of a
+lovely girl figure draped in soft clinging green.  In her
+shower of bright hair a few green leaves and white blossoms
+clung, and they fell over her robe down to her feet.  Her white
+throat and arms were bare, she leaned forward a little and
+swayed with the melody, her eyes fast on the clouds above her,
+her lips parted, a pink tinge of exercise in her cheeks as
+she drew her bow.  She played as only a peculiar chain of
+circumstances puts it in the power of a very few to play. 
+All nature had grown still, the violin sobbed, sang,
+danced and quavered on alone, no voice in particular;
+the soul of the melody of all nature combined in one
+great outpouring.
+
+At the doorway, a white-faced woman endured it as long
+as she could and then fell senseless.  The men nearest
+carried her down the hall to the fountain, revived her, and
+then placed her in the carriage to which she directed them. 
+The girl played on and never knew.  When she finished,
+the uproar of applause sounded a block down the street, but
+the half-senseless woman scarcely realized what it meant. 
+Then the girl came to the front of the stage, bowed, and
+lifting the violin she played her conception of an invitation
+to dance.  Every living soul within sound of her notes
+strained their nerves to sit still and let only their hearts
+dance with her.  When that began the woman ran toward
+the country.  She never stopped until the carriage overtook
+her half-way to her cabin.  She said she had grown
+tired of sitting, and walked on ahead.  That night she
+asked Billy to remain with her and sleep on Elnora's bed. 
+Then she pitched headlong upon her own, and suffered
+agony of soul such as she never before had known. 
+The swamp had sent back the soul of her loved dead and
+put it into the body of the daughter she resented,
+and it was almost more than she could endure and live.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA GRADUATES,
+AND FRECKLES AND THE ANGEL SEND GIFTS
+
+
+That was Friday night.  Elnora came home Saturday morning
+and began work.  Mrs. Comstock asked no questions, and
+the girl only told her that the audience had been large
+enough to more than pay for the piece of statuary the class
+had selected for the hall.  Then she inquired about her
+dresses and was told they would be ready for her.  She had
+been invited to go to the Bird Woman's to prepare for both
+the sermon and Commencement exercises.  Since there was so
+much practising to do, it had been arranged that she should
+remain there from the night of the sermon until after she
+was graduated.  If Mrs. Comstock decided to attend she was
+to drive in with the Sintons.  When Elnora begged her to
+come she said she cared nothing about such silliness.
+
+It was almost time for Wesley to come to take Elnora to
+the city, when fresh from her bath, and dressed to her outer
+garment, she stood with expectant face before her mother
+and cried:  "Now my dress, mother!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock was pale as she replied:  "It's on my bed. 
+Help yourself."
+
+Elnora opened the door and stepped into her mother's
+room with never a misgiving.  Since the night Margaret
+and Wesley had brought her clothing, when she first started
+to school, her mother had selected all of her dresses, with
+Mrs. Sinton's help made most of them, and Elnora had
+paid the bills.  The white dress of the previous spring was
+the first made at a dressmaker's.  She had worn that as
+junior usher at Commencement; but her mother had selected
+the material, had it made, and it had fitted perfectly and
+had been suitable in every way.  So with her heart at rest on
+that point, Elnora hurried to the bed to find only her last
+summer's white dress, freshly washed and ironed.  For an
+instant she stared at it, then she picked up the garment,
+looked at the bed beneath it, and her gaze slowly swept the room.
+
+It was unfamiliar.  Perhaps this was the third time she
+had been in it since she was a very small child.  Her eyes
+ranged over the beautiful walnut dresser, the tall bureau,
+the big chest, inside which she never had seen, and the row
+of masculine attire hanging above it.  Somewhere a
+dainty lawn or mull dress simply must be hanging: but it
+was not.  Elnora dropped on the chest because she felt too
+weak to stand.  In less than two hours she must be in
+the church, at Onabasha.  She could not wear a last
+year's washed dress.  She had nothing else.  She leaned
+against the wall and her father's overcoat brushed her face. 
+She caught the folds and clung to it with all her might.
+
+"Oh father!  Father!" she moaned.  "I need you!  I don't
+believe you would have done this!"  At last she
+opened the door.
+
+"I can't find my dress," she said.
+
+"Well, as it's the only one there I shouldn't think it
+would be much trouble."
+
+"You mean for me to wear an old washed dress to-night?"
+
+"It's a good dress.  There isn't a hole in it!  There's no
+reason on earth why you shouldn't wear it."
+
+"Except that I will not," said Elnora.  "Didn't you
+provide any dress for Commencement, either?"
+
+"If you soil that to-night, I've plenty of time to wash
+it again."
+
+Wesley's voice called from the gate.
+
+"In a minute," answered Elnora.
+
+She ran upstairs and in an incredibly short time came
+down wearing one of her gingham school dresses.  Her face
+cold and hard, she passed her mother and went into
+the night.  Half an hour later Margaret and Billy stopped
+for Mrs. Comstock with the carriage.  She had determined
+fully that she would not go before they called.  With the
+sound of their voices a sort of horror of being left seized her,
+so she put on her hat, locked the door and went out to them.
+
+"How did Elnora look?" inquired Margaret anxiously.
+
+"Like she always does," answered Mrs. Comstock curtly.
+
+"I do hope her dresses are as pretty as the others,"
+said Margaret.  "None of them will have prettier faces or
+nicer ways."
+
+Wesley was waiting before the big church to take care of
+the team.  As they stood watching the people enter the
+building, Mrs. Comstock felt herself growing ill.  When they
+went inside among the lights, saw the flower-decked stage,
+and the masses of finely dressed people, she grew no better. 
+She could hear Margaret and Billy softly commenting on what
+was being done.
+
+"That first chair in the very front row is Elnora's,"
+exulted Billy, "cos she's got the highest grades, and so she
+gets to lead the procession to the platform."
+
+"The first chair!"  "Lead the procession!"  Mrs. Comstock
+was dumbfounded.  The notes of the pipe organ began to fill
+the building in a slow rolling march.  Would Elnora lead
+the procession in a gingham dress?  Or would she be absent
+and her chair vacant on this great occasion?  For now, Mrs.
+Comstock could see that it was a great occasion.  Every one
+would remember how Elnora had played a few nights before,
+and they would miss her and pity her.  Pity?  Because she had
+no one to care for her.  Because she was worse off than if she
+had no mother.  For the first time in her life, Mrs. Comstock
+began to study herself as she would appear to others. 
+Every time a junior girl came fluttering down the aisle,
+leading some one to a seat, and Mrs. Comstock saw a beautiful
+white dress pass, a wave of positive illness swept over her. 
+What had she done?  What would become of Elnora?
+
+As Elnora rode to the city, she answered Wesley's
+questions in monosyllables so that he thought she was
+nervous or rehearsing her speech and did not care to talk. 
+Several times the girl tried to tell him and realized that if
+she said the first word it would bring uncontrollable tears. 
+The Bird Woman opened the screen and stared unbelievingly.
+
+"Why, I thought you would be ready; you are so late!"
+
+she said.  "If you have waited to dress here, we must hurry."
+
+"I have nothing to put on," said Elnora.
+
+In bewilderment the Bird Woman drew her inside.
+
+"Did--did--" she faltered.  "Did you think you would wear that?"
+
+"No.  I thought I would telephone Ellen that there had
+been an accident and I could not come.  I don't know yet
+how to explain.  I'm too sick to think.  Oh, do you suppose
+I can get something made by Tuesday, so that I can graduate?"
+
+"Yes; and you'll get something on you to-night, so that
+you can lead your class, as you have done for four years. 
+Go to my room and take off that gingham, quickly.  Anna, drop
+everything, and come help me."
+
+The Bird Woman ran to the telephone and called Ellen Brownlee.
+
+"Elnora has had an accident.  She will be a little late,"
+she said.  "You have got to make them wait.  Have them
+play extra music before the march."
+
+Then she turned to the maid.  "Tell Benson to have the
+carriage at the gate, just as soon as he can get it there. 
+Then come to my room.  Bring the thread box from the
+sewing-room, that roll of wide white ribbon on the cutting
+table, and gather all the white pins from every dresser in
+the house.  But first come with me a minute."
+
+"I want that trunk with the Swamp Angel's stuff in it,
+from the cedar closet," she panted as they reached the top
+of the stairs. 
+
+They hurried down the hall together and dragged the
+big trunk to the Bird Woman's room.  She opened it and
+began tossing out white stuff.
+
+"How lucky that she left these things!" she cried. 
+"Here are white shoes, gloves, stockings, fans, everything!"
+
+"I am all ready but a dress," said Elnora.
+
+The Bird Woman began opening closets and pulling out
+drawers and boxes.
+
+"I think I can make it this way," she said.
+
+She snatched up a creamy lace yoke with long sleeves
+that recently had been made for her and held it out. 
+Elnora slipped into it, and the Bird Woman began smoothing
+out wrinkles and sewing in pins.  It fitted very well
+with a little lapping in the back.  Next, from among the
+Angel's clothing she caught up a white silk waist with low
+neck and elbow sleeves, and Elnora put it on.  It was
+large enough, but distressingly short in the waist, for the
+Angel had worn it at a party when she was sixteen.  The Bird
+Woman loosened the sleeves and pushed them to a puff on
+the shoulders, catching them in places with pins. 
+She began on the wide draping of the yoke, fastening it
+front, back and at each shoulder.  She pulled down the
+waist and pinned it.  Next came a soft white dress skirt
+of her own.  By pinning her waist band quite four inches
+above Elnora's, the Bird Woman could secure a perfect
+Empire sweep, with the clinging silk.  Then she began
+with the wide white ribbon that was to trim a new frock for
+herself, bound it three times around the high waist effect
+she had managed, tied the ends in a knot and let them fall
+to the floor in a beautiful sash.
+
+"I want four white roses, each with two or three
+leaves," she cried.
+
+Anna ran to bring them, while the Bird Woman added pins.
+
+"Elnora," she said, "forgive me, but tell me truly.  Is your
+mother so poor as to make this necessary?"
+
+"No," answered Elnora.  "Next year I am heir to my share
+of over three hundred acres of land covered with almost
+as valuable timber as was in the Limberlost.  We adjoin it. 
+There could be thirty oil wells drilled that would yield
+to us the thousands our neighbours are draining from under
+us, and the bare land is worth over one hundred dollars an
+acre for farming.  She is not poor, she is--I don't know
+what she is.  A great trouble soured and warped her. 
+It made her peculiar.  She does not in the least understand,
+but it is because she doesn't care to, instead of ignorance. 
+She does not----"
+
+Elnora stopped.
+
+"She is--is different," finished the girl.
+
+Anna came with the roses.  The Bird Woman set one
+on the front of the draped yoke, one on each shoulder and
+the last among the bright masses of brown hair.  Then she
+turned the girl facing the tall mirror.
+
+"Oh!" panted Elnora.  "You are a genius!  Why, I
+will look as well as any of them."
+
+"Thank goodness for that!" cried the Bird Woman. 
+"If it wouldn't do, I should have been ill.  You are lovely;
+altogether lovely!  Ordinarily I shouldn't say that; but
+when I think of how you are carpentered, I'm admiring
+the result."
+
+The organ began rolling out the march as they came in sight. 
+Elnora took her place at the head of the procession,
+while every one wondered.  Secretly they had hoped that
+she would be dressed well enough, that she would not
+appear poor and neglected.  What this radiant young
+creature, gowned in the most recent style, her smooth skin
+flushed with excitement, and a rose-set coronet of red gold
+on her head, had to do with the girl they knew was difficult
+to decide.  The signal was given and Elnora began the
+slow march across the vestry and down the aisle.  The music
+welled softly, and Margaret began to sob without knowing why.
+
+Mrs. Comstock gripped her hands together and shut
+her eyes.  It seemed an eternity to the suffering woman
+before Margaret caught her arm and whispered, "Oh, Kate! 
+For any sake look at her!  Here!  The aisle across!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock opened her eyes and directing them
+where she was told, gazed intently, and slid down in
+her seat close to collapse.  She was saved by Margaret's
+tense clasp and her command:  "Here!  Idiot!  Stop that!"
+
+In the blaze of light Elnora climbed the steps to the
+palm-embowered platform, crossed it and took her place. 
+Sixty young men and women, each of them dressed the
+best possible, followed her.  There were manly, fine-
+looking men in that class which Elnora led.  There were
+girls of beauty and grace, but not one of them was handsomer
+or clothed in better taste than she.
+
+Billy thought the time never would come when Elnora
+would see him, but at last she met his eye, then Margaret
+and Wesley had faint signs of recognition in turn,
+but there was no softening of the girl's face and no hint
+of a smile when she saw her mother.
+
+Heartsick, Katharine Comstock tried to prove to herself
+that she was justified in what she had done, but she
+could not.  She tried to blame Elnora for not saying that
+she was to lead a procession and sit on a platform in the
+sight of hundreds of people; but that was impossible, for
+she realized that she would have scoffed and not understood
+if she had been told.  Her heart pained until she suffered
+with every breath.
+
+When at last the exercises were over she climbed into
+the carriage and rode home without a word.  She did
+not hear what Margaret and Billy were saying.  She scarcely
+heard Wesley, who drove behind, when he told her that
+Elnora would not be home until Wednesday.  Early the next
+morning Mrs. Comstock was on her way to Onabasha. 
+She was waiting when the Brownlee store opened. 
+She examined ready-made white dresses, but they had
+only one of the right size, and it was marked forty dollars. 
+Mrs. Comstock did not hesitate over the price, but whether
+the dress would be suitable.  She would have to ask Elnora. 
+She inquired her way to the home of the Bird Woman and knocked.
+
+"Is Elnora Comstock here?" she asked the maid.
+
+"Yes, but she is still in bed.  I was told to let her
+sleep as long as she would."
+
+"Maybe I could sit here and wait," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"I want to see about getting her a dress for to-morrow. 
+I am her mother."
+
+"Then you don't need wait or worry," said the girl cheerfully. 
+"There are two women up in the sewing-room at work on a
+dress for her right now.  It will be done in time, and it will
+be a beauty."
+
+Mrs. Comstock turned and trudged back to the Limberlost. 
+The bitterness in her soul became a physical actuality,
+which water would not wash from her lips.  She was
+too late!  She was not needed.  Another woman was
+mothering her girl.  Another woman would prepare a
+beautiful dress such as Elnora had worn the previous night. 
+The girl's love and gratitude would go to her.  Mrs. Comstock
+tried the old process of blaming some one else, but she felt
+no better.  She nursed her grief as closely as ever in
+the long days of the girl's absence.  She brooded
+over Elnora's possession of the forbidden violin and her
+ability to play it until the performance could not have
+been told from her father's.  She tried every refuge her
+mind could conjure, to quiet her heart and remove the fear
+that the girl never would come home again, but it persisted. 
+Mrs. Comstock could neither eat nor sleep.  She wandered
+around the cabin and garden.  She kept far from the pool
+where Robert Comstock had sunk from sight for she felt
+that it would entomb her also if Elnora did not come home
+Wednesday morning.  The mother told herself that she would
+wait, but the waiting was as bitter as anything she ever had known.
+
+When Elnora awoke Monday another dress was in the hands
+of a seamstress and was soon fitted.  It had belonged
+to the Angel, and was a soft white thing that with a
+little alteration would serve admirably for Commencement
+and the ball.  All that day Elnora worked, helping prepare
+the auditorium for the exercises, rehearsing the march
+and the speech she was to make in behalf of the class. 
+The following day was even busier.  But her mind was at
+rest, for the dress was a soft delicate lace easy to
+change, and the marks of alteration impossible to detect.
+
+The Bird Woman had telephoned to Grand Rapids, explained
+the situation and asked the Angel if she might use it. 
+The reply had been to give the girl the contents of the chest. 
+When the Bird Woman told Elnora, tears filled her eyes.
+
+"I will write at once and thank her," she said.  "With all
+her beautiful gowns she does not need them, and I do. 
+They will serve for me often, and be much finer than anything
+I could afford.  It is lovely of her to give me the dress
+and of you to have it altered for me, as I never could."
+
+The Bird Woman laughed.  "I feel religious to-day,"
+she said.  "You know the first and greatest rock of my
+salvation is `Do unto others.'  I'm only doing to you
+what there was no one to do for me when I was a girl
+very like you.  Anna tells me your mother was here early
+this morning and that she came to see about getting you
+a dress."
+
+"She is too late!" said Elnora coldly.  "She had over
+a month to prepare my dresses, and I was to pay for them,
+so there is no excuse."
+
+"Nevertheless, she is your mother," said the Bird
+Woman, softly.  "I think almost any kind of a mother
+must be better than none at all, and you say she has had
+great trouble."
+
+"She loved my father and he died," said Elnora.  "The same
+thing, in quite as tragic a manner, has happened to
+thousands of other women, and they have gone on with
+calm faces and found happiness in life by loving others. 
+There was something else I am afraid I never shall forget;
+this I know I shall not, but talking does not help.  I must
+deliver my presents and photographs to the crowd.  I have
+a picture and I made a present for you, too, if you would
+care for them."
+
+"I shall love anything you give me," said the Bird Woman. 
+"I know you well enough to know that whatever you do will
+be beautiful."
+
+Elnora was pleased over that, and as she tried on her
+dress for the last fitting she was really happy.  She was
+lovely in the dainty gown: it would serve finely for the ball
+and many other like occasions, and it was her very own.
+
+The Bird Woman's driver took Elnora in the carriage and
+she called on all the girls with whom she was especially
+intimate, and left her picture and the package containing
+her gift to them.  By the time she returned parcels for
+her were arriving.  Friends seemed to spring from everywhere. 
+Almost every one she knew had some gift for her, while
+because they so loved her the members of her crowd had
+made her beautiful presents.  There were books, vases,
+silver pieces, handkerchiefs, fans, boxes of flowers
+and candy.  One big package settled the trouble at Sinton's,
+for it contained a dainty dress from  Margaret,
+a five-dollar gold piece, conspicuously labelled,
+"I earned this myself," from Billy, with which to buy
+music; and a gorgeous cut-glass perfume bottle, it would
+have cost five dollars to fill with even a moderate-
+priced scent, from Wesley.
+
+In an expressed crate was a fine curly-maple dressing
+table, sent by Freckles.  The drawers were filled with
+wonderful toilet articles from the Angel.  The Bird
+Woman added an embroidered linen cover and a small
+silver vase for a few flowers, so no girl of the class had
+finer gifts.  Elnora laid her head on the table sobbing
+happily, and the Bird Woman was almost crying herself. 
+Professor Henley sent a butterfly book, the grade rooms in
+which Elnora had taught gave her a set of volumes covering
+every phase of life afield, in the woods, and water. 
+Elnora had no time to read so she carried one of these
+books around with her hugging it as she went.  After she
+had gone to dress a queer-looking package was brought
+by a small boy who hopped on one foot as he handed it
+in and said:  "Tell Elnora that is from her ma."
+
+"Who are you?" asked the Bird Woman as she took
+the bundle.
+
+"I'm Billy!" announced the boy.  "I gave her the five dollars. 
+I earned it myself dropping corn, sticking onions, and
+pulling weeds.  My, but you got to drop, and stick, and
+pull a lot before it's five dollars' worth."
+
+"Would you like to come in and see Elnora's gifts?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am!" said Billy, trying to stand quietly. 
+
+"Gee-mentley!" he gasped.  "Does Elnora get all this?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I bet you a thousand dollars I be first in my class
+when I graduate.  Say, have the others got a lot more
+than Elnora?"
+
+"I think not."
+
+"Well, Uncle Wesley said to find out if I could, and if
+she didn't have as much as the rest, he'd buy till she did,
+if it took a hundred dollars.  Say, you ought to know him! 
+He's just scrumptious!  There ain't anybody any where finer
+'an he is.  My, he's grand!"
+
+"I'm very sure of it!" said the Bird Woman.  "I've often
+heard Elnora say so."
+
+"I bet you nobody can beat this!" he boasted.  Then he
+stopped, thinking deeply.  "I don't know, though,"
+he began reflectively.  "Some of them are awful rich;
+they got big families to give them things and wagon loads
+of friends, and I haven't seen what they have.  Now, maybe
+Elnora is getting left, after all!"
+
+"Don't worry, Billy," she said.  "I will watch, and
+if I find Elnora is `getting left' I'll buy her some more
+things myself.  But I'm sure she is not.  She has more
+beautiful gifts now than she will know what to do with, and
+others will come.  Tell your Uncle Wesley his girl is
+bountifully remembered, very happy, and she sends her
+dearest love to all of you.  Now you must go, so I can
+help her dress.  You will be there to-night of course?"
+
+"Yes, sir-ee!  She got me a seat, third row from the
+front, middle section, so I can see, and she's going to
+wink at me, after she gets her speech off her mind. 
+She kissed me, too!  She's a perfect lady, Elnora is. 
+I'm going to marry her when I am big enough."
+
+"Why isn't that splendid!" laughed the Bird Woman
+as she hurried upstairs.
+
+"Dear!" she called.  "Here is another gift for you."
+
+Elnora was half disrobed as she took the package and,
+sitting on a couch, opened it.  The Bird Woman bent over
+her and tested the fabric with her fingers.
+
+"Why, bless my soul!" she cried.  "Hand-woven, hand-
+embroidered linen, fine as silk.  It's priceless' I haven't
+seen such things in years.  My mother had garments like
+those when I was a child, but my sisters had them cut up
+for collars, belts, and fancy waists while I was small. 
+Look at the exquisite work!"
+
+"Where could it have come from?" cried Elnora.
+
+She shook out a petticoat, with a hand-wrought ruffle
+a foot deep, then an old-fashioned chemise the neck and
+sleeve work of which was elaborate and perfectly wrought. 
+On the breast was pinned a note that she hastily opened.
+
+"I was married in these," it read, "and I had intended
+to be buried in them, but perhaps it would be more sensible
+for you to graduate and get married in them yourself, if
+you like.  Your mother."
+
+"From my mother!"  Wide-eyed, Elnora looked at
+the Bird Woman.  "I never in my life saw the like. 
+Mother does things I think I never can forgive, and when
+I feel hardest, she turns around and does something that
+makes me think she just must love me a little bit, after all. 
+Any of the girls would give almost anything to graduate
+in hand-embroidered linen like that.  Money can't buy
+such things.  And they came when I was thinking she
+didn't care what became of me.  Do you suppose she can
+be insane?"
+
+"Yes," said the Bird Woman.  "Wildly insane, if she
+does not love you and care what becomes of you."
+
+Elnora arose and held the petticoat to her.  "Will you
+look at it?" she cried.  "Only imagine her not getting my
+dress ready, and then sending me such a petticoat as this! 
+Ellen would pay fifty dollars for it and never blink. 
+I suppose mother has had it all my life, and I never saw
+it before."
+
+"Go take your bath and put on those things," said the
+Bird Woman.  "Forget everything and be happy.  She is
+not insane.  She is embittered.  She did not understand
+how things would be.  When she saw, she came at once to
+provide you a dress.  This is her way of saying she is
+sorry she did not get the other.  You notice she has not
+spent any money, so perhaps she is quite honest in saying
+she has none."
+
+"Oh, she is honest!" said Elnora.  "She wouldn't care
+enough to tell an untruth.  She'd say just how things were,
+no matter what happened."
+
+Soon Elnora was ready for her dress.  She never had
+looked so well as when she again headed the processional
+across the flower and palm decked stage of the high
+school auditorium.  As she sat there she could have
+reached over and dropped a rose she carried into the
+seat she had occupied that September morning when she
+entered the high school.  She spoke the few words she
+had to say in behalf of the class beautifully, had the
+tiny wink ready for Billy, and the smile and nod of
+recognition for Wesley and Margaret.  When at last she
+looked into the eyes of a white-faced woman next them,
+she slipped a hand to her side and raised her skirt the
+fraction of an inch, just enough to let the embroidered
+edge of a petticoat show a trifle.  When she saw the look
+of relief which flooded her mother's face, Elnora knew
+that forgiveness was in her heart, and that she would
+go home in the morning.
+
+It was late afternoon before she arrived, and a dray
+followed with a load of packages.  Mrs. Comstock was
+overwhelmed.  She sat half dazed and made Elnora show
+her each costly and beautiful or simple and useful gift,
+tell her carefully what it was and from where it came. 
+She studied the faces of Elnora's particular friends. 
+The gifts from them had to be set in a group.  Several times
+she started to speak and then stopped.  At last, between
+her dry lips, came a harsh whisper.
+
+"Elnora, what did you give back for these things?"
+
+"I'll show you," said Elnora cheerfully.  "I made the
+same gifts for the Bird Woman, Aunt Margaret and you
+if you care for it.  But I have to run upstairs to get it."
+
+When she returned she handed her mother an oblong frame,
+hand carved, enclosing Elnora's picture, taken by a
+schoolmate's camera.  She wore her storm-coat and carried
+a dripping umbrella.  From under it looked her bright face;
+her books and lunchbox were on her arm, and across the
+bottom of the frame was carved, "Your Country Classmate."
+
+Then she offered another frame.
+
+"I am strong on frames," she said.  "They seemed to
+be the best I could do without money.  I located the
+maple and the black walnut myself, in a little corner that
+had been overlooked between the river and the ditch. 
+They didn't seem to belong to any one so I just took them. 
+Uncle Wesley said it was all right, and he cut and hauled
+them for me.  I gave the mill half of each tree for sawing
+and curing the remainder.  Then I gave the wood-carver
+half of that for making my frames.  A photographer gave
+me a lot of spoiled plates, and I boiled off the emulsion, and
+took the specimens I framed from my stuff.  The man
+said the white frames were worth three and a half, and the
+black ones five.  I exchanged those little framed pictures
+for the photographs of the others.  For presents, I gave
+each one of my crowd one like this, only a different moth. 
+The Bird Woman gave me the birch bark.  She got it up
+north last summer."
+
+Elnora handed her mother a handsome black-walnut
+frame a foot and a half wide by two long.  It finished a
+small, shallow glass-covered box of birch bark, to the
+bottom of which clung a big night moth with delicate pale
+green wings and long exquisite trailers.
+
+"So you see I did not have to be ashamed of my gifts,"
+said Elnora.  "I made them myself and raised and
+mounted the moths."
+
+"Moth, you call it," said Mrs. Comstock.  "I've seen a
+few of the things before."
+
+"They are numerous around us every June night, or at
+least they used to be," said Elnora.  "I've sold hundreds
+of them, with butterflies, dragonflies, and other specimens. 
+Now, I must put away these and get to work, for it is
+almost June and there are a few more I want dreadfully. 
+If I find them I will be paid some money for which I have
+been working."
+
+She was afraid to say college at that time.  She thought it
+would be better to wait a few days and see if an opportunity
+would not come when it would work in more naturally. 
+Besides, unless she could secure the Yellow Emperor she
+needed to complete her collection, she could not talk
+college until she was of age, for she would have no money.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+WHEREIN MARGARET SINTON REVEALS A SECRET,
+AND MRS. COMSTOCK POSSESSES THE LIMBERLOST
+
+
+Elnora, bring me the towel, quick!" cried Mrs Comstock.
+
+"In a minute, mother," mumbled Elnora.
+
+She was standing before the kitchen mirror, tying the
+back part of her hair, while the front turned over her face.
+
+"Hurry!  There's a varmint of some kind!"
+
+Elnora ran into the sitting-room and thrust the heavy
+kitchen towel into her mother's hand.  Mrs. Comstock
+swung open the screen door and struck at some object,
+Elnora tossed the hair from her face so that she could see
+past her mother.  The girl screamed wildly.
+
+"Don't! Mother, don't!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock struck again.  Elnora caught her arm. 
+"It's the one I want!  It's worth a lot of money! 
+Don't!  Oh, you shall not!"
+
+"Shan't, missy?" blazed Mrs. Comstock.  "When did
+you get to bossing me?"
+
+The hand that held the screen swept a half-circle and
+stopped at Elnora's cheek.  She staggered with the blow,
+and across her face, paled with excitement, a red mark
+arose rapidly.  The screen slammed shut, throwing the
+creature on the floor before them.  Instantly Mrs.
+Comstock crushed it with her foot.  Elnora stepped back. 
+Excepting the red mark, her face was very white.
+
+"That was the last moth I needed," she said, "to complete
+a collection worth three hundred dollars.  You've ruined
+it before my eyes!"
+
+"Moth!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "You say that because
+you are mad.  Moths have big wings.  I know a moth!"
+
+"I've kept things from you," said Elnora, "because I
+didn't dare confide in you.  You had no sympathy with me. 
+But you know I never told you untruths in all my life."
+
+"It's no moth!" reiterated Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"It is!" cried Elnora.  "It's from a case in the ground. 
+Its wings take two or three hours to expand and harden."
+
+"If I had known it was a moth----" Mrs. Comstock wavered.
+
+"You did know!  I told you!  I begged you to stop! 
+It meant just three hundred dollars to me."
+
+"Bah!  Three hundred fiddlesticks!"
+
+"They are what have paid for books, tuition, and clothes
+for the past four years.  They are what I could have
+started on to college.  You've ruined the very one I needed. 
+You never made any pretence of loving me.  At last I'll
+be equally frank with you.  I hate you!  You are a selfish,
+wicked woman!  I hate you!"
+
+Elnora turned, went through the kitchen and from the
+back door.  She followed the garden path to the gate and
+walked toward the swamp a short distance when reaction
+overtook her.  She dropped on the ground and leaned
+against a big log.  When a little child, desperate as now,
+she had tried to die by holding her breath.  She had
+thought in that way to make her mother sorry, but she had
+learned that life was a thing thrust upon her and she could
+not leave it at her wish.
+
+She was so stunned over the loss of that moth, which
+she had childishly named the Yellow Emperor, that she
+scarcely remembered the blow.  She had thought no luck
+in all the world would be so rare as to complete her
+collection; now she had been forced to see a splendid
+Imperialis destroyed before her.  There was a possibility
+that she could find another, but she was facing the
+certainty that the one she might have had and with which she
+undoubtedly could have attracted others, was spoiled by
+her mother.  How long she sat there Elnora did not know
+or care.  She simply suffered in dumb, abject misery, an
+occasional dry sob shaking her.  Aunt Margaret was right. 
+Elnora felt that morning that her mother never would be
+any different.  The girl had reached the place where she
+realized that she could endure it no longer.
+
+As Elnora left the room, Mrs. Comstock took one step
+after her.
+
+"You little huzzy!" she gasped.
+
+But Elnora was gone.  Her mother stood staring.
+
+"She never did lie to me," she muttered.  "I guess
+it was a moth.  And the only one she needed to get three
+hundred dollars, she said.  I wish I hadn't been so fast! 
+I never saw anything like it.  I thought it was some
+deadly, stinging, biting thing.  A body does have to be
+mighty careful here.  But likely I've spilt the milk now.
+Pshaw!  She can find another!  There's no use to be foolish. 
+Maybe moths are like snakes, where there's one, there are two."
+
+Mrs. Comstock took the broom and swept the moth out
+of the door.  Then she got down on her knees and
+carefully examined the steps, logs and the earth of the
+flower beds at each side.  She found the place where
+the creature had emerged from the ground, and the hard,
+dark-brown case which had enclosed it, still wet inside. 
+Then she knew Elnora had been right.  It was a moth. 
+Its wings had been damp and not expanded.  Mrs. Comstock
+never before had seen one in that state, and she
+did not know how they originated.  She had thought all
+of them came from cases spun on trees or against walls
+or boards.  She had seen only enough to know that there
+were such things; as a flash of white told her that an ermine
+was on her premises, or a sharp "buzzzzz" warned her
+of a rattler.
+
+So it was from creatures like that Elnora had secured
+her school money.  In one sickening sweep there rushed
+into the heart of the woman a full realization of the
+width of the gulf that separated her from her child. 
+Lately many things had pointed toward it, none more plainly
+than when Elnora, like a reincarnation of her father, had
+stood fearlessly before a large city audience and played
+with even greater skill than he, on what Mrs. Comstock
+felt very certain was his violin.  But that little crawling
+creature of earth, crushed by her before its splendid yellow
+and lavender wings could spread and carry it into the
+mystery of night, had performed a miracle.
+
+"We are nearer strangers to each other than we are with
+any of the neighbours," she muttered.
+
+So one of the Almighty's most delicate and beautiful
+creations was sacrificed without fulfilling the law, yet
+none of its species ever served so glorious a cause, for
+at last Mrs. Comstock's inner vision had cleared.  She went
+through the cabin mechanically.  Every few minutes
+she glanced toward the back walk to see if Elnora
+were coming.  She knew arrangements had been made with
+Margaret to go to the city some time that day, so she
+grew more nervous and uneasy every moment.  She was
+haunted by the fear that the blow might discolour
+Elnora's cheek; that she would tell Margaret.  She went
+down the back walk, looking intently in all directions,
+left the garden and followed the swamp path.  Her step
+was noiseless on the soft, black earth, and soon she
+came close enough to see Elnora.  Mrs. Comstock stood
+looking at the girl in troubled uncertainty.  Not knowing
+what to say, at last she turned and went back to the cabin.
+
+Noon came and she prepared dinner, calling, as she
+always did, when Elnora was in the garden, but she got
+no response, and the girl did not come.  A little after
+one o'clock Margaret stopped at the gate.
+
+"Elnora has changed her mind.  She is not going,"
+called Mrs. Comstock.
+
+She felt that she hated Margaret as she hitched her
+horse and came up the walk instead of driving on.
+
+"You must be mistaken," said Margaret.  "I was
+going on purpose for her.  She asked me to take her. 
+I had no errand.  Where is she?"
+
+"I will call her," said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+She followed the path again, and this time found Elnora
+sitting on the log.  Her face was swollen and discoloured,
+and her eyes red with crying.  She paid no attention
+to her mother.
+
+"Mag Sinton is here," said Mrs. Comstock harshly. 
+"I told her you had changed your mind, but she said
+you asked her to go with you, and she had nothing to
+go for herself."
+
+Elnora arose, recklessly waded through the deep swamp
+grasses and so reached the path ahead of her mother. 
+Mrs. Comstock followed as far as the garden, but she
+could not enter the cabin.  She busied herself among
+the vegetables, barely looking up when the back-door
+screen slammed noisily.  Margaret Sinton approached
+colourless, her eyes so angry that Mrs. Comstock shrank back.
+
+"What's the matter with Elnora's face?" demanded Margaret.
+
+Mrs. Comstock made no reply.
+
+"You struck her, did you?"
+
+"I thought you wasn't blind!"
+
+"I have been, for twenty long years now, Kate Comstock,"
+said Margaret Sinton, "but my eyes are open at last. 
+What I see is that I've done you no good and Elnora a
+big wrong.  I had an idea that it would kill you to know,
+but I guess you are tough enough to stand anything. 
+Kill or cure, you get it now!"
+
+"What are you frothing about?" coolly asked Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"You!" cried Margaret.  "You!  The woman who doesn't
+pretend to love her only child.  Who lets her grow to
+a woman, as you have let Elnora, and can't be satisfied
+with every sort of neglect, but must add abuse yet;
+and all for a fool idea about a man who wasn't worth
+his salt!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock picked up a hoe.
+
+"Go right on!" she said.  "Empty yourself.  It's the
+last thing you'll ever do!"
+
+"Then I'll make a tidy job of it," said Margaret. 
+"You'll not touch me.  You'll stand there and hear
+the truth at last, and because I dare face you and tell
+it, you will know in your soul it is truth.  When Robert
+Comstock shaved that quagmire out there so close he
+went in, he wanted to keep you from knowing where he
+was coming from.  He'd been to see Elvira Carney. 
+They had plans to go to a dance that night----"
+
+"Close your lips!" said Mrs. Comstock in a voice of
+deadly quiet.
+
+"You know I wouldn't dare open them if I wasn't
+telling you the truth.  I can prove what I say.  I was
+coming from Reeds.  It was hot in the woods and I
+stopped at Carney's as I passed for a drink. 
+Elvira's bedridden old mother heard me, and she was so
+crazy for some one to talk with, I stepped in a minute. 
+I saw Robert come down the path.  Elvira saw him, too, so
+she ran out of the house to head him off.  It looked funny,
+and I just deliberately moved where I could see and hear.
+He brought her his violin, and told her to get ready and
+meet him in the woods with it that night, and they would
+go to a dance.  She took it and hid it in the loft to the
+well-house and promised she'd go."
+
+"Are you done?" demanded Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"No.  I am going to tell you the whole story.  You don't
+spare Elnora anything.  I shan't spare you.  I hadn't
+been here that day, but I can tell you just how he was
+dressed, which way he went and every word they said,
+though they thought I was busy with her mother
+and wouldn't notice them.  Put down your hoe, Kate. 
+I went to Elvira, told her what I knew and made her give
+me Comstock's violin for Elnora over three years ago. 
+She's been playing it ever since.  I won't see her
+slighted and abused another day on account of a man
+who would have broken your heart if he had lived. 
+Six months more would have showed you what everybody
+else knew.  He was one of those men who couldn't trust
+himself, and so no woman was safe with him.  Now, will
+you drop grieving over him, and do Elnora justice?"
+
+Mrs. Comstock grasped the hoe tighter and turning she
+went down the walk, and started across the woods to the
+home of Elvira Carney.  With averted head she passed
+the pool, steadily pursuing her way.  Elvira Carney,
+hanging towels across the back fence, saw her coming
+and went toward the gate to meet her.  Twenty years
+she had dreaded that visit.  Since Margaret Sinton
+had compelled her to produce the violin she had hidden
+so long, because she was afraid to destroy it, she had
+come closer expectation than dread.  The wages of sin
+are the hardest debts on earth to pay, and they are always
+collected at inconvenient times and unexpected places.
+Mrs. Comstock's face and hair were so white, that her
+dark eyes seemed burned into their setting.  Silently she
+stared at the woman before her a long time.
+
+"I might have saved myself the trouble of coming,"
+she said at last, "I see you are guilty as sin!"
+
+"What has Mag Sinton been telling you?" panted the
+miserable woman, gripping the fence.
+
+"The truth!" answered Mrs. Comstock succinctly. 
+"Guilt is in every line of your face, in your eyes, all over
+your wretched body.  If I'd taken a good look at you
+any time in all these past years, no doubt I could have
+seen it just as plain as I can now.  No woman or man
+can do what you've done, and not get a mark set on them
+for every one to read."
+
+"Mercy!" gasped weak little Elvira Carney.  "Have mercy!"
+
+"Mercy?" scoffed Mrs. Comstock.  "Mercy!  That's a
+nice word from you!  How much mercy did you have
+on me?  Where's the mercy that sent Comstock to the
+slime of the bottomless quagmire, and left me to see it,
+and then struggle on in agony all these years? 
+How about the mercy of letting me neglect my baby all
+the days of her life?  Mercy!  Do you really dare use
+the word to me?"
+
+"If you  knew what I've suffered!"
+
+"Suffered?" jeered Mrs. Comstock.  "That's interesting. 
+And pray, what have you suffered?"
+
+"All the neighbours have suspected and been down
+on me.  I ain't had a friend.  I've always felt guilty
+of his death!  I've seen him go down a thousand times,
+plain as ever you did.  Many's the night I've stood on the
+other bank of that pool and listened to you, and I tried
+to throw myself in to keep from hearing you, but I
+didn't dare.  I knew God would send me to burn forever,
+but I'd better done it; for now, He has set the burning
+on my body, and every hour it is slowly eating the life
+out of me. The doctor says it's a cancer----"
+
+Mrs. Comstock exhaled a long breath.  Her grip on the
+hoe relaxed and her stature lifted to towering height.
+
+"I didn't know, or care, when I came here, just what I
+did," she said.  "But my way is beginning to clear.  If the
+guilt of your soul has come to a head, in a cancer on
+your body, it looks as if the Almighty didn't need any of
+my help in meting out His punishments.  I really couldn't
+fix up anything to come anywhere near that.  If you are
+going to burn until your life goes out with that sort of fire,
+you don't owe me anything!"
+
+"Oh, Katharine Comstock!" groaned Elvira Carney,
+clinging to the fence for support.
+
+"Looks as if the Bible is right when it says, `The wages
+of sin is death,' doesn't it?" asked Mrs. Comstock. 
+"Instead of doing a woman's work in life, you chose the
+smile of invitation, and the dress of unearned cloth. 
+Now you tell me you are marked to burn to death with the
+unquenchable fire.  And him!  It was shorter with him, but
+let me tell you he got his share!  He left me with an
+untruth on his lips, for he told me he was going to take
+his violin to Onabasha for a new key, when he carried it
+to you.  Every vow of love and constancy he ever made me
+was a lie, after he touched your lips, so when he tried
+the wrong side of the quagmire, to hide from me the
+direction in which he was coming, it reached out for him,
+and it got him.  It didn't hurry, either!  It sucked him
+down, slow and deliberate."
+
+"Mercy!" groaned Elvira Carney.  "Mercy!"
+
+"I don't know the word," said Mrs. Comstock.  "You took
+all that out of me long ago.  The past twenty years
+haven't been of the sort that taught mercy.  I've never
+had any on myself and none on my child.  Why in the
+name of justice, should I have mercy on you, or on him? 
+You were both older than I, both strong, sane people, you
+deliberately chose your course when you lured him, and he,
+when he was unfaithful to me.  When a Loose Man and a
+Light Woman face the end the Almighty ordained for
+them, why should they shout at me for mercy?  What did
+I have to do with it?"
+
+Elvira Carney sobbed in panting gasps.
+
+"You've got tears, have you?" marvelled Mrs. Comstock. 
+"Mine all dried long ago.  I've none left to shed
+over my wasted life, my disfigured face and hair, my years
+of struggle with a man's work, my wreck of land among the
+tilled fields of my neighbours, or the final knowledge that
+the man I so gladly would have died to save, wasn't worth
+the sacrifice of a rattlesnake.  If anything yet could wring
+a tear from me, it would be the thought of the awful
+injustice I always have done my girl.  If I'd lay hand on
+you for anything, it would be for that."
+
+"Kill me if you want to," sobbed Elvira Carney.  "I know
+that I deserve it, and I don't care."
+
+"You are getting your killing fast enough to suit me,"
+said Mrs. Comstock.  "I wouldn't touch you, any more
+than I would him, if I could.  Once is all any man or
+woman deceives me about the holiest things of life. 
+I wouldn't touch you any more than I would the
+black plague.  I am going back to my girl."
+
+Mrs. Comstock turned and started swiftly through the woods,
+but she had gone only a few rods when she stopped, and
+leaning on the hoe, she stood thinking deeply.  Then she
+turned back.  Elvira still clung to the fence, sobbing bitterly.
+
+"I don't know," said Mrs. Comstock, "but I left a
+wrong impression with you.  I don't want you to think
+that I believe the Almighty set a cancer to burning you as
+a punishment for your sins.  I don't!  I think a lot
+more of the Almighty.  With a whole sky-full of worlds on
+His hands to manage, I'm not believing that He has time
+to look down on ours, and pick you out of all the millions
+of us sinners, and set a special kind of torture to eating you. 
+It wouldn't be a gentlemanly thing to do, and first
+of all, the Almighty is bound to be a gentleman.  I think
+likely a bruise and bad blood is what caused your trouble. 
+Anyway, I've got to tell you that the cleanest housekeeper
+I ever knew, and one of the noblest Christian women, was
+slowly eaten up by a cancer.  She got hers from the careless
+work of a poor doctor.  The Almighty is to forgive sin
+and heal disease, not to invent and spread it."
+
+She had gone only a few steps when she again turned back.
+
+"If you will gather a lot of red clover bloom, make a tea
+strong as lye of it, and drink quarts, I think likely it will
+help you, if you are not too far gone.  Anyway, it will cool
+your blood and make the burning easier to bear."
+
+Then she swiftly went home.  Enter the lonely cabin
+she could not, neither could she sit outside and think. 
+She attacked a bed of beets and hoed until the perspiration
+ran from her face and body, then she began on the potatoes. 
+When she was too tired to take another stroke she
+bathed and put on dry clothing.  In securing her dress she
+noticed her husband's carefully preserved clothing lining
+one wall.  She gathered it in an armload and carried it to
+the swamp.  Piece by piece she pitched into the green
+maw of the quagmire all those articles she had dusted
+carefully and fought moths from for years, and stood
+watching as it slowly sucked them down.  She went back
+to her room and gathered every scrap that had in any way
+belonged to Robert Comstock, excepting his gun and revolver,
+and threw it into the swamp.  Then for the first time she
+set her door wide open.
+
+She was too weary now to do more, but an urging unrest
+drove her.  She wanted Elnora.  It seemed to her she
+never could wait until the girl came and delivered
+her judgment.  At last in an effort to get nearer to
+her, Mrs. Comstock climbed the stairs and stood looking
+around Elnora's room.  It was very unfamiliar.  The pictures
+were strange to her.  Commencement had filled it with
+packages and bundles.  The walls were covered with
+cocoons; moths and dragonflies were pinned everywhere. 
+Under the bed she could see half a dozen large white boxes. 
+She pulled out one and lifted the lid.  The bottom was
+covered with a sheet of thin cork, and on long pins sticking
+in it were large, velvet-winged moths.  Each one was
+labelled, always there were two of a kind, in many cases
+four, showing under and upper wings of both male and female. 
+They were of every colour and shape.
+
+Mrs. Comstock caught her breath sharply.  When and
+where had Elnora found them?  They were the most
+exquisite sight the woman ever had seen, so she opened all
+the boxes to feast on their beautiful contents.  As she did
+so there came more fully a sense of the distance between
+her and her child.  She could not understand how Elnora
+had gone to school, and performed so much work secretly. 
+When it was finished, to the last moth, she, the mother
+who should have been the first confidant and helper, had
+been the one to bring disappointment.  Small wonder Elnora
+had come to hate her.
+
+Mrs. Comstock carefully closed and replaced the boxes;
+and again stood looking around the room.  This time her
+eyes rested on some books she did not remember having
+seen before, so she picked up one and found that it was a
+moth book.  She glanced over the first pages and was soon
+eagerly reading.  When the text reached the classification
+of species, she laid it down, took up another and read the
+introductory chapters.  By that time her brain was in a
+confused jumble of ideas about capturing moths with
+differing baits and bright lights.
+
+She went down stairs thinking deeply.  Being unable to
+sit still and having nothing else to do she glanced at the
+clock and began preparing supper.  The work dragged. 
+A chicken was snatched up and dressed hurriedly.  A spice
+cake sprang into being.  Strawberries that had been
+intended for preserves went into shortcake.  Delicious odours
+crept from the cabin.  She put many extra touches
+on the table and then commenced watching the road. 
+Everything was ready, but Elnora did not come.  Then began
+the anxious process of trying to keep cooked food warm
+and not spoil it.  The birds went to bed and dusk came. 
+Mrs. Comstock gave up the fire and set the supper
+on the table.  Then she went out and sat on the front-door
+step watching night creep around her.  She started eagerly
+as the gate creaked, but it was only Wesley Sinton coming.
+
+"Katharine, Margaret and Elnora passed where I was
+working this afternoon, and Margaret got out of the
+carriage and called me to the fence.  She told me what she
+had done.  I've come to say to you that I am sorry.  She has
+heard me threaten to do it a good many times, but I
+never would have got it done.  I'd give a good deal if I
+could undo it, but I can't, so I've come to tell you how
+sorry I am."
+
+"You've got something to be sorry for," said Mrs. Comstock,
+"but likely we ain't thinking of the same thing.  It hurts
+me less to know the truth, than to live in ignorance. 
+If Mag had the sense of a pewee, she'd told me long ago. 
+That's what hurts me, to think that both of you knew
+Robert was not worth an hour of honest grief, yet you'd let
+me mourn him all these years and neglect Elnora while I
+did it.  If I have anything to forgive you, that is what it is."
+
+Wesley removed his hat and sat on a bench.
+
+"Katharine," he said solemnly, "nobody ever knows how
+to take you."
+
+"Would it be asking too much to take me for having a few
+grains of plain common sense?" she inquired.  "You've known
+all this time that Comstock got what he deserved,
+when he undertook to sneak in an unused way across a
+swamp, with which he was none too familiar.  Now I
+should have thought that you'd figure that knowing the
+same thing would be the best method to cure me of pining
+for him, and slighting my child."
+
+"Heaven only knows we have thought of that, and
+talked of it often, but we were both too big cowards. 
+We didn't dare tell you."
+
+"So you have gone on year after year, watching me
+show indifference to Elnora, and yet a little  horse-sense
+would have pointed out to you that she was my salvation.
+Why look at it!  Not married quite a year.  All his vows
+of love and fidelity made to me before the Almighty
+forgotten in a few months, and a dance and a Light Woman so
+alluring he had to lie and sneak for them.  What kind of a
+prospect is that for a life?  I know men and women. 
+An honourable man is an honourable man, and a liar is a liar;
+both are born and not made.  One cannot change to the
+other any more than that same old leopard can change
+its spots.  After a man tells a woman the first untruth
+of that sort, the others come piling thick, fast, and
+mountain high.  The desolation they bring in their wake
+overshadows anything I have suffered completely.  If he
+had lived six months more I should have known him for what
+he was born to be.  It was in the blood of him.  His father
+and grandfather before him were fiddling, dancing people; but
+I was certain of him.  I thought we could leave Ohio and
+come out here alone, and I could so love him and interest
+him in his work, that he would be a man.  Of all the fool,
+fruitless jobs, making anything of a creature that begins
+by deceiving her, is the foolest a sane woman ever undertook. 
+I am more than sorry you and Margaret didn't see your way
+clear to tell me long ago.  I'd have found it out in a
+few more months if he had lived, and I wouldn't have
+borne it a day.  The man who breaks his vows to me once,
+doesn't get the second chance.  I give truth and honour. 
+I have a right to ask it in return.  I am glad I understand
+at last.  Now, if Elnora will forgive me, we will take a new
+start and see what we can make out of what is left of life. 
+If she won't, then it will be my time to learn what suffering
+really means."
+
+"But she will," said Wesley.  "She must!  She can't
+help it when things are explained."
+
+"I notice she isn't hurrying any about coming home. 
+Do you know where she is or what she is doing?"
+
+"I do not.  But likely she will be along soon.  I must
+go help Billy with the night work.  Good-bye, Katharine. 
+Thank the Lord you have come to yourself at last!"
+
+They shook hands and Wesley went down the road while
+Mrs. Comstock entered the cabin.  She could not swallow food. 
+She stood in the back door watching the sky for moths,
+but they did not seem to be very numerous.  Her spirits
+sank and she breathed unevenly.  Then she heard the
+front screen.  She reached the middle door as Elnora
+touched the foot of the stairs.
+
+"Hurry, and get ready, Elnora," she said.  "Your supper
+is almost spoiled now."
+
+Elnora closed the stair door behind her, and for the first
+time in her life, threw the heavy lever which barred out
+anyone from down stairs.  Mrs. Comstock heard the thud,
+and knew what it meant.  She reeled slightly and caught
+the doorpost for support.  For a few minutes she clung
+there, then sank to the nearest chair.  After a long time
+she arose and stumbling half blindly, she put the food in
+the cupboard and covered the table.  She took the lamp
+in one hand, the butter in the other, and started to the
+spring house.  Something brushed close by her face, and she
+looked just in time to see a winged creature rise above the
+cabin and sail away.
+
+"That was a night bird," she muttered.  As she stopped
+to set the butter in the water, came another thought. 
+"Perhaps it was a moth!"  Mrs. Comstock dropped the
+butter and hurried out with the lamp; she held it high
+above her head and waited until her arms ached. 
+Small insects of night gathered, and at last a little
+dusty miller, but nothing came of any size.
+
+"I must go where they are, if I get them," muttered
+Mrs. Comstock.
+
+She went to the barn after the stout pair of high boots
+she used in feeding stock in deep snow.  Throwing these
+beside the back door she climbed to the loft over the spring
+house, and hunted an old lard oil lantern and one of first
+manufacture for oil.  Both these she cleaned and filled. 
+She listened until everything up stairs had been still for
+over half an hour.  By that time it was past eleven o'clock. 
+Then she took the lantern from the kitchen, the two old
+ones, a handful of matches, a ball of twine, and went from
+the cabin, softly closing the door.
+
+Sitting on the back steps, she put on the boots, and then
+stood gazing into the perfumed June night, first in the
+direction of the woods on her land, then toward the Limberlost. 
+Its outline was so dark and forbidding she shuddered
+and went down the garden, following the path toward the
+woods, but as she neared the pool her knees wavered and
+her courage fled.  The knowledge that in her soul she was
+now glad Robert Comstock was at the bottom of it made a
+coward of her, who fearlessly had mourned him there,
+nights untold.  She could not go on.  She skirted the
+back of the garden, crossed a field, and came out on
+the road.  Soon she reached the Limberlost.  She hunted
+until she found the old trail, then followed it stumbling
+over logs and through clinging vines and grasses. 
+The heavy boots clumped on her feet, overhanging branches
+whipped her face and pulled her hair.  But her eyes were
+on the sky as she went straining into the night, hoping to
+find signs of a living creature on wing.
+
+By and by she began to see the wavering flight of something
+she thought near the right size.  She had no idea
+where she was, but she stopped, lighted a lantern and
+hung it as high as she could reach.  A little distance away
+she placed the second and then the third.  The objects
+came nearer and sick with disappointment she saw that
+they were bats.  Crouching in the damp swamp grasses,
+without a thought of snakes or venomous insects, she
+waited, her eyes roving from lantern to lantern.  Once she
+thought a creature of high flight dropped near the lard oil
+light, so she arose breathlessly waiting, but either it
+passed or it was an illusion.  She glanced at the old lantern,
+then at the new, and was on her feet in an instant creeping close. 
+Something large as a small bird was fluttering around. 
+Mrs. Comstock began to perspire, while her hand shook wildly. 
+Closer she crept and just as she reached for it, something
+similar swept past and both flew away together.
+
+Mrs. Comstock set her teeth and stood shivering.  For a
+long time the locusts rasped, the whip-poor-wills cried and
+a steady hum of night life throbbed in her ears.  Away in
+the sky she saw something coming when it was no larger
+than a falling leaf.  Straight toward the light it flew. 
+Mrs. Comstock began to pray aloud.
+
+"This way, O Lord!  Make it come this way!  Please!
+O Lord, send it lower!"
+
+The moth hesitated at the first light, then slowly,
+easily it came toward the second, as if following a path
+of air.  It touched a leaf near the lantern and settled. 
+As Mrs. Comstock reached for it a thin yellow spray wet
+her hand and the surrounding leaves.  When its wings
+raised above its back, her fingers came together. 
+She held the moth to the light.  It was nearer brown than
+yellow, and she remembered having seen some like it in
+the boxes that afternoon.  It was not the one needed to
+complete the collection, but Elnora might want it, so
+Mrs. Comstock held on.  Then the Almighty was kind,
+or nature was sufficient, as you look at it, for following
+the law of its being when disturbed, the moth again threw
+the spray by which some suppose it attracts its kind,
+and liberally sprinkled Mrs. Comstock's dress front
+and arms.  From that instant, she became the best moth
+bait ever invented.  Every Polyphemus in range hastened
+to her, and other fluttering creatures of night followed. 
+The influx came her way.  She snatched wildly here and
+there until she had one in each hand and no place to
+put them.  She could see more coming, and her aching
+heart, swollen with the strain of long excitement,
+hurt pitifully.  She prayed in broken exclamations that
+did not always sound reverent, but never was human soul
+in more intense earnest.
+
+Moths were coming.  She had one in each hand. 
+They were not yellow, and she did not know what to do. 
+She glanced around to try to discover some way to keep
+what she had, and her throbbing heart stopped and
+every muscle stiffened.  There was the dim outline of
+a crouching figure not two yards away, and a pair of
+eyes their owner thought hidden, caught the light in a
+cold stream.  Her first impulse was to scream and fly
+for life.  Before her lips could open a big moth alighted
+on her breast while she felt another walking over her hair. 
+All sense of caution deserted her.  She did not care to
+live if she could not replace the yellow moth she had killed. 
+She turned her eyes to those among the leaves.
+
+"Here, you!" she cried hoarsely.  "I need you!  Get yourself
+out here, and help me.  These critters are going to get away
+from me.  Hustle!"
+
+Pete Corson parted the bushes and stepped into the light.
+
+"Oh, it's  you!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "I might have known! 
+But you gave me a start.  Here, hold these until I make some
+sort of bag for them.  Go easy!  If you break them I don't
+guarantee what will happen to you!"
+
+"Pretty fierce, ain't you!" laughed Pete, but he advanced
+and held out his hands.  "For Elnora, I s'pose?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Comstock.  "In a mad fit, I trampled
+one this morning, and by the luck of the old boy himself
+it was the last moth she needed to complete a collection. 
+I got to get another one or die."
+
+"Then I guess it's your funeral," said Pete.  "There ain't
+a chance in a dozen the right one will come.  What colour
+was it?"
+
+"Yellow, and big as a bird."
+
+"The Emperor, likely," said Pete.  "You dig for
+that kind, and they are not numerous, so's 'at you can
+smash 'em for fun."
+
+"Well, I can try to get one, anyway," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"I forgot all about bringing anything to put them in. 
+You take a pinch on their wings until I make a poke."
+
+Mrs. Comstock removed her apron, tearing off the strings. 
+She unfastened and stepped from the skirt of her
+calico dress.  With one apron string she tied shut the
+band and placket.  She pulled a wire pin from her hair,
+stuck it through the other string, and using it as a bodkin
+ran it around the hem of her skirt, so shortly she had a
+large bag.  She put several branches inside to which the
+moths could cling, closed the mouth partially and held
+it toward Pete.
+
+"Put your hand well down and let the things go!" she ordered. 
+"But be careful, man!  Don't run into the twigs!  Easy! 
+That's one.  Now the other.  Is the one on my head gone? 
+There was one on my dress, but I guess it flew.  Here comes
+a kind of a gray-looking one."
+
+Pete slipped several more moths into the bag.
+
+"Now, that's five, Mrs. Comstock," he said.  "I'm sorry,
+but you'll have to make that do.  You must get out of
+here lively.  Your lights will be taken for hurry
+calls, and inside the next hour a couple of men will ride
+here like fury.  They won't be nice Sunday-school men,
+and they won't hold bags and catch moths for you. 
+You must go quick!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock laid down the bag and pulled one of
+the lanterns lower.
+
+"I won't budge a step," she said.  "This land doesn't
+belong to you.  You have no right to order me off it. 
+Here I stay until I get a Yellow Emperor, and no little
+petering thieves of this neighbourhood can scare me away."
+
+"You don't understand," said Pete.  "I'm willing to
+help Elnora, and I'd take care of you, if I could, but
+there will be too many for me, and they will be mad at
+being called out for nothing."
+
+"Well, who's calling them out?" demanded Mrs. Comstock. 
+"I'm catching moths.  If a lot of good-for-nothings get
+fooled into losing some sleep, why let them, they can't
+hurt me, or stop my work."
+
+"They can, and they'll do both."
+
+"Well, I'll see them do it!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "I've got
+Robert's revolver in my dress, and I can shoot as straight
+as any man, if I'm mad enough.  Any one who interferes
+with me to-night will find me mad a-plenty.  There goes another!"
+
+She stepped into the light and waited until a big brown
+moth settled on her and was easily taken.  Then in light,
+airy flight came a delicate pale green thing, and Mrs.
+Comstock started in pursuit.  But the scent was not right. 
+The moth fluttered high, then dropped lower, still lower,
+and sailed away.  With outstretched hands Mrs. Comstock
+pursued it.  She hurried one way and another, then ran
+over an object which tripped her and she fell. 
+She regained her feet in an instant, but she had lost sight
+of the moth.  With livid face she turned to the crouching man.
+
+"You nasty, sneaking son of Satan!" she cried.  "Why are
+you hiding there?  You made me lose the one I wanted
+most of any I've had a chance at yet.  Get out of here! 
+Go this minute, or I'll fill your worthless carcass so full
+of holes you'll do to sift cornmeal.  Go, I say!  I'm using
+the Limberlost to-night, and I won't be stopped by the
+devil himself!  Cut like fury, and tell the rest of them
+they can just go home.  Pete is going to help me, and
+he is all of you I need.  Now go!"
+
+The man turned and went.  Pete leaned against a tree,
+held his mouth shut and shook inwardly.  Mrs. Comstock
+came back panting.
+
+"The old scoundrel made me lose that!" she said.  "If any
+one else comes snooping around here I'll just blow them
+up to start with.  I haven't time to talk.  Suppose that
+had been yellow!  I'd have killed that man, sure!
+
+The Limberlost isn't safe to-night, and the sooner those
+whelps find it out, the better it will be for them."
+
+Pete stopped laughing to look at her.  He saw that
+she was speaking the truth.  She was quite past reason,
+sense, or fear.  The soft night air stirred the wet hair
+around her temples, the flickering lanterns made her face
+a ghastly green.  She would stop at nothing, that was evident. 
+Pete suddenly began catching moths with exemplary industry. 
+In putting one into the bag, another escaped.
+
+"We must not try that again," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"Now, what will we do?"
+
+"We are close to the old case," said Pete.  "I think
+I can get into it.  Maybe we could slip the rest in there."
+
+"That's a fine idea!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "They'll have
+so much room there they won't be likely to hurt
+themselves, and the books say they don't fly in daytime
+unless they are disturbed, so they will settle when it's
+light, and I can come with Elnora to get them."
+
+They captured two more, and then Pete carried them
+to the case.
+
+"Here comes a big one!" he cried as he returned.
+
+Mrs. Comstock looked up and stepped out with a prayer
+on her lips.  She could not tell the colour at that
+distance, but the moth appeared different from the others. 
+On it came, dropping lower and darting from light to light. 
+As it swept near her, "O Heavenly Father!" exulted Mrs.
+Comstock, "it's yellow!  Careful Pete!  Your hat, maybe!"
+
+Pete made a long sweep.  The moth wavered above
+the hat and sailed away.  Mrs. Comstock leaned against
+a tree and covered her face with her shaking hands.
+
+"That is my punishment!" she cried.  "Oh, Lord, if
+you will give a moth like that into my possession, I'll
+always be a better woman!"
+
+The Emperor again came in sight.  Pete stood tense
+and ready.  Mrs. Comstock stepped into the light and
+watched the moth's course.  Then a second appeared
+in pursuit of the first.  The larger one wavered into
+the radius of light once more.  The perspiration rolled
+down the man's face.  He half lifted the hat.
+
+"Pray, woman!  Pray now!" he panted.
+
+"I guess I best get over by that lard oil light and go
+to work," breathed Mrs. Comstock.  "The Lord knows
+this is all in prayer, but it's no time for words just now. 
+Ready, Pete!  You are going to get a chance first!"
+
+Pete made another long, steady sweep, but the moth
+darted beneath the hat.  In its flight it came straight
+toward Mrs. Comstock.  She snatched off the remnant
+of apron she had tucked into her petticoat band and
+held the calico before her.  The moth struck full against
+it and clung to the goods.  Pete crept up stealthily. 
+The second moth followed the first, and the spray
+showered the apron.
+
+"Wait!" gasped Mrs. Comstock.  "I think they have settled. 
+The books say they won't leave now."
+
+The big pale yellow creature clung firmly, lowering
+and raising its wings.  The other came nearer.  Mrs.
+Comstock held the cloth with rigid hands, while Pete
+could hear her breathing in short gusts.
+
+"Shall I try now?" he implored.
+
+"Wait!" whispered the woman.  "Something seems to
+say wait!"
+
+The night breeze stiffened and gently waved the apron. 
+Locusts rasped, mosquitoes hummed and frogs sang uninterruptedly. 
+A musky odour slowly filled the air.
+
+"Now shall I?" questioned Pete.
+
+"No.  Leave them alone.  They are safe now.  They are mine. 
+They are my salvation.  God and the Limberlost gave them
+to me!  They won't move for hours.  The books all say so. 
+O Heavenly Father, I am thankful to You, and you, too,
+Pete Corson!  You are a good man to help me.  Now, I can
+go home and face my girl."
+
+Instead, Mrs. Comstock dropped suddenly.  She spread
+the apron across her knees.  The moths remained undisturbed. 
+Then her tired white head dropped, the tears she had thought
+forever dried gushed forth, and she sobbed for pure joy.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't do that now, you know!" comforted Pete. 
+"Think of getting two!  That's more than you ever could
+have expected.  A body would think you would cry, if you
+hadn't got any.  Come on, now.  It's almost morning. 
+Let me help you home."
+
+Pete took the bag and the two old lanterns.  Mrs. Comstock
+carried her moths and the best lantern and went ahead to
+light the way.
+
+Elnora had sat beside her window far into the night. 
+At last she undressed and went to bed, but sleep would
+not come.  She had gone to the city to talk with members of
+the School Board about a room in the grades.  There was
+a possibility that she might secure the moth, and so be able
+to start to college that fall, but if she did not, then she
+wanted the school.  She had been given some encouragement,
+but she was so unhappy that nothing mattered.  She could
+not see the way open to anything in life, save a long
+series of disappointments, while she remained with
+her mother.  Yet Margaret Sinton had advised her to go
+home and try once more.  Margaret had seemed so sure
+there would be a change for the better, that Elnora had
+consented, although she had no hope herself.  So strong is
+the bond of blood, she could not make up her mind to seek
+a home elsewhere, even after the day that had passed. 
+Unable to sleep she arose at last, and the room being warm,
+she sat on the floor close the window.  The lights in the
+swamp caught her eye.  She was very uneasy, for quite a
+hundred of her best moths were in the case.  However, there
+was no money, and no one ever had touched a book or any
+of her apparatus.  Watching the lights set her thinking,
+and before she realized it, she was in a panic of fear.
+
+She hurried down the stairway softly calling her mother. 
+There was no answer.  She lightly stepped across the
+sitting-room and looked in at the open door.  There was
+no one, and the bed had not been used.  Her first thought
+was that her mother had gone to the pool; and the Limberlost
+was alive with signals.  Pity and fear mingled in the
+heart of the girl.  She opened the kitchen door, crossed the
+garden and ran back to the swamp.  As she neared it she
+listened, but she could hear only the usual voices of night.
+
+"Mother!" she called softly.  Then louder, "Mother!"
+
+There was not a sound.  Chilled with fright she hurried
+back to the cabin.  She did not know what to do. 
+She understood what the lights in the Limberlost meant. 
+Where was her mother?  She was afraid to enter, while
+she was growing very cold and still more fearful about
+remaining outside.  At last she went to her mother's room,
+picked up the gun, carried it into the kitchen, and crowding
+in a little corner behind the stove, she waited in trembling
+anxiety.  The time was dreadfully long before she heard
+her mother's voice.  Then she decided some one had been
+ill and sent for her, so she took courage, and stepping
+swiftly across the kitchen she unbarred the door and drew
+back from sight beside the table.
+
+Mrs. Comstock entered dragging her heavy feet.  Her dress
+skirt was gone, her petticoat wet and drabbled, and
+the waist of her dress was almost torn from her body. 
+Her hair hung in damp strings; her eyes were red with crying. 
+In one hand she held the lantern, and in the other stiffly
+extended before her, on a wad of calico reposed a
+magnificent pair of Yellow Emperors.  Elnora stared, her
+lips parted.
+
+"Shall I put these others in the kitchen?" inquired a
+man's voice.
+
+The girl shrank back to the shadows.
+
+"Yes, anywhere inside the door," replied Mrs. Comstock
+as she moved a few steps to make way for him. 
+Pete's head appeared.  He set down the moths and was gone.
+
+"Thank you, Pete, more than ever woman thanked you before!"
+said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+She placed the lantern on the table and barred the door. 
+As she turned Elnora came into view.  Mrs. Comstock
+leaned toward her, and held out the moths.  In a voice
+vibrant with tones never before heard she said:  "Elnora,
+my girl, mother's found you another moth!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+WHEREIN MOTHER LOVE IS BESTOWED ON ELNORA,
+AND SHE FINDS AN ASSISTANT IN MOTH HUNTING
+
+
+Elnora awoke at dawn and lay gazing around the
+unfamiliar room.  She noticed that every vestige
+of masculine attire and belongings was gone, and
+knew, without any explanation, what that meant. 
+For some reason every tangible evidence of her father
+was banished, and she was at last to be allowed to
+take his place.    She turned to look at her mother. 
+Mrs. Comstock's face was white and haggard, but on it
+rested an expression of profound peace Elnora never
+before had seen.  As she studied the features on the
+pillow beside her, the heart of the girl throbbed in tenderness. 
+She realized as fully as any one else could what her mother
+had suffered.  Thoughts of the night brought shuddering fear. 
+She softly slipped from the bed, went to her room, dressed and
+entered the kitchen to attend the Emperors and prepare breakfast. 
+The pair had been left clinging to the piece of calico. 
+The calico was there and a few pieces of beautiful wing. 
+A mouse had eaten the moths!
+
+"Well, of all the horrible luck!" gasped Elnora.
+
+With the first thought of her mother, she caught up the
+remnants of the moths, burying them in the ashes of the stove. 
+She took the bag to her room, hurriedly releasing its
+contents, but there was not another yellow one.  Her mother
+had said some had been confined in the case in the Limberlost. 
+There was still a hope that an Emperor might be among them. 
+She peeped at her mother, who still slept soundly.
+
+Elnora took a large piece of mosquito netting, and ran
+to the swamp.  Throwing it over the top of the case, she
+unlocked the door.  She reeled, faint with distress. 
+The living moths that had been confined there in their
+fluttering to escape to night and the mates they sought
+not only had wrecked the other specimens of the case,
+but torn themselves to fringes on the pins.  A third of the
+rarest moths of the collection for the man of India were
+antennaless, legless, wingless, and often headless. 
+Elnora sobbed aloud.
+
+"This is overwhelming," she said at last.  "It is making
+a fatalist of me.  I am beginning to think things
+happen as they are ordained from the beginning, this
+plainly indicating that there is to be no college, at least,
+this year, for me.  My life is all mountain-top or canon. 
+I wish some one would lead me into a few days of `green pastures.' 
+Last night I went to sleep on mother's arm, the moths all
+secured, love and college, certainties.  This morning I wake
+to find all my hopes wrecked.  I simply don't dare let mother
+know that instead of helping me, she has ruined my collection. 
+Everything is gone--unless the love lasts.  That actually
+seemed true.  I believe I will go see."
+
+The love remained.  Indeed, in the overflow of the long-
+hardened, pent-up heart, the girl was almost suffocated
+with tempestuous caresses and generous offerings.  Before the
+day was over, Elnora realized that she never had known
+her mother.  The woman who now busily went through the
+cabin, her eyes bright, eager, alert, constantly planning,
+was a stranger.  Her very face was different, while it did
+not seem possible that during one night the acid of twenty
+years could disappear from a voice and leave it sweet and pleasant.
+
+For the next few days Elnora worked at mounting the
+moths her mother had taken.  She had to go to the Bird
+Woman and tell about the disaster, but Mrs. Comstock
+was allowed to think that Elnora delivered the moths
+when she made the trip.  If she had told her what actually
+happened, the chances were that Mrs. Comstock again
+would have taken possession of the Limberlost, hunting
+there until she replaced all the moths that had been destroyed. 
+But Elnora knew from experience what it meant to collect
+such a list in pairs.  It would require steady work for at
+least two summers to replace the lost moths.  When she left
+the Bird Woman she went to the president of the Onabasha
+schools and asked him to do all in his power to secure her
+a room in one of the ward buildings.
+
+The next morning the last moth was mounted, and the
+housework finished.  Elnora said to her mother, "If you
+don't mind, I believe I will go into the woods pasture
+beside Sleepy Snake Creek and see if I can catch some
+dragonflies or moths."
+
+"Wait until I get a knife and a pail and I will go along,"
+answered Mrs. Comstock.  "The dandelions are plenty
+tender for greens among the deep grasses, and I might just
+happen to see something myself.  My eyes are pretty sharp."
+
+"I wish you could realize how young you are," said Elnora. 
+"I know women in Onabasha who are ten years older than you,
+yet they look twenty years younger.  So could you, if you
+would dress your hair becomingly, and wear appropriate clothes."
+
+"I think my hair puts me in the old woman class permanently,"
+said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Well, it doesn't!" cried Elnora.  "There is a woman
+of twenty-eight who has hair as white as yours from sick
+headaches, but her face is young and beautiful.  If your
+face would grow a little fuller and those lines would go
+away, you'd be lovely!"
+
+"You little pig!" laughed Mrs. Comstock.  "Any one
+would think you would be satisfied with having a splinter
+new mother, without setting up a kick on her looks,
+first thing.  Greedy!"
+
+"That is a good word," said Elnora.  "I admit the charge. 
+I am greedy over every wasted year.  I want you young,
+lovely, suitably dressed and enjoying life like the
+other girls' mothers."
+
+Mrs. Comstock laughed softly as she pushed back her
+sunbonnet so that shrubs and bushes beside the way could
+be scanned closely.  Elnora walked ahead with a case over
+her shoulder, a net in her hand.  Her head was bare, the
+rolling collar of her lavender gingham dress was cut in a V
+at the throat, the sleeves only reached the elbows.  Every few
+steps she paused and examined the shrubbery carefully,
+while Mrs. Comstock was watching until her eyes ached,
+but there were no dandelions in the pail she carried.
+
+Early June was rioting in fresh grasses, bright flowers,
+bird songs, and gay-winged creatures of air.  Down the
+footpath the two went through the perfect morning, the
+love of God and all nature in their hearts.  At last they
+reached the creek, following it toward the bridge.  Here Mrs.
+Comstock found a large bed of tender dandelions and stopped
+to fill her pail.  Then she sat on the bank, picking over the
+greens, while she listened to the creek softly singing its June song.
+
+Elnora remained within calling distance, and was having
+good success.  At last she crossed the creek, following
+it up to a bridge.  There she began a careful examination
+of the under sides of the sleepers and flooring for cocoons. 
+Mrs. Comstock could see her and the creek for several
+rods above.  The mother sat beating the long green leaves
+across her hand, carefully picking out the white buds,
+because Elnora liked them, when a splash up the creek
+attracted her attention.
+
+Around the bend came a man.  He was bareheaded,
+dressed in a white sweater, and waders which reached
+his waist.  He walked on the bank, only entering the
+water when forced.  He had a queer basket strapped on
+his hip, and with a small rod he sent a long line spinning
+before him down the creek, deftly manipulating with
+it a little floating object.  He was closer Elnora than
+her mother, but Mrs. Comstock thought possibly by
+hurrying she could remain unseen and yet warn the girl
+that a stranger was coming.  As she approached the
+bridge, she caught a sapling and leaned over the water to
+call Elnora.  With her lips parted to speak she hesitated
+a second to watch a sort of insect that flashed past on the
+water, when a splash from the man attracted the girl.
+
+She was under the bridge, one knee planted in the
+embankment and a foot braced to support her.  Her hair
+was tousled by wind and bushes, her face flushed,
+and she lifted her arms above her head, working to loosen
+a cocoon she had found.  The call Mrs. Comstock had
+intended to utter never found voice, for as Elnora looked
+down at the sound, "Possibly I could get that for you,"
+suggested the man.
+
+Mrs. Comstock drew back.  He was a young man with a
+wonderfully attractive face, although it was too
+white for robust health, broad shoulders, and slender,
+upright frame.
+
+"Oh, I do hope you can!" answered Elnora.  "It's quite
+a find!  It's one of those lovely pale red cocoons
+described in the books.  I suspect it comes from having
+been in a dark place and screened from the weather."
+
+"Is that so?" cried the man.  "Wait a minute.  I've never
+seen one.  I suppose it's a Cecropia, from the location."
+
+"Of course," said Elnora.  "It's so cool here the moth
+hasn't emerged.  The cocoon is a big, baggy one, and it
+is as red as fox tail."
+
+"What luck!" he cried.  "Are you making a collection?"
+
+He reeled in his line, laid his rod across a bush and
+climbed the embankment to Elnora's side, produced a
+knife and began the work of whittling a deep groove
+around the cocoon.
+
+"Yes.  I paid my way through the high school in
+Onabasha with them.  Now I am starting a collection
+which means college."
+
+"Onabasha!" said the man.  "That is where I am visiting. 
+Possibly you know my people--Dr. Ammon's?  The doctor is
+my uncle.  My home is in Chicago.  I've been having typhoid
+fever, something fierce.  In the hospital six weeks. 
+Didn't gain strength right, so Uncle Doc sent for me. 
+I am to live out of doors all summer, and exercise until
+I get in condition again.  Do you know my uncle?"
+
+"Yes.  He is Aunt Margaret's doctor, and he would
+be ours, only we are never ill."
+
+"Well, you look it!" said the man, appraising Elnora
+at a glance.
+
+"Strangers always mention it," sighed Elnora.  "I wonder
+how it would seem to be a pale, languid lady and ride
+in a carriage."
+
+"Ask me!" laughed the man.  "It feels like the--dickens! 
+I'm so proud of my feet.  It's quite a trick to stand
+on them now.  I have to keep out of the water all I can
+and stop to baby every half-mile.  But with interesting
+outdoor work I'll be myself in a week."
+
+"Do you call that work?"  Elnora indicated the creek.
+
+"I do, indeed!  Nearly three miles, banks too soft to brag
+on and never a strike.  Wouldn't you call that hard labour?"
+
+"Yes," laughed Elnora.  "Work at which you might
+kill yourself and never get a fish.  Did any one tell you
+there were trout in Sleepy Snake Creek?"
+
+"Uncle said I could try."
+
+"Oh, you can," said Elnora.  "You can try no end,
+but you'll never get a trout.  This is too far south and
+too warm for them.  If you sit on the bank and use
+worms you might catch some perch or catfish."
+
+"But that isn't exercise."
+
+"Well, if you only want exercise, go right on fishing.
+You will have a creel full of invisible results every night."
+
+"I object," said the man emphatically.  He stopped
+work again and studied Elnora.  Even the watching
+mother could not blame him.  In the shade of the bridge
+Elnora's bright head and her lavender dress made a
+picture worthy of much contemplation.
+
+"I object!" repeated the man.  "When I work I want
+to see results.  I'd rather exercise sawing wood, making
+one pile grow little and the other big than to cast all day
+and catch nothing because there is not a fish to take. 
+Work for work's sake doesn't appeal to me."
+
+He digged the groove around the cocoon with skilled hand. 
+"Now there is some fun in this!" he said.  It's going to
+be a fair job to cut it out, but when it comes, it is
+not only beautiful, but worth a price; it will help you on
+your way.  I think I'll put up my rod and hunt moths. 
+That would be something like!  Don't you want help?"
+
+Elnora parried the question.  "Have you ever hunted
+moths, Mr. Ammon?
+
+"Enough to know the ropes in taking them and to
+distinguish the commonest ones.  I go wild on Catocalae. 
+There's too many of them, all too much alike for Philip,
+but I know all these fellows.  One flew into my room when
+I was about ten years old, and we thought it a miracle. 
+None of us ever had seen one so we took it over to the
+museum to Dr. Dorsey.  He said they were common enough,
+but we didn't see them because they flew at night. 
+He showed me the museum collection, and I was so
+interested I took mine back home and started to hunt them. 
+Every year after that we went to our cottage a month
+earlier, so I could find them, and all my family helped. 
+I stuck to it until I went to college.  Then, keeping
+the little moths out of the big ones was too much for the
+mater, so father advised that I donate mine to the museum. 
+He bought a fine case for them with my name on it,
+which constitutes my sole contribution to science.  I know
+enough to help you all right."
+
+"Aren't you going north this year?"
+
+"All depends on how this fever leaves me.  Uncle says
+the nights are too cold and the days too hot there
+for me.  He thinks I had better stay in an even
+temperature until I am strong again.  I am going to stick
+pretty close to him until I know I am.  I wouldn't admit
+it to any one at home, but I was almost gone.  I don't
+believe anything can eat up nerve much faster than the
+burning of a slow fever.  No, thanks, I have enough.
+I stay with Uncle Doc, so if I feel it coming again he can
+do something quickly."
+
+"I don't blame you," said Elnora.  "I never have been
+sick, but it must be dreadful.  I am afraid you are tiring
+yourself over that.  Let me take the knife awhile."
+
+"Oh, it isn't so bad as that!  I wouldn't be wading
+creeks if it were.  I only need a few more days to get
+steady on my feet again.  I'll soon have this out."
+
+"It is kind of you to get it," said Elnora.  "I should
+have had to peel it, which would spoil the cocoon for a'
+specimen and ruin the moth."
+
+"You haven't said yet whether I may help you while
+I am here."
+
+Elnora hesitated.
+
+"You better say `yes,'" he persisted.  "It would be a
+real kindness.  It would keep me outdoors all day and
+give an incentive to work.  I'm good at it.  I'll show you
+if I am not in a week or so.  I can `sugar,' manipulate
+lights, and mirrors, and all the expert methods.  I'll wager,
+moths are numerous in the old swamp over there."
+
+"They are," said Elnora.  "Most I have I took there. 
+A few nights ago my mother caught a number, but we
+don't dare go alone."
+
+"All the more reason why you need me.  Where do
+you live?  I can't get an answer from you, I'll go tell
+your mother who I am and ask her if I may help you. 
+I warn you, young lady, I have a very effective way
+with mothers.  They almost never turn me down."
+
+"Then it's probable you will have a new experience
+when you meet mine," said Elnora.  "She never was
+known to do what any one expected she surely would."
+
+The cocoon came loose.  Philip Ammon stepped down
+the embankment turning to offer his hand to Elnora. 
+She ran down as she would have done alone, and taking
+the cocoon turned it end for end to learn if the imago it
+contained were alive.  Then Ammon took back the cocoon
+to smooth the edges.  Mrs. Comstock gave them one
+long look as they stood there, and returned to
+her dandelions.  While she worked she paused occasionally,
+listening intently.  Presently they came down the creek,
+the man carrying the cocoon as if it were a jewel, while
+Elnora made her way along the bank, taking a lesson in casting. 
+Her face was flushed with excitement, her eyes shining,
+the bushes taking liberties with her hair.  For a picture
+of perfect loveliness she scarcely could have been surpassed,
+and the eyes of Philip Ammon seemed to be in working order.
+
+"Moth-er!" called Elnora.
+
+There was an undulant, caressing sweetness in the girl's
+voice, as she sung out the call in perfect confidence
+that it would bring a loving answer, that struck deep in
+Mrs. Comstock's heart.  She never had heard that word
+so pronounced before and a lump arose in her throat.
+
+"Here!" she answered, still cleaning dandelions.
+
+"Mother, this is Mr. Philip Ammon, of Chicago,"
+said Elnora.  "He has been ill and he is staying with
+Dr. Ammon in Onabasha.  He came down the creek
+fishing and cut this cocoon from under the bridge for me. 
+He feels that it would be better to hunt moths than to
+fish, until he is well.  What do you think about it?"
+
+Philip Ammon extended his hand.  "I am glad to
+know you," he said.
+
+"You may take the hand-shaking for granted," replied
+Mrs. Comstock.  "Dandelions have a way of making
+fingers sticky, and I like to know a man before I
+take his hand, anyway.  That introduction seems mighty
+comprehensive on your part, but it still leaves
+me unclassified.  My name is Comstock."
+
+Philip Ammon bowed.
+
+"I am sorry to hear you have been sick," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"But if people will live where they have such vile water as
+they do in Chicago, I don't see what else they are to expect."
+
+Philip studied her intently.
+
+"I am sure I didn't have a fever on purpose," he said.
+
+"You do seem a little wobbly on your legs," she observed. 
+"Maybe you had better sit and rest while I finish
+these greens.  It's late for the genuine article, but
+in the shade, among long grass they are still tender."
+
+"May I have a leaf?" he asked, reaching for one as he sat
+on the bank, looking from the little creek at his feet, away
+through the dim cool spaces of the June forest on the
+opposite side.  He drew a deep breath.  "Glory, but this
+is good after almost two months inside hospital walls!"
+
+He stretched on the grass and lay gazing up at the
+leaves, occasionally asking the interpretation of a bird note
+or the origin of an unfamiliar forest voice.  Elnora began
+helping with the dandelions.
+
+"Another, please," said the young man, holding out his hand.
+
+"Do you suppose this is the kind of grass Nebuchadnezzar
+ate?" Elnora asked, giving the leaf.
+
+"He knew a good thing if it is."
+
+"Oh, you should taste dandelions boiled with bacon and
+served with mother's cornbread."
+
+"Don't!  My appetite is twice my size now.  While it
+is--how far is it to Onabasha, shortest cut?"
+
+"Three miles."
+
+The man lay in perfect content, nibbling leaves.
+
+"This surely is a treat," he said.  "No wonder you find
+good hunting here.  There seems to be foliage for almost
+every kind of caterpillar.  But I suppose you have to
+exchange for northern species and Pacific Coast kinds?"
+
+"Yes.  And every one wants Regalis in trade.  I never
+saw the like.  They consider a Cecropia or a Polyphemus
+an insult, and a Luna is barely acceptable."
+
+"What authorities have you?"
+
+Elnora began to name text-books which started a discussion. 
+Mrs. Comstock listened.  She cleaned dandelions with greater
+deliberation than they ever before were examined. 
+In reality she was taking stock of the young man's long,
+well-proportioned frame, his strong hands, his smooth,
+fine-textured skin, his thick shock of dark hair,
+and making mental notes of his simple manly speech and
+the fact that he evidently did know much about moths. 
+It pleased her to think that if he had been a neighbour boy
+who had lain beside her every day of his life while she
+worked, he could have been no more at home.  She liked
+the things he said, but she was proud that Elnora had a
+ready answer which always seemed appropriate.
+
+At last Mrs. Comstock finished the greens.
+
+"You are three miles from the city and less than a mile
+from where we live," she said.  "If you will tell me what
+you dare eat, I suspect you had best go home with us and
+rest until the cool of the day before you start back. 
+Probably some one that you can ride in with will be passing
+before evening."
+
+"That is mighty kind of you," said Philip.  "I think I will. 
+It doesn't matter so much what I eat, the point is that
+I must be moderate.  I am hungry all the time."
+
+"Then we will go," said Mrs. Comstock, "and we will
+not allow you to make yourself sick with us."
+
+Philip Ammon arose: picking up the pail of greens and
+his fishing rod, he stood waiting.  Elnora led the way. 
+Mrs. Comstock motioned Philip to follow and she walked
+in the rear.  The girl carried the cocoon and the box of
+moths she had taken, searching every step for more. 
+The young man frequently set down his load to join in
+the pursuit of a dragonfly or moth, while Mrs. Comstock watched
+the proceedings with sharp eyes.  Every time Philip picked
+up the pail of greens she struggled to suppress a smile.
+
+Elnora proceeded slowly, chattering about everything
+beside the trail.  Philip was interested in all the objects
+she pointed out, noticing several things which escaped her. 
+He carried the greens as casually when they took a short
+cut down the roadway as on the trail.  When Elnora
+turned toward the gate of her home Philip Ammon
+stopped, took a long look at the big hewed log cabin, the
+vines which clambered over it, the flower garden ablaze
+with beds of bright bloom interspersed with strawberries
+and tomatoes, the trees of the forest rising north and west
+like a green wall and exclaimed:  "How beautiful!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock was pleased.  "If you think that," she
+said, "perhaps you will understand how, in all this present-
+day rush to be modern, I have preferred to remain as I began. 
+My husband and I took up this land, and enough
+trees to build the cabin, stable, and outbuildings are
+nearly all we ever cut.  Of course, if he had lived,
+I suppose we should have kept up with our neighbours.  I hear
+considerable about the value of the land, the trees which
+are on it, and the oil which is supposed to be under it,
+but as yet I haven't brought myself to change anything. 
+So we stand for one of the few remaining homes of first
+settlers in this region.  Come in.  You are very welcome
+to what we have."
+
+Mrs. Comstock stepped forward and took the lead. 
+She had a bowl of soft water and a pair of boots to offer
+for the heavy waders, for outer comfort, a glass of cold
+buttermilk and a bench on which to rest, in the circular
+arbour until dinner was ready.  Philip Ammon splashed
+in the water.  He followed to the stable and exchanged
+boots there.  He was ravenous for the buttermilk, and
+when he stretched on the bench in the arbour the
+flickering patches of sunlight so tantalized his tired eyes,
+while the bees made such splendid music, he was soon
+sound asleep.  When Elnora and her mother came out with a
+table they stood a short time looking at him.  It is probable
+Mrs. Comstock voiced a united thought when she said:  "What a
+refined, decent looking young man!  How proud his mother must
+be of him!  We must be careful what we let him eat."
+
+Then they returned to the kitchen where Mrs. Comstock
+proceeded to be careful.  She broiled ham of her own
+sugar-curing, creamed potatoes, served asparagus on
+toast, and made a delicious strawberry shortcake.  As she
+cooked dandelions with bacon, she feared to serve them to
+him, so she made an excuse that it took too long to prepare
+them, blanched some and made a salad.  When everything
+was ready she touched Philip's sleeve.
+
+"Best have something to eat, lad, before you get too
+hungry," she said.
+
+"Please hurry!" he begged laughingly as he held a plate
+toward her to be filled.  "I thought I had enough self-
+restraint to start out alone, but I see I was mistaken. 
+If you would allow me, just now, I am afraid I should start
+a fever again.  I never did smell food so good as this. 
+It's mighty kind of you to take me in.  I hope I will be man
+enough in a few days to do something worth while in return."
+
+Spots of sunshine fell on the white cloth and blue china,
+the bees and an occasional stray butterfly came searching
+for food.  A rose-breasted grosbeak, released from a three
+hours' siege of brooding, while his independent mate took
+her bath and recreation, mounted the top branch of a
+maple in the west woods from which he serenaded the
+dinner party with a joyful chorus in celebration of his freedom. 
+Philip's eyes strayed to the beautiful cabin, to the
+mixture of flowers and vegetables stretching down to the
+road, and to the singing bird with his red-splotched breast
+of white and he said:  "I can't realize now that I ever lay in
+ice packs in a hospital.  How I wish all the sick folks could
+come here to grow strong!"
+
+The grosbeak sang on, a big Turnus butterfly sailed
+through the arbour and poised over the table.  Elnora held
+up a lump of sugar and the butterfly, clinging to her
+fingers, tasted daintily.  With eager eyes and parted
+lips, the girl held steadily.  When at last it wavered
+away, "That made a picture!" said Philip.  "Ask me some
+other time how I lost my illusions concerning butterflies. 
+I always thought of them in connection with sunshine,
+flower pollen, and fruit nectar, until one sad day."
+
+"I know!" laughed Elnora.  "I've seen that, too, but
+it didn't destroy any illusion for me.  I think quite as
+much of the butterflies as ever."
+
+Then they talked of flowers, moths, dragonflies, Indian
+relics, and all the natural wonders the swamp afforded,
+straying from those subjects to books and school work. 
+When they cleared the table Philip assisted, carrying
+several tray loads to the kitchen.  He and Elnora mounted
+specimens while Mrs Comstock washed the dishes.  Then she
+came out with a ruffle she was embroidering.
+
+"I wonder if I did not see a picture of you in Onabasha
+last night," Philip said to Elnora.  "Aunt Anna took me
+to call on Miss Brownlee.  She was showing me her
+crowd--of course, it was you!  But it didn't half do you
+justice, although it was the nearest human of any of them. 
+Miss Brownlee is very fond of you.  She said the finest things."
+
+Then they talked of Commencement, and at last Philip said
+he must go or his friends would become anxious about him.
+
+Mrs. Comstock brought him a blue bowl of creamy milk
+and a plate of bread.  She stopped a passing team and
+secured a ride to the city for him, as his exercise of the
+morning had been too violent, and he was forced to admit
+he was tired.
+
+"May I come to-morrow afternoon and hunt moths awhile?"
+he asked Mrs. Comstock as he arose.  "We will `sugar' a
+tree and put a light beside it, if I can get stuff to
+make the preparation.  Possibly we can take some that way. 
+I always enjoy moth hunting, I'd like to help Miss Elnora,
+and it would be a charity to me.  I've got to remain
+outdoors some place, and I'm quite sure I'd get well
+faster here than anywhere else.  Please say I may come."
+
+"I have no objections, if Elnora really would like help,"
+said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+In her heart she wished he would not come.  She wanted
+her newly found treasure all to herself, for a time,
+at least.  But Elnora's were eager, shining eyes. 
+She thought it would be splendid to have help, and
+great fun to try book methods for taking moths, so it
+was arranged.  As Philip rode away, Mrs. Comstock's eyes
+followed him.  "What a nice young man!" she said.
+
+"He seems fine," agreed Elnora.
+
+"He comes of a good family, too.  I've often heard of
+his father.  He is a great lawyer."
+
+"I am glad he likes it here.  I need help.  Possibly----"
+
+"Possibly what?"
+
+"We can find many moths."
+
+"What did he mean about the butterflies?"
+
+"That he always had connected them with sunshine,
+flowers, and fruits, and thought of them as the most
+exquisite of creations; then one day he found some
+clustering thickly over carrion."
+
+"Come to think of it, I have seen butterflies----"
+
+"So had he," laughed Elnora.  "And that is what he meant."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+WHEREIN A NEW POSITION IS TENDERED ELNORA,
+AND PHILIP AMMON IS SHOWN LIMBERLOST VIOLETS
+
+
+The next morning Mrs. Comstock called to Elnora,
+"The mail carrier stopped at our box."
+
+Elnora ran down the walk and came back carrying an
+official letter.  She tore it open and read:
+
+MY DEAR MISS COMSTOCK:
+
+At the weekly meeting of the Onabasha School Board last night, it
+was decided to add the position of Lecturer on Natural History to
+our corps of city teachers.  It will be the duty of this person to
+spend two hours a week in each of the grade schools exhibiting and
+explaining specimens of the most prominent objects in nature: 
+animals, birds, insects, flowers, vines, shrubs, bushes, and trees. 
+These specimens and lectures should be appropriate to the seasons
+and the comprehension of the grades.  This position was unanimously
+voted to you.  I think you will find the work delightful and much
+easier than the routine grind of the other teachers.  It is my advice
+that you accept and begin to prepare yourself at once.  Your salary
+will be $750 a year, and you will be allowed $200 for expenses in
+procuring specimens and books.  Let us know at once if you want the
+position, as it is going to be difficult to fill satisfactorily if
+you do not.
+
+                              Very truly yours,
+
+          DAVID THOMPSON, President, Onabasha Schools.
+
+
+"I hardly understand," marvelled Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"It is a new position.  They never have had anything
+like it before.  I suspect it arose from the help I've been
+giving the grade teachers in their nature work.  They are
+trying to teach the children something, and half the
+instructors don't know a blue jay from a king-fisher, a
+beech leaf from an elm, or a wasp from a hornet."
+
+"Well, do you?" anxiously inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Indeed, I do!" laughed Elnora, "and several other
+things beside.  When Freckles bequeathed me the
+swamp, he gave me a bigger inheritance than he knew. 
+While you have thought I was wandering aimlessly, I
+have been following a definite plan, studying hard, and
+storing up the stuff that will earn these seven hundred
+and fifty dollars.  Mother dear, I am going to accept
+this, of course.  The work will be a delight.  I'd love
+it most of anything in teaching.  You must help me. 
+We must find nests, eggs, leaves, queer formations in
+plants and rare flowers.  I must have flower boxes made
+for each of the rooms and filled with wild things. 
+I should begin to gather specimens this very day."
+
+Elnora's face was flushed and her eyes bright.
+
+"Oh, what great work that will be!" she cried.  "You must
+go with me so you can see the little faces when I tell
+them how the goldfinch builds its nest, and how the
+bees make honey."
+
+So Elnora and her mother went into the woods behind
+the cabin to study nature.
+
+"I think," said Elnora, "the idea is to begin with fall
+things in the fall, keeping to the seasons throughout the year."
+
+"What are fall things?" inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Oh, fringed gentians, asters, ironwort, every fall
+flower, leaves from every tree and vine, what makes them
+change colour, abandoned bird nests, winter quarters
+of caterpillars and insects, what becomes of the
+butterflies and grasshoppers--myriads of stuff.  I shall
+have to be very wise to select the things it will be most
+beneficial for the children to learn."
+
+"Can I really help you?" Mrs. Comstock's strong face
+was pathetic.
+
+"Indeed, yes!" cried Elnora.  "I never can get through
+it alone.  There will be an immense amount of work
+connected with securing and preparing specimens."
+
+Mrs. Comstock lifted her head proudly and began
+doing business at once.  Her sharp eyes ranged from
+earth to heaven.  She investigated everything, asking
+innumerable questions.  At noon Mrs. Comstock took
+the specimens they had collected, and went to prepare
+dinner, while Elnora followed the woods down to the
+Sintons' to show her letter.
+
+She had to explain what became of her moths, and why
+college would have to be abandoned for that year, but
+Margaret and Wesley vowed not to tell.  Wesley waved
+the letter excitedly, explaining it to Margaret as if it
+were a personal possession.  Margaret was deeply impressed,
+while Billy volunteered first aid in gathering material.
+
+"Now anything you want in the ground, Snap can dig
+it out," he said.  "Uncle Wesley and I found a hole
+three times as big as Snap, that he dug at the roots of
+a tree."
+
+"We will train him to hunt pupae cases," said Elnora.
+
+"Are you going to the woods this afternoon?" asked Billy.
+
+"Yes," answered Elnora.  "Dr. Ammon's nephew
+from Chicago is visiting in Onabasha.  He is going to
+show me how men put some sort of compound on a tree,
+hang a light beside it, and take moths that way.  It will
+be interesting to watch and learn."
+
+"May I come?" asked Billy.
+
+"Of course you may come!" answered Elnora.
+
+"Is this nephew of Dr. Ammon a young man?" inquired Margaret.
+
+"About twenty-six, I should think," said Elnora. 
+"He said he had been out of college and at work in his
+father's law office three years."
+
+"Does he seem nice?" asked Margaret, and Wesley smiled.
+
+"Finest kind of a person," said Elnora.  "He can
+teach me so much.  It is very interesting to hear
+him talk.  He knows considerable about moths that will
+be a help to me.  He had a fever and he has to stay
+outdoors until he grows strong again."
+
+"Billy, I guess you better help me this afternoon,"
+said Margaret.  "Maybe Elnora had rather not bother
+with you."
+
+"There's no reason on earth why Billy should not
+come!" cried Elnora, and Wesley smiled again.
+
+"I must hurry home or I won't be ready," she added.
+
+Hastening down the road she entered the cabin, her
+face glowing.
+
+"I thought you never would come," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"If you don't hurry Mr. Ammon will be here before you
+are dressed."
+
+"I forgot about him until just now," said Elnora. 
+"I am not going to dress.  He's not coming to visit. 
+We are only going to the woods for more specimens. 
+I can't wear anything that requires care.  The limbs
+take the most dreadful liberties with hair and clothing."
+
+Mrs. Comstock opened her lips, looked at Elnora and
+closed them.  In her heart she was pleased that the
+girl was so interested in her work that she had forgotten
+Philip Ammon's coming.  But it did seem to her that
+such a pleasant young man should have been greeted
+by a girl in a fresh dress.  "If she isn't disposed to primp
+at the coming of a man, heaven forbid that I should be
+the one to start her," thought Mrs. Comstock.
+
+Philip came whistling down the walk between the
+cinnamon pinks, pansies, and strawberries.  He carried
+several packages, while his face flushed with more colour
+than on the previous day.
+
+"Only see what has happened to me!" cried Elnora,
+offering her letter.
+
+"I'll wager I know!" answered Philip.  "Isn't it great! 
+Every one in Onabasha is talking about it.  At last there
+is something new under the sun.  All of them are pleased. 
+They think you'll make a big success.  This will give an
+incentive to work.  In a few days more I'll be myself
+again, and we'll overturn the fields and woods around here."
+
+He went on to congratulate Mrs. Comstock. 
+
+"Aren't you proud of her, though?" he asked.  "You should
+hear what folks are saying!  They say she created the
+necessity for the position, and every one seems to feel
+that it is a necessity.  Now, if she succeeds, and she will,
+all of the other city schools will have such departments,
+and first thing you know she will have made the whole
+world a little better.  Let me rest a few seconds; my feet
+are acting up again.  Then we will cook the moth compound
+and put it to cool."
+
+He laughed as he sat breathing shortly.
+
+"It doesn't seem possible that a fellow could lose his
+strength like this.  My knees are actually trembling,
+but I'll be all right in a minute.  Uncle Doc said I
+could come.  I told him how you took care of me, and he
+said I would be safe here."
+
+Then he began unwrapping packages and explaining
+to Mrs. Comstock how to cook the compound to attract
+the moths.  He followed her into the kitchen, kindled
+the fire, and stirred the preparation as he talked. 
+While the mixture cooled, he and Elnora walked through
+the vegetable garden behind the cabin and strayed from
+there into the woods.
+
+"What about college?" he asked.  "Miss Brownlee said
+you were going."
+
+"I had hoped to," replied Elnora, "but I had a streak
+of dreadful luck, so I'll have to wait until next year. 
+If you won't speak of it, I'll tell you."
+
+Philip promised, so Elnora recited the history of the
+Yellow Emperor.  She was so interested in doing the
+Emperor justice she did not notice how many personalities
+went into the story.  A few pertinent questions
+told him the remainder.  He looked at the girl in wonder. 
+In face and form she was as lovely as any one of her age
+and type he ever had seen.  Her school work far surpassed
+that of most girls of her age he knew.  She differed in
+other ways.  This vast store of learning she had gathered
+from field and forest was a wealth of attraction no other
+girl possessed.  Her frank, matter-of-fact manner was an
+inheritance from her mother, but there was something more. 
+Once, as they talked he thought "sympathy" was the word
+to describe it and again "comprehension."  She seemed to
+possess a large sense of brotherhood for all human and
+animate creatures.  She spoke to him as if she had known
+him all her life.  She talked to the grosbeak in exactly
+the same manner, as she laid strawberries and potato bugs
+on the fence for his family.  She did not swerve an inch
+from her way when a snake slid past her, while the squirrels
+came down from the trees and took corn from her fingers. 
+She might as well have been a boy, so lacking was she in
+any touch of feminine coquetry toward him.  He studied
+her wonderingly.  As they went along the path they reached
+a large slime-covered pool surrounded by decaying stumps
+and logs thickly covered with water hyacinths and blue flags. 
+Philip stopped.
+
+"Is that the place?" he asked.
+
+Elnora assented.  "The doctor told you?"
+
+"Yes.  It was tragic.  Is that pool really bottomless?"
+
+"So far as we ever have been able to discover."
+
+Philip stood looking at the water, while the long, sweet
+grasses, thickly sprinkled with blue flag bloom, over which
+wild bees clambered, swayed around his feet.  Then he
+turned to the girl.  She had worked hard.  The same
+lavender dress she had worn the previous day clung to her
+in limp condition.  But she was as evenly coloured and of
+as fine grain as a wild rose petal, her hair was really brown,
+but never was such hair touched with a redder glory, while
+her heavy arching brows added a look of strength to her
+big gray-blue eyes.
+
+"And you were born here?"
+
+He had not intended to voice that thought.
+
+"Yes," she said, looking into his eyes.  "Just in time
+to prevent my mother from saving the life of my father. 
+She came near never forgiving me."
+
+"Ah, cruel!" cried Philip.
+
+"I find much in life that is cruel, from our standpoints,"
+said Elnora.  "It takes the large wisdom of the Unfathomable,
+the philosophy of the Almighty, to endure some of it. 
+But there is always right somewhere, and at last it seems
+to come."
+
+"Will it come to you?" asked Philip, who found himself
+deeply affected.
+
+"It has come," said the girl serenely.  "It came a week ago. 
+It came in fullest measure when my mother ceased to regret
+that I had been born.  Now, work that I love has come--that
+should constitute happiness.  A little farther along is my
+violet bed.  I want you to see it."
+
+As Philip Ammon followed he definitely settled upon the
+name of the unusual feature of Elnora's face.  It should be
+called "experience."  She had known bitter experiences
+early in life.  Suffering had been her familiar more than joy. 
+He watched her earnestly, his heart deeply moved.  She led
+him into a swampy half-open space in the woods, stopped
+and stepped aside.  He uttered a cry of surprised delight.
+
+A few decaying logs were scattered around, the grass
+grew in tufts long and fine.  Blue flags waved, clusters of
+cowslips nodded gold heads, but the whole earth was purple
+with a thick blanket of violets nodding from stems a foot
+in length.  Elnora knelt and slipping her fingers between
+the leaves and grasses to the roots, gathered a few violets
+and gave them to Philip.
+
+"Can your city greenhouses surpass them?" she asked.
+
+He sat on a log to examine the blooms.
+
+"They are superb!" he said.  "I never saw such
+length of stem or such rank leaves, while the flowers are
+the deepest blue, the truest violet I ever saw growing wild. 
+They are coloured exactly like the eyes of the girl I am
+going to marry."
+
+Elnora handed him several others to add to those he held. 
+"She must have wonderful eyes," she commented.
+
+"No other blue eyes are quite so beautiful," he said. 
+"In fact, she is altogether lovely."
+
+"Is it customary for a man to think the girl he is going
+to marry lovely?  I wonder if I should find her so."
+
+"You would," said Philip.  "No one ever fails to.  She is
+tall as you, very slender, but perfectly rounded; you
+know about her eyes; her hair is black and wavy--while
+her complexion is clear and flushed with red."
+
+"Why, she must be the most beautiful girl in the whole
+world!" she cried.
+
+"No, indeed!" he said.  "She is not a particle better
+looking in her way than you are in yours.  She is a type
+of dark beauty, but you are equally as perfect.  She is
+unusual in her combination of black hair and violet eyes,
+although every one thinks them black at a little distance. 
+You are quite as unusual with your fair face, black brows,
+and brown hair; indeed, I know many people who would
+prefer your bright head to her dark one.  It's all a question
+of taste--and being engaged to the girl," he added.
+
+"That would be likely to prejudice one," laughed Elnora.
+
+"Edith has a birthday soon; if these last will you let me
+have a box of them to send her?"
+
+"I will help gather and pack them for you, so they will
+carry nicely.  Does she hunt moths with you?"
+
+Back went Philip Ammon's head in a gale of laughter.
+
+"No!" he cried.  "She says they are `creepy.'  She would
+go into a spasm if she were compelled to touch those
+caterpillars I saw you handling yesterday."
+
+"Why would she?" marvelled Elnora.  "Haven't you
+told her that they are perfectly clean, helpless,
+and harmless as so much animate velvet?"
+
+"No, I have not told her.  She wouldn't care enough
+about caterpillars to listen."
+
+"In what is she interested?"
+
+"What interests Edith Carr?  Let me think!  First, I
+believe she takes pride in being a little handsomer and
+better dressed than any girl of her set.  She is interested
+in having a beautiful home, fine appointments, in being
+petted, praised, and the acknowledged leader of society.
+
+"She likes to find new things which amuse her, and to always
+and in all circumstances have her own way about everything."
+
+"Good gracious!" cried Elnora, staring at him.  "But what
+does she do?  How does she spend her time?"
+
+"Spend her time!" repeated Philip.  "Well, she would call
+that a joke.  Her days are never long enough.  There is
+endless shopping, to find the pretty things; regular visits
+to the dressmakers, calls, parties, theatres, entertainments. 
+She is always rushed.  I never am able to be with her half as
+much as I would like."
+
+"But I mean work," persisted Elnora.  "In what is she
+interested that is useful to the world?"
+
+"Me!" cried Philip promptly.
+
+"I can understand that," laughed Elnora.  "What I
+can't understand is how you can be in----"  She stopped in
+confusion, but she saw that he had finished the sentence as
+she had intended.  "I beg your pardon!" she cried.  "I didn't
+intend to say that.  But I cannot understand these people
+I hear about who live only for their own amusement. 
+Perhaps it is very great; I'll never have a chance to know. 
+To me, it seems the only pleasure in this world worth
+having is the joy we derive from living for those we love,
+and those we can help.  I hope you are not angry with me."
+
+Philip sat silently looking far away, with deep thought
+in his eyes.
+
+"You are angry," faltered Elnora.
+
+His look came back to her as she knelt before him among
+the flowers and he gazed at her steadily.
+
+"No doubt I should be," he said, "but the fact is I
+am not.  I cannot understand a life purely for personal
+pleasure myself.  But she is only a girl, and this is
+her playtime.  When she is a woman in her own home, then
+she will be different, will she not?"
+
+Elnora never resembled her mother so closely as when
+she answered that question.
+
+"I would have to be well acquainted with her to know,
+but I should hope so.  To make a real home for a tired
+business man is a very different kind of work from that
+required to be a leader of society.  It demands different
+talent and education.  Of course, she means to change, or
+she would not have promised to make a home for you.  I suspect
+our dope is cool now, let's go try for some butterflies."
+
+As they went along the path together Elnora talked of
+many things but Philip answered absently.  Evidently he
+was thinking of something else.  But the moth bait
+recalled him and he was ready for work as they made their
+way back to the woods.  He wanted to try the Limberlost,
+but Elnora was firm about remaining on home ground. 
+She did not tell him that lights hung in the swamp would
+be a signal to call up a band of men whose presence
+she dreaded.  So they started, Ammon carrying the dope,
+Elnora the net, Billy and Mrs. Comstock following with
+cyanide boxes and lanterns.
+
+First they tried for butterflies and captured several fine
+ones without trouble.  They also called swarms of ants,
+bees, beetles, and flies.  When it grew dusk, Mrs. Comstock
+and Philip went to prepare supper.  Elnora and Billy
+remained until the butterflies disappeared.  Then they
+lighted the lanterns, repainted the trees and followed
+the home trail.
+
+"Do you 'spec you'll get just a lot of moths?" asked
+Billy, as he walked beside Elnora.
+
+"I am sure I hardly know," said the girl.  "This is a
+new way for me.  Perhaps they will come to the lights, but
+few moths eat; and I have some doubt about those which
+the lights attract settling on the right trees.  Maybe the
+smell of that dope will draw them.  Between us, Billy, I
+think I like my old way best.  If I can find a hidden moth,
+slip up and catch it unawares, or take it in full flight,
+it's my captive, and I can keep it until it dies naturally. 
+But this way you seem to get it under false pretences, it has no
+chance, and it will probably ruin its wings struggling for
+freedom before morning."
+
+"Well, any moth ought to be proud to be taken anyway,
+by you," said Billy.  "Just look what you do!  You can
+make everybody love them.  People even quit hating
+caterpillars when they see you handle them and hear you
+tell all about them.  You must have some to show people
+how they are.  It's not like killing things to see if you
+can, or because you want to eat them, the way most men
+kill birds.  I think it is right for you to take enough for
+collections, to show city people, and to illustrate the
+Bird Woman's books.  You go on and take them!  The moths
+don't care.  They're glad to have you.  They like it!"
+
+"Billy, I see your future," said Elnora.  "We will
+educate you and send you up to Mr. Ammon to make a
+great lawyer.  You'd beat the world as a special pleader.
+
+You actually make me feel that I am doing the moths a
+kindness to take them."
+
+"And so you are!" cried Billy.  "Why, just from what
+you have taught them Uncle Wesley and Aunt Margaret
+never think of killing a caterpillar until they look whether
+it's the beautiful June moth kind, or the horrid tent ones. 
+That's what you can do.  You go straight ahead!"
+
+"Billy, you are a jewel!" cried Elnora, throwing her arm
+across his shoulders as they came down the path.
+
+"My, I was scared!" said Billy with a deep breath. 
+
+"Scared?" questioned Elnora.
+
+"Yes sir-ee!  Aunt Margaret scared me.  May I ask
+you a question?"
+
+"Of course, you may!"
+
+"Is that man going to be your beau?"
+
+"Billy!  No!  What made you think such a thing?"
+
+"Aunt Margaret said likely he would fall in love with
+you, and you wouldn't want me around any more.  Oh, but
+I was scared!  It isn't so, is it?"
+
+"Indeed, no!"
+
+"I am your beau, ain't I?"
+
+"Surely you are!" said Elnora, tightening her arm.
+
+"I do hope Aunt Kate has ginger cookies," said Billy
+with a little skip of delight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK FACES THE ALMIGHTY,
+AND PHILIP AMMON WRITES A LETTER
+
+
+Mrs. Comstock and Elnora were finishing breakfast
+the following morning when they heard a cheery whistle
+down the road.  Elnora with surprised eyes looked at
+her mother.
+
+"Could that be Mr. Ammon?" she questioned.
+
+"I did not expect him so soon," commented Mrs. Comstock.
+
+It was sunrise, but the musician was Philip Ammon. 
+He appeared stronger than on yesterday.
+
+"I hope I am not too early," he said.  "I am consumed
+with anxiety to learn if we have made a catch.  If we
+have, we should beat the birds to it.  I promised Uncle
+Doc to put on my waders and keep dry for a few days yet,
+when I go to the woods.  Let's hurry!  I am afraid of crows. 
+There might be a rare moth."
+
+The sun was topping the Limberlost when they started. 
+As they neared the place Philip stopped.
+
+"Now we must use great caution," he said.  "The lights
+and the odours always attract numbers that don't settle
+on the baited trees.  Every bush, shrub, and limb may
+hide a specimen we want."
+
+So they approached with much care.
+
+"There is something, anyway!" cried Philip.
+
+"There are moths!  I can see them!" exulted Elnora.
+
+"Those you see are fast enough.  It's the ones for
+which you must search that will escape.  The grasses
+are dripping, and I have boots, so you look beside the
+path while I take the outside," suggested Ammon.
+
+Mrs. Comstock wanted to hunt moths, but she was
+timid about making a wrong movement, so she wisely
+sat on a log and watched Philip and Elnora to learn how
+they proceeded.  Back in the deep woods a hermit thrush
+was singing his chant to the rising sun.  Orioles were
+sowing the pure, sweet air with notes of gold, poured out
+while on wing.  The robins were only chirping now, for
+their morning songs had awakened all the other birds an
+hour ago.  Scolding red-wings tilted on half the bushes. 
+Excepting late species of haws, tree bloom was almost
+gone, but wild flowers made the path border and all the
+wood floor a riot of colour.  Elnora, born among such
+scenes, worked eagerly, but to the city man, recently from
+a hospital, they seemed too good to miss.  He frequently
+stooped to examine a flower face, paused to listen
+intently to the thrush or lifted his head to see the
+gold flash which accompanied the oriole's trailing notes. 
+So Elnora uttered the first cry, as she softly lifted
+branches and peered among the grasses.
+
+"My find!" she called.  "Bring the box, mother!"
+
+Philip came hurrying also.  When they reached her
+she stood on the path holding a pair of moths.  Her eyes
+were wide with excitement, her cheeks pink, her red
+lips parted, and on the hand she held out to them
+clung a pair of delicate blue-green moths, with white
+bodies, and touches of lavender and straw colour. 
+All around her lay flower-brocaded grasses, behind the
+deep green background of the forest, while the sun slowly
+sifted gold from heaven to burnish her hair.  Mrs. Comstock
+heard a sharp breath behind her.
+
+"Oh, what a picture!" exulted Philip at her shoulder. 
+"She is absolutely and altogether lovely!  I'd give a
+small fortune for that faithfully set on canvas!"
+
+He picked the box from Mrs. Comstock's fingers and
+slowly advanced with it.  Elnora held down her hand
+and transferred the moths.  Philip closed the box
+carefully, but the watching mother saw that his eyes were
+following the girl's face.  He was not making the slightest
+attempt to conceal his admiration.
+
+"I wonder if a woman ever did anything lovelier than
+to find a pair of Luna moths on a forest path, early on
+a perfect June morning," he said to Mrs. Comstock,
+when he returned the box.
+
+She glanced at Elnora who was intently searching the bushes.
+
+"Look here, young man," said Mrs. Comstock.  "You seem
+to find that girl of mine about right."
+
+"I could suggest no improvement," said Philip.  "I never
+saw a more attractive girl anywhere.  She seems absolutely
+perfect to me."
+
+"Then suppose you don't start any scheme calculated
+to spoil her!" proposed Mrs. Comstock dryly.  "I don't
+think you can, or that any man could, but I'm not taking
+any risks.  You asked to come here to help in this work. 
+We are both glad to have you, if you confine yourself to work;
+but it's the least you can do to leave us as you find us."
+
+"I beg your pardon!" said Philip.  "I intended no offence. 
+I admire her as I admire any perfect creation."
+
+"And nothing in all this world spoils the average girl
+so quickly and so surely," said Mrs. Comstock.  She raised
+her voice.  "Elnora, fasten up that tag of hair over your
+left ear.  These bushes muss you so you remind me of a
+sheep poking its nose through a hedge fence."
+
+Mrs. Comstock started down the path toward the log
+again, when she reached it she called sharply:  "Elnora,
+come here!  I believe I have found something myself."
+
+The "something" was a Citheronia Regalis which had
+emerged from its case on the soft earth under the log. 
+It climbed up the wood, its stout legs dragging a big
+pursy body, while it wildly flapped tiny wings the size
+of a man's thumb-nail.  Elnora gave one look and a cry
+which brought Philip.
+
+"That's the rarest moth in America!" he announced. 
+"Mrs. Comstock, you've gone up head.  You can put
+that in a box with a screen cover to-night, and attract
+half a dozen, possibly."
+
+"Is it rare, Elnora?" inquired Mrs. Comstock, as if no
+one else knew.
+
+"It surely is," answered Elnora.  "If we can find
+it a mate to-night, it will lay from two hundred and fifty
+to three hundred eggs to-morrow.  With any luck at
+all I can raise two hundred caterpillars from them. 
+I did once before.  And they are worth a dollar apiece."
+
+"Was the one I killed like that?"
+
+"No.  That was a different moth, but its life processes
+were the same as this.  The Bird Woman calls this the
+King of the Poets."
+
+"Why does she?"
+
+"Because it is named for Citheron who was a poet, and
+regalis refers to a king.  You mustn't touch it or you
+may stunt wing development.  You watch and don't let
+that moth out of sight, or anything touch it.  When the
+wings are expanded and hardened we will put it in a box."
+
+"I am afraid it will race itself to death," objected
+Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"That's a part of the game," said Philip.  "It is starting
+circulation now.  When the right moment comes, it will
+stop and expand its wings.  If you watch closely you can
+see them expand."
+
+Presently the moth found a rough projection of bark
+and clung with its feet, back down, its wings hanging. 
+The body was an unusual orange red, the tiny wings were
+gray, striped with the red and splotched here and there
+with markings of canary yellow.  Mrs. Comstock watched
+breathlessly.  Presently she slipped from the log and
+knelt to secure a better view.
+
+"Are its wings developing?" called Elnora.
+
+"They are growing larger and the markings coming
+stronger every minute."
+
+"Let's watch, too," said Elnora to Philip.
+
+They came and looked over Mrs. Comstock's shoulder. 
+Lower drooped the gay wings, wider they spread, brighter
+grew the markings as if laid off in geometrical patterns. 
+They could hear Mrs. Comstock's tense breath and see
+her absorbed expression.
+
+"Young people," she said solemnly, "if your studying
+science and the elements has ever led you to feel that
+things just happen, kind of evolve by chance, as it were,
+this sight will be good for you.  Maybe earth and air
+accumulate, but it takes the wisdom of the Almighty God
+to devise the wing of a moth.  If there ever was a miracle,
+this whole process is one.  Now, as I understand it, this
+creature is going to keep on spreading those wings, until
+they grow to size and harden to strength sufficient to
+bear its body.  Then it flies away, mates with its kind,
+lays its eggs on the leaves of a certain tree, and the eggs
+hatch tiny caterpillars which eat just that kind of leaves,
+and the worms grow and grow, and take on different
+forms and colours until at last they are big caterpillars
+six inches long, with large horns.  Then they burrow into
+the earth, build a water-proof house around themselves
+from material which is inside them, and lie through rain
+and freezing cold for months.  A year from egg laying they
+come out like this, and begin the process all over again. 
+They don't eat, they don't see distinctly, they live but
+a few days, and fly only at night; then they drop off easy,
+but the process goes on."
+
+A shivering movement went over the moth.  The wings
+drooped and spread wider.  Mrs. Comstock sank into
+soft awed tones.
+
+"There never was a moment in my life," she said,
+"when I felt so in the Presence, as I do now.  I feel as
+if the Almighty were so real, and so near, that I could
+reach out and touch Him, as I could this wonderful work
+of His, if I dared.  I feel like saying to Him:  `To the
+extent of my brain power I realize Your presence, and all
+it is in me to comprehend of Your power.  Help me to learn,
+even this late, the lessons of Your wonderful creations. 
+Help me to unshackle and expand my soul to the fullest
+realization of Your wonders.  Almighty God, make me bigger,
+make me broader!'"
+
+The moth climbed to the end of the projection, up it
+a little way, then suddenly reversed its wings, turned
+the hidden sides out and dropped them beside its abdomen,
+like a large fly.  The upper side of the wings, thus
+exposed, was far richer colour, more exquisite texture than
+the under, and they slowly half lifted and drooped again. 
+Mrs. Comstock turned her face to Philip.
+
+"Am I an old fool, or do you feel it, too?" she half whispered.
+
+"You are wiser than you ever have been before,"
+answered he.  "I feel it, also."
+
+"And I," breathed Elnora.
+
+The moth spread its wings, shivered them tremulously,
+opening and closing them rapidly.  Philip handed the box
+to Elnora.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I can't take that one," she said.  "Give her freedom."
+
+"But, Elnora," protested Mrs. Comstock, "I don't want to
+let her go.  She's mine.  She's the first one I ever found
+this way.  Can't you put her in a big box, and let her live,
+without hurting her?  I can't bear to let her go.  I want
+to learn all about her."
+
+"Then watch while we gather these on the trees," said Elnora. 
+"We will take her home until night and then decide what to do. 
+She won't fly for a long time yet."
+
+Mrs. Comstock settled on the ground, gazing at the moth. 
+Elnora and Philip went to the baited trees, placing
+several large moths and a number of smaller ones in the
+cyanide jar, and searching the bushes beyond where they
+found several paired specimens of differing families. 
+When they returned Elnora showed her mother how to
+hold her hand before the moth so that it would climb upon
+her fingers.  Then they started back to the cabin, Elnora
+and Philip leading the way; Mrs. Comstock followed
+slowly, stepping with great care lest she stumble and
+injure the moth.  Her face wore a look of comprehension,
+in her eyes was an exalted light.  On she came to the blue-
+bordered pool lying beside her path.
+
+A turtle scrambled from a log and splashed into the
+water, while a red-wing shouted, "O-ka-lee!" to her. 
+Mrs. Comstock paused and looked intently at the slime-
+covered quagmire, framed in a flower riot and homed over
+by sweet-voiced birds.  Then she gazed at the thing of
+incomparable beauty clinging to her fingers and said softly: 
+"If you had known about wonders like these in the days of
+your youth, Robert Comstock, could you ever have done what
+you did?"
+
+Elnora missed her mother, and turning to look for her,
+saw her standing beside the pool.  Would the old
+fascination return?  A panic of fear seized the girl. 
+She went back swiftly.
+
+"Are you afraid she is going?" Elnora asked.  "If you are,
+cup your other hand over her for shelter.  Carrying her
+through this air and in the hot sunshine will dry her wings
+and make them ready for flight very quickly.  You can't trust
+her in such air and light as you can in the cool dark woods."
+
+While she talked she took hold of her mother's sleeve,
+anxiously smiling a pitiful little smile that Mrs.
+Comstock understood.  Philip set his load at the back door,
+returning to hold open the garden gate for Elnora and
+Mrs. Comstock.  He reached it in time to see them standing
+together beside the pool.  The mother bent swiftly and
+kissed the girl on the lips.  Philip turned and was busily
+hunting moths on the raspberry bushes when they reached
+the gate.  And so excellent are the rewards of attending
+your own business, that he found a Promethea on a lilac
+in a corner; a moth of such rare wine-coloured, velvety
+shades that it almost sent Mrs. Comstock to her knees again. 
+But this one was fully developed, able to fly, and had to
+be taken into the cabin hurriedly.  Mrs. Comstock stood in
+the middle of the room holding up her Regalis.
+
+"Now what must I do?" she asked.
+
+Elnora glanced at Philip Ammon.  Their eyes met and
+both of them smiled; he with amusement at the tall, spare
+figure, with dark eyes and white crown, asking the childish
+question so confidingly; and Elnora with pride.  She was
+beginning to appreciate the character of her mother.
+
+"How would you like to sit and see her finish development? 
+I'll get dinner," proposed the girl.
+
+After they had dined, Philip and Elnora carried the dishes
+to the kitchen, brought out boxes, sheets of cork, pins,
+ink, paper slips and everything necessary for mounting and
+classifying the moths they had taken.  When the housework
+was finished Mrs. Comstock with her ruffle sat near,
+watching and listening.  She remembered all they said
+that she understood, and when uncertain she asked questions. 
+Occasionally she laid down her work to straighten some
+flower which needed attention or to search the garden for
+a bug for the grosbeak.  In one of these absences Elnora
+said to Philip:  "These replace quite a number of the moths I
+lost for the man of India.  With a week of such luck,
+I could almost begin to talk college again."
+
+"There is no reason why you should not have the week
+and the luck," said he.  "I have taken moths until the
+middle of August, though I suspect one is more likely to
+find late ones in the north where it is colder than here. 
+The next week is hay-time, but we can count on a few
+double-brooders and strays, and by working the exchange method
+for all it is worth, I think we can complete the collection again."
+
+"You almost make me hope," said Elnora, "but I must
+not allow myself.  I don't truly think I can replace all I
+lost, not even with your help.  If I could, I scarcely see my
+way clear to leave mother this winter.  I have found her
+so recently, and she is so precious, I can't risk losing
+her again.  I am going to take the nature position in the
+Onabasha schools, and I shall be most happy doing the work. 
+Only, these are a temptation."
+
+"I wish you might go to college this fall with the other
+girls," said Philip.  "I feel that if you don't you never will. 
+Isn't there some way?"
+
+"I can't see it if there is, and I really don't want to
+leave mother."
+
+"Well, mother is mighty glad to hear it," said Mrs.
+Comstock, entering the arbour.
+
+Philip noticed that her face was pale, her lips quivering,
+her voice cold.
+
+"I was telling your daughter that she should go to
+college this winter," he explained, "but she says she
+doesn't want to leave you."
+
+"If she wants to go, I wish she could," said Mrs. Comstock,
+a look of relief spreading over her face.
+
+"Oh, all girls want to go to college," said Philip.  "It's the
+only proper place to learn bridge and embroidery; not to
+mention midnight lunches of mixed pickles and fruit cake,
+and all the delights of the sororities."
+
+"I have thought for years of going to college," said
+Elnora, "but I never thought of any of those things."
+
+"That is because your education in fudge and bridge has
+been sadly neglected," said Philip.  "You should hear my
+sister Polly!  This was her final year!  Lunches and
+sororities were all I heard her mention, until Tom Levering
+came on deck; now he is the leading subject.  I can't
+see from her daily conversation that she knows half as
+much really worth knowing as you do, but she's ahead of
+you miles on fun."
+
+"Oh, we had some good times in the high school," said Elnora. 
+"Life hasn't been all work and study.  Is Edith Carr a
+college girl?"
+
+"No.  She is the very selectest kind of a private boarding-
+school girl."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Mrs. Comstock.
+
+Philip opened his lips.
+
+"She is a girl in Chicago, that Mr. Ammon knows very
+well," said Elnora.  "She is beautiful and rich, and a
+friend of his sister's.  Or, didn't you say that?"
+
+"I don't remember, but she is," said Philip.  "This moth
+needs an alcohol bath to remove the dope."
+
+"Won't the down come, too?" asked Elnora anxiously.
+
+"No.  You watch and you will see it come out, as
+Polly would say, `a perfectly good' moth."
+
+"Is your sister younger than you?" inquired Elnora.
+
+"Yes," said Philip, "but she is three years older than you. 
+She is the dearest sister in all the world.  I'd love
+to see her now."
+
+"Why don't you send for her," suggested Elnora. 
+"Perhaps she'd like to help us catch moths."
+
+"Yes, I think Polly in a Virot hat, Picot embroidered
+frock and three-inch heels would take more moths than
+any one who ever tried the Limberlost," laughed Philip.
+
+"Well, you find many of them, and you are her brother."
+
+"Yes, but that is different.  Father was reared in
+Onabasha, and he loved the country.  He trained me his
+way and mother took charge of Polly.  I don't quite
+understand it.  Mother is a great home body herself,
+but she did succeed in making Polly strictly ornamental."
+
+"Does Tom Levering need a `strictly ornamental' girl?"
+
+"You are too matter of fact!  Too `strictly' material. 
+He needs a darling girl who will love him plenty, and Polly
+is that."
+
+"Well, then, does the Limberlost need a `strictly ornamental' girl?"
+
+"No!" cried Philip.  "You are ornament enough for
+the Limberlost.  I have changed my mind.  I don't want
+Polly here.  She would not enjoy catching moths, or anything
+we do."
+
+"She might," persisted Elnora.  "You are her brother,
+and surely you care for these things."
+
+"The argument does not hold," said Philip.  "Polly and
+I do not like the same things when we are at home, but we
+are very fond of each other.  The member of my family
+who would go crazy about this is my father.  I wish he
+could come, if only for a week.  I'd send for him, but he is
+tied up in preparing some papers for a great corporation
+case this summer.  He likes the country.  It was his vote
+that brought me here."
+
+Philip leaned back against the arbour, watching the
+grosbeak as it hunted food between a tomato vine and a
+day lily.  Elnora set him to making labels, and when he
+finished them he asked permission to write a letter. 
+He took no pains to conceal his page, and from where she
+sat opposite him, Elnora could not look his way without
+reading:  "My dearest Edith."  He wrote busily for a time
+and then sat staring across the garden.
+
+"Have you run out of material so quickly?" asked Elnora.
+
+"That's about it," said Philip.  "I have said that I am
+getting well as rapidly as possible, that the air is fine, the
+folks at Uncle Doc's all well, and entirely too good to me;
+that I am spending most of my time in the country helping
+catch moths for a collection, which is splendid exercise;
+now I can't think of another thing that will be interesting."
+
+There was a burst of exquisite notes in the maple.
+
+"Put in the grosbeak," suggested Elnora.  "Tell her
+you are so friendly with him you feed him potato bugs."
+
+Philip lowered the pen to the sheet, bent forward,
+then hesitated.
+
+"Blest if I do!" he cried.  "She'd think a grosbeak was
+a depraved person with a large nose.  She'd never dream
+that it was a black-robed lover, with a breast of snow and
+a crimson heart.  She doesn't care for hungry babies and
+potato bugs.  I shall write that to father.  He will find
+it delightful."
+
+Elnora deftly picked up a moth, pinned it and placed its wings. 
+She straightened the antennae, drew each leg into position
+and set it in perfectly lifelike manner.  As she lifted her
+work to see if she had it right, she glanced at Philip. 
+He was still frowning and hesitating over the paper.
+
+"I dare you to let me dictate a couple of paragraphs."
+
+"Done!" cried Philip.  "Go slowly enough that I can write it."
+
+Elnora laughed gleefully.
+
+"I am writing this," she began, "in an old grape arbour
+in the country, near a log cabin where I had my dinner. 
+From where I sit I can see directly into the home of the
+next-door neighbour on the west.  His name is R. B. Grosbeak. 
+From all I have seen of him, he is a gentleman of the old
+school; the oldest school there is, no doubt.  He always
+wears a black suit and cap and a white vest, decorated with
+one large red heart, which I think must be the emblem of
+some ancient order.  I have been here a number of times,
+and I never have seen him wear anything else, or his wife
+appear in other than a brown dress with touches of white.
+
+"It has appealed to me at times that she was a shade
+neglectful of her home duties, but he does not seem to
+feel that way.  He cheerfully stays in the sitting-room,
+while she is away having a good time, and sings while
+he cares for the four small children.  I must tell you about
+his music.  I am sure he never saw inside a conservatory. 
+I think he merely picked up what he knows by ear and without
+vocal training, but there is a tenderness in his tones,
+a depth of pure melody, that I never have heard surpassed. 
+It may be that I think more of his music than that of some
+other good vocalists hereabout, because I see more of him
+and appreciate his devotion to his home life.
+
+"I just had an encounter with him at the west fence,
+and induced him to carry a small gift to his children. 
+When I see the perfect harmony in which he lives, and
+the depth of content he and the brown lady find in life,
+I am almost persuaded to--  Now this is going to be
+poetry," said Elnora.  "Move your pen over here and
+begin with a quote and a cap."
+
+Philip's face had been an interesting study while he
+wrote her sentences.  Now he gravely set the pen where
+she indicated, and Elnora dictated--
+
+
+          "Buy a nice little home in the country,
+           And settle down there for life."
+
+
+"That's the truth!" cried Philip.  "It's as big a temptation as
+I ever had.  Go on!"
+
+"That's all," said Elnora.  "You can finish.  The moths
+are done.  I am going hunting for whatever I can find for
+the grades."
+
+"Wait a minute," begged Philip.  "I am going, too."
+
+"No.  You stay with mother and finish your letter."
+
+"It is done.  I couldn't add anything to that."
+
+"Very well!  Sign your name and come on.  But I
+forgot to tell you all the bargain.  Maybe you won't send
+the letter when you hear that.  The remainder is that
+you show me the reply to my part of it."
+
+"Oh, that's easy!  I wouldn't have the slightest objection
+to showing you the whole letter."
+
+He signed his name, folded the sheets and slipped them
+into his pocket.
+
+"Where are we going and what do we take?"
+
+"Will you go, mother?" asked Elnora.
+
+"I have a little work that should be done," said
+Mrs. Comstock.  "Could you spare me?  Where do you want
+to go?"
+
+"We will go down to Aunt Margaret's and see her a
+few minutes and get Billy.  We will be back in time
+for supper."
+
+Mrs. Comstock smiled as she watched them down the road. 
+What a splendid-looking pair of young creatures they were! 
+How finely proportioned, how full of vitality!  Then her
+face grew troubled as she saw them in earnest conversation. 
+Just as she was wishing she had not trusted her precious
+girl with so much of a stranger, she saw Elnora stoop to
+lift a branch and peer under.  The mother grew content. 
+Elnora was thinking only of her work.  She was to be
+trusted utterly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST SINGS FOR PHILIP,
+AND THE TALKING TREES TELL GREAT SECRETS
+
+
+A few days later Philip handed Elnora a sheet
+of paper and she read:  "In your condition I
+should think the moth hunting and life at that
+cabin would be very good for you, but for any sake keep
+away from that Grosbeak person, and don't come home
+with your head full of granger ideas.  No doubt he has a
+remarkable voice, but I can't bear untrained singers, and
+don't you get the idea that a June song is perennial. 
+You are not hearing the music he will make when the
+four babies have the scarlet fever and the measles, and
+the gadding wife leaves him at home to care for them then. 
+Poor soul, I pity her!  How she exists where rampant
+cows bellow at you, frogs croak, mosquitoes consume
+you, the butter goes to oil in summer and bricks in winter,
+while the pump freezes every day, and there is no
+earthly amusement, and no society!  Poor things! 
+Can't you influence him to move?  No wonder she gads when
+she has a chance!  I should die.  If you are thinking
+of settling in the country, think also of a woman who
+is satisfied with white and brown to accompany you! 
+Brown!  Of all deadly colours!  I should go mad in brown."
+
+Elnora laughed while she read.  Her face was dimpling,
+as she returned the sheet.  "Who's ahead?" she asked.
+
+"Who do you think?" he parried.
+
+"She is," said Elnora.  "Are you going to tell her
+in your next that R. B. Grosbeak is a bird, and that he
+probably will spend the winter in a wild plum thicket
+in Tennessee?"
+
+"No," said Philip.  "I shall tell her that I understand her
+ideas of life perfectly, and, of course, I never
+shall ask her to deal with oily butter and frozen pumps--"
+
+"--and measley babies," interpolated Elnora.
+
+"Exactly!" said Philip.  "At the same time I find so
+much to counterbalance those things, that I should not
+object to bearing them myself, in view of the recompense. 
+Where do we go and what do we do to-day?"
+
+"We will have to hunt beside the roads and around the
+edge of the Limberlost to-day," said Elnora.  "Mother is
+making strawberry preserves, and she can't come until
+she finishes.  Suppose we go down to the swamp and
+I'll show you what is left of the flower-room that
+Terence O'More, the big lumber man of Great Rapids,
+made when he was a homeless boy here.  Of course,
+you have heard the story?"
+
+"Yes, and I've met the O'Mores who are frequently
+in Chicago society.  They have friends there.  I think
+them one ideal couple."
+
+"That sounds as if they might be the only one," said
+Elnora, "and, indeed, they are not.  I know dozens. 
+Aunt Margaret and Uncle Wesley are another, the Brownlees
+another, and my mathematics professor and his wife.
+
+The world is full of happy people, but no one ever hears
+of them.  You must fight and make a scandal to get into
+the papers.  No one knows about all the happy people.
+I am happy myself, and look how perfectly inconspicuous
+I am."
+
+"You only need go where you will be seen," began
+Philip, when he remembered and finished.  "What do
+we take to-day?"
+
+"Ourselves," said Elnora.  "I have a vagabond streak in
+my blood and it's in evidence.  I am going to show you
+where real flowers grow, real birds sing, and if I feel quite
+right about it, perhaps I shall raise a note or two myself."
+
+"Oh, do you sing?" asked Philip politely.
+
+"At times," answered Elnora.  "`As do the birds;
+because I must,' but don't be scared.  The mood does
+not possess me often.  Perhaps I shan't raise a note."
+
+They went down the road to the swamp, climbed the
+snake fence, followed the path to the old trail and then
+turned south upon it.  Elnora indicated to Philip the
+trail with remnants of sagging barbed wire.
+
+"It was ten years ago," she said.  "I was a little school
+girl, but I wandered widely even then, and no one cared. 
+I saw him often.  He had been in a city institution all his
+life, when he took the job of keeping timber thieves out of
+this swamp, before many trees had been cut.  It was a
+strong man's work, and he was a frail boy, but he grew
+hardier as he lived out of doors.  This trail we are on is
+the path his feet first wore, in those days when he was
+insane with fear and eaten up with loneliness, but he stuck
+to his work and won out.  I used to come down to the road
+and creep among the bushes as far as I dared, to watch
+him pass.  He walked mostly, at times he rode a wheel.
+
+"Some days his face was dreadfully sad, others it was
+so determined a little child could see the force in it, and
+once he was radiant.  That day the Swamp Angel was
+with him.  I can't tell you what she was like.  I never
+saw any one who resembled her.  He stopped close here
+to show her a bird's nest.  Then they went on to a sort of
+flower-room he had made, and he sang for her.  By the
+time he left, I had gotten bold enough to come out on
+the trail, and I met the big Scotchman Freckles lived with. 
+He saw me catching moths and butterflies, so he took me
+to the flower-room and gave me everything there. 
+I don't dare come alone often, so I can't keep it up as
+he did, but you can see something of how it was."
+
+Elnora led the way and Philip followed.  The outlines
+of the room were not distinct, because many of the
+trees were gone, but Elnora showed how it had been as
+nearly as she could.
+
+"The swamp is almost ruined now," she said.  "The maples,
+walnuts, and cherries are all gone.  The talking trees
+are the only things left worth while."
+
+"The `talking trees!'  I don't understand," commented Philip.
+
+"No wonder!" laughed Elnora.  "They are my discovery. 
+You know all trees whisper and talk during the summer,
+but there are two that have so much to say they keep on
+the whole winter, when the others are silent.  The beeches
+and oaks so love to talk, they cling to their dead,
+dry leaves.  In the winter the winds are stiffest
+and blow most, so these trees whisper, chatter, sob,
+laugh, and at times roar until the sound is deafening. 
+They never cease until new leaves come out in the spring
+to push off the old ones.  I love to stand beneath them
+with my ear to the trunks, interpreting what they say
+to fit my moods.  The beeches branch low, and their
+leaves are small so they only know common earthly things;
+but the oaks run straight above almost all other trees
+before they branch, their arms are mighty, their leaves large. 
+They meet the winds that travel around the globe, and from
+them learn the big things."
+
+Philip studied the girls face.  "What do the beeches
+tell you, Elnora?" he asked gently.
+
+"To be patient, to be unselfish, to do unto others as
+I would have them do to me."
+
+"And the oaks?"
+
+"They say `be true,' `live a clean life,' `send your soul
+up here and the winds of the world will teach it what
+honour achieves.'"
+
+"Wonderful secrets, those!" marvelled Philip.  "Are they
+telling them now?  Could I hear?"
+
+"No.  They are only gossiping now.  This is play-time. 
+They tell the big secrets to a white world, when the
+music inspires them."
+
+"The music?"
+
+"All other trees are harps in the winter.  Their trunks are
+the frames, their branches the strings, the winds the musicians. 
+When the air is cold and clear, the world very white, and
+the harp music swelling, then the talking trees tell the
+strengthening, uplifting things."
+
+"You wonderful girl!" cried Philip.  "What a woman
+you will be!"
+
+"If I am a woman at all worth while, it will be because
+I have had such wonderful opportunities," said Elnora. 
+"Not every girl is driven to the forest to learn what God
+has to say there.  Here are the remains of Freckles's room. 
+The time the Angel came here he sang to her, and I listened. 
+I never heard music like that.  No wonder she loved him. 
+Every one who knew him did, and they do yet.  Try that
+log, it makes a fairly good seat.  This old store box
+was his treasure house, just as it's now mine.  I will
+show you my dearest possession.  I do not dare take
+it home because mother can't overcome her dislike for it. 
+It was my father's, and in some ways I am like him. 
+This is the strongest."
+
+Elnora lifted the violin and began to play.  She wore
+a school dress of green gingham, with the sleeves rolled to
+the elbows.  She seemed a part of the setting all around her. 
+Her head shone like a small dark sun, and her face never
+had seemed so rose-flushed and fair.  From the instant
+she drew the bow, her lips parted and her eyes turned
+toward something far away in the swamp, and never did
+she give more of that impression of feeling for her notes
+and repeating something audible only to her.  Philip was
+too close to get the best effect.  He arose and stepped back
+several yards, leaning against a large tree, looking and
+listening intently.
+
+As he changed positions he saw that Mrs. Comstock had
+followed them, and was standing on the trail, where she
+could not have helped hearing everything Elnora had said.
+
+So to Philip before her and the mother watching on the
+trail, Elnora played the Song of the Limberlost.  It seemed
+as if the swamp hushed all its other voices and spoke
+only through her dancing bow.  The mother out on the
+trail had heard it all, once before from the girl, many
+times from her father.  To the man it was a revelation. 
+He stood so stunned he forgot Mrs. Comstock.  He tried
+to realize what a city audience would say to that music,
+from such a player, with a similar background, and he
+could not imagine.
+
+He was wondering what he dared say, how much he might
+express, when the last note fell and the girl laid the
+violin in the case, closed the door, locked it and hid the
+key in the rotting wood at the end of a log.  Then she came
+to him.  Philip stood looking at her curiously.
+
+"I wonder," he said, "what people would say to that?"
+
+"I played that in public once," said Elnora.  "I think
+they liked it, fairly well.  I had a note yesterday offering
+me the leadership of the high school orchestra in Onabasha. 
+I can take it as well as not.  None of my talks to the
+grades come the first thing in the morning.  I can play
+a few minutes in the orchestra and reach the rooms in
+plenty of time.  It will be more work that I love, and like
+finding the money.  I would gladly play for nothing,
+merely to be able to express myself."
+
+"With some people it makes a regular battlefield of the
+human heart--this struggle for self-expression," said Philip. 
+"You are going to do beautiful work in the world, and do
+it well.  When I realize that your violin belonged to your
+father, that he played it before you were born, and
+it no doubt affected your mother strongly, and then couple
+with that the years you have roamed these fields and
+swamps finding in nature all you had to lavish your heart
+upon, I can see how you evolved.  I understand what you
+mean by self-expression.  I know something of what you
+have to express.  The world never so wanted your message
+as it does now.  It is hungry for the things you know. 
+I can see easily how your position came to you.  What you
+have to give is taught in no college, and I am not sure but
+you would spoil yourself if you tried to run your mind
+through a set groove with hundreds of others.  I never
+thought I should say such a thing to any one, but I do say
+to you, and I honestly believe it; give up the college idea. 
+Your mind does not need that sort of development.  Stick close
+to your work in the woods.  You are becoming so infinitely
+greater on it, than the best college girl I ever knew,
+that there is no comparison.  When you have money to
+spend, take that violin and go to one of the world's great
+masters and let the Limberlost sing to him; if he thinks he
+can improve it, very well.  I have my doubts."
+
+"Do you really mean that you would give up all idea of
+going to college, in my place?"
+
+"I really mean it," said Philip.  "If I now held the
+money in my hands to send you, and could give it to you
+in some way you would accept I would not.  I do not
+know why it is the fate of the world always to want
+something different from what life gives them.  If you
+only could realize it, my girl, you are in college, and
+have been always.  You are in the school of experience,
+and it has taught you to think, and given you a heart. 
+God knows I envy the man who wins it!  You have been in
+the college of the Limberlost all your life, and I never
+met a graduate from any other institution who could begin
+to compare with you in sanity, clarity, and interesting knowledge. 
+I wouldn't even advise you to read too many books on your lines. 
+You acquire your material first hand, and you know that
+you are right.  What you should do is to begin early
+to practise self-expression.  Don't wait too long to tell us
+about the woods as you know them."
+
+"Follow the course of the Bird Woman, you mean?"
+asked Elnora.
+
+"In your own way; with your own light.  She won't
+live forever.  You are younger, and you will be ready
+to begin where she ends.  The swamp has given you all
+you need so far; now you give it to the world in payment. 
+College be confounded!  Go to work and show people
+what there is in you!"
+
+Not until then did he remember Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Should we go out to the trail and see if your mother is
+coming?" he asked.
+
+"Here she is now," said Elnora.  "Gracious, it's a mercy
+I got that violin put away in time!  I didn't expect her
+so soon," whispered the girl as she turned and went
+toward her mother.  Mrs. Comstock's expression was peculiar
+as she looked at Elnora.
+
+"I forgot that you were making sun-preserves and they
+didn't require much cooking," she said.  "We should have
+waited for you."
+
+"Not at all!" answered Mrs. Comstock.  "Have you
+found anything yet?"
+
+"Nothing that I can show you," said Elnora.  "I am
+almost sure I have found an idea that will revolutionize
+the whole course of my work, thought, and ambitions."
+
+"`Ambitions!'  My, what a hefty word!" laughed Mrs. Comstock. 
+"Now who would suspect a little red-haired country girl
+of harbouring such a deadly germ in her body?  Can you tell
+mother about it?"
+
+"Not if you talk to me that way, I can't," said Elnora.
+
+"Well, I guess we better let ambition lie.  I've always
+heard it was safest asleep.  If you ever get a bona fide
+attack, it will be time to attend it.  Let's hunt specimens. 
+It is June.  Philip and I are in the grades.  You have an
+hour to put an idea into our heads that will stick for a lifetime,
+and grow for good.  That's the way I look at your job.  Now, what
+are you going to give us?  We don't want any old silly stuff
+that has been hashed over and over, we want a big new idea
+to plant in our hearts.  Come on, Miss Teacher, what is the
+boiled-down, double-distilled essence of June?  Give it to
+us strong.  We are large enough to furnish it developing ground. 
+Hurry up!  Time is short and we are waiting.  What is the
+miracle of June?  What one thing epitomizes the whole month,
+and makes it just a little different from any other?"
+
+"The birth of these big night moths," said Elnora promptly.
+
+Philip clapped his hands.  The tears started to Mrs.
+Comstock's eyes.  She took Elnora in her arms, and kissed
+her forehead.
+
+"You'll do!" she said.  "June is June, not because it
+has bloom, bird, fruit, or flower, exclusive to it alone.
+
+It's half May and half July in all of them.  But to me,
+it's just June, when it comes to these great, velvet-winged
+night moths which sweep its moonlit skies, consummating
+their scheme of creation, and dropping like a bloomed-
+out flower.  Give them moths for June.  Then make that
+the basis of your year's work.  Find the distinctive feature
+of each month, the one thing which marks it a time apart,
+and hit them squarely between the eyes with it.  Even the
+babies of the lowest grades can comprehend moths when
+they see a few emerge, and learn their history, as it can be
+lived before them.  You should show your specimens in
+pairs, then their eggs, the growing caterpillars, and then
+the cocoons.  You want to dig out the red heart of every
+month in the year, and hold it pulsing before them.
+
+"I can't name all of them off-hand, but I think of one
+more right now.  February belongs to our winter birds. 
+It is then the great horned owl of the swamp courts his
+mate, the big hawks pair, and even the crows begin to
+take notice.  These are truly our birds.  Like the poor
+we have them always with us.  You should hear the musicians
+of this swamp in February, Philip, on a mellow night. 
+Oh, but they are in earnest!  For twenty-one years I've
+listened by night to the great owls, all the smaller sizes,
+the foxes, coons, and every resident left in these woods,
+and by day to the hawks, yellow-hammers, sap-suckers,
+titmice, crows, and other winter birds.  Only just now it's
+come to me that the distinctive feature of February is not
+linen bleaching, nor sugar making; it's the love month of our
+very own birds.  Give them hawks and owls for February, Elnora."
+
+With flashing eyes the girl looked at Philip.  "How's that?"
+she said.  "Don't you think I will succeed, with such help? 
+You should hear the concert she is talking about!  It is
+simply indescribable when the ground is covered with snow,
+and the moonlight white."
+
+"It's about the best music we have," said Mrs. Comstock. 
+"I wonder if you couldn't copy that and make a strong,
+original piece out of it for your violin, Elnora?"
+
+There was one tense breath, then----  "I could try," said
+Elnora simply.
+
+Philip rushed to the rescue.  "We must go to work," he
+said, and began examining a walnut branch for Luna moth eggs. 
+Elnora joined him while Mrs. Comstock drew her embroidery
+from her pocket and sat on a log.  She said she was tired,
+they could come for her when they were ready to go. 
+She could hear their voices around her until she called
+them at supper time.  When they came to her she stood
+waiting on the trail, the sewing in one hand, the
+violin in the other.  Elnora became very white, but
+followed the trail without a word.  Philip, unable to see
+a woman carry a heavier load than he, reached for
+the instrument.  Mrs. Comstock shook her head.  She carried
+the violin home, took it into her room and closed the door. 
+Elnora turned to Philip.
+
+"If she destroys that, I shall die!" cried the girl.
+
+"She won't!" said Philip.  "You misunderstand her. 
+She wouldn't have said what she did about the owls, if
+she had meant to.  She is your mother.  No one loves
+you as she does.  Trust her!  Myself--I think she's
+simply great!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock returned with serene face, and all of
+them helped with the supper.  When it was over Philip
+and Elnora sorted and classified the afternoon's specimens,
+and made a trip to the woods to paint and light several
+trees for moths.  When they came back Mrs. Comstock
+sat in the arbour, and they joined her.  The moonlight
+was so intense, print could have been read by it. 
+The damp night air held odours near to earth, making
+flower and tree perfume strong.  A thousand insects were
+serenading, and in the maple the grosbeak occasionally
+said a reassuring word to his wife, while she answered
+that all was well.  A whip-poor-will wailed in the swamp and
+beside the blue-bordered pool a chat complained disconsolately. 
+Mrs. Comstock went into the cabin, but she returned immediately,
+laying the violin and bow across Elnora's lap.  "I wish you
+would give us a little music," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK DANCES IN THE MOONLIGHT,
+AND ELNORA MAKES A CONFESSION
+
+
+Billy was swinging in the hammock, at peace with himself
+and all the world, when he thought he heard something. 
+He sat bolt upright, his eyes staring.  Once he opened
+his lips, then thought again and closed them. 
+The sound persisted.  Billy vaulted the fence,
+and ran down the road with his queer sidewise hop. 
+When he neared the Comstock cabin, he left the
+warm dust of the highway and stepped softly at slower
+pace over the rank grasses of the roadside.  He had
+heard aright.  The violin was in the grape arbour,
+singing a perfect jumble of everything, poured out in
+an exultant tumult.  The strings were voicing the joy of
+a happy girl heart.
+
+Billy climbed the fence enclosing the west woods and
+crept toward the arbour.  He was not a spy and not a sneak. 
+He merely wanted to satisfy his child-heart as to
+whether Mrs. Comstock was at home, and Elnora at last
+playing her loved violin with her mother's consent. 
+One peep sufficed.  Mrs. Comstock sat in the moonlight,
+her head leaning against the arbour; on her face was a
+look of perfect peace and contentment.  As he stared at
+her the bow hesitated a second and Mrs. Comstock spoke:
+
+"That's all very melodious and sweet," she said, "but I
+do wish you could play Money Musk and some of the
+tunes I danced as a girl."
+
+Elnora had been carefully avoiding every note that
+might be reminiscent of her father.  At the words she
+laughed softly and began "Turkey in the Straw." 
+An instant later Mrs. Comstock was dancing in the
+moon light.  Ammon sprang to her side, caught her in
+his arms, while to Elnora's laughter and the violin's
+impetus they danced until they dropped panting on the
+arbour bench.
+
+Billy scarcely knew when he reached the road.  His light
+feet barely touched the soft way, so swiftly he flew. 
+He vaulted the fence and burst into the house.
+
+"Aunt Margaret!  Uncle Wesley!" he screamed.  "Listen! 
+Listen!  She's playing it!  Elnora's playing her violin
+at home!  And Aunt Kate is dancing like anything
+before the arbour!  I saw her in the moonlight!  I ran down! 
+Oh, Aunt Margaret!"
+
+Billy fled sobbing to Margaret's breast.
+
+"Why Billy!" she chided.  "Don't cry, you little dunce! 
+That's what we've all prayed for these many years; but
+you must be mistaken about Kate.  I can't believe it."
+
+Billy lifted his head.  "Well, you just have to!" he said. 
+"When I say I saw anything, Uncle Wesley knows I did. 
+The city man was dancing with her.  They danced together
+and Elnora laughed.  But it didn't look funny to me;
+I was scared."
+
+"Who was it said `wonders never cease,'" asked Wesley. 
+"You mark my word, once you get Kate Comstock started,
+you can't stop her.  There's a wagon load of penned-up
+force in her.  Dancing in the moonlight!  Well, I'll
+be hanged!"
+
+Billy was at his side instantly.  "Whoever does it will
+have to hang me, too," he cried.
+
+Sinton threw his arm around Billy and drew him closely. 
+"Tell us all about it, son," he said.  Billy told.  "And when
+Elnora just stopped a breath, `Can't you play some
+of the old things I knew when I was a girl?' said her ma. 
+Then Elnora began to do a thing that made you want to
+whirl round and round, and quicker 'an scat there was her
+ma a-whirling.  The city man, he ups and grabs her and
+whirls, too, and back in the woods I was going just like
+they did.  Elnora begins to laugh, and I ran to tell you,
+cos I knew you'd like to know.  Now, all the world is
+right, ain't it?" ended Billy in supreme satisfaction.
+
+"You just bet it is!" said Wesley.
+
+Billy looked steadily at Margaret.  "Is it, Aunt Margaret?"
+
+Margaret Sinton smiled at him bravely.
+
+An hour later when Billy was ready to climb the stairs
+to his room, he went to Margaret to say good night. 
+He leaned against her an instant, then brought his lips
+to her ear.  "Wish I could get your little girls back
+for you!" he whispered and dashed toward the stairs.
+
+Down at the Comstock cabin the violin played on until
+Elnora was so tired she scarcely could lift the bow. 
+Then Philip went home.  The women walked to the gate
+with him, and stood watching him from sight.
+
+"That's what I call one decent young man!" said
+Mrs. Comstock.  "To see him fit in with us, you'd think
+he'd been brought up in a cabin; but it's likely he's
+always had the very cream o' the pot."
+
+"Yes, I think so," laughed Elnora, "but it hasn't
+hurt him.  I've never seen anything I could criticise. 
+He's teaching me so much, unconsciously.  You know
+he graduated from Harvard, and has several degrees in law. 
+He's coming in the morning, and we are going to put in a
+big day on Catocalae."
+
+"Which is----?"
+
+"Those gray moths with wings that fold back like big
+flies, and they appear as if they had been carved from
+old wood.  Then, when they fly, the lower wings flash
+out and they are red and black, or gold and black, or
+pink and black, or dozens of bright, beautiful colours
+combined with black.  No one ever has classified all
+of them and written their complete history, unless the
+Bird Woman is doing it now.  She wants everything
+she can get about them."
+
+"I remember," said Mrs. Comstock.  "They are mighty
+pretty things.  I've started up slews of them from the
+vines covering the logs, all my life.  I must be cautious
+and catch them after this, but they seem powerful spry. 
+I might get hold of something rare."  She thought
+intently and added, "And wouldn't know it if I did. 
+It would just be my luck.  I've had the rarest thing on
+earth in reach this many a day and only had the wit to
+cinch it just as it was going.  I'll bet I don't let
+anything else escape me."
+
+Next morning Philip came early, and he and Elnora
+went at once to the fields and woods.  Mrs. Comstock
+had come to believe so implicitly in him that she now
+stayed at home to complete the work before she joined
+them, and when she did she often sat sewing, leaving
+them wandering hours at a time.  It was noon before
+she finished, and then she packed a basket of lunch. 
+She found Elnora and Philip near the violet patch, which
+was still in its prime.  They all lunched together in the
+shade of a wild crab thicket, with flowers spread at their
+feet, and the gold orioles streaking the air with flashes
+of light and trailing ecstasy behind them, while the red-
+wings, as always, asked the most impertinent questions. 
+Then Mrs. Comstock carried the basket back to the cabin,
+and Philip and Elnora sat on a log, resting a few minutes. 
+They had unexpected luck, and both were eager to continue
+the search.
+
+"Do you remember your promise about these violets?"
+asked he.  "To-morrow is Edith's birthday, and if I'd
+put them special delivery on the morning train, she'd
+get them in the late afternoon.  They ought to keep
+that long.  She leaves for the North next day."
+
+"Of  course, you may have them," said Elnora.  "We will
+quit long enough before supper to gather a large bunch. 
+They can be packed so they will carry all right. 
+They should be perfectly fresh, especially if we gather
+them this evening and let them drink all night."
+
+Then they went back to hunt Catocalae.  It was a
+long and a happy search.  It led them into new,
+unexplored nooks of the woods, past a red-poll nest,
+and where goldfinches prospected for thistledown for
+the cradles they would line a little later.  It led
+them into real forest, where deep, dark pools lay,
+where the hermit thrush and the wood robin extracted
+the essence from all other bird melody, and poured it
+out in their pure bell-tone notes.  It seemed as if
+every old gray tree-trunk, slab of loose bark, and
+prostrate log yielded the flashing gray treasures;
+while of all others they seemed to take alarm most
+easily, and be most difficult to capture.
+
+Philip came to Elnora at dusk, daintily holding one
+by the body, its dark wings showing and its long slender
+legs trying to clasp his fingers and creep from his hold.
+
+"Oh for mercy's sake!" cried Elnora, staring at him.
+
+"I half believe it!" exulted Ammon.
+
+"Did you ever see one?"
+
+"Only in collections, and very seldom there."
+
+Elnora studied the black wings intently.  "I surely
+believe that's Sappho," she marvelled.  "The Bird Woman
+will be overjoyed."
+
+"We must get the cyanide jar quickly," said Philip.
+
+"I wouldn't lose her for anything.  Such a chase as she
+led me!"
+
+Elnora brought the jar and began gathering up paraphernalia.
+
+"When you make a find like that," she said, "it's the
+right time to quit and feel glorious all the rest of
+that day.  I tell you I'm proud!  We will go now.  We have
+barely time to carry out our plans before supper. 
+Won't mother be pleased to see that we have a rare one?"
+
+"I'd like to see any one more pleased than I am!" said
+Philip Ammon.  "I feel as if I'd earned my supper to-night. 
+Let's go."
+
+He took the greater part of the load and stepped aside
+for Elnora to precede him.  She followed the path, broken
+by the grazing cattle, toward the cabin and nearest the
+violet patch she stopped, laid down her net, and the things
+she carried.  Philip passed her and hurried straight
+toward the back gate.
+
+"Aren't you going to----?" began Elnora.
+
+"I'm going to get this moth home in a hurry," he said. 
+"This cyanide has lost its strength, and it's not
+working well.  We need some fresh in the jar."
+
+He had forgotten the violets!  Elnora stood looking
+after him, a curious expression on her face.  One second
+so--then she picked up the net and followed.  At the
+blue-bordered pool she paused and half turned back, then
+she closed her lips firmly and went on.  It was nine o'clock
+when Philip said good-bye, and started to town.  His gay
+whistle floated to them from the farthest corner of
+the Limberlost.  Elnora complained of being tired, so she
+went to her room and to bed.  But sleep would not come. 
+Thought was racing in her brain and the longer she lay
+the wider awake she grew.  At last she softly slipped from
+bed, lighted her lamp and began opening boxes.  Then she
+went to work.  Two hours later a beautiful birch bark
+basket, strongly and artistically made, stood on her table. 
+She set a tiny alarm clock at three, returned to bed and
+fell asleep instantly with a smile on her lips.
+
+She was on the floor with the first tinkle of the alarm,
+and hastily dressing, she picked up the basket and a box
+to fit it, crept down the stairs, and out to the violet patch. 
+She was unafraid as it was growing light, and lining the
+basket with damp mosses she swiftly began picking, with
+practised hands, the best of the flowers.  She scarcely
+could tell which were freshest at times, but day soon came
+creeping over the Limberlost and peeped at her.  The robins
+awoke all their neighbours, and a babel of bird notes
+filled the air.  The dew was dripping, while the first strong
+rays of light fell on a world in which Elnora worshipped. 
+When the basket was filled to overflowing, she set it in the
+stout pasteboard box, packed it solid with mosses, tied it
+firmly and slipped under the cord a note she had written
+the previous night.
+
+Then she took a short cut across the woods and walked
+swiftly to Onabasha.  It was after six o'clock, but all of
+the city she wished to avoid were asleep.  She had no
+trouble in finding a small boy out, and she stood at a
+distance waiting while he rang Dr. Ammon's bell and
+delivered the package for Philip to a maid, with the note
+which was to be given him at once.
+
+On the way home through the woods passing some baited
+trees she collected the captive moths.  She entered
+the kitchen with them so naturally that Mrs. Comstock
+made no comment.  After breakfast Elnora went to her
+room, cleared away all trace of the night's work and was
+out in the arbour mounting moths when Philip came down
+the road.  "I am tired sitting," she said to her mother. 
+"I think I will walk a few rods and meet him."
+
+"Who's a trump?" he called from afar.
+
+"Not you!" retorted Elnora.  "Confess that you forgot!"
+
+"Completely!" said Philip.  "But luckily it would not
+have been fatal.  I wrote Polly last week to send Edith
+something appropriate to-day, with my card.  But that
+touch from the woods will be very effective.  Thank you
+more than I can say.  Aunt Anna and I unpacked it to
+see the basket, and it was a beauty.  She says you are
+always doing such things."
+
+"Well, I hope not!" laughed Elnora.  "If you'd seen
+me sneaking out before dawn, not to awaken mother and
+coming in with moths to make her think I'd been to the
+trees, you'd know it was a most especial occasion."
+
+"Then Philip understood two things:  Elnora's mother
+did not know of the early morning trip to the city, and
+the girl had come to meet him to tell him so.
+
+"You were a brick to do it!" he whispered as he closed
+the gate behind them.  "I'll never forget you for it. 
+Thank you ever so much."
+
+"I did not do that for you," said Elnora tersely.  "I did
+it mostly to preserve my own self-respect.  I saw you
+were forgetting.  If I did it for anything besides that,
+I did it for her."
+
+"Just look what I've brought!" said Philip, entering
+the arbour and greeting Mrs. Comstock.  "Borrowed it
+of the Bird Woman.  And it isn't hers.  A rare edition
+of Catocalae with coloured plates.  I told her the best I
+could, and she said to try for Sappho here.  I suspect the
+Bird Woman will be out presently.  She was all excitement."
+
+Then they bent over the book together and with the
+mounted moth before them determined her family.  The Bird
+Woman did come later, and carried the moth away, to put
+into a book and Elnora and Philip were freshly filled
+with enthusiasm.
+
+So these days were the beginning of the weeks that followed. 
+Six of them flying on Time's wings, each filled
+to the brim with interest.  After June, the moth hunts
+grew less frequent; the fields and woods were searched
+for material for Elnora's grade work.  The most absorbing
+occupation they found was in carrying out Mrs. Comstock's
+suggestion to learn the vital thing for which each
+month was distinctive, and make that the key to the
+nature work.  They wrote out a list of the months,
+opposite each the things all of them could suggest which seemed
+to pertain to that month alone, and then tried to sift until
+they found something typical.  Mrs. Comstock was a
+great help.  Her mother had been Dutch and had brought
+from Holland numerous quaint sayings and superstitions
+easily traceable to Pliny's Natural History; and in Mrs.
+Comstock's early years in Ohio she had heard much Indian
+talk among her elders, so she knew the signs of each season,
+and sometimes they helped.  Always her practical
+thought and sterling common sense were useful.  When they
+were afield until exhausted they came back to the
+cabin for food, to prepare specimens and classify them,
+and to talk over the day.  Sometimes Philip brought
+books and read while Elnora and her mother worked,
+and every night Mrs. Comstock asked for the violin. 
+Her perfect hunger for music was sufficient evidence of how
+she had suffered without it.  So the days crept by, golden,
+filled with useful work and pure pleasure.
+
+The grosbeak had led the family in the maple abroad
+and a second brood, in a wild grape vine clambering over
+the well, was almost ready for flight.  The dust lay thick
+on the country roads, the days grew warmer; summer
+was just poising to slip into fall, and Philip remained,
+coming each day as if he had belonged there always.
+
+One warm August afternoon Mrs. Comstock looked
+up from the ruffle on which she was engaged to see
+a blue-coated messenger enter the gate.
+
+"Is Philip Ammon here?" asked the boy.
+
+"He is," said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"I have a message for him."
+
+"He is in the woods back of the cabin.  I will ring the bell. 
+Do you know if it is important?"
+
+"Urgent," said the boy; "I rode hard."
+
+Mrs. Comstock stepped to the back door and clanged
+the dinner bell sharply, paused a second, and rang again. 
+In a short time Philip and Elnora ran down the path.
+
+"Are you ill, mother?" cried Elnora.
+
+Mrs. Comstock indicated the boy.  "There is an important
+message for Philip," she said.
+
+He muttered an excuse and tore open the telegram. 
+His colour faded slightly.  "I have to take the first train,"
+he said.  "My father is ill and I am needed."
+
+He handed the sheet to Elnora.  "I have about two
+hours, as I remember the trains north, but my things are
+all over Uncle Doc's house, so I must go at once."
+
+"Certainly," said Elnora, giving back the message. 
+"Is there anything I can do to help?  Mother, bring
+Philip a glass of buttermilk to start on.  I will gather
+what you have here."
+
+"Never mind.  There is nothing of importance.  I don't
+want to be hampered.  I'll send for it if I miss anything
+I need."
+
+Philip drank the milk, said good-bye to Mrs. Comstock;
+thanked her for all her kindness, and turned to Elnora.
+
+"Will you walk to the edge of the Limberlost with me?"
+he asked.  Elnora assented.  Mrs. Comstock followed
+to the gate, urged him to come again soon, and repeated
+her good-bye.  Then she went back to the arbour to
+await Elnora's return.  As she watched down the road
+she smiled softly.
+
+"I had an idea he would speak to me first," she thought,
+"but this may change things some.  He hasn't time. 
+Elnora will come back a happy girl, and she has
+good reason.  He is a model young man.  Her lot will
+be very different from mine."
+
+She picked up her embroidery and began setting dainty
+precise little stitches, possible only to certain women.
+
+On the road Elnora spoke first.  "I do hope it is
+nothing serious," she said.  "Is he usually strong?"
+
+"Quite strong," said Philip.  "I am not at all alarmed
+but I am very much ashamed.  I have been well enough
+for the past month to have gone home and helped him
+with some critical cases that were keeping him at work
+in this heat.  I was enjoying myself so I wouldn't offer
+to go, and he would not ask me to come, so long as he could
+help it.  I have allowed him to overtax himself until he
+is down, and mother and Polly are north at our cottage. 
+He's never been sick before, and it's probable I am to
+blame that he is now."
+
+"He intended you to stay this long when you came,"
+urged Elnora.
+
+"Yes, but it's hot in Chicago.  I should have
+remembered him.  He is always thinking of me.  Possibly he
+has needed me for days.  I am ashamed to go to him in
+splendid condition and admit that I was having such a
+fine time I forgot to come home."
+
+"You have had a fine time, then?" asked Elnora.
+
+They had reached the fence.  Philip vaulted over to
+take a short cut across the fields.  He turned and looked
+at her.
+
+"The best, the sweetest, and most wholesome time
+any man ever had in this world," he said.  "Elnora, if
+I talked hours I couldn't make you understand what a
+girl I think you are.  I never in all my life hated anything
+as I hate leaving you.  It seems to me that I have not
+strength to do it."
+
+"If you have learned anything worth while from me,"
+said Elnora, "that should be it.  Just to have strength to
+go to your duty, and to go quickly."
+
+He caught the hand she held out to him in both his. 
+"Elnora, these days we have had together, have they
+been sweet to you?"
+
+"Beautiful days!" said Elnora.  "Each like a perfect
+dream to be thought over and over all my life.  Oh, they
+have been the only really happy days I've ever known;
+these days rich with mother's love, and doing useful work
+with your help.  Good-bye!  You must hurry!"
+
+Philip gazed at her.  He tried to drop her hand, only
+clutched it closer.  Suddenly he drew her toward him. 
+"Elnora," he whispered, "will you kiss me good-bye?"
+
+Elnora drew back and stared at him with wide eyes. 
+"I'd strike you sooner!" she said.  "Have I ever said or
+done anything in your presence that made you feel free to
+ask that, Philip Ammon?"
+
+"No!" panted Philip.  "No!  I think so much of you
+I wanted to touch your lips once before I left you. 
+You know, Elnora----"
+
+"Don't distress yourself," said Elnora calmly.  "I am
+broad enough to judge you sanely.  I know what you mean. 
+It would be no harm to you.  It would not matter to me,
+but here we will think of some one else.  Edith Carr
+would not want your lips to-morrow if she knew they
+had touched mine to-day.  I was wise to say:  `Go quickly!'"
+
+Philip still clung to her.  "Will you write me?" he begged.
+
+"No," said Elnora.  "There is nothing to say, save good-bye. 
+We can do that now."
+
+He held on.  "Promise that you will write me only one
+letter," he urged.  "I want just one message from you to
+lock in my desk, and keep always.  Promise you will
+write once, Elnora."
+
+She looked into his eyes, and smiled serenely.  "If the
+talking trees tell me this winter, the secret of how a man
+may grow perfect, I will write you what it is, Philip. 
+In all the time I have known you, I never have liked you
+so little.  Good-bye."
+
+She drew away her hand and swiftly turned back to the road. 
+Philip Ammon, wordless, started toward Onabasha on a run.
+
+Elnora crossed the road, climbed the fence and sought
+the shelter of their own woods.  She chose a diagonal
+course and followed it until she came to the path leading
+past the violet patch.  She went down this hurriedly. 
+Her hands were clenched at her side, her eyes dry and
+bright, her cheeks red-flushed, and her breath coming fast. 
+When she reached the patch she turned into it and stood
+looking around her.
+
+The mosses were dry, the flowers gone, weeds a foot
+high covered it.  She turned away and went on down the
+path until she was almost in sight of the cabin.
+
+Mrs. Comstock smiled and waited in the arbour until
+it occurred to her that Elnora was a long time coming, so
+she went to the gate.  The road stretched away toward
+the Limberlost empty and lonely.  Then she knew that
+Elnora had gone into their own woods and would come in
+the back way.  She could not understand why the girl did
+not hurry to her with what she would have to tell. 
+She went out and wandered around the garden.  Then she
+stepped into the path and started along the way leading to
+the woods, past the pool now framed in a thick setting of
+yellow lilies.  Then she saw, and stopped, gasping for breath. 
+Her hands flew up and her lined face grew ghastly. 
+She stared at the sky and then at the prostrate girl figure. 
+Over and over she tried to speak, but only a dry breath came. 
+She turned and fled back to the garden.
+
+In the familiar enclosure she gazed around her like a
+caged animal seeking escape.  The sun beat down on her
+bare head mercilessly, and mechanically she moved to the
+shade of a half-grown hickory tree that voluntarily had
+sprouted beside the milk house.  At her feet lay an axe
+with which she made kindlings for fires.  She stooped and
+picked it up.  The memory of that prone figure sobbing in
+the grass caught her with a renewed spasm.  She shut her
+eyes as if to close it out.  That made hearing so acute she
+felt certain she heard Elnora moaning beside the path. 
+The eyes flew open.  They looked straight at a few
+spindling tomato plants set too near the tree and stunted
+by its shade.  Mrs. Comstock whirled on the hickory and
+swung the axe.  Her hair shook down, her clothing became
+disarranged, in the heat the perspiration streamed, but
+stroke fell on stroke until the tree crashed over, grazing
+a corner of the milk house and smashing the garden fence
+on the east.
+
+At the sound Elnora sprang to her feet and came running
+down the garden walk.  "Mother!" she cried.  "Mother! 
+What in the world are you doing?"
+
+Mrs. Comstock wiped her ghastly face on her apron. 
+"I've laid out to cut that tree for years," she said. 
+"It shades the beets in the morning, and the tomatoes
+in the afternoon!"
+
+Elnora uttered one wild little cry and fled into her
+mother's arms.  "Oh mother!" she sobbed.  "Will you
+ever forgive me?"
+
+Mrs. Comstock's arms swept together in a tight grip
+around Elnora.
+
+"There isn't a thing on God's footstool from a to izzard
+I won't forgive you, my precious girl!" she said.  "Tell mother
+what it is!"
+
+Elnora lifted her wet face.  "He told me," she panted,
+"just as soon as he decently could--that second day he
+told me.  Almost all his life he's been engaged to a girl
+at home.  He never cared anything about me.  He was only
+interested in the moths and growing strong."
+
+Mrs. Comstock's arms tightened.  With a shaking hand
+she stroked the bright hair.
+
+"Tell me, honey," she said.  "Is he to blame for a
+single one of these tears?"
+
+"Not one!" sobbed Elnora.  "Oh mother, I won't forgive you
+if you don't believe that.  Not one!  He never said,
+or looked, or did anything all the world might not
+have known.  He likes me very much as a friend. 
+He hated to go dreadfully!"
+
+"Elnora!" the mother's head bent until the white hair
+mingled with the brown.  "Elnora, why didn't you tell me
+at first?"
+
+Elnora caught her breath in a sharp snatch.  "I know
+I should!" she sobbed.  "I will bear any punishment for
+not, but I didn't feel as if I possibly could.  I was afraid."
+
+"Afraid of what?" the shaking hand was on the hair again.
+
+"Afraid you wouldn't let him come!" panted Elnora. 
+"And oh, mother, I wanted him so!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK EXPERIMENTS WITH REJUVENATION,
+AND ELNORA TEACHES NATURAL HISTORY
+
+
+For the following week Mrs. Comstock and Elnora
+worked so hard there was no time to talk, and they
+were compelled to sleep from physical exhaustion. 
+Neither of them made any pretence of eating, for they
+could not swallow without an effort, so they drank milk
+and worked.  Elnora kept on setting bait for Catacolae
+and Sphinginae, which, unlike the big moths of June, live
+several months.  She took all the dragonflies and
+butterflies she could, and when she went over the list
+for the man of India, she found, to her amazement,
+that with Philip's help she once more had it complete
+save a pair of Yellow Emperors.
+
+This circumstance was so surprising she had a fleeting
+thought of writing Philip and asking him to see if he could
+not secure her a pair.  She did tell the Bird Woman, who
+from every source at her command tried to complete the
+series with these moths, but could not find any for sale.
+
+"I think the mills of the Gods are grinding this grist,"
+said Elnora, "and we might as well wait patiently until
+they choose to send a Yellow Emperor."
+
+Mrs. Comstock invented work.  When she had nothing more
+to do, she hoed in the garden although the earth was hard
+and dry and there were no plants that really needed attention. 
+Then came a notification that Elnora would be compelled
+to attend a week's session of the Teachers' Institute
+held at the county seat twenty miles north of Onabasha
+the following week.  That gave them something of which
+to think and real work to do.  Elnora was requested to bring
+her violin.  As she was on the programme of one of the most
+important sessions for a talk on nature work in grade schools,
+she was driven to prepare her speech, also to select and
+practise some music.  Her mother turned her attention to clothing.
+
+They went to Onabasha together and purchased a simple
+and appropriate fall suit and hat, goods for a dainty little
+coloured frock, and a dress skirt and several fancy waists. 
+Margaret Sinton came down and the sewing began.  When everything
+was finished and packed, Elnora kissed her mother good-bye
+at the depot, and entered the train.  Mrs. Comstock went into
+the waiting-room and dropped into a seat to rest.  Her heart
+was so sore her whole left side felt tender.  She was half
+starved for the food she had no appetite to take.  She had
+worked in dogged determination until she was exhausted. 
+For a time she simply sat and rested.  Then she began to think. 
+She was glad Elnora had gone where she would be compelled to
+fix her mind on other matters for a few days.  She remembered
+the girl had said she wanted to go.
+
+School would begin the following week.  She thought
+over what Elnora would have to do to accomplish her
+work successfully.  She would be compelled to arise at
+six o'clock, walk three miles through varying weather, lead
+the high school orchestra, and then put in the remainder of
+the day travelling from building to building over the city,
+teaching a specified length of time every week in each room. 
+She must have her object lessons ready, and she must do a
+certain amount of practising with the orchestra.  Then a
+cold lunch at noon, and a three-mile walk at night.
+
+"Humph!" said Mrs. Comstock, "to get through that
+the girl would have to be made of cast-iron.  I wonder
+how I can help her best?"
+
+She thought deeply.
+
+"The less she sees of what she's been having all summer,
+the sooner she'll feel better about it," she muttered.
+
+She arose, went to the bank and inquired for the cashier.
+
+"I want to know just how I am fixed here," she said.
+
+The cashier laughed.  "You haven't been in a hurry,"
+he replied.  "We have been ready for you any time these
+twenty years, but you didn't seem to pay much attention. 
+Your account is rather flourishing.  Interest, when it gets
+to compounding, is quite a money breeder.  Come back
+here to a table and I will show you your balances."
+
+Mrs. Comstock sank into a chair and waited while
+the cashier read a jumble of figures to her.  It meant
+that her deposits had exceeded her expenses from one
+to three hundred dollars a year, according to the cattle,
+sheep, hogs, poultry, butter, and eggs she had sold. 
+The aggregate of these sums had been compounding interest
+throughout the years.  Mrs. Comstock stared at the
+total with dazed and unbelieving eyes.  Through her
+sick heart rushed the realization, that if she merely had
+stood before that wicket and asked one question, she
+would have known that all those bitter years of skimping
+for Elnora and herself had been unnecessary.  She arose
+and went back to the depot.
+
+"I want to send a message," she said.  She picked
+up the pencil, and with rash extravagance, wrote, "Found
+money at bank didn't know about.  If you want to go
+to college, come on first train and get ready." 
+She hesitated a second and then she said to herself grimly,
+"Yes, I'll pay for that, too," and recklessly added, "With
+love, Mother."  Then she sat waiting for the answer.  It came
+in less than an hour.  "Will teach this winter.  With dearest
+love, Elnora."
+
+Mrs. Comstock held the message a long time.  When she
+arose she was ravenously hungry, but the pain in her
+heart was a little easier.  She went to a restaurant
+and ate some food, then to a dressmaker where she ordered
+four dresses: two very plain every-day ones, a serviceable
+dark gray cloth suit, and a soft light gray silk with
+touches of lavender and lace.  She made a heavy list
+of purchases at Brownlee's, and the remainder of the day
+she did business in her direct and spirited way.  At night
+she was so tired she scarcely could walk home, but she
+built a fire and cooked and ate a hearty meal.
+
+Later she went out beside the west fence and gathered
+an armful of tansy which she boiled to a thick green tea. 
+Then she stirred in oatmeal until it was a stiff paste. 
+She spread a sheet over her bed and began tearing strips
+of old muslin.  She bandaged each hand and arm with the
+mixture and plastered the soggy, evil-smelling stuff in a
+thick poultice over her face and neck.  She was so tired
+she went to sleep, and when she awoke she was half skinned. 
+She bathed her face and hands, did the work and went back
+to town, coming home at night to go through the same process.
+
+By the third morning she was a raw even red, the fourth
+she had faded to a brilliant pink under the soothing
+influence of a cream recommended.  That day came a
+letter from Elnora saying that she would remain where
+she was until Saturday morning, and then come to Ellen
+Brownlee's at Onabasha and stay for the Saturday's
+session of teachers to arrange their year's work. 
+Sunday was Ellen's last day at home, and she wanted Elnora
+very much.  She had to call together the orchestra and
+practise them Sunday; and could not come home until
+after school Monday night.  Mrs. Comstock at once
+answered the letter saying those arrangements suited her.
+
+The following day she was a pale pink, later a delicate
+porcelain white.  Then she went to a hairdresser and
+had the rope of snowy hair which covered her scalp washed,
+dressed, and fastened with such pins and combs as were
+decided to be most becoming.  She took samples of her
+dresses, went to a milliner, and bought a street hat to
+match her suit, and a gray satin with lavender orchids to
+wear with the silk dress.  Her last investment was a loose
+coat of soft gray broadcloth with white lining, and touches
+of lavender on the embroidered collar, and gray gloves to match.
+
+Then she went home, rested and worked by turns
+until Monday.  When school closed on that evening,
+Elnora, so tired she almost trembled, came down the
+long walk after a late session of teachers' meeting,
+to be stopped by a messenger boy.
+
+"There's a lady wants to see you most important. 
+I am to take you to the place," he said.
+
+Elnora groaned.  She could not imagine who wanted
+her, but there was nothing to do but find out; tired and
+anxious to see her mother as she was.
+
+"This is the place," said the boy, and went his way whistling. 
+Elnora was three blocks from the high school building on the
+same street.  She was before a quaint old house, fresh with
+paint and covered with vines.  There was a long wide lot,
+grass-covered, closely set with trees, and a barn and chicken
+park at the back that seemed to be occupied.  Elnora stepped
+on the veranda which was furnished with straw rugs, bent-
+hickory chairs, hanging baskets, and a table with a work-
+box and magazines, and knocked at the screen door.
+
+Inside she could see polished floors, walls freshly papered
+in low-toned harmonious colours, straw rugs and madras curtains. 
+It seemed to be a restful, homelike place to which she had come. 
+A second later down an open stairway came a tall, dark-eyed
+woman with cheeks faintly pink and a crown of fluffy snow-
+white hair.  She wore a lavender gingham dress with white
+collar and cuffs, and she called as she advanced:  "That screen
+isn't latched!  Open it and come see your brand-new mother,
+my girl."
+
+Elnora stepped inside the door.  "Mother!" she cried. 
+"You my mother!  I don't believe it!"
+
+"Well, you better!" said Mrs. Comstock, "because
+it's true!  You said you wished I were like the other
+girls' mothers, and I've shot as close the mark as I could
+without any practice.  I thought that walk would be
+too much for you this winter, so I just rented this house
+and moved in, to be near you, and help more in case I'm needed. 
+I've only lived here a day, but I like it so well I've a
+mortal big notion to buy the place."
+
+"But mother!" protested Elnora, clinging to her wonderingly. 
+"You are perfectly beautiful, and this house is a little
+paradise, but how will we ever pay for it?  We can't afford it!"
+
+"Humph!  Have you forgotten I telegraphed you I'd
+found some money I didn't know about?  All I've done
+is paid for, and plenty more to settle for all I
+propose to do."
+
+Mrs. Comstock glanced around with satisfaction.
+
+"I may get homesick as a pup before spring," she said,
+"but if I do I can go back.  If I don't, I'll sell some
+timber and put a few oil wells where they don't show much. 
+I can have land enough cleared for a few fields and put
+a tenant on our farm, and we will buy this and settle here. 
+It's for sale."
+
+"You don't look it, but you've surely gone mad!"
+
+"Just the reverse, my girl," said Mrs. Comstock,
+"I've gone sane.  If you are going to undertake this
+work, you must be convenient to it.  And your mother
+should be where she can see that you are properly dressed,
+fed, and cared for.  This is our--let me think--reception-room. 
+How do you like it?  This door leads to your workroom and study. 
+I didn't do much there because I wasn't sure of my way. 
+But I knew you would want a rug, curtains, table, shelves
+for books, and a case for your specimens, so I had a
+carpenter shelve and enclose that end of it.  Looks pretty
+neat to me.  The dining-room and kitchen are back, one
+of the cows in the barn, and some chickens in the coop. 
+I understand that none of the other girls' mothers milk a
+cow, so a neighbour boy will tend to ours for a third of
+the milk.  There are three bedrooms, and a bath upstairs. 
+Go take one, put on some fresh clothes, and come to supper. 
+You can find your room because your things are in it."
+
+Elnora kissed her mother over and over, and hurried upstairs. 
+She identified her room by the dressing-case.  There were
+a pretty rug, and curtains, white iron bed, plain and
+rocking chairs to match her case, a shirtwaist chest,
+and the big closet was filled with her old clothing and
+several new dresses.  She found the bathroom, bathed,
+dressed in fresh linen and went down to a supper that
+was an evidence of Mrs. Comstock's highest art in cooking. 
+Elnora was so hungry she ate her first real meal in two weeks. 
+But the bites went down slowly because she forgot about them
+in watching her mother.
+
+"How on earth did you do it?" she asked at last.  "I always
+thought you were naturally brown as a nut."
+
+"Oh, that was tan and sunburn!" explained Mrs. Comstock. 
+"I always knew I was white underneath it.  I hated to
+shade my face because I hadn't anything but a sunbonnet,
+and I couldn't stand for it to touch my ears, so I went
+bareheaded and took all the colour I accumulated. 
+But when I began to think of moving you in to your work,
+I saw I must put up an appearance that wouldn't disgrace
+you, so I thought I'd best remove the crust.  It took
+some time, and I hope I may die before I ever endure
+the feel and the smell of the stuff I used again, but it
+skinned me nicely.  What you now see is my own with a
+little dust of rice powder, for protection.  I'm sort of
+tender yet."
+
+"And your lovely, lovely hair?" breathed Elnora.
+
+"Hairdresser did that!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "It cost
+like smoke.  But I watched her, and with a little
+help from you I can wash it alone next time, though it
+will be hard work.  I let her monkey with it until she
+said she had found `my style.'  Then I tore it down and
+had her show me how to build it up again three times. 
+I thought my arms would drop.  When I paid the bill for
+her work, the time I'd taken, the pins, and combs she'd
+used, I nearly had heart failure, but I didn't turn a hair
+before her.  I just smiled at her sweetly and said, `How
+reasonable you are!' Come to think of it, she was!  She might
+have charged me ten dollars for what she did quite as well
+as nine seventy-five.  I couldn't have helped myself. 
+I had made no bargain to begin on."
+
+Then Elnora leaned back in her chair and shouted, in a
+gust of hearty laughter, so a little of the ache ceased
+in her breast.  There was no time to think, the remainder
+of that evening, she was so tired she had to sleep, while
+her mother did not awaken her until she barely had time
+to dress, breakfast and reach school.  There was nothing
+in the new life to remind her of the old.  It seemed as
+if there never came a minute for retrospection, but her
+mother appeared on the scene with more work, or some
+entertaining thing to do.
+
+Mrs. Comstock invited Elnora's friends to visit her,
+and proved herself a bright and interesting hostess. 
+She digested a subject before she spoke; and when she
+advanced a view, her point was sure to be original and
+tersely expressed.  Before three months people waited
+to hear what she had to say.  She kept her appearance so
+in mind that she made a handsome and a distinguished figure.
+
+Elnora never mentioned Philip Ammon, neither did
+Mrs. Comstock.  Early in December came a note and a
+big box from him.  It contained several books on nature
+subjects which would be of much help in school work,
+a number of conveniences Elnora could not afford, and a
+pair of glass-covered plaster casts, for each large moth
+she had.  In these the upper and underwings of male and
+female showed.  He explained that she would break her
+specimens easily, carrying them around in boxes.  He had
+seen these and thought they would be of use.  Elnora was
+delighted with them, and at once began the tedious process
+of softening the mounted moths and fitting them to the
+casts moulded to receive them.  Her time was so taken in
+school, she progressed slowly, so her mother undertook
+this work.  After trying one or two very common ones she
+learned to handle the most delicate with ease.  She took
+keen pride in relaxing the tense moths, fitting them to the
+cases, polishing the glass covers to the last degree and
+sealing them.  The results were beautiful to behold.
+
+Soon after Elnora wrote to Philip:
+
+DEAR FRIEND:
+
+I am writing to thank you for the books, and the box of conveniences
+sent me for my work.  I can use everything with fine results. 
+Hope I am giving good satisfaction in my position.  You will be
+interested to learn that when the summer's work was classified and
+pinned, I again had my complete collection for the man of India,
+save a Yellow Emperor.  I have tried everywhere I know, so has the
+Bird Woman.  We cannot find a pair for sale.  Fate is against me,
+at least this season.  I shall have to wait until next year and try again.
+
+Thank you very much for helping me with my collection and for the
+books and cases.
+
+                              Sincerely yours,
+
+                                        ELNORA COMSTOCK.
+
+
+Philip was disappointed over that note and instead of
+keeping it he tore it into bits and dropped them into the
+waste basket.
+
+That was precisely what Elnora had intended he should do. 
+Christmas brought beautiful cards of greeting to
+Mrs. Comstock and Elnora, Easter others, and the year
+ran rapidly toward spring.  Elnora's position had been
+intensely absorbing, while she had worked with all her power. 
+She had made a wonderful success and won new friends. 
+Mrs. Comstock had helped in every way she could, so she was
+very popular also.
+
+Throughout the winter they had enjoyed the city thoroughly,
+and the change of life it afforded, but signs of spring
+did wonderful things to the hearts of the country-bred women. 
+A restlessness began on bright February days, calmed during
+March storms and attacked full force in April.  When neither
+could bear it any longer they were forced to discuss the matter
+and admit they were growing ill with pure homesickness. 
+They decided to keep the city house during the summer,
+but to return to the farm to live as soon as school closed.
+
+So Mrs. Comstock would prepare breakfast and lunch
+and then slip away to the farm to make up beds in her
+ploughed garden, plant seeds, trim and tend her flowers,
+and prepare the cabin for occupancy.  Then she would go
+home and make the evening as cheerful as possible for
+Elnora; in these days she lived only for the girl.
+
+Both of them were glad when the last of May came and the
+schools closed.  They packed the books and clothing they
+wished to take into a wagon and walked across the fields
+to the old cabin.  As they approached it, Mrs. Comstock
+said to Elnora:  "You are sure you won't be lonely here?"
+
+Elnora knew what she really meant.
+
+"Quite sure," she said.  "For a time last fall I was
+glad to be away, but that all wore out with the winter. 
+Spring made me homesick as I could be.  I can scarcely wait
+until we get back again."
+
+So they began that summer as they had begun all others
+--with work.  But both of them took a new joy in everything,
+and the violin sang by the hour in the twilight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON GIVES A BALL IN HONOUR OF EDITH CARR,
+AND HART HENDERSON APPEARS ON THE SCENE
+
+
+Edith Carr stood in a vine-enclosed side veranda
+of the Lake Shore Club House waiting while Philip
+Ammon gave some important orders.  In a few days
+she would sail for Paris to select a wonderful trousseau
+she had planned for her marriage in October.  To-night
+Philip was giving a club dance in her honour.  He had
+spent days in devising new and exquisite effects in
+decorations, entertainment, and supper.  Weeks before the
+favoured guests had been notified.  Days before they had
+received the invitations asking them to participate in this
+entertainment by Philip Ammon in honour of Miss Carr. 
+They spoke of it as "Phil's dance for Edith!"
+
+She could hear the rumble of carriages and the panting
+of automobiles as in a steady stream they rolled to the
+front entrance.  She could catch glimpses of floating
+draperies of gauze and lace, the flash of jewels, and the
+passing of exquisite colour.  Every one was newly arrayed
+in her honour in the loveliest clothing, and the most
+expensive jewels they could command.  As she thought of it
+she lifted her head a trifle higher and her eyes flashed proudly.
+
+She was robed in a French creation suggested and designed
+by Philip.  He had said to her:  "I know a competent
+judge who says the distinctive feature of June is her
+exquisite big night moths.  I want you to be the very
+essence of June that night, as you will be the embodiment
+of love.  Be a moth.  The most beautiful of them is either
+the pale-green Luna or the Yellow Imperialis.  Be my
+moon lady, or my gold Empress."
+
+He took her to the museum and showed her the moths. 
+She instantly decided on the yellow.  Because she knew
+the shades would make her more startlingly beautiful than
+any other colour.  To him she said:  "A moon lady seems
+so far away and cold.  I would be of earth and very near
+on that night.  I choose the Empress."
+
+So she matched the colours exactly, wrote out the idea
+and forwarded the order to Paquin.  To-night when
+Philip Ammon came for her, he stood speechless a minute
+and then silently kissed her hands.
+
+For she stood tall, lithe, of grace inborn, her dark waving
+hair high piled and crossed by gold bands studded with
+amethyst and at one side an enamelled lavender orchid
+rimmed with diamonds, which flashed and sparkled.  The soft
+yellow robe of lightest weight velvet fitted her form
+perfectly, while from each shoulder fell a great velvet wing
+lined with lavender, and flecked with embroidery of that
+colour in imitation of the moth.  Around her throat was a
+wonderful necklace and on her arms were bracelets of gold
+set with amethyst and rimmed with diamonds.  Philip had said
+that her gloves, fan, and slippers must be lavender, because
+the feet of the moth were that colour.  These accessories
+had been made to order and embroidered with gold.  It had
+been arranged that her mother, Philip's, and a few best
+friends should receive his guests.  She was to appear when
+she led the grand march with Philip Ammon.  Miss Carr was
+positive that she would be the most beautiful, and most
+exquisitely gowned woman present.  In her heart she thought
+of herself as "Imperialis Regalis," as the Yellow Empress. 
+In a few moments she would stun her world into feeling it as
+Philip Ammon had done, for she had taken pains that the
+history of her costume should be whispered to a few who
+would give it circulation.  She lifted her head proudly and
+waited, for was not Philip planning something unusual and
+unsurpassed in her honour?  Then she smiled.
+
+But of all the fragmentary thoughts crossing her brain the
+one that never came was that of Philip Ammon as the Emperor. 
+Philip the king of her heart; at least her equal in all things. 
+She was the Empress--yes, Philip was but a mere man, to
+devise entertainments, to provide luxuries, to humour whims,
+to kiss hands!
+
+"Ah, my luck!" cried a voice behind her.
+
+Edith Carr turned and smiled.
+
+"I thought you were on the ocean," she said.
+
+"I only reached the dock," replied the man, "when I had
+a letter that recalled me by the first limited."
+
+"Oh!  Important business?"
+
+"The only business of any importance in all the world
+to me.  I'm triumphant that I came.  Edith, you are the
+most superb woman in every respect that I have ever seen. 
+One glimpse is worth the whole journey."
+
+"You like my dress?"  She moved toward him and turned,
+lifting her arms.  "Do you know what it is intended
+to represent?"
+
+"Yes, Polly Ammon told me.  I knew when I heard
+about it how you would look, so I started a sleuth hunt,
+to get the first peep.  Edith, I can become intoxicated
+merely with looking at you to-night."
+
+He half-closed his eyes and smilingly stared straight at her. 
+He was taller than she, a lean man, with close-cropped light
+hair, steel-gray eyes, a square chin and "man of the world"
+written all over him.
+
+Edith Carr flushed.  "I thought you realized when you
+went away that you were to stop that, Hart Henderson,"
+she cried.
+
+"I did, but this letter of which I tell you called me back
+to start it all over again."
+
+She came a step closer.  "Who wrote that letter, and
+what did it contain concerning me?" she demanded.
+
+"One of your most intimate chums wrote it.  It contained
+the hazard that possibly I had given up too soon.  It said
+that in a fit of petulance you had broken your engagement
+with Ammon twice this winter, and he had come back because
+he knew you did not really mean it.  I thought deeply there
+on the dock when I read that, and my boat sailed without me. 
+I argued that anything so weak as an engagement twice broken
+and patched up again was a mighty frail affair indeed, and
+likely to smash completely at any time, so I came on the run. 
+I said once I would not see you marry any other man. 
+Because I could not bear it, I planned to go into exile of
+any sort to escape that.  I have changed my mind.  I have
+come back to haunt you until the ceremony is over.  Then I go,
+not before.  I was insane!"
+
+The girl laughed merrily.  "Not half so insane as you
+are now, Hart!" she cried gaily.  "You know that Philip
+Ammon has been devoted to me all my life.  Now I'll tell
+you something else, because this looks serious for you. 
+I love him with all my heart.  Not while he lives shall he
+know it, and I will laugh at him if you tell him, but the
+fact remains:  I intend to marry him, but no doubt I shall
+tease him constantly.  It's good for a man to be uncertain. 
+If you could see Philip's face at the quarterly return of his
+ring, you would understand the fun of it.  You had better
+have taken your boat."
+
+"Possibly," said Henderson calmly.  "But you are the
+only woman in the world for me, and while you are free, as
+I now see my light, I remain near you.  You know the old adage."
+
+"But I'm not `free!'" cried Edith Carr.  "I'm telling
+you I am not.  This night is my public acknowledgment
+that Phil and I are promised, as our world has surmised
+since we were children.  That promise is an actual fact,
+because of what I just have told you.  My little fits of
+temper don't count with Phil.  He's been reared on them. 
+In fact, I often invent one in a perfect calm to see him
+perform.  He is the most amusing spectacle.  But, please,
+please, do understand that I love him, and always shall,
+and that we shall be married."
+
+"Just the same, I'll wait and see it an accomplished
+fact," said Henderson.  "And Edith, because I love you,
+with the sort of love it is worth a woman's while  to
+inspire, I want your happiness before my own.  So  I
+am going to say this to you, for I never dreamed you
+were capable of the feeling you have displayed for Phil. 
+If you do love him, and have loved him always, a
+disappointment would cut you deeper than you know. 
+Go careful from now on!  Don't strain that patched
+engagement of yours any further.  I've known Philip all
+my life.  I've known him through boyhood, in college,
+and since.  All men respect him.  Where the rest of us
+confess our sins, he stands clean.  You can go to his arms
+with nothing to forgive.  Mark this thing!  I have heard
+him say, `Edith is my slogan,' and I have seen him march
+home strong in the strength of his love for you, in the face
+of temptations before which every other man of us fell. 
+Before the gods! that ought to be worth something to a
+girl, if she really is the delicate, sensitive, refined
+thing she would have man believe.  It would take a woman
+with the organism of an ostrich to endure some of the
+men here to-night, if she knew them as I do; but Phil
+is sound to the core.  So this is what I would say
+to you: first, your instincts are right in loving him,
+why not let him feel it in the ways a woman knows? 
+Second, don't break your engagement again.  As men
+know the man, any of us would be afraid to the soul. 
+He loves you, yes!  He is long-suffering for you, yes! 
+But men know he has a limit.  When the limit is
+reached, he will stand fast, and all the powers can't
+move him.  You don't seem to think it, but you can go
+too far!"
+
+"Is that all?" laughed Edith Carr sarcastically.
+
+"No, there is one thing more," said Henderson.  "Here or
+here-after, now and so long as I breathe, I am your slave. 
+You can do anything you choose and know that I will
+kneel before you again.  So carry this in the depths of
+your heart; now or at any time, in any place or condition,
+merely lift your hand, and I will come.  Anything you
+want of me, that thing will I do.  I am going to wait; if
+you need me, it is not necessary to speak; only give me
+the faintest sign.  All your life I will be somewhere near
+you waiting for it."
+
+"Idjit!  You rave!" laughed Edith Carr.  "How you
+would frighten me!  What a bugbear you would raise! 
+Be sensible and go find what keeps Phil.  I was waiting
+patiently, but my patience is going.  I won't look nearly
+so well as I do now when it is gone."
+
+At that instant Philip Ammon entered.  He was in
+full evening dress and exceptionally handsome. 
+"Everything is ready," he said; "they are waiting for
+us to lead the march.  It is formed."
+
+Edith Carr smiled entrancingly.  "Do you think I am ready?"
+
+Philip looked what he thought, and offered his arm. 
+Edith Carr nodded carelessly to Hart Henderson, and
+moved away.  Attendants parted the curtains and the
+Yellow Empress bowing right and left, swept the length
+of the ballroom and took her place at the head of the
+formed procession.  The large open dancing pavilion was
+draped with yellow silk caught up with lilac flowers. 
+Every corner was filled with bloom of those colours. 
+The music was played by harpers dressed in yellow and
+violet, so the ball opened.
+
+The midnight supper was served with the same colours
+and the last half of the programme was being danced. 
+Never had girl been more complimented and petted in
+the same length of time than Edith Carr.  Every minute
+she seemed to grow more worthy of praise.  A partners'
+dance was called and the floor was filled with couples
+waiting for the music.  Philip stood whispering delightful
+things to Edith facing him.  From out of the night,
+in at the wide front entrance to the pavilion, there
+swept in slow wavering flight a large yellow moth and
+fluttered toward the centre cluster of glaring electric lights. 
+Philip Ammon and Edith Carr saw it at the same instant.
+
+"Why, isn't that----?" she began excitedly.
+
+"It's a Yellow Emperor!  This is fate!" cried Philip. 
+"The last one Elnora needs for her collection.  I must
+have it!  Excuse me!"
+
+He ran toward the light.  "Hats!  Handkerchiefs!  Fans! 
+Anything!" he panted.  "Every one hold up something and
+stop that!  It's a moth; I've got to catch it!"
+
+"It's yellow!  He wants it for Edith!" ran in a murmur
+around the hall.  The girl's face flushed, while she bit her
+lips in vexation.
+
+Instantly every one began holding up something to
+keep the moth from flying back into the night.  One fan
+held straight before it served, and the moth gently settled
+on it.
+
+"Hold steady!" cried Philip.  "Don't move for your life!" 
+He rushed toward the moth, made a quick sweep and held it
+up between his fingers.  "All right!" he called.  "Thanks,
+every one!  Excuse me a minute."
+
+He ran to the office.
+
+"An ounce of gasolene, quick!" he ordered.  "A cigar
+box, a cork, and the glue bottle."
+
+He poured some glue into the bottom of the box, set the
+cork in it firmly, dashed the gasolene over the moth
+repeatedly, pinned it to the cork, poured the remainder
+of the liquid over it, closed the box, and fastened it. 
+Then he laid a bill on the counter.
+
+"Pack that box with cork around it, in one twice its
+size, tie securely and express to this address at once."
+
+He scribbled on a sheet of paper and shoved it over.
+
+"On your honour, will you do that faithfully as I say?"
+he asked the clerk.
+
+"Certainly," was the reply.
+
+"Then keep the change," called Philip as he ran back
+to the pavilion.
+
+Edith Carr stood where he left her, thinking rapidly. 
+She heard the murmur that arose when Philip started
+to capture the exquisite golden creature she
+was impersonating.  She saw the flash of surprise that
+went over unrestrained faces when he ran from the room,
+without even showing it to her.  "The last one Elnora
+needs," rang in her ears.  He had told her that he
+helped collect moths the previous summer, but she had
+understood that the Bird Woman, with whose work Miss
+Carr was familiar, wanted them to put in a book.
+
+He had spoken of a country girl he had met who played
+the violin wonderfully, and at times, he had shown a
+disposition to exalt her as a standard of womanhood. 
+Miss Carr had ignored what he said, and talked of
+something else.  But that girl's name had been Elnora. 
+It was she who was collecting moths!  No doubt she was
+the competent judge who was responsible for the yellow
+costume Philip had devised.  Had Edith Carr been in
+her room, she would have torn off the dress at the thought.
+
+Being in a circle of her best friends, which to her meant
+her keenest rivals and harshest critics, she grew rigid
+with anger.  Her breath hurt her paining chest.  No one
+thought to speak to the musicians, and seeing the floor
+filled, they began the waltz.  Only part of the guests
+could see what had happened, and at once the others
+formed and commenced to dance.  Gay couples came
+whirling past her.
+
+Edith Carr grew very white as she stood alone.  Her lips
+turned pale, while her dark eyes flamed with anger. 
+She stood perfectly still where Philip had left her, and
+the approaching men guided their partners around her,
+while the girls, looking back, could be seen making
+exclamations of surprise.
+
+The idolized only daughter of the Carr family hoped that
+she would drop dead from mortification, but nothing happened. 
+She was too perverse to step aside and say that she was
+waiting for Philip.  Then came Tom Levering dancing with
+Polly Ammon.  Being in the scales with the Ammon family,
+Tom scented trouble from afar, so he whispered to Polly: 
+"Edith is standing in the middle of the floor, and she's
+awful mad about something."
+
+"That won't hurt her," laughed Polly.  "It's an old
+pose of hers.  She knows she looks superb when she is
+angry, so she keeps herself furious half the time on purpose."
+
+"She looks like the mischief!" answered Tom.  "Hadn't we
+better steer over and wait with her?  She's the ugliest
+sight I ever saw!"
+
+"Why, Tom!" cried Polly.  "Stop, quickly!"
+
+They hurried to Edith.
+
+"Come dear," said Polly.  "We are going to wait
+with you until Phil returns.  Let's go after a drink. 
+I am so thirsty!"
+
+"Yes, do!" begged Tom, offering his arm.  "Let's get
+out of here until Phil comes."
+
+There was the opportunity to laugh and walk away, but
+Edith Carr would not accept it.
+
+"My betrothed left me here," she said.  "Here I shall
+remain until he returns for me, and then--he will be my
+betrothed no longer!"
+
+Polly grasped Edith's arm.
+
+"Oh, Edith!" she implored.  "Don't make a scene here,
+and to-night.  Edith, this has been the loveliest
+dance ever given at the club house.  Every one is saying so. 
+Edith!  Darling, do come!  Phil will be back in a second. 
+He can explain!  It's only a breath since I saw him go out. 
+I thought he had returned."
+
+As Polly panted these disjointed ejaculations, Tom
+Levering began to grow angry on her account.
+
+"He has been gone just long enough to show every
+one of his guests that he will leave me standing alone,
+like a neglected fool, for any passing whim of his. 
+Explain!  His explanation would sound well!  Do you know
+for whom he caught that moth?  It is being sent to a girl
+he flirted with all last summer.  It has just occurred to me
+that the dress I am wearing is her suggestion.  Let him
+try to explain!"
+
+Speech unloosed the fountain.  She stripped off her
+gloves to free her hands.  At that instant the dancers
+parted to admit Philip.  Instinctively they stopped as
+they approached and with wondering faces walled in
+Edith and Philip, Polly and Tom.
+
+"Mighty good of you to wait!" cried Philip, his face
+showing his delight over his success in capturing the
+Yellow Emperor.  "I thought when I heard the music
+you were going on."
+
+"How did you think I was going on?" demanded Edith
+Carr in frigid tones.
+
+"I thought you would step aside and wait a few seconds
+for me, or dance with Henderson.  It was most important
+to have that moth.  It completes a valuable collection for
+a person who needs the money.  Come!"
+
+He held out his arms.
+
+"I `step aside' for no one!" stormed Edith Carr. 
+"I await no other girl's pleasure!  You may `complete
+the collection' with that!"
+
+She drew her engagement ring from her finger and
+reached to place it on one of Philip's outstretched hands. 
+He saw and drew back.  Instantly Edith dropped the ring. 
+As it fell, almost instinctively Philip caught it in air. 
+With amazed face he looked closely at Edith Carr. 
+Her distorted features were scarcely recognizable. 
+He held the ring toward her.
+
+"Edith, for the love of mercy, wait until I can explain,"
+he begged.  "Put on your ring and let me tell you how it is."
+
+"I know perfectly `how it is,'" she answered.  "I never
+shall wear that ring again."
+
+"You won't even hear what I have to say?  You won't
+take back your ring?" he cried.
+
+"Never!  Your conduct is infamous!"
+
+"Come to think of it," said Philip deliberately, "it is
+`infamous' to cut a girl, who has danced all her life, out of
+a few measures of a waltz.  As for asking forgiveness for so
+black a sin as picking up a moth, and starting it to a friend
+who lives by collecting them, I don't see how I could! 
+I have not been gone three minutes by the clock, Edith. 
+Put on your ring and finish the dance like a dear girl."
+
+He thrust the glittering ruby into her fingers and again
+held out his arms.  She dropped the ring, and it rolled some
+distance from them.  Hart Henderson followed its shining
+course, and caught it before it was lost.
+
+"You really mean it?" demanded Philip in a voice as
+cold as hers ever had been.
+
+"You know I mean it!" cried Edith Carr.
+
+"I accept your decision in the presence of these
+witnesses," said Philip Ammon.  "Where is my father?" 
+The elder Ammon with a distressed face hurried to him. 
+"Father, take my place," said Philip.  "Excuse me to
+my guests.  Ask all my friends to forgive me.  I am
+going away for awhile."
+
+He turned and walked from the pavilion.  As he went
+Hart Henderson rushed to Edith Carr and forced the ring
+into her fingers.  "Edith, quick.  Come, quick!" he implored. 
+"There's just time to catch him.  If you let him go that way,
+he never will return in this world.  Remember what I told you."
+
+"Great prophet! aren't you, Hart?" she sneered. 
+"Who wants him to return?  If that ring is thrust upon
+me again I shall fling it into the lake.  Signal the
+musicians to begin, and dance with me."
+
+Henderson put the ring into his pocket, and began the dance. 
+He could feel the muscular spasms of the girl in his arms,
+her face was cold and hard, but her breath burned with
+the scorch of fever.  She finished the dance and all
+others, taking Phil's numbers with Henderson, who had
+arrived too late to arrange a programme.  She left with
+the others, merely inclining her head as she passed
+Ammon's father taking his place, and entered the big touring
+car for which Henderson had telephoned.  She sank limply
+into a seat and moaned softly.
+
+"Shall I drive awhile in the night air?" asked Henderson.
+
+She nodded.  He instructed the chauffeur.
+
+She raised her head in a few seconds.  "Hart, I'm going
+to pieces," she said.  "Won't you put your arm around me
+a little while?"
+
+Henderson gathered her into his arms and her head fell
+on his shoulder.  "Closer!" she cried.
+
+Henderson held her until his arms were numb, but he
+did not know it.  The tricks of fate are cruel enough, but
+there scarcely could have been a worse one than that: 
+To care for a woman as he loved Edith Carr and have her
+given into his arms because she was so numb with misery
+over her trouble with another man that she did not know or
+care what she did.  Dawn was streaking the east when he
+spoke to her.
+
+"Edith, it is growing light."
+
+"Take me home," she said.
+
+Henderson helped her up the steps and rang the bell.
+
+"Miss Carr is ill," he said to the footman.  "Arouse her
+maid instantly, and have her prepare something hot as
+quickly as possible."
+
+"Edith," he cried, "just a word.  I have been thinking. 
+It isn't too late yet.  Take your ring and put it on.
+I will go find Phil at once and tell him you have, that
+you are expecting him, and he will come."
+
+"Think what he said!" she cried.  "He accepted my decision
+as final, `in the presence of witnesses,' as if it were court.  
+He can return it to me, if I ever wear it again."
+
+"You think that now, but in a few days you will find
+that you feel very differently.  Living a life of heartache
+is no joke, and no job for a woman.  Put on your ring and
+send me to tell him to come."
+
+"No."
+
+"Edith, there was not a soul who saw that, but sympathized
+with Phil.  It was ridiculous for you to get so angry over
+a thing which was never intended for the slightest offence,
+and by no logical reasoning could have been so considered."
+
+"Do you think that?" she demanded.
+
+"I do!" said Henderson.  "If you had laughed and stepped
+aside an instant, or laughed and stayed where you were,
+Phil would have been back; or, if he needed punishment
+in your eyes, to have found me having one of his dances
+would have been enough.  I was waiting.  You could have
+called me with one look.  But to publicly do and say
+what you did, my lady--I know Phil, and I know you
+went too far.  Put on that ring, and send him word
+you are sorry, before it is too late."
+
+"I will not!  He shall come to me."
+
+"Then God help you!" said Henderson, "for you are
+plunging into misery whose depth you do not dream. 
+Edith, I beg of you----"
+
+She swayed where she stood.  Her maid opened the door
+and caught her.  Henderson went down the hall and out
+to his car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+WHEREIN THE ELDER AMMON OFFERS ADVICE,
+AND EDITH CARR EXPERIENCES REGRETS
+
+
+Philip Ammon walked from among his friends a
+humiliated and a wounded man.  Never before had
+Edith Carr appeared quite so beautiful.  All evening
+she had treated him with unusual consideration. 
+Never had he loved her so deeply.  Then in a few seconds
+everything was different.  Seeing the change in her face,
+and hearing her meaningless accusations, killed something
+in his heart.  Warmth went out and a cold weight took
+its place.  But even after that, he had offered the ring
+to her again, and asked her before others to reconsider. 
+The answer had been further insult.
+
+He walked, paying no heed to where he went.  He had
+traversed many miles when he became aware that his feet
+had chosen familiar streets.  He was passing his home. 
+Dawn was near, but the first floor was lighted. 
+He staggered up the steps and was instantly admitted. 
+The library door stood open, while his father sat with
+a book pretending to read.  At Philip's entrance the
+father scarcely glanced up.
+
+"Come on!" he called.  "I have just told Banks to bring
+me a cup of coffee before I turn in.  Have one with me!"
+
+Philip sat beside the table and leaned his head on his
+hands, but he drank a cup of steaming coffee and felt better.
+
+"Father," he said, "father, may I talk with you a little while?"
+
+"Of course," answered Mr. Ammon.  "I am not at
+all tired.  I think I must have been waiting in the
+hope that you would come.  I want no one's version
+of this but yours.  Tell me the straight of the
+thing, Phil."
+
+Philip told all he knew, while his father sat in deep thought.
+
+"On my life I can't see any occasion for such a display of
+temper, Phil.  It passed all bounds of reason and breeding. 
+Can't you think of anything more?"
+
+"I cannot!"
+
+"Polly says every one expected you to carry the moth
+you caught to Edith.  Why didn't you?"
+
+"She screams if a thing of that kind comes near her. 
+She never has taken the slightest interest in them.  I was
+in a big hurry.  I didn't want to miss one minute of my
+dance with her.  The moth was not so uncommon, but by
+a combination of bad luck it had become the rarest in
+America for a friend of mine, who is making a collection to
+pay college expenses.  For an instant last June the series
+was completed; when a woman's uncontrolled temper ruined
+this specimen and the search for it began over.  A few
+days later a pair was secured, and again the money was
+in sight for several hours.  Then an accident wrecked
+one-fourth of the collection.  I helped replace those
+last June, all but this Yellow Emperor which we could
+not secure, and we haven't been able to find, buy or
+trade for one since.  So my friend was compelled to teach
+this past winter instead of going to college.  When that
+moth came flying in there to-night, it seemed to me like fate. 
+All I thought of was, that to secure it would complete the
+collection and secure the money.  So I caught the Emperor and
+started it to Elnora.  I declare to you that I was not out of
+the pavilion over three minutes at a liberal estimate.  If I
+only had thought to speak to the orchestra!  I was sure I
+would be back before enough couples gathered and formed
+for the dance."
+
+The eyes of the father were very bright.
+
+"The friend for whom you wanted the moth is a girl?"
+he asked indifferently, as he ran the book leaves through
+his fingers.
+
+"The girl of whom I wrote you last summer, and told
+you about in the fall.  I helped her all the time I was away."
+
+"Did Edith know of her?"
+
+"I tried many times to tell her, to interest her, but she
+was so indifferent that it was insulting.  She would not
+hear me."
+
+"We are neither one in any condition to sleep.  Why don't
+you begin at the first and tell me about this girl? 
+To think of other matters for a time may clear our vision
+for a sane solution of this.  Who is she, just what is she
+doing, and what is she like?  You know I was reared among
+those Limberlost people, I can understand readily. 
+What is her name and where does she live?"
+
+Philip gave a man's version of the previous summer,
+while his father played with the book industriously.
+
+"You are very sure as to her refinement and education?"
+
+"In almost two months' daily association, could a man
+be mistaken?  She can far and away surpass Polly, Edith,
+or any girl of our set on any common, high school, or
+supplementary branch, and you know high schools have
+French, German, and physics now.  Besides, she is a
+graduate of two other institutions.  All her life she has
+been in the school of Hard Knocks.  She has the biggest,
+tenderest, most human heart I ever knew in a girl.  She has
+known life in its most cruel phases, and instead of
+hardening her, it has set her trying to save other
+people suffering.  Then this nature position of which
+I told you; she graduated in the School of the Woods,
+before she secured that.  The Bird Woman, whose work you
+know, helped her there.  Elnora knows more interesting
+things in a minute than any other girl I ever met knew in
+an hour, provided you are a person who cares to understand
+plant and animal life."
+
+The book leaves slid rapidly through his fingers as
+the father drawled:  "What sort of looking girl is she?"
+
+"Tall as Edith, a little heavier, pink, even complexion,
+wide open blue-gray eyes with heavy black brows, and
+lashes so long they touch her cheeks.  She has a rope
+of waving, shining hair that makes a real crown on her
+head, and it appears almost red in the light.  She is as
+handsome as any fair woman I ever saw, but she doesn't
+know it.  Every time any one pays her a compliment,
+her mother, who is a caution, discovers that, for some
+reason, the girl is a fright, so she has no appreciation of
+her looks."
+
+"And you were in daily association two months with
+a girl like that!  How about it, Phil?"
+
+"If you mean, did I trifle with her, no!" cried Philip hotly. 
+"I told her the second time I met her all about Edith. 
+Almost every day I wrote to Edith in her presence. 
+Elnora gathered violets and made a fancy basket to put
+them in for Edith's birthday.  I started to err in
+too open admiration for Elnora, but her mother brought
+me up with a whirl I never forgot.  Fifty times a day
+in the swamps and forests Elnora made a perfect picture,
+but I neither looked nor said anything.  I never met
+any girl so downright noble in bearing and actions. 
+I never hated anything as I hated leaving her, for we were
+dear friends, like two wholly congenial men.  Her mother
+was almost always with us.  She knew how much I admired
+Elnora, but so long as I concealed it from the girl,
+the mother did not care."
+
+"Yet you left such a girl and came back whole-hearted
+to Edith Carr!"
+
+"Surely!  You know how it has been with me about
+Edith all my life."
+
+"Yet the girl you picture is far her superior to an
+unprejudiced person, when thinking what a man would
+require in a wife to be happy."
+
+"I never have thought what I would `require' to be happy! 
+I only thought whether I could make Edith happy.  I have
+been an idiot!  What I've borne you'll never know! 
+To-night is only one of many outbursts like that,
+in varying and lesser degrees."
+
+"Phil, I love you, when you say you have thought
+only of Edith!  I happen to know that it is true. 
+You are my only son, and I have had a right to watch
+you closely.  I believe you utterly.  Any one who cares
+for you as I do, and has had my years of experience in
+this world over yours, knows that in some ways, to-night
+would be a blessed release, if you could take it; but
+you cannot!  Go to bed now, and rest.  To-morrow, go back
+to her and fix it up."
+
+"You heard what I said when I left her!  I said it because
+something in my heart died a minute before that, and
+I realized that it was my love for Edith Carr.  Never again
+will I voluntarily face such a scene.  If she can act
+like that at a ball, before hundreds, over a thing of which
+I thought nothing at all, she would go into actual physical
+fits and spasms, over some of the household crises I've
+seen the mater meet with a smile.  Sir, it is truth that
+I have thought only of her up to the present.  Now, I
+will admit I am thinking about myself.  Father, did you
+see her?  Life is too short, and it can be too sweet, to
+throw it away in a battle with an unrestrained woman. 
+I am no fighter--where a girl is concerned, anyway. 
+I respect and love her or I do nothing.  Never again is
+either respect or love possible between me and Edith Carr. 
+Whenever I think of her in the future, I will see her as
+she was to-night.  But I can't face the crowd just yet. 
+Could you spare me a few days?"
+
+"It is only ten days until you were to go north for the
+summer, go now."
+
+"I don't want to go north.  I don't want to meet people
+I know.  There, the story would precede me.  I do not
+need pitying glances or rough condolences.  I wonder if
+I could not hide at Uncle Ed's in Wisconsin for awhile?"
+
+The book closed suddenly.  The father leaned across
+the table and looked into the son's eyes.
+
+"Phil, are you sure of what you just have said?"
+
+"Perfectly sure!"
+
+"Do you think you are in any condition to decide to-night?"
+
+"Death cannot return to life, father.  My love for
+Edith Carr is dead.  I hope never to see her again."
+
+"If I thought you could be certain so soon!  But, come
+to think of it, you are very like me in many ways.  I am
+with you in this.  Public scenes and disgraces I would
+not endure.  It would be over with me, were I in your
+position, that I know."
+
+"It is done for all time," said Philip Ammon.  "Let us
+not speak of it further."
+
+"Then, Phil," the father leaned closer and looked at the
+son tenderly, "Phil, why don't you go to the Limberlost?"
+
+"Father!"
+
+"Why not?  No one can comfort a hurt heart like a
+tender woman; and, Phil, have you ever stopped to think
+that you may have a duty in the Limberlost, if you
+are free?  I don't know!  I only suggest it.  But, for a
+country schoolgirl, unaccustomed to men, two months
+with a man like you might well awaken feelings of which
+you do not think.  Because you were safe-guarded is no
+sign the girl was.  She might care to see you.  You can
+soon tell.  With you, she comes next to Edith, and you
+have made it clear to me that you appreciate her in many
+ways above.  So I repeat it, why not go to the Limberlost?"
+
+A long time Philip Ammon sat in deep thought.  At last
+he raised his head.
+
+"Well, why not!" he said.  "Years could make me
+no surer than I am now, and life is short.  Please ask
+Banks to get me some coffee and toast, and I will bathe
+and dress so I can take the early train."
+
+"Go to your bath.  I will attend to your packing
+and everything.  And Phil, if I were you, I would
+leave no addresses."
+
+"Not an address!" said Philip.  "Not even Polly."
+
+When the train pulled out, the elder Ammon went home
+to find Hart Henderson waiting.
+
+"Where is Phil?" he demanded.
+
+"He did not feel like facing his friends at present, and
+I am just back from driving him to the station.  He said
+he might go to Siam, or Patagonia.  He would leave no address."
+
+Henderson almost staggered.  "He's not gone?  And left
+no address?  You don't mean it!  He'll never forgive her!"
+
+"Never is a long time, Hart," said Mr. Ammon.  "And it
+seems even longer to those of us who are well acquainted
+with Phil.  Last night was not the last straw.  It was
+the whole straw-stack.  It crushed Phil so far as she
+is concerned.  He will not see her again voluntarily, and
+he will not forget if he does.  You can take it from him,
+and from me, we have accepted the lady's decision.  Will you
+have a cup of coffee?"
+
+Twice Henderson opened his lips to speak of Edith
+Carr's despair.  Twice he looked into the stern, inflexible
+face of Mr. Ammon and could not betray her.  He held
+out the ring.
+
+"I have no instructions as to that," said the elder
+Ammon, drawing back.  "Possibly Miss Carr would have
+it as a keepsake."
+
+"I am sure not," said Henderson curtly.
+
+"Then suppose you return it to Peacock.  I will phone him. 
+He will give you the price of it, and you might add
+it to the children's Fresh Air Fund.  We would be obliged
+if you would do that.  No one here cares to handle the object."
+
+"As you choose," said Henderson.  "Good morning!"
+
+Then he went to his home, but he could not think of sleep. 
+He ordered breakfast, but he could not eat.  He paced the
+library for a time, but it was too small.  Going on the
+streets he walked until exhausted, then he called
+a hansom and was driven to his club.  He had thought
+himself familiar with every depth of suffering; that night
+had taught him that what he felt for himself was not to be
+compared with the anguish which wrung his heart over
+the agony of Edith Carr.  He tried to blame Philip Ammon,
+but being an honest man, Henderson knew that was unjust. 
+The fault lay wholly with her, but that only made it
+harder for him, as he realized it would in time for her.
+
+As he sauntered into the room an attendant hurried to him.
+
+"You are wanted most urgently at the 'phone, Mr.
+Henderson," he said.  "You have had three calls from
+Main 5770."
+
+Henderson shivered as he picked down the receiver and
+gave the call.
+
+"Is that you, Hart?" came Edith's voice.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you find Phil?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Did you try?"
+
+"Yes.  As soon as I left you I went straight there."
+
+"Wasn't he home yet?"
+
+"He has been home and gone again."
+
+"Gone!"
+
+The cry tore Henderson's heart.
+
+"Shall I come and tell you, Edith?"
+
+"No! Tell me now."
+
+"When I reached the house Banks said Mr. Ammon
+and Phil were out in the motor, so I waited.  Mr. Ammon
+came back soon.  Edith, are you alone?"
+
+"Yes.  Go on!"
+
+"Call your maid.  I can't tell you until some one is
+with you."
+
+"Tell me instantly!"
+
+"Edith, he said he had been to the station.  He said
+Phil had started to Siam or Patagonia, he didn't know
+which, and left no address.  He said----"
+
+Distinctly Henderson heard her fall.  He set the buzzer
+ringing, and in a few seconds heard voices, so he knew she
+had been found.  Then he crept into a private den and
+shook with a hard, nervous chill.
+
+The next day Edith Carr started on her trip to Europe. 
+Henderson felt certain she hoped to meet Philip there. 
+He was sure she would be disappointed, though he had no
+idea where Ammon could have gone.  But after much
+thought he decided he would see Edith soonest by
+remaining at home, so he spent the summer in Chicago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER  XXI
+
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON RETURNS TO THE LIMBERLOST,
+AND ELNORA STUDIES THE SITUATION
+
+
+We must be thinking about supper, mother," said Elnora,
+while she set the wings of a Cecropia with much care. 
+"It seems as if I can't get enough to eat, or enough
+of being at home.  I enjoyed that city house.  I don't
+believe I could have done my work if I had been
+compelled to walk back and forth.  I thought at first
+I never wanted to come here again.  Now, I feel as if
+I could not live anywhere else."
+
+"Elnora," said Mrs. Comstock, "there's some one
+coming down the road."
+
+"Coming here, do you think?"
+
+"Yes, coming here, I suspect."
+
+Elnora glanced quickly at her mother and then turned
+to the road as Philip Ammon reached the gate.
+
+"Careful, mother!" the girl instantly warned.  "If you
+change your treatment of him a hair's breadth, he
+will suspect.  Come with me to meet him."
+
+She dropped her work and sprang up.
+
+"Well, of all the delightful surprises!" she cried.
+
+She was a trifle thinner than during the previous summer. 
+On her face there was a more mature, patient look, but
+the sun struck her bare head with the same ray of red gold. 
+She wore one of the old blue gingham dresses, open
+at the throat and rolled to the elbows.  Mrs. Comstock
+did not appear at all the same woman, but Philip saw only
+Elnora; heard only her greeting.  He caught both hands
+where she offered but one.
+
+"Elnora," he cried, "if you were engaged to me, and we
+were at a ball, among hundreds, where I offended you very
+much, and didn't even know I had done anything, and if I
+asked you before all of them to allow me to explain,
+to forgive me, to wait, would your face grow distorted
+and unfamiliar with anger?  Would you drop my ring on the
+floor and insult me repeatedly?  Oh Elnora, would you?"
+
+Elnora's big eyes seemed to leap, while her face grew
+very white.  She drew away her hands.
+
+"Hush, Phil!  Hush!" she protested.  "That fever has
+you again!  You are dreadfully ill.  You don't know
+what you are saying."
+
+"I am sleepless and exhausted; I'm heartsick; but I am
+well as I ever was.  Answer me, Elnora, would you?"
+
+"Answer nothing!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "Answer nothing! 
+Hang your coat there on your nail, Phil, and come split
+some kindling.  Elnora, clean away that stuff, and set
+the table.  Can't you see the boy is starved and tired? 
+He's come home to rest and eat a decent meal.  Come on, Phil!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock marched away, and Philip hung his coat
+in its old place and followed.  Out of sight and hearing
+she turned on him.
+
+"Do you call yourself a man or a hound?" she flared. 
+
+"I beg your pardon----" stammered Philip Ammon.
+
+"I should think you would!" she ejaculated.  "I'll admit
+you did the square thing and was a man last summer,
+though I'd liked it better if you'd faced up and told
+me you were promised; but to come back here babying,
+and take hold of Elnora like that, and talk that way
+because you have had a fuss with your girl, I don't tolerate. 
+Split that kindling and I'll get your supper, and then you
+better go.  I won't have you working on Elnora's big
+heart, because you have quarrelled with some one else. 
+You'll have it patched up in a week and be gone again, so
+you can go right away."
+
+"Mrs. Comstock, I came to ask Elnora to marry me."
+
+"The more fool you, then!" cried Mrs. Comstock. 
+"This time yesterday you were engaged to another woman,
+no doubt.  Now, for some little flare-up you come racing
+here to use Elnora as a tool to spite the other girl. 
+A week of sane living, and you will be sorry and ready to
+go back to Chicago, or, if you really are man enough to be
+sure of yourself, she will come to claim you.  She has
+her rights.  An engagement of years is a serious matter, and
+not broken for a whim.  If you don't go, she'll come. 
+Then, when you patch up your affairs and go sailing away
+together, where does my girl come in?"
+
+"I am a lawyer, Mrs. Comstock," said Philip.  "It appeals
+to me as beneath your ordinary sense of justice to decide
+a case without hearing the evidence.  It is due me that
+you hear me first."
+
+"Hear your side!" flashed Mrs. Comstock.  "I'd a
+heap sight rather hear the girl!"
+
+"I wish to my soul that you had heard and seen her last
+night, Mrs. Comstock," said Ammon.  "Then, my way
+would be clear.  I never even thought of coming
+here to-day.  I'll admit I would have come in time,
+but not for many months.  My father sent me."
+
+"Your father sent you!  Why?"
+
+"Father, mother, and Polly were present last night. 
+They, and all my friends, saw me insulted and disgraced
+in the worst exhibition of uncontrolled temper any of us
+ever witnessed.  All of them knew it was the end. 
+Father liked what I had told him of Elnora, and he
+advised me to come here, so I came.  If she does not
+want me, I can leave instantly, but, oh I hoped she
+would understand!"
+
+"You people are not splitting wood," called Elnora.
+
+"Oh yes we are!" answered Mrs. Comstock.  "You set
+out the things for biscuit, and lay the table."  She turned
+again to Philip.  "I know considerable about your father,"
+she said.  "I have met your Uncle's family frequently
+this winter.  I've heard your Aunt Anna say that she
+didn't at all like Miss Carr, and that she and all your
+family secretly hoped that something would happen to
+prevent your marrying her.  That chimes right in with
+your saying that your father sent you here.  I guess you
+better speak your piece."
+
+Philip gave his version of the previous night.
+
+"Do you believe me?" he finished.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"May I stay?"
+
+"Oh, it looks all right for you, but what about her?"
+
+"Nothing, so far as I am concerned.  Her plans were all
+made to start to Europe to-day.  I suspect she is on the
+way by this time.  Elnora is very sensible, Mrs. Comstock. 
+Hadn't you better let her decide this?"
+
+"The final decision rests with her, of course," admitted
+Mrs. Comstock.  "But look you one thing!  She's all I have. 
+As Solomon says, `she is the one child, the only child
+of her mother.'  I've suffered enough in this world
+that I fight against any suffering which threatens her. 
+So far as I know you've always been a man, and you
+may stay.  But if you bring tears and heartache to her,
+don't have the assurance to think I'll bear it tamely. 
+I'll get right up and fight like a catamount, if things
+go wrong for Elnora!"
+
+"I have no doubt but you will," replied Philip, "and I
+don't blame you in the least if you do.  I have the utmost
+devotion to offer Elnora, a good home, fair social position,
+and my family will love her dearly.  Think it over.  I know
+it is sudden, but my father advised it."
+
+"Yes, I reckon he did!" said Mrs. Comstock dryly.  "I guess
+instead of me being the catamount, you had the genuine
+article up in Chicago, masquerading in peacock feathers,
+and posing as a fine lady, until her time came to scratch. 
+Human nature seems to be the same the world over.  But I'd
+give a pretty to know that secret thing you say you don't,
+that set her raving over your just catching a moth for Elnora. 
+You might get that crock of strawberries in the spring house."
+
+They prepared and ate supper.  Afterward they sat in
+the arbour and talked, or Elnora played until time for
+Philip to go.
+
+"Will you walk to the gate with me?" he asked Elnora
+as he arose.
+
+"Not to-night," she answered lightly.  "Come early in
+the morning if you like, and we will go over to Sleepy
+Snake Creek and hunt moths and gather dandelions for dinner."
+
+Philip leaned toward her.  "May I tell you to-morrow
+why I came?" he asked.
+
+"I think not," replied Elnora.  "The fact is, I don't
+care why you came.  It is enough for me that we are your
+very good friends, and that in trouble, you have found us
+a refuge.  I fancy we had better live a week or two before
+you say anything.  There is a possibility that what you
+have to say may change in that length of time.
+
+"It will not change one iota!" cried Philip.
+
+"Then it will have the grace of that much age to give it
+some small touch of flavour," said the girl.  "Come early
+in the morning."
+
+She lifted the violin and began to play.
+
+"Well bless my soul!" ejaculated the astounded Mrs. Comstock. 
+"To think I was worrying for fear you couldn't take care
+of yourself!"
+
+Elnora laughed while she played.
+
+"Shall I tell you what he said?"
+
+"Nope!  I don't want to hear it!" said Elnora.  "He is
+only six hours from Chicago.  I'll give her a week to
+find him and fix it up, if he stays that long.  If she doesn't
+put in an appearance then, he can tell me what he wants
+to say, and I'll take my time to think it over.  Time in
+plenty, too!  There are three of us in this, and one must
+be left with a sore heart for life.  If the decision rests
+with me I propose to be very sure that it is the one who
+deserves such hard luck."
+
+The next morning Philip came early, dressed in the outing
+clothing he had worn the previous summer, and aside
+from a slight paleness seemed very much the same as when
+he left.  Elnora met him on the old footing, and for a
+week life went on exactly as it had the previous summer. 
+Mrs. Comstock made mental notes and watched in silence. 
+She could see that Elnora was on a strain, though she
+hoped Philip would not.  The girl grew restless as the
+week drew to a close.  Once when the gate clicked she
+suddenly lost colour and moved nervously.  Billy came down
+the walk.
+
+Philip leaned toward Mrs. Comstock and said:  "I am
+expressly forbidden to speak to Elnora as I would like. 
+Would you mind telling her for me that I had a letter from
+my father this morning saying that Miss Carr is on her way
+to Europe for the summer?"
+
+"Elnora," said Mrs. Comstock promptly, "I have just
+heard that Carr woman is on her way to Europe, and I
+wish to my gracious stars she'd stay there!"
+
+Philip Ammon shouted, but Elnora arose hastily and
+went to meet Billy.  They came into the arbour together
+and after speaking to Mrs. Comstock and Philip, Billy
+said:  "Uncle Wesley and I found something funny, and
+we thought you'd like to see."
+
+"I don't know what I should do without you and Uncle
+Wesley to help me," said Elnora.  "What have you found now?"
+
+"Something I couldn't bring.  You have to come to it. 
+I tried to get one and I killed it.  They are a kind of
+insecty things, and they got a long tail that is three
+fine hairs.  They stick those hairs right into the hard
+bark of trees, and if you pull, the hairs stay fast and
+it kills the bug."
+
+"We will come at once," laughed Elnora.  "I know
+what they are, and I can use some in my work."
+
+"Billy, have you been crying?" inquired Mrs. Comstock.
+
+Billy lifted a chastened face.  "Yes, ma'am," he replied. 
+"This has been the worst day."
+
+"What's the matter with the day?"
+
+"The day is all right," admitted Billy.  "I mean every
+single thing has gone wrong with me."
+
+"Now that is too bad!" sympathized Mrs. Comstock.
+
+"Began early this morning," said Billy.  "All Snap's
+fault, too."
+
+"What has poor Snap been doing?" demanded Mrs.
+Comstock, her eyes beginning to twinkle.
+
+"Digging for woodchucks, like he always does.  He gets
+up at two o'clock to dig for them.  He was coming
+in from the woods all tired and covered thick with dirt. 
+I was going to the barn with the pail of water for Uncle
+Wesley to use in milking.  I had to set down the pail to
+shut the gate so the chickens wouldn't get into the flower
+beds, and old Snap stuck his dirty nose into the water
+and began to lap it down.  I knew Uncle Wesley wouldn't
+use that, so I had to go 'way back to the cistern for more,
+and it pumps awful hard.  Made me mad, so I threw the
+water on Snap."
+
+"Well, what of it?"
+
+"Nothing, if he'd stood still.  But it scared him awful,
+and when he's afraid he goes a-humping for Aunt Margaret. 
+When he got right up against her he stiffened
+out and gave a big shake.  You oughter seen the nice
+blue dress she had put on to go to Onabasha!"
+
+Mrs. Comstock and Philip laughed, but Elnora put
+her arms around the boy.  "Oh Billy!" she cried. 
+"That was too bad!"
+
+"She got up early and ironed that dress to wear because
+it was cool.  Then, when it was all dirty, she
+wouldn't go, and she wanted to real bad." Billy wiped
+his eyes.  "That ain't all, either," he added.
+
+"We'd like to know about it, Billy," suggested Mrs.
+Comstock, struggling with her face.
+
+"Cos she couldn't go to the city, she's most worked
+herself to death.  She's done all the dirty, hard jobs she
+could find.  She's fixing her grape juice now."
+
+"Sure!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "When a woman is
+disappointed she always works like a dog to gain sympathy!"
+
+"Well, Uncle Wesley and I are sympathizing all we
+know how, without her working so.  I've squeezed until
+I almost busted to get the juice out from the seeds
+and skins.  That's the hard part.  Now, she has to strain
+it through white flannel and seal it in bottles, and it's
+good for sick folks.  Most wish I'd get sick myself, so
+I could have a glass.  It's so good!"
+
+Elnora glanced swiftly at her mother. 
+
+"I worked so hard," continued Billy, "that she said if
+I would throw the leavings in the woods, then I could come
+after you to see about the bugs.  Do you want to go?"
+
+"We will all go," said Mrs. Comstock.  "I am mightily
+interested in those bugs myself."
+
+From afar commotion could be seen at the Sinton home.
+Wesley and Margaret were running around wildly and
+peculiar sounds filled the air.
+
+"What's the trouble?" asked Philip, hurrying to Wesley.
+
+"Cholera!" groaned Sinton.  "My hogs are dying like flies."
+
+Margaret was softly crying.  "Wesley, can't I fix
+something hot?  Can't we do anything?  It means several
+hundred dollars and our winter meat."
+
+"I never saw stock taken so suddenly and so hard,"
+said Wesley.  "I have 'phoned for the veterinary to come
+as soon as he can get here."
+
+All of them hurried to the feeding pen into which the
+pigs seemed to be gathering from the woods.  Among the
+common stock were big white beasts of pedigree which
+were Wesley's pride at county fairs.  Several of these
+rolled on their backs, pawing the air feebly and emitting
+little squeaks.  A huge Berkshire sat on his haunches,
+slowly shaking his head, the water dropping from his
+eyes, until he, too, rolled over with faint grunts.  A pair
+crossing the yard on wavering legs collided, and attacked
+each other in anger, only to fall, so weak they scarcely
+could squeal.  A fine snowy Plymouth Rock rooster, after
+several attempts, flew to the fence, balanced with great
+effort, wildly flapped his wings and started a guttural crow,
+but fell sprawling among the pigs, too helpless to stand.
+
+"Did you ever see such a dreadful sight?" sobbed Margaret.
+
+Billy climbed on the fence, took one long look and
+turned an astounded face to Wesley.
+
+"Why them pigs is drunk!" he cried.  "They act just
+like my pa!"
+
+Wesley turned to Margaret.
+
+"Where did you put the leavings from that grape juice?"
+he demanded.
+
+"I sent Billy to throw it in the woods."
+
+"Billy----" began Wesley.
+
+"Threw it just where she told me to," cried Billy. 
+But some of the pigs came by there coming into the
+pen, and some were close in the fence corners."
+
+"Did they eat it?" demanded Wesley.
+
+"They just chanked into it," replied Billy graphically. 
+"They pushed, and squealed, and fought over it. 
+You couldn't blame 'em!  It was the best stuff I ever tasted!"
+
+"Margaret," said Wesley, "run 'phone that doctor he
+won't be needed.  Billy, take Elnora and Mr. Ammon to
+see the bugs.  Katharine, suppose you help me a minute."
+
+Wesley took the clothes basket from the back porch and
+started in the direction of the cellar.  Margaret returned
+from the telephone.
+
+"I just caught him," she said.  "There's that much saved. 
+Why Wesley, what are you going to do?"
+
+"You go sit on the front porch a little while," said Wesley. 
+"You will feel better if you don't see this."
+
+"Wesley," cried Margaret aghast.  "Some of that wine
+is ten years old.  There are days and days of hard work
+in it, and I couldn't say how much sugar.  Dr. Ammon
+keeps people alive with it when nothing else will stay on
+their stomachs."
+
+"Let 'em die, then!" said Wesley.  "You heard the boy,
+didn't you?"
+
+"It's a cold process.  There's not a particle of fermentation
+about it."
+
+"Not a particle of fermentation!  Great day, Margaret!  Look at
+those pigs!"
+
+Margaret took a long look.  "Leave me a few bottles
+for mince-meat," she wavered.
+
+"Not a smell for any use on this earth!  You heard
+the boy!  He shan't say, when he grows to manhood, that
+he learned to like it here!"
+
+Wesley threw away the wine, Mrs. Comstock cheerfully assisting. 
+Then they walked to the woods to see and learn about the
+wonderful insects.  The day ended with a big supper at
+Sintons', and then they went to the Comstock cabin for
+a concert.  Elnora played beautifully that night.  When the
+Sintons left she kissed Billy with particular tenderness. 
+She was so moved that she was kinder to Philip than she had
+intended to be, and Elnora as an antidote to a disappointed
+lover was a decided success in any mood.
+
+However strong the attractions of Edith Carr had
+been, once the bond was finally broken, Philip Ammon
+could not help realizing that Elnora was the superior
+woman, and that he was fortunate to have escaped, when
+he regarded his ties strongest.  Every day, while working
+with Elnora, he saw more to admire.  He grew very
+thankful that he was free to try to win her, and impatient
+to justify himself to her.
+
+Elnora did not evince the slightest haste to hear what
+he had to say, but waited the week she had set, in spite
+of Philip's hourly manifest impatience.  When she did
+consent to listen, Philip felt before he had talked five
+minutes, that she was putting herself in Edith Carr's
+place, and judging him from what the other girl's
+standpoint would be.  That was so disconcerting, he did
+not plead his cause nearly so well as he had hoped, for
+when he ceased Elnora sat in silence.
+
+"You are my judge," he said at last.  "What is your verdict?"
+
+"If I could hear her speak from her heart as I just have
+heard you, then I could decide," answered Elnora.
+
+"She is on the ocean," said Philip.  "She went because
+she knew she was wholly in the wrong.  She had nothing
+to say, or she would have remained."
+
+"That sounds plausible," reasoned Elnora, "but it is
+pretty difficult to find a woman in an affair that involves
+her heart with nothing at all to say.  I fancy if I could
+meet her, she would say several things.  I should love to
+hear them.  If I could talk with her three minutes, I
+could tell what answer to make you."
+
+"Don't you believe me, Elnora?"
+
+"Unquestioningly," answered Elnora.  "But I would
+believe her also.  If only I could meet her I soon
+would know."
+
+"I don't see how that is to be accomplished," said
+Philip, "but I am perfectly willing.  There is no reason
+why you should not meet her, except that she probably
+would lose her temper and insult you."
+
+"Not to any extent," said Elnora calmly.  "I have
+a tongue of my own, while I am not without some small
+sense of personal values."
+
+Philip glanced at her and began to laugh.  Very different
+of facial formation and colouring, Elnora at times closely
+resembled her mother.  She joined in his laugh ruefully.
+
+"The point is this," she said.  "Some one is going to
+be hurt, most dreadfully.  If the decision as to whom it
+shall be rests with me, I must know it is the right one. 
+Of course, no one ever hinted it to you, but you are a
+very attractive man, Philip.  You are mighty good to
+look at, and you have a trained, refined mind, that makes
+you most interesting.  For years Edith Carr has felt that
+you were hers.  Now, how is she going to change?  I have
+been thinking--thinking deep and long, Phil.  If I were
+in her place, I simply could not give you up, unless
+you had made yourself unworthy of love.  Undoubtedly, you
+never seemed so desirable to her as just now, when she is
+told she can't have you.  What I think is that she will
+come to claim you yet."
+
+"You overlook the fact that it is not in a woman's power
+to throw away a man and pick him up at pleasure," said
+Philip with some warmth.  "She publicly and repeatedly
+cast me off.  I accepted her decision as publicly as
+it was made.  You have done all your thinking from
+a wrong viewpoint.  You seem to have an idea that it
+lies with you to decide what I shall do, that if you say the
+word, I shall return to Edith.  Put that thought out of
+your head!  Now, and for all time to come, she is a matter
+of indifference to me.  She killed all feeling in my heart
+for her so completely that I do not even dread meeting her.
+
+"If I hated her, or was angry with her, I could not be
+sure the feeling would not die.  As it is, she has deadened
+me into a creature of indifference.  So you just revise
+your viewpoint a little, Elnora.  Cease thinking it is for
+you to decide what I shall do, and that I will obey you. 
+I make my own decisions in reference to any woman, save you. 
+The question you are to decide is whether I may remain here,
+associating with you as I did last summer; but with the
+difference that it is understood that I am free; that it
+is my intention to care for you all I please, to make you
+return my feeling for you if I can.  There is just one
+question for you to decide, and it is not triangular. 
+It is between us.  May I remain?  May I love you? 
+Will you give me the chance to prove what I think of you?"
+
+"You speak very plainly," said Elnora.
+
+"This is the time to speak plainly," said Philip Ammon. 
+"There is no use in allowing you to go on threshing out
+a problem which does not exist.  If you do not want
+me here, say so and I will go.  Of course, I warn you
+before I start, that I will come back.  I won't yield
+without the stiffest fight it is in me to make.  But drop
+thinking it lies in your power to send me back to Edith Carr. 
+If she were the last woman in the world, and I the last man,
+I'd jump off the planet before I would give her further
+opportunity to exercise her temper on me.  Narrow this to
+us, Elnora.  Will you take the place she vacated? 
+Will you take the heart she threw away?  I'd give my
+right hand and not flinch, if I could offer you my
+life, free from any contact with hers, but that is
+not possible.  I can't undo things which are done. 
+I can only profit by experience and build better in
+the future."
+
+"I don't see how you can be sure of yourself," said Elnora. 
+"I don't see how I could be sure of you.  You loved her first,
+you never can care for me anything like that.  Always I'd
+have to be afraid you were thinking of her and regretting."
+
+"Folly!" cried Philip.  "Regretting what?  That I
+was not married to a woman who was liable to rave at
+me any time or place, without my being conscious of
+having given offence?  A man does relish that!  I am
+likely to pine for more!"
+
+"You'd be thinking she'd learned a lesson.  You would
+think it wouldn't happen again."
+
+"No, I wouldn't be `thinking,'" said, Philip.  "I'd be
+everlastingly sure!  I wouldn't risk what I went
+through that night again, not to save my life!  Just you
+and me, Elnora.  Decide for us."
+
+"I can't!" cried Elnora.  "I am afraid!"
+
+"Very well," said Philip.  "We will wait until you feel
+that you can.  Wait until fear vanishes.  Just decide
+now whether you would rather have me go for a few
+months, or remain with you.  Which shall it be, Elnora?"
+
+"You can never love me as you did her," wailed Elnora.
+
+"I am happy to say I cannot," replied he.  "I've cut
+my matrimonial teeth.  I'm cured of wanting to swell
+in society.  I'm over being proud of a woman for her
+looks alone.  I have no further use for lavishing myself on
+a beautiful, elegantly dressed creature, who thinks only
+of self.  I have learned that I am a common man.  I admire
+beauty and beautiful clothing quite as much as I ever
+did; but, first, I want an understanding, deep as the lowest
+recess of my soul, with the woman I marry.  I want to work
+for you, to plan for you, to build you a home with every
+comfort, to give you all good things I can, to shield
+you from every evil.  I want to interpose my body between
+yours and fire, flood, or famine.  I want to give
+you everything; but I hate the idea of getting nothing at
+all on which I can depend in return.  Edith Carr had
+only good looks to offer, and when anger overtook her,
+beauty went out like a snuffed candle.
+
+"I want you to love me.  I want some consideration.
+I even crave respect.  I've kept myself clean.  So far
+as I know how to be, I am honest and scrupulous. 
+It wouldn't hurt me to feel that you took some interest
+in these things.  Rather fierce temptations strike a man,
+every few days, in this world.  I can keep decent, for a
+woman who cares for decency, but when I do, I'd like
+to have the fact recognized, by just enough of a show of
+appreciation that I could see it.  I am tired of this one-
+sided business.  After this, I want to get a little in return
+for what I give.  Elnora, you have love, tenderness,
+and honest appreciation of the finest in life.  Take what
+I offer, and give what I ask."
+
+"You do not ask much," said Elnora.
+
+"As for not loving you as I did Edith," continued
+Philip, "as I said before, I hope not!  I have a newer
+and a better idea of loving.  The feeling I offer you was
+inspired by you.  It is a Limberlost product.  It is as
+much bigger, cleaner, and more wholesome than any feeling
+I ever had for Edith Carr, as you are bigger than she,
+when you stand before your classes and in calm dignity
+explain the marvels of the Almighty, while she stands
+on a ballroom floor, and gives way to uncontrolled temper. 
+Ye gods, Elnora, if you could look into my soul, you
+would see it leap and rejoice over my escape!  Perhaps it
+isn't decent, but it's human; and I'm only a common
+human being.  I'm the gladdest man alive that I'm free! 
+I would turn somersaults and yell if I dared.  What an escape! 
+Stop straining after Edith Carr's viewpoint and take a look
+from mine.  Put yourself in my place and try to study out
+how I feel.
+
+"I am so happy I grow religious over it.  Fifty times
+a day I catch myself whispering, `My soul is escaped!' 
+As for you, take all the time you want.  If you prefer to
+be alone, I'll take the next train and stay away as long as
+I can bear it, but I'll come back.  You can be most sure
+of that.  Straight as your pigeons to their loft, I'll come
+back to you, Elnora.  Shall I go?"
+
+"Oh, what's the use to be extravagant?" murmured Elnora.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON KNEELS TO ELNORA,
+AND STRANGERS COME TO THE LIMBERLOST
+
+
+The month which followed was a reproduction of
+the previous June.  There were long moth hunts,
+days of specimen gathering, wonderful hours with
+great books, big dinners all of them helped to prepare,
+and perfect nights filled with music.  Everything was as
+it had been, with the difference that Philip was now an
+avowed suitor.  He missed no opportunity to advance
+himself in Elnora's graces.  At the end of the month
+he was no nearer any sort of understanding with her
+than he had been at the beginning.  He revelled in the
+privilege of loving her, but he got no response. 
+Elnora believed in his love, yet she hesitated to
+accept him, because she could not forget Edith Carr.
+
+One afternoon early in July, Philip came across the
+fields, through the Comstock woods, and entered the garden. 
+He inquired for Elnora at the back door and was told that
+she was reading under the willow.  He went around the
+west end of the cabin to her.  She sat on a rustic
+bench they had made and placed beneath a drooping branch. 
+He had not seen her before in the dress she was wearing. 
+It was clinging mull of pale green, trimmed with narrow
+ruffles and touched with knots of black velvet; a simple
+dress, but vastly becoming.  Every tint of her bright hair,
+her luminous eyes, her red lips, and her rose-flushed
+face, neck, and arms grew a little more vivid with the
+delicate green setting.
+
+He stopped short.  She was so near, so temptingly
+sweet, he lost control.  He went to her with a half-
+smothered cry after that first long look, dropped on one
+knee beside her and reached an arm behind her to the bench
+back, so that he was very near.  He caught her hands.
+
+"Elnora!" he cried tensely, "end it now!  Say this
+strain is over.  I pledge you that you will be happy. 
+You don't know!  If you only would say the word, you
+would awake to new life and great joy!  Won't you promise
+me now, Elnora?"
+
+The girl sat staring into the west woods, while strong
+in her eyes was her father's look of seeing something
+invisible to others.  Philip's arm slipped from the bench
+around her.  His fingers closed firmly over hers. 
+Elnora," he pleaded, "you know me well enough. 
+You have had time in plenty.  End it now.  Say you will
+be mine!"  He gathered her closer, pressing his face against
+hers, his breath on her cheek.  "Can't you quite promise
+yet, my girl of the Limberlost?"
+
+Elnora shook her head.  Instantly he released her.
+
+"Forgive me," he begged.  "I had no intention of thrusting
+myself upon you, but, Elnora, you are the veriest Queen
+of Love this afternoon.  From the tips of your toes to
+your shining crown, I worship you.  I want no woman save you. 
+You are so wonderful this afternoon, I couldn't help urging. 
+Forgive me.  Perhaps it was something that came this
+morning for you.  I wrote Polly to send it.  May we try
+if it fits?  Will you tell me if you like it?"
+
+He drew a little white velvet box from his pocket and
+showed her a splendid emerald ring.
+
+"It may not be right," he said.  "The inside of a glove
+finger is not very accurate for a measure, but it was the
+best I could do.  I wrote Polly to get it, because she and
+mother are home from the East this week, but next they
+will go on to our cottage in the north, and no one knows
+what is right quite so well as Polly."  He laid the ring
+in Elnora's hand.  "Dearest," he said, "don't slip that
+on your finger; put your arms around my neck and promise me,
+all at once and abruptly, or I'll keel over and die of sheer joy."
+
+Elnora smiled.
+
+"I won't!  Not all those venturesome things at once;
+but, Phil, I'm ashamed to confess that ring simply
+fascinates me.  It is the most beautiful one I ever saw,
+and do you know that I never owned a ring of any kind
+in my life?  Would you think me unwomanly if I slip
+it on for a second, before I can say for sure?  Phil, you
+know I care!  I care very much!  You know I will tell
+you the instant I feel right about it."
+
+"Certainly you will," agreed Philip promptly.  "It is
+your right to take all the time you choose.  I can't
+put that ring on you until it means a bond between us. 
+I'll shut my eyes and you try it on, so we can see if
+it fits." Philip turned his face toward the west woods
+and tightly closed his eyes.  It was a boyish thing to do,
+and it caught the hesitating girl in the depths of her
+heart as the boy element in a man ever appeals to a
+motherly woman.  Before she quite realized what she
+was doing, the ring slid on her finger.  With both arms
+she caught Philip and drew him to her breast, holding
+him closely.  Her head drooped over his, her lips were
+on his hair.  So an instant, then her arms dropped. 
+He lifted a convulsed, white face.
+
+"Dear Lord!" he whispered.  "You--you didn't mean that,
+Elnora!  You----  What made you do it?"
+
+"You--you looked so boyish!" panted Elnora.  "I didn't
+mean it!  I--I forgot that you were older than Billy. 
+Look--look at the ring!"
+
+"`The Queen can do no wrong,'" quoted Philip between his
+set teeth.  "But don't you do that again, Elnora, unless
+you do mean it.  Kings are not so good as queens, and
+there is a limit with all men.  As you say, we will
+look at your ring.  It seems very lovely to me.  Suppose you
+leave it on until time for me to go.  Please do!  I have
+heard of mute appeals; perhaps it will plead for me. 
+I am wild for your lips this afternoon.  I am going to
+take your hands."
+
+He caught both of them and covered them with kisses.
+
+"Elnora," he said, "Will you be my wife?"
+
+"I must have a little more time," she whispered.  "I must
+be absolutely certain, for when I say yes, and give
+myself to you, only death shall part us.  I would not
+give you up.  So I want a little more time--but, I think
+I will."
+
+"Thank you," said Philip.  "If at any time you feel that
+you have reached a decision, will you tell me?  Will you
+promise me to tell me instantly, or shall I keep asking
+you until the time comes?"
+
+"You make it difficult," said Elnora.  "But I will
+promise you that.  Whenever the last doubt vanishes, I
+will let you know instantly--if I can."
+
+"Would it be difficult for you?" whispered Ammon.
+
+"I--I don't know," faltered Elnora.
+
+"It seems as if I can't be man enough to put this
+thought aside and give up this afternoon," said Philip. 
+"I am ashamed of myself, but I can't help it.  I am going
+to ask God to make that last doubt vanish before I go
+this night.  I am going to believe that ring will plead
+for me.  I am going to hope that doubt will disappear suddenly. 
+I will be watching.  Every second I will be watching. 
+If it happens and you can't speak, give me your hand. 
+Just the least movement toward me, I will understand. 
+Would it help you to talk this over with your mother? 
+Shall I call her?  Shall I----?"
+
+Honk!  Honk!  Honk!  Hart Henderson set the horn
+of the big automobile going as it shot from behind the
+trees lining the Brushwood road.  The picture of a vine-
+covered cabin, a large drooping tree, a green-clad girl
+and a man bending over her very closely flashed into view. 
+Edith Carr caught her breath with a snap.  Polly Ammon
+gave Tom Levering a quick touch and wickedly winked
+at him.
+
+Several days before, Edith had returned from Europe suddenly. 
+She and Henderson had called at the Ammon residence saying
+that they were going to motor down to the Limberlost to see
+Philip a few hours, and urged that Polly and Tom accompany them. 
+Mrs. Ammon knew that her husband would disapprove of the trip,
+but it was easy to see that Edith Carr had determined on going. 
+So the mother thought it better to have Polly along to support
+Philip than to allow him to confront Edith unexpectedly and alone. 
+Polly was full of spirit.  She did not relish the thought of
+Edith as a sister.  Always they had been in the same set,
+always Edith, because of greater beauty and wealth,
+had patronized Polly.  Although it had rankled, she had borne
+it sweetly.  But two days before, her father had extracted
+a promise of secrecy, given her Philip's address and told her
+to send him the finest emerald ring she could select. 
+Polly knew how that ring would be used.  What she did not know
+was that the girl who accompanied her went back to the store
+afterward, made an excuse to the clerk that she had been sent
+to be absolutely sure that the address was right, and so secured
+it for Edith Carr.
+
+Two days later Edith had induced Hart Henderson to take
+her to Onabasha.  By the aid of maps they located the
+Comstock land and passed it, merely to see the place. 
+Henderson hated that trip, and implored Edith not to take
+it, but she made no effort to conceal from him what she
+suffered, and it was more than he could endure.  He pointed
+out that Philip had gone away without leaving an address,
+because he did not wish to see her, or any of them. 
+But Edith was so sure of her power, she felt certain Philip
+needed only to see her to succumb to her beauty as he always
+had done, while now she was ready to plead for forgiveness. 
+So they came down the Brushwood road, and Henderson had just
+said to Edith beside him:  "This should be the Comstock land
+on our left."
+
+A minute later the wood ended, while the sunlight,
+as always pitiless, etched with distinctness the scene at
+the west end of the cabin.  Instinctively, to save Edith,
+Henderson set the horn blowing.  He had thought to drive to
+the city, but Polly Ammon arose crying:  "Phil!  Phil!"
+Tom Levering was on his feet shouting and waving, while
+Edith in her most imperial manner ordered him to turn
+into the lane leading through the woods beside the cabin.
+
+"Find some way for me to have a minute alone with her,"
+she commanded as he stopped the car.
+
+"That is my sister Polly, her fiance Tom Levering, a
+friend of mine named Henderson, and----" began Philip,
+
+"--and Edith Carr," volunteered Elnora.
+
+"And Edith Carr," repeated Philip Ammon.  "Elnora, be
+brave, for my sake.  Their coming can make no difference
+in any way.  I won't let them stay but a few minutes. 
+Come with me!"
+
+"Do I seem scared?" inquired Elnora serenely.  "This is
+why you haven't had your answer.  I have been waiting
+just six weeks for that motor.  You may bring them to me
+at the arbour."
+
+Philip glanced at her and broke into a laugh.  She had
+not lost colour.  Her self-possession was perfect. 
+She deliberately turned and walked toward the grape arbour,
+while he sprang over the west fence and ran to the car.
+
+Elnora standing in the arbour entrance made a perfect
+picture, framed in green leaves and tendrils.  No matter
+how her heart ached, it was good to her, for it pumped
+steadily, and kept her cheeks and lips suffused with colour. 
+She saw Philip reach the car and gather his sister into
+his arms.  Past her he reached a hand to Levering,
+then to Edith Carr and Henderson.  He lifted his sister
+to the ground, and assisted Edith to alight.  Instantly, she
+stepped beside him, and Elnora's heart played its first trick.
+
+She could see that Miss Carr was splendidly beautiful,
+while she moved with the hauteur and grace supposed to
+be the prerogatives of royalty.  And she had instantly
+taken possession of Philip.  But he also had a brain which
+was working with rapidity.  He knew Elnora was watching,
+so he turned to the others.
+
+"Give her up, Tom!" he cried.  "I didn't know I wanted
+to see the little nuisance so badly, but I do.  How are
+father and mother?  Polly, didn't the mater send me something?"
+
+"She did!" said Polly Ammon, stopping on the path and
+lifting her chin as a little child, while she drew away
+her veil.
+
+Philip caught her in his arms and stooped for his
+mother's kiss.
+
+"Be good to Elnora!" he whispered.
+
+"Umhu!" assented Polly.  And aloud--"Look at that ripping
+green and gold symphony!  I never saw such a beauty! 
+Thomas Asquith Levering, you come straight here and take
+my hand!"
+
+Edith's move to compel Philip to approach Elnora beside her
+had been easy to see; also its failure.  Henderson stepped
+into Philip's place as he turned to his sister.  Instead of
+taking Polly's hand Levering ran to open the gate. 
+Edith passed through first, but Polly darted in front
+of her on the run, with Phil holding her arm, and swept up
+to Elnora.  Polly looked for the ring and saw it.  That settled
+matters with her.
+
+"You lovely, lovely, darling girl!" she cried, throwing
+her arms around Elnora and kissing her.  With her lips close
+Elnora's ear, Polly whispered, "Sister!  Dear, dear sister!"
+
+Elnora drew back, staring at Polly in confused amazement. 
+She was a beautiful girl, her eyes were sparkling and
+dancing, and as she turned to make way for the others,
+she kept one of Elnora's hands in hers.  Polly would have
+dropped dead in that instant if Edith Carr could have
+killed with a look, for not until then did she realize that
+Polly would even many a slight, and that it had been a
+great mistake to bring her.
+
+Edith bowed low, muttered something and touched
+Elnora's fingers.  Tom took his cue from Polly.
+
+"I always follow a good example," he said, and before
+any one could divine his intention he kissed Elnora as he
+gripped her hand and cried:  "Mighty glad to meet you! 
+Like to meet you a dozen times a day, you know!"
+
+Elnora laughed and her heart pumped smoothly.  They had
+accomplished their purpose.  They had let her know they
+were there through compulsion, but on her side.  In that
+instant only pity was in Elnora's breast for the flashing
+dark beauty, standing with smiling face while her heart
+must have been filled with exceeding bitterness. 
+Elnora stepped back from the entrance.
+
+"Come into the shade," she urged.  "You must have
+found it warm on these country roads.  Won't you lay
+aside your dust-coats and have a cool drink?  Philip, would
+you ask mother to come, and bring that pitcher from the
+spring house?"
+
+They entered the arbour exclaiming at the dim, green coolness. 
+There was plenty of room and wide seats around the sides,
+a table in the centre, on which lay a piece of embroidery,
+magazines, books, the moth apparatus, and the cyanide jar
+containing several specimens.  Polly rejoiced in the
+cooling shade, slipped off her duster, removed her hat,
+rumpled her pretty hair and seated herself to indulge in
+the delightful occupation of paying off old scores. 
+Tom Levering followed her example.  Edith took a seat
+but refused to remove her hat and coat, while Henderson
+stood in the entrance.
+
+"There goes something with wings!  Should you have
+that?" cried Levering.
+
+He seized a net from the table and raced across the garden
+after a butterfly.  He caught it and came back mightily
+pleased with himself.  As the creature struggled in the net,
+Elnora noted a repulsed look on Edith Carr's face. 
+Levering helped the situation beautifully.
+
+"Now what have I got?" he demanded.  "Is it just a
+common one that every one knows and you don't keep, or
+is it the rarest bird off the perch?"
+
+"You must have had practice, you took that so perfectly,"
+said Elnora.  "I am sorry, but it is quite common and not
+of a kind I keep.  Suppose all of you see how beautiful
+it is and then it may go nectar hunting again."
+
+She held the butterfly where all of them could see,
+showed its upper and under wing colours, answered Polly's
+questions as to what it ate, how long it lived, and how
+it died.  Then she put it into Polly's hand saying:  "Stand
+there in the light and loosen your hold slowly and easily."
+
+Elnora caught a brush from the table and began softly
+stroking the creature's sides and wings.  Delighted with
+the sensation the butterfly opened and closed its wings,
+clinging to Polly's soft little fingers, while every one cried
+out in surprise.  Elnora laid aside the brush, and the
+butterfly sailed away.
+
+"Why, you are a wizard!  You charm them!" marvelled Levering.
+
+"I learned that from the Bird Woman," said Elnora. 
+"She takes soft brushes and coaxes butterflies and moths
+into the positions she wants for the illustrations of a book
+she is writing.  I have helped her often.  Most of the rare
+ones I find go to her."
+
+"Then you don't keep all you take?" questioned Levering.
+
+"Oh, dear, no!" cried Elnora.  "Not a tenth!  For myself,
+a pair of each kind to use in illustrating the lectures I
+give in the city schools in the winter, and one pair for each
+collection I make.  One might as well keep the big night
+moths of June, for they only live four or five days anyway. 
+For the Bird Woman, I only save rare ones she has not yet secured. 
+Sometimes I think it is cruel to take such creatures from
+freedom, even for an hour, but it is the only way to teach
+the masses of people how to distinguish the pests they
+should destroy, from the harmless ones of great beauty. 
+Here comes mother with something cool to drink."
+
+Mrs. Comstock came deliberately, talking to Philip as
+she approached.  Elnora gave her one searching look, but
+could discover only an extreme brightness of eye to denote
+any unusual feeling.  She wore one of her lavender dresses,
+while her snowy hair was high piled.  She had taken care
+of her complexion, and her face had grown fuller during
+the winter.  She might have been any one's mother with
+pride, and she was perfectly at ease.
+
+Polly instantly went to her and held up her face to be kissed. 
+Mrs. Comstock's eyes twinkled and she made the greeting hearty.
+
+The drink was compounded of the juices of oranges and
+berries from the garden.  It was cool enough to frost
+glasses and pitcher and delicious to dusty tired travellers. 
+Soon the pitcher was empty, and Elnora picked it up and
+went to refill it.  While she was gone Henderson asked
+Philip about some trouble he was having with his car. 
+They went to the woods and began a minute examination
+to find a defect which did not exist.  Polly and Levering
+were having an animated conversation with Mrs. Comstock. 
+Henderson saw Edith arise, follow the garden path
+next the woods and stand waiting under the willow which
+Elnora would pass on her return.  It was for that meeting
+he had made the trip.  He got down on the ground, tore
+up the car, worked, asked for help, and kept Philip busy
+screwing bolts and applying the oil can.  All the time
+Henderson kept an eye on Edith and Elnora under the willow. 
+But he took pains to lay the work he asked Philip to do
+where that scene would be out of his sight.  When Elnora
+came around the corner with the pitcher, she found herself
+facing Edith Carr.
+
+"I want a minute with you," said Miss Carr.
+
+"Very well," replied Elnora, walking on.
+
+"Set the pitcher on the bench there," commanded Edith
+Carr, as if speaking to a servant.
+
+"I prefer not to offer my visitors a warm drink," said Elnora. 
+"I'll come back if you really wish to speak with me."
+
+"I came solely for that," said Edith Carr.
+
+"It would be a pity to travel so far in this dust and heat
+for nothing.  I'll only be gone a second."
+
+Elnora placed the pitcher before her mother.  "Please serve
+this," she said.  "Miss Carr wishes to speak with me."
+
+"Don't you pay the least attention to anything she
+says," cried Polly.  "Tom and I didn't come here because
+we wanted to.  We only came to checkmate her.  I hoped
+I'd get the opportunity to say a word to you, and now she
+has given it to me.  I just want to tell you that she threw
+Phil over in perfectly horrid way.  She hasn't any right
+to lay the ghost of a claim to him, has she, Tom?"
+
+"Nary a claim," said Tom Levering earnestly.  "Why, even
+you, Polly, couldn't serve me as she did Phil, and
+ever get me back again.  If I were you, Miss Comstock,
+I'd send my mother to talk with her and I'd stay here."
+
+Tom had gauged Mrs. Comstock rightly.  Polly put her
+arms around Elnora.  "Let me go with you, dear," she begged.
+
+"I promised I would speak with her alone," said Elnora,
+"and she must be considered.  But thank you, very much."
+
+"How I shall love you!" exulted Polly, giving Elnora
+a parting hug.
+
+The girl slowly and gravely walked back to the willow. 
+She could not imagine what was coming, but she was promising
+herself that she would be very patient and control her temper.
+
+"Will you be seated?" she asked politely.
+
+Edith Carr glanced at the bench, while a shudder shook her.
+
+"No.  I prefer to stand," she said.  "Did Mr. Ammon
+give you the ring you are wearing, and do you consider
+yourself engaged to him?"
+
+"By what right do you ask such personal questions as
+those?" inquired Elnora.
+
+"By the right of a betrothed wife.  I have been promised
+to Philip Ammon ever since I wore short skirts.  All our
+lives we have expected to marry.  An agreement of years
+cannot be broken in one insane moment.  Always he has
+loved me devotedly.  Give me ten minutes with him and he
+will be mine for all time."
+
+"I seriously doubt that," said Elnora.  "But I am
+willing that you should make the test.  I will call him."
+
+"Stop!" commanded Edith Carr.  "I told you that it was
+you I came to see."
+
+"I remember," said Elnora.
+
+"Mr. Ammon is my betrothed," continued Edith Carr. 
+"I expect to take him back to Chicago with me."
+
+"You expect considerable," murmured Elnora.  "I will
+raise no objection to your taking him, if you can--but, I
+tell you frankly, I don't think it possible."
+
+"You are so sure of yourself as that," scoffed Edith Carr. 
+"One hour in my presence will bring back the old spell,
+full force.  We belong to each other.  I will not give him up."
+
+"Then it is untrue that you twice rejected his ring,
+repeatedly insulted him, and publicly renounced him?"
+
+"That was through you!" cried Edith Carr.  "Phil and
+I never had been so near and so happy as we were on
+that night.  It was your clinging to him for things that
+caused him to desert me among his guests, while he tried
+to make me await your pleasure.  I realize the spell of
+this place, for a summer season.  I understand what you
+and your mother have done to inveigle him.  I know that
+your hold on him is quite real.  I can see just how you
+have worked to ensnare him!"
+
+"Men would call that lying," said Elnora calmly. 
+"The second time I met Philip Ammon he told me of
+his engagement to you, and I respected it.  I did by you
+as I would want you to do by me.  He was here parts
+of each day, almost daily last summer.  The Almighty
+is my witness that never once, by word or look, did I ever
+make the slightest attempt to interest him in my person
+or personality.  He wrote you frequently in my presence. 
+He forgot the violets for which he asked to send you. 
+I gathered them and carried them to him.  I sent him back
+to you in unswerving devotion, and the Almighty is also
+my witness that I could have changed his heart last summer,
+if I had tried.  I wisely left that work for you.  All my
+life I shall be glad that I lived and worked on the square. 
+That he ever would come back to me free, by your act,
+I never dreamed.  When he left me I did not hope or expect
+to see him again," Elnora's voice fell soft and low,"
+and, behold!  You sent him--and free!"
+
+"You exult in that!" cried Edith Carr.  "Let me tell
+you he is not free!  We have belonged for years. 
+We always shall.  If you cling to him, and hold him to rash
+things he has said and done, because he thought me still
+angry and unforgiving with him, you will ruin all our lives. 
+If he married you, before a month you would read heart-hunger
+for me in his eyes.  He could not love me as he has done,
+and give me up for a little scene like that!"
+
+"There is a great poem," said Elnora, "one line of which
+reads, `For each man kills the thing he loves.'  Let me
+tell you that a woman can do that also.  He did love you
+--that I concede.  But you killed his love everlastingly,
+when you disgraced him in public.  Killed it so completely
+he does not even feel resentment toward you.  To-day,
+he would do you a favour, if he could; but love you, no! 
+That is over!"
+
+Edith Carr stood truly regal and filled with scorn. 
+"You are mistaken!  Nothing on earth could kill that!"
+she cried, and Elnora saw that the girl really believed
+what she said.
+
+"You are very sure of yourself!" said Elnora.
+
+"I have reason to be sure," answered Edith Carr.
+
+"We have lived and loved too long.  I have had years
+with him to match against your days.  He is mine! 
+His work, his ambitions, his friends, his place in
+society are with me.  You may have a summer charm for a
+sick man in the country; if he tried placing you in
+society, he soon would see you as others will.  It takes
+birth to position, schooling, and endless practice to meet
+social demands gracefully.  You would put him to shame in
+a week."
+
+"I scarcely think I should follow your example so far,"
+said Elnora dryly.  "I have a feeling for Philip that
+would prevent my hurting him purposely, either in public
+or private.  As for managing a social career for him he
+never mentioned that he desired such a thing.  What he
+asked of me was that I should be his wife.  I understood
+that to mean that he desired me to keep him a clean house,
+serve him digestible food, mother his children, and give
+him loving sympathy and tenderness."
+
+"Shameless!" cried Edith Carr.
+
+"To which of us do you intend that adjective to apply?"
+inquired Elnora.  "I never was less ashamed in all my life. 
+Please remember I am in my own home, and your presence here
+is not on my invitation."
+
+Miss Carr lifted her head and struggled with her veil. 
+She was very pale and trembling violently, while Elnora
+stood serene, a faint smile on her lips.
+
+"Such vulgarity!" panted Edith Carr.  "How can a
+man like Philip endure it?"
+
+"Why don't you ask him?" inquired Elnora.  "I can
+call him with one breath; but, if he judged us as we stand,
+I should not be the one to tremble at his decision. 
+Miss Carr, you have been quite plain.  You have told me
+in carefully selected words what you think of me. 
+You insult my birth, education, appearance, and home. 
+I assure you I am legitimate.  I will pass a test examination
+with you on any high school or supplementary branch,
+or French or German.  I will take a physical examination
+beside you.  I will face any social emergency you can
+mention with you.  I am acquainted with a whole world
+in which Philip Ammon is keenly interested, that you
+scarcely know exists.  I am not afraid to face any
+audience you can get together anywhere with my violin. 
+I am not repulsive to look at, and I have a wholesome regard
+for the proprieties and civilities of life.  Philip Ammon
+never asked anything more of me, why should you?"
+
+"It is plain to see," cried Edith Carr, "that you took
+him when he was hurt and angry and kept his wound wide open. 
+Oh, what have you not done against me?"
+
+"I did not promise to marry him when an hour ago he
+asked me, and offered me this ring, because there was so
+much feeling in my heart for you, that I knew I never
+could be happy, if I felt that in any way I had failed in
+doing justice to your interests.  I did slip on this ring,
+which he had just brought, because I never owned one,
+and it is very beautiful, but I made him no promise, nor
+shall I make any, until I am quite, quite sure, that you
+fully realize he never would marry you if I sent him away
+this hour."
+
+"You know perfectly that if your puny hold on him
+were broken, if he were back in his home, among his
+friends, and where he was meeting me, in one short week
+he would be mine again, as he always has been.  In your
+heart you don't believe what you say.  You don't dare
+trust him in my presence.  You are afraid to allow him
+out of your sight, because you know what the results
+would be.  Right or wrong, you have made up your mind
+to ruin him and me, and you are going to be selfish enough
+to do it.  But----"
+
+"That will do!" said Elnora.  "Spare me the enumeration
+of how I will regret it.  I shall regret nothing. 
+I shall not act until I know there will be nothing to regret. 
+I have decided on my course.  You may return to your friends."
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Edith Carr.
+
+"That is my affair," replied Elnora.  "Only this! 
+When your opportunity comes, seize it!  Any time you
+are in Philip Ammon's presence, exert the charms of which
+you boast, and take him.  I grant you are justified in
+doing it if you can.  I want nothing more than I want to
+see you marry Philip if he wants you.  He is just across
+the fence under that automobile.  Go spread your meshes
+and exert your wiles.  I won't stir to stop you.  Take him
+to Onabasha, and to Chicago with you.  Use every art you possess. 
+If the old charm can be revived I will be the first to wish
+both of you well.  Now, I must return to my visitors. 
+Kindly excuse me."
+
+Elnora turned and went back to the arbour.  Edith Carr
+followed the fence and passed through the gate into
+the west woods where she asked Henderson about the car. 
+As she stood near him she whispered:  "Take Phil back
+to Onabasha with us."
+
+"I say, Ammon, can't you go to the city with us and
+help me find a shop where I can get this pinion fixed?"
+asked Henderson.  "We want to lunch and start back by five. 
+That will get us home about midnight.  Why don't you
+bring your automobile here?"
+
+"I am a working man," said Philip.  "I have no time to
+be out motoring.  I can't see anything the matter with
+your car, myself; but, of course you don't want to break
+down in the night, on strange roads, with women on your hands. 
+I'll see."
+
+Philip went into the arbour, where Polly took possession of
+his lap, fingered his hair, and kissed his forehead and lips.
+
+"When are you coming to the cottage, Phil?" she asked. 
+"Come soon, and bring Miss Comstock for a visit.  All of
+us will be so glad to have her."
+
+Philip beamed on Polly.  "I'll see about that," he said. 
+"Sounds pretty good.  Elnora, Henderson is in trouble
+with his automobile.  He wants me to go to Onabasha
+with him to show him where the doctor lives, and make
+repairs so he can start back this evening.  It will take
+about two hours.  May I go?"
+
+"Of course, you must go," she said, laughing lightly. 
+"You can't leave your sister.  Why don't you return to
+Chicago with them?  There is plenty of room, and you
+could have a fine visit."
+
+"I'll be back in just two hours," said Philip.  "While I
+am gone, you be thinking over what we were talking of
+when the folks came."
+
+"Miss Comstock can go with us as well as not," said Polly. 
+"That back seat was made for three, and I can sit on your lap."
+
+"Come on!  Do come!" urged Philip instantly, and
+Tom Levering joined him, but Henderson and Edith
+silently waited at the gate.
+
+"No, thank you," laughed Elnora.  "That would crowd you,
+and it's warm and dusty.  We will say good-bye here."
+
+She offered her hand to all of them, and when she came
+to Philip she gave him one long steady look in the eyes,
+then shook hands with him also.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+WHEREIN ELNORA REACHES A DECISION,
+AND FRECKLES AND THE ANGEL APPEAR
+
+
+Well, she came, didn't she?" remarked Mrs. Comstock
+to Elnora as they watched the automobile speed down
+the road.  As it turned the Limberlost corner, Philip
+arose and waved to them.
+
+"She hasn't got him yet, anyway," said Mrs. Comstock,
+taking heart.  "What's that on your finger, and what did
+she say to you?"
+
+Elnora explained about the ring as she drew it off.
+
+"I have several letters to write, then I am going to
+change my dress and walk down toward Aunt Margaret's
+for a little exercise.  I may meet some of them, and I don't
+want them to see this ring.  You keep it until Philip
+comes," said Elnora.  "As for what Miss Carr said to me,
+many things, two of importance: one, that I lacked every
+social requirement necessary for the happiness of Philip
+Ammon, and that if I married him I would see inside a
+month that he was ashamed of me----"
+
+"Aw, shockins!" scorned Mrs. Comstock.  "Go on!"
+
+"The other was that she has been engaged to him for
+years, that he belongs to her, and she refuses to give
+him up.  She said that if he were in her presence one hour,
+she would have him under a mysterious thing she calls `her
+spell' again; if he were where she could see him for one
+week, everything would be made up.  It is her opinion
+that he is suffering from wounded pride, and that the
+slightest concession on her part will bring him to his knees
+before her."
+
+Mrs. Comstock giggled.  "I do hope the boy isn't weak-kneed,"
+she said.  "I just happened to be passing the west window
+this afternoon----"
+
+Elnora laughed.  "Nothing save actual knowledge ever
+would have made me believe there was a girl in all this
+world so infatuated with herself.  She speaks casually of
+her power over men, and boasts of `bringing a man to his
+knees' as complacently as I would pick up a net and say:
+`I am going to take a butterfly.'  She honestly believes
+that if Philip were with her a short time she could rekindle
+his love for her and awaken in him every particle of
+the old devotion.  Mother, the girl is honest!  She is
+absolutely sincere!  She so believes in herself and the
+strength of Phil's love for her, that all her life she will
+believe in and brood over that thought, unless she is
+taught differently.  So long as she thinks that, she will
+nurse wrong ideas and pine over her blighted life.  She must
+be taught that Phil is absolutely free, and yet he will not go
+to her."
+
+"But how on earth are you proposing to teach her that?"
+
+"The way will open."
+
+"Lookey here, Elnora!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "That Carr
+girl is the handsomest dark woman I ever saw.  She's got
+to the place where she won't stop at anything.  Her coming
+here proves that.  I don't believe there was a thing
+the matter with that automobile.  I think that was a
+scheme she fixed up to get Phil where she could see him
+alone, as she worked to see you.  If you are going
+deliberately to put Philip under her influence again, you've
+got to brace yourself for the possibility that she may win. 
+A man is a weak mortal, where a lovely woman is concerned,
+and he never denied that he loved her once.  You may make
+yourself downright miserable."
+
+"But mother, if she won, it wouldn't make me half so
+miserable as to marry Phil myself, and then read hunger
+for her in his eyes!  Some one has got to suffer over this. 
+If it proves to be me, I'll bear it, and you'll never hear a
+whisper of complaint from me.  I know the real Philip
+Ammon better in our months of work in the fields than she
+knows him in all her years of society engagements. 
+So she shall have the hour she asked, many, many of them,
+enough to make her acknowledge that she is wrong. 
+Now I am going to write my letters and take my walk."
+
+Elnora threw her arms around her mother and kissed
+her repeatedly.  "Don't you worry about me," she said. 
+"I will get along all right, and whatever happens, I always
+will be your girl and you my darling mother."
+
+She left two sealed notes on her desk.  Then she
+changed her dress, packed a small bundle which she
+dropped with her hat from the window beside the willow,
+and softly went down stairs.  Mrs. Comstock was in
+the garden.  Elnora picked up the hat and bundle, hurried
+down the road a few rods, then climbed the fence and
+entered the woods.  She took a diagonal course, and after
+a long walk reached a road two miles west and one south. 
+There she straightened her clothing, put on her hat and a
+thin dark veil and waited the passing of the next trolley. 
+She left it at the first town and took a train for Fort Wayne. 
+She made that point just in time to climb on the evening
+train north, as it pulled from the station.  It was after
+midnight when she left the car at Grand Rapids, and went
+into the depot to await the coming of day.
+
+Tired out, she laid her head on her bundle and fell asleep
+on a seat in the women's waiting-room.  Long after light
+she was awakened by the roar and rattle of trains.  She washed,
+re-arranged her hair and clothing, and went into the general
+waiting-room to find her way to the street.  She saw him as
+he entered the door.  There was no mistaking the tall,
+lithe figure, the bright hair, the lean, brown-splotched face,
+the steady gray eyes.  He was dressed for travelling, and
+carried a light overcoat and a bag.  Straight to him Elnora
+went speeding.
+
+"Oh, I was just starting to find you!" she cried.
+
+"Thank you!" he said.
+
+"You are going away?" she panted.
+
+"Not if I am needed.  I have a few minutes.  Can you
+be telling me briefly?"
+
+"I am the Limberlost girl to whom your wife gave the
+dress for Commencement last spring, and both of you sent
+lovely gifts.  There is a reason, a very good reason, why I
+must be hidden for a time, and I came straight to you--as
+if I had a right."
+
+"You have!" answered Freckles.  "Any boy or girl who
+ever suffered one pang in the Limberlost has a claim
+to the best drop of blood in my heart.  You needn't be
+telling me anything more.  The Angel is at our cottage
+on Mackinac.  You shall tell her and play with the babies
+while you want shelter.  This way!"
+
+They breakfasted in a luxurious car, talked over the
+swamp, the work of the Bird Woman; Elnora told of her
+nature lectures in the schools, and soon they were
+good friends.  In the evening they left the train at
+Mackinaw City and crossed the Straits by boat.  Sheets of
+white moonlight flooded the water and paved a molten path
+across the breast of it straight to the face of the moon.
+
+The island lay a dark spot on the silver surface, its tall
+trees sharply outlined on the summit, and a million lights
+blinked around the shore.  The night guns boomed from
+the white fort and a dark sentinel paced the ramparts
+above the little city tucked down close to the water. 
+A great tenor summering in the north came out on the upper
+deck of the big boat, and baring his head, faced the moon
+and sang:  "Oh, the moon shines bright on my old
+Kentucky home!"  Elnora thought of the Limberlost, of
+Philip, and her mother, and almost choked with the sobs
+that would arise in her throat.  On the dock a woman of
+exquisite beauty swept into the arms of Terence O'More.
+
+"Oh, Freckles!" she cried.  "You've been gone a month!"
+
+"Four days, Angel, only four days by the clock,"
+remonstrated Freckles.  "Where are the children?"
+
+"Asleep!  Thank goodness!  I'm worn to a thread.  I never
+saw such inventive, active children.  I can't keep track of them!"
+
+"I have brought you help," said Freckles.  "Here is the
+Limberlost girl in whom the Bird Woman is interested. 
+Miss Comstock needs a rest before beginning her school
+work for next year, so she came to us."
+
+"You dear thing!  How good of you!" cried the Angel. 
+"We shall be so happy to have you!"
+
+In her room that night, in a beautiful cottage furnished
+with every luxury, Elnora lifted a tired face to the Angel.
+
+"Of course, you understand there is something back of
+this?" she said.  "I must tell you."
+
+"Yes," agreed the Angel.  "Tell me!  If you get it out
+of your system, you will stand a better chance of sleeping."
+
+Elnora stood brushing the copper-bright masses of her
+hair as she talked.  When she finished the Angel was
+almost hysterical.
+
+"You insane creature!" she cried.  "How crazy of you
+to leave him to her!  I know both of them.  I have met
+them often.  She may be able to make good her boast. 
+But it is perfectly splendid of you!  And, after all, really
+it is the only way.  I can see that.  I think it is what I
+should have done myself, or tried to do.  I don't know
+that I could have done it!  When I think of walking away
+and leaving Freckles with a woman he once loved, to let
+her see if she can make him love her again, oh, it gives me
+a graveyard heart.  No, I never could have done it!  You are
+bigger than I ever was.  I should have turned coward, sure."
+
+"I am a coward," admitted Elnora.  "I am soul-sick! 
+I am afraid I shall lose my senses before this is over. 
+I didn't want to come!  I wanted to stay, to go straight
+into his arms, to bind myself with his ring, to love him
+with all my heart.  It wasn't my fault that I came. 
+There was something inside that just pushed me.  She is
+beautiful----"
+
+"I quite agree with you!"
+
+"You can imagine how fascinating she can be.  She used
+no arts on me.  Her purpose was to cower me.  She found
+she could not do that, but she did a thing which helped
+her more: she proved that she was honest, perfectly
+sincere in what she thought.  She believes that if she
+merely beckons to Philip, he will go to her.  So I am giving
+her the opportunity to learn from him what he will do. 
+She never will believe it from any one else.  When she is
+satisfied, I shall be also."
+
+"But, child! Suppose she wins him back!"
+
+"That is the supposition with which I shall eat and sleep
+for the coming few weeks.  Would one dare ask for a peep
+at the babies before going to bed?"
+
+"Now, you are perfect!" announced the Angel.  "I never
+should have liked you all I can, if you had been content
+to go to sleep in this house without asking to see
+the babies.  Come this way.  We named the first boy
+for his father, of course, and the girl for Aunt Alice. 
+The next boy is named for my father, and the baby for
+the Bird Woman.  After this we are going to branch out."
+
+Elnora began to laugh.
+
+"Oh, I suspect there will be quite a number of them,"
+said the Angel serenely.  "I am told the more there are
+the less trouble they make.  The big ones take care of the
+little ones.  We want a large family.  This is our start."
+
+She entered a dark room and held aloft a candle.  She went
+to the side of a small white iron bed in which lay a
+boy of eight and another of three.  They were perfectly
+formed, rosy children, the elder a replica of his mother,
+the other very like.  Then they came to a cradle where a
+baby girl of almost two slept soundly, and made a picture.
+
+"But just see here!" said the Angel.  She threw the light
+on a sleeping girl of six.  A mass of red curls swept
+the pillow.  Line and feature the face was that of Freckles. 
+Without asking, Elnora knew the colour and expression
+of the closed eyes.  The Angel handed Elnora the candle,
+and stooping, straightened the child's body.  She ran
+her fingers through the bright curls, and lightly touched
+the aristocratic little nose.
+
+"The supply of freckles holds out in my family, you see!"
+she said.  "Both of the girls will have them, and the
+second boy a few."
+
+She stood an instant longer, then bending, ran her hand
+caressingly down a rosy bare leg, while she kissed the
+babyish red mouth.  There had been some reason for
+touching all of them, the kiss fell on the lips which were
+like Freckles's.
+
+To Elnora she said a tender good-night, whispering
+brave words of encouragement and making plans to fill
+the days to come.  Then she went away.  An hour later
+there was a light tap on the girl's door.
+
+"Come!" she called as she lay staring into the dark.
+
+The Angel felt her way to the bedside, sat down and
+took Elnora's hands.
+
+"I just had to come back to you," she said.  "I have
+been telling Freckles, and he is almost hurting himself
+with laughing.  I didn't think it was funny, but he does. 
+He thinks it's the funniest thing that ever happened. 
+He says that to run away from Mr. Ammon, when you
+had made him no promise at all, when he wasn't sure of
+you, won't send him home to her; it will set him hunting you! 
+He says if you had combined the wisdom of Solomon,
+Socrates, and all the remainder of the wise men, you
+couldn't have chosen any course that would have sealed
+him to you so surely.  He feels that now Mr. Ammon will
+perfectly hate her for coming down there and driving
+you away.  And you went to give her the chance she wanted. 
+Oh, Elnora!  It is becoming funny!  I see it, too!"
+
+The Angel rocked on the bedside.  Elnora faced the
+dark in silence.
+
+"Forgive me," gulped the Angel.  "I didn't mean to laugh. 
+I didn't think it was funny, until all at once it
+came to me.  Oh, dear!  Elnora, it <i is> funny!  I've got
+to laugh!"
+
+"Maybe it is," admitted Elnora "to others; but it
+isn't very funny to me.  And it won't be to Philip, or
+to mother."
+
+That was very true.  Mrs. Comstock had been slightly
+prepared for stringent action of some kind, by what Elnora
+had said.  The mother instantly had guessed where the
+girl would go, but nothing was said to Philip.  That would
+have been to invalidate Elnora's test in the beginning, and
+Mrs. Comstock knew her child well enough to know that
+she never would marry Philip unless she felt it right that
+she should.  The only way was to find out, and Elnora
+had gone to seek the information.  There was nothing to
+do but wait until she came back, and her mother was not
+in the least uneasy but that the girl would return brave and
+self-reliant, as always.
+
+Philip Ammon hurried back to the Limberlost, strong
+in the hope that now he might take Elnora into his arms
+and receive her promise to become his wife.  His first
+shock of disappointment came when he found her gone. 
+In talking with Mrs. Comstock he learned that Edith Carr
+had made an opportunity to speak with Elnora alone. 
+He hastened down the road to meet her, coming back alone,
+an agitated man.  Then search revealed the notes.  His read:
+
+DEAR PHILIP:
+
+I find that I am never going to be able to answer your question of
+this afternoon fairly to all of us, when you are with me.  So I am going
+away a few weeks to think over matters alone.  I shall not tell you,
+or even mother, where I am going, but I shall be safe, well cared for,
+and happy.  Please go back home and live among your friends, just
+as you always have done, and on or before the first of September, I
+will write you where I am, and what I have decided.  Please do not
+blame Edith Carr for this, and do not avoid her.  I hope you will call
+on her and be friends.  I think she is very sorry, and covets your
+friendship at least.  Until September, then, as ever,
+
+                                        ELNORA.
+
+
+Mrs. Comstock's note was much the same.  Philip was
+ill with disappointment.  In the arbour he laid his head on
+the table, among the implements of Elnora's loved work, and
+gulped down dry sobs he could not restrain.  Mrs. Comstock
+never had liked him so well.  Her hand involuntarily crept
+toward his dark head, then she drew back.  Elnora would not
+want her to do anything whatever to influence him.
+
+"What am I going to do to convince Edith Carr that I
+do not love her, and Elnora that I am hers?" he demanded.
+
+"I guess you have to figure that out yourself," said
+Mrs. Comstock.  "I'd be glad to help you if I could,
+but it seems to be up to you."
+
+Philip sat a long time in silence.  "Well, I have decided!"
+he said abruptly.  "Are you perfectly sure Elnora had
+plenty of money and a safe place to go?"
+
+"Absolutely!" answered Mrs. Comstock.  "She has
+been taking care of herself ever since she was born, and she
+always has come out all right, so far; I'll stake all I'm
+worth on it, that she always will.  I don't know where she
+is, but I'm not going to worry about her safety."
+
+"I can't help worrying!" cried Philip.  "I can think of
+fifty things that may happen to her when she thinks she
+is safe.  This is distracting!  First, I am going to run
+up to see my father.  Then, I'll let you know what we
+have decided.  Is there anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Nothing!" said Mrs. Comstock.
+
+But the desire to do something for him was so strong
+with her she scarcely could keep her lips closed or her
+hands quiet.  She longed to tell him what Edith Carr had
+said, how it had affected Elnora, and to comfort him as she
+felt she could.  But loyalty to the girl held her.  If Elnora
+truly felt that she could not decide until Edith Carr was
+convinced, then Edith Carr would have to yield or triumph. 
+It rested with Philip.  So Mrs. Comstock kept silent, while
+Philip took the night limited, a bitterly disappointed man.
+
+By noon the next day he was in his father's offices.  They had
+a long conference, but did not arrive at much until the elder
+Ammon suggested sending for Polly.  Anything that might have
+happened could be explained after Polly had told of the
+private conference between Edith and Elnora.
+
+"Talk about lovely woman!" cried Philip Ammon.  "One would
+think that after such a dose as Edith gave me, she would
+be satisfied to let me go my way, but no!  Not caring for
+me enough herself to save me from public disgrace, she must
+now pursue me to keep any other woman from loving me. 
+I call that too much!  I am going to see her, and I want
+you to go with me, father."
+
+"Very well," said Mr. Ammon, "I will go."
+
+When Edith Carr came into her reception-room that
+afternoon, gowned for conquest, she expected only Philip,
+and him penitent.  She came hurrying toward him, smiling,
+radiant, ready to use every allurement she possessed, and
+paused in dismay when she saw his cold face and his father. 
+"Why, Phil!" she cried.  "When did you come home?"
+
+"I am not at home," answered Philip.  "I merely ran up
+to see my father on business, and to inquire of you what
+it was you said to Miss Comstock yesterday that caused
+her to disappear before I could return to the Limberlost."
+
+"Miss Comstock disappear!  Impossible!" cried Edith Carr. 
+"Where could she go?"
+
+"I thought perhaps you could answer that, since it was
+through you that she went."
+
+"Phil, I haven't the faintest idea where she is," said the
+girl gently.
+
+"But you know perfectly why she went!  Kindly tell me that."
+
+"Let me see you alone, and I will."
+
+"Here and now, or not at all."
+
+"Phil!"
+
+"What did you say to the girl I love?"
+
+Then Edith Carr stretched out her arms.
+
+"Phil, I am the girl you love!" she cried.  "All your
+life you have loved me.  Surely it cannot be all gone in
+a few weeks of misunderstanding.  I was jealous of her! 
+I did not want you to leave me an instant that night for any
+other girl living.  That was the moth I was representing. 
+Every one knew it!  I wanted you to bring it to me. 
+When you did not, I knew instantly it had been for her
+that you worked last summer, she who suggested my
+dress, she who had power to take you from me, when I
+wanted you most.  The thought drove me mad, and I said
+and did those insane things.  Phil, I beg your pardon! 
+I ask your forgiveness.  Yesterday she said that you had
+told her of me at once.  She vowed both of you had been
+true to me and Phil, I couldn't look into her eyes and not
+see that it was the truth.  Oh, Phil, if you understood how
+I have suffered you would forgive me.  Phil, I never knew
+how much I cared for you!  I will do anything--anything!"
+
+"Then tell me what you said to Elnora yesterday that
+drove her, alone and friendless, into the night, heaven
+knows where!"
+
+"You have no thought for any one save her?"
+
+"Yes," said Philip.  "I have.  Because I once loved you,
+and believed in you, my heart aches for you.  I will gladly
+forgive anything you ask.  I will do anything you want,
+except to resume our former relations.  That is impossible. 
+It is hopeless and useless to ask it."
+
+"You truly mean that!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then find out from her what I said!"
+
+"Come, father," said Philip, rising.
+
+"You were going to show Miss Comstock's letter to
+Edith!" suggested Mr. Ammon.
+
+"I have not the slightest interest in Miss Comstock's
+letter," said Edith Carr.
+
+"You are not even interested in the fact that she says
+you are not responsible for her going, and that I am to call
+on you and be friends with you?"
+
+"That is interesting, indeed!" sneered Miss Carr.
+
+She took the letter, read and returned it.
+
+"She has done what she could for my cause, it seems,"
+she said coldly.  "How very generous of her!  Do you
+propose calling out Pinkertons and instituting a
+general search?"
+
+"No," replied Philip.  "I simply propose to go back to
+the Limberlost and live with her mother, until Elnora
+becomes convinced that I am not courting you, and never
+shall be.  Then, perhaps, she will come home to us. 
+Good-bye.  Good luck to you always!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+WHEREIN EDITH CARR WAGES A BATTLE,
+AND HART HENDERSON STANDS GUARD
+
+
+Many people looked, a few followed, when Edith Carr
+slowly came down the main street of Mackinac, pausing
+here and there to note the glow of colour in one small
+booth after another, overflowing with gay curios. 
+That street of packed white sand, winding with the
+curves of the shore, outlined with brilliant shops,
+and thronged with laughing, bare-headed people in outing
+costumes was a picturesque and fascinating sight. 
+Thousands annually made long journeys and paid exorbitant
+prices to take part in that pageant.
+
+As Edith Carr passed, she was the most distinguished
+figure of the old street.  Her clinging black gown was
+sufficiently elaborate for a dinner dress.  On her head was
+a large, wide, drooping-brimmed black hat, with immense
+floating black plumes, while on the brim, and among the
+laces on her breast glowed velvety, deep red roses. 
+Some way these made up for the lack of colour in her cheeks
+and lips, and while her eyes seemed unnaturally bright,
+to a close observer they appeared weary.  Despite the
+effort she made to move lightly she was very tired,
+and dragged her heavy feet with an effort.
+
+She turned at the little street leading to the dock, and
+went to meet the big lake steamer ploughing up the Straits
+from Chicago.  Past the landing place, on to the very end
+of the pier she went, then sat down, leaned against a dock
+support and closed her tired eyes.  When the steamer
+came very close she languidly watched the people lining
+the railing.  Instantly she marked one lean anxious face
+turned toward hers, and with a throb of pity she lifted a
+hand and waved to Hart Henderson.  He was the first
+man to leave the boat, coming to her instantly.  She spread
+her trailing skirts and motioned him to sit beside her. 
+Silently they looked across the softly lapping water. 
+At last she forced herself to speak to him.
+
+"Did you have a successful trip?"
+
+"I accomplished my purpose."
+
+"You didn't lose any time getting back."
+
+"I never do when I am coming to you."
+
+"Do you want to go to the cottage for anything?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then let us sit here and wait until the Petoskey
+steamer comes in.  I like to watch the boats. 
+Sometimes I study the faces, if I am not too tired."
+
+"Have you seen any new types to-day?"
+
+She shook her head.  "This has not been an easy day, Hart."
+
+"And it's going to be worse," said Henderson bitterly. 
+"There's no use putting it off.  Edith, I saw some one to-day."
+
+"You should have seen thousands," she said lightly.
+
+"I did.  But of them all, only one will be of interest to you."
+
+"Man or woman?"
+
+"Man."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Lake Shore private hospital."
+
+"An accident?"
+
+"No.  Nervous and physical breakdown."
+
+"Phil said he was going back to the Limberlost."
+
+"He went.  He was there three weeks, but the strain
+broke him.  He has an old letter in his hands that he has
+handled until it is ragged.  He held it up to me and said: 
+"You can see for yourself that she says she will be well and
+happy, but we can't know until we see her again, and that
+may never be.  She may have gone too near that place her
+father went down, some of that Limberlost gang may have
+found her in the forest, she may lie dead in some city
+morgue this instant, waiting for me to find her body."
+
+"Hart!  For pity sake stop!"
+
+"I can't," cried Henderson desperately.  "I am forced
+to tell you.  They are fighting brain fever.  He did go
+back to the swamp and he prowled it night and day. 
+The days down there are hot now, and the nights wet with
+dew and cold.  He paid no attention and forgot his food. 
+A fever started and his uncle brought him home. 
+They've never had a word from her, or found a trace
+of her.  Mrs. Comstock thought she had gone to O'Mores' at
+Great Rapids, so when Phil broke down she telegraphed there. 
+They had been gone all summer, so her mother is as anxious as Phil."
+
+"The O'Mores are here," said Edith.  "I haven't seen
+any of them, because I haven't gone out much in the
+few days since we came, but this is their summer home."
+
+"Edith, they say at the hospital that it will take careful
+nursing to save Phil.  He is surrounded by stacks of
+maps and railroad guides.  He is trying to frame up a plan
+to set the entire detective agency of the country to work. 
+He says he will stay there just two days longer.  The doctors
+say he will kill himself when he goes.  He is a sick
+man, Edith.  His hands are burning and shaky and his
+breath was hot against my face."
+
+"Why are you telling me?"  It was a cry of acute anguish.
+
+"He thinks you know where she is."
+
+"I do not!  I haven't an idea!  I never dreamed she
+would go away when she had him in her hand!  I should
+not have done it!"
+
+"He said it was something you said to her that made her go."
+
+"That may be, but it doesn't prove that I know where
+she went."
+
+Henderson looked across the water and suffered keenly.  At last
+he turned to Edith and laid a firm, strong hand over hers.
+
+"Edith," he said, "do you realize how serious this is?"
+
+"I suppose I do."
+
+"Do you want as fine a fellow as Philip driven any further? 
+If he leaves that hospital now, and goes out to the
+exposure and anxiety of a search for her, there will be a
+tragedy that no after regrets can avert.  Edith, what did
+you say to Miss Comstock that made her run away from Phil?"
+
+The girl turned her face from him and sat still, but the
+man gripping her hands and waiting in agony could see that
+she was shaken by the jolting of the heart in her breast.
+
+"Edith, what did you say?"
+
+"What difference can it make?"
+
+"It might furnish some clue to her action."
+
+"It could not possibly."
+
+"Phil thinks so.  He has thought so until his brain is
+worn enough to give way.  Tell me, Edith!"
+
+"I told her Phil was mine!  That if he were away from
+her an hour and back in my presence, he would be to me as
+he always has been."
+
+"Edith, did you believe that?"
+
+"I would have staked my life, my soul on it!"
+
+"Do you believe it now?"
+
+There was no answer.  Henderson took her other hand and
+holding both of them firmly he said softly:  "Don't mind
+me, dear.  I don't count!  I'm just old Hart!  You can
+tell me anything.  Do you still believe that?"
+
+The beautiful head barely moved in negation. 
+Henderson gathered both her hands in one of his and stretched
+an arm across her shoulders to the post to support her. 
+She dragged her hands from him and twisted them together.
+
+"Oh, Hart!" she cried.  "It isn't fair!  There is
+a limit!  I have suffered my share.  Can't you see? 
+Can't you understand?"
+
+"Yes," he panted.  "Yes, my girl!  Tell me just this
+one thing yet, and I'll cheerfully kill any one who annoys
+you further.  Tell me, Edith!"
+
+Then she lifted her big, dull, pain-filled eyes to his and
+cried:  "No! I do not believe it now!  I know it is not true! 
+I killed his love for me.  It is dead and gone forever. 
+Nothing will revive it!  Nothing in all this world. 
+And that is not all.  I did not know how to touch the
+depths of his nature.  I never developed in him those
+things he was made to enjoy.  He admired me.  He was
+proud to be with me.  He thought, and I thought, that he
+worshipped me; but I know now that he never did care for
+me as he cares for her.  Never!  I can see it!  I planned to
+lead society, to make his home a place sought for my
+beauty and popularity.  She plans to advance his political
+ambitions, to make him comfortable physically, to stimulate
+his intellect, to bear him a brood of red-faced children. 
+He likes her and her plans as he never did me and mine. 
+Oh, my soul!  Now, are you satisfied?"
+
+She dropped back against his arm exhausted. 
+Henderson held her and learned what suffering
+truly means.  He fanned her with his hat, rubbed
+her cold hands and murmured broken, incoherent things. 
+By and by slow tears slipped from under her closed lids,
+but when she opened them her eyes were dull and hard.
+
+"What a rag one is when the last secret of the soul is
+torn out and laid bare!" she cried.
+
+Henderson thrust his handkerchief into her fingers and
+whispered, "Edith, the boat has been creeping up. 
+It's very close.  Maybe some of our crowd are on it. 
+Hadn't we better slip away from here before it lands?"
+
+"If I can walk," she said.  "Oh, I am so dead tired, Hart!
+
+"Yes, dear," said Henderson soothingly.  "Just try to
+pass the landing before the boat anchors.  If I only dared
+carry you!"
+
+They struggled through the waiting masses, but directly
+opposite the landing there was a backward movement in
+the happy, laughing crowd, the gang-plank came down
+with a slam, and people began hurrying from the boat. 
+Crowded against the fish house on the dock, Henderson
+could only advance a few steps at a time.  He was straining
+every nerve to protect and assist Edith.  He saw no
+one he recognized near them, so he slipped his arm across
+her back to help support her.  He felt her stiffen against
+him and catch her breath.  At the same instant, the
+clearest, sweetest male voice he ever had heard called: 
+"Be careful there, little men!"
+
+Henderson sent a swift glance toward the boat.  Terence O'More
+had stepped from the gang-plank, leading a little daughter,
+so like him, it was comical.  There followed a picture not
+easy to describe.  The Angel in the full flower of her
+beauty, richly dressed, a laugh on her cameo face, the
+setting sun glinting on her gold hair, escorted by her
+eldest son, who held her hand tightly and carefully watched
+her steps.  Next came Elnora, dressed with equal richness,
+a trifle taller and slenderer, almost the same type of
+colouring, but with different eyes and hair, facial lines
+and expression.  She was led by the second O'More boy
+who convulsed the crowd by saying:  "Tareful, Elnora! 
+Don't 'oo be 'teppin' in de water!"
+
+People surged around them, purposely closing them in.
+
+"What lovely women!  Who are they?  It's the O'Mores. 
+The lightest one is his wife.  Is that her sister? 
+No, it is his!  They say he has a title in England."
+
+Whispers ran fast and audible.  As the crowd pressed
+around the party an opening was left beside the fish sheds. 
+Edith ran down the dock.  Henderson sprang after her,
+catching her arm and assisting her to the street.
+
+"Up the shore!  This way!" she panted.  "Every one
+will go to dinner the first thing they do."
+
+They left the street and started around the beach, but
+Edith was breathless from running, while the yielding sand
+made difficult walking.
+
+"Help me!" she cried, clinging to Henderson.  He put
+his arm around her, almost carrying her from sight into a
+little cove walled by high rocks at the back, while there
+was a clean floor of white sand, and logs washed from the
+lake for seats.  He found one of these with a back rest,
+and hurrying down to the water he soaked his handkerchief
+and carried it to her.  She passed it across her lips,
+over her eyes, and then pressed the palms of her hands
+upon it.  Henderson removed the heavy hat, fanned her
+with his, and wet the handkerchief again.
+
+"Hart, what makes you?" she said wearily.  "My mother
+doesn't care.  She says this is good for me.  Do you
+think this is good for me, Hart?"
+
+"Edith, you know I would give my life if I could save
+you this," he said, and could not speak further.
+
+She leaned against him, closed her eyes and lay silent so
+long the man fell into panic.
+
+"Edith, you are not unconscious?" he whispered, touching her.
+
+"No.  just resting.  Please don't leave me."
+
+He held her carefully, gently fanning her.  She was
+suffering almost more than either of them could endure.
+
+"I wish you had your boat," she said at last.  "I want
+to sail with the wind in my face."
+
+"There is no wind.  I can bring my motor around in a
+few minutes."
+
+"Then get it."
+
+"Lie on the sand.  I can 'phone from the first booth. 
+It won't take but a little while."
+
+Edith lay on the white sand, and Henderson covered her
+face with her hat.  Then he ran to the nearest booth and
+talked imperatively.  Presently he was back bringing a
+hot drink that was stimulating.  Shortly the motor ran
+close to the beach and stopped.  Henderson's servant
+brought a row-boat ashore and took them to the launch. 
+It was filled with cushions and wraps.  Henderson made a
+couch and soon, warmly covered, Edith sped out over the
+water in search of peace.
+
+Hour after hour the boat ran up and down the shore. 
+The moon arose and the night air grew very chilly. 
+Henderson put on an overcoat and piled more covers on Edith.
+
+"You must take me home," she said at last.  "The folks
+will be uneasy."
+
+He was compelled to take her to the cottage with the
+battle still raging.  He went back early the next morning,
+but already she had wandered out over the island. 
+Instinctively Henderson felt that the shore would attract her. 
+There was something in the tumult of rough little Huron's
+waves that called to him.  It was there he found her,
+crouching so close the water the foam was dampening her skirts.
+
+"May I stay?" he asked.
+
+"I have been hoping you would come," she answered. 
+"It's bad enough when you are here, but it is a little easier
+than bearing it alone."
+
+"Thank God for that!" said Henderson sitting beside
+her.  "Shall I talk to you?"
+
+She shook her head.  So they sat by the hour.  At last
+she spoke:  "Of course, you know there is something I
+have got to do, Hart!"
+
+"You have not!" cried Henderson, violently. 
+"That's all nonsense!  Give me just one word
+of permission.  That is all that is required of you."
+
+"`Required?'  You grant, then, that there is something `required?'"
+
+"One word.  Nothing more."
+
+"Did you ever know one word could be so big, so black,
+so desperately bitter?  Oh, Hart!"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you know it now, Hart!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And still you say that it is `required?'"
+
+Henderson suffered unspeakably.  At last he said:  "If you
+had seen and heard him, Edith, you, too, would feel that
+it is `required.'  Remember----"
+
+"No!  No!  No!" she cried.  "Don't ask me to remember even
+the least of my pride and folly.  Let me forget!"
+
+She sat silent for a long time.
+
+"Will you go with me?" she whispered. 
+
+"Of course."
+
+At last she arose.
+
+"I might as well give up and have it over," she faltered. 
+
+That was the first time in her life that Edith Carr ever
+had proposed to give up anything she wanted.
+
+"Help me, Hart!"
+
+Henderson started around the beach assisting her all he could. 
+Finally he stopped.
+
+"Edith, there is no sense in this!  You are too tired to go. 
+You know you can trust me.  You wait in any of these lovely
+places and send me.  You will be safe, and I'll run. 
+One word is all that is necessary."
+
+"But I've got to say that word myself, Hart!"
+
+"Then write it, and let me carry it.  The message is not
+going to prove who went to the office and sent it."
+
+"That is quite true," she said, dropping wearily, but she
+made no movement to take the pen and paper he offered.
+
+"Hart, you write it," she said at last.
+
+Henderson turned away his face.  He gripped the pen,
+while his breath sucked between his dry teeth.
+
+"Certainly!" he said when he could speak.  "Mackinac,
+August 27, 1908.  Philip Ammon, Lake Shore Hospital, Chicago." 
+He paused with suspended pen and glanced at Edith.  Her white
+lips were working, but no sound came.  "Miss Comstock is with
+the Terence O'Mores, on Mackinac Island," prompted Henderson.
+
+Edith nodded.
+
+"Signed, Henderson," continued the big man.
+
+Edith shook her head.
+
+"Say, `She is well and happy,' and sign, Edith Carr!"
+she panted.
+
+"Not on your life!" flashed Henderson.
+
+"For the love of mercy, Hart, don't make this any harder! 
+It is the least I can do, and it takes every ounce of
+strength in me to do it."
+
+"Will you wait for me here?" he asked.
+
+She nodded, and, pulling his hat lower over his eyes,
+Henderson ran around the shore.  In less than an hour he
+was back.  He helped her a little farther to where the
+Devil's Kitchen lay cut into the rocks; it furnished places
+to rest, and cool water.  Before long his man came with
+the boat.  From it they spread blankets on the sand for
+her, and made chafing-dish tea.  She tried to refuse it,
+but the fragrance overcame her for she drank ravenously. 
+Then Henderson cooked several dishes and spread an
+appetizing lunch.  She was young, strong, and almost
+famished for food.  She was forced to eat.  That made
+her feel much better.  Then Henderson helped her into the
+boat and ran it through shady coves of the shore, where
+there were refreshing breezes.  When she fell asleep the
+girl did not know, but the man did.  Sadly in need of rest
+himself, he ran that boat for five hours through quiet bays,
+away from noisy parties, and where the shade was cool
+and deep.  When she awoke he took her home, and as they
+went she knew that she had been mistaken.  She would
+not die.  Her heart was not even broken.  She had suffered
+horribly; she would suffer more; but eventually the pain
+must wear out.  Into her head crept a few lines of an
+old opera:
+
+
+     "Hearts do not break, they sting and ache,
+      For old love's sake, but do not die,
+      As witnesseth the living I."
+
+
+That evening they were sailing down the Straits before
+a stiff breeze and Henderson was busy with the tiller when
+she said to him:  "Hart, I want you to do something more
+for me."
+
+"You have only to tell me," he said.
+
+"Have I only to tell you, Hart?" she asked softly.
+
+"Haven't you learned that yet, Edith?"
+
+"I want you to go away."
+
+"Very well," he said quietly, but his face whitened visibly.
+
+"You say that as if you had been expecting it."
+
+"I have.  I knew from the beginning that when this
+was over you would dislike me for having seen you suffer. 
+I have grown my Gethsemane in a full realization of what
+was coming, but I could not leave you, Edith, so long as it
+seemed to me that I was serving you.  Does it make any
+difference to you where I go?"
+
+"I want you where you will be loved, and good care
+taken of you."
+
+"Thank you!" said Henderson, smiling grimly.  "Have you
+any idea where such a spot might be found?"
+
+"It should be with your sister at Los Angeles.  She always
+has seemed very fond of you."
+
+"That is quite true," said Henderson, his eyes brightening
+a little.  "I will go to her.  When shall I start?"
+
+"At once."
+
+Henderson began to tack for the landing, but his hands
+shook until he scarcely could manage the boat.  Edith Carr
+sat watching him indifferently, but her heart was
+throbbing painfully.  "Why is there so much suffering in
+the world?" she kept whispering to herself.  Inside her
+door Henderson took her by the shoulders almost roughly.
+
+"For how long is this, Edith, and how are you going to
+say good-bye to me?"
+
+She raised tired, pain-filled eyes to his.
+
+"I don't know for how long it is," she said.  "It seems
+now as if it had been a slow eternity.  I wish to my soul
+that God would be merciful to me and make something
+`snap' in my heart, as there did in Phil's, that would give
+me rest.  I don't know for how long, but I'm perfectly
+shameless with you, Hart.  If peace ever comes and I want
+you, I won't wait for you to find it out yourself, I'll cable,
+Marconigraph, anything.  As for how I say good-bye; any
+way you please, I don't care in the least what happens to me."
+
+Henderson studied her intently.
+
+"In that case, we will shake hands," he said.  "Good-bye, Edith. 
+Don't forget that every hour I am thinking of you and hoping
+all good things will come to you soon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+WHEREIN PHILIP FINDS ELNORA,
+AND EDITH CARR OFFERS A YELLOW EMPEROR
+
+
+Oh, I need my own violin," cried Elnora.  "This one
+may be a thousand times more expensive, and much older
+than mine; but it wasn't inspired and taught to sing
+by a man who knew how.  It doesn't know `beans,' as
+mother would say, about the Limberlost."
+
+The guests in the O'More music-room laughed appreciatively.
+
+"Why don't you write your mother to come for a visit
+and bring yours?" suggested Freckles.
+
+"I did that three days ago," acknowledged Elnora. 
+"I am half expecting her on the noon boat.  That is
+one reason why this violin grows worse every minute. 
+There is nothing at all the matter with me."
+
+"Splendid!" cried the Angel.  "I've begged and begged
+her to do it.  I know how anxious these mothers become. 
+When did you send?  What made you?  Why didn't you
+tell me?"
+
+"`When?' Three days ago.  `What made me?'  You. `Why didn't
+I tell you?'  Because I can't be sure in the least that she
+will come.  Mother is the most individual person.  She never
+does what every one expects she will.
+
+She may not come, and I didn't want you to be disappointed."
+
+"How did I make you?" asked the Angel.
+
+"Loving Alice.  It made me realize that if you cared for
+your girl like that, with Mr. O'More and three other
+children, possibly my mother, with no one, might like to
+see me.  I know I want to see her, and you had told me to
+so often, I just sent for her.  Oh, I do hope she comes! 
+I want her to see this lovely place."
+
+"I have been wondering what you thought of Mackinac,"
+said Freckles.
+
+"Oh, it is a perfect picture, all of it!  I should like to
+hang it on the wall, so I could see it whenever I wanted to;
+but it isn't real, of course; it's nothing but a picture."
+
+"These people won't agree with you," smiled Freckles.
+
+"That isn't necessary," retorted Elnora.  "They know
+this, and they love it; but you and I are acquainted with
+something different.  The Limberlost is life.  Here it is
+a carefully kept park.  You motor, sail, and golf, all so
+secure and fine.  But what I like is the excitement of
+choosing a path carefully, in the fear that the quagmire
+may reach out and suck me down; to go into the swamp
+naked-handed and wrest from it treasures that bring me
+books and clothing, and I like enough of a fight for things
+that I always remember how I got them.  I even enjoy
+seeing a canny old vulture eyeing me as if it were saying: 
+`Ware the sting of the rattler, lest I pick your bones as I
+did old Limber's.' I like sufficient danger to put an edge
+on life.  This is so tame.  I should have loved it when all
+the homes were cabins, and watchers for the stealthy
+Indian canoes patrolled the shores.  You wait until
+mother comes, and if my violin isn't angry with me for
+leaving it, to-night we shall sing you the Song of
+the Limberlost.  You shall hear the big gold bees over the
+red, yellow, and purple flowers, bird song, wind talk, and
+the whispers of Sleepy Snake Creek, as it goes past you. 
+You will know!"  Elnora turned to Freckles.
+
+He nodded.  "Who better?" he asked.  "This is secure
+while the children are so small, but when they grow larger,
+we are going farther north, into real forest, where they can
+learn self-reliance and develop backbone."
+
+Elnora laid away the violin.  "Come along, children,"
+she said.  "We must get at that backbone business at once. 
+Let's race to the playhouse."
+
+With the brood at her heels Elnora ran, and for an hour
+lively sounds stole from the remaining spot of forest on the
+Island, which lay beside the O'More cottage.  Then Terry
+went to the playroom to bring Alice her doll.  He came
+racing back, dragging it by one leg, and crying: 
+"There's company!  Someone has come that mamma and papa
+are just tearing down the house over.  I saw through
+the window."
+
+"It could not be my mother, yet," mused Elnora.  "Her boat
+is not due until twelve.  Terry, give Alice that doll----"
+
+"It's a man-person, and I don't know him, but my
+father is shaking his hand right straight along, and my
+mother is running for a hot drink and a cushion.  It's a
+kind of a sick person, but they are going to make him well
+right away, any one can see that.  This is the best place.
+
+I'll go tell him to come lie on the pine needles in the sun
+and watch the sails go by.  That will fix him!"
+
+"Watch sails go by," chanted Little Brother.  "'A fix him! 
+Elnora fix him, won't you?"
+
+"I don't know about that," answered Elnora.  "What sort
+of person is he, Terry?"
+
+"A beautiful white person; but my father is going to
+`colour him up,' I heard him say so.  He's just out of the
+hospital, and he is a bad person, 'cause he ran away from
+the doctors and made them awful angry.  But father
+and mother are going to doctor him better.  I didn't know
+they could make sick people well."
+
+"'Ey do anyfing!" boasted Little Brother.
+
+Before Elnora missed her, Alice, who had gone to
+investigate, came flying across the shadows and through the
+sunshine waving a paper.  She thurst it into Elnora's hand.
+
+"There is a man-person--a stranger-person!" she shouted. 
+"But he knows you!  He sent you that!  You are to be
+the doctor!  He said so!  Oh, do hurry!  I like him heaps!"
+
+Elnora read Edith Carr's telegram to Philip Ammon
+and understood that he had been ill, that she had been
+located by Edith who had notified him.  In so doing
+she had acknowledged defeat.  At last Philip was free. 
+Elnora looked up with a radiant face.
+
+"I like him `heaps' myself!" she cried.  "Come on
+children, we will go tell him so."
+
+Terry and Alice ran, but Elnora had to suit her steps
+to Little Brother, who was her loyal esquire, and would
+have been heartbroken over desertion and insulted at
+being carried.  He was rather dragged, but he was
+arriving, and the emergency was great, he could see that. 
+
+"She's coming!" shouted Alice.
+
+"She's going to be the doctor!" cried Terry.
+
+"She looked just like she'd seen angels when she read
+the letter," explained Alice.
+
+"She likes you `heaps!'  She said so!" danced Terry. 
+"Be waiting!  Here she is!"
+
+Elnora helped Little Brother up the steps, then deserted
+him and came at a rush.  The stranger-person stood
+holding out trembling arms.
+
+"Are you sure, at last, runaway?" asked Philip Ammon.
+
+"Perfectly sure!" cried Elnora.
+
+"Will you marry me now?"
+
+"This instant!  That is, any time after the noon boat
+comes in."
+
+"Why such unnecessary delay?" demanded Ammon.
+
+"It is almost September," explained Elnora.  "I sent
+for mother three days ago.  We must wait until she comes,
+and we either have to send for Uncle Wesley and Aunt
+Margaret, or go to them.  I couldn't possibly be married
+properly without those dear people."
+
+"We will send," decided Ammon.  "The trip will be
+a treat for them.  O'More, would you get off a message
+at once?"
+
+Every one met the noon boat.  They went in the motor
+because Philip was too weak to walk so far.  As soon as
+people could be distinguished at all Elnora and Philip
+sighted an erect figure, with a head like a snowdrift. 
+When the gang-plank fell the first person across it was
+a lean, red-haired boy of eleven, carrying a violin in
+one hand and an enormous bouquet of yellow marigolds and
+purple asters in the other.  He was beaming with broad
+smiles until he saw Philip.  Then his expression changed.
+
+"Aw, say!" he exclaimed reproachfully.  "I bet you
+Aunt Margaret is right.  He is going to be your beau!"
+
+Elnora stooped to kiss Billy as she caught her mother.
+
+"There, there!" cried Mrs. Comstock.  "Don't knock
+my headgear into my eye.  I'm not sure I've got either
+hat or hair.  The wind blew like bizzem coming up the river."
+
+She shook out her skirts, straightened her hat, and
+came forward to meet Philip, who took her into his arms
+and kissed her repeatedly.  Then he passed her along to
+Freckles and the Angel to whom her greetings were mingled
+with scolding and laughter over her wind-blown hair.
+
+"No doubt I'm a precious spectacle!" she said to the Angel. 
+"I saw your pa a little before I started, and he sent you
+a note.  It's in my satchel.  He said he was coming up
+next week.  What a lot of people there are in this world! 
+And what on earth are all of them laughing about? 
+Did none of them ever hear of sickness, or sorrow,
+or death?  Billy, don't you go to playing Indian or
+chasing woodchucks until you get out of those clothes. 
+I promised Margaret I'd bring back that suit good as new."
+
+Then the O'More children came crowding to meet Elnora's mother.
+
+"Merry Christmas!" cried Mrs. Comstock, gathering
+them in.  "Got everything right here but the tree, and
+there seems to be plenty of them a little higher up. 
+If this wind would stiffen just enough more to blow away
+the people, so one could see this place, I believe it would
+be right decent looking."
+
+"See here," whispered Elnora to Philip.  "You must
+fix this with Billy.  I can't have his trip spoiled."
+
+"Now, here is where I dust the rest of 'em!" complacently
+remarked Mrs. Comstock, as she climbed into the motor car
+for her first ride, in company with Philip and Little Brother. 
+"I have been the one to trudge the roads and hop out of the
+way of these things for quite a spell."
+
+She sat very erect as the car rolled into the broad main
+avenue, where only stray couples were walking.  Her eyes
+began to twinkle and gleam.  Suddenly she leaned forward
+and touched the driver on the shoulder.
+
+"Young man," she said, "just you toot that horn suddenly
+and shave close enough a few of those people, so that I
+can see how I look when I leap for ragweed and snake fences."
+
+The amazed chauffeur glanced questioningly at Philip
+who slightly nodded.  A second later there was a quick
+"honk!" and a swerve at a corner.  A man engrossed
+in conversation grabbed the woman to whom he was talking
+and dashed for the safety of a lawn.  The woman
+tripped in her skirts, and as she fell the man caught and
+dragged her.  Both of them turned red faces to the car
+and berated the driver.  Mrs. Comstock laughed in
+unrestrained enjoyment.  Then she touched the chauffeur again.
+
+"That's enough," she said.  "It seems a mite risky." 
+A minute later she added to Philip, "If only they had
+been carrying six pounds of butter and ten dozen eggs
+apiece, wouldn't that have been just perfect?"
+
+Billy had wavered between Elnora and the motor, but
+his loyal little soul had been true to her, so the walk to
+the cottage began with him at her side.  Long before
+they arrived the little O'Mores had crowded around and
+captured Billy, and he was giving them an expurgated
+version of Mrs. Comstock's tales of Big Foot and Adam
+Poe, boasting that Uncle Wesley had been in the camps
+of Me-shin-go-me-sia and knew Wa-ca-co-nah before
+he got religion and dressed like white men; while the
+mighty prowess of Snap as a woodchuck hunter was done
+full justice.  When they reached the cottage Philip took
+Billy aside, showed him the emerald ring and gravely
+asked his permission to marry Elnora.  Billy struggled
+to be just, but it was going hard with him, when Alice,
+who kept close enough to hear, intervened.
+
+"Why don't you let them get married?" she asked. 
+"You are much too small for her.  You wait for me!"
+
+Billy studied her intently.  At last he turned to Ammon. 
+"Aw, well!  Go on, then!" he said gruffly.  "I'll marry Alice!"
+
+Alice reached her hand.  "If you got that settled
+let's put on our Indian clothes, call the boys, and go to
+the playhouse."
+
+"I haven't got any Indian clothes," said Billy ruefully.
+
+"Yes, you have," explained Alice.  "Father bought
+you some coming from the dock.  You can put them on in
+the playhouse.  The boys do."
+
+Billy examined the playhouse with gleaming eyes.
+
+Never had he encountered such possibilities.  He could
+see a hundred amusing things to try, and he could not
+decide which to do first.  The most immediate attraction
+seemed to be a dead pine, held perpendicularly by its
+fellows, while its bark had decayed and fallen, leaving
+a bare, smooth trunk.
+
+"If we just had some grease that would make the dandiest
+pole to play Fourth of July with!" he shouted.
+
+The children remembered the Fourth.  It had been
+great fun.
+
+"Butter is grease.  There is plenty in the 'frigerator,"
+suggested Alice, speeding away.
+
+Billy caught the cold roll and began to rub it against
+the tree excitedly.
+
+"How are you going to get it greased to the top?" inquired Terry.
+
+Billy's face lengthened.  "That's so!" he said.  "The thing
+is to begin at the top and grease down.  I'll show you!"
+
+Billy put the butter in his handkerchief and took the
+corners between his teeth.  He climbed the pole, greasing
+it as he slid down.
+
+"Now, I got to try first," he said, "because I'm the
+biggest and so I have the best chance; only the one that
+goes first hasn't hardly any chance at all, because he has
+to wipe off the grease on himself, so the others can get up
+at last.  See?"
+
+"All right!" said Terry.  "You go first and then I will
+and then Alice.  Phew!  It's slick.  He'll never get up."
+
+Billy wrestled manfully, and when he was exhausted
+he boosted Terry, and then both of them helped Alice,
+to whom they awarded a prize of her own doll.  As they
+rested Billy remembered.
+
+"Do your folks keep cows?" he asked.
+
+"No, we buy milk," said Terry.
+
+"Gee!  Then what about the butter?  Maybe your
+ma needs it for dinner!"
+
+"No, she doesn't!" cried Alice.  "There's stacks of it! 
+I can have all the butter I want."
+
+"Well, I'm mighty glad of it!" said Billy.  "I didn't
+just think.  I'm afraid we've greased our clothes, too."
+
+"That's no difference," said Terry.  "We can play
+what we please in these things."
+
+"Well, we ought to be all dirty, and bloody, and have
+feathers on us to be real Indians," said Billy.
+
+Alice tried a handful of dirt on her sleeve and it
+streaked beautifully.  Instantly all of them began
+smearing themselves.
+
+"If we only had feathers," lamented Billy.
+
+Terry disappeared and shortly returned from the garage
+with a feather duster.  Billy fell on it with a shriek. 
+Around each one's head he firmly tied a twisted handkerchief,
+and stuck inside it a row of stiffly upstanding feathers.
+
+"Now, if we just only had some pokeberries to paint us
+red, we'd be real, for sure enough Indians, and we could go
+on the warpath and fight all the other tribes and burn a
+lot of them at the stake."
+
+Alice sidled up to him.  "Would huckleberries do?"
+she asked softly.
+
+"Yes!" shouted Terry, wild with excitement.  "Anything that's
+a colour."
+
+Alice made another trip to the refrigerator.  Billy crushed
+the berries in his hands and smeared and streaked all their
+faces liberally.
+
+"Now are we ready?" asked Alice.
+
+Billy collapsed.  "I forgot the ponies!  You got to ride
+ponies to go on the warpath!"
+
+"You ain't neither!" contradicted Terry.  "It's the
+very latest style to go on the warpath in a motor. 
+Everybody does!  They go everywhere in them.  They are
+much faster and better than any old ponies."
+
+Billy gave one genuine whoop.  "Can we take your motor?"
+
+Terry hesitated.
+
+"I suppose you are too little to run it?" said Billy.
+
+"I am not!" flashed Terry.  "I know how to start and
+stop it, and I drive lots for Stephens.  It is hard to turn
+over the engine when you start."
+
+"I'll turn it," volunteered Billy.  "I'm strong as anything."
+
+"Maybe it will start without.  If Stephens has just
+been running it, sometimes it will.  Come on, let's try."
+
+Billy straightened up, lifted his chin and cried:  "Houpe! 
+Houpe!  Houpe!"
+
+The little O'Mores stared in amazement.
+
+"Why don't you come on and whoop?" demanded Billy. 
+"Don't you know how?  You are great Indians! 
+You got to whoop before you go on the warpath. 
+You ought to kill a bat, too, and see if the wind
+is right.  But maybe the engine won't run if we wait
+to do that.  You can whoop, anyway.  All together now!"
+
+
+They did whoop, and after several efforts the cry satisfied
+Billy, so he led the way to the big motor, and took
+the front seat with Terry.  Alice and Little Brother
+climbed into the back.
+
+"Will it go?" asked Billy, "or do we have to turn it?"
+
+"It will go," said Terry as the machine gently slid out
+into the avenue and started under his guidance.
+
+"This is no warpath!" scoffed Billy.  "We got to go a
+lot faster than this, and we got to whoop.  Alice, why
+don't you whoop?
+
+Alice arose, took hold of the seat in front and whooped.
+
+"If I open the throttle, I can't squeeze the bulb to scare
+people out of our way," said Terry.  "I can't steer and
+squeeze, too."
+
+"We'll whoop enough to get them out of the way.  Go faster!"
+urged Billy.
+
+Billy also stood, lifted his chin and whooped like the
+wildest little savage that ever came out of the West. 
+Alice and Little Brother added their voices, and when he
+was not absorbed with the steering gear, Terry joined in.
+
+"Faster!" shouted Billy.
+
+Intoxicated with the speed and excitement, Terry
+threw the throttle wider and the big car leaped forward
+and sped down the avenue.  In it four black, feather-
+bedecked children whooped in wild glee until suddenly
+Terry's war cry changed to a scream of panic.
+
+"The lake is coming!"
+
+"Stop!" cried Billy.  "Stop!  Why don't you stop?"
+
+Paralyzed with fear Terry clung to the steering gear and
+the car sped onward.
+
+"You little fool!  Why don't you stop?" screamed
+Billy, catching Terry's arm.  "Tell me how to stop!"
+
+A bicycle shot beside them and Freckles standing on
+the pedals shouted:  "Pull out the pin in that little
+circle at your feet!"
+
+Billy fell on his knees and tugged and the pin yielded
+at last.  Just as the wheels struck the white sand the bicycle
+sheered close, Freckles caught the lever and with one strong
+shove set the brake.  The water flew as the car struck Huron,
+but luckily it was shallow and the beach smooth.  Hub deep
+the big motor stood quivering as Freckles climbed in and
+backed it to dry sand.
+
+Then he drew a deep breath and stared at his brood.
+
+"Terence, would you kindly be explaining?" he said at last.
+
+Billy looked at the panting little figure of Terry.
+
+"I guess I better," he said.  "We were playing Indians
+on the warpath, and we hadn't any ponies, and Terry
+said it was all the style to go in automobiles now,
+so we----"
+
+Freckles's head went back, and be did some whooping himself.
+
+"I wonder if you realize how nearly you came to being
+four drowned children?" he said gravely, after a time.
+
+"Oh, I think I could swim enough to get most of us out,"
+said Billy.  "Anyway, we need washing."
+
+"You do indeed," said Freckles.  "I will head this
+procession to the garage, and there we will remove the
+first coat." For the remainder of Billy's visit the nurse,
+chauffeur, and every servant of the O'More household had
+something of importance on their minds, and Billy's every
+step was shadowed.
+
+"I have Billy's consent," said Philip to Elnora, "and all
+the other consent you have stipulated.  Before you think
+of something more, give me your left hand, please."
+
+Elnora gave it gladly, and the emerald slipped on her finger. 
+Then they went together into the forest to tell each other
+all about it, and talk it over.
+
+"Have you seen Edith?" asked Philip.
+
+"No," answered Elnora.  "But she must be here, or she
+may have seen me when we went to Petoskey a few days ago. 
+Her people have a cottage over on the bluff, but the
+Angel never told me until to-day.  I didn't want to make
+that trip, but the folks were so anxious to entertain me,
+and it was only a few days until I intended to let you know
+myself where I was."
+
+"And I was going to wait just that long, and if I didn't
+hear then I was getting ready to turn over the country. 
+I can scarcely realize yet that Edith sent me that telegram."
+
+"No wonder!  It's a difficult thing to believe.  I can't
+express how I feel for her."
+
+"Let us never speak of it again," said Philip.  "I came
+nearer feeling sorry for her last night than I have yet. 
+I couldn't sleep on that boat coming over, and I couldn't
+put away the thought of what sending that message cost her. 
+I never would have believed it possible that she would do it. 
+But it is done.  We will forget it."
+
+"I scarcely think I shall," said Elnora.  "It is something
+I like to remember.  How suffering must have changed her! 
+I would give anything to bring her peace."
+
+"Henderson came to see me at the hospital a few days ago. 
+He's gone a rather wild pace, but if he had been held
+from youth by the love of a good woman he might have
+lived differently.  There are things about him one cannot
+help admiring."
+
+"I think he loves her," said Elnora softly.
+
+"He does!  He always has!  He never made any secret
+of it.  He will cut in now and do his level best,
+but he told me that he thought she would send him away. 
+He understands her thoroughly."
+
+Edith Carr did not understand herself.  She went to
+her room after her good-bye to Henderson, lay on her
+bed and tried to think why she was suffering as she was.
+
+"It is all my selfishness, my unrestrained temper, my
+pride in my looks, my ambition to be first," she said. 
+"That is what has caused this trouble."
+
+Then she went deeper.
+
+"How does it happen that I am so selfish, that I never
+controlled my temper, that I thought beauty and social
+position the vital things of life?" she muttered.  "I think
+that goes a little past me.  I think a mother who allows a
+child to grow up as I did, who educates it only for the
+frivolities of life, has a share in that child's ending. 
+I think my mother has some responsibility in this," Edith
+Carr whispered to the night.  "But she will recognize none. 
+She would laugh at me if I tried to tell her what I have
+suffered and the bitter, bitter lesson I have learned. 
+No one really cares, but Hart.  I've sent him away, so
+there is no one!  No one!"
+
+Edith pressed her fingers across her burning eyes and
+lay still.
+
+"He is gone!" she whispered at last.   "He would go at once. 
+He would not see me again.  I should think he never would
+want to see me any more.  But I will want to see him! 
+My soul!  I want him now!  I want him every minute! 
+He is all I have.  And I've sent him away.  Oh, these
+dreadful days to come, alone!  I can't bear it.  Hart! 
+Hart!" she cried aloud.  "I want you!  No one cares but you. 
+No one understands but you.  Oh, I want you!"
+
+She sprang from her bed and felt her way to her desk. 
+
+"Get me some one at the Henderson cottage," she said
+to Central, and waited shivering.
+
+"They don't answer."
+
+"They are there!  You must get them.  Turn on the buzzer."
+
+After a time the sleepy voice of Mrs. Henderson answered.
+
+"Has Hart gone?" panted Edith Carr.
+
+"No!  He came in late and began to talk about starting
+to California.  He hasn't slept in weeks to amount
+to anything.  I put him to bed.  There is time enough to
+start to California when he awakens.  Edith, what are you
+planning to do next with that boy of mine?"
+
+"Will you tell him I want to see him before he goes?"
+
+"Yes, but I won't wake him."
+
+"I don't want you to.  Just tell him in the morning."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"You will be sure?"
+
+"Sure!"
+
+Hart was not gone.  Edith fell asleep.  She arose at
+noon the next day, took a cold bath, ate her breakfast,
+dressed carefully, and leaving word that she had gone to
+the forest, she walked slowly across the leaves.  It was
+cool and quiet there, so she sat where she could see him
+coming, and waited.  She was thinking deep and fast.
+
+Henderson came swiftly down the path.  A long sleep,
+food, and Edith's message had done him good.  He had
+dressed in new light flannels that were becoming. 
+Edith arose and went to meet him.
+
+"Let us walk in the forest," she said.
+
+They passed the old Catholic graveyard, and entered
+the deepest wood of the Island, where all shadows were
+green, all voices of humanity ceased, and there was no
+sound save the whispering of the trees, a few bird notes and
+squirrel rustle.  There Edith seated herself on a mossy old
+log, and Henderson studied her.  He could detect a change. 
+She was still pale and her eyes tired, but the dull, strained
+look was gone.  He wanted to hope, but he did not dare. 
+Any other man would have forced her to speak.  The mighty
+tenderness in Henderson's heart shielded her in every way.
+
+"What have you thought of that you wanted yet, Edith?"
+he asked lightly as he stretched himself at her feet.
+
+"You!"
+
+Henderson lay tense and very still.
+
+"Well, I am here!"
+
+"Thank Heaven for that!"
+
+Henderson sat up suddenly, leaning toward her with
+questioning eyes.  Not knowing what he dared say,
+afraid of the hope which found birth in his heart, he tried
+to shield her and at the same time to feel his way.
+
+"I am more thankful than I can express that you feel
+so," he said.  "I would be of use, of comfort, to you if I
+knew how, Edith."
+
+"You are my only comfort," she said.  "I tried to send
+you away.  I thought I didn't want you.  I thought I
+couldn't bear the sight of you, because of what you have
+seen me suffer.  But I went to the root of this thing last
+night, Hart, and with self in mind, as usual, I found that
+I could not live without you."
+
+Henderson began breathing lightly.  He was afraid to
+speak or move.
+
+"I faced the fact that all this is my own fault,"
+continued Edith, "and came through my own selfishness. 
+Then I went farther back and realized that I am as I
+was reared.  I don't want to blame my parents, but I
+was carefully trained into what I am.  If Elnora Comstock had
+been like me, Phil would have come back to me.  I can see
+how selfish I seem to him, and how I appear to you, if you
+would admit it."
+
+"Edith," said Henderson desperately, "there is no use
+to try to deceive you.  You have known from the first
+that I found you wrong in this.  But it's the first time in
+your life I ever thought you wrong about anything--and
+it's the only time I ever shall.  Understand, I think you
+the bravest, most beautiful woman on earth, the one most
+worth loving."
+
+"I'm not to be considered in the same class with her."
+
+"I don't grant that, but if I did, you, must remember
+how I compare with Phil.  He's my superior at every point. 
+There's no use in discussing that.  You wanted to see me, Edith. 
+What did you want?"
+
+"I wanted you to not go away."
+
+"Not at all?"
+
+"Not at all!  Not ever!  Not unless you take me with
+you, Hart."
+
+She slightly extended one hand to him.  Henderson took
+that hand, kissing it again and again.
+
+"Anything you want, Edith," he said brokenly.  "Just as
+you wish it.  Do you want me to stay here, and go on as
+we have been?"
+
+"Yes, only with a difference."
+
+"Can you tell me, Edith?"
+
+"First, I want you to know that you are the dearest
+thing on earth to me, right now.  I would give up
+everything else, before I would you.  I can't honestly say
+that I love you with the love you deserve.  My heart is
+too sore.  It's too soon to know.  But I love you some way. 
+You are necessary to me.  You are my comfort, my shield. 
+If you want me, as you know me to be, Hart, you may consider
+me yours.  I give you my word of honour I will try to be
+as you would have me, just as soon as I can."
+
+Henderson kissed her hand passionately.  "Don't, Edith,"
+he begged.  "Don't say those things.  I can't bear it. 
+I understand.  Everything will come right in time. 
+Love like mine must bring a reward.  You will love me
+some day.  I can wait.  I am the most patient fellow."
+
+"But I must say it," cried Edith.  "I--I think, Hart,
+that I have been on the wrong road to find happiness. 
+I planned to finish life as I started it with Phil; and you
+see how glad he was to change.  He wanted the other sort of
+girl far more than he ever wanted me.  And you, Hart,
+honest, now--I'll know if you don't tell me the truth! 
+Would you rather have a wife as I planned to live life with
+Phil, or would you rather have her as Elnora Comstock intends
+to live with him?"
+
+"Edith!" cried the man, "Edith!"
+
+"Of course, you can't say it in plain English," said the girl. 
+"You are far too chivalrous for that.  You needn't
+say anything.  I am answered.  If you could have your
+choice you wouldn't have a society wife, either.  In your
+heart you'd like the smaller home of comfort, the furtherance
+of your ambitions, the palatable meals regularly served,
+and little children around you.  I am sick of all we
+have grown up to, Hart.  When your hour of trouble
+comes, there is no comfort for you.  I am tired to death. 
+You find out what you want to do, and be, that is a man's
+work in the world, and I will plan our home, with no
+thought save your comfort.  I'll be the other kind of a girl,
+as fast as I can learn.  I can't correct all my faults in one
+day, but I'll change as rapidly as I can."
+
+"God knows, I will be different, too, Edith.  You shall
+not be the only generous one.  I will make all the rest of
+life worthy of you.  I will change, too!"
+
+"Don't you dare!" said Edith Carr, taking his head between
+her hands and holding it against her knees, while the
+tears slid down her cheeks.  "Don't you dare change, you
+big-hearted, splendid lover!  I am little and selfish. 
+You are the very finest, just as you are!"
+
+Henderson was not talking then, so they sat through a
+long silence.  At last he heard Edith draw a quick
+breath, and lifting his head he looked where she pointed. 
+Up a fern stalk climbed a curious looking object. 
+They watched breathlessly.  By lavender feet clung a big,
+pursy, lavender-splotched, yellow body.  Yellow and lavender
+wings began to expand and take on colour.  Every instant
+great beauty became more apparent.  It was one of those
+double-brooded freaks, which do occur on rare occasions,
+or merely an Eacles Imperialis moth that in the cool damp
+northern forest had failed to emerge in June.  Edith Carr
+drew back with a long, shivering breath.  Henderson caught
+her hands and gripped them firmly.  Steadily she
+looked the thought of her heart into his eyes.
+
+"By all the powers, you shall not!" swore the man. 
+"You have done enough.  I will smash that thing!"
+
+"Oh no you won't!" cried the girl, clinging to his hands. 
+"I am not big enough yet, Hart, but before I leave this
+forest I shall have grown to breadth and strength to carry
+that to her.  She needs two of each kind.  Phil only sent
+her one!"
+
+"Edith I can't bear it!  That's not demanded!  Let me
+take it!"
+
+"You may go with me.  I know where the O'More cottage is. 
+I have been there often."
+
+"I'll say you sent it!"
+
+"You may watch me deliver it!"
+
+"Phil may be there by now."
+
+"I hope he is!  I should like him to see me do one decent
+thing by which to remember me."
+
+"I tell you that is not necessary!"
+
+"`Not necessary!'" cried the girl, her big eyes shining. 
+"Not necessary?  Then what on earth is the thing doing
+here?  I just have boasted that I would change, that I
+would be like her, that I would grow bigger and broader. 
+As the words are spoken God gives me the opportunity to
+prove whether I am sincere.  This is my test, Hart!  Don't
+you see it?  If I am big enough to carry that to her, you
+will believe that there is some good in me.  You will not
+be loving me in vain.  This is an especial Providence, man! 
+Be my strength!  Help me, as you always have done!"
+
+Henderson arose and shook the leaves from his clothing. 
+He drew Edith Carr to her feet and carefully picked the
+mosses from her skirts.  He went to the water and
+moistened his handkerchief to bathe her face.
+
+"Now a dust of powder," he said when the tears were
+washed away.
+
+From a tiny book Edith tore leaves that she passed over
+her face.
+
+"All gone!" cried Henderson, critically studying her. 
+"You look almost half as lovely as you really are!"
+
+Edith Carr drew a wavering breath.  She stretched one
+hand to him.
+
+"Hold tight, Hart!" she said.  "I know they handle
+these things, but I would quite as soon touch a snake."
+
+Henderson clenched his teeth and held steadily.  The moth
+had emerged too recently to be troublesome.  It climbed
+on her fingers quietly and obligingly clung there
+without moving.  So hand in hand they went down the
+dark forest path.  When they came to the avenue, the first
+person they met paused with an ejaculation of wonder. 
+The next stopped also, and every one following.  They could
+make little progress on account of marvelling,
+interested people.  A strange excitement took possession
+of Edith.  She began to feel proud of the moth.
+
+"Do you know," she said to Henderson," this is growing
+easier every step.  Its clinging is not disagreeable as I
+thought it would be.  I feel as if I were saving it,
+protecting it. I am proud that we are taking it to be put
+into a collection or a book.  It seems like doing a thing
+worth while.  Oh, Hart, I wish we could work together at
+something for which people would care as they seem to
+for this.  Hear what they say!  See them lift their
+little children to look at it!"
+
+"Edith, if you don't stop," said Henderson, "I will take
+you in my arms here on the avenue.  You are adorable!"
+
+"Don't you dare!" laughed Edith Carr.  The colour
+rushed to her cheeks and a new light leaped in her eyes
+
+"Oh, Hart!" she cried.  "Let's work!  Let's do something! 
+That's the way she makes people love her so.  There's the
+place, and thank goodness, there is a crowd."
+
+"You darling!" whispered Henderson as they passed up
+the walk.  Her face was rose-flushed with excitement and
+her eyes shone.
+
+"Hello, every, one!" she cried as she came on the wide veranda. 
+"Only see what we found up in the forest!  We thought you
+might like to have it for some of your collections."
+
+She held out the moth as she walked straight to Elnora,
+who arose to meet her, crying:  "How perfectly splendid!
+I don't even know how to begin to thank you."
+
+Elnora took the moth.  Edith shook hands with all of
+them and asked Philip if he were improving.  She said a few
+polite words to Freckles and the Angel, declined to remain
+on account of an engagement, and went away, gracefully.
+
+"Well bully for her!" said Mrs. Comstock.  "She's a
+little thoroughbred after all!"
+
+"That was a mighty big thing for her to be doing,"
+said Freckles in a hushed voice.
+
+"If you knew her as well as I do," said Philip Ammon,
+"you would have a better conception of what that cost."
+
+"It was a terror!" cried the Angel.  "I never could have done it."
+
+"`Never could have done it!'" echoed Freckles.  "Why, Angel,
+dear, that is the one thing of all the world you would have done!"
+
+"I have to take care of this," faltered Elnora, hurrying
+toward the door to hide the tears which were rolling down
+her cheeks.
+
+"I must help," said Philip, disappearing also.  "Elnora,"
+he called, catching up with her, "take me where I may cry, too. 
+Wasn't she great?"
+
+"Superb!" exclaimed Elnora.  "I have no words.  I feel so humbled!"
+
+"So do I," said Philip.  "I think a brave deed like that
+always makes one feel so.  Now are you happy?"
+
+"Unspeakably happy!" answered Elnora.
+
+
+The End of Project Gutenberg Etext of "A Girl of the Limberlost"
+
+
+
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