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 16
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 k
nows 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 girl’s 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.
The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter Page 48