“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.
Eln
ora 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 18
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.
The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter Page 50