The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter

by Gene Stratton-Porter

  “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 9

  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 o
f 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.