The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter

by Gene Stratton-Porter

  “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 li
ght 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 11

  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 thou
ght 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.