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 13
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 f
eatures 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 me
ans 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.
The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter Page 44
